Mogadish -â The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia (SRSG), Nicholas Kay, expressed his deep concern as clan-based militias clashed in Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia resulting in a number of casualties.
âI call for an immediate end to hostilities. All parties must refrain from violent actions, make immediate efforts to de-escalate the situation and resolve their differences through peaceful dialogue and compromise.â
That should do it...
âI welcome the efforts of the Prime Minister, Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed to diffuse tensions and restore stability. I call on the parties to respect the Prime Ministerâs call for an immediate cessation of hostilities and to cooperate fully with the ministerial delegation being sent to the area. The Somali people have suffered enough and know that no good can come from further violence and insecurity. We stand ready to support mediation effortsâ said SRSG Kay.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2014 00:00 ||
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The JPRA is located here in the States. Bergdahl and the doctors treating him are in Landstuhl, GE. The footprint of the JPRA may be a bit larger now, but I don't recall it having a medical staff of any sort. This is the first time I have ever seen the JPRA make a public statement relative to a missing person, detainee, or captive.
#1
Let's see, huge opium fields harvested for profit, check. Almost as much marijuana being grown as opium, to the point that most FOB's that had support personel had a DEA guy, check.
So, you say the Hanaqui clan has drugs, eh?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/11/2014 8:36 Comments ||
Top||
#2
In fairness to the JPRA, their assessment appears to be based upon 'proof of life' video back in December 2013. A JPRA [unnamed] source publically piling on the Bergdahl as 'victim' mantra....not good, not good at all.
Releases from official sources such as this will only taint the investigatory and judicial process. Of course, that may have been the motive.
#3
The same JPRA that somehow "forgot" to notify my adopted cousin's natural family of the recovery of his remains years after they got DNA samples from the same individuals.
#6
Really.
I'm under the impression that this entire administration is drugged in some form or another. FFS, the greatest minds evah can't come up with a good public face to explain whose fault it is why a shit sandwich tastes like shit.
"Oh, random guy with hippy hair and unmanly beard is going to yodel to crayon in front of the White House...brilliant! Maybe get a candid moment of the Commander in Chief thinking that shits funny."
#7
Today WaPo disclosed Bergdahl was given an "uncharacterized discharge" from Coast Guard basic training after just 26 days, and then had a waiver so he could be accepted into the US Army.
Lots of Bergdahl's writings in this article. Writings look like the work of someone deranged.
Top politicians on a congressional Middle East subcommittee want Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... to explain his decision to continue dealing with the Paleostinian Authority now that it is backed by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,.
The leading Democratic and Republican members of the US House of Representatives Middle East subcommittee sent a letter to Kerry Monday seeking an explanation from the B.O. regime regarding Hamas, which has been designated by the United States and Israel as a terror organization.
"Any decision to work with this unity government could be extraordinarily counterproductive in our efforts both to promote peace and to help support the security of our ally Israel," said the letter from Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the committee's chairwoman, and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), its top Democrat.
Ros-Lehtinen and Deutch said in the letter that they are ready to convene a hearing on the issue so that the B.O. regime can explain how any ongoing relationship would not violate US law, which bans interactions with Hamas. Ros-Lehtinen authored the 2006 law which bans such contacts.
Israeli officials have openly criticized the administration for its decision to continue aid to and interaction with the Paleostinian Authority in the wake of the establishment last week of an interim government jointly backed by Fatah, the relatively moderate group preeminent in the West Bank, and Hamas, the US-designated terrorist group controlling the Gazoo Strip.
Golly. Betcha they feel better after that ejaculation.
[AnNahar] The heads of the EU's major institutions urged Sudanese authorities on Tuesday to free a Christian woman sentenced to hang for apostasy, joining a wave of international condemnation.
Jose Manuel Barroso, Herman Van Rompuy and Martin Schulz "express their deepest dismay and concern" over the fate of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, who has been sentenced to a hundred lashes and sentenced to death by hanging on charges of apostasy and adultery.
The EU heads said Sudan had an "international obligation to protect the freedom of religion and belief" and called upon "the responsible Sudanese authorities and appeal courts to revoke this inhumane verdict".
