(SomaliNet) Shabelle River, one of the two rivers, which flows through Somalia, continues to flood into new areas of southern the country causing more damage. This time it made fresh floods on Friday in Afgoie town some 30km south of the capital.
Sources say about 70 families of farmers in four villages in the town lost their properties in the new floods. Two weeks ago, at least five people have been killed in ferocious floods in Somalia's Middle Shabelle province after Shabelle River that passes through the province over brimmed as heavy rains down poured in Somalia's southern and central provinces.
Lands populated with Lutherans, Mormons, Joooz, Buddhists and Universalists generally manage floods better. Just a thought.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Rwanda broke off diplomatic relations with France on Friday after a French judge implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame and top aides in the 1994 assassination of the country's former leader that touched off the genocide.
In a dramatic escalation of long-simmering tensions that came to boil with the judge's declarations this week, Kigali ordered the closure of the French embassy, cultural center and all other state institutions in Rwanda.
"They have messed me up," lamented local music promoter Alex Karangwa. "All the artists are in the city but we have no hall to stage our concert."
Outside the French school, two Rwandan students waited desperately for hours outside the locked gate, pondering how they would continue their education.
Bruguiere is probing the April 6, 1994, shooting down over Kigali of a plane carrying Rwanda's then-president Juvenal Habyarimana, along with Burundi's former leader Cyprien Ntaryamira, both ethnic Hutus, and a French crew. Habyarimana's death set off the 100-day genocide in which Hutu extremists slaughtered some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
On Monday, Bruguiere said Kagame, a Tutsi and then a rebel leader who has denied any involvement in the attack on the plane, should be tried by the UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda for ordering the downing of the plane.
As a head of state, Kagame enjoys immunity in France, but on Wednesday, the judge issued the warrants for the nine, accusing them of murder and conspiracy. Kagame was livid, calling the claims "rubbish," accusing France of "bullying" behavior and repeating allegations that France was complicit in the genocide by backing the radical Hutus blamed for most of the killings.
French troops in Rwanda before and during the genocide have been accused of training and supporting the Interahamwe militia, allegations highlighted last month when a Rwandan inquiry panel opened public hearings in the matter.
And now you know why the French judge is behaving the way he is.
On Thursday, more than 25,000 angry Rwandans denounced France's alleged involvement in the genocide and Bruguiere at a rare government-approved protest in Kigali's Amahoro National Stadium. At first I thought this said, "French diplomats prepare to leave after tires cut." Maybe this French judge should pay more attention to the terrorist hoodlums at home.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has launched an appeal to donors for US$215 million for humanitarian aid for Zimbabwe, saying the countrys already crippling economic crisis is likely to worsen in 2007.
Yeah, I'd love to help, but I wouldn't want to boost their inflation rate...
Nice to see the French finally fighting in their weight class.
Rwanda on Friday recalled its ambassador to France and said it might break diplomatic relations with Paris in a row over arrest warrants related to the 1994 genocide issued by a French judge. A day after some 25,000 people rallied in Kigali to denounce France, alleged French complicity in the genocide and the judge, Rwanda's foreign minister announced the move, accusing Paris of trying to destroy the government. "We have recalled our ambassador to Paris, we don't see why he should be there at this point," Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said, adding Kigali might not send the envoy, Emmanuel Ndacijimana, back and cut ties with France. "We want some consultations with him and we'll see what happens later," he told AFP. "France is intent on destroying our government, we do not see any need for keeping any relationship with a hostile country." Balance of article at link.
MUHARRAQ, Bahrain About 1,500 people chanting for the prime minister's resignation marched through this capital city Friday, accusing the government of working to rig the weekend elections against Bahrain's Shiite majority.
A huge turnout is expected when polls open Saturday after a campaign that has been fierce and dirty, with rally tents vandalized, allegations of secret government funding for favored candidates and torrents of text messages flooding mobile phones. Anonymous messages warn Sunni Muslims to back pro-government candidates against the Shiite Muslim-led opposition or face Iraq-style chaos.
