[Khaama (Afghanistan)] President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani says the activities of the irresponsible armed individuals will not be tolerated any more as the Afghan Special Forces arrested one of the prominent commanders of Junbish Milli in northern Faryab province of Afghanistan.
Speaking with the officers of the 201st Silab Corps in the East, President Ghani said the government arrested a number of irresponsible armed individuals this week and were transferred to Kabul.
He was responding to a question a demand of the Afghan national army officer who asked President Ghani to act against the irresponsible armed individuals in the country.
President Ghani further added that the government has decided and is firm to its decision not to tolerate the irresponsible armed individuals anymore.
The local government and military officials confirmed that Commander Nizamuddin Qaisari was arrested following a scuffle in a military compound on Monday evening.
A provincial council member of Faryab Tahir Rahmani confirmed that Commander Qaisari has been arrested by the Special Forces of the Afghan Military.
He said Commander Qaisari started verbal clash with the participants of a security meeting in Maimana city which resulted into a armed clash.
According to Rahmani, at least four security guards of commander Qaisari were killed and at least four others were wounded.
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07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Emir of the State of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris on Friday as part of an official visit to the Republic.
The conference was held right before the quarter-final match between France and Uruguay and both heads of state were keen to mark the occasion.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repudiated media reports that claimed the withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria would top the agenda of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.
“In this particular case, either Kommersant’s or Bloomberg’s sources failed them. That’s what I can answer,” he said when asked to confirm information provided by some sources who said that agreements on the withdrawal of the Iran-backed forces from Syria could be the key issue at the upcoming meeting between the Russian and US leaders.
The Kremlin spokesman noted though “that the Syrian issue will be a topic to exchange views on.” “That’s certainly easy to foretell. At any rate, the Russian side is getting ready, and Putin is prepared to discuss the topic of Syria. However, when reports that two countries are discussing a third country and are making some decisions for it – that’s highly unrealistic,” Peskov said. “That’s why these reports are not true.”
Speaking about the upcoming Russian-US summit, the Kremlin spokesman noted that “preparations are underway.”
“The bulk of the work is being done by the Foreign Ministry and other agencies, which potentially have something to do with those issues, which will be on the agenda,” he said, expecting that the two leaders will conduct a news conference after their meeting.
According to Peskov, “the mere fact that President Putin and [President] Trump are ready for this meeting and are gearing up for it is a positive sign.”
“Given the dire state of our bilateral relations, any meeting like this is of unique significance and plays a special role,” he stressed.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned that Italia's decision to close its ports to humanitarian rescue boats would entrap more refugees in Libya's detention centers and in the hands of traffickers, where they face torture.
Christophe Biteau, the head of Doctors Without Borders mission in Libya, said everyone intercepted by the Libyan coasties, around 10,789 people this year, has been held indefinitely in government-run detention centers.
"With fewer rescue ships and the summer surge in departures, the situation in the centers will get worse and worse," he added.
Italia's new far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has taken a tough stance on refugees since taking office on June 1. The new coalition government in Italia has been cracking down on humanitarian groups that rescue refugees in the Mediterranean Sea and then ferry the asylum seekers to the country’s ports.
Late last month, Salvini declared that the country’s ports would be closed "all summer" to charity ships which rescue refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... .
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a corruption court in Islamabad on Friday, lawyers said, dealing a serious blow to his party's troubled campaign ahead of July 25 elections.
Small protests quickly broke out after the verdict at the court in Islamabad, which was surrounded by heavy security, and in some other cities including Multan in Punjab, the Sharif dynasty's provincial stronghold.
“We reject this decision,” PML-N president and Nawaz's brother Shahbaz Sharif told a televised press conference in Lahore shortly after the verdict.
“It is based on injustices. This decision will be written in black words in history,” he said.
Meanwhile, PTI Chairman Imran Khan for his part greeted news of the verdict with jubilation at a campaign rally in the Swat valley.
“Today all Pakistanis must offer thanksgiving prayers because today is the beginning of a new Pakistan. Now robbers will not go into assemblies, but to jails,” he told a roaring crowd of thousands.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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[The Guardian] Corruption charges related to purchase of London flats, with verdict likely to affect election.
The former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption in a verdict likely to influence the general election on 25 July.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Pakistan’s anti-graft court, ruled that Sharif and his family laundered money in the 1990s to pay for four luxury apartments in Park Lane, central London, drawing on allegations that resurfaced in the Panama Papers leak, published by the Guardian and others in 2016.
