#1
It's worse than that. On an interview with her shown on MEMRI, she says that the Egyptians should look to the Constitutions of South Africa or Canada, not to the US Constitution, for what to include in their new constitution.
Their constitutions are "newer", so they must be better.
For my money this is just as bad as when justices Kennedy, Stevens, Breyer, O'Connor, and Ginsburg embraced the idea that the SCOTUS should consider what foreign judges and world political opinion should be in evaluating American law for constitutionality. (Breyer specified in particular about the death penalty and homosexuality).
#2
Common academic wisdom is that the US Consitution gives too much power to the executive branch and that's susceptible to strongman tactics and take over. On the other hand, it took 200+ years for that to happen here.
Section 1. The judicial power of the United States shall not extend rights or privileges, provided to citizens by this Constitution, to foreign enemies of the United States who shall fall under the military jurisdiction of the United States in time of war or military conflict; except as shall be agreed to by the United States under international treaty on the conduct of war.
Section 2. The judicial power of the courts established under Article III of this Constitution shall not be guided by any precedent or opinion by any foreign court or tribunal; except as shall be agreed to by the United States under international treaty.
Section 3. The Fourteenth article of amendment to this Constitution shall not be construed to provide or require a benefit or emolument to foreign nationals who are found to be residing illegally within the United States or its territories.
Section 4. Only citizens of the United States, properly registered to vote in the state in which they reside, shall vote in any election held by the United States or any state; and no foreign national in the United States shall be counted for purposes of apportionment or voting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2012 20:18
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#4
Section X. That no individual appointed to a federal judicial office shall hold the office for more than 12 consecutive years, but will must be reconfirmed by the Senate in order to retain that office or any other judicial seat.
Section 4. Only citizens of the United States, owning property or paying taxes, properly registered to vote in the state in which they reside, shall vote in any election held by the United States or any state; and no foreign national in the United States shall be counted for purposes of apportionment or voting.
Posted by Steve White
#1
From the source article: So what the hell, exactly, are we doing rushing around the world, acting as if we were under siege from an alien race living at the Earth’s core, popping up in a new hot spot every 15 months? Why have we seen the need to remake our national character and Constitutional principles to bring democracy to Libya? The issue is not “withdrawing from the world”—a solid, reliable, credible, alliance-defending America could still stiffen the global community’s spine at key points without making every new chaotic outbreak its business, and without allowing presidents to claim the right to parachute into any war that struck their fancy.
We wait, calmly and without much expectation, for a political leader who might begin to see all of this as an authentic Danger to the American Republic.
Israel has set up a specialist commando unit designed to carry out missions deep inside enemy territory amid growing consensus in government circles that military strikes must be contemplated if economic sanctions do not halt Iran's nuclear programme.
May I guess that the date of establishment of this specialist commando unit is, oh, 1949 or so?
The "Depth Corps" has been organised with the aim of co-ordinating deep penetration operations in other countries at a time when the defence ministry acknowledges that the number of covert Israeli operations abroad has increased significantly in the last year.
The unit, headed by Major General Shai Avital, a former head of an elite reconnaissance squad, was ordered by the head of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to focus on undercover work. Defence ministry officials in Tel Aviv insisted that it was not "Iran specific" and is needed to co-ordinate a range of duties.
The Tehran regime has repeatedly claimed that Israeli, US and British agents are responsible for the assassination of six scientists involved in the country's nuclear programme -- a charge refuted by London and Washington. Officials in Tel Aviv in general refuse to comment on covert action.
"Of course I see about the killings in the media. I see it happens", said Dan Meridor, the Minister for Intelligence and Nuclear Affairs. "Are they natural, are they unnatural? There are many stories coming from there."
"About these deaths of scientists, I don't know what to tell you. I do not know the effects of that. The fact that they continue to work on this programme despite sanctions means they want to get nuclear and are prepared to pay a heavy price," he said.
Mr Meridor stated that Israel will monitor the effects of the sanctions, including an oil embargo, imposed on Iran by the European Union as well as punitive measures taken by the US.
#1
they are already undercover, positioned in the IRGC and basij leadership, but *shhhhh* don't tell anybody. It'll be our secret
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/02/2012 16:18
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#2
And they each have a herd of pet spy squirrels. Not to mention flies-- lots and lots of spy flies, trained up from maggot-hood to their specialized tasks.
According to the report, written by the paper's senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called "immunity zone" when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed. Concerned why?
#3
Given the history of Israel's strikes agz foreign NucProgs, IMO its more correct to say that the US + Israeli want to pressure Iran to get it all nervousy + finger-twaddling, etc. in order to covertly induce Iran into making a foolish milaction which in turn will validate a US, UNSC-led counter-response.
As per LUCIANNE + HUMAN EVENTS Blog, the US + IRAN are seemingly caught up in a "GREAT GAME OF NUCLEAR CHICKEN" in the Gulf, in which the Artic denotes IT WILL LIKELY BE THE US = BAMMER ADMIN, NOT IRAN, TO SWERVE = BLINK FIRST???
As ostensib due to on-going US, NATO-EU Econ, Budget woes + ditto success of the various "Arab/Islamic Srings" [Political-Legal-Electoral Jihad = pro-Islamist Govt-sharing].
Iran is NOT Syria or Iraq - it has times made it clear that any Israeli attack will the same as a US attack, + that it will retaliate by any and all means available.
* FYI IIRC FOX FIVE AM > JESSE JACKSON = argued that GOP-Right criticisms of POTUS Obama may be putting the Bammer's life at physical risk of harm???
Countries from Italy to Ukraine struggled to cope with temperatures that plunged to record lows in some places.
Nine more people died in Poland overnight as temperatures hit minus 32 degrees in the southwest, bringing the overall toll to 29 since the deep freeze began last week, national police said.
In Ukraine, tens of thousands of people have headed to shelters trying to escape the freeze that the emergencies ministry said has now killed 63 people.
Most of the dead literally froze to death on the street, with only a handful making it to hospital before succumbing to hypothermia, the ministry said.
Shivering and hungry, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought help in the more than 2000 temporary shelters set up by the authorities to help the poor survive the fearsome spell of cold weather. Started lynching wormists yet?
#1
would be nice if it was centered on the "academics" at East Anglia
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/02/2012 15:40
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#2
It's "weather," which has nothing to do with "climate..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/02/2012 17:34
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#3
Rising Atlantic Seas + "GREAT/MIGHTY SLUSHY" = no more Couples' walks along the [now-sunken/underwater shorelines beneath the White Cliffs of Dover.
versus
* LUCIANNE > {Scientists] CONCERNS GROW OVER VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS.
[1960's = "2012" MOVIE > TIBETAN-MONK-VS-HIMALAYAN-TIDAL WAVE here].
There seems to be a pattern emerging in the Holder Justice Department: DOJ employees committing crimes and very little seems to happen to them. I'm not just talking about the questionable testimony under oath of Attorney General Eric Holder or Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. I'm talking about theft, graft, child porn, bribery, and perjury. The fact that very little ever seems to happen to DOJ officials who purportedly commit the crimes tells you a great deal about the leadership of the Obama DOJ.
Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller has this explosive story on DOJ officials taking bribes from people they are investigating. Yes, you read that correctly. More:
A U.S. Justice Department source has told The Daily Caller that at least two DOJ prosecutors accepted cash bribes from allegedly corrupt finance executives who were indicted under court seal within the past 13 months, but never arrested or prosecuted.
Holder has got to be tried and imprisoned, along with most of his staff. I fear the rest of government is this corrupt as well.
Iran has enough nuclear material for four bombs, Director of Military Intelligence Major General Aviv Kochavi warned Thursday. Kochavi made a rare appearance at the 2012 Herzliya Conference, where he reviewed regional changes, the effects of the Arab Spring and the Iranian threat.
"Iran is vigorously pursing military nuclear capabilities and today the intelligence community agrees with Israel on that. Iran has over four tons of enriched materials and nearly 100kg of 20% enriched uranium – that's enough for four bombs," he said.
According to Kochavi, Iran's motivation stems from three reasons: Regional hegemony, deterrence and its desire to be a key regional player and while Iran still maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian, peaceful purposes, "We have conclusive evidence that they are after nuclear weapons."
Still, according to the MI chief, the final decision whether or pursue nuclear weapons has little to do with technical capabilities and much to do with one man's decision: "When Khamenei gives the order to produce the first nuclear weapon – it will be done, we believe, within one year."
Iran, he added, has to deal with various pressures: The international spotlight on its every action, the crippling international sanctions, the deteriorating relations with Syria and its own internal problems. "These pressures have yet to result in a change in Iranian strategy, but if they intensify they might lead to change, because the most important thing to them is the regime's sustainability."
But Iran is not the only threat to Israel: "Israel's enemies possess more rockets than ever before," Kochavi said. "Our enemies have 200,000 rockets and missiles capable of hitting every pary of Israel.
"The missiles' warheads are more accurate and more lethal, the array is sporadic – hidden in urban areas. The quantity has become a strategic dimension the IDF has to deal with.
"We're also witnessing the disappearance of the enemy off the classic battlefield. The battlefield is now in urban terrain, which harbors large quantities of modern weapons. That forces intelligence gathering to change as well," he said.
"The Middle East is rediscovering its voice and translating it into political power," Kochavi added. "There is a new component in the Middle East, one the leaders and the political parties have realized that they have to pay attention to – the public. This public has discovered that it can overthrow regimes and shape the public agenda.
"This public demands its basic rightÂ… The young Arab person today is educated, exposed to what's going on in the world and in the West through TV and the Internet. The contrast between that and what they experience is very sharp, creating growing frustration. The public is growing stronger and it's encouraged by the power of social media," he said.
"The main asset possessed by the Arab regimes – fear – is dissipating. The public dares to dare, while the regimes' power is dwindling. The public in the Middle East has become a pivotal factor in the regimes' decision making process.
"This change has led to various things, first and foremost the rise of Islam in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. But that was not the driving force behind the uprising. The Islamists recognized the wave (of unrest) and translated their vast infrastructure into political power. The upset in balance was devoid of two things – leadership and clear ideology. The Islamic organizations entered that void with their clear ideology. That move was natural.
"Egypt will continue to have a significant role in the shaping of the new Middle East and whatever model it chooses is likely to have significant impact on the rest of the Middle East."
The Middle East, he continued, "is clearly undergoing a process of Islamization and religious argumentation may find its way into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of a national one. We're also seeing an old-new altercation in the Middle East, of the tribal ethos.
"These changes are not limited to the arena of the public versus the regime. We can also see them between nations: There's tension between three countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. They each aspire for regional hegemony: Saudi Arabia aspire to have things remain as they are in the Gulf; Iran, for years, has been pursuing an agenda meant to increase its global influence and its influence over the Gulf; and Turkey, that refuses to give up any of its influence in the region, given Europe's cold shoulder."
Kochavi added that Iran is watchful of the political changes in the region, which it sees as an opportunity to infuse the Middle East with Iranian funds and arms – actions that have the Saudi's view Tehran as a political and military threat.
Turkey, meanwhile, offers democracy-infused Islam – nationalistic passion combined with a link to the West. But Turkey and Iran – though they have bilateral ties – are at odds: Turkey has taken several steps that are in contrast to Iranian interests, Kochavi said.
The regional changes, he continued, "Also spell a decrease in the power of the radical axis, Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah on the on hand, and Iran-Hamas-Islamic Jihad in Gaza, on the other hand.
"(Â…) The difficulties are compounded by shrinking economy, which is that all of these countries have in common. That will be their test in the next few years."
Still, according to Kochavi, Israel's deterrence is intact: "We're preserving deterrence but we are now facing a more hostile Middle East. This Middle East will be permanently unstable, which means we have to be ready for all kinds of twists and turn.
"Military Intelligence is constantly reviewing how it can modify its practices to comply with the new reality. We're establishing ourselves as an operational branch, not just a supportive oneÂ… If the veil of secrecy could be lifted from over all the thousands of soldiers involved in intelligence work, I assure you, the Israeli people would be very proud," he concluded.
#1
Pragmatically, IRAN'S FOUR > doth not = ISRAEL'S OFT-REPORTED 300.
The signs as per unquestioned or reliable US support may not bode well for Tel Aviv ...
To wit,
* TOPIX > [JCS Chairman] DEMPSEY TOLD ISRAEL US WON'T JOIN IN THEIR WAR ON IRAN, widout first achieving prior common consensus/agreement.
* SAME > OBAMA SIDES WID ISLAMIC IRAN IN THE 1983 BOMBING [Beirut, Lebanon] THAT KILLED 241 US MARINES.
* SAME, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [JCS Chairman] DEMPSEY TOLD ISRAELIS US WON'T JOIN THEIR WAR ON IRAN, widout first achieveing prior mutual or common agreement on same.
* TOPIX > OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: US WOULD "COME TO ISRAEL'S DEFENSE" IFF IRAN ATTACKED IT.
* WAFF > {StrategyPage] THE EGYPTIAN NUKE.
A variety of Egypt-specific internal factors deemed as detrimental to Israel by Israel leads Egypt's Military = Top Eggs to conclude that EGYPT IS LIKELY NEXT ON ISRAEL'S TARGET LIST AFTER IRAN???
-----------
The Signs also don't bode well for CONUS ...
* TOPIX > VARIOUS > ISRAEL: IRAN IS READY TO BUILD A LONG-RANGE MISSLE [10,000-km = 6000+ miles] THAT REACH THE US [East Coast].
Iran's NucProgs aimed or focused more at US than Israel = OWG-US-SUPERPOWER-VS-OWG-RISING-NUCLEAR-CALIPHATE.