"Wake up Sunnis!" reads one broadly distributed message. "Don't be naive or your fate will be like the Iraqi Sunnis who lost their rights and their lives."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
And I expect the Emir (or whatever) of Bahrain to fire the Parliament unless the right people are elected.
Holding candles and standing silent, thousands massed on a fog-shrouded square Saturday to mourn 10 million Ukrainians killed by a famine orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin an ordeal many insisted must be recognized as genocide.
Some 33,000 people died every day during the 1932-33 famine, wiping out a third of Ukraine's population in a calamity known here as Holodomor Death by Hunger. Cases of cannibalism were widespread as desperation deepened. Those who resisted were shot or sent to Siberia.
"I do not ask I demand that the Ukrainian parliament recognize Holodomor as genocide," President Viktor Yushchenko told the crowd on Mykhaylivska Square in a short address followed by a minute of silence and the tolling of bells.
Stalin provoked the famine to coerce peasants into giving up their private farms and joining agriculture collectives being formed across the Soviet Union.
Villages were ordered to provide the state with set amounts of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet their quotas, officials seized all food and residents were barred from leaving condemning them to starve.
Farmers in Ukraine, which was the breadbasket of the U.S.S.R., fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the man-made disaster.
Russia's government has warned the leaders of this former Soviet republic against using the term genocide, saying the event should not be "politicized." Some Ukrainian lawmakers agreed, proposing it be termed a "tragedy" instead.
The Kremlin argues Stalin's campaign did not specifically target Ukrainians and also affected Russians and Kazakhs. But historians say the overwhelming majority of victims were Ukrainian, and the famine coincided with Stalin's effort to crush growing Ukrainian nationalism.
Yushchenko appealed to Russia to "stand by our side" and recognize the mass starvation as genocide. "With this high example, demonstrate the human empathy that is inherent to the Russian people," he said.
"How can it be called anything but genocide," said Kateryna Kryvenko, 78, who recalled crying at the feet of Soviet officials as they ransacked her family's village home, carting off what little food her family had managed to hide under a floorboard. She said authorities took everything, and her father and three brothers and sisters died.
During the Soviet era, the mass starvation was a closely guarded state secret, but information trickled out over the years.
Ten nations, including the United States, recognize the famine as genocide, a crime under international law defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.
Ukraine's parliament speaker, Oleksandr Moroz, said Saturday that he supports recognizing the mass starvation as genocide and said the president's bill calling for that designation would come before parliament this week.
Some lawmakers from Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's Russia-leaning Party of Regions suggested adopting a more moderate term, but party member Taras Chornovil predicted the president's version would pass.
Yanukovych joined Yushchenko in Saturday's commemoration, which included a silent procession by people carrying white banners representing every Ukrainian region. Black ribbons hung from the banners.
"The tragedy is of such a scale that it is hard to even imagine," said Oksana Yatsyuk, 18.
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died from ingesting a large dose of radioactive material known as Polonium 210, the British health authorities said Friday. Large quantities of alpha radiation had been traced in his urine, Roger Cox, director of the health watchdog HPA said in London. As a result, people who had been in contact with Litvinenko, and the places where he visited before the attack on him earlier this month, were being searched for radioactive substances. 'We are being faced with the unprecedented event in the UK of someone being poisoned by a type of radiation,' Pat Troop, chief executive of the HPA said.
As opposed to ricin, administered through the tip of an umbrella by a faceless Bulgarian...
Litvinenko, who died in a London hospital late Thursday, had shortly beforehand firmly blamed Russian leader Vladimir Putin for what happened to him, it was disclosed Friday. In a message dictated two days before his death, Litvinenko, 43, said: 'You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.'
