[Ynet] An Israeli-owned container ship that was blocked from unloading its cargo at the Port of Oakland by pro-Paleostinian protesters over the weekend was headed to Los Angeles on Monday, according to a ship-tracking website.
The Zim Shanghai left Oakland with its cargo still onboard on Sunday evening, according to the website marinetraffic.com. It was expected to arrive in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Really, at this point they might as well scrap their contract with the Port of Oakland and write a new one with LA.
[AnNahar] More than 3,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean so far this year, more than double the previous peak in 2011, the International Organization for Migration said Monday.
Europe is by far the most dangerous destination for "irregular" migrants, the organization found in a report, with 3,072, or 75 percent, of the 4,077 registered migrant deaths worldwide since January happening in the Mediterranean.
In the 216-page report titled "Fatal Journeys: migrant fatalities across land and sea", IOM said more than 40,000 people had perished since 2000 while migrating -- 22,000 of them while trying to reach Europe.
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By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Although representatives of Ukraina, Russia and the two breakaway republics in southeastern Ukraina are due to meet this week, news reports indicate that the truce is ending as battles between Ukrainian military units and pro Russian separatists grow in intensity.
Since last Friday separatists have been attempting to drive Ukrainian military units from the Donetsk city airport. Since July Ukrainian units have had artillery positioned there and have fired on Donetsk city.
Fighting between the combatants has taken place in outlying areas north and southwest of Donetsk and the airport, including locations such as Peski and Avdeyevka, the end result being the militias claimed to have control of at least part of the airport.
Ukrainian military units are supposed to be withdrawing from the lines towards the west, as are militia units in the area. But neither side has budged and, according to information supplied by the pro Russian militia Voice of Sevastopol news outlet, militia units have been sent to the airport to seize the location.
Even though Ukrainian military units, notably the remnants of the 93rd Brigade were offered terms of surrender, artillery units have continued to fire into Donetsk city as well as firing on militia units at the airport at ranges of less than 250 meters.
Despite the close quarters combat, according to a pro militia report, 850 Ukrainian effectives managed to slip into the airport, said to comprise 250 paratroopers with the 25th Airborne Brigade and 600 from an unidentified Ukrainian territorial defense battalion. Other reports say the larger unit was in fact an armor unit.
The latest militia reports are that militia armored units also have been moving towards and already may be at the airport as of this writing.
Militia rocket artillery units have been firing into areas at the airport from the south, aiming at Peski, to the southwest of the airport, and at Ukrainian fortifications at the airport itself.
During the night of September 26th - September 27th Ukrainian artillery units started firing into locations in Donetsk city including the Kalininsky, Kievsky and Petrovsky districts. Ukrainian artillery has also struck in Peski, Spartak and Telmanovo.
According to the militias' report Ukrainian artillery guns used included 152mm tube, 120mm mortar, 122mm rocket and 300mm rocket artillery. Current reports do not indicate civilian casualties, although several civilian areas were hit by artillery strikes.
Ukrainian news sources claim that militia artillery have been causing civilian casualties. In an online report posted Sunday, Ukrainian blogger Roman Burko said that militia artillery strikes were reported at Mariinka and Krasnohorhvka Saturday, and that Ukrainian artillery units did not counterfire to the artillery, saying it was a provocation from the militias. Mariinka is a western suburb of Donetsk city.
Burko said that civilian casualties were recorded but failed to detail more information.
Meanwhile fighting continues in areas north of Lugansk city, according to pro Russian militia news reports.
The fighting in and near the town of Schastye continued as both sides try to seize the bridge over the North Donetsk River. A few weeks ago Ukrainian armor and airborne units which previously had occupied the airport at Lugansk were subsequently withdrawn to Schastye as well as other locations in northern Lugansk.
Militia artillery units claimed to have hit and destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition dump and armored vehicles marshaling yard, presumably inside Schastye itself.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
[AnNahar] The U.S. diplomat in charge of North Korea policy said Monday a speech by its foreign minister at the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... shows the country is moving further away from a return to six-country nuclear talks.
