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Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
21:11 4 23:33 DarthVader [336095]
16:49 4 20:37 tipper [336072]
16:38 4 21:36 SteveS [336088]
16:04 0 [336071]
15:40 2 19:12 JosephMendiola [336092]
13:37 1 23:19 JosephMendiola [336093]
13:27 7 18:40 JohnQC [336078]
12:31 5 18:40 Zhang Fei [336075] 
12:01 2 13:08 AlanC [336074] 
11:55 1 19:18 JosephMendiola [336075]
11:46 3 17:51 Thing From Snowy Mountain [336070]
11:37 9 23:13 JosephMendiola [336101]
11:29 2 23:01 JosephMendiola [336098]
10:55 9 20:03 JosephMendiola [336089]
10:24 10 20:45 Dale [336090]
04:51 1 05:49 Besoeker [336074]
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02:51 3 23:35 JosephMendiola [336141]
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Home Front: Culture Wars
GOP congressman threatens impeachment if Obama uses executive action for gun control
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 21:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I Understand that, and when IF he does
Obama's toast.
And Good Riddance.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 21:56 Comments || Top||

#2  I'll be surprised if Congress actually does it. They let him get away with all kinds of murder and don't do anything about it.
Posted by: gorb || 01/14/2013 22:39 Comments || Top||

#3  If they don', well we need new Congress anyway.
Posted by: Rednek Jim || 01/14/2013 23:09 Comments || Top||

#4  We need a new congress regardless.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 23:33 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Even Goldman Says China Is Cooking The Books
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 16:49 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Matthew 7:5
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 17:28 Comments || Top||

#2  If anyone should know about cooked books it is Goldman.
Posted by: Glenmore || 01/14/2013 18:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Iff China hopes to one day become the World #1, China must decide between staying Commie or moving towards Euro-style Democratic Socialism, as opposed to "Liberal Communism".

SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Probably better than printing a T platinum coin.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 20:37 Comments || Top||


The Unforeseen Social Effects of China’s One-Child Policy
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 16:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336088 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That and Chinese prefer having a male for various reasons leads to 20 million+ men that there will not be women for.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 16:39 Comments || Top||

#2  That and Chinese prefer having a male for various reasons leads to 20 million+ men that there will not be women for.

This kind of thing has been the case for most of Chinese history, until the abolition of polygamy in the 40's. It was apparently legal in Hong Kong until 1971. Female infanticide was also widely practiced there since antiquity, way before the imposition of the one-child rule in the late 1970's, on the principle that sons supported their parents, whereas daughters became stoop labor for someone else. That surprised me, given the Chinese practice of the bride price, where the groom has to hand over a significant sum of money to the bride's family. It's possible that the bride price was a direct result of relative scarcity of women created by the Chinese tradition of female infanticide as well as polygamy.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/14/2013 18:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Yuuuppp.

'TIS AN ASIA-WIDE PROBLEM, NOT JUST CHINA.

Soviet or Chinese, as a general rule Commie Govt. housing gave priority to Married Veterans-Couples or Families [Kiddies andor Grandparents], NOT BACHELORS = SINGLE UNMARRIED MEN.

Even iff one presumes that these 20.0Milyuhn Males all have university or post-graduate degrees, many contemporary Russian + Chinese comapnies would still give priority or preference to Married Men, espec for those on the track for Supvy, Management or Board positions.

"20.0 Milyuhn" = way more Candidates for employment than needed in Industry, so many will be forced to look for work + love overseas in non-Chinese or non-Asian countries. IT WILL BE A LONG STRUGGLE FOR CHINA + ASIA, AS THE SOCIETIES IN MANY OF THESE FOREIGN COUNTRIES PREFER TO SEE THEIR DAUGHTERS OR FEMALES MARRIED OFF TO MALES OF SIMILAR CLASS, ETHNICITY, RELIGION OR CULTURE.

The historical alternative is for China to intentionally or covertly kill off these excess males in War(s) - "20.0 Milyuhn" or so is a lot of Soldats to correctly send off to NE Asia or East Asia War agz the US + Japan. IT SUPPORTS WHY CHINA IS WILLING TO ACCEPT PROHIBITIVE CASUALTIES AMONG ITS PLA FORCES IN ANY ATTACK ON TAIWAN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Like Joe says, it's nothing a good thermonuclear war can't straighten out. Try not to stand downwind.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/14/2013 21:36 Comments || Top||


-Obits-
Prayers for Sarah Decareux family and friends, Scott AFB, IL
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 16:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336071 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
GOP: Obama's adds $4 billion to the national debt every day
h/t instapundit
...Rather than cutting wasteful spending, the federal government added $4 billion each day to our gross national debt. This path is not sustainable. I support a more limited government that focuses on fulfilling its core duties and responsibilities. Only then can we identify the national priorities worthy of taxpayer funding.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 15:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336092 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Won't happen now. Too much "free" stuff given out via entitlements that too many people depend upon now.

Will happen until nation broke and we are (further) reduced to serfs to our government masters.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 16:00 Comments || Top||

#2  IMO US Debt could roughly rise to as high or near US$25.0Trilyuhn by EOY 2013, espec iff war between the US + Iran, China occurs this summer.
US Debt could reach par or under US$25.0Trilyuhn just on current spending rates - depending on how serious + protractive a US-involved NE Asia mil conflict is, US Debt can easily rise to US$40-50.0Trilyuhn by EOY 2013 just for trying to avoid a Limited or Full-scale Nuclear War in NE Asia or East Asia.

The Euros are complaining to + about Obama, in part, because the steady rise in US Debt levels or ceilings makes it harder for already debt-ridden Euro Govts-Banks to borrow from themselves increasingly debt-ridden, cautious or discretionary US Banks = Fed Reserve - THE TRADITIONAL ENDOWMENT OR ADVANTAGE OF BORROWING FROM A US FED, BANKS WID LOWER DEBT BURDEN THAN EURO-STATES, BANKS IS RAPIDLY DISAPPEARING.

All thats left is for the debt-ridden US + Euros to borrow from US RIVAL, "POST-US" WORLD #1 WANNABE RISING CHINA, + UNDEVELOPED THIRD WORLD -"Third World" per se read, CHINA AGAIN.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:12 Comments || Top||


Great White North
Canada sends C-17 to Mali, but Harper says no combat for Canadians
Canada is contributing one of its large C-17 military cargo planes to deliver supplies to the capital of Mali after a request from France.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper insists no Canadian Forces personnel will be involved in any combat action in the landlocked West African country. An al-Qaida linked group has taken control of the northern part of Mali and is making gains towards the south.

The Canadian plane will be used to assist in the transport of equipment into the Malian capital of Bamako, which is not in the combat zone. The loan of the Canadian aircraft is for one week.

"The government of Canada is deeply concerned by recent events in Mali," Harper says in a statement.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 13:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IOW, Mali is a French show, NOT Les Canadien'???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:19 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
White house won't meet budget planning deadline, breaking law.... again
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 13:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I mean, what can congress do to him?

Nothing.

Therefore, the law will continue to be broken at will by the White House.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 13:29 Comments || Top||

#2  "what can is congress willing to do to him?"

FTFY, Darth.
Posted by: Barbara || 01/14/2013 15:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Anthropomorphically speaking, a 'congress of baboons' .... nice ring to it I'd say.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 15:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Baboons are grievously insulted by your comparison Besoeker.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/14/2013 15:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Baboon tip of the day vir u Crazy. If you're ever trekking in an area where they are present, do not... I say again, do not let them slip into your car (searching for food) whilst you are at a car park. In less than 5 minutes, they can absolutely rip your upholstery and headliner to shreds trying to escape.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 15:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Should we ask you how you know that, B? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara || 01/14/2013 15:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Wild hogs up in the mountains nearby are also very rapacious and destructive.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/14/2013 18:40 Comments || Top||


Europe
Hollande shows new mettle as war leader, reformer
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 12:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Headlines are different to those when GWB did the same thing...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 12:37 Comments || Top||

#2  A commie can do no wrong. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot killed millions. No big deal. Ironically, obooboo is getting bad reviews for not being red enough...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/14/2013 12:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Waste the economy. Start a war to distract the mob.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 15:34 Comments || Top||

#4  War was started long ago and the entire regions happily remains in a constant state of on again-off again tribal conflict. Appears to be a French rescue mission and spanking of sorts. As you are aware, they've made a fairly large economic and cultural investment in Chad and some of the neighboring areas. With examples such as Detroit and Chicago as optimal outcomes, my guess is they'll wisely stop short of any attempt at "nation building".
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 15:55 Comments || Top||

#5  The French have generally provided the firepower, while letting the locals do what they want with the defeated. And that is how decisive victories are won, via merciless bloodlettings.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 01/14/2013 18:40 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Al-Azhar’s double game to Islamize Egypt and maintain power
In recent years the authorities of the most important Sunni university, supported the youth of the revolution and are now with the Muslim Brotherhood. For the great scholar of Islam Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, such behavior is typical of the University, which has always supported those who govern. The new constitution based on Sharia will not transform Egypt into an Islamic state, for now. It takes advantage of the ignorance of a population that only trusts imams, all formed by al-Azhar. The document is primarily a ideological move by Islamists to appear like "real Muslims" before the Islamic world. Sharia, Islam, religion reassure the population. The future game of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Islam itself will evolve in the coming months on specific topics: jobs, the economy and development.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 12:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Be carefull, you might Succeed, then you're fukt.

People will NOT stand Slavery, Religious or otherwise, Not for long.

And when they don't, you're ass is grass, and the lawnmower's a coming.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Marx had some things right and the Muzzies prove his points.

Marx is saying that religion’s purpose is to create illusory fantasies for the poor.

Illusory fantasies for the poor is what the Muzzie dictator class counts on. They want the peons to be high on that opiate of the masses because it distracts from the evil rapaciousness of the Imams, Mullahs and their sycophants.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 13:08 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
'Red October' cyber-attack found by Russian researchers
A major cyber-attack that may have been stealing confidential documents since 2007 has been discovered by Russian researchers.

Kaspersky Labs told the BBC the malware targeted government institutions such as embassies, nuclear research centres and oil and gas institutes.

It was designed to steal encrypted files - and was even able to recover files that had been deleted.
More at Wired...
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 11:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  [SEAN, SAM, + SUBMARINE BOYZ SINGING SOVIET NATIONAL ANTHEM here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:18 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Smog in China Pegs Polution Meters - At least 2,400% above safe levels
The pollution figures at the moment are staggering.

Pollution is measured in the amount of small particulates in the atmosphere.

According to the Beijing authorities, measurements show the air containing more than 700 micrograms per cubic meter in many parts of the city over the weekend.

To put that into context, the World Health Organization considers it safe to only have as much just 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

There has been some controversy recently over whether the local readings were accurate or if officials were trying to understate the problem by giving lower readings.
You see, they're only saying that it's 700 mcg per cubic meter when it's really 7000...
Last year, U.S. diplomatic missions in China were giving their own air quality readings, and they were very different from the official Chinese accounts.

In response, China announced it was illegal for foreign embassies to issues their own readings.

But the U.S. has said it would continue tweeting air pollution levels in China, as they were helpful for US nationals living and traveling abroad.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing tweeted over the weekend that its hourly readings were "beyond index."

The highest number it got on its data was the equivalent of a massive 886 micrograms per cubic meter.
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 01/14/2013 11:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is the same China that Greenies like Tim Flannery, Al Gore, George Moonbat, et. al. think are so far ahead of us in fighting "climate change" right?


"China announced it was illegal for foreign embassies to issues their own readings.


Oh look, something else for Tom Friedman to admire.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 12:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, I have an idea! Send John Kerry over there and ask 'em to stop it! Yeah, that'll work. Send Al Gore too and tell the Chinese they can keep him.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 01/14/2013 13:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe there's an old Spanish gunship we can send them in... is the name San Pablo available?
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 01/14/2013 17:51 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Second French commando dies of wounds -Somali rebels
A second French commando has died from wounds suffered during a failed attempt to rescue a French agent in Somalia held hostage by al Shabaab since 2009, the al Qaeda-affiliated militant group said on Monday.

Al Shabaab said the French commando had died in their custody and posted photos of what it said was his body on the Internet, according to the SITE monitoring service.

The insurgent group also said it had made a decision on the fate of hostage Denis Allex and that a message conveying its verdict would be forthcoming. France says it believes Allex was killed during the rescue operation.

The militants put up fierce resistance when French special forces went into southern Somalia by helicopter under the cover of darkness on Saturday to try to free Allex.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 11:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336101 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder if Europe appreciates "Smart Diplomacy" yet?
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 12:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Soft power...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/14/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Again, props to the French for trying. Learn from whatever mistakes were made and do it better next time.

Unfortunately there are parts of the world that do not listen to civil, reasoned discourse. That's when you send in the special forces...
Posted by: Steve White || 01/14/2013 15:21 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't recall the French being as panic stricken over Rules of Engagement (ROE) as some. In that neighborhood, probably a good thing. Hat tip and best wishes to them.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 15:26 Comments || Top||

#5  "there are parts of the world that do not listen to civil, reasoned discourse. That's when you send in the special forces an Arclight or three...."

FTFY, Dr. White.
Posted by: Barbara || 01/14/2013 15:38 Comments || Top||

#6  The Frenchies repor gravely underestimated the level of Militant resistance encountered.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 18:32 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes. Almost looks like Al Shabaab knew they were coming, doesn't it?
Posted by: Raider || 01/14/2013 19:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Latest intel sez they did, either through civilians informing on them or raiding the wrong house.

My take is the French trusted the Somali government to assist in providing intel on the raid, like the government trusted the Libyan militia for its consulate's security.
Posted by: Pappy || 01/14/2013 21:39 Comments || Top||

#9  DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > AL-SHABAAB DEMAND RELEASE OF JIHADIS IN EXCHANGE FOR FRENCH HOSTAGE, RESIDENTS DECRY ILL-PLANNED OPERATION.

Apparently locals weren't too impressed wid the French rescue operation, i.e. 40+ elite Frenchies agz 100+ Al-Shabaab Hard Boyz [17 Militants KIA], labeling the ResOp "impossible" + "amateurish", + unhappiness over death of eight Civie locals caught in cross-fire???

versus

* DAILY TIMES.PK > "NO EU TROOPS IN MALI", outside of France [ + British aircraft]. Both EU + NATO say that France has made no formal request for EU or NATO-level assistance.

versus

* WORLD NEWS > [Stars-N-Stripes] US MILITARY COULD BE DRAWN INTO MALI FIGHT.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:13 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Mali Islamists counter attack, promise France long war
Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war.

France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air raids on Monday in the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance grouping al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM alongside Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine militant groups.

"France has opened the gates of hell for all the French," a spokesman for MUJWA, Oumar Ould Hamaha, told Europe 1 radio. "She has fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia."
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 11:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336098 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Screw it. Just flatten the place.
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/14/2013 21:27 Comments || Top||

#2  See also RELATED BIGNEWSNETWORK > MALI MILITANTS THREATEN AFGHAN-STYLE WAR.

* SAME > MALI REBELS WARN FRANCE ITS WAR WILL BE WORSE THAN AFGHANISTAN.

* SAME > MALI MILITANTS COUNTER-ATTACK, PROMISE LONG AFGHANISTAN-STYLE WAR.

versus

* WORLD NEWS > [Stars-n-Stripes] US MILITARY COULD BE DRAWN INTO MALI FIGHT.