Lest we fergit, SUCCESSFUL "ARAB SPRINGS" + PRO_ISLAMIST NUCLEAR AGENDUM = neither NORTH KOREA NOR PAKISTAN, etc. ARE IRAN'S SOLE SOURCE(S) ANYMORE FOR NUCTECHS.
DItto as per REGIONAL MUSLIM RESISTANCE [Nuke-WMD] to any US-led invasion + occupation of Iran.
Syrian security forces fanned out in Hama on Thursday as protesters splashed red paint symbolizing blood in the streets to mark the 30th anniversary of a notorious massacre carried out by President Bashar al-Assad's father and predecessor.
The Hama massacre of 1982, which leveled entire neighborhoods and killed thousands of people, has become a rallying cry for the Syrian uprising that began nearly 11 months ago in the hopes of ending four decades of the Assad family rule.
Hundreds of troops and security forces were in Hama on Thursday, closing off public squares and setting up checkpoints. "There is a checkpoint every 100 meters," said Ahmed Jimejmi, a Hama resident.
Activists painted two streets in Hama red to symbolize blood, and threw red dye in the waters of Hama's famous and ancient water wheels. Graffiti on the walls read: "Hafez died, and Hama didn't. Bashar will die, and Hama won't."
Mr. Assad's father ordered the scorched-earth assault on Hama 30 years ago to put down an uprising against his rule. Amnesty International has claimed that 10,000-25,000 were killed, though conflicting figures exist and the Syrian government has never made an official estimate.
For the next two decades, until his death, Hafez Assad ruled uncontested and the massacre was seared into the minds of Syrians.
Now, as the country faces a far larger revolt against Bashar Assad, the U.N. estimates more than 5,400 people have been killed in the government crackdown.
"Jeffrey Mankoff is an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Russia and Eurasia Program and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City." CNN is a proud member of the mainstream media, anxious to maintain its liberal bona fides so that women will continue to talk to them at K street parties.
"Haven't I seen you in the Buffalo airport lounge?"
The article's thesis is that while it is understandable that Russia has strategic interests at risk in Syria (e.g. arms contracts and a naval base), by staunchly backing pencilneck
Russia is putting those very interests at risk.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Middle East and North Africa Department remains a bastion of old Nazis Arabists, many of whom continue to view the region through cold war lenses. Those who do not, view pencilneck
as a counterweight to the US and as an assurance that Russia will have a seat at the table as the region's future is being determined.
But by bucking the Arab League on Syria, Moscow is jeopardizing its relations with governments across the Middle East who, since the Arab Spring, are increasingly responsive to public opinion. When pencilneck
goes, those who replace him will not quickly forgive Russia for backing the suppressor of Damascus
to the bitter end.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
02/02/2012
12:35 ||
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Palestinians tried to block UN chief Ban Ki Moon from entering the blockaded Gaza Strip and flung slippers at his armoured convoy today on the second day of his visit to Israel and the occupied territories.
About 40 relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails gathered at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, hoisting posters with pictures of their loved ones and signs in English and Arabic reading: "Ban Ki Moon, enough bias to Israel."
Two of them threw slippers at his car, an insulting gesture associated with the Iraqi protester who won plaudits around the world after he hurled shoes at former US president George Bush at a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.
The Gaza prisoners' relatives, angry that Mr Ban had refused to meet them, formed a human chain at the crossing in an effort to block his vehicle but Hamas security forces moved them away so that Mr Ban could enter.
"We came here in a symbolic message to Mr Ban Ki Moon that Palestinians from Gaza want to have the right to visit their children and loved ones in Israeli jails," said Jamal Farwana, a spokesman for Gaza prisoners' families.
"He should make more of an effort to release the prisoners and we wonder why every time he avoids meeting families of Palestinian prisoners."
Israel holds about 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, many without charge, including 47 Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Relatives of prisoners from Gaza haven't been able to visit them in jail since 2006 when Israel imposed the ongoing blockade.
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Indiana became the 23rd state to pass anti-union "right-to-work" legislation on Wednesday and the first in the nation's manufacturing heartland, dealing a blow to organized labor by allowing workers to opt out of paying union dues.
Indiana's Republican governor Mitch Daniels signed the legislation into law immediately after it was given final approval in the state Senate, making Indiana the first state to adopt such a measure since Oklahoma did so a decade ago.
Daniels, governor since 2005 and a prominent spokesman for Republicans nationally, said he decided Indiana needed the controversial new law after several businesses decided to locate elsewhere. This is huge. Indiana was a huge union state with very, very powerful unions. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for these big union leaches.
#1
This is great news!
Soon we will be able to compete with Vietnamese factory workers based on pay rates!
I for one would like to see the minimum wage annihilated and a MAXIMUM wage law enacted to legally mandate us to be the lowest paid workers on the planet.
Imagine all the factories that would flock here!We'd all be virtually guaranteed full employment in a rewarding and fast paced industry like bauxite processing or assembling iPods.
Of course, this won't apply to management or company officers, that would be bad form.
The mass of union expansion has been in the public sector not private sector. The most significant number in the recent Bureau of Labor Statistics release on unionization is probably this: Only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are in unions. ThatÂ’s the same percent as last year. In the middle of the 20th century, it was 35%. Â… The number is significant because it suggests that laborÂ’s much-publicized private sector organizing drives have failed. - Kaus.
Collective Bargaining is Newspeak for Closed Shop by other means which has devolved into a source of revenue for one political party. The employees of the state are suppose to work for the people, the basis of a sovereign state. The people don't exist to serve the union.
#4
Jim, no one I know of is opposed to people doing well. Particularly when it's us.
I think most people recognize intuitively the teaching of economics: things that can't go on forever, won't.
It's great if you can have an automobile assembly line job that pays $75 an hour in wages and benefits. But if the industry and economy can't support that, at some point the industry crashes and you lose your job. When government tries to prevent that by shifting the cost, the rest of us lose, and in the end the problem is worse (ask the Greeks for details).
Unions have their place. In the private sector there is a corrective to excess union power, that being the power of the business to close the business and move. So there is a balance, and in the main business and labor eventually learn to get along within limits (yes, there are always assholes who test things).
Where's the balance in public union power, particularly when the unions use their power to have their bosses elected (e.g., the Democrats)? The whole reason the public sector is out of control today is that the unions and Democrats created an alliance that disrupted the natural balance of power.
What Indiana is doing is ensuring that balance returns. We won't be competing with the Vietnamese because of this; indeed we may keep some private sector jobs home. But more importantly, we'll restore the balance of power in the public sector, a balance that is urgently needed.
This country simply must get public sector unions under control, or we're headed for very, very bad times.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2012 12:45
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#5
This wasn't just about public workers, it was about all workers. And Indiana will be using it to lure union auto jobs from Michigan into non-union northern Indiana.
Jim is correct. In our global village under-educated, unskilled factory workers in the US will be competing for jobs with Vietnamese under-educated, unskilled factory workers. It's called a free market. And the American managers and officers will be competing with Vietnamese managers and officers.
We have a choice. As a result of the competition, jobs can go to Vietnam, jobs can go to the US, or we can stop trading with Vietnam. Which do you prefer?
And if unions have a place, it's on the ash heap of history. Cartels of any type act to restrain trade and reduce freedom. They eventually loose their power, but they are inefficient as long as they prevail.
Good for Indiana. Tough for Michigan, Illinois and Ohio, until they change their laws, as they will eventually have to.
#7
--- Ohio had passed a law banning strikes by its public unions a bit over a year ago. This, along with other reforms, was repealed in a referendum this spring. Unions overwhelmed the airwaves with an expensive media campaign. My next door neighbor told me she dislikes the taxes she has to pay and doesn't want the police unions to be able to strike, but she voted to repeal anyway.
--- She seemed blissfully ignorant of the economic teaching that things that can't go on forever, won't. However, that teaching is still true, and is still chewing its way through the US and other economies. Other cartels which are strangling the economy have been almost untouched.
#10
Some time ago someone suggested the automakers spin off their manufacturing, thus forcing/allowing the manufacturing plants to compete for product to build and allowing the automakers to avoid being held hostage by the unions. Instead we got a government buyout.
#12
Good idea, but I think Boeing would tell you the NLRB would have your ass.
I heard a rally cry for union support which really struck me, "If you like minimum wage, thank a union". There were others, like having the weekend off and tasty burgers and butterfly kisses and such.
What struck me, is the Federal Government now mandates all and even more benefits than Unions, basically federalized union benefits with minimum wage, OSHA, unfair firing laws, unemployment, retirement, it goes on.
It should make the entire USA right to work, and union dues optional for all US workers. If the unions are doing their stuff people will donate.
#13
Toyota has a massive plant near Princeton, Indiana that employs thousands, with thousands more in local support industries. Indiana Governance is taking care of Hoosiers. That's the way it's supposed to be.
#14
We're in a race to the bottom, and I don't really think we realize what the prize is.
Maybe, at some point, we decide we really don't want some of those jobs if they don't pay enough to sustain a worker's life and health.
You can sit at the bar and go broke, why work yourself broke? Personally I don't have a dog in this fight, but Germany has found a way to have a raging economy with manufacturing as a cornerstone. Their labor force, coincidentally, is highly unionized, compensated much more generously, and just as productive as ours.
So I'm not sure you'll see any benefit to busting unions if the underlying product being produced is not needed or wanted. Or if the difference just goes in some CEO's pocket.
#17
The trick of a Union-buisness relationship is it needs to be a symbiotic one. Several unions, like the UPS driver one, understand this and work to make the workers as productive and compensated as possible while keeping the business healthy and competitive. One wins, the other wins.
The big unions, like the auto unions have gone into a Parasitic symbioses relationship. They do everything they can to suck all they can out of the host business, regardless if it makes the host ill and unable to compete.
IMHO, unions were necessary back through 1900-1945. They helped provide 40 hour weeks, overtime, workman's comp, PTO, etc. Things that are now standard and federal law. With most of their goals met, like all movements (see civil rights movement) they became a solution in search of a problem. With a multi-million dollar payroll and clout, they need to keep the gravy flowing and they are killing our nation's ability to compete.
You want to be part of a union, fine. Join. Just don't force us to do it as that creates a power monopoly that only leads to stagnation and obsolescence.
#18
Hope I'm not making it up, so don't quote me, but I thought I heard about a car made overseas, shipped to the USA, then assembled. Like I said, don't quote me on that.
I have some great cutlery from Germany, Switzerland, even here in USA. Have lasted years, still have their original edges etc. Can opener from China, dust in like three washes, was starting to rust just by the can juice splashing.
Person has only $5. That person can buy a nice can opener from Germany, or pick up the chinese one plus three cans of beans.
Problem is, I have bought some chinese stuff where if I didn't know, would have guessed USA or Germany, Japan, top tier. They are getting better.
I simply do not believe people should be forced to join a union, and/or forced to pay a membership fee. If the union is worthwhile, it should sell itself.
Public sector, like police or fire, it undermines peoples' confidence in services paid for and promised if they fuss and strike according to who or who is not in office. It isn't necessarily the individual cop or firefighter either and they should have that choice.
#19
It's up to them to make their cost/benefit analysis look apealing, nobody can save them from that. The problem is as workers rights and working conditions get worse we will see all sorts of increased social and budgetary problems. Paying the workforce less only benefits a very, VERY small group of people. Who don't really need the extra cash that badly to pay their rent or buy medicine. They just want reap even more grotesque corporate profits than they did last year.
#20
Personally I don't have a dog in this fight, but Germany has found a way to have a raging economy with manufacturing as a cornerstone.
Given that German banks were among the big beneficiaries of the TARP, maybe they haven't figured out how NOT to drive capital out of their own country.
The reality is that non-union Honda, Toyota, Nissen, etc plants in America are providing their workers a job and wages that the UAW plants can't anymore undermines your argument that workers are only competing against the lowest possible denominator overseas.
#21
So what's the difference between a union, higher paying VW plant in Germany and a union GM plant in Michigan?
Why can one make money and the other cant? I just read that german autoworkers make more in wages and benefits than their american counterparts. So the has to be another dimension to all this besides wages. There has to be. But corporations claim that that is the whole story.
#22
Because there's no Deutschmark, just the Euro which because of their friends in the sunny south permits the Germans to be competitive internationally. If the Germans uncouple from the Euro the DMark will soar making exports very uncompetitive.
#23
Germany? When I lived there fifteen years ago, only 1/3rd of women ever held a paying job in their entire lives, and kids stayed at university on average a full decade, because unemployment hovered close to 10% even in a strong economy. I understand that currently German unemployment numbers have gone down, but I suspect that may be at least partially connected to the number that have moved into retirement. Also the number of German jobs outsourced to the Czech Republic and further east...and to the U.S.
The unemployment rate in Germany was last reported at 6.6 percent in December of 2011. From 1991 until 2010, Germany's Unemployment Rate averaged 9.73 percent reaching an historical high of 12.10 percent in March of 2005 and a record low of 7.30 percent in December of 1991. The labour force is defined as the number of people employed plus the number unemployed but seeking work.
#25
Also, as I recall, German workers do not get private pensions like American workers do -- they get what the government gives them, and are grateful. Health insurgence is a mix of public and private plans -- private, expensive, and very good for top managers, the rich, and the privileged; public, cheap, and long waiting times for the rest. As expats for a large foreign company, we never had to wait more than three business days to get an appointment, while my German friends might wait six months.
