Fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's younger brother Noora died of kidney failure compounded with abdominal cancer in a private hospital in Dubai at around 4 am local time on Tuesday, relatives said. Noora, the fourth of the five brothers, is survived by six daughters.
The Interpol had issued a red corner notice against him. Noora was wanted by the police in several cases of forgery, fake currency and extortion. He is also accused of threatening several film producers and directors. There was confusion in the family about where to perform his last rites. Sources said a few family members wanted the burial to be conducted in Dubai while others wanted to bring the body to Mumbai.
Senior police officials said that Noora escaped to Pakistan after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and had been living there with Dawood ever since. Sources said that he was running the extortion empire of the Dawood's empire in Mumbai.
Dawood's family lawyer Shaym Keswani confirmed Noora's death. "The Mumbai police wanted to deport him. He had just one petty case in Mumbai," said Keswani. Relatives said that Noora was an alcoholic. They also said he was passionate about poetry and ghazals.
Officials from the Intelligence Bureau and the R&AW have upped their alerts as the funeral is likely to be attended by several key aides of the D-Company who are in the world's most-wanted list of absconders.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009
18:47 ||
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MUMBAI: Security agencies have been placed on high alert following an intelligence report that 7-8 trained pilots and around a dozen women fidayeen have entered the country on a mission to carry out terror strikes and hijackings.
Security arrangements across the country have been beefed up following the input that was received six days ago by Maharashtra police and some other security agencies. This was three days before the threat e-mail landed at the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai and a Taj property in Chennai.
All security agencies have now been briefed about a group of 20 people entering India. A source said, "A group of 20 people, who could be Pakistani nationals, have entered the country to carry out terror strikes or a plane hijack. The group includes seven trained pilots and 13-14 women."
The latest intelligence is also one of the most serious threat intimations received by the aviation ministry. "While we have been receiving terror threats repeatedly after 26/11, the current input is clearly the biggest one airports have received so far," said an official.
The message was conveyed to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), which forwarded it to all airports across the country.
For the aviation sector, the message revives memories of the IC-814 hijacking by Jaish-e-Mohammed operatives on December 24, 1999.
"As it is, security is tight due to continuing perception of terror threats post the bombings across the country and the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. This message has yet again put pressure to plug all loopholes, if any," said an official.
"Places regarded as valuable targets are under watch," he added. The input doesn't specify the age group of the suspected Pakistani terrorists. Nor does it say how the group sneaked in. A senior intelligence official said, "We cannot take a chance. This group may also be planning to disrupt the Lok Sabha elections this month."
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009
18:15 ||
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#1
ION WORLD MIL FORUM > RUSSIAN MEDIA "INDEPENDENT" > PRESIDENT OF TURKEMINISTAN PLANS TO CAUSE UNREST IN CHINA. Former SSR's national energy reserves in doubt - CHINA FEARS THIRD-PARTY STATE "ENERGY IMPERIALISM/
DOMINATION" as per proposed pan-Regional Pipelines and Distribution networks.
#2
OOOPSIES, forgot to add WMF > INDIAN SCHOLARS: CHINA WILL USE WAR TO RESOLE SINO-INDIAN BORDER PROBLEMS. CHINESE MIL BUILDUP IN TIBET POSES A STRATEGIC MILITARY CHALLENGE TO INDIA, as coupled wid Chin Portsdev thoughout Indian Ocean [Hainan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Gwadar].
Reminds me of an old Polish joke...
A 911 dispatcher had to tell a woman how to unlock her car on Sunday.
A woman called Kissimmee police to say she was locked inside her car at the Walgreen's on John Young Parkway near Poinciana. "My car will not start. I'm locked inside my car," the unidentified woman said. "Nothing electrical works. And it's getting very hot in here, and I'm not feeling well." Muldoon, fetch the Jaws of Life...
The dispatcher asked the woman if she was able to manually pull the lock up on the door. The woman said she would try, and then, she said, "Yes, I got the door open." Should've told her to break a window...
Following clearance by the Nuclear Suppliers Group, first consignment of 60 tonnes of uranium ore concentrate, imported from France, has arrived at the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) here for being converted into fuel for power reactors.
This uranium ore would be processed and used to pruduce power in safeguarded pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs).
Disclosing this at a press conference here on Tuesday, R N Jayaraj, chief executive, NFC , said that consequent to Indo-US nuclear deal, the 123 agreement and clearance by NSG to enable full civil nuclear cooperation, India and France had entered into bilateral cooperation for supplying reactors and fuel.
As a first step, Department of Atomic Energy entered into a contract with French Nuclear supplier AREVA NC for the supply of 300 tonnes of uranium ore concentrate and 60 tonnes were released under the first consignment which was received by the NFC.
Jayaraj said the fuel would be processed in the designated fuel plants at the NFC by converting uranium ore concentrated into nuclear grade uranium dioxide powder and then compacted in the form of cylindrical pellets.
These pellets will then stacked and encapsulated in thin walled tubes of zirconium alloy which will be sealed by resistance welding using end plugs, a technology which has been innovated in India.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009
16:41 ||
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For months, this newspaper has opposed President Obama's bold, forward-thinking agenda. What a colossal mistake.
We realize now that we were merely clinging to the discredited ideas of the past. Holding on to disposable relics like tradition, religion and the Constitution only delays the glorious new world that awaits us all.
President Obama has shown America a bright, glimmering future full of widely shared prosperity and national nice-to-each-otherness. Only by universally embracing the President's vision can this nation succeed and prosper. Resistance will bring nothing but social distortion, widespread panic and madness.
Obama has shown us all that to achieve the unrealized promise of this great nation, we must transcend outdated values such as public thrift, individual liberty and restrained government. All power must be shifted to Washington and deposited in the hands of a wise and benevolent ruler whose will is never questioned.
We must grant this great man and his helpful lieutenants the authority to control our corporations, redistribute our wealth and otherwise direct the economy as they see fit. To do anything less is to guarantee disaster.
The road to prosperity, President Obama has shown, is traveled by high-speed rail and government-mandated hybrid automobiles, powered by wind, water and air, subsidized by gargantuan energy taxes and paid for by borrowing trillions that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will never be able to repay. It is a road that can be constructed only by an energetic national government unconstrained by law, tradition or actual cash reserves.
The winds of change are blowing, and they smell all flowery. That could be the scent of same-sex marriage. We aren't sure. But we know that questioning change is bad; stepping back and letting it happen no matter the consequences is good.
So let us all stand idly by, mouths shut in obedience to our new rulers, and watch the traditions that hold up our society, like pillars of a great temple, crumble and collapse from the force of great, howling winds that sing hauntingly of a future filled with consequences none of us understands.
Let's all do this until at least midnight tonight. Then April Fool's Day will be over.
CHENNAI: An Indian version of the space shuttle will be test-flown from the spaceport at Sriharikota in a years time. The Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), as it is called, will be a combination rocket-aircraft: the aircraft with a winged body, which is the RLV, will sit vertically on the rocket.
The engineering model of the aircraft is ready at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram. The first stage of the Satellite Launch Vehicle-3, flown in the early 1980s, will form the booster rocket. Weighing nine tonnes, it is called S-9.
After it takes off like a rocket, the booster will release the unmanned aircraft, which will go into space. At the end of the mission, the aircraft will land in the sea.
K. Radhakrishnan, Director, VSSC, said in an interview: The next year we expect the prototype of the RLV-TD to be ready for flight-testing. This will be a milestone for ISRO. The RLV will open a new dimension in the launch vehicle technology and transportation system of ISRO.
According to Dr. Radhakrishnan, ground testing of the booster rocket was done at Sriharikota in December 2008.
S. Ramakrishnan, Director (Projects), VSSC, explained how the rocket-aircraft would look: The aircraft will stand over the rocket, nose-tip up, and its tail will be interfaced with the rocket. In other words, the entire RLV will stand vertically on top of the booster. The engineering model of the prototype RLV was ready at the VSSC. It will undergo various structural and load tests, Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
The booster rocket will take the RLV to a specific altitude, release the RLV and fall into the sea. On re-entry into the earths atmosphere, the RLV will land in the sea, to be recovered.
Re-entry, descent and recovery are the three issues which we are trying to understand, Mr. Ramakrishnan said. But in the first trial-flight in 2010, the RLV will not be recovered from sea because it will not be cost-effective to do so. But we will get the data on the re-entry, deceleration and return from the telemetry.
There were several issues that the ISRO was trying to understand in the mission, Dr. Radhakrishnan said. These included the aerodynamics of the RLV, compared to the rocket, and the controllability of the vehicle. The control system must be fast-acting. That is the basic challenge. The digital auto-pilot is important for the ascent phase and the descent phase.
The third important challenge was the heat generated when the RLV re-entered the atmosphere. Dr. Radhakrishnan said: You need to have hot structures [which can withstand the re-entry heat] Today, we have a handle on the materials.
The ISRO had a long way to go before it could build an operational RLV, he said. This is the first TD towards that.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009
15:03 ||
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#1
An engineering model of the Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009 15:05
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Poster from Aero-India 2009 showing the various RLV experiments - landing, return flight and scramjet
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009 15:06
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#3
Why the decision to have it land at sea? I understand the saved weight etc. of not having a wheeled suspension, but does it not open the possibility of damage to the scramjet and stress from bobbing in the waves (nevermind the difficulties of the controlled landing onto the ocean)?
#6
ION INDIA WAFF > DYING JOBS FORCE MIGRANT LABOERERS TO LEAVE BANGALORE [India].
OTOH, also on WAFF > ROLE REVERSAL: SOME AMERICANS HEAD FOR NEW JOBS IN INDIA; + [Calcutta News]THAI ECONOMY STILL SUFFERING DUE TO [pervasive]POLITICAL INSTABILITY.
H/T Jonah at NRO
Diplomatic jaws dropped across the continent yesterday when it was revealed that U.S. President Barack Obama had, once again, fumbled a routine protocal of international statecraft: finding the right gift for a foreign leader or head of state. In a private ceremony with Queen Elizabeth, Her Royal Highness bequeathed to the Obamas one of the earliest known copies of William Shakespeare's Henry V. She also presented him with the framed orginal sheet music of John Newton's "Amazing Grace." To the Obama daughters, the Queen gave a dollhouse-sized replica of Windsor Castle with a functioning train station in the year of the compound. They also received a prize Shetland pony. Mrs. Obama was given a ruby ring commissioned and worn by Queen Victoria.
The Obamas, unfortunately, did not seem prepared for the occasion despite the row set off by the exchange of gifts between Prime Minister Brown and the U.S. President barely a month ago. Mr. Obama rather unceremoniously handed the Queen a shopping bag from the Duty Free shop at Heathrow airport. It contained a signed paperback copy of Dreams of My Father, purchased at the WH Smith shop at the airport, a bottle of Johnny Walker Scotch (black label), a CD of the Swedish band ABBA's greatest hits (still in shrink wrap with a 2-for-1 sticker on it) and ten bags of M&Ms with the presidential seal on them.
The Queen responded in a rather flat: "How delightful."
Here's this
Barack Obama met the Queen at Buckingham Palace today and gave her a gift of an iPod loaded with video footage and photographs of her 2007 United States visit to Richmond, Jamestown and Williamsburg in Virginia. In return, the Queen gave the President a silver framed signed photograph of herself and the Duke of Edinburgh - apparently a standard present for visiting dignitaries.
It is believed the Queen already has an iPod, a 6GB silver Mini version she is said to have bought in 2005 at the suggestion of Prince Andrew.
UPDATE: Pool reporter Richard Wolf of USA Today says that an Obama aide told him the President also gave the Queen a "rare songbook signed by Richard Rogers". END UPDATE
#5
As a related aside: I know that gifts to the President are considered the property of the US. Does anyone know if this applies to gifts to the first lady (I would guess it does)? How about gifts to the children?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/01/2009 17:10
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Ask any soldier who's been to both countries: Afghanistan is not Iraq. It's a different war against a different enemy in a different country with an entirely different terrain and altitude.
One thing is the same, though. The Improvised Explosive Device -- the deadly "IED" roadside bombs that blew up Humvees and the soldiers inside them along the dusty roads of Iraq -- is an equally effective weapon in the rocky steeps of Afghanistan.
