President of the Islamic Republic of Iran H.E. Hassan Rouhani, President of the Russian Federation H.E. Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Turkey H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdogan gathered in Sochi on 14 February 2019 for a Tripartite Summit.
The Presidents:
1. Discussed the current situation on the ground in Syria, took stock of the developments following their last meeting in Tehran on 7 September 2018 and underscored their determination to strengthen the trilateral coordination in light of their agreements.
2. Emphasized their strong and continued commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as well as to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.
3. Highlighted that these principles should be universally respected and that no actions, no matter by whom they were undertaken, should undermine them.
4. Rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism and expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as the national security of neighbouring countries.
5. Took note in this regard that the US decision on the withdrawal of its forces from Syria, if implemented, would be a step that would help strengthen stability and security in the country in compliance with the above-mentioned principles.
6. Examined in details the situation in the Idlib de-escalation area, denounced and expressed serious concern with the attempts of the terrorist organization "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" to increase its control over the area, and agreed to effectively counter these attempts as well as to take concrete steps to reduce violations in the Idlib de-escalation area through full implementation of the agreements on Idlib, including the Memorandum on Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area of 17 September 2018. They also reaffirmed the determination to continue cooperation in order to ultimately eliminate DAESH/ISIL, Al-Nusra Front and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al-Qaeda or DAESH/ISIL, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the UN Security Council.
7. Discussed the situation in the north-east of Syria and agreed to coordinate their activities to ensure security, safety and stability in this area including through existing agreements, while respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
8. Reaffirmed their conviction that there could be no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that it could only be resolved through the Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, UN-facilitated political process in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
9. Reaffirmed their determination to facilitate the launch of the Constitutional Committee as soon as possible, including by agreeing on its composition and elaborating recommendations for its rules of procedure based on the work undertaken by the three guarantors. They emphasized in this regard the importance of continuing interaction and coordination with the Syrian parties and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen. These are all the good ones, click through for the rest.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
02/23/2019
11:52 ||
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#1
Iran because the Turkey was Russian through my system.
[Free Beacon] Ugo Okere, a Democratic candidate for Chicago city council, said Thursday he believes democratic socialism should have total control over how people live.
In a Thursday interview with the left-wing Jacobin, Okere was asked to define democratic socialism, and he gave a remarkably expansive answer.
"Democratic socialism, to me, is about democratic control of every single facet of our life," he said. "Government is led by the people, not by big corporations, not by multibillionaires, and working people actually have control over who we elect to be our politicians, over how elections work, and over how our government is structured. People have the power."
Okere went on to say he believes socialism should guide a society's entire course, not just its political structures:
Democratic socialism even extends to our relationships and how we treat each other. [It looks] at the world through a socialist-feminist lens, in how we treat people who are black, who are brown, who are femme, who are non-binary, who are gender-nonconforming, and who are working class.
To me, we’ll have achieved democratic socialism not when there is no conflict in the world, but when our societies are not governed based on power, but are governed based on the mutual understanding that everybody deserves a decent and quality life.
This socialist vision of society seeks to overturn the existing order and should not be confused with the mainstream progressive left, Okere explained.
"One part of the Left wants to reform the existing society that we have now. They want to make changes that will make life easier, that will make life not so bad," he said. "But there’s another side of the Left that wants to radically transform the way the world works ‐ not simply say that we can make some changes here and there and that things will be alright."
#1
I believe all Democratic Socialists should prove they aren't witches....surviving being burned at the stake, holding red hot metal, pressing, the witches chair.
It's the only way to be sure.
Or, they can admit they are traitors and only be tarred, feathered and set on fire.
#2
One of the concepts underlying socialism / communism is that the state can and must perfect its citizens. That's one of the reasons for the inevitable high body count.
[NYP] Liz Warren this week echoed fellow Sen. Kamala Harris’ support for reparations payments to African-Americans on account of slavery. Count it as a sign of just how extreme and irrelevant are Democrats heading into the race for the 2020 nomination.
The reparations idea has gained new life in some circles thanks to radical writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, but it’s both wildly impractical and morally confused.
Yes, slavery was a grievous wrong, but no mere cash payment can make it right. Indeed, the whole effort is sure to increase America’s racial divisions, not end them. (Of course, Coates is deadly pessimistic about any hope for real racial peace.)
The problems are huge enough that both President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders have nixed reparations as worth adopting. Pursue social justice and boost opportunities for underprivileged Americans, sure ‐ but don’t go down this dead end.
[Babylon Bee] HOLLYWOOD, CA‐A report coming out of Hollywood this afternoon revealed that a 4-hour-long political lecture scheduled for Sunday will be disguised as an awards show in order to drum up interest.
"See, if we just asked people to tune in for four hours of virtue-signaling and political posturing, we'd have zero viewers," said one of the show's organizers. "If we want to keep the three or four viewers we still have left, we have to pretend the purpose of this ceremony is to hand out awards for excellent movies released in the last year."
People going to the stage ostensibly to accept an award and say a few words about what it means to them will instead lecture the nation on how to behave and what political party they should support. These people, so-called "actors," will give presentations on subjects ranging from white privilege and wealth inequality to gender bias and immigration. They will then retire to their multi-million-dollar mansions, their good deeds having been completed for the year.
At publishing time, projections had indicated the viewership would be cut in half this year, leaving one bored guy named Clint in San Francisco as the lone person expected to watch the show this year.
Posted by: chris ||
02/23/2019 9:53
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#2
Satire or news and analyisis? Leaving aside their tendency to make the news even stupider than it is, the Bee is not a bad read for current events. More trustworthy than CNN!
#9
Big advertisers this year got "make goods" in their ad buys. This protects them against another drop in viewership. The fact they got 'em is an admission by the network that such a drop is a possibility...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2019 12:34
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#10
who watches this shit?
Liberal morons who need a lift after their hopes were dashed in 2016. I wonder if Verizon would sell their contact info so we could get them into therapy and civics classes.
#12
I remember watching one show--a bit over 40 years ago, I think. It dragged. Most of the movies were ones I'd never planned to see anyway. They spent too much time applauding each other and not enough time trying to keep me entertained ...
Posted by: james ||
02/23/2019 15:01
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#13
I usually haven't heard of 90% of the movies these shows talk about. Every year it's usually a list of movies I haven't seen or heard of. Movies I'd never want to see.
[BBC] Soldiers from the Venezuelan national guard have left their posts ahead of an opposition-led effort to bring aid into the country, Colombia's migration agency said.
In a separate development, Venezuelan troops have fired tear gas at people looking to cross into Colombia to work.
Tensions have been rising over a row about the delivery of humanitarian aid.
President Nicolás Maduro said the border with Colombia is partly closed to stop aid being delivered.
Slowly at first, then all at once.
Listening to the Beeb this AM, some big cheese in the Venezuelan army was saying there is no need for humanitarian aid since there is no hardship in the country. I doubt the average Juan in the street was persuaded.
[BBC] At least 70 people have died and more than 200 are being treated in hospital after drinking toxic bootleg alcohol in north-eastern India, officials say.
Several women are among the victims, who all worked on tea plantations in Assam state.
The deaths come two weeks after tainted spirits killed about 100 people in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The number of deaths is expected to go up, local reports say.
The first victims died on Thursday, the administrator of the Golaghat district in Assam, Dhiren Hazarika, is quoted as saying by Agence France-Press.
The victims all worked in tea gardens in Golaghat and Jorhat districts.
Golaghat district Superintendent of Police Pushkar Singh told the BBC that 58 people in the district died from drinking the illegal alcohol.
Another 12 people have been killed by the poisonous liquor in Jorhat district, another source said.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Yaneidi Guzman has lost a third of her weight over the past three years as Venezuela’s economic collapse made food unaffordable and she now hopes the opposition will succeed in bringing urgently needed foreign aid to the South American country.
Guzman’s clothes hang limply off her gaunt frame. The 38-year-old is one of many Venezuelans suffering from malnutrition as the once-prosperous, oil-rich OPEC nation has seen its economy halve in size over the last five years under President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuelans’ diets have become ever more deficient in vitamins and protein, as currency controls restrict food imports and salaries fail to keep apace with inflation that is now above 2 million percent annually.
Growing malnutrition is one of the reasons Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido has moved ahead with his plans to bring supplies of food and medicine into Venezuela by land and sea on Saturday, despite resistance from Maduro.
[ABS-CBN] VATICAN - A top Catholic cardinal admitted Saturday that Church files on priests who sexually abused children were destroyed or never even drawn up, a move which allowed pedophiles to prey on others.
"Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created," German Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in a speech to a landmark Vatican summit on tackling pedophilia in the clergy.
"Instead of the perpetrators, the victims were regulated and silence imposed on them.
"The stipulated procedures and processes for the prosecution of offenses were deliberately not complied with, but instead cancelled or overridden," he said.
Marx was speaking on the third day of an unprecedented meeting of the world's top bishops, which Pope Francis has called in an effort to get on top of a crisis that has dogged the Roman Catholic Church for decades.
The ongoing scandals have escalated into a crisis which has touched many countries across the globe, with recent cases affecting Chile, Germany and the US.