#26
IMHO German cars are underpowered and overpriced. I can buy two Chevrolets for the price of one Mercedes or BMW. BMWs are cool. OK, I get it. But I can't afford $100,000 for a car and I don't need to go that fast. In fact, if I go that fast the police are gonna pull me over. And, once again IMHO, my old Pontiac Gran Prix is more comfortable than a BMW. Compare an Audi A4 to a Lexus ES350. You get a lot more bang for your buck if you buy the Lexus. The sales guys will tell you about that mythical "German engineering", whatever that means. Balderdash. The Japanese are just as good. And, yet again IMHO, it's only a matter of time before the Koreans, Chinese and Indians get up to speed. Wouldn't want to be a German auto worker then.
#27
In germany the unions don't go on strike just to make a point, or to prepare the battlefield for the contract negotiations of an allied union that are coming up. I don't believe the german workers would put up with strikes they didn't believe in. I don't believe german managers would take giant bonuses while laying off workers.
In the US there is much more hostility between management and the unions.
#28
Jim has a point, but there's one other point missing: unionized American workers no longer have much of a work ethic, or at least one that even remotely compares with German workers' discipline and conscientiousness. Screw around in Detroit, and the UAW will defend you tooth and nail. Pull that shi'ite in Bayern, and you're on your own. German unions do not tolerate slack and goofing because the whole country has an ethos of solidarity and individual responsibility that we've lost.
As to the race-to-the-bottom argument, there's no point trying to compete in low-end manufacturing of anything. Give it up. The path forward for this country is in progressively higher and higher value-added specialty manufacturing. Those businesses are doing very well and are desperate to hire skilled workers.
The big problem for all of us is that this country no longer has a serious vocational ed system that will produce highly-trained workers who can fill those specialized manufacturing jobs.
We've got this foolish notion, oddly reminiscent of the "everyone-should-own-a-home" idiocy of the last decade, that every kid should go to college. Every kid should learn a TRADE, a set of marketable skills, and most of those trades can and should be taught at the secondary level.
On this day last year, I posted two charts that I developed using the Minneapolis Federal Reserve BankÂ’s interactive website.
Those two charts showed that the current recovery was very weak compared to the boom of the early 1980s.
But perhaps that was an unfair comparison. Maybe the Reagan recovery started strong and then hit a wall. Or maybe the Obama recovery was the economic equivalent of a late bloomer.
So letÂ’s look at the same charts, but add an extra year of data. Does it make a difference?
MehÂ…not so much.
LetÂ’s start with the GDP data. The comparison is striking. Under ReaganÂ’s policies, the economy skyrocketed. Heck, the chart prepared by the Minneapolis Fed doesnÂ’t even go high enough to show how well the economy performed during the 1980s.
Under ObamaÂ’s policies, by contrast, weÂ’ve just barely gotten back to where we were when the recession began. Unlike past recessions, we havenÂ’t enjoyed a strong bounce. And this means we havenÂ’t recovered the output that was lost during the downturn.
This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October's 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China's gold imports.
Analysts believe China bought as much as 490 tons of gold in 2011, double the estimated 245 tons in 2010. "The thing that's caught people's minds is the massive increase in Chinese buying," remarked Ross Norman of Sharps Pixley, a London gold brokerage, this month.
So who in China is buying all this gold? China is going through what the US did in 2005-2006. When they fall, who will buy our debt? I see the gravy train derailing this year.
#3
TW: The article says it is capital flight. Property prices are collapsing and the only real hedge against currency and property devaluation is gold. The US did the same thing in 2006 and gold shot up to record levels.
#5
Why Are the Chinese Buying Record Quantities of Gold?
They took Goldfinger seriously.
Gold:
1. You can't eat it.
2. You can't grow food in it.
3. It has a couple of industrial uses that can be substituted with other metals.
4. It looks purty inna wedding ring but silly and fake in large quantities. (Return to Step 1.)
Go for it, China!
Posted by: Gabby Cussworth, Man of a Thousand Nyms ||
02/02/2012 16:35
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#2
Its not that anyone forgot to tell swing-staters yet, its that it isn't time.
I think the idea was for el prez to sink low so that there would be nothing other than a reboud, the SOTU supposedly marking the bottom of that trough, perhaps it didn't work like it was supposed to, quite indicative of his tenure. So, in this case, it is appropriate for the pres to be crying over spilled milk.
To be simple, as so far he is following the Republicans on their campaign, as his campaign. If I were an idealist democrat I would be embarassed. If I were a collectivist looking for the dear leader to push into the new paradise, I would be disappointed. If I were buddies with one of his czars, I'd be rich.
#4
It is possible for the Republicans to lose. That is the only real way Obama could win.
Obama can't run on his record, he can't run on it takes four more years to finish what I started (since he's trashed things so far). He can't run against Congress which he had total control of for two years and which his party still controls the Senate and he'll just look pathetic if he runs against Bush again. All he's got is Bin Laden.
He's mostly lost the left and the center has wised up. He'll have the black vote and a handful of staunch partisan democrats and will probably lose big.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., joined by 43 other Republican senators and one Democrat, introduced a bill Monday to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, despite President Obama's nixing of the idea last week.
The Congressional Research Service found that, under the Constitution's commerce clause, Congress is in charge of such stuff as the Keystone pipeline, said Ryan Bernstein, (deputy chief of staff and legal counsel for Hoeven).
Going back to President Grant in the 1870s, presidents have asserted an executive power to determine if commercial projects moving across the nation's borders are warranted, if the states fail to act, Bernstein said. Back then it was telegraph cables laid on the ocean's floor. Since 1968, there has been a more explicit process requiring the State Department to sign off on such a pipeline coming in from another country, Bernstein said. So Hillary flexed her mighty muscles, and -
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recommended to Obama he reject the pipeline idea, and he did. Just so he could blame her, if the fires get too hot.
But Hoeven and other senators decided to make this about first principles -- as far as separation of powers comes in, anyway -- and commissioned the Congressional Research Service to study what Congress' prerogatives might be.
The bill introduced Monday would allow Nebraska "to take all the time it needs," to determine the best route for the Keystone XL pipeline, he said.
Meanwhile, TransCanada can begin building the pipeline from either or both ends. It could become useful before completion, by helping drain the over-supply of petroleum at the legendary Cushing, Okla., terminals, to the Gulf, Bernstein said. I'd like to see Obama's face if that got started. Just a little piece over here, and another little piece over there.... No permits required! Until the last few 'little pieces'.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, promised a similar bill would pass in the House.
Bernstein said the bill, if passed, should be "a very interesting" challenge to Obama's exercise of executive power in such matters. We could be living in "interesting times".
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/02/2012
09:52 ||
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#1
Pretty much anything you do now requires Gov't approval of an Environmental Impact Statement; that would presumably include any individual Keystone segments.
Legally, there are limitations, and if you avoid involving the US government, you can get off easier.
In 1991, there was a proposal to build a $6 billion high-speed rail project in Texas. An EIS was not required, (no Federal money), but I agreed that it would be madness to try to avoid it - it was just too big. Southwest Airlines would've gone to the mat to assure an EIS was performed.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/02/2012 14:09
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discovery should be fun. Another link where Terry's family accuses then US Atty Dennis Burke of lying to them. Join the crowd
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/02/2012
08:20 ||
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#1
The way the Gansgter Government works with tax payer money is they will pay the 25 mill and then tell the Terry family to shut up from now on. Where are the criminal charges for accessory to murder for supplying the cartel with the murder weapon?
At least 15 Islamic terrorists extremists, including three top leaders, were killed in an air raid in Sulu at dawn Thursday. Abu Sayyaf commander Umbra Jumdail, also known as Abu Pula, and Jemaah Islamiyah leaders Zulkifli bin Hir or Marwan, and Abdullah Ali, who uses the guerrilla name Muawiyah Anjala, were the senior leaders killed in the air strikes.
Zulkifli is a Malaysian leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, an explosive expert, and the over-all leader of the JI in the Philippines, said military spokesman Colonel Arnulfo Burgos. The US government has offered $5 million and P7.4 million reward for Zulkifli's capture.
Muawiyah, who goes by many aliases, is a Singaporean member of JI who fled to the Philippines shortly after the Bali bombings, according to a Philippine military intelligence source. He was a former member of the Singaporean military with the rank of Major. He was also a JI member affiliated with the Abu Sayyaf and had contact with Omar Patek, Burgos said. The US offered a $50,000 reward for his arrest.
Jumdail, a member of the Tausug ethnic group, is a founder and one of the top figures of the Abu Sayyaf group. He had warrants of arrest for 21 counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention and was involved in the 2000 kidnapping in Sipadan, Malaysia and the 2001 kidnapping in Dos Palmas resort in Palawan.
In a press briefing, Burgos said that the composite unit with elite troops from the Philippine Army, Philippine Navy and the Philippine Air Force first launched an air strike in Barangay Duyan Kabau, Parang town in Sulu to "soften the target" at around 3 a.m. Thursday. That attack lasted for only a few seconds before troops stormed the terror group's temporary camp, Burgos said.
The air strikes were conducted following tips from civilians that there were Abu Sayyaf and JI members in the area. Burgos said there were also reports that 30 terrorists, including six foreign JI members, arrived in Sulu last December.
Burgos said that no civilians were hurt in the operations, saying that this was a "thorough and deliberate" operation done after "months of intelligence gathering." Burgos added, "We want to assure the people of Sulu that the operation conducted was aimed against known members of the terrorist groups--Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah-- who intends to expand their presence in Mindanao."
#1
“The air strikes by two OV-10 Broncos took only seconds,” he said, adding that the targets had had no chance to retaliate. At the time, intelligence reports had put the number of terrorists on the ground at 30, he said.
The terrorists were found in a thickly vegetated area under the cover of coconut trees. “As per the description of the operation officer, the one conducting the operation, there were coconut trees and the area was thick, and there were tents. They were probably sleeping [when the air strikes started],” he said.
“The troops on ground have confirmed the deaths of 15 ASG and JI members,” Burgos said.
#2
He was a former member of the Singaporean military with the rank of Major.
Singapore has compulsory military except for Muslims. The ones who did join were kept away from sensitive positions until recently. However due to claims of "Islamophobia", they recently promoted one to be General.
The military has an interesting history. How Israel built the Singapore Army
A paramilitary ranger was killed in a drive-by shooting in Pattani province and a police sergeant major seriously injured by two terrorists gunmen in Narathiwat province on Wednesday.
The policeman was attacked by two terrorists gunmen in Cho Airong district of Narathiwat this afternoon. Pol Sr Sgt-Maj Veerachai Yudam, 40, was attacked while returning home on his motorcycle by two men on another motorcycle about 1:40 p.m. The two terrorists men, each with a pistol, shot at him. He was hit in the left ribcage and again in the thigh, seriously injuring him. Veerachai returned fire with his 11 mm pistol and his terrorists assailants fled.
In Pattani's Khok Pho district, a paramilitary ranger was killed in a drive-by shooting this morning. The victim was identified as ranger Thanong Sinthu, 40.
Thanong was driving his motorcycle to his office when a terrorist gunman on another motorcycle fired three shots at him and then ran away fled. The ranger was hit three times in his back and died on the spot.
#1
Salt water crocs, sharks etc.. not a good coast to sink upon.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/02/2012 7:42
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Update: 238 people saved thus far. "More than 100" feared dead.
Eighty percent of embarking passengers were young students on their way to enroll in college in Lae.
Rescue coordinated by Australian Maritime authorities in Canberra.
(from "The Australian")
[Dawn] Four British men fueled by the words of a US-born Mohammedanholy man pleaded guilty Wednesday to involvement in an al-Qaeda inspired plot to spread terror and cause economic damage by bombing the London Stock Exchange at Christmastime.
Five other defendants pleaded guilty to lesser terrorism charges.
The nine men, from several parts of the country, were brought together through radical groups and nurtured plans to attack the stock exchange and other high-profile targets. Unbeknownst to them, British authorities learned of the plot and put them under surveillance.
They were tossed in the slammer in raids in December 2010 and all initially denied the charges against them.
But on Wednesday, as their trial was due to start, four of the defendants pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to involvement in the Stock Exchange plan, and the five others to preparing or assisting planned terror attacks.
Mohammed Chowdhury, 21; Shah Rahman, 28; Gurukanth Desai, 30; and Abdul Miah, 25, all admitted preparing for acts of terrorism by planning to plant an improvised bomb in the toilets of the London Stock Exchange.
Prosecution lawyer Andrew Edis accepted that the men had not planned to kill anyone.
"Their intention was to cause terror and economic harm and disruption," he said. "But their chosen method meant there was a risk people would be maimed or killed."
Chowdhury, from London, was described by prosecutors as the "lynchpin" of the plot. His lawyer, Christopher Blaxland, said Chowdhury admitted planning to plant the bomb, "with the obvious attendant risk but without any intention to cause death or even injury but with the intention to terrorize, damage property and to cause economic damage."
The other five defendants admitted attending planning meetings, fundraising for terrorism or possessing copies of the al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire, which contained a feature headlined "Make A Bomb In The Kitchen Of Your Mom."
Prosecutors said they had not made any bombs or set dates for the attacks.
They said the men were not members of al-Qaeda but had been inspired by the terror network and the sermons of its Yemen-based, American-born holy manAnwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , who was killed last year in a US drone strike.
Edis said the nine defendants "were implementing the published strategy of AQAP" _ al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The suspects, then aged between 20 and 30, were tossed in the slammer in London, Cardiff and Stoke-on-Trent in central England, in what police called the biggest anti-terror raid for two years.
Prosecutors said they plotted to send mail bombs to various targets in the run-up to Christmas 2010 and had discussed launching a "Mumbai-style" atrocity _ referring to the kabooms that killed 166 people in India's financial center in 2008.