When the Humvee proved unable to withstand IED attacks in Iraq, the U.S. military built a new vehicle -- the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) -- to replace it. And like a neglected sibling, the troops in Afghanistan automatically acquired the MRAP as a hand-me-down. It's the wrong vehicle for the new war.
"Best vehicle in Afghanistan? Two legs. And maybe a mule to pack the .50 caliber machine gun," Arizona National Guardsman Anthony McGee said, only half-jokingly. "Breakdowns were an almost everyday occurrence."
So it's back to the drawing board. Soon there'll be a new king of the road: the MRAP All Terrain Vehicle (M-ATV), nicknamed the "Baby MRAP," which is being "designed for mobility and survivability," says Cheryl Irwin, spokeswoman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
As a nation at war for nearly 40 years, the Afghan landscape is peppered with an astounding variety of things that blow up. Along the bare, parched mountains near the border with Pakistan, explosives are more abundant than flowers or trees.
Weight, height, size -- all the advantages the MRAP afforded troops in Iraq's urban environments -- are all liabilities in a country that barely possesses paved pathways.
Last year, three Green Berets drowned when their MRAP, which is prone to tilting over on uneven terrain, rolled into a canal in southern Afghanistan. The problem was obvious, and the solution is clear: Afghanistan needs a special vehicle for its unique demands.
Enter the M-ATV.
A scaled-down, all-terrain, four-wheel offspring of the larger MRAP, the M-ATV is one of the first tactical vehicles designed specifically with Afghanistan in mind, and the Defense Department has put an urgent priority on getting it into the war zone by the end of this year.
"The M-ATV is designed to have the same level of protection as the previous MRAPs, but with the mobility of a Humvee," says Steve Field, spokesman for BAE Systems, one of several competing manufacturers designing this vehicle of the future.
Its equipment and capabilities are many:
IED jammers
V-shaped blast-dispersing monocoque hull
Significantly increased power-to-weight ratio
The ability to ford hard-bottom fresh water to depths of up to 5 feet. (M-ATV is not amphibious)
Generate 10 kilowatts of vehicle host power and export an additional 20 kilowatts for mission equipment
Turbo-charged diesel V8 engine
Shorter wheelbase for improved cross-country mobility
Lower center of gravity for increased maneuverability and to prevent rollovers
Ergonomic steering angle to "drive like an SUV"
"Runflat" tire system allowing the M-ATV to safely cruise at 30 mph on up to two flat tires
To meet future challenges, a new composite "hyperplastic" material capable of absorbing enormous amounts of kinetic energy is the new frontier for armor. This new "composite armor system" has even resisted the deadly energy formed projectile (EFP) class of IED, all while weighing 37 percent less than conventional steel armor.
It's a major victory in the "up armor" race, but in Afghanistan, the IED battle is just beginning.
Hard and rough, the M-ATV is designed with shock absorption in mind. Its independent suspension system is a break from the less flexible standard straight axle systems used in the larger MRAPs.
"This type of train allows each wheel a bit more mobility," said suspension systems guru Scott Arentz of Extremegearoffroad.com. "The independent drivetrain requires a few more parts and is more 'delicate,' but it usually gives a smoother ride."
An added bonus of the M-ATV is that it will be a money-saver. A barebones unit will cost roughly $500,000, compared to $1 million for an MRAP.
The far lighter M-ATV will also cost much less to deliver to landlocked Afghanistan. The military estimates that airlifting each MRAP into Afghanistan costs $135,000 -- and there currently are 1,800 MRAPs in the country.
"The key here is survivability," Irwin said. "We want to protect our people and give them what they need to succeed in their mission....
"I hate the term 'baby' MRAP," she said, referring to the nickname the nimble 4x4 has acquired.
And well she might. The M-ATV must hit the ground running, which is precisely what the military expects it to do. In Afghanistan, there will be no time to crawl.
Obama Orders Chevrolet and Dodge Out Of NASCAR - Car News
With their racing budgets deemed unnecessary expenditures, GM and Chrysler are ordered to cease racing operations at the end of the season.
In a move sure to spark outrage, the White House announced today that GM and Chrysler must cease participation in NASCAR at the end of the 2009 season if they hope to receive any additional financial aid from the government. Companies around the globeHonda and Audi, to name twohave drawn down racing operations, and NASCAR itself has already felt the pinch in the form of reduced team spending. A complete withdrawal from Americas premier racing series is expected to save more than $250 million between GM and Chrysler, a substantial amount considering the drastic measures being implemented elsewhere... C&D now has disclaimers all over its website after posting this as a joke. Turns out that a LOT of NASCAR fans were totally freaking out. Lots of people are refusing to believe that it was a gag, and are blind with rage.
#2
They've apparently pulled the article. I'm not surprised. About the only comparison to this I've been able to imagine would be if Obama declared display or possession of Confederate battle flags a federal crime.
I just wonder what is going to happen to C&Ds magazine sales next month.
#5
I would rather these "jokes" not be publicized. It is difficult enough to keep up with Barry and his 'new idea a minute' gang as it is. No need giving them new crazy, whacko material.
Presently known for playing Detective Mac Taylor on the hit TV series, CSI NY, the talented Gary Sinise has done it all--acting, directing, making music and producing everything from plays to films. Now, Sinise plays the role of executive producer for the recently released documentary feature, Brothers At War. Since Sinise has been nominated for an Oscar (Forrest Gump), a couple of Emmys and a Tony (for directing Sam Shepard's Buried Child), he's a good man to have on board.
Though he only got involved pretty much after the principal shooting and editing was done, Sinise signed on to give the film's creator, director and producer Jake Rademacher, a boost in getting the public to come see his family film. Rademacher not only makes his directorial debut creating this intimate portrait of an American family during this turbulent time of war, he's also one its subjects since he's one of the three brothers involved in this story of a family.
Sinise is already known for offering support to the troops through his past tours to Iraq with his Lt. Dan Band. His musical side project is named for his most famous role, Lt. Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump. Sinise has been doing USO tours in Iraq and fundraising events ever since 2003, playing bass at 30-some dates a year. In 2004, he co-founded the Operation Iraqi Children's Foundation which provides kids with school supplies and other resources.
Through this film, Rademacher sets out to understand his two brothers' military experience, their motivation to be in Iraq, and the sacrifices of those who are serving there. For the gravel-voiced Sinise--who has his rap on the film down to a set of well-worn, thought-out bits of banter--this film clearly provides a positive counterweight to the plethora of features critical of the war. After Sinise made a disparaging remark in an early interview about director Brian DePalma's Redacted, a cinema verite polemical feature about several soldiers in the Iraq War, he offers answers that now avoid controversy.
Jake got embedded with four combat units in Iraq and this deep access to US and Iraqi combat units alloweds him to get behind the camouflage curtain. With humor as well, we see what happens with secret reconnaissance troops on the Syrian border, the sniper "hide sites" in the Sunni Triangle, and what it's like running with the Iraqi Army as well.
As Rademacher follows his siblings, we see them at home where this life-threatening work and the separations it creates ripple through everyone involved from the parents, wives, and children. Jake sees how alike and different his life is from his brothers, and this doc offers a rare look at the bonds between soldiers on the frontlines and the people left behind.
Implicit in the experience of seeing the film is a strong sympathy with the military and in turn, with the missions in Iraq and, by association, Afghanistan. So it's no wonder that Sinise, who is not known for liberal sympathies, chose to lend his clear support to this film during a recent roundtable.
#1
If there's anyone shaping up to be the 'next' Bob Hope, it's Gary I think. He certainly doesn't stint in his support of our troops and he gathers alot of like minded people around him.
Course, I'm just on the sidelines, but perhaps some of our vets may have a clearer view of it.
Tim Geithners new nominee for number two at the Treasury Department, Neal Wolin, played a key role in drafting legislation in the late 1990s deregulating the banking system, a former Treasury Department official confirms to us.
The law that Wolin helped draft has been blamed by some critics, many of them Democrats, for easing up regulatory pressure on huge financial institutions, tangentially helping create todays mess and his role drafting it could come under questioning at his upcoming confirmation hearings.
Our reporter, Ryan Derousseau, came across Wolins role in researching our big profile of Wolin at WhoRunsGov.com. Stuart Eizenstat, a deputy Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, confirmed that as Treasurys general counsel at the time, Wolin provided the technical and legal drafting for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
As Ryan writes, the Act hasnt been directly blamed for todays meltdown. But it did pave the way for the birth of huge financial companies like Citigroup that were deemed too big to fail when their mortgage bets went belly-up and the credit market evaporated. The government, of course, had to bail out these institutions with billions in taxpayer dollars.
Wolin who was picked after several other candidates passed on the slot did the legal work under then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who is now Obamas head of the National Economic Council. The difference here is that Summers post, unlike Wolins, is a non-confirmable one, so he hasnt been pressed publicly on Gramm-Leach-Bliley. The question now is whether Wolin will come under sharp questioning over his role in creating it.
The Treasury Department has yet to comment. In other Treasury news first reported this morning by The Huffington Post the department is launching an interesting new interactive website today that is intended to bring transparency to he Obama administrations recovery programs.
#1
Let me guess, the headline, "He did not pay his taxes either" is coming next week. What bad idea is this guy going to push through? All the appointees seem to have one big bad idea.
USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon announced his sudden retirement Tuesday, leaving the country's largest newspaper with its top two jobs unfilled during perhaps the most difficult stretch in its 27-year history. He also said the newspaper has lost about 100,000 subscribers just from the slowdown in travel.
Mr. Moon said in an interview that the slowdown has resulted in a reduction of more than 7% in the number of copies of USA Today distributed through partnerships with hotel chains such as Marriott, which account for more than half of its circulation.
The 59-year-old executive, who spent 23 years at parent company Gannett Co. and the last six as publisher of USA Today, has overseen a publication that has come under increasing economic pressure. Gannett expects ad revenue to fall by as much as 35% in the first quarter, Chief Financial Officer Gracia Martore said at an investor conference in March. Gannett executives also had said at the conference they were bracing for a significant circulation hit.
The 59-year-old Mr. Moon, who spent 23 years at Gannett, at an event last spring in Los Angeles.
The 1.3 million daily copies distributed at hotels in the six months ending Sept. 28 accounted for more than half of USA Today's average weekday circulation of 2.3 million, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. ABC releases figures for the six months ending in March at the end of April.
Mr. Moon said he decided to leave USA Today to explore investment opportunities in the media industry, where "values are way down." He said he did not view his departure as an escape from a sinking industry, adding in USA Today "you still have the workings of a successful business."
Mr. Moon's departure expands the void at the top of the paper following the recent resignation of editor Kenneth Paulson, whose replacement has not been named. John Hillkirk is serving as Mr. Paulson's interim replacement.
Gannett said it hasn't decided on a successor for Mr. Moon.
The move was largely unexpected within Gannett. USA Today founder Al Neuharth, who still writes a weekly column for the paper, said he found out in a call Tuesday morning from Mr. Moon and Gannett Chief Executive Craig Dubow. "It would be unfair to say I expected that news," Mr. Neuharth said. "But things happen. People retire."
Mr. Moon isn't walking away empty-handed. Gannett in its 2008 proxy statement valued Mr. Moon's pension at $3.3 million as of Dec. 31, 2007.
...There is something unavoidably spooky about people who spend their waking hours fretting about overpopulation, and who hand out leaflets saying How many is too many? illustrated with a picture of an innocent-looking schoolgirl (white, of course) doing population sums on a blackboard (black, of course). In a Frequently Asked Questions section frequently asked by whom? Benito Mussolini? the leaflet informs us that there is a severe shortage of water and land on this beautiful planet of ours and then ponders: Whats the problem? The answer, in case you hadnt worked it out from looking at the programme of talks on everything from Scientific solutions in contraception to Population policies for the UK, is us: Sadly, we are. Humans. Every year around 75million of us a population nearly as big as Germanys are added to the Earths surface. Thats another Birmingham every five days. And God knows, one Birmingham is enough.