Investigations have revealed that in many cases priests accused of assaulting minors were transferred to other parishes as bishops turned a blind eye to protect the Church's reputation.
[Right Scoop] SO after weeks of accusations that CNN was tipped off to be there when Roger Stone was arrested, Mueller is denying it, kinda. Of all the creepy, skin crawling lawyers in all the gin joints.....
From the Hill:
"The Special Counsel’s Office is aware of no information indicating that reporters were given any advance knowledge of a possible indictment from the Special Counsel’s Office," prosecutors wrote in a footnote of a new court filing Friday.
Of course, if they tipped them off then it would be a very improper act. I’ve never believed it because there were plenty of opportunities for Mueller to do stuff like this, and he didn’t take them before. Don't suppose you're planning to look into the matter ?
On the other hand, if he wanted to leak this there’s plenty of ways to get it to CNN in a manner that would give him plausible deniability. OR it could be someone on his team, OR some Democrat in Congress that leaked it.
As for CNN, they’ve maintained that it was just good reporting that got them there:
CNN has publicly denied Stone’s claim that it was tipped off to the arrest. The outlet has credited good instincts, dogged reporting and a little luck for the early morning scoop. Former FBI agent and congressman Mike Rogers now works at CNN. Perhaps Mike could provide some insight.
"Stakeouts are a common practice in the news business. CNN, in fact, had another crew out on a stakeout in another state that same morning," the network said in an online post. "The crew was at the home of another player in the Mueller probe, on the suspicion that the person could be arrested, but that hunch didn’t pan out."
Very interesting. Strange that no one on the FBI assault team thought to secure the area of civilians in case gunfire broke out. The hapless CNN cameraman would have been right in the line of fire. Obviously more work needed.
Ok, now riddle me this, why would a Democrat member of congress have advance knowledge that Stone was going to be swatted?
Sounds like Collusion to me.
And as for leaking, the Mueller Office is used to having daily leakings worse then an old man or lady in depends.
That would be Col. Willard: "I'm unaware of any such operation (cough) and even if I were (cough) I'd not be (cough) disposed to discuss it." Paraphrased but close enough.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2019 17:04
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#7
Does Obama still have those journalist wire taps in place? If so we shou,d be able to find out for sure if CNN was tipped off.
h/t Instapundit
[AmGreatness] The most immense and dangerous public scandal in American history is finally cracking open like a ripe pomegranate. The broad swath of the Trump-hating media that has participated in what has amounted to an unconstitutional attempt to overthrow the government are reduced to reporting the events and revelations of the scandal in which they have been complicit, in a po-faced ho-hum manner to impart to the misinformed public that this is as routine as stock market fluctuations or the burning of an American flag in Tehran.
For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives: that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one.
#1
The power of Super Computers. Melts crypto in minutes.
Posted by: Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 ||
02/23/2019 5:16
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#2
"It's got electrolytes!"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2019 8:14
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#3
The 51% attack was contemplated in Satoshi's original white paper, and implementation errors are and always have been the nuts and bolts of security research.
h/t Instapundit
[Yahoo] On Friday, the Trump Administration's Office of Population Affairs published the final text of proposed changes that will effectively block Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide or even mention abortions from receiving a type of federal funds.
The new document, which is 312 pages long, outlines a series of rule changes related to how the federal government distributes money allocated for the family planning grant program known as Title X. This program, which was created in 1970 with bipartisan support, provided $286.5 million in 2018 to pay for free or low-cost birth control, as well as other preventive care like STI screenings, for low-income women. Each year, Title X serves 4 million women through healthcare providers who receive grants from the government to provide services. (This would not affect reimbursement by Medicaid, a separate program.)
The major changes include a new requirement that all participating Title X providers "maintain physical and financial separation from locations which provide abortion as a method of family planning." This means that any clinic or doctor's office that also offers abortions is no longer allowed to receive federal grants that would help provide free or low-cost birth control for low-income women.
#2
Oh no! Rich white liberals won't be able to continue to fund mass murder on the government's dime! How awful!
In all seriousness, this should have been done many years ago. Even if abortion wasn't murder (which is is), the country's demographics are screaming because we are killing far too many native sons and daughters and trying to "make it up" by importing illegals.
[National Review] Democrats are increasingly open in their support for abortion all the way through pregnancy. Legislation from Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) asks them whether they will draw a line even there.
The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which the Senate will consider on Monday, requires doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive in the course of attempted abortions and forbids killing them. Senator Sasse brought the legislation to the floor after Virginia’s Democratic governor Ralph Northam endorsed allowing mothers and physicians to determine whether newborns should be left to die, at least in some circumstances.
Democratic senators managed to avoid opining on Northam’s remarks, with help from reporters who chose to ignore or distort them. But Sasse’s bill forces the issue: Does increasing support among Democrats for abortion up until birth preclude them from supporting a bill that mandates medical care for newborns?
The answer appears to be yes. When Sasse requested unanimous consent to his legislation earlier this month, he was blocked by Democratic senator Patty Murray of Washington, who claimed that there are already laws against infanticide. In the context of abortion, this is false. No federal law enacts an explicit requirement that newborns be afforded "the same degree" of care that "any other child born alive at the same gestational age" would receive, as Sasse’s bill does. Only 33 states have a law like this in place, and those laws can, of course, be removed. New York’s recent abortion expansion affirmatively repealed the state’s born-alive protections.
Sounding eerily like Northam, opponents of the bill, including Planned Parenthood, claim that it will unduly restrict women’s health-care options. But this legislation places no restrictions on access to abortion or on the type of abortion a woman can receive. It creates criminal penalties for doctors who allow infants to die from lack of medical care and mandates that children delivered alive in abortion clinics be transported to a hospital. It requires reporting violations of the law, institutes penalties for directly killing a newborn, and grants the woman on whom an abortion is performed protection from prosecution and civil cause of action against the abortionist.
It is for obvious reasons that Democrats twist or disregard these facts to provide cover for their animosity toward this legislation. The born-alive bill might not limit abortion, but it uncovers the deep illogic of the pro-abortion-rights position. It compels politicians who defend abortion up to the moment of birth, but who remain sheepish about denying newborns a right to life, to confront their own irrationality.
#4
There are many issues in the public domain. This issue is not like the others. It is pure evil.
Posted by: Matt ||
02/23/2019 11:06
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#5
The left's leadership have truly shown themselves for what they are and how they feel. They don't care about life, they don't care about anything but power. They are trying to become the sheep herders of the human cattle...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/23/2019 12:06
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[Wash Times] The Pentagon is planning to deploy hundreds more American military personnel to the southern border, in the wake of President Trump’s announcement of a national emergency along the country’s border with Mexico.
Currently 5,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Texas, Arizona and California, backing immigration enforcement operations led by the Department of Homeland Security. With Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, that number is expected to surge to 6,000 by March 1, a senior Defense Department official said Friday.
Those troops will provide air support to Customs and Border Patrol officers and Homeland Security agents carrying out border security operations. In addition, those forces have been tasked with securing the hundreds of miles of territory along the border, in between the major points of entry into the U.S.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said those areas have become a highway for illegal immigrants and illicit narcotics coming into the U.S., despite reports from Homeland Security officials that most of the illegal smuggling comes through known entry points.
To secure those areas, U.S. troops are stringing an additional 140 miles of border area with concertina wire, along with other areas that have already been fortified during previous troop deployments to the border. That work, which the Pentagon official says is 30 percent complete, will be coupled with a new "ground-based detection and monitoring mission" to be conducted by U.S. military units.
#4
Create a Military Border Task Force, give it a name, designate a two or three star to command, assign forces and resources, come up with defensive-offensive plans and fok'n MOVE OUT !
[Right Scoop] Maduro is cracking down on allowing legitimate humanitarian aid to come into the country because he believes it’s a pretext for US intervention. He’s also blocking Guaido and his supporters movements in the country toward the site of this humanitarian aid.
Here’s more:
BLOOMBERG ‐ Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro started closing the nation’s entry points on Thursday and soldiers blocked the movements of National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as opposition supporters prepared to bring humanitarian aid across the borders.
Three buses carrying lawmakers sympathetic to Guaido left Caracas heading for the town on the Colombian border that’s the focus of the aid effort, but were stopped in Carabobo state. Guaido, traveling separately for security reasons, was held up by army trucks blocking a tunnel east of the capital, said Edward Rodriguez, a spokesman.
Maduro, who has said the aid effort is a pretext for a U.S. intervention, also announced that Venezuela’s land crossings with Brazil would shut at 8 p.m., and said he was also weighing "a total closure of the border with Colombia." He already had sealed off access from Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire.
Maduro’s government and the resurgent opposition are readying for a showdown this weekend over donated food and medicine stockpiled in neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Curacao. Maduro’s government says that the ravaged country has no need of help, despite widespread shortages, while U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that the Venezuelan military allow the aid in, warning that "all options are open" in the event they refuse.
Wow. Sounds like it might very well be a showdown if Trump calls Maduro’s bluff.