The nine defendants were accused of agreeing on targets, discussing materials and methods, and researching files "containing practical instruction for a terrorist attack."
The men held planning meetings, researched bomb-making and scouted out locations including Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye Ferris wheel _ not knowing that they were under police surveillance and their homes and cars had been bugged.
A handwritten target list found at one of the defendant's homes listed the names and addresses of London Mayor Boris Johnson, two rabbis, the American Embassy and the Stock Exchange.
The men, who had Bangladeshi and Pak backgrounds, also were overheard discussing how to make a pipe bomb, and talked about traveling abroad for terror training.
The four suspects from Stoke-on-Trent discussed leaving homemade bombs in the toilets of their city's pubs _ but noted that as Mohammedans they would not be able to go into the pubs to plant them.
The defendants will be sentenced next week, but the judge has already told Chowdhury he will receive 13 1/2 years and Rahman 12 years. Each will also receive five years on probation. They are likely to serve half that time before being eligible for parole.
When police swooped on the suspects in three cities in the early morning of Dec. 20, 2010, they said it was the most significant anti-terror raid for two years.
London has been targeted several times by violent Islamists affiliated with or inspired by al-Qaeda.
In July 2005, four jacket wallahs killed 52 commuters on three London subway trains and a bus. A year later, US and British intelligence officials thwarted one of the largest plots yet _ a plan to explode bombs on nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners.
Al-Awlaki, who was killed in September, is thought to have orchestrated an unsuccessful October 2010 plot to send mail bombs on planes from Yemen to the US hidden in the toner cartridges of computer printers.
[An Nahar] Four rockets fired from the Gazoo Strip struck inside Israel on Wednesday, causing neither casualties nor damage, an Israeli police front man said.
The rocket fire came as U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... visited Israel and the Paleostinian territories. He is scheduled to visit Gazoo on Thursday.
"A rocket landed by one of the kibbutzim near the border. It landed in an open area, and there was no damage and no injuries," front man Micky Rosenfeld told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Three other rockets later crashed into an uninhabited area near the town of Sderot," in the Negev desert, he added.
Militant groups in the Paleostinian territory regularly fire crude rockets into southern Israel, usually causing little damage but often prompting retaliatory air strikes.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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#1
He is scheduled to visit Gazoo on Thursday.
So they can attack Israel with impunity on Wednesday.
#4
Crude? Crude is when a bunch of country boys get a barrel, fill it with fumes, and light the underside. As I recall there is a production method with includes packing ball bearings and such for maximum effect.
ISLAMABAD - A small parcel mailed to an office of the Pak prime minister in October contained a small amount of deadly anthrax spores, a front man said on Wednesday.
"The security team became suspicious of the package," Akram Shahidi, a front man for Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... told Rooters. "After lab testing, it was determined that this was anthrax." The spores have a molecular signature. You can pretty much tell from what lab they came, if they came from a recognized lab in the West or Russia. Golly gosh, wonder if the Paks will let us have a sample for testing?
There were no reported casualties. The parcel was mailed from the town of Jamshoro in the southern Pak province of Sindh.
Chinese security forces No doubt suffering from altitude sickness
are cracking down on the basic liberties of the Tibetan people. Witnesses report random home searches and warnings not to discuss politics on calls outside the country.
According to Stephanie Brigden, the director of Free Tibet, Chinese authorities are using intimidation and surveillance to install a culture of fear. Is that something new?
The latest crackdown in Tibet and surrounding provinces was prompted by Beijing's fear that protests in neighboring Sichuan province by Tibetans could spread to Tibet. Chinese authorities claim that in neighboring Sichuan, "mobs" of rock-wielding Tibetan separatists attacked police stations and civilians.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
02/02/2012
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#1
ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > CHINA DEMANDS [demanded] ITS SHARE OF ARUNUCHAL PRADESH, during the Sino-Indian Special representative talks which ended 01/17th.
Indjuh was not happy as it was hoping to discuss other matters.
* WOLRD NEWS > CHINA PROTESTS JAPAN ISLANDS-NAMING PLAN. Up to 39 islands + islets, etc. including the China-claimed Daoyus = Japanese Senkakus.
* TOPIX > AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE PLAN CALLS FOR US TO SEND MORE [US Navy] NUCLEAR VESSELS.
* RUSSIA TODAY > JAPAN WON'T GET KURIL ISLANDS - MIRONOV [Fair Party].
versus
* TOPIX > US BI-PARTISAN STRATEGY TO CLOSE [surplus] OVERSEAS BASES.
Bases Review Panel startup for proposed new BRACS.
#3
Perhaps the Tibets are realizing that they've been checked by Chinese rail lines and attempts to bring Chinese up into Tibet, and if they don't do something demographic trends will basically eliminate them.
#4
Han Chinese cannot live "long term" at the altitudes that make up most of Tibet. They get there and start to get sick (and tired). I dont think most Han want to be shipped to Tibet and most Tibetans dont want to have to live with Han Chinese, I mean who would?
#5
Can't live up there? Nonsense. There is nothing magical about the air that people can't aclimate too. That is why the Chinese built/are building a rail connection. To move a large population up there.
#7
I think that a new word is needed, combining the concepts of genocide with gradualism. Using "slow force" to displace a people from their land, taking their resources, denying them commerce, while giving advantages to the invading peoples, until they so outnumber the locals that the locals can be marginalized into extinction.
While going on for a while in Tibet, the Chinese are also carrying this out in other minority regions, such as among the Uyghur in western China.
This has happened a lot in history, but is almost never thought of as a genocide, though it accomplishes the same goals.
The use of force in such situations is always measured, but not based on the level of resistance, but on the advancement of the program.
Oddly enough, this is common throughout the world, most often used as an effort to "Islamicize" a place via immigration.
[An Nahar] Arab ministers will meet February 11 to review their suspended observer mission to Syria, postponing talks as a U.N. vote on the country's bloodshed is delayed, an 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... official said on Wednesday.
The official said a meeting of foreign ministers, planned for February 5 in Doha, has been rescheduled for February 11 in Cairo where the League has its headquarters.
Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi announce last week the mission's suspension "after the Syrian government chose the option of escalation, which increased the number of victims."
Syria condemned the move and said it was "aimed at increasing the pressure for foreign intervention in Syrian affairs."
The 165 League observers were deployed in December after Syria agreed to a League plan for a halt to the violence, for prisoners to be freed, tanks withdrawn from towns and on the free movement of observers and foreign media.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said earlier on Wednesday that the U.N. Security Council could vote on a resolution next week demanding an end to bloodshed in Syria.
Western powers and the vaporous Arab League on Tuesday demanded immediate U.N. action to stop the killings but holdout Syria's ally Russia has vowed to veto any proposal it deemed unacceptable.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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[An Nahar] The chief U.N. nuclear inspector said Wednesday that there was "still a lot of work to do" with Iran over its contested atomic program, after returning from a three-day trip to Tehran.
"We had three days of intensive discussions about all our priorities. We are committed to resolving all the outstanding issues and the Iranians said they are committed too," Herman Nackaerts told news hounds at Vienna airport.
"But of course there is still a lot of work to be done, and so we have planned another trip in the very near future," he said.
"We had a good trip ... I will now go back to headquarters and inform the DG (ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano) about the mission."
Iranian state media agencies Fars and ISNA had reported on Tuesday that the talks "were held in a positive and constructive atmosphere" but that the team did not inspect any nuclear sites.
Both sides "agreed on continuing the talks" but no date was set, and the six-person team "did not visit any of the nuclear centers and facilities in our country during their trip," INSA said.
The delegation also included IAEA number two Rafael Grossi, an Argentine, and the IAEA's senior legal official Peri Lynne Johnson, a U.S. citizen, according to diplomats.
The visit, the IAEA had said, was aimed at clearing "outstanding substantive issues" on Tehran's nuclear program following a damning report from the agency in November.
That report, which has led to a substantial increase in pressure on Iran from the United States, the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and others, detailed a string of areas in which it said Iranian activities were highly suspicious.
Iran has called that report baseless and maintains its nuclear program is peaceful.
Its response to recent, severe Western economic sanctions against its finance and all-important oil sectors has been to defiantly ramp up its nuclear activities.
It has started uranium enrichment at a new fortified bunker in Fordo, near its holy city of Qom, and announced that a 20-percent enriched uranium fuel plate would be inserted into its Tehran research reactor within weeks.
At the same time, though, it has vowed to keep up cooperation with the IAEA.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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#1
At last check, the IAEA team has not yet even visited any Iran Nufacs, so hopefully that will change.
Becuz iff the IAEA fails + **** hits the fan ...
* WORLD MIL FORUM > US OFFCIAL SAYS NUCLEAR WEAPONS MAY BE THE ONLY WAY TO DESTROY IRAN'S [hardened] UNDERGOUND NUCLEAR FACILITIES.
BAGHDAD — An al-Qaeda front group in Iraq claimed responsibility for a bloody attack on a government compound in the Islamist militants’ former stronghold west of Baghdad last month and vowed more attacks on the Shiite-led government as it tries to make up with its Sunni-backed members.
Seven policemen were killed in a three-hour battle between Shiite-dominated security forces and Sunni militants Jan. 15 in the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad. It was the first serious gunbattle for Iraqi forces against insurgents without American backup.
A statement by al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq late Tuesday praised the attackers in Ramadi as a “group of the heroes” for targeting Iraqi troops, who it said were agents of Iran. The group vowed more attacks, saying the recent blasts were “very small” compared to those coming.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2012
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[Dawn] The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's government in Soddy Arabia.
"There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Soddy Arabia in the near future," the Taliban said on their website.
Afghan officials, requesting anonymity, had suggested that the two sides would hold talks in Soddy Arabia separate from planned negotiations in Qatar between the Taliban and the United States.
But it was never clear whether the Taliban, who have so far resisted talks with the Afghan government, or the Saudis, who have conditioned involvement on the Taliban renouncing al Qaeda, would come on board.
Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the decade-long war.
They have also announced plans to set up an office in Doha.
On Wednesday, the Taliban said they had not yet "reached the negotiation phase with the US and its allies".
"Before there are negotiations there should be a trust-building phase, which has not begun yet," the statement on its website said.
A day earlier, a government front man in Kabul cautioned that no steps had been taken to start talks in Soddy Arabia.
"The Afghan government is very clear on talks -- we have always preferred Saudi to Qatar," Akim Hasher, head of the Government Media and Information Centre, told AFP.
"There is a possibility that the talks will take place in Saudi as well -- Qatar is definitely not the only option." On Monday, an Afghan diplomat based in Riyadh said talks would be held in Soddy Arabia, but stopped short of announcing any date.
A member of the Taliban's leadership council told AFP on Sunday that "the idea" that the Taliban should have a point of contact in Soddy Arabia was being pushed by the Pakistain and Afghan governments.
Analysts have warned that any move to open a second front in peace talks was being driven by fear in Kabul of being sidelined and could sow confusion in the tentative process of "talking about talks" to end the devastating conflict.
"When you have all these different players trying to open up talks with the Taliban it might look to the Taliban like a deliberate ploy, an attempt to divide and rule or to get some advantage," said analyst Kate Clark.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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#1
NATO's new Report itself claimc that the Taliban, as a class, believe their victory is inevitable.
IOW, in their minds they lose nothing either by peace talks, where shares of Govt. power + authority is wilfully conceded to them; or continued violent insurgency as the US-NATO are sticking to their planned pullout date of 2014 [SecDef PANETTA = US may end formal Afghancombat operations in 2013].
More ...
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > KABUL SURPISED BY US PLAN TO END AFGAHN ROLE [COMBAT OPERATIONS] EARLY.
They don't like it, they don't like it all, as ITO it disrupts + throws out the entire transition plan, espec as per US-NATO led training of Afghan Military-Security forces.
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > PAKISTAN [is] RIGHT TO HEDGE BETS AS REPORTS SAY TALIBAN TO RETAKE AFGHANISTAN.
Islamabad covertly fears Year 2014 scheduled US-NATO pullout + being stuck wid an AFPAK every bit as chaotic, or worse, than ever.
* PAKISTAN DEFENCE FORUM > US MOVES TOWARD AFGHAN [SPECOPS-led counter/anti-]GUERILLA WAR, as US-NATO regular or heavy forces prepare for 2014 pullout.
[An Nahar] A bomb targeted Iraqi MP Qais al-Shadhr's convoy in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... on Wednesday morning, wounding five civilians who were nearby, an interior ministry official said.
The convoy was travelling in the Ameen area of eastern Storied Baghdad when the bomb went kaboom!, the official said.
Shadhr, who was kicked out of the secular Iraqiya bloc along with five other MPs last month for refusing to boycott parliament, was not maimed in the blast.
Shadhr and the other five have formed another bloc called al-Wataniyun (The Nationalists).
Iraqiya began a boycott of parliament and the cabinet in December to protest what it charged was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party.... centralization of power, and it has since called for Maliki to respect a power-sharing deal or quit.
It ended the parliamentary boycott on Tuesday, somewhat easing the political crisis that kicked off as U.S. soldiers departed the country.
Authorities have also issued an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, an Iraqiya member.
Maliki, a Shiite, has also said his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak should be sacked after the latter said the premier was "worse than Saddam Hussein".
Hashemi, who denies the charges, has been holed up in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq and Kurdish officials have so far declined to hand him over to Storied Baghdad.
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[Dawn] Pak Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Wednesday that a leaked US military report claiming Pakistain supported the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan can be "disregarded".
"We can disregard this as a potentially strategic leak...This is old wine in an even older bottle," she told news hounds during an official visit to the Afghan capital Kabul.
The US military said in a secret report the Taliban are set to retake control of Afghanistan after NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... -led forces withdraw from the country, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.
