[Al Jazeera] The Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... will not attend planned peace talks with the United States in 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... this month and want to shift the venue to 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... The upcoming negotiations, the fourth in a series aimed at ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan, are scheduled between the leaders of the Taliban and US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss the withdrawal of foreign forces and a possible ceasefire in 2019.
Taliban leaders have rejected the Kabul government's offer for direct talks, despite growing international pressure in favour of the Western-backed Afghan government having a seat at the table.
"We were supposed to meet US officials in Riyadh next week and continue our grinding of the peace processor that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi last month," a senior Taliban member based in Afghanistan told Rooters news agency on condition of anonymity.
"The problem is that leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates [UAE] wanted us to definitely meet the Afghan government delegation, which we cannot afford to do now, and we have cancelled the meeting in Saudi Arabia," he said.
The Taliban want to change the venue for the talks to Qatar, he added, the political headquarters of the group.
Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the group decided to cancel the meeting in Saudi Arabia, but did not provide information about a new meeting venue.
The United States Embassy in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[KhaamaPress] The government of India will deliver four more Mi-25 gunship helicopters to the Afghan Air Force with the delivery of two gunships scheduled for the month of March this year.
This comes as the Afghan officials had said earlier that an agreement has been signed between Afghanistan, Belarus, and India for the delivery of the four gunships.
"We will receive the first of those two in March hopefully. It’s just a process that’s taking time. The other two should come in June or July. It’s just a matter of preparation. They will arrive soon," Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser was quoted as saying in an interview by Strategic News International of India.
Mr. Mohib arrived in New Delhi last week to meet with his Indian counterpart and other Indian officials.
"Held productive meetings in India with my counterpart NSA Ajit Doval and other security officials on regional stability, the democratic progress and ongoing peace efforts in Afghanistan, and bilateral security cooperation," he had said following his meeting with Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor of India.
India has played a major role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... regime and has invested over $2 billion in various reconstruction and infrastructure projects.
The government of India pledged a fresh aid package of $1 billion to support the reconstruction projects in Afghanistan during a visit by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. in late 2016.
The two countries have also developed a high level of cooperation in terms of military and security during the recent years.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. called upon those who are demanding him to step down to prepare for the 2020 elections to reach power.
In a televised interview, al-Bashir added that his government had a popular mandate and came to power through elections supervised by a commission recognized by all political powers.
He pointed out that the current constitution is approved by all political powers, accusing those whom he described as saboteurs by trying to invest in protests to implement political agendas
The Sudanese president remarks come after he fired the minister of health Mohammed Abuzaid Mustafa for the high prices of medicine and for what the medical sector is going through.
For his part, Sudanese prime minister and minister of finance Motazz Moussa described the protests by the Sudanese youth as "a clear demands."
He clarified that his government is working on providing solutions to resolve the economic crisis.
Sudan’s PM considered the political interference in the protests in Sudan now as "indecent and condemned."
Moussa stressed that "the only way out of the Sudanese political crisis is to hold free and fair elections in 2020," pledging to accept "the people’s choice."
Moussa also announced that the problem of cash flow will be resolved at the end of February, and will be completed in March for good, saying that "the policies adopted by the government led to a decline in the dollar in the parallel market."
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01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi inaugurated Egypt’s largest church and mosque in the New Administrative Capital on Sunday, the eve of Coptic Christmas, in a symbolic message of tolerance in the predominantly Moslem nation.
Copts, the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, were due hold a midnight mass in the Cathedral of the Nativity, billed by the government as the Middle East’s largest church, a few hours after the inauguration.
Coptic Christians make up an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s nearly 100 million people.
They have also increasingly been targeted in recent years by bully boyz including ISIS, which is waging an insurgency in the north of the remote Sinai Peninsula.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Apparently, President Sissi considers it critically important that Egypt’s Copts feel safe and valued, and, presumably, therefore peaceable.
[ALMASDARNEWS] US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... appeared to confirm reports on Sunday that Jamal Badawi, an operative of the al-Qaeda terrorist group (banned in Russia) responsible for a 2000 attack on the USS Cole, had been killed in an Arclight airstrike.