Ishag, who was born to a Moslem father, was sentenced to death on May 15 under Islamic sharia law that has been in place since 1983 and which outlaws conversions under pain of death.
The 27-year-old was raised an Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, married a Christian man originally from South Sudan and already had a 20-month-old son before she gave birth on May 27.
The case has embarrassed the Sudanese authorities, which gave contradictory statements last week about her release, raising the ire of Western governments and human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... groups.
Ishag's lawyer said Monday a three-judge panel in Sudan will examine an appeal against the sentence but gave no date for a ruling.
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has called on members of its armed wing in the West Bank to target Israeli soldiers and civilians in a bid to ease the plight of its prisoners in Israeli jails, a party front man said on Monday.!
"We call on the men of resistance in the West Bank, primarily the Al-Qassam Brigades, to fulfill their duty in protecting the prisoners on hunger strike by targeting the occupation soldiers and its settlers," Hamas front man Hussam Badran wrote on his Facebook page Monday.
"The occupation must pay a high price in the blood of its soldiers and settlers until it is persuaded to solve the issue of prisoners on hunger strike. This is everyone's task, on the individual and organizational levels," he wrote.
Badran's comments came a week after the swearing in of a Hamas-backed Paleostinian unity government in Ramallah, endorsed by the US and the EU. On Sunday, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso told the Herzliya Conference that Israel should support the new Paleostinian government "in the interest of a future peace deal and of a legitimate and representative government."
Israel suspended all negotiations with the Paleostinians in the wake of the government's formation, saying it was not prepared to maintain contact with a government backed by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and much of the West. The US and much of the international community took an opposite stance, and argued that the new Paleostinian government's ministers were not "affiliated" with Hamas. Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has said the new government recognizes Israel, accepts past agreements with Israel and renounces terrorism. Hamas spokesmen have said the group's position on Israel, which it seeks to destroy, has not changed.
Some 125 Paleostinian prisoners held in administrative detention in Israel launched a hunger strike seven weeks ago over their imprisonment conditions. UN Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... last week over the prisoners' health.
The prisoner issue has also exacerbated existing tensions between Hamas and Fatah. Solidarity protests with the prisoners organized by Hamas across the West Bank were violently suppressed by PA security on Monday, Hamas charged. Hamas MPs Hassan Youssef and Fathi Qar'awi were physically attacked.
According to the website of Hamas daily Al-Resalah, PA security stopped cars in a solidarity procession in Ramallah, confiscating posters and flags brought by the motorists. Policemen also detained journalist Musib Said, confiscating his press card and camera and demanding he delete his photos.
"Reconciliation is at risk due to the behavior of the PA," Hamas MP Nayef Rajoub warned in Al-Resalah on Tuesday. The "premeditated attack" by PA security on the families of hunger strikers was "a clear message to the domestic reconciliation" and "a powerful stab in the back of the prisoner movement," Rajoub charged.
In a statement published on its website Tuesday, Hamas called the assault on its deputies "a serious and unjustified violation that only serves the occupation."
The unpaid salaries of some 50,000 civil servants appointed by Hamas in Gazoo over the past seven years remains another major bone of contention between Hamas and Fatah. In a presser held in Gazoo Monday, Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya called on the unity government to cover Hamas's salaries just as it did the salaries of PA civil servants living in Gazoo -- employees who have abstained from work for years at the behest of Ramallah in protest over Hamas's bloody takeover in 2007.
"How dare the unity government rush to pay the salaries of Ramallah's employees who stopped working seven years ago... while preventing the payment of salaries to those who really worked on the ground during this period? Can this paradox possibly exist even after the [end] of the divide?" wondered Hayya.
Eighty percent of the opposition fighters in Syria have "a clear Islamist agenda," a senior Israeli intelligence officer said on Monday, noting that Iran continues to aspire to nuclear weapons despite abiding by a provisional agreement signed with the superpowers.
Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, head of Military Intelligence research, assessed in a presentation to the Herzliya Conference on Monday that of a total of some 120,000 men fighting the Assad regime, some 50,000 are Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... who would like to see Islam implemented in the future Syria, belonging to groups like Al-Nusra Front. Approximately 30,000 support a more moderate political Islam, akin to the ideology of the Moslem Brüderbund. The number of global jihadists, members of organizations such as ISIS, is around 15,000, or 13 percent of the fighting body. Only 20 percent of Syria's fighters, Brun estimated, could be categorized as "secular."
"The Islamist nature of the [Syrian] opposition will have, I believe, a great impact on the future Syria," Brun said.
Speaking to The Times of Israel last month, a Syrian opposition member affiliated with the pro-Western Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... warned of the expanding influence of Al-Nusra Front in Syria's south. The group, dubbed a terror organization by the US, is better funded and better equipped than the Free Syrian Army, and has therefore managed to draw a large number of local fighters from the ranks of the FSA.
The Assad regime outnumbers the rebels almost 3:1, boasting 300,000 fighters,100,000 of whom belong to pro-regime militias, Brun said. Meanwhile, ...back at the pound, the little lost dog had finished eating the rat terrier... on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, rebels have gradually managed to wrest control of a large portion of the border with Israel, where terrorist activity toward Israel has increased in recent months.
"This area is mostly controlled by secular groups, much more than by Islamist groups," Brun said.
Brun surprised observers last April when he announced that Israel had proof of Assad's use of sarin nerve gas, months before a deadly regime strike on a suburb of Damascus sparked international pressure that forced Assad to forgo his country's chemical arsenal. He said that now, the regime has submitted or domestically destroyed most of its chemical arsenal, but continues to drop explosive barrels with chlorine on civilian populations.
Syria has used up "a large part" of its missile arsenal against its own civilian population, and its tanks and air force are currently in disrepair, he said.
Striving for final status agreement, Iran still wants nuclear weapons
While Iran and the superpowers are "very likely" to sign a permanent nuclear agreement in the coming year, Iran has not given up on its aspirations to attain nuclear weapons, Brun said.
"So far Iran is abiding by the interim agreement [signed in Geneva in November 2013]. The pressures [placed on it] and especially the financial crisis are leading it toward what we regard as a serious debate on the final agreement," he said.
"We think that Iran's nuclear vision, centered around its attempt to obtain nuclear weapons, will remain in place even if an agreement is signed," added Brun, whose speech came as Iranian and American officials held rare bilateral nuclear talks in Geneva. "Its ability to realize [this vision] depends of course on the details of the agreement."
In the meantime, Iran continues developing its missile arsenal, and is in possession of hundreds of missiles with a range of over 1,300 kilometers (808 miles), able to reach Israel. Iran also shares its technological expertise with Hezbollah and the Islamist organizations in the Gazoo Strip.
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, Hezbollah beefing up their rocket supply
Brun said that 170,000 rockets are currently directed at Israel from Leb and the Gazoo Strip, supported by Iranian finance and know-how.
Hezbollah in Leb is arming itself with surface-to-surface, surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles in order to close the technological gap with Israel.
Hezbollah has some 100,000 rockets with ranges of up to 45 kilometers (28 miles) that are able to reach Haifa and Tiberias.
"Most of the rockets used during the Second Leb War had this range. This is a huge quantity by any standard," he said. Hezbollah also has "a few thousand rockets and missiles" with a range of 250 kilometers (155 miles), covering the greater Tel Aviv area, and "a few hundred missiles" with an even higher range, able to cover the entire territory of Israel.
Hamas in Gazoo continues to adhere to the ceasefire with Israel, but is nevertheless locally manufacturing rockets with an 80-kilometer (50 mile) range and digging offensive tunnels.
Gazoo has a few thousand rockets with a range of 20 kilometers (12.5 miles), a few thousand with a range of up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) able to hit Beersheba, and a few hundred rockets with an 80-kilometer range able to hit Tel Aviv.
"These are not estimates, but accurate numbers," he said.t
[AnNar] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday his sanctions-hit country would "do its best" to secure a deal in negotiations with world powers on its long-running nuclear dispute.