Khar, whose visit was the first high-level meeting in months between officials from both countries, added that the neighbours should stop blaming each other for strained cross-border ties.
"We must start engaging in the end of blame games," she said.
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#1
Ignore the truth, and what a shock you'll have.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/02/2012 1:16
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#2
See no evil hear no evil
Posted by: Paul D ||
02/02/2012 9:37
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[Yemen Post] Security director of Taiz brig. Abdullah Qairan has got a new passport in which he changed his personal data with the aim of leaving Yemen, sources of Aden's Immigration and Passport authority told Aden Online.
The sources said that the procedures were performed without the attendance of Qairan, pointing out that officials loyal to the outgoing 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... helped him get the forged passport.
Yemeni activists have called for preventing Qairan from travelling, stressing the importance of bringing him to justice. A woman march took to streets Sunday in Taiz, calling to put Qairan on trial.
An Aden court had issued an arrest warrant against Qairan on charges of causing the death of a prisoner, Ahmed Darwish.
Qairan is charged by Yemeni protesters with committing crimes against peaceful protests in Taiz and Aden.
In late May, Taiz security forces attacked the central protest camp in Taiz city, shooting demonstrators and setting their tents on fire. More than 50 people were killed.
Qairan had admitted, in an interview with New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , that his forces committed mistakes and killed civilians and peaceful protesters.
Marib Press quoted security sources as saying that the Interior Ministry officially dismissed on Tuesday Qairan and appointed Abdul-Karim Al-Odaini as a new security director to Taiz.
Taiz local council met early January and decided to dismiss Qairan and appoint a new director. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... Qairan remained at his position.
Saleh moved Qairan to Taiz in March from the province of Aden where local activists alleged the he ordered to use indiscriminate force against demonstrators.
Taiz has been a source of anti-regime activity throughout the 11-month popular uprising seeking to end Saleh's 33-year rule, and security forces have often responded with deadly force.
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[An Nahar] Russia will use its veto to block any U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that it deems to be unacceptable, Moscow's envoy to the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... said on Wednesday, as Gay Paree said Russia has now a "less negative" attitude towards a draft resolution proposed by the West and 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... "If the text is unacceptable then we will vote against," Vitaly Churkin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.
"We will not allow a text to be adopted that we consider to be incorrect and will lead to a deepening of the conflict. We are openly telling our partners this."
Russia has exasperated the West by refusing to back a resolution proposed by Morocco, on behalf of the vaporous Arab League, and backed by Western powers seeking an end to the bloodshed in Syria and calling for Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... to step down.
Moscow has also introduced its own draft resolution but this found little support from the West as it repeated the Russian position of blaming the Assad regime and the opposition equally for the violence.
Churkin said that Russia was pushing for a text "in which it would be clear that no foreign military intervention will be used in the context of the Syria crisis."
Russia, the main foreign weapons supplier to Syria, was also strongly against the inclusion of even the "hint of a (weapons) embargo" against Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... in the U.N. resolution.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said earlier Wednesday that Russia was showing a "less negative" attitude towards the U.N. Security Council resolution. Churkin said he was encouraged that the West was now at least listening to its position.
"It encourages me when our partners know about our red lines and say that we will reach a consensus. I think that they are ready to take account of our red lines," said Churkin.
But Churkin also complained that there was an "unpleasant, ethically ugly, unprofessional game" surrounding the debates at the U.N. Security Council.
"For the first time, the attitude of Russia and the BRICS (China, India and South Africa on the Security Council) is less negative," the French foreign minister told MPs, also announcing a corpse count of 6,000 since the uprising began in mid-March.
The previous toll, from the U.N., was 5,400 killed, but activists say hundreds more have died in recent festivities between President Bashir al-Assad's security forces and rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army.
"We have unfortunately until today been blocked at the Security Council by Russia's veto threat and the hostility of what are known as the BRICS," Juppe said, briefing ministers on his return from the U.N. in New York.
"So we will work relentlessly in the coming days to try to agree a resolution that will allow the Arab League to put all its efforts into finding a solution. A window of hope has opened," Juppe said.
Juppe said the overall corpse count was 6,000, including 384 children, according to UNICEF, as well as 15,000 prisoners in regime jails and 15,000 refugees who have decamped the country.
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The nomination deadline for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize closed Wednesday amid renewed criticism that the award committee has drifted away from the selection criteria established by prize founder Alfred Nobel.
No way! What was their first clue?
Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina, jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Cuban rights activists Oswaldo Paya and Yoani Sanchez are among the candidates who have been publicly announced by those who nominated them.
The secretive prize committee doesn’t discuss nominations — which have to be postmarked by Feb. 1 to be valid — but stresses that being nominated doesn’t say anything about a candidate’s chances.
Its choices often spark debate — the world rarely agrees on who’s most deserving of the $1.5 million award — but this year the committee is facing criticism even before the deliberations have begun.
Stockholm’s County Administrative Board — the authority that supervises foundations and trusts in the city — has formally asked the Nobel Foundation to respond to allegations that the peace prize no longer reflects the will of Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who died in 1896. The move comes after persistent complaints by Norwegian peace researcher Fredrik Heffermehl, who claims the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.
“Nobel called it a prize for the champions of peace,” Heffermehl told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “And it’s indisputable that he had in mind the peace movement, the movement which is actively pursuing a new global order ... where nations safely can drop national armaments.”
Since World War II, especially, the prize committee, which is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, has widened the scope of the prize to include environmental, humanitarian and other efforts.
For example, in 2007 the prize went to climate campaigner Al Gore and the U.N.’s panel on climate change, and in 2009 the committee cited President Barack Obama for “extraordinary efforts” to boost international diplomacy.
These might have been their first two clues, along with the odious Rigoberta Menchu and the even more odious Yassar Arafat.
“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” Heffermehl asked rhetorically.
Nobel gave only vague guidelines for the peace prize in his 1895 will, saying it should honor “work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Geir Lundestad, the nonvoting secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, dismissed Heffermehl’s claims. “Fighting climate change is definitely closely related to fraternity between nations. It even concerns the survival of some states,” he told AP.
Still, the county administrative board decided it was worth raising the matter with the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation, which manages the prize assets. The board has an obligation to make sure NobelÂ’s will is respected, and has the authority to suspend the foundationÂ’s decisions, going back a maximum of three years, if they do not, Wiman said, adding that such measures were highly unlikely.
The peace prize and the other five Nobel awards are always handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred NobelÂ’s death.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2012
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#1
No kidding they need Investigating, they nominated Bambi, BIG BIG mistake.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/02/2012 1:04
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#2
Hey, be nice about Bambi, he might be the first to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize twice (if they think it'll help his election), and I wouldn't count him out on an Oscar as well (although they may have to edit him into an existing film to make it happen).
[Yemen Post] Three Yemeni soldiers were killed Wednesday in an ambush laid by unidentified gunnies in the restive government of Marib, one day after the government directed to use force against those who assault oil pipelines and electricity installations.
The soldiers were tasked to protect pipelines linking between Marib and Safer, two regions which attacks against electricity facilities and oil pipelines frequently occur.
Government sources had made clear that electricity lines linking between Marib Gas Station and the capital Sana'a were subjected to nearly 70 attacks by outlaws.
The state-run Saba News Agency said on Tuesday that the government ordered ministries of defense, interior an electricity to fix electricity lines and take tight actions to secure them.
The cabinet reviewed efforts exerted by the Electricity Ministry to overcome difficulties and challenges and improve eclectic services.
It further directed the concerned authorities to hold those perpetrators accountable and bring them to justice.
The decision of the government was met wit applause of Marib locals who voiced their willingness to cooperate with the government to protect the facilities.
Yemenis live in dark for over 20 hours a day, and they are deprived from refrigeration, air conditioning, heating, cleaning, watching TV and satellite channels, etc.
Electricity crisis led to the paralysis of factories, laboratories, workshops and many service sectors, pushing further Yemenis to unemployment.
The gas-powered Marib station, which began operating in 2010, was closed down after attacks by rustics that continue and which, Sumai said, are politically motivated.
Yemen's electricity supplies have been damaged many times since the eruption of the eleven-month-old protests demanding the ousting of 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...
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[An Nahar] Six people are to go on trial suspected of planning attacks on a Kuwaiti port project in the Gulf that is disputed by Iraq, a judiciary official said on Wednesday.
"The police have locked away six people accused of preparing an attack on Mubarak port," said a front man for the court of appeal in Nasiriyah, 305 kilometers south of Storied Baghdad. ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... Storied Baghdad claims the Mubarak al-Kabir project, once completed, would strangle its shipping lanes in the narrow Khor Abdullah waterway that serves as its entrance to the Gulf, through which the vast majority of its oil exports flow.
Kuwait insists the port will not affect Iraq.
The court front man said the six detainees "all deny the charges, but a witness has confirmed that they were implicated in preparing to attack the port."
The six, from Nasiriyah and the port of Basra farther south, have been referred to a criminal court for trial, he added.
It was not known if the suspects were members of a particular group, and there was no trial date given.
Kuwait began construction on the container port in 2007 but Storied Baghdad only raised objections to it last May, a month after Kuwait's emir laid the foundation stone.
An Iraqi Shiite bad turban group, Ketaeb Hizbullah, in July threatened to target firms working on the port project.
"The Iraqi people will not forget what the government of Kuwait is doing by building a port to strangle Iraq economically," said a statement posted on the group's website.
The $1.1 billion facility on Kuwait's Bubiyan Island is scheduled for completion in 2016.
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[Yemen Post] Clash flared up between the army and al-Qaeda beturbanned goons in the southeast Yemeni town of Rada, some 170km southeast of the capital, Sanaa, leaving at least 4 killed.
Al-Qaeda beturbanned goons coming from Marib province were trying to infiltrate into Rada, and when a military checkpoint stopped them a fierce clash broke out, leaving 3 beturbanned goons as well as a soldier killed, local military source told Yemen Post.
"The military units who were involved in the clash belong to the Republican Gaurds, which is commanded by 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... 's elder son, Ahmed," the local source said. Elite Republican Guards units have stopped the Islamic fascistifrom getting into the town and it managed to kill 3 of them and burn their vehicles, which was loaded with weapons, Yemeni Defense website reported.
Al-Qaeda took control of the entire town early this month, and it pulled out its beturbanned goons following a tribal and military mediation.
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[Yemen Post] The Separation Movement, which calls for the separation of south yemen, has called on Gulf Cooperation Council states especially Soddy Arabia to foil the Iranian plans to control the region.
The Movement founder, Nasser al-Noba said Iran is trying to use the Movement as a card in its regional conflict with Soddy Arabia and that has more harm than good for the southern issue.
Al-Noba has confirmed that coordination between Iran and the Southern Separation Movement (SSM) dates back to even before the SSP has announced its establishment.
He revealed in interview with Sharq al-Wsat Newspaper that Iran recruits some men from the movement in Iran, Warning of the severe move taken by Tahran
Al-Noba pointed to an incident in the southern port city of Aden in a meeting of the movement, in which the Iranian flag was hoisted, saying this reflect how dangerous the situation is.
"We warned the international community and GCC states that Iran's interference in the Yemeni internal affairs, especially the southern demand of separation from the north, is like a ticking bomb that might explode at any time," said al-Noba in an interview with the
Activists in the SSP have been trying hard to push their issue to the Security Council, hoping they might get a resolution that guarantees them an independent state.
Massive popular protests calling for the ouster of 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... combined with al-Qaeda insurgency in the south, and Shiite rebellion in the far north, has shaken Yemen, leaving thousands killed, pushing the economy to the brink of collapse and triggering a catastrophic humanitarian disaster.
Saleh has signed a deal under which he relinquished power to his long time deputy and Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, the only candidate for the upcoming presidential elections due to be held on February21, in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Saleh has left the country for USA to receive further medical treatment for wounds and burns inflicted in an liquidation attempt in June last year, and he is most likely not going to come back to Yemen.
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#7
Someone should come up with a TOTUS website. You can enter in any question you like, and it will spit out some drivel which the president has actually said.
#10
Back in the 90s PJ O'Rourke put together an enemies list. It was enemies of the US and was done tongue in cheek. Seems something along those lines could be done once again.
[An Nahar] A Canadian woman held in connection with an audacious bid by a son of ex-Libyan strongman Muammar Qadaffy ... one of those little rainstorms from the Arab Spring... to smuggle himself into Mexico has been formally charged, along with three alleged accomplices, an official said Wednesday.
Mexico's Assistant Attorney General Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas said authorities charged Cynthia Vanier, a Dane and two Mexicans on January 28 for attempted trafficking of undocumented people, organized crime and falsifying official documents.
A fifth, runaway suspect has not been identified.
Mexican officials said in December they had uncovered an elaborate plan, at the height of pro-democracy protests in Libya, to bring Saadi Qadaffy and other relatives into Mexico on false papers.
The plan failed "because the pilots didn't accept to land in secret" in Libya, Salinas told a news conference Wednesday.
Salinas also said Vanier had complained of mistreatment during her detention in Mexico and that an official had been identified and punished in relation to the complaint.
Vanier and Mexican Gabriela Davila were sent to Chetumal jail, in southeast Mexico while Dane Christian Flenborg and Mexican Jose Luis Kennedy Prieto were sent to a jail in eastern Veracruz, Salinas said.
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#1
Do we get to charge Mexican officials with their actions to support smuggling of their own nationals into the US? /sarc off
#2
Vanier's father was all over the Canuckistanian media complaining that his daughter had been mistreated badly by the Mexican police. He claims that the police kicked her in the kidneys hard enough to cause bleeding when she urinated.