"Our GREAT MILITARY has delivered justice for the heroes lost and maimed in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole. We have just killed the leader of that attack, Jamal al-Badawi." Trump wrote on his Twitter.
US media reported on Saturday that Badawi, who was indicted by a grand jury in 2003 for orchestrating the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors, had been killed in the strike in 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... on January 1.
On October 12, 2000, a small boat loaded with explosives crashed into the side of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39, leaving a gaping, 40-foot hole in the side of the ship.
Badawi, along with Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Ali al-Harithi and Fahd al-Quso, was named by the incoming George W. Bush administration as conspirators who organized the attack on behalf of al-Qaeda, which grabbed credit for the act. Tawfiq bin Attash has also been accused of organizing the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[Aljazeera]New decree seeks to 'guide Islam', as crackdown against Muslims and Islamic symbols continues.
China has passed a new law that seeks to "Sinicize" Islam within the next five years, the latest move by Beijing to rewrite how the religion is practised.
China's main English newspaper, Global Times, reported on Saturday that after a meeting with representatives from eight Islamic associations, government officials "agreed to guide Islam to be compatible with socialism and implement measures to Sinicize the religion."
The newspaper did not provide further details or the names of the associations that agreed to the decree.
China has embarked on an aggressive "Sinification" campaign in recent years with faith groups that were largely tolerated in the past seeing their freedoms shrink under Chinese President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
Practising Islam has been made forbidden in parts of China, with individuals caught praying, fasting, growing a beard or wearing a hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion, facing the threat of arrest.
According to the UN, more than one million Uighur Muslims are estimated to be held in internment camps where they are forced to denounce the religion and pledge allegiance to the officially atheist ruling Communist Party.
Rights groups have accused China of engaging in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. In August, a Washington Post editorial said the world "can't ignore" the campaign against Muslims.
Islamic crescents and domes have been stripped from mosques, and according to the Associated Press news agency, religious schools and Arabic classes have been banned and children barred from participating in Muslim activities.
China has rejected the criticism, saying it protects the religion and culture of its minorities.
However, in the past week alone, authorities in China's Yunnan province, which borders Mynamar, have closed three mosques established by the marginalised Hui Muslim ethnic minority, the South China Morning Post has reported.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Netherlands announced it would open an investigation into statements made by an Islamic Ottoman Turkish academic, loyal to President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... , in which he said, "opponents rebelling against Ottoman Turkish authorities must be killed."
Ahmet Akgunduz, head of the Islamic University of Rotterdam in Netherlands,
...a colonist making clear to all that the Netherlands have been colonized...
had also stated that "enemies of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor.... (supporters of Fethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... ) should be sentenced to death, even if they were pious," during a telephone interview with Ottoman Turkish news channel Akit TV, according to Ottoman Turkish newspaper Zaman.
Akgunduz also cited a Koranic verse asserting that it is permissible to kill enemies of the state.
He added, "what Fethullah Gulen and his movement did on July 15 is an insurgency in the state, therefore they are aggressors according to Islamic Sharia."
Dutch Education Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven had threatened to withdraw the accreditation of the university that Akgunduz heads. "These are frightening remarks. We are going to have a special committee in order to make what he said clear and to decide how we should comment, but we must wait for the results of the committee’s findings first," she said.
Did he say it? If yes, his school clearly needs accreditation yanked immediately — no need for special or even general committees, nor decisions on how to comment. Prince William of Orange would be appalled at the suggestion.
Zaman newspaper had also said that "Ahmet Akgunduz did not mention the arrests and displacement of more than 60,000 people in Turkey, including women and kiddies, as well as the confiscation of people’s property and companies and media organizations with the absence of legal evidence" under the guise of "suspicion in participating in the failed coup" that Ankara accuses Gulen of heading.
This is not the first time that Akgunduz had stirred up controversy, as he had recently insulted critics of Erdogan and had called Kurds "dogs".
Geert Wilders has been put on trial multiple times for considerably less. As ‘tis said: Find out who you cannot criticize, for they are your rulers.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... has asked for major military assistance from the United States in the fight against ISIS in Syria, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, weeks after Washington announced its plan to withdraw troops from the country.