#1
Coordinate with Guaido people for escorted airdrops. Drop at high altitude and permit prevailing winds or Precision Airdrop Systems (JPADS), to carry or drive drops across border.
[Daily Caller] A lengthy public lands package sitting in Congress adds hundreds of thousands of acres of federally protected wilderness without securing funding to manage it.
The House is preparing to vote on a bipartisan land package next week that is roughly 660 pages and composed of 118 different bills. The Senate version passed its version, the most comprehensive land package in a decade, on Feb. 12 in a 92 to 8 vote.
"It touches every state, features the input of a wide coalition of our colleagues, and has earned the support of a broad, diverse coalition of many advocates for public lands, economic development and conservation," Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, according to The Washington Post.
The Senate package designates 1.3 million acres in California, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah as wilderness, the strictest form of federal protection that bans development of almost any kind as well as roads and most forms of motorized travel. It prohibits mineral development on 370,000 acres of land near two national parks in Montana and Washington state.
The lands package designates three new national monuments ‐ two in Kentucky and one in Mississippi ‐ to be managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and classifies roughly 500 miles of river in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Oregon as wild, scenic or recreational.
#3
So Trump should sign an executive order: No additions to federal land until the border wall is completed. And veto whatever bills they try to attach the land grabs to.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2019 9:03
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#4
500 miles of river, and in CONN, MASS, and ORE? isn't that nice. I wonder what ever happened to that river adjacent to the Gold King Mine that the EPA was, uh, rehabilitating?
#5
These same politicians are all the time calling for more affordable housing. Their solution seems to be to turn coastal California into one big slum that would still not be affordable. Meanwhile, there is all this land out there where housing could be developed that really would be affordable.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/23/2019 12:18
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[MAIL] The final remnants of Islamic State have left the group's last pocket of territory in eastern Syria - as truckloads of fighters and their jihadi brides are seen being transported from the area.
The move came just hours after US-led coalition air strikes intended to pressure the militants targeted the area on the banks of the Euphrates River.
At least 36 trucks and two buses were seen leaving the area through a humanitarian corridor from the militants' last patch of territory in the remote village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
They were escorted by gun-mounted trucks belonging to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
As the convoy passed, automatic machine gun fire could be heard in the distance and coalition aircraft flew overhead.
Some 300 IS militants, along with hundreds of civilians believed to be mostly their families, have been under siege for more than a week in the tent camp in Baghouz.
#3
The busses are driving to SDF processing points, where the men — including lots of men in burkas — will be separated from the women and children, all searched and interviewed, then sent onward to prison camps. The process takes several days, about which sundry womenfolk have complained bitterly to various reporters.
[Bloomberg] Here’s one for the record books: The Dow Jones Industrial Average just posted its ninth straight weekly advance, the longest streak in almost 24 years. Helped by optimism over U.S.-China trade talks, the gauge closed up 0.7 percent on Friday to cap a weekly gain of 0.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index is also on a nine-week winning streak -- the longest since May 2009 -- while the S&P 500 Index notched a fourth straight week of gains. It’s lone lapse over the period was the week ended Jan. 25.
NEW YORK (AP) ‐ Several phone apps are sending sensitive user data, including health information, to Facebook without users’ consent, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
An analytics tool called "App Events" allows app developers to record user activity and report it back to Facebook, even if the user isn’t on Facebook, according to the report .
One example detailed by the Journal shows how a woman would track her period and ovulation using an app from Flo Health. After she enters when she last had her period, Facebook software in the app would send along data, such as whether the user may be ovulating. The Journal’s testing found that the data was sent with an advertising ID that can be matched to a device or profile.
Although Facebook’s terms instruct app developers not to send such sensitive information, Facebook appeared to be accepting such data without telling the developers to stop. Developers are able to use such data to target their own users while on Facebook.
Facebook said in a statement that it requires apps to tell users what information is shared with Facebook and it "prohibits app developers from sending us sensitive data." The company said it works to remove information that developers should not have sent to Facebook.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) ‐ The Vietnamese capital once trembled as waves of American bombers unleashed their payloads, but when Kim Jong Un arrives here for his summit with President Donald Trump he won’t find rancor toward a former enemy. Instead the North Korean leader will get a glimpse at the potential rewards of reconciliation.
By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, tens of thousands of tons of explosives had been dropped on Hanoi and nearly two decades of fighting had killed 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans. Vietnam, though victorious, lay devastated by American firepower, with cities in ruins and fields and forests soaked in toxic herbicides and littered with unexploded ordnance.
Despite the conflict’s savagery, what followed was a remarkable rapprochement between wartime foes and it took merely 20 years to restore full relations.
Now some hope Vietnam will offer Kim a road map for his own detente with the United States and that the formerly besieged capital city will be the site of a dramatic resolution to one of the last remaining Cold War conflicts.
#1
The Vietnamese are not BFFs with the Chicoms. I see deeper meanings in the Trump — Kim summit venue. Maybe.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/23/2019 13:35
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#2
IIRC, a US officer going to Vietnam post-war was treated to the following anecdote by his NVA counterpart: "We knew you would leave in ten years or so. It took us a thousand years to drive out the Chinese!"
#1
If any of you are interested in this sort of thing, Manuka Honey burn / adhesive pads work for burns, rashes, cuts, etc. You can buy them at CVS and Walgreens. Here's an article discussing specific properties of Manuka honey bandages. I've had a bunch of them on me for the better part of the day now, after I burned myself misapplying some essential oils (not using a carrier oil first, which in some cases tends to burn and not heal when used on skin).
#3
Gorb - still researching this stuff, but a) there's no expiration date on the ones I picked up at CVS, and b) I'd think it's at least a year, as I don't see natural honey spoiling / losing its properties, at least in that time frame.
Additionally - there's a month/year time stamp and a lot number on these packages, but again, no printed expiration date. One has a date of 2018-03 and the other is 2019-01, so it looks like one of the ones I'm using is about a year old. I'll poke around today and update here accordingly.
#6
Gorb - the discussion's (google blurbs) something like this:
"Honey doesn't really 'expire' any time soon. As long as it is stored properly and not exposed to too much heat, then our honey will be good for several years. Some products that are mixtures of manuka honey and something else may well expire earlier." So, with bandages, I'd say 2 to 3 years, maybe 4.
#7
Sounds like it would be best to get them when needed then. We have a 24 hour CVS reasonably close by. Next time I go in I'll check them out. Thanks for pointing them out.
#8
Seeing how honey and high fructose corn syrup are essentially the same thing (except for the bee bits.) We can use HFCS to achieve the same thing? Seems the trick here is highly concentrated sugars yo promote skin growth.
Worth trying?
Honey is generally 55% fructose and 45% glucose, while HFCS is 55% fructose and 45% glucose with the difference being the small amount of bee flavoring added to honey.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday there was "a very good chance" the United States would strike a deal with China to end their trade war and that he was inclined to extend his March 1 tariff deadline and meet soon with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
U.S. and Chinese negotiators had made progress and will extend this week’s round of negotiations by two days through Sunday, Trump told reporters at the White House as he met with his top negotiators and their counterpart, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.
"I think that we both feel there’s a very good chance a deal will happen," Trump said.
[The American Thinker] Once one country does something stupid, the question on everyone's mind is, who's next? Thus, when France went psycho-liberal in 1789, everyone attacked the French, and when the Russians went Soviet, we adopted a policy of containment.
Ideas tend to move from place to place. One person says something stupid, and the other stupid people hear him, and the next thing you know, you're getting tortured in a gulag. This is why Christ said a man who accepts the words of a prophet has a prophet's reward. The prophet speaks first, but it takes the heart of a prophet to hear one. The question, whenever you hear a prophet or a moron, is whether your country is full of prophets or morons. This is why the liberals have taken over the school system and the media and why nearly everyone, until the Enlightenment, was heavily in favor of censorship. Simply put, we took one look at our neighbors and knew they'd fall for anything.
This time, they fell for whoring. Germany, in a move that stunned even the scandalous Italians, decided to turn itself into Las Vegas, and now the English and others are worried. The Germans, like everyone else caught with his pants down, had an excuse. They said they did it to protect women. Too dangerous on the streets with pimps and such, so they decided to move prostitution into brothels.
What happened next was obvious. A large surplus of abused and ruined women, usually abandoned or molested as children, many of them from Bulgaria and Romania and already mastered by pimps, flooded the country. Mega-brothels opened overnight. The number of Johns increased exponentially. Prostitutes became a mainstay at their carnivals; mega-pimps became nouveaux riches; and the German people, once known for alcoholism and Nazis and other hilarious monkey shines, became known for taking advantage of Europe's unfortunates. Even when the Germans are helping people, they're hurting people.
#1
Compare this to what Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas had to say about outlawing prostitution. Maybe Germany's problem has more to do with "flooding the country" than with prostitution per se.
[Townhall] President Donald Trump on Friday night announced his pick for the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He took to Twitter to let people know he has chosen Kelly Knight Craft, the current Ambassador to Canada, to fill the vacancy.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) applauded the pick.
