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Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts
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Page 6: Politix
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Britain
Outcry over UK paper's cartoon showing bloody Israeli oppression
Holocaust Day caricature of Netanyahu's wall of Paleostinian suffering in Sunday Times slammed as 'absolutely disgusting'; paper says drawing not anti-Semitic.
Naturally. The cartoon can be seen here. Judge for yourself, dear Reader.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/28/2013 07:50 || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just horrible.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 01/28/2013 10:32 Comments || Top||


Accountant joins backlash against tax dodge attacks
One of the UK's top accountants has joined the business backlash against attacks on corporate tax avoidance by politicians, telling the authorities to change the law if they are unhappy with the ethics.

Responding to calls for companies to "pay their fair share", Mark Otty, Ernst & Young's managing partner for Europe, Middle East and Africa, claimed a moral tax code would not work as companies had a duty to pay the lowest rate permitted.

His intervention follows Starbucks' threat to suspend millions of pounds of planned investment in the UK if the attacks continue. Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein has also warned that the row risks stigmatising "every right-thinking person who organises his or her affairs in a sensible way".

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Otty told The Daily Telegraph: "The only way you can resolve this issue is through a legal code. I don't see how you can have any assessment on payments of tax other than what is in the statute. The simplest solution is to stop banging on about morality and change the law. "
He says that because he's an accountant. The dear, simple creatures actually think that way, which is why so few go into politics.
His comments followed David Cameron's pledge to crack down on avoidance, some of which the Prime Minister said had become so "aggressive" it raised "ethical issues". Businesses which thought they could dodge their fair share of tax needed to "wake up and smell the coffee", Mr Cameron said.

Public anger has mounted at the way global companies such as Google, Starbucks and Amazon move profits from one country to another to lower their tax rate. While the behaviour is not illegal, MPs have called it "immoral".
"That money is ours. How dare they take it away as if they'd earnt it!"
Posted by: lotp || 01/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336092 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez recovers from infection, sez state info minister
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recovered from a respiratory infection he contracted after undergoing cancer surgery in Cuba, a minister said.

'Fortyfive days after the complicated surgery, the patient recovers normally, his serious respiratory infection has been overcome. Though certain respiratory inefficiency persists, he is receiving the required treatment,' Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said on state TV.
And if you can't believe the state information minister, who can you believe?
He said that despite his illness, the 58-year-old Chavez continues to 'play active role' in the country's politics.
"What did he say?"
"Something like, 'como gurgle gurgle farc mummmphh gurgle,' minister."
"Okay, make that happen, and snappy!"
Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said upon his arrival from Cuba Friday that Chavez was feeling much better than he has done since undergoing surgery. Chavez was smiling, optimistic, and believes the treatment will work.

Chavez, who has ruled Venezuela for 13 years, has had four operations for cancer and four courses of chemotherapy in Cuba and Venezuela within a year. His fourth operation, to remove cancerous tissue, took place in Cuba Dec 11.

His inauguration was slated for Jan 11, but he was unable to attend due to his impending death health reasons.
I think this is just 'happy news', and suggests that the behind the scenes fighting to decide who will succeed him hasn't yet been settled.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes, it's just an infection. Yasser Arafat came by the other evening with flowers and some good scotch
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 01/28/2013 10:32 Comments || Top||

#2  "he's dead, Jim"
Posted by: Frank G || 01/28/2013 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Stabilizing nicely.
Posted by: Muggsy Mussolini1226 || 01/28/2013 15:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Is there any way, any way at all, that we could get good Nuss Suha into this strange act?
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2013 17:06 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Japan To Slash Welfare Benefits In Attempt To Root Out "Comfortably Poor"
Posted by: tipper || 01/28/2013 13:23 || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And Japan's longevity stats took a hit when it was found out that families didn't report deaths to keep that government pension check coming in.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/28/2013 14:17 Comments || Top||


North Koreans Reportedly Turn to Cannibalism Due to 'Hidden Famine'
News out of North Korean in notorious unreliable, but food shortages in the country have gotten so bad and people so desperate that there are now reports of men murdering their own children for food. These startling reports were compiled by independent reporters commissioned by Asia Press, a independent press agency focusing on Asia, and were published by the Sunday Times. And here's one of the most disturbing thing you'll read this morning:

The source said: "While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: 'We have meat.'