Uh oh.

US to save France once again - WW1, WW2, KOrea hill battles, Diem Bien Phu = Vietnam War.

* CHINA DAILY FORUM > FRENCH AIRSTRIKES ON KILLING SPREE | [Arab News] 100 MILITANTS, FRENCH PILOT KILLED IN MALI VIOLENCE.

* TOPIX > FRENCH AIRSTRIKES KILL 100 AL-SHABAAB FIGHTERS IN [Kona] MALI.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:00 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
KY sherrif to Feds: You are never going to pull guns out of Jackson County
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 10:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dammit, he's IGHT, the Sherrif's the BOSS, and NO State , or Feds can't do shit about it. (Legaly)

I LIKE this man.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Right, dammit.

Sorry, partial blindness.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Hussein's Regime/Party orders 400,000,000 (400 Million) hollow point bullets for it's SS core (aka Security Services) and tells (300 million) Americans to surrender thier weapons.
Posted by: wr || 01/14/2013 13:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Sadly, Jackson County is a little farther away from me than I wanted for my retreat. Still, bears looking at...
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 01/14/2013 13:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Word is 1.2 billion in Fed ammo... but who's countin'?
Posted by: Woodrow Barnsmell4369 || 01/14/2013 13:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Difficult to buy a low mileage Nash anymore as well.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 14:23 Comments || Top||

#7  600,000,000 more rounds ordered recently bringing the total to 1.8 billion that have been confirmed. Who knows how many have been stocked under the table. Hollow point rounds are not for training. In fact does anyone else find it disturbing that our military cannot use hollow points in war but our policing forces specifically use them at home against the people? I saw a road sign by my house where new power lines are being installed. It read "rough road ahead." I could only chuckle to myself at the appropriateness.
Posted by: Lowspark || 01/14/2013 14:53 Comments || Top||

#8  The feds do use hollowpoints for training because they don't give a rip about cost.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 01/14/2013 15:55 Comments || Top||

#9  Many GWCC Perts are arguing that the Sun per se + Solar histoire' on Earth is a-okay, while the Washington Polcritters refuse to confirm or deny anything as per OWG + OWG NAU in 2015.

THE BURDEN, THEN, IS EFFECTIVELY ON THE US MAINSTREAM + POKEY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS TO DISCOVER WHAT KIND OF MIGHTY DISASTER(S) OR MAJOR EVENT(S) THE GOVT IS PURCHASING ALL THIS AMMO + EMERGENCY WARES, ETC. FOR BUT REFUSE TO TELL US.

You know - Political-Electoral Leadership + Representative Democracy.

Because ya know good Leadership = keeping the People-Voters perenially guessing.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 20:03 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Powell defends Clinton, rips GOP as racists
On today's Meet The Press, Powell defended Clinton's role in the lead up to and response after the Benghazi attack, and the Republican conceded the situation in Benghazi "could've happened to anyone."
Then the "anyone" should be held responsible.
Powell added:

""I think she's had a distinguished record ... And I don't think that this one incident -- which is one of these things that those of us in government have been through many, many times where suddenly an action happens late at night ... I don't think it's a blot on her record."
He "thinks" she's had a distguished record. He "thinks" one incident shouldn't matter. He "thinks" it shouldn't be a blot on her record.

I think he's look for a new job in 2016.

Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 10:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336090 views] Top|| File under:

#1  On race, Powell was also critical of his party’s official line, saying that he believes the GOP has been lax in fighting race-based scaremongering

Scaremonger, can't find anything scream RACIST.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:16 Comments || Top||

#2  That's it! Colin Powell is OUT of the club!
Posted by: Heriberto Peacock2217 || 01/14/2013 12:39 Comments || Top||

#3  We all knew Powell was a democrat party hack in disguise.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 13:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Powell considers the access to Saudi cash he got through his work at State -- and the good graces of the press -- more important than the truth.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 01/14/2013 13:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Whatever happened to:

"Pottery house rules, if you break it - you buy it"

Colin Powell before the invasion of Iraq.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 14:01 Comments || Top||

#6  I've got to quit watching/reading news. I'm losing people I once respected by about a dozen a week. I met general Powell once. I hate to add him to my shit list.
Posted by: Lowspark || 01/14/2013 15:02 Comments || Top||

#7  That's right, general. Anytime somebody disagrees with you, no need to bother with logic, just whip out that there race card.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 01/14/2013 15:03 Comments || Top||

#8  I'd say if you "met general powell once" but don't know which list he belongs on, you don't watch / read enough of the correct news outlets...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/14/2013 17:33 Comments || Top||

#9  I stil say that the groundowrk is being laid for Powell to replace either VPOTUS Joe
"Grandpa/Gaffe" Biden or SecState Hillary.

Iff SHTF this year as per the US-World Econ, US Debt, + Foreign Policy/Affairs, the blame will fall on the Bammer + Admin which in turn means America = Amerika may NOT see another African-American POTUS [other Minority?] for a long long L-O-N-G LLLOOONNNGG TIME. THE TIME IS NOW, I.E. BEFORE THE END OF THE BAMMER'S SECOND TERM 2013 -JAN. 2013, FOR A FIRST-TIME-IN-HISTOIRE' POTUS ADMIN WHERE THE TOP POSITIONS OF ADMIN POWER = EXECUTIVE BRANCH ARE HELD BY AFRICAN-AMERICANS OR "PERSONS OF COLOR".

Iff SHTF wid Rising China in NE Asia over the Sino-Nippon disputed Senkakus/Diaoyu Islands, IMO THE BAMMER MUST PREVAIL LIKE JFK + NIXON BACK IN 1962 + 1973 MISSLE CRISES, + FORCE CHINA TO BACK DOWN VEE JAPAN. ANY LESS WOULD BE INTERPRETED AS DE FACTO FAILURE ON THE PART OF HIS ADMIN + MINORITY AMERICANS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 18:48 Comments || Top||

#10  I guess that's what irrelevant old impotent farts do to get attention. Benghazi "could've happened to anyone." yea, and nothing is being done about it.
Posted by: Dale || 01/14/2013 20:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Monday is D-Day -- Delivery Day -- for Richard Windsor's Emails
That's the nom d'email of former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 04:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Windsor Report - probably just a coincidence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 5:49 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Despite US efforts, no Egypt-Israel “hot line.” Cairo hosts Gen. Soleimani
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 04:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336089 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Subsaharan
No easy exit for French fighting terror in Mali
France, breaking its own rules with a surprise military intervention in Mali,
Why are rules made if not to be broken...
appears to be halting the lightning advance of radical Islamists seen as a threat to Europe.
Perhaps Mr. Hollande now will have a little sympathy for Mr. Bush...
But the operation raises the specter
ohhhh, how evil, a specter!
of an African quagmire
QUAGMIRE! Yes, Journolist has been busy lately planting all the correct new buzz words...
in a new theater of the West's war on terror
Are we still calling it that?
just as France and other U.S. allies emerge from the old one in Afghanistan. And it undermines President Francois Hollande's promise to end the cozy, paternalistic ties France has long sustained with its former African colonies.
He didn't promise he'd abandon them to terrorists, did he?
France fears a new sanctuary of terrorism could take root in Mali, and says fast action was the only choice after sudden extremist advances last week.
That's about right, I think, and credit to the French for being alert and being willing to act. It helped that it was in their traditional 'sphere of influence', but that's fine. Again, this might cause the French to understand what we've been going through in Afghanistan and Iraq...
French authorities contend that Mali and its neighbors in West Africa, Europe and especially France are threatened by three radical organizations, including an al-Qaida affiliate, that control northern Mali and are looking to extend their grip to the crucial south and the capital of Bamako to set up a terror state.

French authorities acknowledged Sunday that the militants have turned out to be better-armed and equipped than France had initially thought.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 03:02 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But the operation raises the specter of an Dien Bien Phu African quagmire....
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 6:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Where's my femto-violin?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 15:34 Comments || Top||

#3  the dilemma ... how do the French stop Saudi money from flowing into Mali?
Posted by: Raider || 01/14/2013 18:01 Comments || Top||


French Strikes in Mali Supplant Caution of U.S.
French fighter jets struck deep inside Islamist strongholds in northern Mali on Sunday, shoving aside months of international hesitation about storming the region after every other effort by the United States and its allies to thwart the extremists had failed.

For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara.

But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were needed most — taking troops, guns, trucks and their newfound skills to the enemy in the heat of battle, according to senior Malian military officials.

“It was a disaster,” said one of several senior Malian officers to confirm the defections.

Then an American-trained officer overthrew Mali’s elected government, setting the stage for more than half of the country to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. American spy planes and surveillance drones have tried to make sense of the mess, but American officials and their allies are still scrambling even to get a detailed picture of who they are up against.

Now, in the face of longstanding American warnings that a Western assault on the Islamist stronghold could rally jihadists around the world and prompt terrorist attacks as far away as Europe, the French have entered the war themselves.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 02:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336141 views] Top|| File under:

#1  a Western assault on the Islamist stronghold could rally jihadists around the world and prompt terrorist attacks as far away as Europe

The way it looks, this will probably happen anyway in view of the supremacy mindset of the jihadists.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/14/2013 12:10 Comments || Top||

#2  But all that deliberate planning collapsed swiftly when heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya.

Oh well, chock it up as one of those unforeseen consequences of limited humanitarian missions with brief period’s kinetic activity war. At least the world can breathe easier now that the citizens of Benghazi are safe.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 01/14/2013 20:42 Comments || Top||

#3  The Radical Islamist Jihad was always GLOBAL in scope.

Iff the Hard Boyz succeed in taking over Central Africa, it will leave just formerly British Southern Africa + Ethiopia + Liberia. WAIT UNTIL THE JIHAD BEGINS IN CENTRAL + SOUTH AMERICA!

* WAFF > MALI ISLAMISTS ADVANCE OFFENSIVE DESPITE FRENCH MILITARY ACTION.

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > BARRY LANDO: ANOTHER INTERVENTION IN MALI, ANOTHER FREE-RIDE [succesful profitable business opportunity]FOR CHINA?

China the biggest single benefactor from US-Euro interventions in Africa + African affairs.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:35 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
CAIR’s New Disinformation Campaign on “Jihad”
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 02:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336075 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan forming int'l bloc to spur peace talks
Jordan is in the process of consolidating an international coalition to kick-start the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the country’s King Abdullah said Sunday in an interview with French publication Le Nouvel Observateur.

“We are working closely with several parties in Europe, including France, to put some effective and workable ideas on the table that would enable the US to engage and play a leading role in the peace process soon after the start of the second term of President [Barack] Obama,” Abdullah said in his interview, translated into English by The Jordan Times.

Abdullah expressed hope that Germany, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE would participate in the efforts.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 02:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336076 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
BBC bunker: News studios built in bomb proof room to protect it from suicide attacks
A BBC source told The Sunday Express: 'It's directly underneath so if a suicide bomber came in the front door they would be right over it. We've been assured it's bomb proof.'

The BBC refused to comment on the claim however, saying: 'We never discuss security issues.'

The news room, described as one of the largest in the world, will go live in March, broadcasting the BBC's three main daily bulletins at 1pm, 6pm and 10pm. The bulletins will undergo a makeover but the source said the changes will be subtle.

Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 02:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I thought it was so no one would hear Jimmy Savile's victims.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 01/14/2013 8:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Sooner or later their captive audience will want to offer some constructive criticism.
Posted by: Grunter || 01/14/2013 8:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Bunkers often become tombs, literally and/or figuratively speaking.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/14/2013 22:25 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Medal of Honor recipient sees a whirlwind of attention
Posted by: Omomp Gray8508 || 01/14/2013 02:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, He Said "I thought I had a unlisted number".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 16:40 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Epitome of hate
[Dawn] THE terrorist sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
(LJ), which has been active in Pakistain since the mid-1990s, has become a strategic asset for many including Al Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and the so-called non-violent religious sectarian parties.

Lately divided into many factions and small terrorist cells, the LJ is once again coming under a unified command, which could be a major reason for the escalated sectarian violence during the last few weeks.

The outfit has undoubtedly become the second most lethal terrorist group in Pakistain after the TTP. A comparison of the geographical spread of incidents of sectarian violence from 2009 to 2012 suggests that 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...
, Quetta, Gilgit and Kurram Agency
...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
have become regular hotspots of sectarian violence, the areas where the group is largely operational either alone or in collaboration with the TTP and foreign beturbanned goons.

Although the nexus between the beturbanned goon sectarian Sunni groups and the TTP was already well-established it was for the first time that in 2012 the TTP grabbed credit for several attacks on the Shia community in different parts of Pakistain.

The LJ was believed to be involved in 128 terrorist attacks across the country in 2012, largely in Bloody Karachi and Quetta; these attacks ranged from sectarian assaults to strikes on the security forces. LJ and other such terrorist sectarian groups, which had absorbed Al Qaeda and Taliban ideological tendencies, increasingly returned to their primary sectarian agendas.

Once a breakaway faction of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain
...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts...
(SSP), now known as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has an ever more violent anti-Shia agenda.
Although it claims to be a separate entity, whatever it does furthers the cause of the SSP in one way or the other. The group solely depends on the SSP for human resources and justifies the killing of Shias in Pakistain. A recent statement circulated by a faction of LJ led by Asif Chotu declared Shia Mohammedans the major obstacle in the way of enforcement of Sharia in Pakistain. The SSP denies any direct link with the terrorist group, but the LJ is the major source of its vigour that it exploits for political gains. Though a faction within the SSP is against sectarian violence its voice is diminutive in the larger discourse of the organization.

The LJ had lost central command when the police launched an extensive operation against the group in the late 1990s and later when it was proscribed in August 2000.
These steps caused the emergence of internal differences and divisions among the group. Thus many splinter groups emerged.

After 9/11, LJ Islamic fascisti had joined the angry Kashmiri jihadists and tribal Taliban, who were not happy with the sudden change in the state's policy that abandoned jihad in the region. The major terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2007 in the country were launched by this emerging alliance. The nexus was further strengthened when these small groups joined Al Qaeda and the tribal Taliban. Such alliances ideologically transformed the sectarian groups injecting in them global jihadist tendencies.

This was the time when the LJ was losing its sectarian identity and the group was become a tag name for small terrorist cells. Qari Hussain, the trainer of jacket wallahs who was killed in a drone strike in 2010, had infused new life into the group while recruiting Punjab- and Bloody Karachi-based youths and re-initiating sectarian terrorist attacks.

Tariq Afridi, head of the TTP's Darra Adam Khel chapter, was the second person who revitalised the violent sectarian agenda of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and launched deadly terrorist attacks in Fata and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
. The release of Malik Ishaq, founding member of the group who was facing trial in the killings of more than 100 Shia scholars and community leaders, further emboldened the group.

Although these facts injected new life into the agenda and operations of the group, on the organizational level it remained splintered and disconnected until recently. Its Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
chapter, led by Usman Kurd, which targets the Hazara Shia community in Quetta, had little interaction with groups in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Seven other LJ groups are active in Bloody Karachi and Punjab, including the Attaur Rehman alias Naeem Bukhari, Qasim Rasheed, Muhammad Babar, Ghaffar, Muaviya, Akram Lahori and Malik Ishaq groups. These groups have devised their local agendas as well and indulge in local pie fights.