Looking around the lecture hall of the Royal Statistical Society (a fitting venue for a conference that reduced everything to statistics), I was struck by the make-up of the audience: white-haired demographers; ladies-who-normally-lunch-but-who-today-were-discussing-the-coming-apocalypse; comparatively young but equally posh Soil Association supporters. There was, I think, one person of not entirely white extraction: he was operating the sound system. You can bet that when these well-to-do worriers about the human plague on the planet talk about burdensome people causing congestion, overcrowding and loss of green space, they arent talking about themselves, or their friends, or their neighbours, or their mistresses; theyre talking about them. You know them! The breeders, the not-sufficiently-educated, the dwellers of teeming cities, not only in Africa and Asia but in Europe and America too.
The conference confirmed that, while groups like the OPT (founded in 1991) have tried very hard to spin population control in terms of choice and environmentalism, and to move away from that nasty eugenics of old, still some of the dark prejudices lurk beneath the surface. In her welcome address, Sara Parkin, a former leading Green Party activist and OPT patron, set the tone for the day by complaining: There are no Nobel Prizes for preventing births, only for preventing deaths. Yes, that is because, call us crazy, mankind has traditionally valued the creation of life over the destruction of it. Perhaps the OPT should set up its own annual Malthus Prize, to be awarded to the man or woman who does most to **shudder** prevent people from having as many children as they choose....
Robin Maynard of the Soil Association sounding like a trendy public-school teacher said too many people are scared to mention the P-word these days in case someone accuses them of being British National Party supporters or extreme ignorant racists. Then he said that if there were to be two more beers per person in China, [then producing that beer] would take the entire Norwegian grain harvest. I make no judgement. Suffice to say that judging the Friday-night drinking habits of the populous Chinese by the impact it will have on a responsible, sparsely populated Scandinavian country just about sums up the scientific vacuousness, scaremongering and fetishism about everything being finite that run through the veins of the modern Malthusian lobby....
There is one thing that the New and Old Malthusians unmistakably share in common: both make the schoolboy error of treating population growth as the only variant, and everything else food production, progress, human ingenuity as fixed entities. That is why every Malthusian, from Malthus himself to Paul Ehrlich to todays doom-mongering poshos, has been wrong in his dire predictions of collapse: because he didnt take into account humanitys creative streak. The OPT, utterly unable to see humans as the potential makers of a better, more fruitful society, says that on its currently existing resources Britain can only environmentally sustain between 17 million and 27 million people, way less than its population of 60 million. But what if we create more resources? Build more cities? Invest in nuclear? Build factories? I reckon if we did that, Blighty could take around half a billion people. No, that isnt a scientific fact; its an optimisitc guess....
Posted by: Mike ||
04/01/2009
12:05 ||
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#1
Of course, the people attending these conferences don't need to die; quite the contrary, they need to stay around to make sure enough of the rest of us die. Vital work. Can't be left to amateurs, you see.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
04/01/2009 12:13
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#2
If these folks wanna go home and stick their heads in the oven, or bathe with their blow dryers in order to reconcile their moral dillemma about overpopulation, please, feel free. A win-win for everybody.
Funny thing is? They ain't doing it.
But seriously, it amazes me that people don't realize how much of our civilization requires a high population. Cut the population by half, then check to see how many specialty foods they sell in your local supermarket. Did I say "supermarket"? Only in major urban centers. Mass transit? What "mass"? Universal electrical service, 500 channels on TV, drugs for rare illnesses -- the list goes on an on.
#5
Two birds with one stone: Save the planet - feed a polar bear.
If you truly want to prove your dedication to the planet and lead by example, head on up north and feed yourself to a polar bear.
There was a ST:TNG episode, forget its name, where I think a planet's sun was going to explode or something and the one person who had a chance to solve that problem was required to be put down at a certain age according to custom.
#6
..and in that episode they explained that it was done because the 'cost' of up keep on the 'old' people became too economically expensive. Took too much of the budget. They didn't realize all they had to do was implement Dutch/British/Canadian universal socialized health care and bureaucratic rationing scheduling to achieve the same effect. I guess the prime directive inhibited them from communicating the concept.
#8
Well, if somebody started a global nuclear war, that would certainly reduce the population to a "sustainable" level. First nuke all the big cities, so you get the most kills from the soft targets. Even if you didn't kill all the residents right away, many of them would die from starvation, since the transportation and energy transportation and energy systems would be destroyed, leading to mass starvation.
Not to mention, that a nuclear war would cause a nuclear winter, which would be an effective antidote to global warming.
I'm surprised that no one at the conference suggested this. If you look at it from a purely statistical view, it would be quite effective.
Please note that I am in no way really suggesting this. People have been screaming since I was a child fifty years ago that the world was overpopulated, and we had to "do something" to put a brake on population growth to prevent an apocalypse by the end of the twentieth century.
The world has essentially infinite water. What it may not have is adequate fresh, drinkable water. It is merely an engineering problem to produce fresh water from sea water and distribute it. A few nuclear powered distillers could probably supply all the water the world needs.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/01/2009 17:05
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#10
EP5370,well, we won't know for sure until we try, now, will we. Even if there isn't a nuclear winter, there will still be mass starvation, since there will be no way to transport the food to market, or fuel or fertilizer for the farms.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/01/2009 21:19
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#11
Maybe they should talk to the Chinese and Indian people about the problem.
FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection. The FBI lab reports, obtained by The Associated Press from someone not involved in the criminal case, allow for both possibilities.
Investigators recovered .30-caliber bullets from a survivor, a Blackwater truck and around Baghdad's Nisoor Square. Scientists could not determine whether those bullets came from .30-caliber Blackwater machine guns. The AK-47 rifles favored by many Iraqi insurgents also fire .30-caliber bullets.
Nobody disputes that Blackwater guards fired, but accounts vary on whether the convoy of armored trucks was attacked. Iraqi witnesses and some members of the Blackwater convoy told authorities they saw no insurgent gunfire. Radio logs show Blackwater guards repeatedly reporting incoming fire during a hectic eight minutes in which one truck was disabled.
The government's case does not hinge on whether Blackwater was fired on, since prosecutors say the guards violated their rules of engagement even if they did take fire. But any evidence that Blackwater was attacked would help the guards argue they fired in self-defense. The inconclusive lab reports do little to sort out the discrepancies. The documents do not prove the government's argument that Blackwater was unprovoked. Nor do they prove that Blackwater was attacked.
Instead, the reports reveal the difficulty FBI agents faced in an investigation that began two weeks after the shooting. In the U.S., investigators would analyze bullets from the dead bodies. But Muslims typically bury their dead within 24 hours, so when the FBI arrived, such analysis was impossible. Iraqi autopsy reports, if they are done, are not usually as thorough as those in the United States. The FBI lab reports give no indication that investigators recovered any bullets from dead bodies.
Further complicating things, investigators found Yugoslavian and Chinese cartridge cases in the square. Neither U.S. troops nor Blackwater use such ammunition. But shootings are not uncommon in Nisoor Square and those shells could have been left behind before or after the Blackwater shooting. "Even if they didn't find anything except Blackwater cartridge casings, because of how insecure the scene is out there, people could have come in and picked up anything they wanted," said Michael Haag, a forensic scientist and instructor who reviewed the lab reports for the AP.
FBI scientists also tried to match the bullets to Blackwater ammunition by analyzing and comparing metal compositions. Scientists determined the bullets and bullet fragments recovered from the scene probably came from "several different sources." But that, too, is an inconclusive finding, Haag said. Even ammunition pulled from the same box can have different metal compositions. So, the lab's finding does not prove whether Blackwater was alone in firing, he said.
#1
The documents do not prove the government's argument that Blackwater was unprovoked. Nor do they prove that Blackwater was attacked.
Yup those strange .30 cal just appeared as if by magic, no reason to think they were attacked, nope, no evidence at all. (Moron investigators)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/01/2009 13:05
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#2
yeah they also appeared lodged into a black water truck that was disabbled. now why would they disable one of their own vehicles in a situation where they could possibly be hung from the nearest bridge?
#3
I would need to go to the books but if the bullets are in fair condition the bullet weight and construction should not be the same between Nato and Soviet rounds. Jacket thickness, composition, shape, weight, ect. Our QC is fairly tight so I suspect someone is blowing smoke when they try to blame Blackwater using this evidence. Looks like prosecutorial problems (trying to prove guilt with no evidence) to me. Are these the same folks that charged the Haditha Marines?
And, you must admit, they do know "lunatic"...
KABUL (Reuters) -- Taliban insurgents reject a U.S. offer of "honorable reconciliation," a top spokesman said on Wednesday, calling it a "lunatic idea" and saying the only way to end the war was to withdraw foreign troops.
With the Afghan conflict now in its eighth year, NATO-led forces and the Taliban are locked in a bloody stalemate with violence set to rise further this year as more U.S. troops arrive and seek to contain the insurgency ahead of August elections. Some stalemate: we set the traps and they die ensnared ... Continued on Page 49
#3
they are not gonna accept any offer by Obama since he supposedly renounced Islam, soi agree with the last comment and we should as many as keep coming
#6
comment at AOSHQ: 13 Missing sentence: "Clinton then presented the Taliban leaders with a cartoon rendering of Mohammad as a token of her goodwill."
Posted by: Filly at April 01, 2009 11:55 AM
classic
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2009 19:50
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#7
IOW, this can be interpreted as either THE USA conquers or dominates EAST-SOUTH ASIA, OR RADICLA ISLAM WILL , i.e. the Taliban, etal. conquer or dominate CENTRAL-SOUTH ASIA.
One more evidencia/proof among many may that THE ISLAMIST MIL-TERRS GENER HAVE NO QUALMS ABOUT WAGING OR INDUCING "MUTUAL DESTRUCTION" + "GREAT POWER(S)" MILPOL CONFRONTATION [nuclear war] TO ACHIEVE THEIR JIHAD'S AGENDUM. POTUS OBAMA's redeployment of US milfors from IRAQ only means they expand and attack elsewhere [read, AFRICA].
E.g WORLD MIL FORUM [GOOGLE Chinglish translation] > [paraph]THE DAY THE WAR = ISLAMIST MILITANCY ENDS IN AFPAK WILL BE THE DAY SAME BEGINS IN XINJIANG + WESTERN CHINA [Uighurs, etc. + Elsewhere]???
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published an article by George Plimpton that described an incredible rookie baseball player who was training at the Mets camp in St. Petersburg, Florida. The player was named Sidd Finch (Sidd being short for Siddhartha, the Indian mystic in Hermann Hesses book of the same name). He could reportedly pitch a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. The fastest previous recorded speed for a pitch was 103 mph.
Finch had never played baseball before. He had been raised in an English orphanage before he was adopted by the archaeologist Francis Whyte-Finch who was later killed in an airplane crash in the Dhaulaglri mountain region of Nepal. Finch briefly attended Harvard before he headed to Tibet where he learned the teachings of the great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa and mastered siddhi, namely the yogic mastery of mind-body. Through his Tibetan mind-body mastery, Finch had learned the art of the pitch....
George Plimpton actually left an obscure hint that the story was a hoax within the article itself (the non-obscure hint being that the story was absurd). The sub-heading of the article read: Hes a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidds deciding about yoga and his future in baseball. The first letter of each of these words, taken together, spells H-a-p-p-y A-p-r-i-l F-o-o-l-s D-a-y....
Posted by: Mike ||
04/01/2009
10:43 ||
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After less-than-stellar reviews of Tuesday night's show, American Idol contestant Anoop Desai formerly requested a federal bailout, in the hopes of avoiding the close call Matt Giraud (a.k.a. "Timberlake lookalike") had to suffer through on live TV last week.
Desai filed a TARP application with the Treasury Department Tuesday night, shortly after the show.
"Why would President Obama stop at cars? My fans have rights, too," Desai, 21, told News Corp.'s Fox and Friends Wednesday morning. "Is Simon Cowell somehow above the ruler of the world? You saw how happy people were about Slumdog Millionaire. This will be a good thing for America. And you know this is the story political reporters want to write: 'Previewing a Jindal rise, young Indian American wins.'"