The substantial request for military support included air raids, logistics and transportation so Ottoman Turkish forces could finish off the remaining fighters of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS, also known as ISIS) in Syria, senior US officials were quoted as saying by the WSJ on Friday.
"The Ottoman Turkish requests are so extensive that, if fully met, the American military might be deepening its involvement in Syria instead of reducing it," the newspaper reported.
The unidentified American officials told the Journal there was little chance Washington would agree to Ankara's requests in full.
Hopefully a polite way of telling them to stick it in their ear.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... announced on December 19 his plans to withdraw US troops deployed in northern Syria following a telephone conversation with Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... Turkey and the US appeared to agree to coordinate the troops' withdrawal from the area to avoid a power vacuum that could attract a number of parties interested in filling it.
Talks on the fight against ISIS are expected to take place on Tuesday in Ankara.
US officials - including White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and James Jeffrey, the State Department envoy for Syria - are expected to attend.
The US still has about 2,000 troops in Syria, many of them special operations forces working closely with an alliance of US-backed Kurdish and Arab gangs known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
I seem to recall an American request for overflight of Turkey during the invasion of Iraq.
Same answer.
Posted by: Crash Dark Lord of the Veal Cutlets1879 ||
01/07/2019 1:01 Comments ||
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#2
In 2003 Turkey blocked its land route to open a northern front in the Iraq war.
So US troop ships were stuck offshore of the port of Iskenderun, Turkey.
Turkey's sympathy for Sunnis led to the creation of ISIS and the fall of Mosul.
Erdogan's goal is not to fight ISIS, but Kurds which in their eyes is the real problem.
When Turkey invades Syria to go after the Kurds ISIS will be able to make a comeback since the Kurds can't fight both Turkish troops and ISIS at the same time.
[The Federalist] This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court essentially cemented the execution of America’s least known Islamic terrorist. Jihadist convert Alton Nolen
...known at his mosque, Greater Islamic Society of Oklahoma City, as Jahkeem Yisrael and sometimes Jah-Keem Yisrael for reasons that are unclear. That mosque has a bit of a history, having been founded by Mufid Abdulqader, convicted money man of the Holy Land Foundation and half-brother of Hamas big turban Khaled Mashal, while a former imam, Suhaib Webb, was a dear friend of al-Qaeda in Arabia big turban Anwar al-Awlaki. Zacarias Moussaoui was only one of the interesting members of the congregation. Naturally, the Obama administration approved of the place...
is now set to be put to death in Oklahoma, likely by nitrogen gas inhalation.
The Supreme Court’s October 1, 2018 rejection of Nolen’s final death penalty appeal went unremarked upon by news media so, partly as a result, I missed it. But the Nolen case is very much worth remembering, along with all terror attacks that occur on U.S. soil, if not just for the victims and their survivors but for lessons that can and must be learned.
The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that Nolen emulated a favorite ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online: he fully beheaded a co-worker‐the beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Colleen Hufford‐inside the Moore, Oklahoma food processing plant where they both worked. Shouting "Alluah Akbar" throughout the attack, Nolen used the same oversized butcher knife on the neck of a second co-worker, Tracy Johnson, when the company’s chief operations officer, a reserve law enforcement officer named Mark Vaughn, burst in with an AR-15 rifle. He shot and wounded Nolen as Nolen disengaged from his second victim and charged at him with the bloody knife.
Such an attack must generate a particular horror in its witnesses and, when Nolen is finally put to death, one should keep in mind what Hufford must have experienced in her last moments.
#1
Nitrogen asphyxiation, huh? How bout a poorly maintained chainsaw?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/07/2019 7:17 Comments ||
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#2
I've come to favor glass jars. Bring him to Texas, put him in a glass jar in an open area that gets plenty of sunshine. The glass jar will have air vents and a water supply. This way everyone can watch him slowly bake to death in the Texas Sun.
#8
I used to have compassion...30 years of watching the democrats try to destroy my country has leeched every shred of compassion and mercy for them and their allies out of me.