"Kelly Craft is a strong advocate for American interests and will be a powerful representative of our great nation at the U.N.," McConnell said in a statement. "She has a long record of service to her state and the nation and I'm confident she will continue to serve with distinction as America's voice to the world at the United Nations. I was proud to recommend this remarkable Kentuckian to President Trump."
I suspect we're already undergoing a high-statistics experiment on the transmissibility of CWD. There are lots of licensed deer hunters, and some fraction of them have eaten un-detected CWD venison--more in places like the UP where off-season diet supplementing is common. If you assume a decade incubation period, we should see a significant uptick in this kind of brain disease cases by now.
Do we?
Posted by: james ||
02/23/2019 14:40
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#4
You can also eat Fugu, Japanese puffer fish, as well. The answer to both is why, barring immediate starvation, you would want to take the risk...
[The Hill] President Trump is intensifying his attack on federal funding for Planned Parenthood with the introduction of new rules on Friday that are widely seen as a way of gutting federal funding to the group.
The women’s health organization could lose millions of dollars in funding if the sweeping changes to a federal family planning program are upheld in court.
Under the changes, clinics aren’t eligible for Title X Family Planning funds unless they are physically and financially separate from abortion providers.
That means clinics couldn’t share space or staff with abortion facilities. Clinics would also be banned from referring women for abortions or counseling them on abortion as an option to end pregnancy.
This could disqualify many of Planned Parenthood’s 600 centers across the country, which receives about a quarter of Title X funds annually to provide reproductive health and preventive services to low-income women.
[AsiaOne] A Singaporean incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! recently for turban activities had multiple businesses in Johor Baru, ranging from massage parlours to restaurants.
Sources said the suspect, whom Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs identified as Mohammed Kazali Salleh, 48, also brought in scrap cars from Singapore and Indonesia to Malaysia.
"The authorities are investigating whether the businesses were a front for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terror group," said a source, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Mohammed Kazali was among six suspected holy warriors detained by the Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division in anti-terror sweeps between Dec 19 and Jan 28.
The turban, who had given funds and received orders from Malaysian turban leader Akel Zainal, was told to recruit a few others for an attack on a Freemason building in central Johor Baru, another source said.
"He has been in close contact with Akel since 2008. Authorities discovered that in December last year, Akel told him to target a Freemason building in the Nong Chik area," the source said.
The suspect was handed over to the Singaporean authorities on Jan 7 after Bukit Aman completed the investigations.
Mohammed Kazali was detained under the country's Internal Security Act.
"Based on intelligence, the suspect was not leading any terror cell in the island republic," said a source.
Five others detained along with Mohammed Kazali during the operations by Bukit Aman police were two Malaysians and three men from Bangladesh, the Philippines and a south Asian country.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun had said the two local men had been deported from a foreign country for their involvement with ISIS, and were arrested in Sepang.
It is learnt that the duo were working at a farm in Australia before being deported.
A 21-year-old Filipino, who was a member of the Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... Group, was arrested in Kota Kinabalu followed by a 26-year-old south Asian man who was detained in Puchong along with a Bangladeshi cleaner in Klang.
Sources said the south Asian man had been harbouring his fellow countrymen for a month.
"His friend is listed under Interpol's Red Notice for his involvement in terrorist activities," the source said.
The latest arrests bring the total number of holy warriors detained since February 2013 to 459 people.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers on Tuesday compared the American flag with the Nazi swastika on the floor of the legislature.
"I don't come here for this rag every day, and it's a rag. That's all it is to me," said Chambers about respecting the flag. "When you show a way to persuade Jews to sanctify and worship the swastika, when you show me that I'll come up here and stand while you all hypocritically pretend that rag is something that it definitely is not."
The comments were in response to a bill put before the Nebraska legislature that would update school civics requirements and make students more literate in "knowledge in civics, history, economics, financial literacy, and geography."
Chambers, a registered independent and part of Nebraska’s nonpartisan unicameral legislature, refers to himself as "the defender of the downtrodden." He is no stranger to controversy, having attempted to sue God over "destruction and terrorization of millions" in 2007 and in 2015 calling the police "my ISIS."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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Ernie is still alive? Wow!
He was a state senator from the ghetto part of Omaha when I was a young kid in college in the early 1970s. Is he trying to give Byrd a run as longest serving pol ever?
[IsraelTimes] Channel 13: Alex Younger holds talks with Mossad chief as Iran renews centrifuge production; Israeli assessment: Regime has not yet made political decision to break out to bomb.
[HOTAIR] Last week a Portland police lieutenant named Jeff Niiya was accused of colluding with right-wing protest group Patriot Prayer after a string of his texts were released to the public. Lt. Niiya’s job is to coordinate with protest groups coming to the city and the texts show him doing just that, i.e. chatting with Patriot Prayer’s Joey Gibson about the group’s intentions and planned movements. As I noted last week, Lt. Niiya has previously been in close contact with a member of Antifa who became an outcast when other members of the group learned she’d be talking with police.
But the texts with Patriot Prayer were seen as something far more sinister by the far-left denizens of Portland. That included left-wing city commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty who declared the texts were proof police were in “collusion with right-wing extremists.” Portland’s Mayor, Ted Wheeler, called for an investigation saying, “It is imperative for law enforcement to remain objective and professional, and in my opinion, these text messages appear to cross several boundaries.” Portland’s Police Chief Danielle Outlaw agreed to investigate the texts to see if they showed anything improper. Yesterday, the Oregonian reported that it was Mayor Wheeler’s office that was asking for and receiving information about Patriot Prayer’s location and plans from Lt. Niiya:
The Mayor’s Office has relied on a Portland police lieutenant to keep tabs on right-wing protest leader Joey Gibson, sometimes texting him at all hours to ask about Gibson’s whereabouts or plans.
It’s the same lieutenant, Jeff Niiya, who has come under fire in the last week from Mayor Ted Wheeler and other city officials…
“Certainly the mayor’s initial comments gave the impression that he was unaware of the communications between Niiya and Gibson,’’ said Lt. Craig Morgan, president of the Portland Police Commanding Officers Association. “These texts show that not only was his top aide aware of the conversations, but he was requesting specific information about Patriot Prayer and Gibson as situations developed.’’
Despite the fact that it was the Mayor’s own office requesting the information Lt. Niiya was gathering on Patriot Prayer, the investigation prompted by Niiya’s texts remains ongoing. As part of that process, Police Chief Outlaw scheduled a listening session to hear the community’s concerns Thursday night. Reporter Andy Ngo, who attended the meeting, says it quickly became a “sh*tshow” and a “circus of identity politics and hysteria.”
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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#6
No need to clean it up, just cut power, water and food. Let nature take it's course. Anyone trying to leave, well, then the Armed Vigilance committee comes into play.
[AlAhram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ordered the arrest of 295 serving military personnel on Friday, the Istanbul prosecutor's office said, accusing them of links to the network of US-based Moslemholy manFethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , who Ankara says orchestrated a 2016 attempted coup.
Those facing detention included three colonels, eight majors and 10 lieutenants, with around half of the suspects being in the army and the remainder in other military forces including the navy and air force, the statement said.
The prosecutor's office said police launched simultaneous arrest operations at 1:00 a.m. (2200 GMT) under an investigation into pay phone calls between suspected Gulen operatives.
Istanbul police said on Friday afternoon that 150 suspects were tossed into the calaboose so far as part of the operation spread over 55 provinces.
About 250 people were killed in the failed putsch, in which Gulen, a former ally of President Tayyip Erdogan, has denied involvement. Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.
More than 77,000 people have been locked away Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! pending trial since the coup and widespread arrests are still routine. Authorities have suspended or sacked 150,000 civil servants and military personnel.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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#1
a former ally of President Tayyip Erdogan
"Psssst: Yippy's a closet Gulenist. Pass it on"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/23/2019 12:15
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[ChicagoSunTimes] A Cook County judge has approved a no-bail arrest warrant for embattled R&B superstar R. Kelly, who was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four victims, at least three of them minors, Friday morning, records show.
Prosecutors allege the abuse happened in instances from 1998 to 2010, records show. The minors were between 13 and 16, prosecutors allege.
Kelly’s attorney, Steven Greenberg, said early Friday afternoon that he had not been notified that his client had been charged. Greenberg has said in the past that his client denies any wrongdoing.
Kelly has been dogged by allegations of sexual impropriety for two decades. The indictment on Friday marks the first time he has been charged with any crimes since he was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008 in a case that received international attention.
#1
A fatherless fella, R. Kelly,
Played under the El. He was smelly,
And diddled their kiddies
While fiddling his ditties,
But Wells-dwellers put him on telly.
Posted by: Pearl Snans8934 ||
02/23/2019 2:20
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#2
So I guess the statute of limitations is decently long on this sort of thing. Would that the public's willingness to put up with it was much shorter.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/23/2019 13:56
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[Jpost] U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... said on Friday he was nominating Kelly Craft, currently the US ambassador to Canada, as his envoy to the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Craft, a top Republican donor from Kentucky, rose this week as a serious contender for the post based on a recommendation by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a fellow Kentuckian.