I think that's WRONG! They should have removed their running shoes and donned Doc Martins before they started that treatment.
But then again, the career counsellor told me that I shouldn't think about going into social work.
[Dawn] Police on Wednesday said that they were investigating how and why a parcel containing anthrax was sent to the prime minister's official residence in the capital Islamabad last month.
It appeared to be the first reported case of anthrax sent to a government office in Pakistain.
"The parcel containing anthrax powder was sent last month, about 20 days ago. After the laboratory test confirmed that the parcel contained anthrax we started the paperwork but haven't done much else against unknown people," said police officer Hakim Khan.
There was no immediate confirmation from the prime minister's house, which lies in the heavily secured secretariat area of Islamabad.
The parcel was posted from the Jamshuru district in Sindh.
"We have sent a police team to investigate it and to find the culprits there," said Khan, a police officer in the secretariat district.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Security agencies have launched investigations over reports that at least three Kenyan officers could have been spying for terrorist group Al-Shabaab. ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban... They are a lieutenant colonel with the Army and two junior coppers said to have been in regular contact with the Somalia-based militia.
Their association with the group is viewed to have compromised Operation Linda Nchi, the incursion by Kenyan military into Somalia aimed at defeating the Al-Shabaab on their own soil.
The military officer is said to have passed on secret information to the group while the coppers are accused of facilitating terror attacks including fatal kabooms carried out in Kenya.
According to the reports, the coppers worked with the Al-Shabaab at the Daadab refugee camp. Two kabooms occurred at the camp late last year.
The coppers are alleged to have received Sh200,000 for every attack they helped execute in Kenya.
The reports have however been denied by the military.
Military front man Emmanuel Chirchir, responded via his tweet account: "Treat the entire story as propaganda. Kenya Defence Forces officers, men and women remain committed to the mission to defeat Al-Shabaab."
In December alone, at least 15 incidents involving grenades or Improvised Explosive Devices were reported in Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Dadaab.
The reports emerged days after the officers in charge of operations and public information at Department of Defence, Colonel Cyrus Oguna said a key centre used by Al-Shabaab to transport arms and bombs from Kismayu to Kenyan refugee camps through Hosingow was captured.
Destabilising terrorists
He was speaking at the weekly brief on Operation Linda Nchi last Saturday.
The capture of Delbio in the central sector would go a long way towards destabilising the terrorist group near Kenya's eastern border with Somalia, he said.
Major Chirchir also issued a statement to newsrooms on Wednesday saying Kenyan soldiers had captured Hosingo and Badade towns following a series of attacks over the weekend.
"Hosingo was attacked on Saturday afternoon by our helicopter gunship. The towns are under control of the joint forces. The towns are strategic for the reinforcement and movement of Improvised Explosive Devices and other ammunition for the Al-Shabaab," he said.
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(Rooters) - Nigeria's secret service set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock the purported front man for Islamist bully boy sect Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... Wednesday, a group that has grabbed credit for a string of deadly bombings and gun attacks, a secret service source told Rooters.
A swat team stormed the dwelling of the man known as 'Abu Qaqa' in the northern city of Kaduna in the early hours of the morning and found him hiding under his bed,
Oh dear. One expects so much braver from a brave Lion of Islam.
said the highly-placed source, who asked not to be named.
The past three months have seen a surge in violence by Boko Haram, a movement loosely modeled on Afghanistan's Taliban which says it is fighting to install sharia law across Nigeria.
The arrest of a senior Boko Haram figure would be a coup for the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... which has been criticized for failing to curb the sect's violent activities in the mainly Moslem north.
The reported arrest came two weeks after the prime suspect in a Christmas Day bombing on a church on the edge of Abuja beat feet from police custody, prompting Jonathan to sack his police chief.
"We are still talking to him. Since 'Abu Qaqa' is a pseudonym for the Boko Haram front man, we want to be sure of who we have with us. But we have been on his trail for months now. He's been changing locations and contacts," the State Security Services (SSS) source said.
"He is fairly educated. He is from the Ibiza ethnic group, from Kogi state in north central Nigeria," the SSS official added.
A spokeswoman for the SSS said she had no information on the incident. The police front man also declined to confirm it.
A man calling himself Abu Qaqa often appeared in local media after bomb and gun attacks to claim them for the group and justify the choice of target.
For a long time Abu Qaqa was the closest thing the sect had to a public face, before its purported leader Abubakar Shekau posted a video of himself last month on YouTube.
VICTIMS BURIED
Abu Qaqa said Boko Haram carried out the Christmas Day kaboom that killed 37 people.
He also grabbed credit for a coordinated series of gun and kabooms two weeks ago in the second city of Kano that killed 186 in the group's deadliest strike to date.
Nigeria conducted a mass burial Wednesday of 17 of the victims from the kaboom on St Theresa church in Madalla, a satellite town of Abuja. The other 20 had already been buried.
Bishops in golden robes conducted a somber service for the Christmas bomb victims, while pall bearers in red polo shirts carried the 17 caskets.
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#1
no "hiding under the bed" graphic for this POS?.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/02/2012 8:04
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Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Shamita Shetty (India) aka Angad in "Cash (Bollywood 2007)" aka Ishita Singhania in "Wajahh: A Reason to Kill (Bollywood 2004)" aka Dancer/Singer in "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors (Bollywood 2008)" (age 33)
[Magharebia] The latest controversy to flare up in Tunisia's Constituent Assembly occurred after a prominent Ennahda member slammed labour protestors, citing a Qur'anic verse.
"Those who cut off roads and railways, paralysed the work of factories and mines and set fire to the public utilities in Tunisia during recent months are pockets of apostasy that seek corruption on the land," Sadok Chourou told the assembly on Monday (January 23rd).
In what some described as a call for hadd (sharia punishment) against protestors, Chourou referred to verse 5:33.
"Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment," Chourou said, citing the Qur'an.
The remarks prompted a litany of reactions from human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... defenders and the opposition.
The Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LTDH) accused Chourou of "incitement to violence, murder and exile".
The league issued a press statement, a copy of which was sent to the Ennahda member, saying that it "strongly condemns these statements and regards them as an invitation to deal with the sit-ins with intimidation and abuse, rather than dealing with them through dialogue and application of the law".
The LTDH is "surprised by the issuance of this dangerous statement from a representative of the people and before the eyes and ears of the president and members of the National Constituent Assembly", the statement read.
Chourou fired back, blaming "media exaggeration" in their claims that citing a Qur'anic verse gives rise to hatred.
"The Ennahda Movement is firm in its Islamic authority and Islamic discourse, and it is one of its advantages and original principles," he maintained.
Chourou explained that he referred to those who disrupt the economy and in no way called for enforcing hadd against protestors.
However, ars longa, vita brevis... the explanation failed to assuage many critics.
Communist Workers' Party front man Hamma Hammami told Magharebia, "What Sadok Chourou did in citing this verse is incite public opinion against the demonstrators and protesters using religion to cast them as enemies of God and His Prophet."
Chourou's reading of the verse is a "truncated reading, and it was used inappropriately in him talking about sit-ins and protests, which were not present at the time the revelation of this holy Qur'anic verse", according to doctor and academic Mohamed Talbi.
"Chorou's address is mixing politics and religion," he added.
"Using the Koran to justify the new dictatorship is dangerous and will lead us to what will ultimately have dire consequences," Monia Mezni, 45, told Magharebia.
"The call to implement Islamic law and in a distorted way returns Tunisia to a new dictatorship, nothing more," Maya Shayeb said.
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#1
The Ennahda Movement is firm in its Islamic authority and Islamic discourse
The former being absolute and the latter one-way...
#5
Second Democracy in the Western Hemesphere and the only time they've really had any stability is when the US Marines are in town running things. Very sad.
LONDON: Julian Assange took his extradition battle to Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing that sending him to Sweden would violate a fundamental principle of natural law.
But it couldn't happen to a more deserving person right now. Well, okay, there are a few imans and hard boyz in Britain who deserve it more, but Assange does indeed deserve it...
The two-day hearing is Assange's last chance to persuade British judges to quash efforts to send him to Scandinavia, where he is wanted on sex crimes allegations.
The case hinges on a single technical point: whether Sweden's public prosecutor can properly issue a warrant for Assange's arrest.
In Britain as in the United States, generally only judges can issue arrest warrants, and British courts only honor warrants issued by what they describe as judicial authorities. Lawyers for Sweden argue that, in Sweden as in other European countries, prosecutors play a judicial or semi-judicial role.
Assange lawyer Dinah Rose rejected that argument Wednesday, telling the seven justices gathered in Britain's highest court that a prosecutor "does not, and indeed cannot as a matter of principle, exercise judicial authority."
She said that wasn't just a parochial British view, but rather a "fundamental principle" that stretches back 1,500 years to the Codex Justinius, the Byzantine legal code.
"No one may be a judge in their own case," Rose said.
Rose spent the first 2 1/2 hours of the hearing combing through British case law and parsing European draft treaties to buttress her case -- in some cases slipping into French to make finer points and wording. She claimed that those who set the rules for European extraditions expected that judicial authorities issuing warrants would be independent and impartial, noting that drafters dropped the reference to public prosecutors from the final version of their text.
Evidence showed, she said, that drafters believed "that the European arrest warrant was a very serious measure that has to be issued by a court."
She spoke confidently and with few interruptions, but legal experts say Rose faces an uphill battle to convince the Supreme Court to block the extradition.
Karen Todner, a prominent extradition specialist, said before the case started that Assange's lawyers were unlikely to overcome the benefit of the doubt usually afforded to other European countries' judicial systems. British judges "absolutely defer" to their European counterparts' justice systems, she said, adding that she would be "very surprised" if Assange's team won the day.
Just over a dozen nuttersfoolsrubesidiotssimpsgoofs sympathizers came to support Assange, a 40-year-old Australian, outside the Supreme Court building Wednesday.
The UK justices, who have dispensed with formal court attire in favor of business suits, will hear lawyers for the prosecution on Thursday. Their decision isn't expected for several weeks.
If they rule against Assange, the 40-year-old Australian is expected to be on a flight to Sweden within two weeks. Assange could conceivably appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but because Sweden is a fellow European country that would not stop his extradition.
Once in Sweden he would be arrested and a detention hearing would be held within four days. Prosecutors could decide to release him after questioning, but the court could also extend his period of detention. Such hearings must be held every two weeks until a suspect is charged or released. There is no bail in Sweden.
It's still not clear whether charges will be brought against him in Sweden. If Assange is convicted, the penalties for the types of crime he's accused of range from fines to as much as six years in prison.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/02/2012
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Natural Law?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/02/2012 1:56
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Given that the UK can't even extradite known terror leaders because to do so might jeopardize their 'human rights' in their home countries, it's pretty damned likely Assange will live a comfortable life in Britain.
#4
He sounds tense. While in London, he should visit the John F. Kennedy Memorial built at Runnymede, on one acre of land that is legally US territory.
While there, he can be greeted by several grinning U.S. Marshals.
Ruling they were tried in a illegal proceeding, the Mexican Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nacion, or Supreme Court ordered the immediate release from prison of seven defendants in the 1997 Acteal massacre, according to Mexican news reports.
A total of 45 individuals were murdered in 1997 in Acteal, Chiapas on December 22nd, including women and children allegedly by a paramilitary group. Eventually 34 individuals that Mexican legal authorities said were involved were sentenced in 2009 to 26 years in prison, following nearly 10 years of legal proceedings. In 2009, the court ordered the release of 20 defendants on essentially the same grounds: that the evidence against them was flawed.
According to a post on its website, Proceso reported that the court also took the unusual step of declaring the seven innocent of all charges. The defendants were all indigenous Tzotzil Indians.
The Proceso article repeats the claim made by EZLN supporters and their sympathizers, that the attacks were planned at the three levels of Mexican government and were part of a government plan to "crack down on those defending their rights."
The massacre at Acteal came at the end of the Marxist Ejercito Zapatista Liberacion Nacional campaign to flip several municipalities to autonomous status using violence and intimidation of Mexican citizens who opposed the EZLN. The autonomy status would have made those municipalities ultimately answerable to EZLN and whatever legal and social state they imposed. Autonomy also had to be approved by the Chiapas legislature, making the campaign EZLN conducted illegal.
The actual attack at Acteal, which last six hours, was an apparent payback for the deaths of several Mexican citizens at the hands of EZLN supporters two days before.
The victims of the attacks, who called themselves Los Abesas (The Bees), was a pacifist religious sect said to be dedicated to non-violence. Mexican government reports at the time said the sect was non-violent and opposed EZLN's use of force, but supported EZLN, which is against Mexican law. Los Abesas support of EZLN apparently made them an easy target.
The Acteal massacre is the subject of a civil lawsuit in US District Court in Hartford Connecticut, where the defendant to that claim, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedilllo Ponce de Leon lives and works at Yale University.
That legal action claims that Zedillo, as a Mexican chief executive bears ultimate responsibility for the killings. The suit has requested unspecified damages.
Currently, the lawsuit rests on Zedillo's counterclaim that as a Mexican chief executive he enjoys immunity for crimes that were committed while he was Mexican president. That claim has nearly 150 years of legal precedent behind it, so it is difficult to see the lawsuit going forward once that issue is resolved.
The high court decision places the onus on the Mexican Procuradoria General de la Republica (PGR), or attorney general to reopen the investigation into the attacks.
[NY Times] At least 73 people were killed in a brawl between rival groups of soccer fans after a match in the city of Port Said on Wednesday in the bloodiest episode of lawlessness since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... one year ago.
Police officers around the stadium appeared unable or unwilling to control the violence, and video footage showed officers standing idle as groups of fans attacked each other with knives and other weapons.