#9
Fire ant hill. Stakes and rope. Use natural resources...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/07/2019 12:36 Comments ||
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#10
The Boat - ancient Persian torture device, prolonged and exquisite suffering...
https://culturacolectiva.com/history/scaphism-ancient-persian-torture-method-with-milk-and-honey/amp
[DAWN] Police nabbed Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! 28 people as a violent clash between followers of two rival schools of thought over the possession of a mosque in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... 's Mehmoodabad area on Saturday night claimed the life of a young man and resulted in bullet injuries to three others, officials said on Sunday.
The mosque was handed over to one of the groups ‐ from the Deobandi school of thought ‐ under the orders of the Sindh High Court in the presence of the court’s nazir, who stayed at the mosque till evening prayers on Saturday to ensure a smooth transition.
"The transition occurred smoothly in the day but at night, at around 11pm, around 150-200 men from Sunni Tehrik ...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and assassinations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities... and Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistain (TLP) attacked the men present inside the mosque," DIG East Amir Farooqi told Dawn.
Both sides resorted to fist fights and attacked each other with sticks, the officer said, adding that "some attackers were armed as well".
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01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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This may have something to do with it. Iraqi officials have recently been sneaking off to tour the Holy Land.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim angered his cabinet peers this week after expressing support for the two-state solution to the Israel-Paleostinian conflict.
"Iraq believes in a two-state solution to end the Paleostinian crisis with Israel," Hakim said, prompting some members of the Iraqi parliament to demand that he not to take such sensitive stances without consulting the cabinet and the parliament.
MP Hassan Shaker of the Construction Alliance said that it was not the minister’s place to make the statement.
"This does not represent Iraq officially, but represents his individual viewpoint," Shaker said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch shot Black Bart's gun out of his hand...... a parliamentary bloc named "the coalition of state law," led by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, called on the House of Representatives to take strict measures against the foreign minister.
Following the uproar, the ministry released another statement reiterating Iraq’s support for the establishment of a Paleostinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The Iraqi ministry "confirms Iraq’s historic and fundamental stance on the Paleostinian cause and supporting the rights of the Paleostinian people to liberate their land and their people and to establish an independent state with al-Quds as its capital," the media office of the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also said that "Iraq supports Arab and international peace initiatives, including the Arab Peace Initiative, which was presented at the Beirut summit in 2002 and has become a permanent item on the agenda of subsequent Arab summits," it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Israel is pushing the Trump administration to recognize the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory, a new report from Israel’s Channel 10 reported on Sunday.
Fascinating. Note that this Iranian proxy identifies the country as Israel, not the Zionist whatever, and the report comes from non-leftwing Israeli television.
According to the report from Channel 10, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought up the occupied Golan Heights issue with U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton during their talks this past weekend.
Netanyahu would later state during a joint presser on Sunday that he would be traveling to the occupied Golan Heights with Bolton.
"Tomorrow, if weather permits, we’ll go up to the Golan Heights...the Golan Heights is tremendously important for our security, and when you’re there, I think you’ll realize why we’ll never leave the Golan Heights, and why it’s important that all countries recognize Israeli illusory sovereignty on the Golan Heights," Netanyahu said, as quoted by Israel’s Arutz Sheva News.
In fact, Arutz Sheva is decidedly to the right of Israel’s center.
Israel has been pushing the U.S. to recognize the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory for quite some time, despite the fact that the international community has repeatedly asserted that this region belongs to Syria.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) captured the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967; since then, Syria and the international community has demanded Israel immediately withdraw from the region.
I s’pose it is still too much to ask that an Iranian sock puppet recognize that Israel annexed the western 2/3rds of the Golan Heights in 1981.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
The Golan will remain the Property of Israel, Eternally.
[IsraelTimes] TV report says secret taboo-busting trips arranged with goal of building basis for future ties; delegates tour Yad Vashem, meet academics, discuss Iraqi Jewish heritage.
In an unprecedented series of visits, three delegations of local leaders from Iraq have reportedly made trips to Israel in recent months, and held meetings with Israeli officials.
The delegations, totaling 15 Iraqis, held meetings with Israeli academics, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, and, most significantly, met with Israeli government officials, Hadashot TV news reported on Sunday night.
Iraq is at war with Israel and is a firm supporter of the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... boycott of Israel. Its passports are not valid for travel to Israel.