Asif Chotu, once a close aide of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi founder Riaz Basra, is reorganising the group. He had joined the TTP in 2010 and reunited the scattered members of LJ and on behalf of the TTP launched several operations across the country. He has approached other factions as well and now most of the splinter groups have come under one umbrella because of his efforts.

It is a dangerous development, which can lead to an escalation of sectarian violence across the country. The LJ nexus with Al Qaeda and TTP has not only broadened its ideological horizon but also equipped it with lethal operational tactics. It may not be the LJ of the 1990s, which was mostly involved in assassinations, but its new face is extensively lethal in terms of operational capabilities and connections with terrorist groups.

The TTP will not let the group focus only on sectarian killings but could use it to hit other targets as well such as security forces, foreign interests and politicianship.

On the other hand, the state and politicianship seem ignorant of the fact that a new nexus is causing a new, critical threat to loom. A few mainstream parties appeared to have kept links with sectarian organizations for electoral success. Sectarian groups welcome all political parties because they seek political legitimacy through these alliances.

Law-enforcement agencies appear to have no clear countering strategy mainly because of the frail threat perception and lack of inspiration to take action against homegrown terrorist threats.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336074 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi

#1  LONG overdue for Nuclear cleansing.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:46 Comments || Top||


Africa North
W. African Leaders to Meet in Emergency Mali Summit
[An Nahar] An emergency summit of leaders from west African bloc ECOWAS will meet in Abidjan on January 19, Ivorian Minister for African Integration Ally Coulibaly said Sunday, as the region readies troops to assist Mali in its fight against Islamists.

While the U.N. Security Council has approved the African force, it had not been expected to deploy before September.
It was announced earlier in the day that the summit would take place on Wednesday. No reason was given for the postponement.

"It's an extraordinary summit," Sunny Ugoh, front man for the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, said Sunday. "This one is just dedicated to Mali."

Chiefs of defense staff from the region were also set to meet in the coming days, but Ugoh did not yet have precise details.

The first troops promised by African nations were expected in Mali on Sunday to join local forces who, backed by French air support, have driven back an advance by Islamist fighters.

The U.N. Security Council has approved an African force of 3,300 soldiers to help Mali take back its north.

Islamists seized northern Mali, a territory the size of La Belle France, in the wake of last year's March 22 coup which ousted democratically elected president Amadou Toumani Toure.

The Islamists' advance has intensified fears over whether the country could become a safe haven for al-Qaeda-linked beturbanned goons who could pose a threat to the region as well as Europe and beyond.

Some west African military personnel are already in Mali, including a technical team from the Nigerian air force as well as the commander of the planned African force, Nigerian Major General Shehu Usman Abdulkadir.

Abdulkadir had previously been Nigeria's chief of army standards and evaluation.

Nigeria, which has the largest military among ECOWAS members, is planning to send 600 troops as part of the force, said army front man Brigadier General Bola Koleoso. That figure was the largest commitment made to the force so far.

Koleoso however could not say when the troops would be deployed.

On Sunday Benin pledged roughly 300 troops while Togo said it would send 500. A day earlier, Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now...
, Niger and Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
each pledged 500 soldiers for the force.

Ugoh said the aim was to assist some 5,000 Malian troops in taking back the north of the country. Asked whether there would be continued air support from La Belle France or some type of help from the United States, he said the bloc has always said it would need logistical assistance.

"The terrorism side of it, that should of course concern everybody," Ugoh said, also mentioning criminal gangs operating in the area, posing problems for other countries in the region.

"The end goal is to take back the north and then flush out those elements," he said. "It's not just about Mali. It's also about us -- the region and the international community."

While the U.N. Security Council has approved the African force, it had not been expected to deploy before September. Plans were rapidly being pushed forward after the Islamists sought to advance further south.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336080 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  "Quick Boys, Harrumph it up".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:09 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Security man among four hurt in Bara incidents
[Dawn] Four persons including a security man were maimed in separate incidents in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency during the last twenty four hours.

Sources said that sepoy Amir Khan was injured critically when Islamic fascisti fired at a checkpost in Ajali Nadi area of Shalobar. The inured soldier was shifted to a hospital in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
for treatment.

In Akkakhel area, two children received injuries when a mortar shell fell on the house of Hikmat Khan near Aziz Market while in Mandi Kas area Hazratullah was injured in a similar incident.

In the same locality, two rooms of a private school were badly damaged when a mortar shell hit it. An overhead water tank at the house of Malik Waris Khan, a former minister of state, was also damaged when it was hit by a stray mortar shell.

SCHOOL BLOWN UP: Militants blew up a government school for girls on Friday night in Bara, official sources said.

They said that Islamic fascisti planted huge quantity of explosives in the girls school in Hanji Ayub Kallay in Spin Qabar area at around midnight. The kaboom destroyed the school building and caused damage to two nearby houses, they added.

Meanwhile,
...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck reached for the green sauce...
a Bara-based Islamic fascisti group has warned Zakhakhel tribe to either provide it with volunteers or leave the area. Sources said that Islamic fascisti affiliated with Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) distributed pamphlets and made announcements through loudspeakers in Shalobar area, asking Zakhakhels to send them volunteers or leave the area.

The announcements triggered fear among Zakhakhel rustics and it was learnt that some of them started shifting to safer places. Sources said that LI members in Nawia Kamar, Malikdinkhel and Baz Garha Qamarkhel forcibly stopped supply of edibles and other daily use items to Zakhakhel sub-tribe of Zaoddin. The LI also warned local doctors against treating Zakhakhel patients in the same area.

The Zakhakhel tribe, which sheltered LI chief Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
in Bazaar-Zakhakhel when he was forced to flee Bara in 2005, rebelled against him after LI members killed a holy man of the tribe in March 2011. Since then the two groups are engaged in bloody festivities against each other.

Meanwhile,
...back at the saw mill, Scarface Al had tied Little Nell to the log and was about to turn on the buzz saw...
army and Frontier Corps have been deployed in Akkakhel area of Bara owing to a surge in bully boy activities and security threats.

Sources said that fresh contingents of army and FC were deployed in Dro Adda, Misri Chowk and Sial Khan Khwarh localities. Forces had vacated their security checkposts established in those areas after a local peace committee took up responsibilities of security in the area.

Akkakhel area of Bara shares common border with parts of Peshawar and officials believe that most of the bully boyz acts carried out in Peshawar are coordinated from Akkakhel area.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336097 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Down Under
Wahwambulance for a Hizbie hatemonger
RADICAL Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir were upset with reports this week that their leader, the euphoniously named Sheik Ismail Al-Wahwah,
That's not a Fred addition -- the journalist actually wrote those words. I'm in love.
had called for Australia to be ruled by Moslem law.

Under a Wahwah-style government, reports said, alcohol would be banned, an Islamic dress code enforced and languages other than Arabic outlawed in schools.

This was the Hizbies' cue to call a Wahwambulance. "Ismail al-Wahwah did not mention Australia at all in his lecture, a fact evident to anyone who watches the excerpts of the lecture on the basis of which the claim was made," the group wailed.

"The lecture, the complete recording of which will be up on our website soon, was about the establishment of the Caliphate in the Moslem World. At no point was any vision for Australia presented." Well, let's check exactly what Wahwah said in his lecture, which formed the basis of those reports.

"That is the duty of the caliphate to implement Islam internally and carry the light of Islam to the rest of the world," the Sheik declared. "How? Not with flowers."

Key words: "The rest of the world." The last time we checked, Australia was part of that world. Wahwah's wishes apply as much here as they do anywhere else. Wahwah is pedalling caliphate crap, plain and simple.

(By the way, no flowers and no booze? Dates with this bloke must be a delight.)

Another local caliphate fan also emerged recently, courtesy of international monitoring organization The Middle East Media Research Institute. Former Catholic Musa Cerantonio spoke at Islamic venues in Sydney and Melbourne late last year.

"Re-establishing the Islamic state is eventually going to be a military matter, and it is a matter that concerns a large part of the Islamic nation," Musa, raised in Victoria, said.

"The Taliban, may Allah grant them victory, they are the heroes of the Islamic nation these days. These are men." Lucky for them. If they were women, they'd be pelted with rocks and have acid thrown in their faces.

"They are the men of this Islamic nation today, the Taliban, may Allah grant them victory. You don't find anyone like them on the face of this earth."
Posted by: ryuge || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dumb Asses, Dumb Ideas.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Lead from the rear, as far to the rear as possile.

But NEVER lose sight of the Profit You can Invoke.
(NOT misspelled)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:44 Comments || Top||

#3  That's Tim Blair's work- I'd know that blood spatter pattern anywhere.
Posted by: Grunter || 01/14/2013 8:37 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Qadri's long march departs from Lahore
[Dawn] Tehrik-e-Minhajul Koran (TMQ) chief Tahirul Qadri on Sunday led thousands of supporters at the start of his long march on the capital Islamabad, demanding key reforms before the upcoming elections.
Oboy! Another man with all the answers!
Hundreds of cars, buses and trucks carrying around 7,000 people left Model Town in the city of Lahore, expected to grow in number as they pass through towns and villages en route to Islamabad, accompanied by a heavy security presence.
I was just talking to the ghost of Huey Long. He wishes he'd thought of that.
The march or the heavy security?
Qadri accuses the government of being corrupt and incompetent,
You can tell that at a glance.
and argues that Pakistain must enact "meaningful" reforms before general elections, which are scheduled to be held within eight weeks after parliament disbands in mid-March.
There's always a reason to put off elections, isn't there?
Speaking prior to kicking off what he termed his "march for democracy",
I'm not too sure how putting off elections serves democracy. Pakistain's government is corrupt and incompetent. It would seem to make more sense to vote against the corrupt and incompetent. If the people running against the corrupt and incompetent are the same way, turn out the current bastards and replace them with a set of different bastards.
Qadri accused the Punjab provincial government of impounding buses and detaining drivers in their efforts to hamper the protest.
Punjab being the domain of the corrupt and incompetent Sharif brothers.
Qadri, however, vowed to lead the march to the federal, and urged supporters to join him despite all hindrances.
"How can you go wrong following a man on horseback?"
"This is a march for protection of human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
, elimination of poverty, supremacy of constitution, rule of law and end of corruption," he said, urging transporters who were not being issued permits and licenses to participate without the provincial government's approval.
Good idea. It supports democracy to ignore laws and regulations and city ordinances and such.
Qadri's march comes amid widespread demonstrations in major Pak cities in solidarity with the victims of a series of gruesome bombings in Quetta on Thursday. The relatives of the victims, mostly from the minority Hazara Shia community, have refused to bury the dead as long as the Army takes control of the city, which is the lovely provincial capital. of Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336088 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  He gonna make salt?
Posted by: Dopey Sinatra9196 || 01/14/2013 17:10 Comments || Top||


Pakistan, Indian Military to Hold Border Talks
[An Nahar] Pak and Indian military officials are due to meet on Monday at the border of divided Kashmire after soldiers from both sides were killed in cross-border attacks, officials said Sunday.

Pakistain has said two of its soldiers were killed in cross-border firing, one last Sunday and one on Thursday.

On Tuesday, India said two of its soldiers were killed by Pak troops and that one of them was beheaded in the disputed Himalayan region, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistain but ruled in part by each.

"A brigade level flag meeting is likely to be held at LoC (Line of Control) tomorrow between Pakistain and Indian military authorities," a senior military official told Agence La Belle France Presse without giving details.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  OTOH see DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Hindustan Times]LOC AGGRESSION: WE RESERVE RIGHT TO HIT BACK, SAYS INDIAN ARMY.

Indian Army Chief Bikram Singh, whom also says that Indian Army = India should strike back in a wholly "professional manner".

Meanwhile, not to be outdone by the Indian Army ...

* SAME > [Express Tribune] INDIAN AIR CHIEF [NAK Browne] THREATENS PAKISTAN OVER LOC UNREST.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 0:15 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Armed Vigilante Groups Policing Two Mexican Towns
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] Several hundred civilians have taken up arms in two towns in a southwestern Mexico state and are arresting people suspected of crimes and imposing a curfew, leading authorities to promise to reinforce security forces in the area.

People wearing ski masks or bandanas and carrying small arms this week began manning checkpoints on roads into the municipalities of Ayutla de los Libres and Teconoapa in Guerrero state's Costa Chica area about 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of the Pacific resort of Acapulco. Leaders said they were acting against crime and insecurity.

Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero responded Friday by announcing that security in the region would be bolstered by sending in Mexican soldiers and marines and federal and state coppers.

People in the area said about 800 residents were participating in the gangs acting as unofficial police. The vigilantes ordered a 10 p.m. curfew for the two towns and are looking for suspected criminals. Schools have suspended classes.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336106 views] Top|| File under: Narcos

#1  About Damn Time, Maybe there;ll be a revolution.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Principles of policing
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 8:12 Comments || Top||

#3  ..you mean the ruling class program of dumping millions of mestizos and indios on El Norte hasn't forestalled the revolution? /rhet question
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/14/2013 8:12 Comments || Top||

#4  I see Messico as our 51 st State, Eventually.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 9:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Might have been difficult to "take up arms" had they not.... had any.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 10:51 Comments || Top||

#6  Is this the "Chihuahua Awakening" we have heard about
Posted by: bman || 01/14/2013 11:13 Comments || Top||

#7  Procopius 2k: I've heard several local Americans of Mexican decent make the same comment here in Tucson.
Posted by: borgboy || 01/14/2013 13:51 Comments || Top||

#8  Will the Mexicans ship firearms north if necessary?
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/14/2013 18:28 Comments || Top||

#9  Guerrero state has been ground zero for armed leftist insurgencies going back two generations. The indigenous Indians on the coasts and in the mountains have a few guns laying about...
Posted by: badanov || 01/14/2013 20:16 Comments || Top||

#10  Unless I'm misreading this, the story is people taking up arms and providing security in the absence of federal/local government. Good for them! Judge Roy Bean - Law west of the Pecos.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/14/2013 20:41 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Somali pirates release Syrian hostages after two years
Somali pirates have released three Syrian hostages held in captivity since 2010 sans ransom.
It took them 3 years to figure out that pencil-neck has other problems?
They don't get out much.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336093 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
6 arrested in new gang rape of a bus passenger in India
[USATODAY] Police said Sunday they have nabbed
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.

Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.

There, the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night, Singh said.

The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.

Singh said police arrested six suspects on Saturday and were searching for another.

Gurmej Singh, deputy superintendent of police, said all six admitted involvement in the rape. He said the victim was recovering at home.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bus Driver, should be a easy conviction.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, the b*tch was asking for it. I mean travelling on the bus alone at night.
/sarcasm, if it wasn't obvious
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 01/14/2013 15:14 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Obama: US forces assisted failed French raid in Somalia
President Barack Obama today disclosed that the U.S. military played a role in a failed attempt by French commandos to free a hostage in Somalia on Friday.

In a letter to Congress the president says service members “provided limited technical support” in the raid, but he denies the forces took any direct action in the assault on the compound. The NATO member state was attempting to free a French intelligence agent that had been captured by al-Shabab three years ago.

The hostage and at least one French soldier died in the ensuing gunbattle, which also killed a reported 17 terrorists militants, according to the French government. A town elder said the commandos had also shot Somalis who had turned on flashlights during the nighttime raid trying to see what the commotion was.

Al-Shabab says the French agent is still in their custody along with a soldier from the raid, but did not offer proof.