It was not immediately clear if Craft would hold a Cabinet-level position, as the previous ambassador Nikki Haley ...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... did. Regardless, she will need to be confirmed by the US Senate.
[BIZPACREVIEW] An illegal immigrant with four ICE detainers was shot to death after he opened fire on a Napa County sheriff’s deputy.
The Napa County Sheriff’s Office posted disturbing video from Deputy Riley Jarecki’s bodycam showing the fatal shooting of Javier Hernandez Morales, a 43-year-old Mexican national deported from the US three times but protected under California’s sanctuary laws.
Hernandez-Morales had a lengthy criminal history which included weapons violations, driving under the influence, and battery on a peace officer, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"ICE is grateful the deputy involved in this shooting was not harmed during this attack," the agency said in a statement, according to KGO-TV. "It’s unfortunate that our law enforcement partners and the community are subjected to dangerous consequences because of inflexible state laws that protect criminal aliens."
"This incident may have been prevented if ICE had been notified about any of the multiple times Hernandez-Morales was released from local custody over the last few years. This is an impactful, scary example of how public safety is affected by laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies’ ability to cooperate with ICE," the statement read.
Napa County officials claimed that they were complying with a 2017 state law, according to KPIX-TV.
ICE noted that local law enforcement did not honor any of the four detainers they had issued on Hernandez-Morales.
"After 2011, ICE issued detainers four separate times for Hernandez-Morales following his arrests for local crimes including driving under the influence, battery on a peace officer, selling liquor to a minor and probation violations. None of the four detainers lodged were honored by local jails," the agency’s statement explained, noting he had been previously deported three times before 2011.
"Hernandez-Morales was removed twice in 2007 and once in 2010," the statement detailed. "ICE issued three detainers to Napa County Jail; one each in 2014, 2015 and 2016 ‐ none of which were honored. ICE issued a detainer to Sonoma County Jail in 2016 which was not honored."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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#1
To Ishmael, "Call me Luigi."
A moralist, sure, but not preachy,
He told the tale, well,
On a cocoanut shell,
Of each corpse in his corner of Feegee.
#4
Duh.. I forgot a certain SF group used to stimulate their prostate with amyl and butyl nitrate in a similar manner. That had the nasty side effect of shutting down the body's immune system for about 45 mins and massively increased the spread of AIDs.
#8
#3 Ppl have been doing this for along time with different drugs.
Posted by: chris ||
02/23/2019 6:34
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#9
Burrous allegedly told his companion he was feeling fine until the man noticed him making a strange noise, and flipped him over to realize Burrous had vomited inside his S&M mask.
That should be on his tombstone
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/23/2019 7:19
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#10
^'Eventually me and a friend,
sort of drifted along into S & M...'
#18
When it comes to posterior p----,
Some people are not very fussy.
Remote. Some stale wings.
Nice assortment of rings.
An AR and two slings. Oh, hi, Jussie!
[AlAhram] French forces have killed a top jihadist leader, Yahya Abou El Hamame,
...also spelt Yahia Aboul Hammam in our archives...
in an operation in Mali, Defence Minister Florence Parly said Friday.
The Algerian, a commander in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was reputedly responsible for kidnapping a number of Westerners in North and West Africa.
A ministry statement issued in Gay Paree said he was "the criminal mastermind and financer of several attacks".
El Hamame was killed Thursday when French land and air forces ambushed a column of vehicles he was travelling with north of Timbuktu, Parly said.
He reportedly served as AQIM's "governor" in Timbuktu when the city was held by Salafist tough guys from April 2012 to January 2013.
A number of other "terrorists" were "neutralised", Parly added.
El Hamame was believed to be second in command of the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM), also known as Nusrat al-Islam, led by Iyad Ag Ghali.
The group was formed by the merger of Ansar Dine ...a mainly Tuareg group that controlled areas of Mali's northern desert together with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and MUJAO in early 2012... , the Macina Liberation Front, al-Mourabitoun and El Hamame's Saharan branch of AQIM.
The operation was announced as Parly, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian were due to visit Mali, where some 4,500 French troops have been deployed since 2014 to reconquer the north of the country after it fell to jihadist fighters.
Jihadist veteran Djamel Okacha was also known as Yahya Abou El Hamame.
Mr. Okacha, now 40, inherited the mantle of leadership back in 2013 when his predecessor was killed by French forces. At the time Okacha was a close aide of AQIM chief Abdelmalik Droukdel, and considered the real leader of the group.
French commandos, helicopters and a drone hit a column of vehicles he was travelling in north of Timbuktu, French officials said. Defence Minister Florence Parly described his killing as a "spectacular action", saying it followed a manhunt which lasted several years.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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#1
French commandos, helicopters and a drone hit a column of vehicles he was travelling in north of Timbuktu, French officials said. Defence Minister Florence Parly described his killing as a "spectacular action"
Here's hoping there's LiveLeak video posted
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/23/2019 12:13
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When IDF does things like that, the French call it assassination.
The New York Times: doing the propaganda work that the jihadis can’t. Those lads and lasses do love their frissons.
[Jpost] The report correlates Israeli diplomacy with the cause of Death Eaters throughout Africa.
The highly trained Times journalists are confusing marketing with bottom line conviction.
Al Qaeda Death Eaters in Africa are invoking Israel’s conflict with the Paleostinians as a new battle cry and as motivation for a string of attacks on the continent.
Uh huh. If so, they are really, really bad at accomplishing their stated goal of changing that reality, given that they’re missing their ostensible target by an entire continent.
Following Al Qaeda attacks in Kenya, in which 14 were killed, and Mali, in which 10 were killed and 24 maimed, affiliates with the terrorist organization cited "the Paleostinian cause" as a motive.
I somehow don’t remember that, but then my memory is dreadfully porous.
The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... writers Dionne Searcey, David M. Halbfinger and Rukmini Callimachi deliberated whether the attacks may have been related to the US embassy move in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem seven months prior. Several organizations including Al Qaeda condemned the US for the move.
Why, then, were there so many attacks before the move?
The report stated that the "suffering of the Paleostinians" was an "animating cause" for Al Qaeda. It detailed biographies of the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now beyond all cares and woe... , founder of Al Qaeda, which report that he cried watching news coverage of displaced Paleostinians who had been forced off their land when he was an adolescent.
And yet early reports about Al Qaeda’s complaints with the world as it is said nothing about the Palestinians, but only about unbeliever American troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia and suchlike local problems. The Palestinians were only mentioned much, much later. Honestly, you’d think there was no institutional memory of what they’d reported less than two decades ago.
The report insinuated that Israel's treatment of the Paleostinian people is extreme to the extent that it influenced Al Qaeda and may have even had an effect on the actions of bin Laden, such as the 9/11 attack.
Utterly pathetic.
Al Qaeda Death Eaters are outspoken regarding the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict.
"We emphasize and appreciate the high efforts and beautiful words of all the vibrant jihadist work to prevent the Judaization of Paleostine," said a statement by Al Qaeda's leadership mentioned by SITE Intelligence Group who monitor murderous Moslem content online, according to the Times report.
Y’all go on appreciating all those bootless words and efforts, Al Qaeda and New York Times journalists alike. In the meantime the Jooooooos will establish themselvs even more firmly in the place from which you would uproot them.
The report further suggested that Israel benefits from the terror attacks in African countries, as "the violence may serve to advance [Israel's] efforts to make common cause with African regimes, particularly on security issues."
That’s actually true, but it isn’t Israel’s fault the victims of the jihadis look for allies who will help them defeat their attackers.
The Times article claims that Israel has been making strategic, aggressive moves into Africa to chip away at "what had been a reliable bloc of votes against Israel in the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... , and flexing its muscles in a part of the world where African solidarity with Moslem nations had for decades mandated rejection of relations with Israel."
God forbid the Joooooos dare fight back in any way against those who would destroy them, including the New York Times.
Israel, according to the report, is involving itself in efforts to prevent Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, from importing Iranian weapons into the Gazoo strip.
What a shocking idea that is, to be sure.
The article then goes on to explain how Israel's technological advancements would be beneficial for African countries as a sort of trade for their public relations with Israel.
They provide value that the African nations can appreciate.
"Israeli officials can barely contain their glee at seeing the once-solid ideological support for the Paleostinians give way to flexible geopolitics," the report stated.
And the NYT’s journalists, by contrast, do not even try to contain their dismay.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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#1
African Al Qaeda Terrorists & american congress-critters
[AnNahar] More than 2,500 foreign children from 30 countries who have fled the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's last redoubts are living in desperate conditions in camps in northeastern Syria, Save the Children said Thursday.
The charity urged their countries of origin to "take action to ensure the safety of their citizens" as US-backed forces battle IS in the final sliver of territory it holds near the Iraqi border.
"They need specialised help to recover from their experiences and return to normality, together with their families," the charity said.
"This is impossible in overwhelmed displacement camps in a volatile warzone. The international community must act now before it is too late."
It said the children, including 38 unaccompanied minors, were from families "with perceived or actual associations" with the Islamic State (IS) group.
They were separated from others in the camps, affecting their access to aid and services.