The groups made the trips, which were firmly designated as unofficial visits, under conditions of great secrecy, the TV report noted, in part in order to avoid antagonizing Iraq’s Iranian neighbors.
The local Iraqi leaders were not from Iraqi Kurdistan, the TV report stressed, but rather from "Iraq proper ‐ that is, Baghdad." The three delegations comprised both Sunni and Shi’ite members ‐ "influential figures in Iraq."
The trips were mainly of a "social-cultural nature," the TV report said, and also featured meetings with organizations that deal with the Iraqi Jewish heritage. The goal, the report added, was "to build the infrastructure for future ties" between Iraq and Israel, with these delegates going back to Iraq as "kinds of future ambassadors" for Israel there.
The report did not identify any members of the Iraqi delegations, nor did it specify with which Israeli officials they had held talks. It said the most recent of the visits was last month.
Iraq has been in a formal state of war with Israel throughout the modern history of the state, and its forces participated in the 1967 and 1973 wars against Israel. In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed the nuclear reactor Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein had been building at Osirak. A decade later, in the first Gulf War, Saddam fired over 40 Scud missiles into Israel.
Nonetheless, the TV report asserted, amid overall regional hostility to the Jewish state, the Iraqi populace is "relatively supportive" of Israel, and this was a factor that helped enable the recent visits.
Last May, Israel’s Foreign Ministry launched a Facebook page uniquely dedicated to fostering ties with Iraq. Diplomats in Jerusalem said the Arabic-language page would serve as "some sort of digital embassy" to the war-torn country.
Israel had in recent months stepped up efforts to reach out to the country, arguing that Iraqis were interested in establishing ties with the Jewish state.
A month later, Iraq’s representative at the 2017 Miss Universe pageant ‐ whose Instagram photo last year with her Israeli counterpart forced her family to flee the Middle Eastern country ‐ visited Israel and reunited with Miss Israel.
Iraqi-born Sarah Idan lives in the United States, but her family was forced to relocate from the Arab country after the photo of her with Israel’s Adar Gandelsman went viral last year.
Iraq’s Jewish community is the oldest outside Israel, dating back to the prophet Abraham, who lived in Ur in southern Iraq. In 1950-52, some 120-130,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel, leaving a community of some 10,000. Today, it is believed that number has dwindled to no more than a handful.
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01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Ramalla government demands release of hundreds of Fatah members it says were placed in durance vile You have the right to remain silent... by terror group in coastal enclave.
The Paleostinian Authority announced Sunday that it will its stop operations at the only border crossing between the Gazoo Strip and Egypt, in protest of Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,’s arrest of what it says are hundreds of members of the PA-affiliated Fatah party.
The PA said that, until further notification, it will withdraw its staff from the Rafah border terminal, which is used by travelers moving to and from Egypt, raising the possibility that the crossing will shut.
Under the terms of a November agreement, the Hamas terror group handed over control of the border crossing to the PA.
As a result of the PA announcement, Egypt is expected to close its side of the crossing, effectively shutting off traffic.
Hamas condemned the decision.
It was the latest development in the rapidly deteriorating ties between the two main Paleostinian groups, which have been at loggerheads since 2007, when Hamas ousted the PA from Gazoo.
Last Monday, Fatah said Hamas had rounded up 500 party activists to prevent them from organizing events to mark the 54th anniversary of their party’s founding, scheduled for the following day.
The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gazoo denied the accusations, saying it had only summoned 38 local Fatah leaders "to maintain order."
Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... appeared to call Hamas authorities "spies" over the incident.
"Shame on those who prevented the torch from being lit today in Gazoo," he said in a speech at the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah. "Unfortunately, whoever does that is a spy."
On Thursday, Nabil Shaath, Abbas’s adviser for foreign affairs, told The Times of Israel that Abbas will meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Egypt to discuss reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah.
The last publicly known time Abbas and Sissi met was November 3, in Sharm al-Sheikh, an Egyptian resort city.
In another incident, gunnies trashed the headquarters of the Paleostinian Authority’s television station in Gazoo on Friday. Fatah blamed Hamas for the incident, but Hamas later arrested five men it said were former PA employees whose salaries were recently suspended.
While the rival parties have signed a number of agreements to advance reconciliation, they have failed to implement them.