Obama's letter also says that U.S. aircraft “briefly entered Somali airspace to support the rescue operation, if needed,” but did not deploy weapons. The letter does not mention whether the aircraft were manned planes or drone vehicles.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  President Barack Obama today disclosed that the U.S. military played a role in a failed attempt by French commandos to free a hostage in Somalia on Friday.

Must have been Black.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Zero linked to failure. Who would've thunk it?
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 7:50 Comments || Top||

#3  My prayers are with the poor bastid they captured :-(
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 7:56 Comments || Top||

#4  provided limited technical support" in the raid, but he denies the forces took any direct action

There, weaseled out nicely.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 9:42 Comments || Top||

#5  How globalist of us to let the French take the lead, yet the US still kept its' hand in the game.
Posted by: Bobby || 01/14/2013 13:26 Comments || Top||

#6  Leading from Behind™ some 5000 yards off through heavy lenses....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 01/14/2013 13:28 Comments || Top||

#7  "My prayers are with the poor bastid they captured :-( "

Very true. Supposedly two French commando's now dead at the hands of Al-Shebaab, after being injured and captured. A bad way to go.
Posted by: Raider || 01/14/2013 13:45 Comments || Top||

#8  Will the Bammer next say that US Milfors assisted JAPAN + PHILIPPINES, ETC. in their failed? war agz CHINA in the East, South China Seas???

Mainland Asia???

Iran???

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS >[GlobalNation.Inquirer,net]
NEW CHINA OFFICIAL MAP INCLUDES [130+] CONTESTED ISLANDS, + Islets, etc. includ those NOT mentioned before by the MSM-Net.

RELATED WORLD NEWS > [Zee News] CHINA PUBLISHES NEW MAP CLAIMING [de facto]SOVEREIGNTY OVER DISPUTED AREAS.

* SAME > [Same] AQUINO SEES STRONGER JAPAN AS "COUNTERWEIGHT" TO AGGRESSIVE ["threatening"] CHINA, in the West PHIL Sea aka South China Sea.

* WORLD NEWS > [China Daily] A VERY RASH MOVE BY THE US, as per continuing illegal arms sales by the US to Taiwan + support by the US for Japan's claims on Chinese island territories in the East China Sea.

* Also from WORLD NEWS > [Japan Defense] MINISTRY MAY BASE [JASDF] F-15'S NEAR MIYAKOJIMA TO COUNTER CHINESE [air]INTRUSION.

RELATED SAME > CHINA: JAPAN AIRCRAFT DISRUPT ROUTINE [Chinese] PATROLS, over their own sovereign territory i.e. the Japan-claimed Diaoyus = Senkakus.

* SAME > OPED NEWS: WORLD WAR IN ASIA? Vietnamese = SE Asian aspects of the US-China rivalry.

* SAME > [Stars-N-Stripes] INCREASE IN MARINES NUMBERS AS MILITARY SHIFTS FOCUS TO PACIFIC, as due to changes in post-Cold War overall US strategies from WarFighting = War Readiness to proactive "Engagement".

* CHINA DAILY FORUM > JAPAN TO SEND TWO MASSIVE PATROL SHIPS TO EAST CHINA SEA.

RELATED SAME > JAPAN TO DEPLOY MORE SHIPS, FIGHTERS NEAR DIAOYU ISLANDS; + WORLD NEWS > [Japan Times}JAPAN COAST GUARD TO FORM DEDICATED GROUP FOR SENKAKU ISLANDS.

* BIG NEWSNETWORK > JAPAN STATEMENT QUESTIONING RUSSIA'S SOVEREIGNTY OVER KURILES IS UNACCEPTABLE.

Russian FM SpoxBabe Maria Zakharova.

* CHINESE DEFENSE MASHUP > CHINESE NEWSPAPER ADVISES PLA TO BUILD OVERSEAS MILITARY BASES as required for China's antcipated future "Blue Water' Navy role, + to protect China's energy line into the Indian Ocean vee the Strait of Malaccas.



Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/15/2013 0:08 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
SBP officer shot dead in Gulistan-i-Jauhar
[Dawn] An officer of the State Bank of Pakistain was bumped off in Gulistan-e-Jauhar on Saturday, police said.

They added that 42-year-old Faheem Burhan was driving home when gunnies riding a cycle of violence intercepted him near Jauhar Morr.

The two sides had an altercation before one of the two riders fired at him, police said quoting some witnesses.

"The attacker fired multiple shots and fled," said Sharea Faisal SHO Inspector Raheem Khan.

"The victim was hit by two bullets in the face and chest. The body was later handed over to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medico-legal formalities.""We have found four spent bullet casings of 9mm pistol at the crime-scene," said a police investigator.

The victim was a resident of Gulistan-e-Jauhar block 19 and grade-II officer posted at the SBP foreign exchange refinance department.

"It was not a mugging attempt at all. The victim's family said a few days ago, two men riding a motorbike had attacked him in an attempt to snatch his cellphone, laptop and other valuables. He had scuffled with the bandidos and we think that could be one of the reasons of today's incident," said Inspector Khan.

Trader killed

In North 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...
, a young shopkeeper was rubbed out at his workplace, police said.

They added that the 31-year-old shopkeeper, Asif Qadri, was associated with the Dawat-e-Islami, a non-political group.

Two men riding a motorbike pulled up outside Mehak Gift Centre in Sector 11-A, the police said. One of them entered the shop and fired multiple shots at the shop owner, said area deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Mohammad Akhtar.

"The victim was a resident of North Bloody Karachi Sector 5-C," he added.

The police said that investigation was under to ascertain the motive for the murder.

Body found

A perforated carcass was found in the Ranchhore Line area in the evening, police said.

They added the victim, in his late 20s, was found rubbed out near Noorani Hospital.

He sustained gunshot wounds in the head, chest and face.

"The body was moved to the Edhi morgue for want of identification after medico-legal formalities at the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi," said an official at the Eidgah cop shoppe.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336085 views] Top|| File under:


IED blast kills child, leaves one injured in Quetta
[Dawn] A blast killed a child and injured another person in Brewery road area of Quetta on Saturday night, police said.

Wazir Khan Nasar, the Deputy Inspector General Police told Dawn.Com that the snuffies planted an improvised bomb near an internet cafe in Brewery road area.

"The blast killed a passerby child and injured another person," he said. Nasar said the blast caused damage to the internet cafe and other nearby shops.

Brewery road is almost five km west of Alamdar road, where thousands of Shia Hazaras are currently staging a sit-in to protest deaths of their community members.

The incident has happened a day after a series of blasts that killed 97 people in Quetta.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336087 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi

#1  Lets see, thats the fourth time thst "Child" has been "Killed".
(Again)

They'll refrigerate the body for the next time he's "Killed".(They think we're stupid enough to fall for that)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:22 Comments || Top||


Africa North
French Jets Pound Mali as Top Islamist Reported killed
[An Nahar] French jets pounded the Islamist strongholds of Gao and Kidal in northern Mali on Sunday, forcing hard boyz to flee on the third day of a game-changing intervention that has been met with relief by the population and spurred the region into action.

"Stopping the bully boyz -- it's done," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. "Today we started taking care of the terrorists' rear bases."

Rafale fighter planes struck bases used by al-Qaeda-linked fighters in Gao, the main city in northern Mali and the base from which ethnic-Tuareg rebels a year ago launched the offensive that touched off Mali's descent into chaos.

La Belle France also targeted a large base in the northern region of Kidal, a security source said, targeting an area where rebels had stocked munitions and fuel. In addition to the Rafales, former colonial ruler La Belle France has used Gazelle helicopters and Mirage jets since it launched the operation on Friday to counter the rebel push south.

Algeria on Sunday granted La Belle France permission to use its airspace to reach targets in Mali.

Residents in Gao, which had been under the control of a group called Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, said the French Arclight airstrikes had completely leveled the Islamists' position and forced them out of the town.

"We can see smoke billowing from the base. There isn't a single Islamist left in town. They have all fled," a teacher said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
French President Francois Hollande
...the Socialist president of La Belle France, and a fine job he's doing of it...
, who has been struggling on the domestic front and whose ratings have hit record lows, said the intervention had stopped the southward rebel advance seen as threatening the capital Bamako, but stressed La Belle France's mission was not over.

Some residents of Gao rejoiced at the French strikes but said they needed friendly troops to fill the void as soon as possible.

"What we need now is for the (Malian) army to come here so that the Islamists can't come back," a young student said. Gao is 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) northeast of Bamako.

Residents of Timbuktu, which has seen some of the worst Islamist abuses over the past 10 months, said they were also eager for French jets to appear in the sky.

"The population is cut off from the south. We can't travel, it's become too dangerous," said Elhaj Cisse, a literature teacher in the ancient northern city.

"We are waiting for this French intervention. We have been living in a very totalitarian regime for nine to 10 months," he said. In liberated Gao and Konna, "people are relieved. They have been in this situation for 10 months. We needed this spark.... Everyone is saying it, even in the mosques," another resident said.

Aides to Hollande described the Death Eaters as better trained and armed than they'd expected.
Additional French commentary from a BBC report: "From Libya they have got hold of a lot of up-to-date, sophisticated equipment which is much more robust and effective than we could have imagined." The training is likely thanks to Iran, in addition to the theocracy's supplies of 'unmarked' Kalashnikov rifle ammunition.
"What has struck us markedly is how modern their equipment is and their ability to use it," one said in a reference to the rebels' hit on a French helicopter, which resulted in the death of its pilot, La Belle France's only confirmed fatality.

Senior officers from neighboring countries were expected in Bamako on Sunday to prepare for the arrival of the first troops of a multinational West African force. The force has been authorized by the U.N. Security Council to help the Malian government reclaim control of the north of the country. It will be commanded by General Shehu Abdulkadir of Nigeria, which will provide around 600 men.

Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and expects to be carried out feet-first...
, Niger, Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
and Togo all pledged around 500 troops this weekend, while Benin has said it will send 300 soldiers. It remained unclear when any of these forces would arrive and how quickly they could be deployed to the frontline.

Media reports have said La Belle France is deploying about 500 troops in Mali.

Regional bloc ECOWAS is due to hold an emergency summit to discuss the Mali crisis on January 19 in Abidjan.

A Malian security source said leading Islamist Abdel Krim had been killed in Konna. Krim, nicknamed "Kojak", was said to be a key lieutenant of Iyad Ag Ghaly, the leader of Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups which have controlled northern Mali since last April.

Colonel Paul Geze, the French mission's commander, said the French contingent would be at full strength by Monday and primarily deployed around Bamako to protect the 6,000-strong expatriate community.

Since taking advantage of a power vacuum created by a military coup in Bamako to seize control of huge swathes of Mali in April 2012, the Islamists have imposed an extreme form of Mohammedan law in areas they control. They have destroyed centuries-old mausoleums they see as heretical, and perceived offenders against their moral code have been subjected to floggings, amputations and sometimes executions.

In addition to the French helicopter pilot, the last few days of fighting have claimed the lives of 11 Malian soldiers, according to an update released Saturday evening.

A Malian officer in the central town of Mopti, near the front line, said dozens, possibly as many as a hundred Islamists had been killed in Konna.

Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
, citing reports from residents, said at least 10 civilians had died as a result of the fighting in Konna, including three children who drowned while trying to flee across the Niger river.

La Belle France's intervention has been backed by the main opposition at home, by Britannia, which has offered logistical support in the form of transport planes, and by the U.S., which is considering offering surveillance drones for the operation. Its closest partner Germany has also defended La Belle France's action but has ruled out sending any troops and warned that Mali's problems can only be solved by political mediation.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336101 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  How do you say "unilateral" in French?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:31 Comments || Top||

#2  An update:

Apppears that a number of Malian troops trained by the US, via AFRICOM, defected to the rebels about the same time the coup in Mali occurred.

Awkward.....
Posted by: Pappy || 01/14/2013 13:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Awkward...Dangerous too.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/14/2013 18:27 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Hundreds of Thousands Rally for South Yemen Self-Rule
[An Nahar] Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis supporting self-rule for the formerly independent south rallied in its former capital Aden on Sunday, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.

Waving People's Democratic Republic of Yemen flags and photographs of former vice president Ali Salem al-Baid, demonstrators gathered in Aden's Khor Maksar square.

"Our revolution is a revolution of every southerner who says no to the union," chanted the crowd, as speakers called an autonomous south.

The speakers, however, did not address the issue of national dialogue, a subject that has divided factions of the Southern Movement, some of which advocate greater autonomy for the south, and others of which champion an outright breakaway.

The position of southerners is a major obstacle to the launch of a national dialogue promised under a transfer of power agreement which saw veteran president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
step down in February 2012 after 11 months of bloodshed.

The dialogue is intended to result in a new constitution in readiness for presidential and parliamentary elections in February 2014 that would end the two-year transition.

Several leaders of the Southern Movement have said they are ready to join the dialogue, but the hardline separatist faction of Baid has refused to take part.

The PDRY was an independent state before the unification of Yemen in 1990.

In 1994, a short-lived secession bid was crushed by Sanaa troops and since then the citizens of the south have complained of discrimination.

President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, himself a southerner, has set up two committees to address the grievances of southerners, in a bid to get them to join the delayed national dialogue.

One committee will be tasked with resolving disputes over land that southerners claim the previous regime seized from them, while the other will handle cases of civil servants and security officials fired from their jobs.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


-Short Attention Span Theater-
4 Women Strip, Protest Vatican Gay Marriage Stance
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] Four women have gone topless in St. Peter's Square to protest the Vatican's opposition to gay marriage.

Police quickly took the women away Sunday, and the pope appeared not to have been disturbed as he delivered his traditional prayer from his studio window overlooking the piazza.

On their bare backs, the women had painted slogans "In Gay We Trust," and "Shut Up." One of them, Inna Shevchenko, said: "Today we are here to protest against homophobia."

The small demonstration coincided with a march in Gay Paree that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to protest the French president's plan to legalize gay marriage and let gay couples adopt children.

French Catholic bishops and other religious leaders have strongly opposed the proposal, and the Vatican has backed them.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336109 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Pope HAS to be the Biggest Hypocrite in History.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  >"Shut Up."

Shows their tolerance of differing opinion.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 4:56 Comments || Top||

#3  One of them, Inna Shevchenko....,

...who took personal leave and marched traveled at her own expense as secretary of the sisterhood of Gaye Russian Brides Local 1268.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 5:29 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm not catholic but the older I get the more I appreciate them. The pope is trying to hold a line while a lot of other denominations are backing down, or "liberalizing". My hat's off to him.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 01/14/2013 11:34 Comments || Top||

#5  I gave up on Christians when I heard the "Leaders" Convened and MADE the dates for Easter, Christmas and all other Holy Days, according to a Convention, NOT according to the real dates.

In plain words, "Invented Them".

It's NOT the "Correct" Dates, then it's not real
Just "Invented" an I want none of it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:54 Comments || Top||

#6  Redneck Jim: You might have a reason to complain about the absence of a firm date for Christmas in the Gospels.

The date of the Last Supper, however, is set _in the Gospels_ as happening during Passover, thus setting the date of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday permanently in relation to Passover; Easter will always be the third day after Passover. No council, Catholic or Protestant, decided that. It's in the book.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 01/14/2013 17:43 Comments || Top||

#7  I am stunned that an undiscovered anthropoid explained that so well.