"Harsh winter conditions have left the camps in a desperate state, with children facing life-threatening risks," it said.
The children are "victims of the conflict and must be treated as such", said Sonia Khush, Save the Children's Syria response director.
"All states whose nationals are trapped in Syria must take responsibility for their citizens."
The charity said the children had already been deprived of adequate medical care and food for months or even years while in IS-held areas, even before having reached the displacement camps.
"While some states have begun to do so, many countries ‐- including several European countries ‐- have yet to take steps to ensure the safety of the children and their families," said Khush.
"Given the life-threatening dangers these children and their families face in Syria, this is unconscionable."
Save the Children urged countries to repatriate the children and their families "for the purposes of rehabilitation and/or reintegration, in full compliance with international law, including the right to a fair trial where appropriate".
After years of battling IS and with all but a sliver of land left under IS control, US-backed forces have detained hundreds of foreigners suspected of being IS fighters, as well as related women and kiddies.
Syria's Kurds, whose fighters have been at the forefront of the battle, have long urged their home countries to take them back, but many nations have been reluctant.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... has urged European governments to take back their citizens who fought for IS in Syria, but his administration said Wednesday it would refuse entry to a US-born IS member who wants to return from Syria.
The country's conflict has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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[AnNahar] US-backed fighters trucked out civilians from the last speck of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's dying "caliphate" in Syria on Friday, eager to press on with the dragging battle to crush the jihadists.
More than four years after IS overran large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, and declared a "caliphate", they have lost all of it but a tiny patch in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
Almost 30 trucks carrying men, women and kiddies left the enclave on Friday, AFP correspondents at a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the village reported.
Most were women and kiddies, their clothes caked in dust, but the passengers also included men with their faces wrapped in chequered scarves.
Women clung to the railings of the trucks, while the hair of younger girls flew in the wind, as they left enclave in the second such large-scale evacuation in three days.
Earlier on Friday, SDF front man Mustefa Bali said he hoped civilian evacuations could be completed by Saturday.
Fellow SDF front man Adnan Afrin said once the evacuations had ended, his forces would expel the last jihadists from the less than half a square kilometre (a fifth of a square mile) they still hold.
"When the civilians leave, we will see how many civilians and IS fighters remain inside and what they want to do," he said.
"They will be faced with a choice: war or surrender."
The SDF evacuated 3,000 people from the IS pocket on Wednesday -- mostly women and kiddies -- but trucks left near empty on Thursday.
- 'MANY FRENCH WOMEN' -
Bali said that screening had determined that most of those evacuated on Wednesday were foreigners.
"The majority are Iraqi and from countries of the former Soviet Union, but there are also Europeans among them," he said.
David Eubank, the leader of the Free Burma Rangers volunteer aid group, said the women and kiddies trucked out were "very hungry and dirty".
They included "many French women", as well as others from Australia, Austria, Germany and Russia, and one woman from Britannia, he told AFP.
Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in the vast, virtually unpopulated Syrian Desert and sleeper cells elsewhere, and continues to claim deadly attacks inside SDF-held territory.
On Thursday, they detonated a boom-mobile that killed 20 people -- mostly oil workers -- near Omar oil field, the main base for the SDF operation in Baghouz.
The battle for the village is now the only live front in Syria's complex civil, which has killed 360,000 people and displaced millions since 2011.
- US 'PEACEKEEPERS' -
Any SDF victory in Baghouz would accelerate an expected withdrawal of US troops from Syria announced in December by US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... Kurdish forces, who have spearheaded the US-backed fight against IS in Syria, have expressed fear that a full pullout would leave them exposed to a long threatened attack by neighbouring The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... But the White House said Thursday the US military will keep around 200 troops in Syria after the withdrawal.
"A small peacekeeping group of about 200 will remain in Syria for a period of time," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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[IsraelTimes] Worshipers burst into area shuttered by Israeli police in 2003 for Friday prayers, but eventually disperse peacefully.
Thousands of Paleostinian protesters on Friday burst into a section of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount that has been closed by Israeli court order for over 15 years.
Paleostinians chanting "Allahu Akbar" streamed into a sealed-off area of al-Aqsa Mosque during prayers. Israeli police said the crowds dispersed peacefully afterward.
The Gate of Mercy, or Golden Gate, was sealed by Israeli authorities in 2003 because the group managing the area had ties to Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",, and it has been kept closed to stop illegal construction work there by the Waqf, custodians of the holy site. Israeli officials believe the work has led to the destruction of antiquities from periods of Jewish presence in the area.
Tensions have escalated at the contested compound. Similar protests turned into scuffles with police earlier this week. Anticipating unrest, police nabbed Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! 60 Paleostinians Thursday overnight suspected of "causing disturbances."
Police accused the Waqf of trying to "change the status quo" at the sensitive site by convening in the closed area last week.
The Temple Mount, the location of the biblical Jewish Temples, and now of the al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, has in recent years become an epicenter of tensions between Israelis and Paleostinians.
Paleostinian fears about purported Israeli plans to change the 52-year arrangement on the Temple Mount ‐ where the Waqf maintains administrative control and the Israel Police security control ‐ have become a daily staple in Paleostinian political rhetoric and media reports in recent years. Multiple car-rammings, stabbings and shootings have been attributed by Paleostinian attackers to the alleged efforts by Israel to alter the status quo at the site, according to which Jews may visit but not pray there.
The Israeli government has insisted it does not intend to change the status quo.
[IsraelTimes] Security forces say dozens in custody, with further arrests expected ahead of prayers at flashpoint Jerusalem compound
Security forces were gearing up Friday morning for anticipated violence ahead of Friday prayers at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount as police announced 60 people were arrested overnight on suspicion of planning violence.
The Kan public broadcaster reported the arrested individuals were all residents of East Jerusalem.
A spokesman for the police said the crackdown came after “calls for public disturbances” at Friday prayers.
Police said in a statement they expect to make further arrests in the coming hours, and that they would act to ensure prayers could take place as planned.
Palestinian worshipers clashed with Israeli police at the site on Tuesday, trying to force their way into an area of the holy compound that has been closed for years. Police said 19 Palestinians were arrested.
The incident followed a similar confrontation on Monday in which Palestinians tried to break the gate that Israel placed on the closed area last week after the Muslim Waqf religious council broke into the area and held prayers there.
Palestinian medics reported that several protesters were injured in the standoff.
According to Haaretz, the Jordanian government, which controls the Waqf, enlarged its council from 11 to 18 members last week. For the first time, Palestinian Authority officials and religious leaders were installed in the body, which has historically been made up of individuals close to the Jordanian monarchy.
The change is a bid by Amman to begin to share responsibility for the holy site, the location of the biblical Jewish Temples, and now of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, which in recent years has become an epicenter of tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
The newspaper said the ongoing tensions at the site are part of the reason for the expansion of the Waqf council by Jordan. Amman first considered the move in the wake of violent protests that followed a terror attack in which Palestinian gunmen killed Israeli police officers guarding the Temple Mount in mid-2017.
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces conducted 8 joint operations and 79 Special Operations Tasks in the past 24 hours in various parts of the country.
The Ministry of Defense in a statement said the Afghan Air Force also carried out 13 sorties during the same period in support of the armed forces to eliminate the sanctuaries of the enemies.
The statement further added that 7 hard boyz were killed and at least 3 others were maimed during the same operations.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the operations were conducted in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. , Paktika ...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo... , Kandahar, Uruzgan, Samangan, and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... provinces and as a result 5 hard boyz were killed in Tarinkot city of Uruzgan province while 2 other hard boyz were killed in Nesh district of Kandahar and 3 more were maimed.
The anti-government armed hard boyz have not commented regarding the operations so far.
[FOX] The Air Force is revving up production of the air-dropped, precision-guided BLU-129 bomb increasingly in demand by warzone commanders - so accurate, lethal and precise, it is called "the world’s largest sniper accuracy."
The often-requested weapon, described as an adaptable carbon fiber bomb, is specially engineered to control "field effects" and create low collateral damage resulting from air attacks.
"The Air Force is currently producing BLU-129 bomb bodies to address operational demand," Capt. Hope Cronin, Air Force Spokeswoman, told Warrior Maven.
The BLU-129 is increasingly in demand because, among other things, it is capable of quickly tailoring its explosive charge depending upon the threat, using what’s called "variable yield effects." Variable-yield effects allow for attackers to adjust the explosive power while in-flight, in some cases enabling extremely effective, yet precise, more narrowly-configured attacks.
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces conducted an operation in eastern Kapisa province of Afghanistan which resulted into destruction of a Taliban ...Arabic for students... prison and killing of two turbans.
Informed military sources said Thursday "Afghan Special Forces killed 2 Taliban fighters and destroyed a Taliban prison this week in Tagab district of Kapisa."
The sources further added that the Afghan Special Forces also conducted a raid in Shindand district of Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... province killing 3 Taliban fighters.
In the meantime, an air strike near Tarin Kot district killed 1 Taliban fighter, the sources said, adding that less than a week ago, more than 21 Taliban fighters were killed in an air strike in the same region.