Glyn Davies, the special representative for North Korea policy, spoke with news hounds in Beijing as he began a nearly week-long trip that will also take him to Seoul and Tokyo.
He cited "troubling further signs" that North Korea "is even more directly rejecting its responsibilities to live up to its obligation to denuclearise.
"We saw this again in a speech given by the foreign minister at the U.N. General Assembly in New York."
"It is essential that North Korea begin to take steps that move in that direction," he told news hounds. "Instead, they're moving further and further away from that requirement."
In the first U.N. address by a top Pyongyang official in 15 years, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong -- in a speech to the General Assembly on Saturday -- defended his country's nuclear weapons program, which he said was necessary due to the "hostile policy" of the U.S.
The day Ri spoke, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a speech at the assembly called for a resumption of talks on the North's program as soon as possible.
China -- along with Russia, the U.S, North Korea, South Korea and Japan -- is a participant in the aid-for-denuclearisation talks, which have been stalled since 2009.
Davies said the purpose of his visit to the region was to stress "the importance of getting back to the necessity of denuclearisation" which he called the centrepiece of the talks.
He added that North Korea's repeated efforts to blame the U.S for its nuclear program resembled a "broken record".
Davies' visit to Beijing comes amid North Korean state media reports that leader Kim Jong-Un is suffering a bout of ill health. Kim has not been seen in public since September 3.
The U.S. envoy played down Kim's absence from the public eye.
"For us, what's important is not so much where the leader is but what North Korea's position is on the issues that are of deep concern to us," he said, declining to take part in what he described as "a game of 'Where in the World is Kim Jong-Un?'"
Davies also said the U.S. was "very concerned" about three U.S. detainees in North Korea -- Kenneth Bae, Jeffrey Fowle and Matthew Miller -- and was doing everything it could to gain access to them.
"I think it's unfortunate that North Korea continues to use these Americans ... as pawns," he said.
"They simply won't engage us," he said of North Korea. "It's very frustrating. It's unhelpful. And I think it puts the lie to the contention of the regime in Pyongyang that they want to have a relationship with us."
Because punishing the law-abiding for the crimes of the miscreants is how things should be done.
[IsraelTimes] The Moslem custom of killing sheep at temporary slaughterhouses jeopardizes all ritual slaughter in Belgium, a cabinet minister there warned.
Ben Weyts, Belgium's minister for animal welfare, made the warning Sunday during an interview with the VRT broadcaster about a ban that will go into effect next year throughout most of Belgium on the slaughter of conscious animals at improvised abattoirs.
The ban is believed to be designed to prevent the slaughtering of some 20,000 sheep annually at impromptu slaughterhouses operated by Moslems for their coreligionists ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday.
The practice, Weyts said, violates European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... legislation "which permits the slaughter of conscious animals only for religious reasons and in authorized slaughterhouses," and therefore could jeopardize all slaughter of conscious animals.
"Because of motions by animal welfare organizations that hang over our heads, there is uncertainty," Weyts said. "If they go to court, they will win right away and that will be a total situation of chaos because then only stunned animals may be slaughtered."
Moslem and Jewish religious law both require animals be conscious when their necks are cut, a practice animal rights activists describe as being cruel.
The ban announced by Weyts is expected to have no effect on the Jewish community, which performs kosher slaughter, or shehitah, "only in permanent and licensed slaughterhouses," Michael Freilich, editor in chief of the Phlegmish-language Jewish monthly Joods Actueel, told JTA.
Still, Rabbi Menachem Margolim of the European Jewish Association, a Brussels-based lobby group, vowed to fight to repeal the ban because it "endangers freedom of worship in Belgium," he wrote in a statement.
A front man for the European Jewish Association told JTA, "Most of the proposed laws against ritual slaughter are usually proposed against Moslem slaughter as there are a lot more of them. But issues such as these have a tendency to turn into laws against kosher slaughter as well."