It's just like that RJ, Christmas is uncertan (I think it was on July 4th) but Easter is kinda set in stone from way, way, way the hell back and it has to do with Juices and their angry, angry gawd.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/14/2013 18:37 Comments || Top||

#8  Dec. 25th (or Jan 6th in the old Julian calendar) was derived via a belief that Jesus was conceived on the same day of the year as the day on which he would later be crucified.

Such a belief is consonant with a Talmudic tradition that asserts the same thing about the Patriarchs of the Old Testament. It places Jesus as the culmination of the Patriarchs, again consonant with the earliest Church traditions.

At least some of the local churches, particularly those in north Africa near to Israel, appear to have held that to be the day of Jesus' birth from very early times. It wasn't made up arbitrarily, but was seen as exhibiting a deep symbolic and spiritual truth, not only about Jesus as fulfillment of OT promises but also in the context of the Church's annual calendar - the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentacost etc. following one another in progression and offering a sequence of focus for reflection, celebration and self-examination.
Posted by: lotp || 01/14/2013 19:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Dec. 25th

Personally, I care more about the reason for the season, than the calendar date. My Christmas cactus blooms the 1st week in January (I think it's Russian Orthodox)

Posted by: SteveS || 01/14/2013 23:27 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hizbullah: Elections Won't Affect Resistance-Army-People Equation
[An Nahar] Hizbullah on Sunday stressed that the upcoming parliamentary elections will not affect the so-called "resistance-army-people equation" regardless of who wins the vote.
"No stoopid election is gonna change the way we do things!"
"The electoral juncture is a chance for rapprochement and agreement on a new electoral law, as the 1960 law now belongs to the past," deputy head of Hizbullah's Executive Council, Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, said.
"It was just a piece of paper. Forget about it."
He noted that all parties are now "discussing a new electoral law that ensures real equal power-sharing between Christians and Mohammedans and true partnership."
"It's great camouflage. We still have more guns than the entire Leb and Armenian armies put together, so there ain't nobody gonna tell us what to do!"
Not to mention something like 80 quadrillion rockets and missiles, all aimed at Israel. It's the generosity of dawa and deen to those Hell-bound sons of pigs and monkeys.
A parliamentary subcommittee is debating several electoral systems and the law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering has reportedly received the approval of six major parliamentary blocs, including Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance.

But Qaouq emphasized that "whatever the new electoral law might be, whatever the results, this will not affect the resistance-army-people equation."

"If the enemies are betting on an electoral law aimed at weakening the resistance, they are being delusional, because the equation of the resistance is more deep-rooted than mountains," Qaouq added.

The ministerial Policy Statement of Prime Minister Najib Miqati's government mentions the "resistance-army-people" formula, but it is not stipulated by the constitution.
Actually, it's something invented by the Hezbullies to justify keeping lots of guns and explosives.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336086 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah

#1  Your elections or our (Israel) elections?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Basically they are outside of the law
Posted by: Anguque Ebbomorong2684 || 01/14/2013 11:05 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Indian air chief makes veiled threat
[Dawn] The Indian air force chief accused Islamabad of ceasefire violations on Saturday, warning that New Delhi might have to look at "some other options for compliance" if such incidents continued.

"We have a Line of Control (LoC), we have a ceasefire agreement, we have certain structures and mechanisms which are sacrosanct and any violation of these with impunity, especially what has been happening in the last few months, is totally unacceptable," Air Chief Marshall N.A.K. Browne said while talking to news hounds on the sidelines of a function.

"We are monitoring the situation carefully because if these things continue to be the way they are and these violations continue to take place, then perhaps we may have to look at some other options for compliance," he said.

The IAF chief, who is India's most senior armed forces officer, was asked about suggestions he had given to the politicianship on the situation on the LoC.

Refusing to explain the options being looked at by the government, he said: "Options are options. We do not discuss these options openly. If the violations continue, we may have to look at the whole issue all over again."

On Friday, Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony had said that enough troops had been deployed along the LoC and the government was taking all steps to protect the nation's interests and prestige of the armed forces.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336079 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Airpower played a key role in the Indo-Pak wars back in the 1960s, + as per VARIOUS MIL FORUMS is expected to be decisive as per CHINA-VS-JAPAN in NE Asia oer the Senkakus/Daoyus; or in any new Bilateral or Trlateral War involving CINA-INDIA-PAKISTAN on the mainland.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 0:21 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Nigerian army deploys 2nd batch of 800 soldiers to Darfur
[SUNDAYTRUST.NG] Barely nine days after 800 men and officers of the Nigerian Army were deployed on a peace keeping mission to Darfur region of Sudan, another batch of 800 all ranks have been deployed to the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
/United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Hybrid Operations in Darfur.

The troops are to replace a battalion which has completed its mission and is ready to return to Nigeria from the mission area.

Addressing the 333 battalion troops commanded by Lt. Colonel T. E. Gagariga at the graduation of of their pre-deployment training from Nigerian Army Peace Keeping Centre (NAPKC), Jaji near Kaduna on Friday, the General Officer Commanding Officer (GOC), 3 Armoured Division, Major General Jack Nwogbo told them to to discharge their mandate, as expected of them. The GOC warned themto avoid drug trafficking and abide by the United Nations' zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation.

According to the GOC, represented by 3 Division's Chief of Staff, Brigadier General James Akomolafe, the four weeks quality training given to the troops at NAPKC was to refresh, polish and add some knowledge and expertise to their various fields. Reminding them of the ugly incidents of the past in Darfur, the GOC stated, "The Nigerian Army will not accept any situation where its troops are disarmed.

"I must state categorically that you must fight to discharge your mandate when the need arises to do so, especially when there is no alternative if you are to protect yourself, your colleagues, or persons and property in your care."
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336123 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan

#1  Sending "800 all ranks"? Just send colonels.
Posted by: bman || 01/14/2013 11:10 Comments || Top||

#2  What happened to the first 800, dead, I wouldn't sendmore.

Likely to shortly be Dead also.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 13:06 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
U.S. Rules Out Trillion-Dollar Coin in Debt Row
[An Nahar] The B.O. regime on Saturday ruled out calls for minting a $1 trillion platinum coin to avert a crisis over the U.S. debt ceiling amid partisan bickering.
That was whatcha might call a magnificently stoopid idea, wasn't it?
The U.S. Treasury officially killed the idea, leaving Congress with the responsibility to increase the government's borrowing limit.

"Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit," Treasury front man Anthony Coley said in a statement.

The notion had already been put forward during the 2011 debt ceiling debacle, and was revived this year amid fears Congress will not clinch a deal and thus risk causing the United States to default on its bills and financial obligations.

The United States hit its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on December 31.

The Treasury said it would adjust its handling of civil service pensions to keep operating under the borrowing limit without slashing federal spending, suggesting it could do this at least until the end of February.

But President Barack Obama's
Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back...
Republican foes are seeking spending cuts in exchange for a deal.

Obama has warned Republicans against playing a "dangerous game" with the debt ceiling, arguing that raising the borrowing limit to pay the country's outstanding bills should not be a political football.

White House front man Jay Carney put the Republicans on notice.

"There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills or it can fail to act and put the nation into default," Carney said.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I vote for default.
Posted by: gorb || 01/14/2013 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Yokay, I'll bite, did I just read that DepTreas Spox Coley said "the Coin" is to be used only for purposes of increasing the US Debt [indexation?], NOT to lower the US Debt OR to AVOID RAISING THE US DEBT LIMIT???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 0:30 Comments || Top||

#3  A stupid idea deep sixed, and good riddance, we really need to copy Zimbabwe.

I thought the Senators had better ideas, No? vote them out and get smarter ones.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:40 Comments || Top||

#4  How about "ruling out" a Trillion-Dollar POTUS ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 6:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Just send everyone their own personal invoice with their owed interest on it. Parents to pay for their own children.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 8:10 Comments || Top||

#6  They are working on a ten trillion coin as we speak.
Posted by: Grunter || 01/14/2013 8:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Any brilliant economic idea Krugman backs ought to be summarily rejected immediately.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 01/14/2013 9:01 Comments || Top||

#8  Thank God
Posted by: Jan || 01/14/2013 17:52 Comments || Top||

#9  Damn, I just knew it was going to be a mint error and worth 1.4 trillion.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/14/2013 18:41 Comments || Top||

#10  As others have pointed out already, why not just make it $googolplex and solve all of our money problems forever?

/reductio ad absurdum

Krugman must have been doing some serious recreational substances since he won that Nobel...
Posted by: PBMcL || 01/14/2013 19:07 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Badanov's Buzzkill Bulletin

For a map click here

by Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Since December 11th, 2012, Mexican Army units throughout Mexican have seized 11,488.275 kilograms of marijuana, 99 kilograms of marijuana seeds,147.2 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, 9.1 kilograms of cocaine and 2.125 kilograms of heroin, according to official Mexican government sources.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 5th Military Zone seized more than two metric tons of marijuana in Chihuahua state December 11th.  An army checkpoint near Samalayuca stopped a tractor trailer rig from Guadalajara, Jalisco, bound for Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.  Hidden among foam bricks soldiers found 3,948 packages of marijuana totalling 2,815 kilograms.  The driver was detained at the scene.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 42nd Military Zone seized more than one metric ton of marijuana in Chihuahua state December 11th.  The unit was on patrol in Ciudad Guerrero municipality when it rolled up on three abandoned vehicles.  Inside soldiers seized 2,315 packages of marijuana totalling 1,060 kilograms of marijuana. Additionally a press used to process the marijuana and a trailer were seized.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 45th Military Zone seized a quantity of marijuana in Sonora state December 9th.  The unit was on patrol in Trincheras municipality when it rolled up on an abandoned aircraft which contained a total of 425 kilograms of marijuana in 42 packages.  In addition soldiers located three drums with 150 liters of aviation fuel at the location, and three bags of marijuana seeds totalling 44 kilograms.

  • An army unit with the 24th Military Zone rescued an unidentified kidnapping victim in Morelos state December 15th.  Acting on an anonymous complaint, the unit located the victim in Xochitepec Villas colony in Xochitepec municipality. Two unidentified individuals were also detained at the scene.  Additionally, soldiers seized two handguns, two weapons magazines, 20 rounds of ammunition, personal quantities of marijuana, 0.700 kilograms of marijuana and a vehicle.

  • A joint operation involving a Mexican Army unit with the 45th Military Zone and Policia Federal seized quantities of crystal methamphetamine and cocaine in Sonora state December 19th.  The security forces were at a military checkpoint in San Luis Rio Colorado municipality.  Security agents found 146.3 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 2.7 kilograms of cocaine in 129 packages in a false bottom of a fuel tanker truck.  The driver was detained at the scene.

  • A military unit with the Mexican 2nd Military Zone seized drugs in Baja California state December 18th.  The packages of heroin were found strapped to the legs of two unidentified suspects near the baggage claim area of the Abelardo L. Rodriguez International Airport in Tijuana.  A total of 2.125 kilograms of heroin were located.  The two suspects were detained at the scene.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 2nd Military Zone located marijuana in San Felipe municipality December 19th in Baja California state.  The unit rolled up on an abandoned aircraft containing 350 kilograms of marijuana.  Another vehicle was also seized at the scene.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone seized almost one metric ton of marijuana in Tamaulipas state December 18th.  The military unit was on patrol when soldiers found 933.075 kilograms of marijuana in 119 packages hidden in the brush in Camargo municipality.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone seized a quantity of marijuana in Tamaulipas state December 19th.  The unit located 17.1 kilograms of marijuana in eight packages hiddden in the brush in Matamoros municipality near the Rio Bravo.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 8th Military Zone seized a quantity of marijuana in Miguelo Aleman municipality in Tamaulipas state December 19th.  The unit located 124.8 kilograms of marijuana in nine packages hidden in the brush near the village of Los Angeles.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 8th Military Zone seized a quantity of marijuana in Tamaulipas state in two separate operations December 21st and 22nd.  The finds were made in Nuevo Laredo municipality on the banks of the Rio Bravo, where soldiers seized 314 packages of marijuana totalling 1,287.6 kilograms.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 34th Military Zone seized a quantity of cocaine in Quintana Roo state December 23rd.  The seizure took place at the Cancun International airport in Cancun, where soldiers secured 7.1 kilograms of cocaine in ten packages.  Two unidentified male suspects were detained at the scene.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 9th Military Zone raided a location in Sinaloa state seizing quantities of drugs and munitions December 26th.  The raid took place in Culican municipality in the Los Angeles colony.  Drugs secured included 0.900 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and a small quantity of marijuana.  Weapons and munitions secured included four rifles, three handguns, a grenade launcher attachment, a grenade, 22 weapons magazines and 511 rounds of ammunition.  A truck and a radio were secured by military personnel as well.

  • A Mexican Army unit with the 44th Military Zone seized more than one metric ton of marijuana in Oaxaca state December 27th.  The military unit was on patrol near the village of San Marcos La Chinilla in Miahuatlan de Porfirio Diaz municipality when it came upon the drugs in an abandoned location. Total seized included 1,300 kilograms of marijuana in 90 packages.  Two rifles were also found at the location.

  • An army unit with the Mexican 9th Military Zone secured weapons and munitions in a raid in Sinaloa state December 28th.  The raid took place at a residence in Culican municipality on Bulevar Rotarismo in the city.  Weapons and munitions secured included nine rifles, five handguns, one grenade launcher attachment, 93 weapons magazines, 13,788 rounds of ammunition.  Vehicles seized included four vehicles and one motorcycle.

  • A military unit with the 44th Military Zone secured more than three metric tons of marijuana in raids over three days in Oaxaca state between December 25th and December 28th.  The raids took place near the villages of Romadito and San Vicente Coatlan where soldiers seized a total of 3,175 kilograms of marijuana in various packages.  A total of 45 kilograms of marijuana was also secured.


Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Posted by: badanov || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336104 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Some seriously large quantities of reefer there. I wonder where marijuana ranks in terms of Mexico's ag exports?
Posted by: SteveS || 01/14/2013 23:14 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Thai terror suspect gives truck bomb tip-off
An terror insurgent suspect has alerted security officers to a car bomb attack being planned for Muang district. The suspect said that a pickup truck stolen from two slain teachers in Pattani's Mayo district last month has been repainted and wired with explosives in preparation for the attack.

The tip-off was made by one of five suspected terrorists insurgents arrested by army rangers during a raid on a house in Yarang district on Saturday.

Two of the suspects were indentified as Usman Bueto and Nipa Niguno, both of whom had outstanding arrest warrants. The other three were named as Abdullah Bahae, Masorlae Sama-air and Abdulachi Doni, all of whom are now being investigated for suspected terrorist insurgent links.

Officers said one of the suspects had said a grey Mazda pickup truck which was stolen after the shooting deaths of two Ba Ngo school teachers on Dec 11 had been loaded with explosives. The pickup has been repainted black and its license plate has been changed.

Terrorists Insurgents planned to use the explosive-laden vehicle to bomb an unspecified target in Muang municipality. Security has now been increased around the district, with checkpoints set up along every route in and out of the area. Additional security forces have been deployed to look out for the black pickup.

Meanwhile, highway police chief Pongsit Saengpet yesterday told his officers to cease night patrol operations after Friday's attack which left two police and one assistant dead in Sai Buri district.

The attack took place about 10:30 p.m. when about 10 attackers in the back of a pickup truck opened fire on a highway patrol car, killing everyone in the vehicle.