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was unavailable for comment. A spokesman said he was busy prepping for an interview with Katie Couric in London. If you had't figured out by now, this is an April Fool's joke.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/01/2009
10:33 ||
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#1
Latest news has it Pres Obama is demanding Simon Cowell's resignation and will personally be judging next to Paula Abdul. In the press conference Obama has stated that he has been preparing all his life for this most important role, working out 4-5 hours each day to improve his snide comments and bitchy gestures.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 11:06
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#2
You sure, Mike... after all Hollywood got $450M
Nine Maldivians have been arrested with weapons near the Pakistani-Afghan border, the minister of defence and national security has revealed. According to Ameen Faisal, none of the detainees had criminal records, but Minivan News has learnt that one, Ali Shafeeq, 25, of R.Kandholhudhoo, had been arrested for his involvement in the bomb blast in September 2009, which injured 12 tourists in Males Sultan Park. He was later cleared of all charges and released.
Addressing press today, Ameen said all nine travelled on three separate flights to Pakistan on various dates between the 27 February and the 1 March. Two were arrested in Waziristan on the 11 March and a further six on 12 March. The departure and arrest dates of the ninth person remain unknown. Faisal added the ministry had not yet discussed a course of action with the Pakistani government.
The news comes two weeks after the South Asian News Agency reported that three Maldivians had been arrested for illegally entering Waziristan. This is very miserable and dangerous issue, said Ameen. Because of this, there might be difficulties for Maldivians in travelling abroad. The minister said there were no reports of Maldivians being killed in terrorist activities, adding they Maldivians usually travel abroad for educational or health reasons.
Yesterday, Ahmed Saleem, the president of the Human Rights Commission Maldives (HRCM), said the commission had received reports about Maldivians enlisting with terrorist organizations and there were a number of dead Maldivians who could be classified as extremists. I don't think killing people and going on jihad are allowed in Islam, said Saleem.
The remaining eight arrested were: Yoosuf Izadhy, 38, of M.Nicosia in Male, Ahmed Ashraf, 31, of Hdh.Vaikaradhoo; Abdullah Sameer, 38, of Sh. Lhaimagu; Ali Faiz, 31, of Hdh.Vaikaradhoo; Moosa Yoosuf, 30, of L.Kalhaidhoo; Yoosuf Mohammed, 52, L.Kalhaidhoo; Mohammad Zuhree, 28, of Gdh. Dhaandhoo; and Arif Ahmed, whose details are as yet unknown.
After the Sultan park bombing, three Maldivians were sentenced for 15 years in prison in December 2007 after confessed to planting a device to target, attack and injure non-Muslims, to fulfill jihad. Ten Maldivians were wanted by Interpol for their alleged involvement in the attack; some were believed to be hiding out in Pakistan. One suspect was arrested in mid-January at Male International Airport on his return from Pakistan where he has been living since Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest.
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea accused the United States of spying on the site of an impending rocket launch and threatened Wednesday to shoot down any U.S. planes that intrude into its airspace.
North Korea says it will send a communications satellite into orbit on a multistage rocket between April 4 and 8. The U.S., South Korea and Japan suspect the reclusive country is using the launch to test long-range missile technology, and they warn Pyongyang would face sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution banning it from ballistic activity.
Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- The unsavory forces hostile to the DPRK are going reckless in their moves to deter the DPRK's projected launch of "Kwangmyongsong-2," an experimental communication satellite for peaceful purposes. Japan is taking the lead in this racket though it has committed the biggest crimes against the DPRK.
Japanese authorities including Prime Minister Aso are making much ado, asserting that the above-said satellite launch poses a "threat" to their security. Ship-and ground-based interceptor missiles and monitoring means of the "Self-Defense Forces (SDF)" are being deployed in the East Sea of Korea and its vicinity.
They are asserting that in case the satellite is launched, Japan will independently apply additional sanctions against the DPRK and bring up the issue for discussion at the UNSC.
They blustered that they would "intercept" the DPRK's satellite, counting on the support from their master. But when their master flinched because of the strong stand of the Korean People's Army, they found themselves in such a miserable position as to modify their assertion by uttering that they would intercept it only when the debris of the multi-stage carrier rocket falls down on the land of Japan.
Clear is the reason why Japan is kicking up such a row to disturb the world, doggedly insisting that the DPRK's launch of satellite is aimed at developing the missile technology. The primary aim sought by Japan through this is to bring the six-party talks to collapse and delay the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and thus justify its ambition for nuclear weaponization.
Looking back on the history of the six-party talks, Japan has done only wicked and wrong things obstructive to the denuclearization of the peninsula since their very start. The whole world, to say nothing of the parties to the talks, has a common understanding of this.
Japan has opposed every effort to abide by the principle of "action for action" for the denuclearization as evidenced by its stand against the delisting of the DPRK as a "sponsor of terrorism" and persistent refusal to fulfil its commitment to offer energy.
Japan's deliberate obstruction is intended to frustrate the denuclearization of the peninsula at any cost in a bid to secure a pretext for justifying its nuclear weaponization.
Another aim sought by Japan through this is to use the DPRK's satellite launch as the best pretext for facilitating the militarization of the Japanese society and weathering its political crisis.
As the Japanese authorities admitted, they have neither guarantee nor conviction that they can intercept the DPRK's satellite.
What they seek more than anything else through their opposition to the said satellite launch is political and military aims.
In other words, they are working hard to focus the attention of the people at home disillusioned with the corrupt political landscape on "threat to security" with an eye to incite militarism, gain time to tide over the political crisis and lay a springboard from which to push forward in real earnest the moves to turn Japan into a military power including the building of a joint missile shield with the U.S. in the future.
This is the ulterior aim sought by Japan in hyping "the missile threat from north Korea."
The war blackmail and all other hostile acts Japan is resorting to, describing only the DPRK's satellite launch as the development of missile technology are little short of a declaration that Japan does not recognize the September 19 joint statement calling for embodying "the spirit of mutual respect and equality." This is, in the final analysis, an act of overturning the six-party talks.
The DPRK is not afraid of any attempt of Japan to intercept "Kwangmyongsong-2."
Should Japan dare recklessly intercept the DPRK's satellite, its army will consider this as the start of Japan's war of reinvasion more than six decades after the Second World War and mercilessly destroy all its interceptor means and citadels with the most powerful military means.
#9
Crosspatch, I think this time they mean it - if we send the RC-135s to circle over the launch site, they will shoot them down (somehow).
Of course, N. Korea isn't that big. The RC-135s and other assets can loiter in international and S. Korean airspace and see pretty much anything they want to.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/01/2009 16:48
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A man raped his friends wife as revenge for a malicious prank pulled on him while drunk last year. His 40-year-old victim said that she was attacked on March 19th, as she was riding to the market to sell vegetables.
After the attack, the 30-year-old unidentified man hid in the forest for two days. Using the the victims mobile phone, he called to ask his family if the police had been looking for him.
Hearing that no police had visited the house, he returned home where he was promptly arrested. Pol Col Natthanon Prachum, Deputy Superintendent of the Police Region 4 Crime Investigation Center, said investigators monitored usage of the victims stolen mobile phone following the attack.
The suspect admitted that he had been planning revenge for months after the victims husband pulled a prank after he passed out during a drinking session. Having all grown up in the same village in Thailand, the man, the victim and her husband had all known each other since childhood.
In mid-2008, the victims husband and some other friends went to his house for a drinking session. When he passed out drunk, the victims husband took off his pants and used string to tie his penis to his big toe.
The victims husband then shook him to wake him up. When he tried to stand up, he suffered a great deal of pain when the string yanked his organ. But more than that he also felt humiliated in front of all his friends, and anger had been boiling away inside him ever since the incident, he added.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) -- A pilotless U.S. drone fired a missile at a Taliban compound in Pakistan's Orakzai region on Wednesday, killing 12 people in the first such attack in the area, a security official and residents said.
The raid came a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said his group had carried out an assault on a police training center in the eastern city of Lahore in retaliation for U.S. drone attacks. The missile hit a compound of a Taliban commander loyal to Mehsud, Hakimullah Mehsud, and 12 people were killed and 13 wounded.
Hakimullah Mehsud later spoke to Reuters and said six of his fighters were among the dead. He vowed dire revenge. "This wasn't a minor thing. The pain of this attack will be felt in Islamabad," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location. So...does he have Reuters on speed dial or does Reuters have him on speed dial?
He did not elaborate but said his men would not give up their fight: "Let the Americans use all their drones, we'll fight them on the battlefield."
Another Taliban official who declined to be identified said an Arab militant known as Kaka was also killed in the attack. Kaka is...kaka.
The United States, frustrated by an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan getting support from the Pakistani side of the border, began launching more drone attacks last year. Since then, more than 30 U.S. strikes have killed about 300 people, including mid-level al Qaeda members, according to reports from Pakistani officials, residents and militants.
Pakistan objects to the strikes. Officials say about one in six of the strikes over the past year caused civilian deaths without killing any militants, and that fuels anti-U.S. sentiment, complicating the military's struggle to subdue violence. The concentration of strikes in Waziristan was also pushing some militants eastwards, deeper into Pakistan, officials say.
Orakzai has been one of Pakistan's most peaceful Pashtun regions but Taliban are known to have infiltrated the area, as they have done elsewhere in the northwest. U.S. officials say success in Afghanistan is impossible without tackling militant enclaves in northwest Pakistan, where Taliban battling Western forces rest, regroup and train, and al Qaeda plots violence.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced a review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan last week, vowing to tackle militants in the ungoverned Pakistani border areas.
The New York Times said last month the United States was considering expanding its covert war to Baluchistan, a sprawling province of deserts and jagged mountains on the border of violence-plagued southern Afghanistan.
About 150 clerics and elders from Taliban leader Mehsud's tribe held a protest in the town of Tank, in North West Frontier Province, to condemn the drone strikes. One cleric, Hassam-ud-din, told the crowd the government approved the U.S. strikes but should stop them immediately.
The government denies reports it has quietly given permission for the strikes and that the drones are launched from a secret air strip in Pakistan. Early last year, the United States stopped forewarning Pakistan about the strikes because of suspicion some Pakistani agents were tipping off militants they regarded as assets.
#3
Maybe we should say hit in Karachi or Quetta ? maybe that would send alot of the higher ups out into the open if they think we may have pinpointed one of them . What are they gonna do blow up another mosque in retalliation?
#4
I still say we need to go Mongol on the Pashtuns - on both sides of the border. A half-dozen ARCLIGHT strikes on Peshawar, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi wouldn't hurt, either.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/01/2009 14:24
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#5
Don't even need to cause mass casualties, OP - just trash the infrastructure (we paid for), right down to the bedrock, and don't allow it to be rebuilt.
The drone strike in Orakzai killed 14 people, said local official Ghazni Gul.
Two senior intelligence officials said they believed the dead included close associates of Baitullah Mehsud. But it was difficult to confirm the exact identities of those involved because the Taliban surrounded the area shortly after the attack, they said.
A former south Alabama judge is accused of checking male inmates out of jail and forcing them to engage in sexual activity including paddling, according to officials and court documents.
Former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas was arrested Friday after a grand jury returned the indictments against him. He was released on $287,500 bond later Friday.
The indictments total 57 counts, and the charges range from ethics violations to kidnapping, extortion, sex abuse and sodomy. If convicted on the most serious charge -- kidnapping, a Class A felony -- Thomas faces a prison sentence of 10 to 99 years in prison, Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson Jr. said Monday.
But Thomas' attorney, Robert Clark, said Friday the accusations against the former judge amount to "a high-tech lynching."
"Did you ever think of the fact that this is the only black circuit judge we've ever had in Mobile County and that the right-wing Republicans have gotten rid of him?" Clark said at a news conference, portions of which were posted on the Web sites of CNN affiliates WKRG-TV in and WALA-TV.
#3
A ready made plot for a Saturday night drive in movie. Ima call Joe Bob Briggs about collaborating on a script. Though gonna have increase the boob count (the good kind) somehow.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 10:17
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#4
Ah. "A high-tech lynching." I guess that can only be disregarded when Clarence Thomas uses it...
#5
"Did you ever think of the fact that this is the only black circuit judge we've ever had in Mobile County and that the right-wing Republicans have gotten rid of him?"
Nosir, never gave it a thought. If there are more however, can you see to it that they are "gotten rid of" as well?
The following represent some of the studys key findings:
* Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent.