The court also sentenced Sharif’s daughter and presumed political heir, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, to seven years’ imprisonment, fined the family £10m and ordered the seizure of the Avenfield properties.
“The Pakistani nation and the PML-N [Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz), Sharif’s party] reject this decision,” Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, told reporters. “This is a dark chapter in the history of this country. There was no solid legal evidence in the entire case.”
Sharif, who has been at the sickbed of his wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, in London, did not attend the hearing. The court earlier denied his request for a week-long delay to the verdict while she is on a respirator after treatment for throat cancer.
In July last year, the supreme court removed Sharif from office and ordered the NAB trial, before barring him from politics for life. The 68-year-old claims his legal troubles are the result of a military-backed conspiracy; allegedly in revenge for attempts to assert civilian control of foreign policy and put the former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason. It is expected that Sharif will launch an appeal.
The punishment of Maryam, who received an additional one-year sentence for presenting forged documents in court, may see control of the party shift to Shahbaz Sharif, who has pursued a more conciliatory approach with the army.
Imran Khan, the former cricketer and leader of the main opposition party the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has accused Sharif of maligning Pakistan’s institutions to save himself. “Adiala jail is ready for you,” he said before the verdict, also claiming that Sharif was using his wife’s illness to “emotionally blackmail” voters.
The verdict’s electoral impact will depend on Sharif’s response, according to the columnist Mosharraf Zaidi. If he returns to Pakistan and goes to jail, the “visuals” would likely add to sympathy for the PML-N, providing a “cherry on top” of the party’s argument that its leader has been unfairly victimised, he said. Should Sharif stay in London, the party may suffer; with Sharif absent from the campaign trail, the pollsters Gallup revealed on Wednesday that the PTI had closed the gap to a single point, with support for the PML-N dropping to 26% nationwide.
Sharif has long struggled to explain how the Avenfield flats came into his family’s possession. Family members initially told different stories. During the NAB trial, his defence claimed that a Qatari investment fund gave the expensive properties to the family to repay a debt owed to Sharif’s father. Commentators last year mocked a letter from a Qatari prince apparently testifying to that deal as a rabbit pulled out of a hat.
Still, analysts point to a variety of events that suggest a campaign by Pakistan’s deep state to hurt the PML-N ahead of the vote. The process has left “little doubt that the system is geared to get Mr Sharif”, said Zaidi. The NAB has arrested several PML-N members in recent weeks and in May its chairman was ridiculed for ordering an investigation into Sharif over spurious claims in a newspaper article that he laundered almost $5bn to India.
Posted by: 3dc ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
All Barack Obama voters permanently banned from voting for voting for a non-citizen.
Nice daydream, but not happening.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/07/2018 13:41 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Israeli security services documented only six terrorist attacks in Jerusalem in June ‐ the lowest figure on record for any given month in at least three years.
The tally constitutes a sharp drop in attacks in Jerusalem from May, when security forces documented 34 such incidents in the capital. The decrease was part of an overall drop of 40 percent in the number of terrorist attacks nationwide documented in June, when 220 such incidents were registered, the Shin Bet said in its monthly report published this week.
The nationwide figure for May was 365, the highest number in over two years of terrorist attacks on Israelis.
The first half of June was Ramadan, a Moslem month-long holiday when observant worshipers fast from sunrise to sundown. Ramadan usually features a spike, not a decrease in terrorist activity. Israeli security services massively increased their presence in Jerusalem in June to prevent disturbances.
Five people were maimed in the terrorist attacks in May, one of them moderately and the rest lightly.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iran should make more effort to ensure stability in the Middle East and get along with its neighbors, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned they may block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , Iraq and Kuwait are among China’s most important oil suppliers, while Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... supplies liquefied natural gas to China, so any blockage of the strait would have serious consequences for its economy.
But Beijing has had to tread carefully with Arab nations as China also has close ties with Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and some senior military commanders have threatened to disrupt oil shipments from the Gulf countries if Washington tries to strangle Tehran’s oil exports.
Carrying one-third of the world’s seaborne oil every day, the Strait of Hormuz links Middle East crude producers to key markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond.
Asked about the Iranian threat to the strait, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong said that China and Arab countries had close communications about Middle East peace, including the Iran issue.
"China consistently believes that the relevant country should do more to benefit peace and stability in the region, and jointly protect peace and stability there," Chen told a news briefing, ahead of a major summit between China and Arab states in Beijing next week.
"Especially as it is a country on the Gulf, it should dedicate itself to being a good neighbor and co-existing peacefully," he added. "China will continue to play our positive, constructive role."