Litvinenko wasn't an African colored guy, so he'll get a little more attention span than that. But he's a Russer -- nobody anybody important knows, certainly the wrong politix for Lynn Redgrave -- so Putin will find the howls of protest reverberating in his ears for maybe a month, month and a half. Not quite as long as the average Britney Spears marriage, in other words.
'May God forgive you for what you have done,' added the statement, which was read out by his friend Alexander Goldfarb to the press on Friday.
Speaking at a Russia-EU meeting in Helsinki, Putin, rejecting any accusations of official involvement in Litvinenko's death, offered his condolences to his family. Questioning the genuineness of the Litvinenko statement, Putin said: 'Why was this note not published when he was still alive?'
Because he literally dictated it on his deathbed?
He called Litvinenko's death a tragedy but its circumstances were 'not worth any further comments.' He added: 'The death of a person is always a tragedy. I regret the death and express my regret to the family.' He said there was no evidence of a crime, but Russia was prepared to provide the British authorities with 'every possible help' in their investigations into Litvinenko's death.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2006 00:00 ||
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Trotsky was successfully attacked in his home by a Stalinist agent, Ramón Mercader, who drove the pick of an ice axe into Trotsky's skull.
- Wiki - Leon Trotsky
#15
Yeah, BPinB, what's this I hear about Litvinenko converting to Islam? Kavkaz sez
aw crap, copy/paste doesn't work w/ Firefox.
Anyway, Kavkaz sez the Chechenpress news agency sez that he "converted to Islam some time ago," and that a mullah from a London moskkk performed Muslim rituals at his deathbed.
#16
This type of poisoning should be a wakeup call to the west; now terrorists will work on the unique properties of the alpha wave nature and light mass nature of this potential wmd source! For instance; a non mechanical delivery system (ie: a balloon filled with Polonium 210 within a balloon filled with Helium).
WOLVES, wild boar and brown bears are moving west in Europe as nature takes hold of rural regions abandoned by people seeking work in the cities. Wildlife migration is shadowing human migration and, according to population experts, is set to transform the way we look at the Continent. Wild boar are already ransacking dustbins on the outskirts of Berlin and bears are startling schoolgirls in Austria.
Stefan Kronert, a researcher at the Berlin Institute of Population and Development, said: There is a kind of suction towards the metropolitan centres. People are leaving behind the old mines and quarries, farmland that can no longer be profitably harvested, and they forage for work.
Europe will lose 41 million people by 2030 if todays birthrates continue to languish at the present level. About 22 of the 25 countries with the lowest birthrate in the world are in Europe. Poor but rapidly changing countries such as Romania and Bulgaria are undergoing a quiet social revolution. And in its wake comes the wildlife.
Continued on Page 49
President Jacques Chirac has convinced himself that he is the only politician on the French right who can defeat the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, in next year's presidential election.
Although he has not yet decided whether to run for a third term, M. Chirac, who is 74 next week, believes that only a "grandfather figure" can take on and deflate the pretensions of the "mother figure", Mme Royal.
It's a pretty good bet that ol' Jaques is mighty delusional if he thinks he can win another term ...
A senior source on the French centre-right, close to M. Chirac, has told The Independent that Mme Royal's crushing victory in the Socialist "primary" last week has rejuvenated his appetite for political combat.
The first unmanned aeriel vehicle slated for the U.S. island of Guam is due to arrive at Andersen Air Force base in the spring. Brig. Gen. Douglas O. Evans, the base's new commander, said the first UAV would be for demonstration purposes for Pacific Rim national leaders, but four to six UAVs were tipped for the base.
Stars and Stripes reported on November 18 that Guam has increasingly emerged as an essential military component in American strategy for the Western Pacific, having hosted both B-2 bombers and attack submarines. Owens told reporters at a press conference that while he sees no immediate changes in base mission or policy, he will implement a number of changes already inaugurated by the Pentagon. A $53 million hangar and operations complex for the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, is currently under construction.