* Since 2000, Spain has spent 571,138 ($753,778) to create each green job, including subsidies of more than 1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job.
* Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.
Linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky speaks to the Post's George McLeod about the 'farcical' shortcomings of Cambodia's war crimes court.
Top Khmer Rouge leaders are now in detentionat the war crimes tribunal. Is a UN-backed trial the best way forward, or should it be left to the Cambodian people?
I think it should be left to the Cambodian people. I can't imagine a UN international trial. But then, it shouldn't be limited to the Cambodians. After all, an international trial that doesn't take into account Henry Kissinger or the other authors of the American bombing and the support of the KR after they were kicked out of the country . That's just a farce - especially with what we now know about the bombing of Cambodia since the release of the Kissinger-Nixon tapes and the release of declassified documents during the Clinton years. There has been a very different picture of the scale and intensity of the bombing and its genocidal scale. For an international trial to omit this would be scandalous. Radical, leftest Russian Amish, why do they hate America? More at the link if you can stomach it.
#1
Ummm... and wasn't he one of the intellectual who insisted that there weren't any atrocities going on in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, that there was nothing to see here, move on?
Matter of fact, the only Americans that I can remember supporting the KR... were intellectual leftist suck-ups like... Noam Chomsky!
#4
It is America's fault for listening to communists like Chomsky to withdraw support for the Vietnamese, Cambodians and Lao when the guerrila war was won but the Communist conventional threat and goals remained. It's also America's fault for listening to radical leftists like Chomsky lie, deny and cover up for the Khmer Rouge when there were credible witnesses to the genocide begging to be heard.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 10:30
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...There was a time when our government under President George W. Bush believed we would never leave Iraq and would retain some kind of permanent base there. Now we have signed agreements with Iraq's government committing us to leave permanently no later than December 31, 2011, and if any referendum in Iraq requires that we leave by June 30, 2010, we have agreed to do so. If I had my way, we would leave at once.
I believe we will gain nothing by delaying our departure from Iraq to equal the inevitable American casualties. Does anyone think the Iraqis will come to love or even like us? I don't.
...What will make the Iraqis more capable of peacefully running their own country within the next 18 months? I believe the tribal killings there among the Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds based on historic animosities will continue after we leave - unless a repressive dictator akin to Saddam Hussein takes over. Rationally, Iraq should be divided into three separate countries - Kurdistan, Sunnistan and Shi'iastan - either totally independent from one another or, if acceptable to all, loosely confederated.
#3
Does anyone think the Iraqis will come to love or even like us? I don't.
Which of the European countries love or even like us? And yet the European and North African theaters cost us 300,000 dead - in a war where neither Germany nor Italy attacked a single square inch of American territory.
I believe the tribal killings there among the Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds based on historic animosities will continue after we leave - unless a repressive dictator akin to Saddam Hussein takes over.
Just about every country in the world has historical animosities that get smoothed over. Indians had their ancestral lands completely taken over. They're not exactly running around killing the foreign interlopers who took over, are they? Blacks were taken in chains to this country, where they were bred like cattle into generations of chattel slavery. Are they running around blowing up the descendants of their white masters?
#4
Just about every country in the world has historical animosities that get smoothed over. Indians had their ancestral lands completely taken over. They're not exactly running around killing the foreign interlopers who took over, are they? Blacks were taken in chains to this country, where they were bred like cattle into generations of chattel slavery. Are they running around blowing up the descendants of their white masters?
Zhang, aren't you on the side of all those unionist occupying forces?
#5
Zhang, aren't you on the side of all those unionist occupying forces?
I've always favored the Union side, but for un-PC reasons probably similar to Lincoln's and some of the Unionists of the era. If the Confederacy had endured, the importation of slaves might have resumed. Given how breeding slaves was a profitable endeavor, I suspect a Confederate government would have greatly expanded the slave population. As the slave population grew in relation to the white population, they would eventually have taken over the Confederate government, either via slave revolts or eventual enfranchisement. Imagine the black-ruled Caribbean dystopias of today expanded to include the entire South. What the Union did was in the long term interests of the South - the slave-owners were simply too myopic to understand this fact, and the non-slave owners were too enraptured by the rhetoric of state's rights to figure out that a society with an increasing helot population (in relation to non-helots) will eventually be ruled by helots, and much of the non-helot population forced out.
A federal judge yesterday ordered the United States to release a prisoner from the Guantanamo detention center who is accused of hiding out with Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a one-page judgment ordering the release of Yasin Muhammed Basardh, a 33-year-old from Yemen. The judge didn't say why Basardh should be let go, but she said it was explained during a closed hearing in her courtroom earlier in the day.
According to charges filed by the military in 2004, Basardh is a member of the Taliban who trained at a terror camp in Afghanistan that bin Laden visited. The government alleged Basardh fought against the United States or its coalition partners, and fled to the Tora Bora region in November 2001, where he stayed in a cave with bin Laden. He later left for Pakistan and was captured by the Pakistani military, according to the government. Basardh told US officials that before going to Afghanistan he spent time in Saudi Arabian jails for dealing drugs. He said other drug dealers who had repented persuaded him to train for jihad in Afghanistan.
Basardh filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his detention four years ago. Justice Department attorneys had argued that he was an enemy combatant and therefore being legally held at the US naval base in Cuba, but the details of his case were kept classified and sealed by the court.
Basardh has requested asylum in the United States because his cooperation with US officials has led to threats on his life. He has said he gave classified information against high-level members of Al Qaeda. "These threats against my life are continuously happening from the detainees here, from some high-ranking detainees," Basardh told a military hearing, according to a transcript. "I can't go back to my country." But Huvelle's order specifically instructs the government to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps" for Basardh's release, suggesting that he may be heading to another country.
#4
Besoeker he will brpobably get a house near uds, i can add too the video 1 bullet bought lgally form a gunshop in the US can kill him in a instant, and how did that stupid bitch become a judge
The CIA is attempting to recruit more spies by advertising on the internet, radio and television, and by holding meetings with American Muslims to make up a severe shortage of Arabic speakers.
In a bid to fulfil a pledge by George W. Bush, the former President, to expand the agency's clandestine arm, advertisements have been placed on websites such as Career Builder, and on the online versions of The Economist and The Washington Post.
Leon Panetta, the new CIA director, will meet Muslim groups in cities such as Detroit to spearhead personally the new drive to recruit Arabic speakers. He recently lamented the fact that only 13 per cent of CIA officers speak a foreign language, and just 22 per cent come from minorities.
"In order to accomplish our vital intelligence mission we want to market our employment opportunities to speakers of Arabic, Russian, Korean, Pashtu and Urdu," George Little, a CIA spokesman, told The Times. "We want to emphasise to those communities that we welcome first-generation Americans to apply. They bring critical language skills and a knowledge of culture to support our intelligence mission."
A typical recruiting advertisement recently posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education's website is headlined "Central Intelligence Agency, National Clandestine Service Careers, Linguists. You Can Make a World of Difference. Are you up to the challenge of achieving our mission abroad?" It adds: "This career track offers rewarding, fast-paced, and high-impact challenges." The CIA is also advertising on the social networking site Facebook and YouTube.
Earlier this month Scott White, third in command at the CIA, held meetings with Arab-American and Chaldean-American representatives in Detroit, which has heavily populated American Muslim suburbs. He told the groups that he would bring Mr Panetta to a future meeting.
Mr Little said that the CIA holds about 2,000 recruiting events a year, often at universities across the country. It also advertises for recruits on billboards at airports. Last year, the agency received about 120,000 applications. This year it is on course to receive at least 180,000.
#3
Like the OSS used to recruit in Nazi Bier Halls. Or not. Hey CIA, what about all the native Arabic speaking Christian and other nonmuslim refugees in the US who have a stake in actually winning?
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 9:06
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#4
"Are you up to the challenge of achieving our mission abroad?"
Quite ironic. Probably the same line used by the jihadists to get them to move to infiltrate immigrate to the States. Note to Klingons: Please order lots of extra graph paper, oil up all of the spare polygraph machines, and vacuum the prayer room. The new recruits are inbound.
#7
Please order lots of extra graph paper, oil up all of the spare polygraph machines
Doesn't matter. The machines only measure stress when you lie, and there's nothing wrong with a Muslim lying to an infidel.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/01/2009 11:49
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#8
Yemenite Jews speak Arabic, Persian Jews speak Farsi. There are lots of the latter in this country, some of the former, although the Arabic-speaking Yemenite Jews are probably older generation, unlike the Persians. (The Jews for some reason kept the Persian appellation, while the rest plumped for calling themselves Iranian. Perhaps one of the Rantburgers will have some idea why, but I don't.)
#9
He recently lamented the fact that...just 22 per cent come from minorities.
Well, I'm glad that the layers of fact-checkers in the Times were able to come up with the important contextual point that the "minority" (i.e. "non-white") population of the US weighs in at 26%. (WARNING!: Wikipedia! ) Therefore the CIA is actually doing pretty well in that regard.
#10
The USDOD-INTEL teaches a man Russian + German to fight the Cold War, or to meet former KGB[FSB] Babe ANNA LONGINOVA etc., thusly of course they send you to IRAN-CONTRA + AFGHANISTAN.
The Obama administration has decided to seek a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the U.N.'s premier rights body to protest the repressive states among its membership.
The United States announced it would stand as a candidate in elections May 15 to decide three seats on the 47-member council, joining Belgium and Norway on a slate of Western candidates. New Zealand, which had planned to run as well, offered to step aside to allow the United States to run unchallenged.
Clinton and Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the decision was part of a broader push for "a new era of engagement" in U.S. foreign policy. "Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said in a statement. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights."
The decision was criticized by U.S. conservatives, who regard the council as fatally flawed. "This is like getting on board the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg," said John R. Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations in 2005 and 2006 under President George W. Bush. "It legitimizes something that doesn't deserve legitimacy." Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the "decision surrenders the strongest leverage we have to force changes in the council."
But U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and human rights advocates welcomed Clinton's announcement, saying U.S. membership would help blunt the influence of some of the council's most repressive members.
The Obama administration and rights advocates concede that the council has failed to emerge as a powerful champion of human rights and has devoted excessive attention to alleged abuses by Israel and too little to abuses in places such as Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Sudan's Darfur region.
The Human Rights Council was established in March 2006 to replace the Human Rights Commission, whose credibility had suffered because of the membership of noted rights abusers, including Zimbabwe and Sudan. The Bush administration refused to join the new council but initially agreed to fund it and be an observer. It later withdrew.
#1
the influence of some of the council's most repressive members.
What kind of Human Rights Council has "repressive members" at all? Oh yeah, the UN kind.
#3
But U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and human rights advocates welcomed Clinton's announcement, saying U.S. membership would help blunt the influence of some of the council's most repressive members.
Congressional Republicans Tuesday decided to ditch Sarah Palin in favor of Newt Gingrich for the critical House-Senate fundraising dinner in Washington June 8.
Sarah Palin is out and Newt Gingrich is in.
Congressional Republicans decided Tuesday to ditch the former GOP vice presidential nominee in favor of the former House speaker for the critical House-Senate fundraising dinner in June 8 in Washington. It's the marquee Republican event to raise money for GOP House and Senate candidates.
Just weeks ago, the House and Senate Republican campaign committees were giddy at securing the telegenic Palin for the dinner. But then things grew murky. At the time, the Alaska governor's office told FOX News that Palin was still considering the invitation and had not yet made a decision. Meantime, spokespersons for the committees insisted that Palin was scheduled and it was just a misunderstanding between the Alaska governor's office and Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, that accepted the invite.
Sources familiar with the Palin snub fumed about how the governor handled this.
"She was a disaster," one Republican source told FOX News. "We had confirmation."
As for inviting Gingrich, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain said the GOP "decided to go in another direction."
"Speaker Gingrich is a leader," Spain added.
Another source familiar with the invitation indicated that the campaign committees were so incensed with Palin that they did not even bother to officially notify her that they rescinded the invitation.
Multiple efforts to reach Palin's staff in Alaska for comment were unsuccessful.
The decision to book Gingrich instead of Palin seems to be indicative of growing discontent in the party with the Alaska governor and her potential ability to lead the GOP. And it's the latest in a series of gaffes that have plagued her since the November.