"Iran will do its best for a final deal with the P5+1," made up of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members Britannia, China, La Belle France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, Rouhani told a business forum in Ankara through translated remarks.
His comments came as Tehran and Washington began a second day of talks in Geneva on Iran's nuclear program, which the West suspects masks military objectives.
"Iran is ready to sit at the negotiating table for a solution" to the nuclear dispute, as well as "unfair sanctions" imposed by the West, Rouhani said.
"Iran has taken this step with the Geneva deal," he said, referring to a temporary deal struck in November between Tehran and world powers aimed at slowing the country's nuclear development program in exchange for lifting some sanctions.
A deadline of July 20 has been set to turn this temporary deal into a more formal agreement.
Washington has warned of "tough choices" in the crunch negotiations, as fellow world powers braced to meet with the Islamic republic to try to build momentum.
Senior officials from Iran and the United States sat down behind closed doors in Geneva's upscale Hotel President Wilson, which was sealed off to the media.
The talks were expected to last all day.
The meeting began Monday with a five-hour session, the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that U.S. and Iranian negotiators have held direct, official nuclear talks.
The two sides have met informally, notably in a secret session last year in Oman which helped coax Tehran back to the negotiating table.
They have also sat down within the so-called P5+1 process that involves world powers talking to Iran.
The P5+1 secured an interim deal with Iran in November after marathon talks in Geneva.
The deadline for a final accord was July 20, but several players including Iran have already said a six-month extension may be needed.
Washington and the other P5+1 states are seeking solid commitments that will ensure Iran's stated desire for a peaceful atomic energy program is not a covert attempt to build a nuclear bomb.
For the Islamic republic, the goal is to make a leap towards ending the international sanctions, notably those imposed by the United States, that have battered its economy.
On Wednesday, Iranian negotiators are set to meet in Geneva with their French counterparts, La Belle France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday.
They are then due to head to Rome to meet with Russian officials, then hold talks in Tehran with Germany on Sunday.
"Bilateral discussions offer a much more effective platform for conducting real bargaining than the cumbersome committee-type discussions in the P5+1 framework," said Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group.
"The two major sticking points are Iran's future enrichment capacity and sanctions relief," he said.
The goal of the bilateral talks is to prepare a June 16-20 meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna, where they aim to set down details of the final deal.
The last round in Vienna in May yielded little.
The stakes are high, amid warnings by U.S. hawks against being hoodwinked.
That message was echoed by Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs in Israel, Iran's archfoe which is widely believed to be the sole if undeclared nuclear armed state in the Middle East.
"Any international agreement that leaves Iran on the threshold of nuclear capability is worse than no agreement at all," he said Monday at the annual Herzliya Conference on Israeli security policy.
"What is now at hand is not just the fate of Israel in the Middle East but the fate of the world."
Brigadier General Itai Brun, who heads the Israeli military's research division, said Iran now appeared to be talking "in earnest" about a final deal thanks to international pressure, adding that he expected an accord this year.
Iran's negotiators, meanwhile, must answer to domestic hardliners who say the country's red lines must not be crossed.
Former nuclear negotiator turned speaker of parliament, the tough-talking Ali Larijani, said Tuesday it was crucial to protect "the rights of Iranians" as well as the "scientific achievements of the peaceful activities" of the Islamic republic's researchers.
After Monday's first day of talks, Washington said more effort was needed.
"We think we've made progress during some rounds, but as we said coming out of the last one, we hadn't seen enough made. We hadn't seen enough realism, quite frankly, on the table," said deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.
"People need to make tough choices, but we are very focused on that July 20th time," she said.
Iran's deputy foreign minister and nuclear pointman Abbas Araqchi said Monday's dialogue "took place in a positive climate and was constructive," according to Iran's ISNA news agency.
After decades of hostility, Iran and the United States took tentative steps towards rapprochement following the election of self-declared moderate and former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rouhani as president last June.
Rouhani called U.S. President Barack Obama Because I won... shortly after taking office, before U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... met Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
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.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