The anti-government armed faceless myrmidons including Taliban have not commented regarding the operations so far.
[FOXNEWS] University of Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, police want the public's help tracking down a suspect whose brutal alleged assault of a conservative activist on the Berkeley campus was caught on video.
The campus police website said that two men on Tuesday approached a table where the activist was recruiting members to his group, and an argument ensued. The alleged victim, identified by Turning Point USA as Hayden Williams, held up his cell phone and began filming the two men who were allegedly harassing him. One of the two men knocked over the table, police said, and then punched Williams several times, causing injuries to his face. Much of the incident was captured on a witness' cellphone, but it was unclear what, if anything, Williams may have said before the attack.
The suspects had left by the time police arrived.
Although Williams was helping Turning Point USA, he is not actually a member of the group. Williams is campus representative for Leadership Institute, according to Campus Reform, a conservative news site that the institute operates.
A witness told Fox News the recruitment table had a sign that said: "Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims," in reference to the case of "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, who is accused of staging a bias attack against himself in downtown reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... last month.
On its website, Campus Reform, which interviewed Williams, reported that the alleged attacker cursed at the activist, calling him a racist and threatened to shoot him.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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#1
Why is it that the guy who did the punching looks more like somebody's hired muscle than a student?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/23/2019 12:41
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The U.S. military will leave approximately 400 troops inside Syria, a senior administration official told Rooters on Friday.
Previously, U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ordered the complete withdrawal of all troops in December after he declared that the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... had been defeated in Syria.
He was later persuaded by advisers on Thursday to leave approximately 200 troops inside Syria to maintain a peacekeeping force.
With their European European allies agreeing to leave between 800-1,500 troops in Syria, the U.S. is planning to set up a safe zone in the SDF-held areas.
Of the 400 troops in Syria, the U.S. will leave approximately 200 at the military base in the al-Tanf region.
"We don’t want to see a resurgence of ISIS," the official said.
This will likely cause an uproar from Damascus and Moscow, as both governments have repeatedly called on the U.S. to withdraw completely from the al-Tanf Zone in southeast Homs.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media adviser to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... , has suggested that Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... has been seeking to bring the Moslem Brüderbund* into the government in Syria.
"What Erdogan is still trying to do and wanted to do before the beginning of this war against Syria is the recognition of the Moslem Brüderbund and making it a part of Syrian authorities ... Today, Erdogan, acting through the so-called opposition, the majority of which is, of course, loyal to him, is seeking to determine the name which would ensure that the Moslem Brüderbund has a voice in the Syrian government", Shaaban said in an interview with the broadcaster Al Mayadeen.
Shaaban continued by noting that religious parties are not allowed in the Syria as it is a secular pluralist state.
The adviser noted that the Ottoman Turkish president had been trying to implement the same scheme, including bringing members of the Moslem Brüderbund members into the government, in some other states, too.
The statement comes after Assad said in an address on 17 February that Erdogan was a "little slave of the United States" and hinted at the Ottoman Turkish president’s affiliation with the Islamist organization.
The Moslem Brüderbund is considered a terror group by Syria and a number of other regional states. However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... some regional players believe that Ankara supports the group. Erdogan has said that the Moslem Brüderbund is an ideological organization and should not be treated as a terror group.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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[KhaamaPress] At least 388 Afghan soldiers received their graduation certificates after completing team leader’s course in the 203rd Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military in the Southeast.
The 203rd Thunder Corps officials said the Afghan army soldiers were trained in the headquarters of 203rd Thunder Corps.
The Commander of the Afghan Military in the South and 203rd Thunder Corps Gen. Dadan Lawang said the Afghan nation particularly the residents of the Southeast supports the Afghan armed forces.
Gen. Lawang further added that the enemies do not have the capability to fight the armed forces of the country as he congratulated them for their victory in the battlefield.
According to a statement released by 203rd Thunder Corps, Gen. Lawang also inaugurated a training course for another 600 soldiers in the 203rd Thunder Corps headquarters.
Posted by: al aSha-med ||
02/23/2019 15:32
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#2
One step at a time, al aSha-med, and at each level, as I understand it, they learn more reading, writing, and arithmetic. As a group the Afghan military is on the way to becomng the most highly educated in the entire country, barring only the professional academics.
[Jpost] The Australian government was targeted by Tehran-based hackers, American security firm Fireeye said.
Iranian hackers launched a cyber-attack against the Australian parliament with the intention to harm the Five Eyes Alliance [FVEY], the secret service alliance between five English speaking countries: the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, American security firm FireEye reported on Friday night.
Based on the style of the Friday morning attack, FireEye claimed it was connected to a technology firm called Mabna Institute which is connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Australian media reported that the attack "was sophisticated this time around" and that all passwords in parliament computers were changed for safety.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation [ABC] reported that China is also a possible suspect of the attack.
#2
I hadn't heard this. He really paid with a personal check for his criminal behavior? Have people never heard of cash and/or favors? Seriously? Oh my God, I know actors are freaking stupid, but this is just astounding.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) carried out a heavy attack on a group of rebel fighters in the northern countryside of the Hama Governorate this week.
Using their anti-tank guided missiles, the Syrian Arab Army targeted a vehicle carrying the commander of the Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... near the town of al-Latamnah.
According to a local report, the Syrian Arab Army killed the Free Syrian Army commander, Hisham Mustafa, during the assault on the rebel vehicle in northern Hama.
The report added that another fighter was killed and at least three others were badly maimed during the assault.
Over the last few months, the Syrian Arab Army and rebel forces in northern Hama have traded several attacks, while accusing each other of violating the September 17th Sochi Agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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[ALMASDARNEWS] Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Venezuela's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy... has announced that the land border with Brazil will be closed, speaking at a televised address from Caracas on Thursday.
"From 20:00, Thursday on February 21 [00:00 GMT on Friday] we are closing in a total and absolute manner the land border with Brazil. It’s better to prevent than regret [a situation].
We are taking all safety measures to protect our people," said Maduro.
The announcement comes two days before February 23, the day which opposition leader and self-declared interim president Juan Guaido claims that US humanitarian aid will reach Venezuela.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/23/2019
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[Jpost] The French protester who verbally abused French philosopher Alain Finkielraut a week ago was tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! by Police and is expected to face the court on May 22, Algemeiner reported on Friday night.
The man, known as "Benjamin" and reported by French media to be a 36-year-old married father of five who works as a salesman, shouted at the elderly Finkielraut that "La Belle France is ours" and called him a "Zionist shi*t."
The man was part of a 'Yellow Vests" group who screamed at Finkielraut that he is a "dirty Jew," that he's "going to die" and he's "going to hell."
The man arrested claimed to have spoken these things in anger of comments Finkielraut made about "The Paleostinians" and the "Children of Gazoo."
The man was reportedly arrested in 2004 for attacking a police officer and to be linked to radical pro-Paleostinian Islamist groups who visited Leb in 2014.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack, saying, "The antisemitic insults to which [Finkielkraut] has been subjected to are the absolute opposite of who we are and what makes us a great nation. We will not tolerate them."
[AnNahar] Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... fighters facing defeat in Syria are slipping across the border into Iraq, where they are destabilizing the country's fragile security, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
Hundreds ‐ likely more than 1,000 ‐ IS fighters have crossed the open, desert border in the past six months, defying a massive operation by U.S., Kurdish, and allied forces to stamp out the remnants of the jihadi group in eastern Syria, according to three Iraqi intelligence officials and a U.S. military official.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/23/2019
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[Breitbart] Iowa state lawmakers are looking to crack down on businesses hiring illegal aliens in the wake of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts’ alleged murder by an illegal alien.
A measure by 26 Iowa state Senate Republicans would strip businesses who knowingly hire illegal aliens of their business licenses and would mandate that employers use the E-Verify system ‐ which weeds out illegal aliens from taking American jobs ‐ before receiving any Iowa tax dollars in the form of economic development incentives.
Already, the crackdown on illegal hiring has passed a subcommittee, according to the Des Moines Register.
The legislation would mandate that if a business is found to have knowingly hired an illegal alien instead of an American citizen, the company would have to fire all illegal hires and be put on probation for three years where the business owner would be required to submit four reports a year about each newly hired worker.
If a business was found to have hired an illegal alien, again, after being put on probation, the company would lose its business license from the state. The legislation would create a statewide database of every Iowa business that has hired an illegal alien instead of an American. When the gov't gets SERIOUS about the employers, they'll have become SERIOUS about illegal immigration. Until then, forget it.
No, no, of course not. Only putting him in charge of everything will accomplish the goal.
[ToloNews] Hizb-e-Islami 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... , who is also running for president in July 20 elections, on Thursday said the planned consultative Loya Jirga on peace will not help resolve the stalemate in Afghanistan.
#1
the war in Afghanistan and in the region will continue until there is a neutral and sovereign government in Afghanistan supplies of gunnies and suicide bombers run out. FIFY.
[ToloNews] Khost residents on Thursday claimed that some holy mans in the province refuse to perform funeral prayers for fallen Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) soldiers on due to threats against them by the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... According to Eid Mohammad, one resident, his brother Khial Mohammad was an ANA soldier who lost his life during a counter-insurgency operation in Janikhel district of the province.