Palin withdrew at the last moment from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Washington earlier this year.
#3
Oh, yes. More old white men to show how connected those who blew the last election are with the voting population. Is it something in the beltway water?
#4
The sad thing is I am more likely to believe Sara Palin than the Republicans. The contract with America didn't happen- Newt Gingrich is old news. The Republican blue bloods will not give up power to the conservatives. Should the Dems swing right and field a conservatives the Republicans would have nothing to offer America. When unemployment, Medical Assistance, Medicare, Retirements, power sources and other Government control programs fail the riots will be back in our cities. We were at one time looking to the stars now we will look to the dumpster.
#5
Not that it really matters in this circumstance but Gingrich is poison. The Congressional Repubs like him no doubt because he was one of their own. The talking heads however have marginalized him over the years to be no more credible in the eyes of most than Buchanan.
Palin has been worked over pretty well by the smear machine as well, but she is a more sympathetic character than Newt.
Gingrich has many warts and more than a few self inflicted wounds. He is also ferociously smart and IMO could easily trounce 99% of our elected betters in a debate on most any subject. He is one of the very few public figures I believe to be to smart to be President.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a Newt fan, and there is no doubt in my mind that they are using him to boost this congresses conservative bonafides for the donors. Palin needs to repair the damage and step up, I think the establishment is truely afraid of her.
#6
The article doesn't bother to explain why the Pubs couldn't have had both come and speak ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2009 9:43
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If they got Palin up there Gingrich could have suffered in comparison and then they'd have lost all their philandering adulterer donors in a fit of pique.
Whenever I see a republican news item like this I remember Gerard Vanderleun's post title, "Republicans, They Thirst For Death!"
#8
Hasn't every non-RINO Repub national leader in the last 30 years been turned into poison by the Democratic propaganda machine and a more than willing national media? Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Bush II, Cheney, Quale, Gingrich, Lott, Dole, Frist, Boehner, DeLay, Armey. Even Reagan was viciously demonized. He lucked out when the Soviets threw in the towel.
If the Repubs want a better public image then they need to recapture the media battleground from the radical left. They know that by controlling the message they control the debate. Time for the right to learn that ancient lesson. That means buying and controlling a decent portion of the networks, giving scholarships to upstanding young kids to study journalism and media and mentoring through their careers.
Because the highly partisan media will magnify and dig like a starving tick into every foible of of the right, it means picking squeaky candidates that can resist the toxic Capitol atmosphere of power, money and sex.
Difficult, but it can be done. The military has shown that it can cultivate and promote intelligent, moral and effective men and women from all backgrounds. For that they are the highest respected institution in the country. They have also shown that they can control the message in the face of a hostile press when they put their minds to it.
But first the right should review the original intent of this Republic's creators and decide what they want to accomplish before attaining the power of office and dismantling the corrupt power structures that are choking the economic, civic and moral life out of America.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 10:11
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#9
And the RNC wonders why middle America doesn't donate to them anymore.
#10
The Republicans have lost their way. And they have forsook their base. Their spending habits, their neglect of the southern border, their failure to stand on basic principles has destroyed their credibility. From me they will get none of my hard-earned money or the time of day. They are traitor-lite to the basis of this country's existence.
The handwriting is on the wall in bold and they cannot read it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/01/2009 11:05
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#11
forsaken not forsook. Past perfect tense. Still early here in AK.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/01/2009 11:06
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#12
When I read this article my first question was whether Palin had higher priority obligations and couldn't give a firm answer. This time of year is crunch time for the Idaho legislature and it's proceedings. I suspect Alaska is the same and it' more than a 3 hour round trip on the train for her (Question; I wonder if they offered to pay the tab?).
#13
Ed, I'd be more likely to agree with you if Noot hadn't drunk the global warming/de-industrialization Kool Aid.
Reagan may have had two marriages but he at least kept on good terms with his previous spouse.
And yes, this sort of thing matters. How one treats their spouses or ex spouses is kind of a leading indicator to how they'll handle other crisis situations.
But beware the media trying to create an impression of internal dissent among the R's. I suspect there is more (or less) story here than what is being reported.
#17
I think the same way as lblis whenever I read headlines like this. For the venue, I can see how Newt would be the better keynote. The future would be Palin who could potentially fill stadium after stadium and not only raise more money with a trainload of smaller donations but also increase voter interest.
#18
The rethuglycon party is dead, it just doesn't know it yet. The dummycheat party will continue to twitch in rigormortis for a few more years, but it's dying off, too. We need a couple of replacement parties. I'd recommend an "American Constitution Party", with its primary party plank strict dedication to the Constitution of the United States. A couple of good leaders, some support at the grass-roots level, and both current political parties would be toast. People are fed up with the "Washington way" (similar to the "Chicago way", but at the national level.)
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/01/2009 22:15
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A man shot in both legs in a paramilitary-style attack in Londonderry was awaiting sentencing for raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl.
Keith Burnside, 37, was shot in his Rosemount Gardens home by two masked men in front of his girlfriend and two children at about 2315 BST on Monday. Burnside was convicted in March of raping a girl in his car at Sandbank Cottages in 2000.
He is being treated in hospital for his injuries.
SDLP Councillor Mark H. Durkan said he had spoken to Keith Burnside's girlfriend who witnessed the attack. "She's in an awful state of shock, it was an extremely traumatic experience for everyone involved," he said.
Wonder how it compares to a 15 year old being raped ...
"There were two young children in the house, a 12-week-old baby and a six-year-old who saw everything."
Councillor Durkan said he did not discuss the motive for the shooting. "This attack must be condemned regardless of what it was in connection with," he added. "We cannot have this law of the jungle where people are taking the law into their own hands."
Burnside was due to be sentenced for the rape shortly.
During the trial the court heard that his victim blocked the attack out of her mind for seven years before reporting it, after the accused smirked at her outside a nightclub.
A defence application was due to be heard in Londonderry Crown Court on Tuesday but was adjourned when the court was told of the attack.
Community worker Tommy McCourt said such incidents made people fearful of a return to violence. "It takes you back to the bad old days," he said. "We believed that those days had passed and nobody wants to see this kind of thing happening again."
SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey also condemned the attack. "The people who carried out this shooting have no support from the local community and no place in a civilised society," he said.
The police said that those responsible were of slim build and wore tracksuits, baseball caps, and scarves over their faces. The first man was 5ft 10ins and the second 6ft 2ins. They want anyone who was in the area at the time and may have seen the men to contact them.
#1
Vigilante-style justice by paramilitaries have been an issue, depending on how you see it, forever in NI IIUC (oh, and "London"derry? This writer is going to get kneecapped as well).
I remember reading a translated article in an once-very good mag which brought foreign press views to the french public, about how northern-irish hospitals were dealing with paramilitaries punishing "anti-social" behaviors. What stuck into my mind is that lotsa kneecappings actually didn't involve guns, and were made with power drills, cinderblocks, hammers,... and often involved elbows as well (which is kinda counter-intuitive for "knee"cappings), and that with guns there was an hierarchy, shots from the front (for "good" offenders, with precautions taken to reduce risks of amputation) were less crippling that the shots made from behind the knee...
#6
The city is Derry, the land County Londonderry and the sky above Derriere.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 8:45
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Vigilantes Kneecap Child Rapist - Authorities See Vigilantes As Greater Threat
Of course. It's simple. The miscreant is a threat to the public. The vigilantes strike at the very heart of authorities - their legitimacy to power and its power/perks. The act of the vigilantes says they believe those in government are unable or unwilling to provide justice. That was one of the points of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the state was unable to end the vendettas by providing justice. Same with the opening scene in the Godfather with the mortician pleading to the Don asking for justice. The authorities will never be 'outraged' by criminal acts. They will be 'outraged' by vigilantes. Its all about power.
#8
"During the trial the court heard that his victim blocked the attack out of her mind for seven years before reporting it, after the accused smirked at her outside a nightclub."
How the hell was he convicted? Based solely on seven year old memories of the assailed?
#11
SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey also condemned the attack. "The people who carried out this shooting have no support from the local community and no place in a civilised society," he said.
I'm betting he doesn't speak for the community and "civilised society" doesn't condone child raping.
#13
'Six pack", huh? I've always thought the worst that could be done, was cut off the big toes and thumbs. Can't walk and helpless by themselves. Guess I'm just naive that way.
#15
I could think of a couple 'to the pain' ideas that would make a 6-pack seem like a good time at the golf course, 'specially if it were my daughter.
Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the police would be effectively armed with modern technologies and increased manpower, including more female members, to make the cops more capable of combating terrorism and militancy.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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(AKI) - At least eight people have been killed and 38 wounded in a truck bomb blast on Tuesday in the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul, capital of the Nineveh province. "The toll from the truck bomb blast that targeted a police headquarters in al-Mahatta area has reached 38 wounded, including 17 cops, and seven dead," said Iraqi news agency Voices of Iraq, quoted an unnamed local security source.
The attack took place at the headquarters of a unit of the local police force, located near the city's train station in central Mosul.
A large flatbed truck approached the rear gate and asked a police officer who was manning the checkpoint to allow him to make a U-turn. The truck was allowed to enter the compound before it exploded.
Iraqi and US military commanders say Mosul is the last remaining urban stronghold of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
A large flatbed truck approached the rear gate and asked a police officer who was manning the checkpoint to allow him to make a U-turn. The truck was allowed to enter the compound before it exploded
G20 leaders meeting in London this week will seek to agree global rules on remuneration in the banking sector, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday.
"You will find on Thursday at the G20 that for the first time ever, the world economies will agree international rules for the remuneration of bankers," he said two days before the crunch summit.
"In other words, every country will sign up to a set of rules that we and others will apply to the banking system," he added, after giving a speech calling for a sense of morality to be restored to the global financial system.
"The difficulties in the past have led to us agreeing that there will be global rules in this area for the future," he added.
Brown will play host to United States President Barack Obama and his counterparts from the Group of 20 leading developed and developing countries at Thursday's summit.
The British leader emphasised the need for regulation to have a moral dimension during a pre-summit speech at London's historic Saint Paul's Cathedral, alongside Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Rules for bankers' pay was part of this, he said. "Just as we are eliminating tax havens, we are trying to eliminate these bad practices by insisting that there are global rules and not simply rules that apply to one country and can be undermined in the next," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Does Zim Bobs Way also sign?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/01/2009 10:45
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I thought the G20 were 20 nations. I didn't know they controlled the world. Imagine that, the whole world.
#3
So bankers will go into another line of work where they can earn all the money they want, and the dregs will be left to run the banks further into the ground.
Your gummints at work....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/01/2009 21:54
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Five more persons, involved in the terror attack here in Manawan, were arrested from various areas of Lahore. Sources said that these arrests were made on pointing out by a terrorist Hijratullah, who was arrested from Manawan. These persons were arrested from the areas of Bhati, Harbanspura, Data Darbar and Nishter Colony. Arms and ammunition, fake NICs and hand grenades were d recovered in huge quantity from these persons. According to the sources, Hijratullah himself was residing in a rented house in Walton, an area of Lahore while he had told his landlord that he was going to China for purchasing children's toys and sell in Lahore
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately.
Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.
But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.
The purpose of the legislation is to "prohibit unreasonable and excessive compensation and compensation not based on performance standards," according to the bill's language. That includes regular pay, bonuses -- everything -- paid to employees of companies in whom the government has a capital stake, including those that have received funds through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The measure is not limited just to those firms that received the largest sums of money, or just to the top 25 or 50 executives of those companies. It applies to all employees of all companies involved, for as long as the government is invested. And it would not only apply going forward, but also retroactively to existing contracts and pay arrangements of institutions that have already received funds.
In addition, the bill gives Geithner the authority to decide what pay is "unreasonable" or "excessive." And it directs the Treasury Department to come up with a method to evaluate "the performance of the individual executive or employee to whom the payment relates."
The bill passed the Financial Services Committee last week, 38 to 22, on a nearly party-line vote. (All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans, with the exception of Reps. Ed Royce of California and Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted against it.)