In addition to the dead, Health Ministry officials said more than 1,000 people were maimed, some from a stampede in the stadium. Locker rooms were turned into makeshift field hospitals, and by around 10 p.m. armored state security vehicles had arrived to transport the visiting team and its fans -- from Cairo's Ahly club -- safely out of Port Said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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Well, at least they were too busy to murder Copts on that day.
[An Nahar] Fresh violence killed at least 56 civilians, 15 soldiers and 14 rebels in Syria on Wednesday after Western powers and 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... demanded immediate U.N. action to stop the regime's "killing machine" but holdout Russia said any vote needed more time.
Wrangling at the United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... came as fierce festivities raged across Syria's powder keg regions between Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... 's security forces and rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army.
The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 70 people across the country, among them 14 Free Syrian Army rebels, two children and two women.
Thirty-six people were killed in the Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... suburb of Wadi Barada alone, five in the Damascus suburbs of Irbin, al-Muadhamiya and Rankous, and one in the Damascus neighborhood of Sayyeda Zainab, the LCC said.
Security forces also killed fifteen people in the central protest hub of Homs, eight in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the revolt, three in the restive northwestern province of Idlib, one in the mainly Kurdish region of al-Qameshli and one in the central province of Hama, the LCC added.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "at least eight non-combatants were killed by Syrian armed forces in several neighborhoods of Homs."
The Britannia-based monitoring group added that the 15 regime soldiers were killed in fighting with rebel troops in the Bustan al-Diwan sector of the city.
Homs has become a flashpoint of the 10-month revolt against the regime of President Bashir al-Assad.
The Observatory said three civilians, including a woman and a child, were also killed by security forces in the Damascus region, while sniper fire bumped off a man overnight in Idlib, northwest Syria.
Syria's pro-regime al-Watan newspaper on Wednesday gave a rundown of dozens of deaths on the two sides in festivities in Homs and elsewhere in central Syria over the past two days.
Thirty-seven rebels were killed in the Adawiyeh, Bab Dreib and Dawar Fakhoura districts of Homs, it said.
It said rebel fighters armed with anti-tank missiles, thermobaric grenades, mortars and machineguns destroyed two BMB armored cars and set ablaze a third, "killing all its crew."
Four soldiers were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in Bab Dreib, al-Watan said, while 15 rebels and two members of the security forces died in festivities in Rastan, another town in central Syria.
Activists said the unrest had killed nearly 200 people nationwide over the previous three days.
Analysts warn that the conflict, between a guerrilla movement backed by growing numbers of army deserters and a regime increasingly bent on repression, has largely eclipsed the peaceful protests seen at the start of the uprising.
"It is the beginning of an all-out armed conflict," said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
"We are heading toward real chaos," he added. "The Syrian public in general is beginning to (realize) that there isn't a magic ending to this, there isn't a regime collapse."
On Tuesday, the Free Syrian Army said half of the country was now effectively a no-go zone for the security forces.
"Fifty percent of Syrian territory is no longer under the control of the regime," its Turkey-based commander Colonel Riad al-Asaad told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The United Nations says more than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since the pro-democracy uprising began in mid-March.
But U.N. human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... chief Navi Pillay said on January 25 her organization had stopped compiling a corpse count for Syria's crackdown on the protests because it is too difficult to get information.
Damascus does not recognize the scale of the protest movement that erupted in mid-March, insisting it is fighting "terrorist groups" seeking to sow chaos as part of a foreign-hatched conspiracy.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday again issued a note of warning in parliament, saying her government would take "legal action" against those who were trying to impede the trial of crimes against humanity which took place during the 1971 Liberation War.
The premier also urged the people of the country to "mount pressure" on the BNP so that it refrained from assisting the war criminals.
"As the holding of the trial of war criminals is one of the political commitments of the government, we are firmly committed to completing it," Hasina said, asserting that her government would not backtrack from the task despite the obstacles in the way.
She said a certain quarter had been trying its best, directly and indirectly, to hinder the trial soon after its commencement. They were carrying out propaganda at home and abroad and making all out efforts to create anarchy in the country.
"People were surprised to see the opposition leader coming out in favour of the war criminals. It is very disgraceful for the nation," Hasina said as she responded to queries from politicians.
"Doesn't she understand that her [Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... ] efforts to save the war criminals are hurting the souls of thirty lakh deaders and two lakh mothers and sisters who lost their honour in 1971?"
The premier said her government had moved ahead to try those who had been creating hindrances to the holding of the trial under the country's existing laws.
In this regard, she noted that sudden violence had erupted on December 18 last year in different parts of the capital and elsewhere in the country.
At daybreak on that day a series of crude homemade bombs went off in Dhaka as hundreds of activists of the BNP and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... clashed with police, smashed more than a dozen vehicles and set some of those on fire. At least one person was killed and several others were maimed during the violence.
Hasina said those opposing the trial directly and indirectly were involved in the anarchy. Cases were filed against those involved and investigation was going on, she said.
In response to a query, she said an investigation into the alleged laundering of $25 million by Jamaat leader and owner of private television channel Diganta, Mir Kashem Ali, to appoint a US-based lobbyist firm to campaign against the trial of war criminals, was underway.
"The government has already come by some evidence of it. Proper action will be taken on completion of the investigation," she added.
Hasina said her government had already amended the money laundering act and anti-terrorism law to take measures against such offences.
During the question-answer session, the premier also recounted the initiatives her government had taken to eradicate poverty, improve the railways sector, empower women, ensure quality education, boost agriculture and strengthen diplomatic relations with foreign countries.
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[An Nahar] Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped on Wednesday in Syria, in the latest such incident in the unrest-swept Arab state, the state news agency IRNA reported.
It said the latest case raised to 29 the number of Iranians kidnapped in Syria since December. The foreign ministry has urged Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... "to use all means ... to release" Iranian nationals.
Iran's consul at the embassy in Damascus, Abdolmajid Kamjou, quoted by IRNA, said the latest batch was snatched in the central city of Hama after the mission had warned Iranian pilgrims to avoid road trips in Syria.
"Armed people are trying to take advantage of our pilgrims in order to propagate that Iran is sending forces to Syria, but this is just a pretext. All of the Iranians kidnapped so far are civilians," he said.
Syria is Iran's main ally in the Arab world. Anti-regime circles have accused Tehran of aiding the regime's crackdown on dissent.
Last Friday, the rebel Free Syrian Army claimed to have captured five Iranian military officers in the restive city of Homs and urged Tehran to "immediately" withdraw any other troops it may have in Syria.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday warned against U.S. "interference" in Syria's internal affairs while saying he backed reform for the Syrian people.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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#1
ahhh yes. Iranian "pilgrims" going to Syria. All swarthy, bearded, even the wymyns
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/02/2012 8:15
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OK, the first batch of "pilgrims" I could buy on the theory that the religiously-inspired can do all sorts of unreasonable, silly things. But another group? Wandering through what increasingly looks like a full-blown rebellion? Bullshit.
Y'all were right, I was wrong on this.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/02/2012 10:57
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#3
What were the "Pilgrim's" ranks and serial numbers?
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
02/02/2012 12:08
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[An Nahar] Slovak politicians have stripped naked in support of a campaign to strip politicians of their immunity from prosecution, a motion which parliament was set to debate on Tuesday.
A picture featuring 17 politicians from the liberal Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS)
Just for clarification, do they mean American-style liberal/progressive, or British-style liberal/libertarian?
wearing nothing but a banner saying "let's strip politicians of their immunity" was posted on the party's Facebook page and published in country's biggest tabloid Novy Cas this week.
Whatever their politics, they certainly care about clarity of message. Aren't they having serious snowfalls in that part of the world?
"Lawmakers are mere humans just like anybody else and do not need privileges such as immunity from prosecution," the party said.
Slovak politicians are protected from criminal prosecution as long as they hold their four-year mandate, and a number of MPs have evaded punishment for drinking and driving.
SaS initiated a referendum in 2010 on stripping politicians of some of their perks, including immunity, but it failed due to low voter turnout.
"This is the last parliamentary session before the March 10 early election, so it's the last chance to cancel the immunity," SaS politician Martin Chren, who also posed in the picture, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] A gunbattle erupted Wednesday near the beach house of slain Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later... 's son, Saadi, in central Tripoli, Agence La Belle France Presse correspondents reported.
Thick smoke billowed from near the house as rival militias, using heavy machineguns, clashed in the mostly business district not far from luxurious hotels like Corinthia Bab al-Africa and the yet-to-open J W Mariott.
The cause was unclear, but some witnesses said the militias were fighting for control of the house.
Saadi decamped Libya across its southern frontier to Niger in August during the fall of Tripoli that ended his authoritarian father's 42-year regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Had to hot-foot it across the Sahara, did he? Clever boy.
[An Nahar] A man in an Afghan army uniform rubbed out a soldier with NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... -led forces in southern Afghanistan, a front man said Wednesday, just days after four French soldiers died in a similar shooting.
The latest incident happened on Tuesday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said, without giving further details or the nationality of the victim.
"An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against an International Security Assistance Force service member in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing one service member," ISAF said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Unfortunately we've not seen the last of this evil tactic. The Afghan government in exile, aka the "shadow government" in Chaman and Quetta Pakistan are fully endoursing this new infiltration technique. As we begin to pull out of Afghanistan, things will go to pieces rather rapidly I fear.
[An Nahar] The Syrian crisis that began as a peaceful revolt is quickly turning into a full-blown insurgency pitting an increasingly militarized opposition against a powerful regime bent on repression, analysts say.
"It is the beginning of an all-out armed conflict," said Joshua Landis, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
"We are heading toward real chaos," he added. "The Syrian public in general is beginning to (realize) that there isn't a magic ending to this, there isn't a regime collapse."
And with a diplomatic stalemate over the continuing crackdown by the Syrian regime against the 10-month revolt, the crisis is now also increasingly taking on a sectarian tone between Sunni Moslems and Alawites, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
"The regime's strategy is to sow the seeds that will lead to civil war," said Agnes Levallois, a Gay Paree-based Middle East expert.
"In the central cities of Homs and Hama, we can already speak of a civil conflict."
Yet experts say that despite the quickening pace of events and Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Light of the Alawites... mounting isolation, dramatic change in Syria, while inevitable, is not imminent given the resilience of the regime and the support it still enjoys among the population.
"That the government's days are numbered can no longer be in serious doubt, but just how many it has left remains an open question," wrote Yezid Sayigh, an analyst with the Carnegie Middle East Center, in a recent commentary.
"The regime cannot win, but it certainly can resist and prolong the conflict."
And the fact that the international community is unwilling to intervene militarily is playing in the regime's favor, at least for now, the experts say.
Russia, which has veto power on the U.N. Security Council and is a staunch ally of Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... , has so far blocked any attempt at a U.N. resolution condemning the regime's brutality that has left more than 5,000 people dead.
"The Syrian opposition is slowly beginning to realize that this is not a two-month battle," Landis said. "So they have to do it on their own, they have no option.
"Nobody is going to come, neither 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... nor the West," he added. "The Americans are not going to come on their tanks like they did in Iraq."
With that in mind, the Syrian opposition is adapting to the realities on the ground and on the diplomatic front, with the rebel Free Syrian Army taking on a more important role as more defectors and sympathizers join its ranks, estimated at some 40,000.
Although the opposition initially insisted on the revolt remaining peaceful, it has gradually abandoned any pretense of that with the FSA increasingly carrying out guerrilla-type operations against army positions.
In a worrisome development for the regime, the violence in recent days has gradually gotten closer to the capital, which had remained relatively quiet since the uprising began in March.
"At stake is Damascus because whoever controls Damascus controls Syria," said Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert and lecturer at the University of Lyon 2 in La Belle France.
Balanche said that the opposition was clearly drawing support from the urban poor who live in what he described as a "misery belt" that surrounds the capital and over the years has become a breeding ground for Islamists.
He said that the regime was probably banking on the conflict in Syria degenerating into sectarian warfare so that it can portray itself as the only guarantor against the country sliding to civil war.
Experts warn however that Assad's tactic could well backfire with his regime losing control of the situation at some point.
"Bashar can hang on militarily but not economically or politically," Balanche said. "In the end, he will nonetheless be forced to step down."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Hopefully, it will go on for a long time and leave the country completely devastated.
MOSCOW: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin acknowledged on Wednesday he might not win in a March presidential election in the first round, and said Russia could face political instability as a result.
Putin, who is facing the biggest opposition protests of his 12-year rule, remains the strongest candidate and looks set to win a six-year presidential term. But public opinion polls suggest he could fall short of 50 percent of the votes and face a runoff, which would be an embarrassing blow that could undermine his authority in a new stint in the Kremlin.
"There is nothing terrible about it (second round), if needed, I am ready to campaign in the second round," Putin told a group of volunteer election monitors. "I also understand that a second round implies an extended period of certain infighting, meaning a certain destabilization of our political situation."
Opinion survey results released on Jan. 25 by independent polling agency Levada showed 37 percent of respondents would vote for Putin, 17 percent were undecided and another 9 percent uncertain whether they would vote at all.
A runoff, would likely pit Putin, 59, against veteran Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who came second in the Levada poll with 8 percent.
So it could get worse after all...
More amusing, certainly. The man with the pet tiger vs. the guy who tottered in after "Dunno" and "There's an election?"
Putin's strategists have launched a low-key campaign appealing to Putin's core supporters in the provinces and brushing aside a barrage of criticism from the opposition concentrated mainly in large cities.
"There is a danger that my supporters may not come (to the polls), thinking that I will win anyway, that they have nothing to do there, that we will do something to ensure my victory. We will do nothing like that," Putin said.