One of the most significant new developments for Guam is the relocation of 8,000 Marines and their families to Guam from Okinawa under the terms of U.S.-Japanese military realignment plan, scheduled for completion by 2014.
A Democrat community leader who would "offer a homily during worship services" and facilitated his congregation's "opening our doors to all people regardless of sexual orientation" has been given a slap on the hand after pleading guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six.
Authorities say Andrew Douglas Reed, 53, who reported for an abbreviated jail term just a few weeks ago, had pleaded guilty to a page-long list of counts of 2nd-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
Court records in the Asheville, N.C., case said he admitted that he would "record, develop and duplicate material containing a visual representation of a minor engaging in sexual activity." That activity is defined by state law as including masturbation, intercourse and "touching in apparent sexual stimulation or sexual abuse of the genitals, pubic area or buttocks."
However, instead of the 967 months in jail nearly 81 years for which he was liable, Judge Robert Lewis, another Democrat, gave him, in a plea bargain with the office of District Attorney Ron Moore, who was elected as a Democrat, a 10-12 month sentence.
Ok I'm not that shocked. He probably heas connections with the judge and prosecutor. Hopefully word of this atrocity spreads across the blogosphere.
Posted by: Charles ||
11/25/2006 12:32 Comments ||
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#2
Now that they've got the polygamy initiative properly launched, it's time to address the grievances of the true victims of sexual offenses: the perpetrators.
#5
Deprived of any actual justice I can only suppose that, similar to the abuse by Catholic priests, we'll just have to let time take its course.
Much like how so little justice was administered in this case, I'm doubt there'll be a lot of therapy for the molested kids either. Eventually, one of these abused children will grow up and learn how to proficiently handle a firearm.
#6
disgusting. The Donk machine and liberal activists closing ranks to protect one of their own
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2006 15:13 Comments ||
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#7
Lovely. I am sure that every single one of the people who spent so much time to praise his "virtues" is more than willing to let him babysit their children or grandchildren, too.
Marriage vote suit delivered to SJC Romney, 10 others see constitution violation
Romney, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and a likely presidential candidate, and 10 other plaintiffs said legislators subverted the democratic process on Nov. 9 when they met in joint session as a constitutional convention and took no action on the ban. The Legislature voted, 109 to 87, to recess before taking a vote on whether to put the proposed amendment on the 2008 ballot.
"This is no longer just about gay marriage," Romney's spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom , said of the suit filed with the Supreme Judicial Court. "It's about the right of the people to participate in their own government."
Continued on Page 49
Target practice puts Coast Guard in cross hairs The public has weighed in for and against the proposal to use deck-mounted machine guns in target practice on the Great Lakes.
Propaganda Commissar Larry Oakes, The Peeple's Star Tribune
DULUTH -- After taking flak for shooting first and asking questions later, the U.S. Coast Guard says it will fully digest a fusillade of recent public comments before deciding whether to resume target practice on the Great Lakes with new deck-mounted machine guns.
#2
taconite tailings= millions of tons
Coastie bullets= hundreds of pounds
The left's willingness to ignore proportionality, evident in almost all leftist environmental propaganda, is an insult to our intelligence and proof of their depravity and elitism. We see this as well in eco-whacky screeds equating 3 mile island with Chernobyl or even Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the target audience of soccer moms and status freaks seems to be missing whatever brain segment analyzes relative quantity and proportion.
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.
(SomaliNet) Shabelle River, one of the two rivers, which flows through Somalia, continues to flood into new areas of southern the country causing more damage. This time it made fresh floods on Friday in Afgoie town some 30km south of the capital. 
MUHARRAQ, Bahrain About 1,500 people chanting for the prime minister's resignation marched through this capital city Friday, accusing the government of working to rig the weekend elections against Bahrain's Shiite majority.
President 
A Democrat community leader who would "offer a homily during worship services" and facilitated his congregation's "opening our doors to all people regardless of sexual orientation" has been given a slap on the hand after pleading guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six. 