Eid Mohammad said local holy mans in his home town refused to conduct his funeral prayer ceremony.
"Our own local Mullah did not come to perform the prayer ceremony for my brother," said Eid Mohammad.
"When we asked the Mullah why he would not conduct the funeral prayers of a security forces member who was his brother and countrymen, he said that when he returns to his own village he would face problems," said another brother of the victim, Noor Mohammad.
Some holy mans in Khost said they cannot conduct prayer services at funerals because of threats by the Taliban.
"The Taliban have imposed conditions for holy mans," said one holy man in Khost Maulavi Matiullah.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Cynthia backed into the galley, the barbecue fork held in front of her. Jack! she called. Where the hell are you?... the council of religious scholars in Khost has confirmed the problem.
"We have asked the Mullah Imams about the issue several times, they say that their homes are located in mountains and plains and they can not perform funeral prayers because of threats," said Maulavi Shah Mahmood, head of Khost Religious Scholars Council.
"Those who live in the villages can not perform the prayers because of threats," said Maulavi Ezharuddin, head of Khost Hajj and Pilgrimage department.
Previously similar reports were received from Paktia where the holy mans also refused to perform funeral prayers for dead security force members.
[KhaamaPress] At least four members of a prominent terror gang of Taliban ...Arabic for students... group were tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! during an operation of the Afghan intelligence operatives in Kabul city.
The Taliban group members who belonged to one of the most destructive networks of the group were arrested during an operation of the Special Forces of Afghan Intelligence which was conducted in the vicinity of the 5th police district of Kabul city, the National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... , the intelligence directorate of Afghanistan said in a statement. The statement further added that the detained individuals have been identified as Abdullah son of Gul Rasool who is the leader of the network, Humayoun son of Majnoon, Maiwand son of Sharbat, and Faridullah alias AhmadZia son of Redi Gul.
The detained individuals have confessed that they were recruited in Taliban ranks by one of the Taliban group leaders Asadullah Nasrat in Paghman district of Kabul and were busy in bombings, armed robberies, liquidations, harassments, and lootings in Kabul city, according to the National Directorate of Security.
The statement released by the National Directorate of Security also added that the detained individuals have confirmed their involvement in at least 70 improvised bomb attacks in Paghman and Kabul city besides carrying out 3 assassinations, armed robberies, and targeting public welfare sites including hospitals by disguising in security forces uniforms.
[Rudaw] Iraqi military authorities have formed a Joint Operations Command from different army units to operate in Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... without the involvement of the Kurdish Peshmerga while Kurds oppose the move and have vowed to dismantle the command and create a new one.
"The formation of a forward headquarters of Joint Operations Command in Kirkuk is for the purpose of unity in commands," Lt. Gen. Saad Harbiyah, head of the Kirkuk Joint Operations Command, told Rudaw.
The office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Kirkuk is reported to be taken over as headquarters of the new unit.
The new joint command includes the federal police, the Hashd al-Shaabi, counterterrorism forces and army units.
"All will be under one command for the purpose of understanding and uniting the security, intelligence and field ability for the sake of the Kirkuk province," added Lt. Gen. Harbiyah.
Ali Husseini, the Hashd al-Shaabi Northern Branch spokesperson told Rudaw that the Hashd is naturally part of Iraqi defense apparatus, and as such can operate in Kirkuk and be given a role in the joint operations command.
The Kurds have for their part called the move illegal and promised through Baghdad to reverse the plan and possibly form a new force.
"There are a number of legal and constitutional errors in establishing this operation room in Kirkuk," Shakhawan Abdullah, member of Kirkuk Normalization Committee, told Rudaw. "For example, members of that force are aliens and not natives to the city."
He added that the second problem is that the headquarters of the force in KDP's building, "which is occupied since October 16".
The latest announcement from the army contradicts a recent statement from the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister Abdil Abdul-Mahdi read that a joint force of Iraqi army and Peshmerga would be created for Kirkuk.
Newly-established military committees would determine locations where the Peshmerga or Iraqi forces are to be deployed, read a statement from the prime minister’s office.
[DW] More and more rejected asylum-seekers are being sent back to Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, according to a new report. The German government wants to designate the countries as "safe" in order to accelerate the process.
Last year saw a 35 percent rise in the number of people deported to the Maghreb states of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, the Rheinische Post reported on Friday, citing the German Interior Ministry.
Germany deported a total of 1,873 rejected asylum-seekers to the northern African countries last year, compared to 1,389 in 2017.
The number of deportations to the region last year was nearly 14 times higher than in 2015, the paper reported.
Morocco saw the most dramatic increase, with the number of deportees rising from 634 to 826.
MORE DEPORTATIONS TO RUSSIA, INDIA
Last year also saw a jump in deportations to other African countries, including Ghana and The Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... , according to the ministry data.
Some 422 people were sent back to Russia last year, up from 184 from the previous year. India also saw a big jump in the number of deportations last year, from 32 to 212.
Controversial deportations to Afghanistan also rose, up from 121 to 284.
'SAFE' COUNTRIES?
The German government has been pushing for Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria to be added to the list of "safe countries of origin." Berlin argues that doing so would help speed up the asylum application process ‐ as well as deportations.
Their efforts stalled last week when the upper chamber of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, rejected a draft law to add the three countries and Georgia to the list.
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators are burning tires, throwing rocks and bombs and trying to breach the fence; IDF responds with tear gas and live fire.
Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, officials said a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed and at least 30 others were maimed by live fire as thousands of Paleostinians rioted along the Gazoo border on Friday, throwing rocks and bombs at Israeli soldiers and trying to breach the fence.
The Hamas-run Gazoo health ministry initially said the boy was 12, but later identified him as 15-year-old Yusef al-Dayya. They said he was shot in the chest and critically maimed. He later died of his injuries.
Thousands of Paleostinians were rioting at the Gazoo border as part of weekly protests, burning tires and throwing rocks and bombs at Israeli soldiers who responded with tear gas and live fire.
There were no reports of injuries to IDF soldiers.
The festivities come after a week of violence along the Gazoo border.
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.
[BBC] Soldiers from the Venezuelan national guard have left their posts ahead of an opposition-led effort to bring aid into the country, Colombia's migration agency said.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Yaneidi Guzman has lost a third of her weight over the past three years as Venezuela’s economic collapse made food unaffordable and she now hopes the opposition will succeed in bringing urgently needed foreign aid to the South American country.
[Right Scoop] Maduro is cracking down on allowing legitimate humanitarian aid to come into the country because he believes it’s a pretext for US intervention. He’s also blocking Guaido and his supporters movements in the country toward the site of this humanitarian aid.
[Bloomberg] Here’s one for the record books: The Dow Jones Industrial Average just posted its ninth straight weekly advance, the longest streak in almost 24 years. Helped by optimism over U.S.-China trade talks, the gauge closed up 0.7 percent on Friday to cap a weekly gain of 0.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index is also on a nine-week winning streak -- the longest since May 2009 -- while the S&P 500 Index notched a fourth straight week of gains. It’s lone lapse over the period was the week ended Jan. 25.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) ‐ The Vietnamese capital once trembled as waves of American bombers unleashed their payloads, but when Kim Jong Un arrives here for his summit with President Donald Trump he won’t find rancor toward a former enemy. Instead the North Korean leader will get a glimpse at the potential rewards of reconciliation.
[Townhall] President Donald Trump on Friday night announced his pick for the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. He took to Twitter to let people know he has chosen Kelly Knight Craft, the current Ambassador to Canada, to fill the vacancy.
[NYPOST] 
[The Hill] President Trump is intensifying his attack on federal funding for Planned Parenthood with the introduction of new rules on Friday that are widely seen as a way of gutting federal funding to the group.
[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers on Tuesday compared the American flag with the Nazi swastika on the floor of the legislature.
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
[ChicagoSunTimes] A Cook County judge has approved a no-bail arrest warrant for embattled R&B superstar R. Kelly, who was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four victims, at least three of them minors, Friday morning, records show.
...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
[BIZPACREVIEW] An illegal immigrant with four ICE detainers was shot to death after he opened fire on a Napa County sheriff’s deputy.
[AlAhram] French forces have killed a top jihadist leader, Yahya Abou El Hamame,
[IsraelTimes] Worshipers burst into area shuttered by Israeli police in 2003 for Friday prayers, but eventually disperse peacefully.
[FOXNEWS] University of 
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
[KhaamaPress] At least 388 Afghan soldiers received their graduation certificates after completing team leader’s course in the 203rd Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military in the Southeast.
[Jpost] The Australian government was targeted by Tehran-based hackers, American security firm Fireeye said.
I had to ask. 
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) carried out a heavy attack on a group of rebel fighters in the northern countryside of the Hama Governorate this week.
Venezuela's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy...
[Jpost] The French protester who verbally abused French philosopher Alain Finkielraut a week ago was 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
[KhaamaPress] At least four members of a prominent terror gang of 
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators are burning tires, throwing rocks and 