"But his wife, suspicious, notified the Ministry of Public Security, which led to the discovery of part of their children's bodies under the eaves."
Posted by: Beavis || 01/28/2013 11:30 || Comments || Link || [336115 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From prior reports the Chinese across the border have taken to keeping recently deceased above ground, until they are no longer 'fresh', before burial. Seems the NK's had been crossing the border and digging them up. This was reported about six months ago.
Posted by: ed in texas || 01/28/2013 14:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Famine, cannibalism, general suckitude... but lots of Fairness and Equality of Outcome. Except for the nomenklatura, of course.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/28/2013 16:07 Comments || Top||

#3  ed, I've led a protected life and refuse to believe that.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2013 17:08 Comments || Top||

#4  If Soylent Green shows up on the grocery shelves in North Korea, be wary.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/28/2013 17:21 Comments || Top||

#5  Jeebus, just Jeebus.

The ultimate in Commie-Socialist [Leftist-Globalist?] REGRESSIONISM???

The Ruling Elites stay happy-n-fat while the mainstream = DPRK Army? eats itself + kiddies unto self-oblivion.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/28/2013 18:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Slowly but surely, + EEEEEEEEWWWWWW yuck-ily, China + PLA inch closer to Japan + espec TAIWAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/28/2013 18:52 Comments || Top||

#7  枪杆子里面出政权

"Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

The solution to this problem is ... guns.

There are only 25 some millions of Norks. Someone could easily make and distribute 25 million of these guns (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_gun) for $100 million.

没有一个人民的军队,便没有人民的一切。

"Without an army for the people, there is nothing for the people."
Posted by: rammer || 01/28/2013 20:14 Comments || Top||

#8  This sounds less legit than the Iran nuke plant explosion, so I guess it may be more.
Where's Gromky re:Chinese burials?
Posted by: Skidmark || 01/28/2013 20:47 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Ghost car emerges from Queensland storm foam
Posted by: tipper || 01/28/2013 20:55 || Comments || Link || [336088 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Shale gas boom now visible from space
Oil companies extracting oil from the Bakken and Texas' Eagle Ford shale fields are flaring (burning off) enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington combined. The light from the flares can be seen from space.

A leading factor in the tripling of the volume of flared waste gas over the last five years
I mean, beside the seven-fold increase in oil production in the Bakken fields
is the low price of natural gas in North America, which can make it uneconomic to build pipelines and tanks to handle the gas released by oil production.
There are some problems that you would rather have.
Continental said it already flared proportionately less gas than the industry average, was making progress on more reductions and agreed to report on its progress in 2013.

The North Dakota legislature is considering a bill to encourage flaring reduction through tax breaks. The state is also pushing producers to use gas to power drilling rigs.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 01/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Try this image
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 01/28/2013 0:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Well there goes Obama's energy policy.

How can we be sold to the highest bidder if we have our own sources of energy for an economic recovery...an economic recover would spoil everything for the Dems.
Posted by: Bill Clinton || 01/28/2013 10:36 Comments || Top||

#3  "Desperately trying to derail Canadian oil sands
Radical activists launch more attacks on oil sands, Keystone pipeline, jobs and revenues
By Paul Driessen *** January 26, 2013"

Only way I could post this.
Posted by: Dale || 01/28/2013 11:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Paul Driessen

Maybe this will work.
Posted by: Dale || 01/28/2013 11:09 Comments || Top||

#5  The second attempt works perfectly, Dale. Well done! :-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/28/2013 13:02 Comments || Top||


Europe
Iceland Wins Big Case Over Failed Bank
Iceland was handed a huge win today by the court of the European Free Trade Association.

The court said that Iceland did not break the law when it decided not to cover the losses of foreigners who had deposited money in Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank that failed in 2008.

The New York Times reports that this case has provoked intense animosity between Iceland and Britain.

"In a recent interview with British television, Iceland's president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, denounced Britain's 'eternal shame' for invoking the terrorism laws," the Times reports. "'We were there together with Al Qaeda and the Taliban on that list,' he said. 'We have not forgotten that in Iceland.'"

The Times also points out that Iceland's economy is improving. Fitch even raised its credit rating saying the country's ""unorthodox crisis policy response has succeeded in preserving sovereign creditworthiness."
Posted by: tipper || 01/28/2013 15:49 || Comments || Link || [336099 views] Top|| File under:


Anger mounts over corruption in recession-hit Spain
[FRANCE24] Anger over a long list of corruption scandals implicating bankers, politicians and even members of the royal family is on the rise in recession-hit Spain, putting the spotlight on the failure of the country's democracy to tackle the issue.

At demonstrations against government austerity measures, chants against alleged shady deals by Spain's elite are as common as those venting anger at tax hikes and spending cuts to social services and public workers' pay.