The legislation is expected to come before the full House for a vote this week, and, just like the AIG bill, its scope and retroactivity trouble a number of Republicans. "It's just a bad reaction to what has been going on with AIG," Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a committee member, told me. Garrett is particularly concerned with the new powers that would be given to the Treasury Secretary, who just last week proposed giving the government extensive new regulatory authority. "This is a growing concern, that the powers of the Treasury in this area, along with what Geithner was looking for last week, are mind boggling," Garrett said.
Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who wrote the bill, told me its basic message is "you should not get rich off public money, and you should not get rich off of abject failure." Grayson expects the bill to pass the House, and as we talked, he framed the issue in a way to suggest that virtuous lawmakers will vote for it, while corrupt lawmakers will vote against it.
"This bill will show which Republicans are so much on the take from the financial services industry that they're willing to actually bless compensation that has no bearing on performance and is excessive and unreasonable," Grayson said. "We'll find out who are the people who understand that the public's money needs to be protected, and who are the people who simply want to suck up to their patrons on Wall Street."
After the AIG bonus tax bill was passed, some members of the House privately expressed regret for having supported it and were quietly relieved when the White House and Senate leadership sent it to an unceremonious death. But populist rage did not die with it, and now the House is preparing to do it all again.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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It occurs to me that the real target of this legislation is the defense industry, ultimately.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/01/2009 7:14
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#2
This action must be viewed in Barry's perspective to be fully understood. Consider similar to Zakat, which is essentially everything that benefits Muslims or Muslim goals and of course, brings them closer to Allah.
Zakat is an institutionalized and enduring fundraising mechanism within Islam that is capable of raising considerable sums of money on an annual basis. Rough, conservative, calculations for potential zakat funds annually available for warfighting within a geographic area can be determined by computing 2.5 percent of the GDP-per capita of the employed labor force and dividing the product by eight (8). For Iraq , the annual warfare funding through zakat may be estimated at $96,500,000. For Afghanistan , $46,875,000.
#4
Government creates the problem and proposes to provide the solution. For a fee. In the $trillions. Too bad Al Capone wasn't so creative.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 8:40
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#5
Too bad Al Capone wasn't so creative.
Protection racket by another name - create a problem then 'tax' them to hold off on its application. Capone bought local government. Back then the Feds never had the amount of power and intrusiveness we take for back ground noise today. That they got him on tax evasion [Cabinet level material there!], is also indicative how unique even federal income tax was to masses back then. Capone would be a Senator from Illinois today.
#7
Seems like a good idea for Congress tu3031--the part about Congress being fvcked. Doubt it will happen. Time for term limits. Don't leave them in long enough to steal or screw us.
The center's business manager has been accused of stealing $430,000 from the mosque This is the Mosque used by the diplomatic community in the embassy area of Washington D.C.
in a complicated check scam. The key witness against him is the center's director and imam, a Saudi who says he noticed the crime when he spotted too many checks being written to a gardener. He noticed it on the 58th bogus check he wrote; the first 57 he missed
The Iranian-born business manager who for many years was a close friend of the Iman
has a different story. He says the imam told him to take the money. About half was used to pay off debts and living expenses of two women who were close to the imam, and the rest was used to pay informants for tips about the mosque's security, he said.
It was enough to confound a jury, which deadlocked 9 to 3 after the business manager's three-week trial last May. the Govt will try the business manager again; the business manager has accused the Iman of perjury
The foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and the United States reaffirmed their consensus in separate bilateral talks Tuesday that should North Korea go ahead with a rocket launch, the issue should be taken up at the U.N. Security Council, sources involved in the talks said. Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone met with his South Korean counterpart Yu Myung Hwan on the sidelines of a donor conference on Afghanistan in the Hague. Nakasone later held bilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Posted by: Fred ||
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On this day in history: April 1st
1826 - Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine. (Global warming Alert)
1865 - Battle of Five Forks - In Siege of Petersburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
1891 - The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
1924 - Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch".
1939 - General¨ªsimo Francisco Franco announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender.
1944 - Accidental American bombing of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen. The bombers were lost.
1945 - Operation Iceberg - United States troops land on Okinawa in the last campaign of the war.
1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
1969 - The Hawker Siddeley Harrier enters service with the RAF.
1976 - Apple Computer is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors" - the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee. The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.
Sebelius said she filed the amended returns as soon as the errors were discovered by an accountant she hired to scrub her taxes in preparation for her confirmation hearings. She and her husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas, paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to amend returns from 2005-2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Sebelius said they "mistakenly believed" the payments were still deductible.
Sounds like they prepared the returns themselves. You get what you pay for...
#47: Do you now, or have you ever had Federal or State tax filing difficulties, penalties, indictments, convictions, seizures, liens, or other tax related difficulties.
a. Yes [___]
b. No [___]
c. Decline to answer based on 5th Amendment rights against self incrimination [___]
If you answered (a.) or (c.) to question 47, give yourself a hearty pat on the back and proceed to question 48.
#4
I was going to apply for one of those high-paying Federal jobs but I wasn't eligible--I have paid my taxes on a regular basis. I need to let my taxes lapse for a couple of years to be eligible. I would have to be a dhimmicrat too.
#5
Sorry folks but I give her a "hold" judgment on this one. They sold a house and some reason continued payments (????) for some time after the sale and deducted those payments from taxes. Deduction rejected during audit for the job as they didn't own the house at the time.
Considering the tax laws this might warrant a pass. I DO wonder who they were selling to that they would continue payments after the sale. Family?
#6
Good question - perhaps they sold it to their son so he could warehouse his prison fun board game somewhere other than the Governor's Mansion, which was illegal (and promptly solved to be fair, IIRC).
Heard about this after turning in my tax info - super.
She would be a good fit since she funneled state money to the bluer districts and attempted an illegal budgetary procudure under guise of state duress during her tenure. She slated education money, tens of millions, for rennovations at state universities while at the same time cutting budgets for k-12.
#7
Interesting. My lending institution demands that I pay off the note immediately and in full if I no longer own the home that is collateral for the note.
#9
Well, she is a career politician who made all the right moves to advance up the ladder. Made her name as the insurance comissioner and kicked out a lot of companies, many of which were predators but sure helped her win the election when the previous governor (Graves) reached term limit.
Her original intent was to run in Brownback's US Senate district when he announced his retirement after his term ends, but likely found out she couldn't win against Republican US Representatives Moran vs. Roberts who subsequently announced their interest in that seat.
It is understood that she is very pro-choice though her record does not necessarily reflect that popular belief, with a conservative (D and R) state congress and electorate.
Her second and final term as governor expires in 2010.
As for strange theories, one could put out there for debate that if the fed wanted to make itself an insurance provider she would be the face to put on the brochure. She is well spoken and would have TV appeal for youngers as a grandmother figure and olders as one of them. She has always towed the party line; ex. Greensburg - took her 2 days to make a statement (joke around here was it took her that long to realize that Kansas extends west of Wichita) and if y'all remember it was "Can't respond adequately because the KS NG is overseas." (which was BS) and "Gonna turn it into the greenest community in the world. Get it, green, Greensburg." (which continues to be BS its not much more than a showroom floor) That is, called into headquarters for the narrative. Didn't complain when after candidate Obama called Kansans a bunch of racists just a day or two after Sebelius put together a big rally for him and gave her endorsement (she apparently has a lot of carry with the governor's club).
#11
Also, shut down production of a clean coal plant outside Garden City, KS because of pollution concerns. Brought in the Sierra Club and everything. The citizens wanted it, but when it came to override the veto the bluer counties sided with sebelius and prevented the override.
President Obama's nominee to be the State Department's legal adviser has ignited a fury among conservative critics who say his views are a threat to American democracy -- an accusation the White House on Tuesday called "outrageous" and "completely baseless."
Former Clinton administration official Harold Koh, who has been dean of the Yale Law School since 2004, once wrote that the U.S. was part of an "axis of disobedience" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Koh also has long held that the U.S. should accept international law when deliberating cases at home.
Obama nominated Koh on March 23 to become the State Department's legal adviser -- an appointment that, if confirmed by the Senate, will give Koh far-reaching influence over the extent to which international norms affect U.S. law.
"This is not a desk job. This guy will be the face of American international law around the world," said Steven Gross, legal expert and fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"The top legal adviser at State travels extensively and is involved in international legal negotiations, treaties and in major United Nations conferences.
"The president should have the right to choose the most conservative or liberal legal advisers to give them advice, but this is much more than that. The concern is that he cares as much about -- if not more about -- international law and integrating that into the American judicial system than he does about protecting American prerogatives and American sovereignty," Gross said.
The White House vehemently defended Koh's nomination on Tuesday, telling FOXNews.com that he is "one of the most respected members of the legal community."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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You go, Mr. Koh. Shooting political dissidents in the back of the head and harvesting their organs is also an international norm in Mr. Koh ancestral homeland. Lot's of Washington DC fossils are no doubt hoping for some fresh organs.
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 8:35
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"one of the most respected members of the legal community."
North Korea on Monday morning arrested a Hyundai Asan staffer working at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex on charges of insulting the regime. A South Korean government official said North Korea claims the staffer denounced the political system, and "sought to corrupt a North Korean female worker and cajole her into defecting from the North." The veracity of the claim could not be confirmed.
"Around 11:50 a.m., the immigration office of North Korea's Kaesong Industrial Complex sent a telephone message that they are investigating a South Korean staffer in the industrial park in accordance with relevant regulations," the Unification Ministry said.
A cross-border agreement on the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Mt. Kumgang tourist area stipulates that if a South Korean staffer violates laws and regulations there, North Korea will investigate and notify South Korea of the violation, and warn, fine or deport the offender.
Observers say it is improbable that a staffer with Hyundai Asan, which has been Pyongyang's main South Korean business partner for years, intentionally made remarks that would irritate the North at a time when it is imminently launching what the West believes is a ballistic missile. A researcher with a South Korean government-funded think tank said it is more likely the North is holding the man hostage, much in the way it has arrested two U.S. journalists for on charges of spying.
No doubt a tearful confession will be extracted followed by deportation -- if the SKors don't protest too much when the satellite missile is launched.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Yep. A Korean human shield. Lessee if they manage to scrounge up a Japanes businessman or two...
#2
WORLD NEWS/TOPIX > US COMMANDER: NORTH KOREA HAS DEPLOYED NEW TYPES OF INTERMEDIATE, SHORT-RANGE MISSLES; + WORLD MIL FORUM > JAPANESE MEDIA SANKEI SHIMBUN: NORTH KOREA CAN FIRE SHORT-, MID-RANGES MISSLES AT JAPAN FROM WONSAN REGIONS.
#4
Some high party muckety muck had a hot date and needed a set of fine wheels?
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 10:52
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A South Korean government official said North Korea claims the staffer denounced the political system, and "sought to corrupt a North Korean female worker and cajole her into defecting from the North."
The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday rejected a government petition seeking a stay on the High Court (HC) order granting anticipatory bail to Jamaat-e-Islami leader barrister Abdur Razzaq and asking the government not to harass or arrest him in connection with the Pilkhana carnage case.
Chamber judge of the Appellate Division Justice Shah Abu Nayem Mominur Rahman passed the order after hearing the submission by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam.
The attorney general told the court that the HC order should be stayed in the interest of a fair investigation into the carnage at the BDR headquarters.
Following the chamber judge's order, the HC order granting bail to Razzaq will now remain valid till April 5.
The HC on March 29 granted bail to the Jamaat leader till April 5 and asked the government not to arrest or harass him during that period.
The government on March 30 filed a petition with the Supreme Court for staying the HC order.
After passage of the SC order yesterday, Abdur Razzaq told The Daily Star at his SC bar chamber that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on March 30 did not ask him any questions regarding his alleged conversation with BDR mutineers on February 25.
The CID only asked for my cell phone number, barrister Razzaq said, adding that during the hearing of the government petition, the Attorney General told the court that the CID had asked Razzaq questions regarding his (Razzaq's) alleged conversation with the BDR mutineers.
The attorney general tried to mislead the court by giving such incorrect information, Razzaq said.
Additional Attorney General M Enayetur Rahim, who was present for the state during the hearing, however said that the attorney general made submissions quoting media reports regarding the alleged conversation of Abdur Razzaq with BDR mutineers.