Most recently, Fatah and Hamas signed an Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation agreement in October 2017, but did not succeed in executing it on the ground.
Since a bomb went kaboom! adjacent to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s motorcade in March 2018, in Gazoo, Ramallah-based ministers have not visited the coastal enclave.
Abbas has accused Hamas of carrying out the bombing; the terror group has vehemently denied the charge.
In the recent past, Egypt has been the primary mediator between Hamas and Fatah.
[IsraelTimes] National Security Adviser Bolton, in Israel to allay concerns over troop pullout, says there is no timetable for drawdown.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said Sunday that the US military withdrawal from northeastern Syria is conditioned on defeating the remnants of the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The head of an Iranian parliament committee to combat economic corruption, Amir Khojasteh, has called for the public execution of those found guilty of corruption.
"Thirty one people have been identified as behind Iran’s economic corruption and must be executed in public squares," Khojasteh said, according to local news sites.
"The death penalty has been handed out to four of them and the rest must also receive the same punishment," Khojasteh said, not naming those who have been accused or convicted of corruption.
In recent months, Iran has executed three people found guilty of economic corruption.
One of the executed men was Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed the "sultan of coins" by media, a trader accused of manipulating the currency market, according to Mizan, the news site of the Iranian judiciary.
Mazloumin was allegedly caught with two tons of gold coins, according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA).
The second man was part of Mazloumin’s network and had been involved in the sale of gold coins, Mizan reported.
Both of them were convicted of "spreading corruption on earth", a capital offence under Iran’s Islamic laws.
Legal analysts have pointed out that the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran's penal code does not include the death penalty for those convicted of economic corruption, but that Iranian authorities are using it to control the diving currency market in Iran.
Observers also believe the aim of these executions is to silence labor protests and repeated factional strikes.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iran’s parliament will investigate claims by a labor protest leader that he was tortured in prison following strikes at a sugar factory, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.
Alireza Rahimi, a member of parliament’s presiding board, said his request for an investigation had been accepted by speaker Ali Larijani, according to ISNA.
It followed claims by Esmail Bakhshi, written on his Instagram account and reported by the reformist Etemad newspaper, that he was tortured during 25 days in detention in southwestern Khuzestan province late last year.
Bakhshi was one of the organizers of weeks-long protests at the Haft Tapeh sugar factory in Shush over unpaid wages and alleged criminal activity by new private owners.
Ali Motahari, an outspoken member of parliament, wrote a column in Etemad on Sunday titled "Source of shame", demanding answers from the intelligence ministry.
The governor of Khuzestan, Gholamreza Shariati, denied Bakhshi’s claims.
"I checked with the relevant bodies and the claim of torture was strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! ," he told the Jamaran news site.
Rahimi said Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi will attend the commission hearings in parliament, according to ISNA.
Earlier, Bakhshi sent a letter to Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, calling him for a challenge in a live TV debate.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[ALMASDARNEWS] US National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that the US withdrawal from northern Syrian will occur when "ISIS is defeated and is not able to revive itself," speaking during a presser with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday.
He also emphasised that the withdrawal would only take place once the US was sure the "defence of Israel and our other friends in the region is absolutely assured."
John Bolton hailed "the best US-Israel relationship in our history" and repeated the commitment of his administration to support Israel and monitor Iran’s potential nuclear capabilities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/07/2019 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
So, never then. The deep State has overruled the elected government once again. We are not in control.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
01/07/2019 3:24 Comments ||
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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.
...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...
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
[ALMASDARNEWS] US President 
...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...
New decree seeks to 'guide Islam', as crackdown against Muslims and Islamic symbols continues.
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
[IsraelTimes] TV report says secret taboo-busting trips arranged with goal of building basis for future ties; delegates tour Yad Vashem, meet academics, discuss Iraqi Jewish heritage.
[IsraelTimes] Ramalla government demands release of hundreds of Fatah members it says were 
[IsraelTimes] National Security Adviser Bolton, in Israel to allay concerns over troop pullout, says there is no timetable for drawdown.
[ALMASDARNEWS] US National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that the US withdrawal from northern Syrian will occur when "ISIS is defeated and is not able to revive itself," speaking during a 