Around 200-300 elected officials out of more than 50,000 in the country are currently implicated in corruption cases in regions governed both by both the left and the right, said the head of the Spanish branch of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Jesus Lizcano.
Posted by: Fred || 01/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The state is totally rotten, let's make it bigger!
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/28/2013 5:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Nobody gets upset about corruption til the money for payoffs runs out. Then they get all indignant.
(I bet they still got Franco in a freezer somewhere. Thaw him out.)
Posted by: ed in texas || 01/28/2013 11:32 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Norway Data Shows Earth's Global Warming Less Severe Than Feared
New estimates from a Norwegian research project show meeting targets for minimizing global warming may be more achievable than previously thought.
Quick... someone call Al Gore!!
After the planet's average surface temperature rose through the 1990s, the increase has almost leveled off at the level of 2000, while ocean water temperature has also stabilized, the Research Council of Norway said in a statement on its website. After applying data from the past decade, the results showed temperatures may rise 1.9 degrees Celsius if Co2 levels double by 2050, below the 3 degrees predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Always promising what they can't deliver. Typical.
"The Earth's mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s," said Terje Berntsen, a professor at the University of Oslo who worked on the study. "This may have caused us to overestimate climate sensitivity."
That, and hype, and grants, and greed, and lust for power, and desire for control.
The findings also show the effect of reduced airborne particulates from burning coal, which may decrease the cloud cover that cools the earth, probably has less of an impact on climate through indirect cooling than originally projected.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/28/2013 09:43 || Comments || Link || [336124 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What could the Norwegians possibly know about weather impacts ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/28/2013 9:50 Comments || Top||

#2  If the temperature stopped rising whilst the thing you correlate it with continues rises then it falsifies the whole linkage.

It's not "less severe" it's not a problem at all.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/28/2013 10:05 Comments || Top||

#3  a Norwegian research project show meeting targets for minimizing global warming may be more achievable than previously thought.

Or said another way, this has been the biggest scam since the Piltdown Man, relying on cooked data and manufactured media hysteria. Maybe if we walk it back slowly, no one will notice.

As BP says, if your model does not fix the data, your model sucks. Science 101, folks.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/28/2013 11:03 Comments || Top||

#4  At some point CO2 has absorbed all the electromagnetic energy that it can absorb. It's an invisible gas -- most wavelengths go right through. This is why the 'tipping point' is so important to the climate people. Without it, you can't have a crisis. It's also pure conjecture and the weakest part of their entire argument.
Posted by: Iblis || 01/28/2013 11:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Whew, that's a relief. I thought the sky was falling (sarc).
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/28/2013 11:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Polar Bear decline still big there.

1-20 years they all be gone. Poof!!!.
Posted by: Dale || 01/28/2013 11:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Cities affect weather thousands of kilometres away
Looks like the hysteria generating Post-normal bien pensants will have to get back to the drawing board.
As Charles Mackay says in his wonderful book Madness of Crowds:
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Posted by: tipper || 01/28/2013 13:47 Comments || Top||

#8  Interesting Tipper. I always called it the flocking effect. One horse bolts then all the others join in on the run. Then again we have Norway at about 1:42 the lemmings mass suicide(all but a few die the conservatives);

Posted by: Dale || 01/28/2013 14:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Two degrees C by 2050? It is to laugh.
Posted by: KBK || 01/28/2013 15:26 Comments || Top||

#10  I still can't believe that the The Earth's mean temperature rose sharply during the 1990s.

Heat Island effects and the type of data fudging that brought you the hockey stick were all too common for me to believe in as valid, honest, objective science.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/28/2013 16:26 Comments || Top||

#11  Those Huskies have no shame.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/28/2013 18:54 Comments || Top||

#12  That is right Iblis. If there has been any extra absorption, it has come from (now banned) chlorofluorocarbons which absorb in an otherwise empty window in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Posted by: rammer || 01/28/2013 20:43 Comments || Top||

#13  Note that there is no mention of Solar activity as an influence on climate cycles.
Posted by: tipover || 01/28/2013 23:12 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
India successfully test-fires SLBM
India on Sunday successfully test-fired the underwater ballistic missile, K-15 (code-named B05), off the Visakhapatnam coast, marking en end to a series of developmental trials.

In its twelfth flight trial, the 10-metre tall Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) lifted off from a pontoon, rose to an altitude of 20 km and reached a distance of about 700 km as it splashed down in the waters of the Bay of Bengal near the pre-designated target point.