Increasing secular totalitarian behaviour in the West Bank...
[Ynet] The Paleostinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) says the number of West Bank residents incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! by Paleostinian Authority (PA) security forces for anti-PA comments on social media is on the rise. While precise statistics are hard to pin down, MADA says the number has doubled in the first six months of 2014 compared to the year before.
While the total numbers are still small, the increase is a cause for concern, they said, urging the Paleostinian Authority to protect journalistic freedom of speech.
#2
The V-1 "Buzz Bomb" was the first practical cruise missile in military history. Nazi Germany fired many at Allied population centers in the last year of World War II. One of two brought back to the United States at the end of the war ended up as a war memorial to the veterans of Putnam County, Indiana, dedicated in 1947. Today, it's on display at that outdoor memorial in the town of Greencastle.
#4
What about the P-38? Not intended for ground support role, but turned out to be quite effective in France. Four .50 cals and a cannon, lined up right where the pilot's looking, can be quite effective.
Tough, too. One over France struck a phone pole and made it back to England.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/30/2014 20:40 Comments ||
Top||
[AnNahar] A plane crash in Tehran that left 39 people dead last month was caused by engine failure and overloading, local media quoted Iranian authorities as saying on Monday.
The An-140 turboprop headed for the eastern city of Tabas crashed moments after takeoff from Tehran on August 10, triggering a fireball when it smashed into the capital's Azadi neighbourhood.
Many more deaths were narrowly avoided as the plane came down only a few hundred metres (yards) from a busy market.
The head of the probe into the crash, Mohammad Shahbazi, was quoted in daily Khorasan as saying the plane's right engine failed two seconds after takeoff.
The failure was not detected right away because of a faulty cockpit signal and the pilot was unable to react quickly enough, he said.
The investigation found that the plane was also overloaded given the hot temperatures of the day and the altitude of Tehran -- both factors that can affect the performance of an airplane, including its rate of climb.
"Initial information indicates that the pilot tried to keep the plane horizontal but the aircraft fell from a height of 45 metres (150 feet)," the newspaper quoted the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation, Alireza Jahangirian, as saying.
President Hassan Rouhani ordered the grounding of all domestically produced An-140s following the accident.
Iran has suffered several air crashes in recent years, blamed on ageing planes, poor maintenance and a shortage of new parts because of international sanctions.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/30/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Hint forget the AN-140 you'd have more luck getting to your destination if you used one of these
#2
Ah, that troublesome air/ground interface.
Gravity's a bitch.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
09/30/2014 7:30 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Sounds like the aircraft was below Vmc (minimal controllable airspeed with one engine out) when they lost an engine. Then the aircraft stalled on the wing with the dead engine and rolled over toward that wing and that was the end. High density altitude from the high air temps just accelerated the process. Inshallah attitude contributed to their demise.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/30/2014 9:57 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"blamed on ageing planes, poor Inshalla maintenance"
Fixed.
Posted by: Barbara ||
09/30/2014 12:23 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I suppose when one engine quit they poured on coal to the other, accelerating the yaw. Grit in the gas will do that.
h/t Instapundit
The Obama administration was grilled on Monday for inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a state dinner while he is fasting as part of a Hindu religious observance, a move that has been criticized by some as insensitive.
Obama will host Modi Monday evening at the White House for a private dinner that will also be attended by Vice President Joe Biden, the White House announced Monday morning. The event is closed to the press.
However, the administration appears to have forgotten that Modi is in the middle of carrying out a religious fast in observance of the Hindu navratri, in which the faithful abstain from food, according to reports.
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.
North Korea
The V-1 "Buzz Bomb" was the first practical cruise missile in military history. Nazi Germany fired many at Allied population centers in the last year of World War II. One of two brought back to the United States at the end of the war ended up as a war memorial to the veterans of Putnam County, Indiana, dedicated in 1947. Today, it's on display at that outdoor memorial in the town of Greencastle. 