Ministers from 21 Arab countries are attending the summit, as well as Kuwait’s elderly ruler, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah. Chinese President Xi Jinping will give the opening address on Tuesday.
Having previously been a bit player in past years, China has stepped up its involvement in the Middle East since Xi came to power six years ago, including sending a frigate to evacuate foreign nationals from Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... in 2015.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
China at the mercy of ME oil ticks. There is hope.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/07/2018 2:04 Comments ||
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#4
Hmm, le Wiki says Iran had about 400 power plants in 2012. Looking at the list, a lot of them are pretty small - under a 100 MW.
(cue Rod Serling voice)
Imagine, if you will, a future where the Straits of Hormuz are closed by the wreckage of two super-tankers and most of the Iranian Navy, where every power plant in Iran's ten largest cities is smoking rubble...
#6
Doesn’t China have any oil of its own? Natural gas?
They have a lot of coal that they already mine, but are gradually switching to Natural Gas for power production. They have a lot of that too, but it costs them more to extract in any large amount than they can buy it for elsewhere.
They do have oil but again, it costs them more to extract in quantity than they can buy it.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/07/2018 8:09 Comments ||
Top||
#7
and Nork coal
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/07/2018 8:14 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Following a meeting in Vienna on Friday to save Iran’s nuclear deal, European powers including China and Russia, said that they support Iran’s right to exporting oil and gas, despite threats of sanctions by the US.
Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia held talks on Friday with their Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Vienna for the first time since US President Donald Trump announced he was abandoning the nuclear deal and moving to re-impose sanctions on Iran.
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers said they are still committed to the economic relations with Iran including “Iran’s continued oil and gas exports” and other energy products.
Trump pulled the United States out of the multinational deal under which sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear program verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Washington has since told countries they must stop buying the OPEC producer’s oil from November, 4 or face financial consequences.
Speaking on French radio ahead of arriving in the Austrian capital, France’s foreign minister said world powers would struggle to put together an economic package immediately.
“They (Iran) must stop threatening to break their commitments to the nuclear deal,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said. “We are trying to do it (economic package) before sanctions are imposed at the start of August and then the next set of sanctions in November. For August it seems a bit short, but we are trying to do it by November,” he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Foreign ministers and senior diplomats propose, and corporations dispose. French shipping agency, world's third largest, just announced it would cease operations with Iran.
[ALMASDARNEWS] No traces of any nerve agents have been found at the site of a suspected chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, an interim report issued by the OPCW says. However, traces of chlorine were found at the site.
“Various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples” from two locations in the Damascus suburb of Douma, which were examined by specialists from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an interim OPCW document said. The chemicals were found in two samples taken from canisters found in Douma, the report said. The report confirmed the absence of any traces of nerve agents, such as sarin, at the site.
The OPCW sent a fact-finding mission to Douma in April, around a week after the alleged incident. During the same month, Russia said that chlorine containers from Germany, which apparently belonged to militants, were found in the liberated parts of Douma.
Later, the Russian military found an entire laboratory operated by militants in central Douma, which was capable of producing chemical weapons. The lab had some sophisticated equipment, including an industrial chemical reactor, which was apparently used by the militants to create toxic agents. The footage, taken by Russian journalists inside the facility, also showed vast stockpiles of various chemicals, some of which were produced in Germany, as well as empty mortar shells that can be filled with poisonous substances.
The purported chemical incident in Douma allegedly took place on April 7. A week later, Washington and its allies launched a massive retaliatory missile strike against Syria, without waiting for the OPCW to start its investigation of the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/07/2018 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.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani says the activities of the irresponsible armed individuals will not be tolerated any more as the Afghan Special Forces arrested one of the prominent commanders of Junbish Milli in northern Faryab province of Afghanistan.
[ALMASDARNEWS] Emir of the State of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and French President Emmanuel Macron met in Paris on Friday as part of an official visit to the Republic.
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
[DAWN] Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison by a corruption court in Islamabad on Friday, lawyers said, dealing a serious blow to his party's troubled campaign ahead of July 25 elections.
[The Guardian] Corruption charges related to purchase of London flats, with verdict likely to affect election.
“The Pakistani nation and the 
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Following a meeting in Vienna on Friday to save Iran’s nuclear deal, European powers including China and Russia, said that they support Iran’s right to exporting oil and gas, despite threats of sanctions by the US.
[ALMASDARNEWS] No traces of any nerve agents have been found at the site of a suspected chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, an interim report issued by the OPCW says. However, traces of chlorine were found at the site.