According to scientific advisor to the Defence Minister V.K. Saraswat, the missile was tested for its full range of 700 km and the mission met all its objectives. He said the impact accuracy of the medium range strategic missile was in single digit.

With the completion of developmental trials, the process of integrating K-15 missile with INS Arihant, the indigenously-built nuclear submarine, will begin soon. As many as 12 nuclear-tipped missiles, each weighing six tonnes will be integrated with Arihant, which will be powered by an 80 MWt (thermal) reactor that uses enriched uranium as fuel and light water as coolant and moderator.

India is only the fifth country to have such a missile -- the other four are the United States, Russia, France and China.

Meanwhile the reactor has been integrated with the submarine and it was expected to go critical in May/ June 2013. Once that was done, the harbour trials will begin.

Besides Arihant, three other nuclear-powered submarines were being constructed -- one at Visakhapatnam and two at Vadodara. India is also developing K-4 missile with a range of 3,000 km.
Posted by: john frum || 01/28/2013 11:43 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Posted by: john frum || 01/28/2013 11:48 Comments || Top||

#2 
Posted by: john frum || 01/28/2013 11:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe it's me. But that missile doesn't have the usual conformation of a SLBM, where the vertical is precious, and more room given to the wide. Dunno. Maybe it's the scale.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2013 17:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Also I think it's got a pre-booster, which falls off very quickly.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/28/2013 17:13 Comments || Top||

#5  The Arihant's 4 tubes are subdivided to hold 3 K-15 missiles.
The subdivision structure can be removed to fit the K-4 missile which is a much fatter beast.
Posted by: john frum || 01/28/2013 17:32 Comments || Top||

#6  A tube on the pontoon. 120 degree sections

Posted by: john frum || 01/28/2013 18:47 Comments || Top||


'Dacoit' killed in shootout with police
[Dawn] One of the five dacoits who were riding two cycle of violences was killed in an encounter with the Khanot police on Habib Mor near the Indus Highway late on Friday.

Police had also seized one Kalashnikov rifle with eight bullets from the dear departed and one abandoned cycle of violence without the number plate, sources said.

SHO of the Khanot cop shoppe Ghulam Abbas Bubbar said he along with a police party was on patrol when they had signalled five persons riding two bikes to stop, but they opened fire on police.

When the police retaliated, three men riding a bike fled while one of the two riding another bike was killed, but his accomplice escaped, leaving the cycle of violence. The dear departed was not identified. The body was shifted to the Hyderabad branch of the Liaquat University Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

The SHO claimed that the Kalashnikov rifle belonged to one of the two police constables, Abdul Majeed Pitafi and Sahib Khan Solangi, who had been killed on Jan 19 at the Dai Danu police checkpoint within the jurisdiction of the Khanot cop shoppe in Jamshoro district. He said that no police official was maimed in the firing by dacoits and only a police mobile was hit by some bullets.
Posted by: Fred || 01/28/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
59[untagged]
6Arab Spring
4Govt of Syria
3al-Qaeda in North Africa
2TTP
1Boko Haram
1Govt of Pakistan
1Ansar Dine
1Salafists
1Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
1Taliban
1Thai Insurgency
1Lashkar e-Jhangvi
1al-Shabaab

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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.

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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
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Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Fred
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2013-01-28
  Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts
Sun 2013-01-27
  French and Malian troops begin restoring control in Timbuktu
Sat 2013-01-26
  Green-on-green clash in Khyber tribal region kills 32
Fri 2013-01-25
  AQAP #2 killed for the THIRD time in Yemen
Thu 2013-01-24
  US drone strike near Sanaa kills 7 hard boyz
Wed 2013-01-23
  Nuristan Airstrike Kills 14 Insurgents
Tue 2013-01-22
  French seize control of Diabaly, Douentza
Mon 2013-01-21
  Nigeria: Gunmen attack Kano emir's convoy
Sun 2013-01-20
  Algeria crisis: Hostage-takers 'taken alive' at gas plant
Sat 2013-01-19
  Boko Haram leader Shekau shot, escapes to Mali
Fri 2013-01-18
  1,400 French soldiers in Mali for ground assaults: minister
Thu 2013-01-17
  41 snatched by AQIM in Algeria gas plant attack
Wed 2013-01-16
  France deploys armoured vehicles towards northern Mali
Tue 2013-01-15
  Pakistan paralysed after court demands PM arrest
Mon 2013-01-14
  Famed Tunisia Mausoleum Torched by Salafists

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