Highway police officers will now carry out night operations only in emergency cases and two police cars will be used for any operation after dark. Daytime duties will continue as usual.
Posted by: ryuge || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency

#1  GOTCHA, But this isn't my truck, exactly.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:24 Comments || Top||


Africa North
EU pledges support for Egypt's democratic transition
When's that transition going to start?
They had it already. Now they're well into the next stage, the one followed by Madame la Guillotine. One would think Europeans would be familiar with the stages, but nobody studies history anymore.
The European Union Sunday pledged support for Egypt's troubled democratic transition, with the bloc's president saying that success of this process was important for the region and the world, dpa reported.

"The European Union and associated financial institutions have offered an amount of more than 5 billion euros, or more than 6.5 billion dollars, in grants, concessional loans and loans for a period of 2012 and 2013 to support Egypt's democratic transition," the EU President Herman Van Rompuy said after talks with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo.
Good idea -- loan new money to a country that can't even begin to pay back any of the old loans...
Did the EU president happen to consult his constituent governments before pledging their citizens' money?
This is the EU: that's never required...
Van Rompuy was to meet later on Sunday with leaders from the main opposition alliance, the National Salvation Front.

"The world is watching what is going on in Cairo," he said at a joint press conference with Morsi.

"This is an important day for us to discuss our views regarding ways of developing our relations and completing the dialogue we started in Brussels," said Morsi.

Egypt is the EU's biggest trade partner.
Bigger than the U.S. or Russia?
Posted by: Steve White || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336107 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Europeans.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Don't you mean "Peons".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:07 Comments || Top||

#3  I take it they mean democratic as in Peoples Democratic Republic of the former Soviet version.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/14/2013 8:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Egypt is the EU's biggest trade partner.
List of E.U trade partners. Egypt nowhere to be seen.
Posted by: tipper || 01/14/2013 10:22 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
How Boeing’s non-lethal CHAMP missiles could mark ‘a new era in modern-day warfare’
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Doesn't work so well on two story mud huts with tin roofs. When it does go down, is there an atomic dissipation circuit?
Posted by: Skidmark || 01/14/2013 1:42 Comments || Top||

#2  iran is the obvious battlespace for this product
Posted by: lord garth || 01/14/2013 9:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Even the cameras monitoring the test were knocked out.

How do they know it worked?
Posted by: Frozen Al || 01/14/2013 11:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Nice that they named them for our CIC.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 01/14/2013 11:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Armed Predators and sophisticated, computer aided targeting won the war in Afghanistan. Technology really is amazing.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 11:25 Comments || Top||

#6  ...won the war in Afghanistan

Um, Beso, did you forget the
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 11:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Somehow the previous comment lost /sarcasm tag off the end.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 13:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Yes, [sarc off]. My bad.

Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 14:04 Comments || Top||

#9  Mullah Richard - except our CIC spells his with a U not an A....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/14/2013 14:10 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Piers Morgan brings worst ratings to CNN prime time slot in 21 years
[TELEGRAPH.CO.UK] Piers Morgan's US talk show on CNN is facing an embarrassing climb-down after viewing figures dropped to the worst levels the network has seen in at least 21 years.
"Hey, Ted! I gotta really great idea to boost ratings! Let's hire a dork for our prime time slot!"
"Whoa! Good idea! Maybe we could get somebody like Piers Morgan?"
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Considering he is the worst host in 21 years...

Ya almost would think there is a correlation.
Posted by: DarthVader || 01/14/2013 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  So, in the market place of ideas, it seems the product is not selling very well. Rational creatures might take action to alter the situation, but then again, we're dealing with CNN.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/14/2013 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Piers Morgan “Rally” Attended by Four People
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 9:01 Comments || Top||

#4  interesting...I figured this twat would've gotten some sort of big bump this past month from vulturing anti-gun nonsense in the Newtown aftermath and his dustup w/A.Jones. We already have enough un-informed voters getting talking points from sanctimonious douchebag low-info American commentators, I don't think we need anymore of the same from some obtuse foreigner.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 01/14/2013 9:15 Comments || Top||

#5  Piers Morgan "Rally" Attended by Four People

Fitting, very fitting.

Poor showing, poor ratungs.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:56 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe him and Sandra Fluke should get together - they might draw an even dozen.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/14/2013 14:05 Comments || Top||

#7  @Broadhead - I'm fairly confident that the reason he did make all the gun control fuss was to try to increase his ratings. I find it highly amusing that although he got some press out of it the ratings never materialized.
Posted by: warthogswife || 01/14/2013 15:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Being virulent anti-2nd Amendment in the U.S.A. is a losing issue--Thank God.
Posted by: JohnQC || 01/14/2013 18:37 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Governor rule to be imposed in Balochistan
[Dawn] Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has announced imposition of governor rule in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
under article 234 of the constitution, DawnNews reported.

Addressing protesters at Alamdar Road, the prime minister said the governor would be the chief executive of the province from today.

Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani's government has been dismissed.

Governor Balochistan Nawab Zulfiqar Magsi accompanied the prime minister during negotiations with members of the Solidarity Council.

The prime minister said frontier corps has been given policing powers to maintain law and order situation in the province.

He assured that targeted operation would be conducted in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan to ensure security of people.

Raja Pervez Ashraf said Corps Commander would monitor the performance of frontier corps in maintaining law and order situation in the province.

He requested the protesters to bury the 86 dead bodies. However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
Qayum Changezi the leader of Solidarity Council refused to bury the dead bodies.

"Until notification of governor rule is issued our protest would continue", Changezi told the prime minister.

The prime minister assured the members of Solidarity Council that the governor has the power to call armed forces in aid of civil forces.

He said before imposition of Governor Rule, he had taken leaders of mainstream political parties into confidence.

"We want to defeat mindset of terrorism", the prime minister assured.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has announced imposition of governor rule in Balochistan under article 234 of the constitution, DawnNews reported.

Addressing protesters at Alamdar Road, the prime minister said the governor would be the chief executive of the province from today.

Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani's government has been dismissed.

Governor Balochistan Nawab Zulfiqar Magsi accompanied the prime minister during negotiations with members of the Solidarity Council.

The prime minister said frontier corps has been given policing powers to maintain law and order situation in the province.

He assured that targeted operation would be conducted in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan to ensure security of people.

Raja Pervez Ashraf said Corps Commander would monitor the performance of frontier corps in maintaining law and order situation in the province.

He requested the protesters to bury the 86 dead bodies. However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
Qayum Changezi the leader of Solidarity Council refused to bury the dead bodies.

"Until notification of governor rule is issued our protest would continue", Changezi told the prime minister.

The prime minister assured the members of Solidarity Council that the governor has the power to call armed forces in aid of civil forces.

He said before imposition of Governor Rule, he had taken leaders of mainstream political parties into confidence.

"We want to defeat mindset of terrorism", the prime minister assured.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336081 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  {rotest, don't bury the dead.
A stinky siuation, with Disease uvertones.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 9:40 Comments || Top||

#2  "We want to defeat mindset of terrorism"

We want to die Horribly, the truth.
Stay around Corpses, and true.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 9:47 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Arab League Decides to Send Team to Syria Neighbors as Lebanon Asks for $180mn in Aid for Refugees
[An Nahar] Leb appealed on Sunday for $180 million from Arab countries
They'll make promises, my dears. Lots and lots of promises.
to help it meet the Syrian refugee influx
None of whom are Palestinians, who have made themselves unwelcome everywhere.
that has threatened to bring the number of the displaced to 420,000 in June, as 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...
decided to send a team to Syria's neighboring countries to assess the status of refugees ahead of a donor conference in Kuwait on January 30.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo to discuss the Syrian refugee crisis agreed to send a team to Leb, Jordan and Iraq "to assess the situation of Syrian refugees on the ground," the vaporous Arab League said.

The delegation is to work out the amount of aid required and present its findings to a donor conference hosted by Kuwait on January 30, the League added.

During the meeting, Leb appealed for $180 million to help around 200,000 Syrians and around 10,000 Paleostinians who have escaped the fighting between rebels seeking to topple Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
and government troops.

"The Lebanese government hopes for Arab support to overcome the crisis," Social Affairs Minister Wael Abou Faour said during an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

The number of refugees could rise from 30,000 to 40,000 displaced Syrian and Paleostinian each month and could reach 420,000 next June, he said.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336114 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Better than CHINA's alleged donation for the Refugees.

* BIG NEWS NETWORK > CHINA'S DONATION TO SYRIANS - A COMPLETE FARCE.

'Tis a mighty US$50,000 it is it is!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:22 Comments || Top||


Russia Says Assad Removal from Power 'Impossible' as Violence Kills 100
[An Nahar] Russia said Sunday that removing Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Trampler of Homs...
from power was not part of past international agreements on the crisis and was impossible to implement, as violence across the country killed at least 100 people according to a rights group.

"This is a precondition that is not contained in the Geneva communique (agreed by world powers in June) and which is impossible to implement because it does not depend on anyone," news agencies quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336088 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  The saddest thing about the World we live in is that most people percieve the two parts of the title as being logically connected.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Just wait, there'll be nobody left to kill.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:26 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Tap-dancing woman from Brooklyn, 23, is crowned Miss America
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336068 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Ex-NSI chief in the dock
[Bangla Daily Star] A few days before the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally, the then NSI boss Abdur Rahim visited Hawa Bhaban, the alterative powerhouse of the previous BNP-led government, while he was receiving treatment in a military hospital in Dhaka.

Yousuf Hossain, a National Security Intelligence (NSI) official, yesterday said this in his testimony to a Dhaka court as a prosecution witness against his former boss Brig Gen (retired)

Rahim in two cases filed in connection with the grenade attack.

Rahim, who stood in the dock during the testimony, looked angrily at Yousuf.

Rahim was the NSI director general when the grenade attack was made on an AL rally on August 21, 2004 to assassinate Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...
, the then leader of the opposition. Yousuf, who was a field officer of NSI, is now an assistant director of the organization.

Rahim had been admitted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka cantonment with piles on August 12, nine days before the grenade attack. And Yousuf was one of the three NSI officials responsible for taking care of their boss by turns.

"The DG sir [Abdur Rahim] went to Hawa Bhaban a day between August 12 and 21 in 2004 while receiving treatment at the Combined Military Hospital," said Yousuf in his deposition as the 66th prosecution witness of the cases before Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal.

The then NSI chief returned to the hospital from Hawa Bhaban and received treatment there till August 25.

Soon after the grenade attack on an AL rally at Bangabandhu Avenue, Yousuf learnt about it over his walkie-talkie.

He was told that AL leader Ivy Rahman and many other activists were killed in the attack. Yousuf then conveyed the message to then NSI chief Rahim.

"DG sir then asked me who were the other leaders that got killed?" Yousuf told the court.

When Yousuf informed his boss about the attack, Rahim specifically wanted to know what happened to Sheikh Hasina, the NSI official said at the court.

In reply, Yousuf told him that Hasina narrowly escaped death, but she sustained injuries to her left ear.

A few hours later, at around 7:00pm, two journalists went to Rahim's cabin in the hospital. The then director of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Brig Gen Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury was also in the cabin at that time, said Yousuf who was outside Rahim's cabin.

Yousuf said the two journalists left Rahim's cabin after 15 minutes.

"When they [two journalists] were coming out of the cabin, I heard them discussing that the grenade attack had been carried out following a feud between Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Selim, and such news would not be acceptable to public at all," said Yousuf.

After an hour, Rezzakul left the cabin, said Yousuf.

The NSI official told the court that he took care of Rahim for three more days after the August 21 attack.

Judge Shahed Nuruddin recorded Yousuf's statement and fixed today for his cross-examination by defence.

Twenty-four people, including Ivy Rahman, wife of President Zillur Rahman, were killed and hundreds of party activists and leaders were maimed in the grenade attack at Bangabandhu Avenue on August 21, 2004.

Two cases -- one under the explosive substances act and the other for killing -- were filed in connection with the incident.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under: HUJI


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336116 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Birthday Gam Shot

Angela Lindvall [Filmography](age 34)



Intelligent Design


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 01/14/2013 1:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Birthday Gam Shot from Dorothy Sebastian's Generation

Bebe Daniels[Filmography](Died in 1971 at age 70)



Intelligent Design in the early 20th Century


Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 01/14/2013 1:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Even if there's nothing intelligent about it, it is uncanny...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 01/14/2013 12:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Regarding Bebe's picture with kitty; the leopard must be drugged. I used to 'play with' / help exercise a leopard cub, and she was an absolute handful. When she hit about a year old, that was the end it. Tricky, fast, twitchy, powerful and unpredictable. Full sized, I can't image it ending well.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 01/14/2013 14:36 Comments || Top||

#5  "CQ" was interesting.
Posted by: Muggsy Mussolini1226 || 01/14/2013 14:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Leopards make tigers look like arab armies. They are the real damn deal. Able to drag their own weight in kill up a vertical if they can get the claws in. Insanely strong, fast and pretty damn smart. I never wanted one.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/14/2013 18:29 Comments || Top||

#7  Shipman, Whiskey... I envy you. I love cats, but have never had the chance to interact with a "big" one. I'm sure it's not easy, but I would still treasure the opportunity. They are magnificent creatures.
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 01/14/2013 23:14 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Kuwaiti Opposition Rallies for Dissolving Parliament
[An Nahar] Hundreds of Kuwait opposition supporters demonstrated on Sunday to demand the dissolution of the parliament elected last month in general polls boycotted by almost all political groups, witnesses said.

Carrying orange flags, protesters marched on the streets of Sabah al-Nasser, a predominantly tribal area just southwest of Kuwait City, and also rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud demanding political reforms.

The rally ended peacefully and police did not interfere. Last week, riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades and placed in durance vile
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
over 70 activists while dispersing a similar protest.

"This is a parliament of shame," said leading opposition figure and former MP Mussallam al-Barrak who led the evening protest. Several former opposition MPs also took part.

Protesters also raised banners calling for an elected government.

The opposition has been staging demonstrations in protest against a government amendment to the key electoral law which it says allows the government to impact the outcome of an election.

But the authorities went ahead and held an election on December 1 which was boycotted by Islamist, nationalist and liberal opposition groups and which resulted in a predominantly pro-government parliament.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336077 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Government
U.S. states flirt with major tax changes
[REUTERS] Hopes for overhauling the federal tax system are fading in Washington, but in some state capitals, tax reform experiments - some far-reaching - are fast taking shape.

Across the South and Midwest, Republicans have consolidated control of state legislatures and governorships, giving them the power to test long-debated tax ideas.

Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, for instance, called on Thursday for ending the state's income tax and corporate taxes, with sales taxes compensating for lost revenue.

A similar plan is being pushed by Republicans in North Carolina. Kansas, which cut its income tax significantly last year, may trim further. Oklahoma, which tried to cut income taxes last year, is expected to try again.

"When it comes to getting pro-growth tax reform done this year, the only real opportunities are at the state level," said Patrick Gleason, director of state affairs for Americans for Tax Reform, the Washington-based anti-tax lobbying group headed by small-government conservative activist Grover Norquist.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Artic read, 'TIS THE OWG NAU THAT HAS OR WILL BE GETTING THE POWER NOW, NOT THE FED, HENCE THE IMPETUS ON THE STATE.

Oh yeah - another Artic that sez OWG + OWG NAU 2015 here we come.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 0:34 Comments || Top||

#2  If the Republican-controlled states can get their economies under control, that greatly improves the situation for the nation as a whole. And, there will be another Congressional election in two years.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/14/2013 1:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Sales taxes are just deferred income taxation.