After alleged fraud in a December parliamentary election triggered mass protests, Putin said he was keen to ensure that the presidential election is fair and ordered the installation of web cameras at polling stations across Russia.
Another Putin rival, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, backed by 4 percent in the Levada poll, told a news conference that a runoff would be "a blessing for the country. It means that political competition and a democratic system would be born."
After election authorities barred opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky from standing, some analysts have speculated that Prokhorov played a part in a Kremlin plan to split the opposition and lend the vote an air of competitive legitimacy.
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"Instability" is when Putin doesn't get what he wants.
#2
This is the truth. The disconnect between the public and government is reality as much as it is here. Libya, Egypt, and perhaps Iraq are stumbling about now. Some want this instability. The Russian businessman Prokhorov wants economic growth. That means interaction not intervention.
The world grows smaller. The energy needs of Europe connects Russia, Turkey, Isreal and many other countries. The USA and Russia working together could do allot of good in the world. China's only interest is controling the natural resources of a country. What governments do with their populations does not concern them. Yes, the Russians sell weapons but every country does that if they can. New technology goes odsolete in how long?, and upgrades. This is big money. Russia is a vast country and difficult to manage. Russia needs economic growth, prosperity, and national pride. We need these things also. Interaction not intervention. We have a backyard also. How would we manage things. We have occupy and they have their opposition. Their opposition is much bigger. They tried to play it down and attack it like the Tea party here. The roots run deep.
[An Nahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... on Wednesday stressed Syria's "keenness on Leb's stability" during a meeting in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... with Arab Tawhid Party leader Wiam Wahhab, the party's media department said in a statement.
The two men discussed the situations in Leb and the Arab region during their "three-hour meeting," the party added.
Assad stressed to Wahhab "Syria's keenness" on "stability in Leb," highlighting "the positive impact of this stability on the Syrian arena," according to the statement.
"President Assad stressed the need to preserver the presence of the Druze sect in the Arab Orient, hailing its national and pan-Arab roles," the statement said.
Wahhab quoted Assad as saying that "Syria loves all its children, without any discrimination."
"Some media outlets have reported that President Assad has received the chief of the Tawhid party in Damascus for the first time ever. The party's media department stresses that this meeting was not the first of its kind, but rather the first public one recently."
The Lebanese government, which is led by Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbullah and its allies, has sidestepped taking a firm stand on the Syria crisis in what observers say is a bid to avoid potential sanctions or a spillover of the violence.
The United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... estimates more than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria since March as al-Assad's regime cracks down on a popular revolt.
Thousands of Syrian refugees have decamped to Leb but many say they do not feel safe in the neighboring country.
Syria controlled Leb from 1976-2005 and the two countries have yet to agree on an official demarcation of the 330-kilometer common border.
Despite the departure of Syrian troops from Leb under popular and international pressure in 2005, Damascus maintains a strong influence in Leb.
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[Dawn] Preliminary talks held recently by the US and the Hizb-e-Islami resistance group of Afghanistan meant ice was breaking between them and that would create opportunity for more meaningful talks in the future, said Ghairat Baheer, political adviser to the group's leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... here on Tuesday.
"We have not received any positive response so far, but we favour meaningful dialogue with the Americans," he told a conference titled "The Afghan Issue: Regional Implications and Suggestions for Sustainable Peace".
The conference was organised by the Centre for Discussions and Solution, a think-tank headed by former chief of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist socAAial mores... Qazi Hussain Ahmad. ... third president (1987--2009) of the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami. Qazi was also head of the Muttahidah Majlis-e-Amal until his ego became bigger than the organization. Qazi is what is known as a fiery preacher, which means he has lots of volume, a good delivery, and not a lot of reverence for coherence. He was the patron of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Rasool Sayyaf and Osama bin Laden during the war against the Soviets. He used to recommend drining camel's urine to maintain good health before his kidneys started to go... Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... chief ,Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... Awami National Party provincial chief Senator Afrasiab Khattak, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, former spymasters, bureaucrats, intellectuals and journalists from Pakistain and Afghanistan attended the conference, arranged at a time when the US and Taliban started talks in Qatar. Mr Baheer said that he met CIA chief Gen (retired) David Petraeus, Afghan President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... Commander John R. Allen on recent visit to Kabul and discussed with them the situation in war-torn Afghanistan.
"We have realised that Americans have no solution for the Afghan issue.
Not until either Pakistan retires behind the Durand Line, or the drones kill enough jihadis that it doesn't matter.
Despite that, Hizb-e-Islami is ready to continue talks," he said, adding that the core issue was withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
He said that Karzai government would fall after withdrawal of NATO forces.
"Let us discuss a comprehensive package for Afghanistan," he proposed and warned that the region would suffer if the US did not leave Afghanistan. He said that Afghan nation should get a fair opportunity to elect its government freely. He urged America, Russia and its allies to support grinding of the peace processor in Afghanistan.
Maulana Fazl supported negotiations between America and Taliban, saying that other powers should support grinding of the peace processor.
He said that flawed policies had isolated Pakistain and Taliban had been handed over to America.
"Pakistain was the looser when Soviet Union was withdrawing its force from Afghanistan in 1989. Pakistain is once again at the receiving end because of widening gulf between Pakistain and its allies," he said and added that Islamabad had been trapped.
He said that immediate priority should be to pull Afghans from war and then discuss other issues.
The JUI chief said that his party supported peace talks between Taliban and Washington provided it brought sustainable peace to Afghanistan and urged all Afghan factions to start dialogue.
Maulana Fazl also stressed the warring factions to negotiate with President Karzai. He said that Taliban had committed blunders when they captured Kabul. "I told Taliban leaders at that time that they did not form government but occupied Kabul," he remarked.
Afghan intellectuals and journalists criticised the role of Pak establishment and demanded that Islamabad should stop interference and help grinding of the peace processor to end the decades old bloody game in the region.
"Pak policymakers should choose for us what they like for themselves," said Mir Waiz, an Afghan journalist. He added that Pak policymakers disliked Talibanisation in their country while support the same phenomenon in Afghanistan which was unfair.
Former chief of Inter Services Intelligence Gen (retired) Hameed Gul said that America bypassed Pakistain and started talks with Taliban in Qatar. He was sceptical about peace talks in Qatar. He said that Islamabad should change its US-centric policy and act upon joint resolutions of the parliament.
Gen (retired) Asad Durrani, former Afghan interim prime minister Eng Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, former chief secretary Gulzar Khan, Brig (retired) Mahmood Shah and others also spoke on the issue.
A joint declaration issued on the occasion said that a durable settlement of the Afghan conflict required an 'Afghan solution'.
"A solution imposed by the foreigners cannot yield long-term peace. In this pursuit of an all-Afghan solution for stability, the international community should truly commit to the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs of Afghanistan," said the declaration.
It said that Afghanistan could not be allowed to remain a playground for perpetuating foreign occupation or promoting global and regional hegemonic motives.
"The time has come that the international community rise to fulfil its obligations towards Afghanistan," it added. The foreign forces should withdraw and an intra-Afghan political settlement is reached through participation of all Afghans. The destiny of Afghanistan belongs to Afghans.
It called for instituting a fully inclusive reconciliation process to facilitate the intra-Afghan settlement in accordance with the religious, cultural and tribal values of the Afghan society. "It is vital that the process should be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan driven," the declaration said.
[Dawn] THE list of those charged or accused under the country's questionable blasphemy laws -- that too on the flimsiest of pretexts -- is far too long. Soofi Mohammad Ishaq, sentenced to death by a judge in Jhelum on Monday in a blasphemy case, is another addition to this unenviable list. As reported, Mr Ishaq, a holy man settled in the US, returned to Talagang, Punjab in 2009. The custodian of a shrine, he received a rousing reception from his followers. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... some people apparently felt that his disciples were overzealous in their adulation and considered 'bowing' before the holy man 'blasphemous'. At this point, we cannot but wonder whether the accusation of blasphemy was driven by ulterior motives, as is usually the case.
Reportedly, the man who made the complaint against Mr Ishaq was unhappy with the fact that he had been granted custodianship of the shrine. The background of this case is suspect. What is also cause for concern is that the judge who first heard the case in Chakwal felt he could not announce the verdict due to 'security risks', hence the case was transferred to Jhelum. The matter must be thoroughly probed.
Along with their misuse as a weapon against minorities, the blasphemy laws are used by Mohammedans against Mohammedans to settle personal scores or grab property. With growing polarisation in society, accusations of blasphemy are also being made to persecute followers of 'rival' schools of thought within Islam. Criticism of these laws, even mere talk of reforming them let alone their repeal, invites emotional responses, violence or even death. Not only do we oppose the death penalty, we also feel that laws such as these -- which are open to abuse and have brought much opprobrium to Pakistain domestically as well as internationally -- at the least need to have iron-clad legal provisos that prevent their misuse.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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#1
Hey, at least Pakistan goes through the motions of a legal process. In other parts of Dar "blasphemers" are simply murdered.
[An Nahar] A top Bahraini interior ministry official said on Wednesday that some 100 incarcerated activists were still on a hunger strike after nearly three days, but denied claims that tear gas was used against inmates.
"Today, the number of prisoners on hunger strike has dropped to around 100. Yesterday there were 180," Major General Ibrahim al-Ghaith told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He categorically denied a rights group's claim that police used tear gas on Monday against the mostly Shiite inmates, saying this was a "false allegation."
On Tuesday, the head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR), Mohammed al-Maskati, said police used tear gas against detainees "in one of the cells."
Maskati said that leading opposition and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... activist Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja was hospitalized on Tuesday as he "suffered from hypotension and low blood sugar levels."
Ghaith said that Khawaja was not taken to hospital but had been admitted to the prison's medical center "because he is diabetic," adding that the prison governor "met him today and he is in good condition."
Ghaith said the prison authorities were taking measures regarding the striking inmates "in compliance with international standards, including having a medical team monitor their condition."
Leading opposition figures serving sentences ranging between two years and life in prison after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the Gulf kingdom's Sunni regime began their hunger strike on Sunday night.
They were joined by inmates and detainees held on charges related to a month-long protest that was crushed in mid-March.
The crackdown led to the deaths of 35 people, including five security personnel and five detainees who were tortured to death, an independent commission of inquiry appointed by King Hamad ...King of Bahrain (since 14 February 2002), having previously been its emir (from 6 March 1999). He is a Sunni, while the rest of Bahrain is predominantly Shiite... found.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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Keine Hasen mitt deine Pfeffer!
Posted by: Gabby Cussworth, Man of a Thousand Nyms ||
02/02/2012 16:06
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[Dawn] Baloch cut-throats attacked security forces overnight, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding another 12 in festivities that raged for five hours, officials said Wednesday.
Gunmen attacked two posts in the Margut area, about 60 kilometres east of Quetta, capital of the insurgency-torn southwestern province 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... . The soldiers were responsible for guarding coal mines, they said.
"About two dozen gunnies armed with light and heavy weapons attacked the Frontier Corps (paramilitary) posts and killed 11 soldiers," a senior military official said.
He said another 12 soldiers were maimed in the assault.
Other security officials confirmed the casualties.
The assailants belonged to a Baloch bad turban group led by Hyrbyair Marri who is living in self exile in London, the official said.
Baloch cut-throats have been fighting since 2004 for political autonomy and a greater share of profits from Balochistan's wealth of natural oil, gas and mineral resources.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
There seems to be a pattern emerging in the Holder Justice Department: DOJ employees committing crimes and very little seems to happen to them. I'm not just talking about the questionable testimony under oath of Attorney General Eric Holder or Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. I'm talking about theft, graft, child porn, bribery, and perjury. The fact that very little ever seems to happen to DOJ officials who purportedly commit the crimes tells you a great deal about the leadership of the Obama DOJ.
"Jeffrey Mankoff is an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies Russia and Eurasia Program and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City." 
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Indiana became the 23rd state to pass anti-union "right-to-work" legislation on Wednesday and the first in the nation's manufacturing heartland, dealing a blow to organized labor by allowing workers to opt out of paying union dues.
This month, the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department reported that China imported 102,779 kilograms of gold from Hong Kong in November, an increase from October's 86,299 kilograms. Beijing does not release gold trade figures, so for this and other reasons the Hong Kong numbers are considered the best indication of China's gold imports.
At least 15 Islamic 
[Dawn] Four British men fueled by the words of a US-born 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
ISLAMABAD - A small parcel mailed to an office of the Pak prime minister in October contained a small amount of deadly anthrax spores, a 
Chinese security forces
[Dawn] The Taliban militia leading a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan on Wednesday denied that they would soon hold talks with 
Nouri al-Maliki's 
Pak Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Wednesday that a leaked US military report claiming Pakistain supported the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan can be "disregarded".
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
.
(
Goodluck Jonathan
LONDON: Julian Assange took his extradition battle to Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing that sending him to Sweden would violate a fundamental principle of natural law.
At least 73 people were killed in a brawl between rival groups of soccer fans after a match in the city of Port Said on Wednesday in the bloodiest episode of lawlessness since the ouster of President 
[An Nahar] Fresh violence killed at least 56 civilians, 15 soldiers and 14 rebels in Syria on Wednesday after Western powers and the 
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday again issued a note of warning in parliament, saying her government would take "legal action" against those who were trying to impede the trial of crimes against humanity which took place during the 1971 Liberation War.
Khaleda Zia
[An Nahar] Slovak 
The Syrian crisis that began as a peaceful revolt is quickly turning into a full-blown insurgency pitting an increasingly militarized opposition against a powerful regime bent on repression, analysts say.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Punjab