Much better to apply tax on inferred rental value.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 4:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm for a 12% tax handling fee for all businesses processing EBT transactions.

Sorry, we do not accept AMEX or EBT.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 6:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Sales taxes are just deferred income taxation.

Yes, but everybody pays them and there are no forms to fill out in April. The "poor" then have 'skin' in the game.
Posted by: Bobby || 01/14/2013 13:31 Comments || Top||

#6  Well the main problem with income taxes is that they cause unemployment by harming comparative advantage so it's a double blow for those with low market productivity.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 17:32 Comments || Top||

#7  I for one hate it when States Flirt.

/the Body Politic.
Posted by: Shipman || 01/14/2013 18:41 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Famed Tunisia Mausoleum Torched by Salafists
[An Nahar] The mausoleum in Sidi Bou Said, a prime Tunisian tourism destination, has been ravaged by fire in what is thought to have been an arson attack which the presidency on Sunday denounced as a criminal act.

"This crime against our culture and history must not go unpunished," a presidency statement said, urging police to "spare no efforts in arresting the criminals" who set alight the mausoleum on the outskirts of Tunis on Saturday.

Interior ministry front man Khaled Tarrouche told Agence La Belle France Presse that an investigation was under way to "determine whether it was an accident or an indictable offense."

Interior Minister Ali Larayedh received a hostile reception from an angry crowd when he visited the scene on Sunday, an AFP photographer said.

"Get out, get out!" around 150 residents of Sidi Bou Said village shouted at the minister from the Islamist Ennahda party which heads the government.

The residents were angered when Larayedh said: "This is a criminal act, but it is not up to the police to protect all mausoleums, it is up to the people in charge of these mausoleums."

A police officer told AFP the shrine had probably been targeted by petrol bombers, but there were no witnesses to the attack.

Several shrines dedicated to Mohammedan saints have been torched or looted in recent months in Tunisia, in acts blamed on hardline Salafists
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
whose radical version of Sunni Islam does not tolerate saints or shrines.

Tunisian opposition and civil society groups blame the Ennahda party for showing complacency towards the Salafists.

A group of Salafists was placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
in early December after a similar blaze at the Sufi shrine of Zaouia Saida Manoubia in Tunis.

Salafists, whose numbers in Tunisia are estimated at between 3,000 and 10,000 people, are accused of organizing a series of violent attacks since the revolution ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali two years ago.

They are suspected of criminal masterminding September 14 attacks on the U.S. embassy in Tunis to protest against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States. Four assailants were killed in festivities with security forces.

The hilltop village of Sidi Bou Said, named after the mausoleum, on the outskirts of Tunis is a popular tourist destination known for its narrow streets and traditional houses with blue doors.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336144 views] Top|| File under: Salafists


Economy
Hostess sells Wonder Bread and five other brands to Tastykakes
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK]
  • Flower Foods has offered $390 million for Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Beef Steak
  • It has been selected as the 'stalking horse' bidder, which means higher competing bids can still be made
  • Hostess expected to announce buyers for its famed dessert cakes soon
  • The company announced in November that it was shutting down
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll bet the Globalists + Pro-Unioners' are going ballistic on this news.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 0:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Tastykakes? Really, kakes?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Really, Kakes. (Trade name)
Doesn't make them good.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:59 Comments || Top||

#4  RJ, kakes (a pronounced ah) are turds in Yiddish.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 1:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Yup, not good.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:04 Comments || Top||

#6  "Beef steak"?
There's a joke here that I am not gonna touch.
Posted by: ed in texas || 01/14/2013 8:01 Comments || Top||

#7  They're buying the brand not necessarily the factories. You got to wonder how lawyers can advertize on TV so much and avoid this wonderful opportunity to create new 'injury' law against the agents that doomed people's livelihoods. If you can sue for a disease for which you have no symptoms, and thus no real injury, why can't you sue those who took your job away by reckless and willful practice?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/14/2013 8:02 Comments || Top||

#8  EinT, Beef Steak rye bread was my favorite for many years starting probably 40 years ago. Large slices great flavor and caraway seeds. Made wonderful sandwichs; roast beef with swiss, lettuce & tomato, etc. good stuff.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 11:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Flowers owns Tastykakes. Non union workers for flowers and Tastykakes. Independents and warehouse delivery.
Posted by: Dale || 01/14/2013 11:45 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt court orders retrial for Mubarak
CAIRO - An Egyptian court on Sunday ordered a retrial for former president Hosni Mubarak after accepting an appeal against the life sentence handed him for his involvement in the deaths of protesters in 2011. Mubarak, 84, his two sons Alaa and Gamal, his former interior minister Habib al-Adly and top security chiefs will now face a new trial, the Court of Cassation, the top appeals court, said after a very brief hearing.

The ruling was met with cries of “Long live justice!” by Mubarak supporters who held up the former strongman’s picture and hugged each other in the courtroom, with dozens more outside shouting “We love you, president!”

Mubarak, his sons and Adly will remain in jail, however, as they still face separate cases.

Judge Ahmed Ali Abdelrahman told the court he had accepted the appeals by Mubarak, Adly and the prosecution, thereby cancelling all previous rulings by the Cairo criminal court. A date has still to be set for the new trial, judicial sources said.

The decision comes less than two weeks before the second anniversary of the popular uprising that unseated Mubarak and paved the way for the election of the country’s first Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi.

On June 2, Mubarak and Adly were sentenced to life in prison for failing to prevent the deaths of over 800 protesters during the 18-day uprising that began on January 25, 2011. Six security chiefs on trial in the same case were acquitted at the time.

Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa — once the symbols of power and wealth in the country — were acquitted on corruption charges due to the expiry of a statute of limitations.

The rulings sparked nationwide outrage, with thousands taking to the streets to vent their anger that no one had been found directly guilty of killing the protesters.

On Saturday, an ailing Mubarak was interrogated over fresh charges of corruption and ordered detained for 15 days pending investigation. He is accused of accepting gifts worth seven million Egyptian pounds (around $1 million) from the country’s flagship state newspaper Al-Ahram.

Following sentencing in June last year, Mubarak was moved to Tora prison in south Cairo after spending 16 months in hospitals in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and then in Cairo. His health collapsed and the state news agency even reported him clinically dead at one point as he slipped into a coma. He has since suffered several health scares and is currently being treated for fractured ribs and fluid in the lungs at a military hospital in Cairo.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Give it another shot.
Can't get the death penalty, Soooo.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeah, give that old horse another kick. Meanwhile, the nation formerly known as Egypt continues to swirl around the bowl.
Posted by: SteveS || 01/14/2013 20:40 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
N.Korea Still Worst Oppressor of Christians
Number one with a bullet...
North Korea has been named the world's worst persecutor of Christians for the 11th straight year.

In its annual report released earlier this week, Open Doors, an organization that tracks the persecution of Christians worldwide, listed North Korea as the most intolerant country, followed by Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the body said the level of persecution has increased under new leader Kim Jong-un. It estimates that up to 70,000 Christians are suffering in prison camps in the reclusive state.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not just Christians, they Oppress everybody.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I thourght Pakistan and Iran would be up there with our friends Saudi.

Look out for for Libya and Egypt.
Posted by: Ebbeath Ulise1733 || 01/14/2013 13:23 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Italy's FM Condemns Attack on Libya Consul as 'Terrorism'
[An Nahar] Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi on Sunday condemned as "a vile act of terrorism" a gun attack on Italia's consul to Benghazi in eastern Libya from which the diplomat escaped unscathed.
"Holy shizza! Dat wuzza close!"
"This was an attempt to destabilize the institutions of the new Libya," Terzi also said in a statement after consul Guido De Sanctis's bullet-proof car came under fire on Saturday.

"He was unhurt thanks to the security precautions taken to protect him," Terzi said.

The incident comes four months after U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the city in an attack on the U.S. mission there.

The Libyan government "has guaranteed its maximum commitment to ensure those responsible for this vile act of terrorism face justice," Terzi said.

"Italia expresses its strongest condemnation and reaffirms its full support for the course of democracy and reforms of authorities in Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
The impact of the bullets was clearly visible on the windows of the car, which was shot at as the consul was returning home after work.

A security official in Benghazi said no one was injured in the attack.

The source added that "members of the supreme security committee deployed to the scene and escorted the consul to a safe location."
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336080 views] Top|| File under: Salafists


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian Artillery Pounds Rebel Zones Near Damascus
[An Nahar] Syria's army sent shells smashing into rebel zones on the outskirts of Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
Sunday while a Paleostinian camp south of the capital was rocked by fresh fighting, a watchdog said.

"Regime troops shelled Daraya, Beit Sahm, Mleha and Moadamiyat al-Sham," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, referring to rebel-held towns dotted around the edges of Damascus.

The Britannia-based monitoring group, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers inside Syria, also reported fierce festivities between Death Eaters and the army in Daraya, southwest of Damascus, and in the Barzeh district of northern Damascus.

It said fighting erupted during the night in Yarmuk, a Paleostinian camp in southern Damascus, that has been the scene of violent festivities in past months, and which was bombed by regime warplanes in December in an assault that send tens of thousands of residents fleeing.

The latest fighting pitted regime troops against rebels in a firefight around a cop shoppe, the Observatory said.

Violence around Damascus has been on the rise since the army last July launched an offensive against rebels who had moved into several neighborhoods.

Analysts say the regime is attempting to secure an area of control in a radius of about eight kilometers (five miles) around the capital after it pushed rebels into outlying towns and villages.

In the northern city Aleppo, scene of some of Syria's worst violence since the eruption of an anti-regime revolt almost 22 months ago, festivities raged near an intelligence headquarters, said the Observatory.

Sunday's violence follows a day in which 95 people, among them 33 civilians, 39 rebel fighters and 23 soldiers, were killed across Syria, according to the Observatory.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Africa North
Tunisia Sends in Army after Border Town Unrest
[An Nahar] Tunisian soldiers were deployed on Sunday in a town near the border with Libya after a week of festivities between police and residents protesting over social inequalities, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.

Units from the army and national guard were sent a day before Monday's second anniversary of the Tunisian revolt that began the Arab Spring, sparked by unemployment and tough living conditions.

Ben Guerdane, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, has witnessed sporadic unrest since last Sunday, fueled by Tripoli
...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
's decision to close the Ras Jdir border crossing in early September for security reasons.

There was no sign of police on the streets of Ben Guerdane on Sunday, and no reports of festivities a day after youths set fire to the local cop shoppe for the second time in three days.

On Saturday, protesters also hurled abuse at the ruling Islamist Ennahda party, whose local headquarters were ransacked during the week. A customs office was also torched.

The protesters, who are demanding a series of development projects to revive the area's local economy and reduce unemployment, asked on Saturday that soldiers be sent in to keep the peace in the town.

Tunisia's military is better thought of by the people than the police force, which was at the heart of the repressive regime of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who fled the country for exile 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 their national face...
two years ago.

Civil representatives from Ben Guerdane are forming a delegation to be received in the capital on Tuesday by the Islamist-led government to discuss their demands.

"The delegation will be received on Tuesday at 10:00 am in Tunis," Amar Hamdi, who heads the local branch of Tunisia's main trade union confederation the UGTT, told AFP.

Despite the border crossing with Libya being reopened on Thursday, the UGTT went ahead with a general strike in the town to demand investment and jobs, with only chemists, hospitals and bakeries remaining open.

There is ongoing social discontent in Tunisia two years after the uprising that overthrew Ben Ali, with strikes and protests often degenerating into violence.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Europe
Dane's life as an al-Qaeda informant
Posted by: ryuge || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Tell Mahmoud we've got plenty more where that came from... Or perhaps it were better if nothing is said at all.
Posted by: trailing wife || 01/14/2013 16:25 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Blast in Lower Kurram tribal region kills one, injures eight
[Dawn] One person was killed and eight others were maimed on Sunday when a blast struck a passenger coach in Khwar Killay area near Sadda town in Lower Kurram tribal region.

A passenger coach, carrying around two dozen passengers, was traveling from Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
to Parachinar when it was struck by a remotely detonated improvised bomb (IED).

The condition of many injured was reported as critical.

Political admin officials of the area while talking to Dawn.com confirmed that one person was killed and eight others were maimed in the blast, adding that the victims were shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Rescue and security teams reached the site of kaboom.

Security forces cordoned off the area as investigations into the incident went underway.

A blast targeting a security forces vehicle on Shabqadar-Machani road near Qila Shah Baig area in Charsadda district injured three security personnel and one civilian on Sunday, according to political admin sources.

In another unrelated incident beturbanned goons blew up the gate of a State Life Insurance worker's house near in Shabqadar area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
's Charsadda district. No casualties were reported in the attack.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336099 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Iraq
Iraq Finance Minister 'Escapes Assassination'
[An Nahar] Iraq's finance minister, who has been locked in dispute with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party....
, escaped an apparent liquidation attempt on Sunday when his convoy was struck by a roadside kaboom.

Rafa al-Essawi's convoy had been traveling between the towns of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, west of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
, when the bomb went off at around 7:00 pm (1600 GMT), two security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
.No one in Essawi's entourage was harmed but some of the vehicles were damaged, the officials said.

The blast comes amid a political crisis. Weeks of anti-government demonstrations in Sunni Arab majority areas have hardened opposition against the Shiite premier.

Maliki is at loggerheads with his erstwhile government partners in the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc over its accusations of authoritarianism and sectarianism in the run-up to key provincial polls.

The demonstrations in Sunni areas have decried alleged misuse of anti-terror laws to hold members of the minority community, and claim Sunnis are being targeted by the Shiite-led authorities.

The premier has countered with a threat to order security forces to disperse the protests, which were sparked by the December 20 arrest of at least nine of Essawi's guards.

Essawi is a leading member of the Iraqiya bloc, which, while a member of Maliki's unity government, has called for him to quit.

Powerful Shiite holy man Moqtada Tater al-Sadr
... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah...
, whose movement counts 40 members of parliament and five ministers among its ranks, has also publicly opposed Maliki.

The protests come with barely three months to go before provincial elections, a key barometer of support for Maliki and his opponents ahead of a general election next year.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336115 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  Iraq Finance Minister 'Escapes Assassination'

Too bad.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 13:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Looks like Iran Prez AHMADINEJAD also just barely escaped a possible kaboom or suicide kaboom today ...

To wit,

* BIG NEWS NETWORK > IRAN PRESIDENT ESCAPES ATTACK, i.e. assassination attempt.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 23:17 Comments || Top||


3 Iraq soldiers killed in attack
[Bangla Daily Star] An attack by Death Eaters on an Iraqi army checkpoint north of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
yesterday left three soldiers dead, security and medical officials said.

Insurgents threw hand grenades at the checkpoint, which lies east of Samarra, 110 kilometres north of Storied Baghdad, before opening fire with machineguns, an army lieutenant colonel and a medic at the city's hospital said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

No group immediately grabbed credit for the attacks.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336084 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria State Media Calls Brahimi's Mission 'Useless'
[An Nahar] Official media in Syria renewed attacks on U.N. and 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...
envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Sunday, calling him biased and saying his peace mission aimed at solving the country's crisis was "useless."

On Wednesday, Brahimi criticized as "one-sided" a proposal by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
to end the crisis, and two days later he met top U.S. and Russian officials and urged "a speedy end to the bloodshed" in the strife-torn country.

"It is clear that Mr. Brahimi is now out of the loop for the solution for Syria. He has taken sides, he is not a mediator," wrote the pro-regime daily al-Watan on Sunday's front page.

"Brahimi is incapable of finding a solution to the Syrian crisis.

"He acknowledged in his last meeting with President Assad (on December 24) that Turkey and Qatar will not stop supporting terrorist groups and that he cannot prevent them from doing so," it wrote.

"Brahimi's mission is useless, just like (his predecessor) Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
, who resigned when he realized that he had no role to play in a war waged against Syria by several Western capitals," said al-Watan.

Brahimi was appointed to replace Annan in September 2012, after the former U.N. secretary general resigned when his own peace plan failed to prevent further fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Assad.

Since the start of the uprising in March 2011, Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
has labeled those calling for Assad's fall as foreign-backed "terrorists."

Brahimi, who last week criticized a three-step solution announced in a rare speech by Assad, "represents the Turkish, U.S. and Gulf states' position, and is not an objective mediator," said al-Watan.

After Brahimi told the BBC on Wednesday that Assad's proposal was "more sectarian, more one-sided" than similar initiatives he had made in the past official media in Syria accused him of "flagrant bias."

Assad's plan called for dialogue, but only with groups deemed by the regime to be legitimate.

The proposal was rejected outright by the Syrian opposition -- including groups tolerated by the regime -- and the West.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336073 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Damn, Henry Kissinger's getting very old.
(Picture)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 9:53 Comments || Top||

#2  RJ you have found an acorn!
Posted by: Shipman || 01/14/2013 18:32 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Shia Ulema Council call for strike in Sindh
[Dawn] The Shia Ulema Council (SUC) has called for a strike to be observed throughout Sindh on Monday, in response to the Quetta killings, DawnNews reported.

The SUC said that businesses and shops should be closed in the province in observance of the strike call.

Meanwhile the Private Schools Management Association (PSMA) has said private schools 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...
will be shut on Monday.

The PSMA chairman Sharfuz Zaman said that protests are continuing in Bloody Karachi, which is why they have decided to shut private schools in the metropolis.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336073 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  SINDH ANDOR BALCHISTAN = "STRATEGIC ACCESS TO THE SEA", espec for land-locked, Ports-starved Afghanistan.

For Iran, however, it means possible autonomy or independence, + a corridor to Shias in India + Malaysia-Indonesia.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:52 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Astronomers Spot Biggest Structure in Universe
[An Nahar] Astronomers on Friday said they had observed the largest structure yet seen in the cosmos, a cluster of galaxies from the early Universe that spans an astonishing four billion light years.
"Wholly mackeral, Bob! Look at the size of that thing!"
"Cheeze, that's big! How'd we ever miss that before?"

The sprawling structure is known as a large quasar group (LQG), in which quasars -- the nuclei of ancient galaxies, powered by supermassive black holes -- clump together.

The discovery in the deep Universe was made by a team led by Roger Clowes at the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute at Britain's University of Central Lancashire.

It would take a spaceship travelling at the speed of light four thousand million years to get from one end of the cluster to the other.

To give a sense of scale, our galaxy (the Milky Way) is separated from its nearest neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, by two and a half million light years.

"While it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it is the largest structure ever seen in the entire Universe," Clowes said in a press statement issued by Britain's Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).

"This is hugely exciting, not least because it runs counter to our current understanding of the scale of the Universe."
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336077 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "My God, sir! Is that..."
"Yes, Johnson. It's Barney Frank's ego."
Posted by: tu3031 || 01/14/2013 0:18 Comments || Top||

#2  No, Obama's.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:56 Comments || Top||

#3  You guys have never met an econometrician, have you?
Posted by: Perfesser || 01/14/2013 6:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Nah... Obama's Ego cannot fit in this Universe.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 01/14/2013 8:40 Comments || Top||

#5  ZOOOOMG, DEY DISCOVERED THE BORG HOMEWORLD!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 01/14/2013 19:13 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Boy, 14, brutally executed on his doorstep in Chicago is sixth teenager shot since Friday
[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] Witnesses say two gunmen shot and killed a 14-year-old Chicago boy Friday night as he stood on his porch, and then left him to die in the front hallway of his own home, authorities said.

The shooting came just hours after a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot in a separate attack.

The death marks the sixth shooting of a teenager since Friday.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336117 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gunless Chicago.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 01/14/2013 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  RIGHT, guns are Banned.
SO Nobody has them except the Lawless,. No fighting Back,
Just take it.

(Stupid Ideas never saved anyone, Condemmned a lot though.

NO guns equals , Helpless.).
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 0:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Meanwhile, someone might ask Mr. Morgan what the gun crime rate was in Switzerland last year.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 01/14/2013 8:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Strangely, global warming and the soon-coming ecological Armageddon is caused by "man". The urban carnage described herein is caused by a small, hand-held device.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 9:16 Comments || Top||

#5  or Israel...which is on par w/the Swiss for having a heavily armed yet overall very safe (paleo nonsense not withstanding) society.
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 01/14/2013 9:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Rev. Jesse Jackson was interviewed on Fox. He's suggesting that firearm related crime should become a 'Department of Homeland Security' issue and manufacturers be held accountable. I think I see where this is rapidly going.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 9:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Jesse jackson's an ass, and publicly, he won't last long.

Claiming "Religious Leader" Is too like the Islamics, itll bite him in Yhe ass before too long.

Even "Great Black Religious Leader" Pales in time.

And it's time.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:28 Comments || Top||

#8  Watched the video, at the link, he's got a nice sticker in his Gun cabinet "Fight Crime, SHOOT BACK".

If you don't share the views, you're a loon.

And I don't want to know you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:43 Comments || Top||

#9  Sorry, the link is the word "Switzerland".
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:44 Comments || Top||

#10  There was a time in the late '60s when I lived in Illinois and Jesse actually talked sense about black problems.

Oh well, we all age, some of us more gracefully.
Posted by: AlanC || 01/14/2013 12:58 Comments || Top||

#11  Little-reported fact about last year's record in Chicago -- only 16% of them were passed along to prosecutors. Another 9% were flagged as "solved" but without enough information to prosecute due to lack of evidence, witnesses, etc.

The remaining 75% were unsolved.

I'd say "they're not even trying", but I think the average cop *IS*, they're just not allowed to actually accomplish anything. Then there's that "snitches get stitches" culture...
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 01/14/2013 13:29 Comments || Top||

#12  So when is Mr. Obama flying out for the funeral?

Or Mr. Biden?
Posted by: Pappy || 01/14/2013 21:45 Comments || Top||


Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka president sacks chief justice
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse on Sunday sacked the country's first woman chief justice by ratifying parliament's vote to impeach her, his spokesman said. The move came despite mounting calls on Rajapakse to halt the impeachment which has been seen by rights groups and Western nations as a blow to judicial independence in a country emerging from decades of ethnic war.

"The president this morning signed the letter removing Shirani Bandaranayake from the office of chief justice," spokesman Mohan Samaranayake told AFP. "The letter was hand-delivered to her by a secretary accompanied by presidential security staff."

Samaranayake said the president acted in line with the constitution to remove Bandaranayake, 54, following Friday's overwhelming parliamentary vote to remove her.

Legislators found her guilty of tampering with a case involving a company from which her sister had bought an apartment, of failing to declare dormant bank accounts, and of staying in office while her husband faced a bribery charge.

Bandaranayake stormed out of a parliamentary select committee hearing last month after accusing ruling party legislators of verbally abusing her and not giving her a fair trial. She has denied all allegations against her.

The government moved to impeach her in November after a spate of supreme court decisions went against the government. Among others, she stalled a bill which sought to grant greater political and financial power to the president's youngest brother Basil, who is the economic development minister.
Posted by: Steve White || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336078 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Punjab promises foolproof security
[Dawn] The Punjab government on Saturday announced foolproof security arrangements for the Tehrik Minhajul Koran's long march from Lahore to Islamabad that included a full-fledged 'box security' for Dr Tahirul Qadri and protection for the participants."We will provide 12 Elite Police special squads to the long march including four for Mr Qadri's box security as is done for the head of state. Besides these 6,000 police officials, vehicles of Rescue-1122 and ambulances will also accompany the marchers. Emergency has also been declared in hospitals on the way by canceling leaves of all doctors and paramedics," Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said at a news conference here.

He said police would also ensure security check of all the participants and their vehicles. There were confirmed reports about the possible attack on the long march through a vehicle. And, therefore, police would affix stickers on all vehicles included in the march in order to check intrusion of terrorists' vehicle on the way.

He criticized the TMQ leadership for not cooperating with the government on maintaining law and order during the long march. "For the last five days the Lahore commissioner and the police chief have been visiting the TMQ secretariat to coordinate with its leadership on security issues. We had asked its leaders to provide details about the participating vehicles but they have not responded to date," he deplored.

Sanaullah said the government wouldn't stop the long march until it remained peaceful.

He said Mr Qadri wanted a suicide kaboom on Pakistain through his long march. He also blamed him for accomplishing the agenda of anti-state elements in the name of electoral reforms, and by risking the lives of his followers during the march. He said Dr Qadri should not do so as the nation knew all about his past.

The law minister also criticized the PPP for showing double standards on the issue of long march. "First the President Zardari pushed the MQM to join Qadri and then forced it to withdraw. In the meanwhile, he (Mr Zardari) sent Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
who also endorsed Qadri's agenda in a presser. Finally the PML-Q leadership also began talks with Qadri on the instructions of Mr Zardari," he said.

He termed Mr Qadri's demand of dissolution of the Election Commission of Pakistain a mischief by the younger Chaudhry (Pervaiz Elahi).

CPO: Police will provide full security to Dr Tahirul Qadri's long march. This decision was taken during a high-level meeting, presided over by acting inspector general of Punjab Police Khan Baig at the Central Police Office (CPO) on Saturday.

Senior police officials attended the meeting and finalised a strategy to provide security to the long march.

According to an announcement, DIG (Operations) Sohail Ahmed Khan was nominated as coordinator to ensure and supervise the security arrangements for the long march. Inspector Zeegham of the Elite Force will liaison with the police of various districts to ensure security to the march from beginning to the end.

The Elite Force will escort Dr Qadri's convoy from Lahore while additional police will also be deployed on sensitive parts of the route. Similarly, district police concerned will provide security to the long march in their respective regions as per the plan given by Dr Qadri.

A control room has also been established at the CPO where a team of senior coppers will monitor security of the march.
Posted by: Fred || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336080 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Punjab promises foolproof security

Only a fool believes that.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 1:12 Comments || Top||

#2  What if the attackers are not fools?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 01/14/2013 8:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Beat me to it, BP.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 01/14/2013 11:21 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Man pardoned by former Mississippi governor involved in shooting
[NEWS.YAHOO] A man who was among roughly 200 felons pardoned a year ago by then-Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour as the Republican left office was involved in a gunfight on Thursday that left another man dead, authorities said.
"This here town ain't big enough fer both of us, Wayne!"
The pardoned man, Wayne Harris, 56, of Slate Spring, Mississippi, was recovering at a medical center on Friday after receiving two gunshot wounds in his legs during an altercation that resulted in 51-year-old Chris McGonagill's death.
"He's dead, Jim!"
The two men were at a cookout on McGonagill's property with three other men when a fight erupted, said Calhoun County Sheriff Greg Pollan.
"Gimme some o' that there barbecue, Wayne!"
"It hain't done yet, Chris!"
"I say hit's done! Now gimme the barbecue, yew varmint!"
"Smile when yew say that, Chris!"

McGonagill and Harris fired shots at each other,
"Go fer yer guns, Wayne!"
[BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!]

McGonagill using a 9mm pistol and Harris shooting a .22-caliber rifle,
Wait a minute! Who the hell brings a .22 rifle to a gunfight?
Pollan said. The sheriff said alcohol was a potential contributing factor in the incident.
No! Re-e-e-e-e-ally?
McGonagill died early on Friday
"Rosebud!"
from multiple gunshot wounds throughout his body, said Lafayette County Coroner Rocky Kennedy.
"Lookidat, Bob! Eighteen rounds, right through his brisket!"
It was unclear on Friday whether Harris had fired in self defense or if he would be charged with a crime, the sheriff said.
One of his party guests was waving a 9mm, and he had a .22 rifle? It sounds like he was trying to do himself in if he started it, unless they were shooting it out at 100 yards.
"Charges are pending based on what we find out from the interviews," Pollan said.
"You get anything from the party guests yet, Stan?"
"None of 'em's sobered up yet, Chief!"
"We can wait. Is the barbecue done yet?"

The deadly incident happened one year to the day after Harris was pardoned by Barbour for a 2001 marijuana-sale conviction.
"That's because I invited all my friends to the anniversary party for my pardon!"
Harris had been out of prison since March 2002, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. He was able to legally own a rifle after completing a rehabilitation course in 2007, according a circuit court employee in Calhoun County.
So it's not like it was an illicit firearm. It wasn't even an "assault rifle" unless you define a Western Auto .22 long with an 18-round capacity as an "assault rifle."
Barbour sparked an uproar when he issued some 200 pardons in January 2012 as he completed eight years in office. Among them were five inmates in prison and five others who had worked at the governor's mansion doing odd jobs, four of whom were serving life sentences for murder.
Presumably he became acquainted with them in the course of his term as governor and their term as handymen. If Norman Mailer could do it, why couldn't he?
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [336090 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This old favorite sung by Randy Travis is dedicated to Governor Haley Barbour.
Posted by: Besoeker || 01/14/2013 6:17 Comments || Top||

#2  He has a 22 at the barbeque just in case any more possums wandered up. Fire's already lit and everything.
Posted by: ed in texas || 01/14/2013 7:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like a fair fight, apparently that Firearms Course was a good one.

Don't disparage a .22 it's deadly.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 12:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Seems to me that any such "Geoup" would have at least ONE backslider.

One out of A "Group" (Unnumbered) Will be good.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 16:27 Comments || Top||

#5  I notice he's "Involved" Not "Charged", so presumed Innocent.
(Caught two Bullets, but Killed the other guy)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 01/14/2013 21:58 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2013-01-14
  Famed Tunisia Mausoleum Torched by Salafists
Sun 2013-01-13
  19 Killed in Failed French Raid to Free Somalia Hostage
Sat 2013-01-12
  French commandos attack al-Shabab base, explosions, gunfire heard
Fri 2013-01-11
  France confirms Mali intervention
Thu 2013-01-10
  Taliban suspects arrested over Karachi polio killings
Wed 2013-01-09
  Indonesia Foils Terror Plot on Tourist Spots
Tue 2013-01-08
  US drone attack kills four in North Waziristan
Mon 2013-01-07
  Syria Opposition Rejects Assad's Reconciliation Plan
Sun 2013-01-06
  Dronezap in South Wazoo send 18 TTP Jihadis to their rewards
Sat 2013-01-05
  Syria jets, troops wage offensive on rebels near capital
Fri 2013-01-04
  New U.S. Drone Strike Kills Three Qaida Suspects in Yemen
Thu 2013-01-03
  Iran to Citizens: Flee Isfahan
Wed 2013-01-02
  Fourteen Killed as Nigerian Troops Clash with Islamists
Tue 2013-01-01
  Pakistan: Six charity workers shot dead
Mon 2012-12-31
  Qaeda in Yemen offers bounty for killing US ambassador, troops

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