Abdur Razzaq, talking to reporters at his Nayapaltan chamber in the afternoon yesterday, said he held no conversation with any member of BDR over cell phone before or after the February 25-26 carnage.
"Unfortunately, a section of the press ran misleading and false reports on the 'so-called conversation' based on mere surmises," the Jamaat leader said.
"The only purpose behind interrogating me in connection with the BDR massacre was to humiliate me politically and tarnish my image," Razzaq said.
He also added that the reason behind the carnage must be dug out and the perpetrators punished severely.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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It was Brooks Brothers meets Old Navy Monday in Courtroom 1526 in Manhattan's Criminal Courts building.
Anthony Marshall, the poor-little-rich-boy son of Brooke Astor wore a gray suit, light blue shirt, tasseled loafers and his U.S. Marines tie for the first day of his trial on charges of looting his late mother's $200 million estate. His wife, Charlene, wore an understated outfit accented with Belgian slippers and a jacquard scarf and pearl earrings.
They were in stark contrast to the 100 prospective jurors paraded into Supreme Court Justice Kirke Bartley's courtroom wearing jeans and Kangol caps, hoodies and sneakers the size of bread loaves.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
It must have been difficult typing that entire long article with one hand.
#2
Mom ignored her son when he was a baby, and he returned the favor by neglecting her to live in filth in her last years. Sounds like this filthy rich family worked out just fine!
Arab League leaders have rejected the 'French occupation' of the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, according to a final statement from their annual summit which was made public on Tuesday.
Comoros President Ahmed Abdullah Sambi had urged fellow Arab League leaders at Monday's summit in Doha to reject the vote by residents of Mayotte to become an integral part of France.
The Arab leaders announced their "rejection of the French occupation and demand that France continue dialogue with the Comoros government to reach a settlement that guarantees the return of the island of Mayotte under the sovereignty of Comoros," said the summit's final resolution.
Mayotte voted on Sunday to become an integral part of France, in a referendum which would put an end to local traditions like polygamy and curb the powers of Islamic courts.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
That didn't take long...
Posted by: john frum ||
04/01/2009 15:20
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Mayotte voted on Sunday to become an integral part of France, in a referendum which would put an end to local traditions like polygamy and curb the powers of Islamic courts.
Ahhhhhhhh...now I get it.
Sooooo...what's the Arab League gonna do about it?
#3
More than 95 per cent of voters said "yes" to becoming the 101st department of France, instead of its present status of an "overseas community", the Interior Ministry announced.
I guess they can tell the Arab League what to do with their resolution...
MALAYSIA'S incoming premier Najib Razak on Tuesday hailed the ethnic Chinese community's contribution to the nation, in a bid to mend ties with minorities who deserted the coalition in 2008 elections. The comments from Najib, who is expected to be sworn into power later this week, came after an angry debate over the role of minorities in the multiracial country's independence struggle.
'I would like to thank the Chinese community for their many contributions to our nation's development,' Najib told editors of a local Chinese paper, according to a statement from his office. 'The Malaysian Chinese community has, is now, and will forever play a vital role in the fabric of our nation,' he added.
Najib last week became president of the ruling United Malay National Organisation (Umno) which represents majority Muslim Malays who make up 60 percent of the population and dominate the government.
Umno leads a coalition of race-based parties that also represent the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities, but they were hammered in elections a year ago as minorities shifted towards the opposition. The opposition benefited from a rising sense of 'Islamisation' of Malaysia, and fears that minorities' rights are being eroded.
Najib pledged to 'develop a government that respects the voices of all Malaysians' and said the government 'recognises and respects the contributions of all people in building Malaysia.'
His comments came after a senior leader said at last week's Umno assembly that independence and later developments were forged by 'Umno and our Malay rulers and no one else.'
The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA), a key member of the coalition, urged a stop to 'rewriting the facts of history or denying the efforts of other races in helping to fight for the country's independence.'
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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MALAYSIA'S top investment bank, CIMB, on Monday urged its staff to go on unpaid leave for up to six months in a move to cut costs because of the global economic downturn.
CIMB Group chief executive Nazir Razak said the offer to its 36,000 staff was aimed at avoiding layoffs and would involve employees across nine countries, including Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, the national news agency Bernama reported.
'We don't have a target, but there will be cost savings,' Mr Nazir said. 'It's a positive move and a win-win situation.' He added that in the current economic situation, 'it is fully understood that there is spare capacity'.
Any employee in the group is eligible for the initiative - called the Staff Rejuvenation Programme - and the option would be granted after evaluation by senior management, said Mr Nazir.
CIMB officials confirmed his comments and said the unpaid-leave programme will start next month. The move, however, will not affect the group's operations as leave is subject to approval and the company can recall the staff when necessary, officials said.
CIMB, the country's second-largest bank, is the first major Malaysian company to ask staff to consider taking unpaid leave.
The surprise move comes just after a labour group said on Sunday that more than 26,000 people have lost their jobs in the country so far this year.
CIMB's move reflects increasing difficulties for Malaysian corporations as the country faces the prospect of its first recession in a decade.
The government said earlier this month it expects the economy will grow 1 per cent in the best-case scenario this year and shrink 1 per cent in the worst-case scenario.
It had previously forecast growth of 3.5 per cent.
Economists have warned that the RM67 billion (S$28 billion) of stimulus measures announced by the government recently may be insufficient to avoid a recession.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Close the bank, "Save" Billions, (Idiots)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/01/2009 10:51
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[Geo News] WANA: Banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud has claimed responsibility for carrying out attack on Manawan Police Training Center in Lahore on Monday, saying that TTP was not involved in terror attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team and suicide attacks in Mosques. The mosques might be other branches of the TTP, or controlled directly by al-Q. Some of the mosque kabooms were imambargahs, which are Shiite mosques, so that'd prob'ly be Lashkar-e-Jhangvi keeping their hand in even though al-Q pretty much owns them now. I think the last one, in Jamrud, was in conjunction with shelling the bridge to cut supply lines to Jalalabad.
However, he said the man arrested from Manawa Police Station premises allegedly involved in the attack was not the member of his organization and he had nothing to do with him. He was just wandering by with a pocketful of grenades...
Talking to reporters on phone from undisclosed location here on Tuesday, he made it clear that they will continue the revenge attacks unless drone attacks were stopped. "We are capable to carry out such attacks that could surprise the government and few such attacks would be carried out in next few days", he warned. No skin off the American fore. Tough nails for the Paks.
TTP chief said that the government of Pakistan had announced support to the new US policy and Zardari's policy is that of US policy, adding that on the one side Zardari opposed drone attack on media but on the other is supporting it secretly. And on the third hand he's opposing it, whilst on the fourth hand he's in favor. We're pretty used to Pak pols now.
He said US being hundreds of kilometers away from here, came and destroyed the Taliban government in Afghanistan and has failed completely because neither it established peace nor control drugs. About US reward of $ 0.5 million of his head, Baitullah Mehsud said, "he is capable to get rid of US and being a free man will take revenge from US inside it but in the meantime we are taking revenge from Pakistan". That probably made sense in the original Gibberish.
Condemning suicide attacks inside Mosques he said that his organization had nothing to do with such un-Islamic practices. Meanwhile, media also quoted TTP chief as saying that he was planning a big attack on Washington that would be surprising for the whole world. Brilliant move, now that attention span in the U.S. has drifted from the War on Terror to partisan pie fights and looting the remains of the treasury.
According to media report, in audio message, Baitullah said he will target Pakistani military in return to drone attacks. According to the report, Baitullah also claimed responsibility for attacks on police station in Sitara Market and police checkpost in Bannu.
This article starring:
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
Baitullah Mehsud
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
is this man like a cat or what? i think he is pretty close too using up his 9 lives
Somalia's opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys might soon return to Mogadishu after quitting self-imposed exile in Eritrea.
Local Somali media reported on Tuesday that Aweys was now in the Sudanese capital Khartoum and held talks with two senior Sudanese officials.
They added that he was expected to leave Khartoum for Mogadishu later to offer his support to President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's new administration.
As a former chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, Aweys worked alongside with Ahmed and they later founded the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.
Somali lawmakers convened in Djibouti in January and elected Ahmed as president to succeed embattled Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who failed to end conflicts in the violence-ravaged nation.
Reuters quoted a close ally of Aweys in Mogadishu as saying that he was expected to arrive in the Somali capital within two weeks.
One senior Somali source in Sudan confirmed Aweys was in the country, and said it was possible Ahmed might travel to Khartoum to meet him there. He gave no other details.
Aweys is on the US list of foreign terrorists. However, he has categorically denied the US claims that he has links to al-Qaeda and is opposed to Ahmed's government.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Just can't find that high-quality henna in Eritrea, apparently.
(AKI) - Two Dutch tourists were abducted on Tuesday in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and taken to a mountainous area. They were allegedly kidnapped by militants from the al-Siraj clan, which are part of a local tribe.
"At the moment we are busy trying to pinpoint exactly where the two Dutch tourists were taken. It is a man and his wife, and they were abducted in the area of Dabian, in the province of Sanaa," said Numan Duid (photo), the prefect of Sanaa, quoted by government Internet site Almotamar.
Following their abduction, the tourists are said to have been taken to the region of Bani Dhebyan where the tribe lives, located 30 kilometres east of Sanaa.
Unnamed sources quoted by Yemeni site Mareb said the kidnapping is in retaliation against Yemeni security forces after police allegedly injured three members of the tribe in the north of the country in April 2008.
The same tribe has also been held responsible for the kidnapping of three German tourists last year, demanding members of their family be freed in return the hostages' release. The tribe reportedly received a ransom of 100,000 dollars for the tourists' release a week later.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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The travel agent said it was the best deal and scenic....what could go wrong on the cheap?
#2
Isn't risking being abducted by the restless natives part of the thrill? Tough luck if you happen to get shot, though, I think those kidnappings used to be a whole more kabuki that what they are now.
#6
Actually, Mojo, San'na the capital has some very interesting architecture, mostly carved out of bare rock. They also have some really nice beaches, some of which go back dozens of miles from the water. No crowding, no jostling, no worry about someone else splashing sand into your picnic lunch. If you happen to be interested in archeology, there's quite a bit that's interesting. The only drawback is the "quaint" natives...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/01/2009 12:35
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#7
Stupid Europeans going to a place like that. Thank God that I am British.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
04/01/2009 17:08
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The Tourist said, "But O J Simpson told me this was a great place to do business!"
[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel's hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu was set to become the country's new prime minister on Tuesday, heading a predominantly right-wing cabinet, which has sparked international concern over the future of troubled peace talks.
Returning to power 10 years after his first stint as prime minister, the 59-year-old Netanyahu presents his government to parliament Tuesday.
The Knesset opened its session after midday to confirm the new cabinet with a vote on the government expected in the hours following.
Israel's 32nd government is set to be one of its largest ever, with a new table having been ordered to accommodate some 30 ministers and up to seven deputy ministers.
Earlier in the day, Netanyahu held last-minute talks in a bid to entice another ultra-religious party into the cabinet.
Israel's Peace Now anti-settlement watchdog has called the incoming cabinet "one of the most right-wing governments ever known in Israel."
Activists planned to demonstrate outside the Knesset during the swearing-in ceremony, with banners that read: "A government of settlers is under way."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > ISRAEL's IDF PREPARES FOR ALL-OUT WAR [agz IRAN]; + TOPIX > HAS THE US LOST LEBANON?
[Geo News] [Geo News] LAHORE: Chief Minister Punjab Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said that a commission will be formed to investigate into Manawan attack on police training center. He was addressing to PML-N activists that had gathered in CM camp office here to celebrate the restoration Shahbaz Sharif as Chief Minister of Punjab. Shahbaz said investigation agencies had informed the than Punjab government well in advance about the possibility of attacks on security agencies' training centers and terrorists' threats posed on the headquarters of police and other security forces but government paid no heed to warnings remaining blind to threats and turned deaf ears. Punjab CM vowed to bring the responsible authorizes to justice and announced the formation of a commission to investigate the incident. He was hopeful of introducing revolutionary packages for the poor people of Punjab including students, farmed, patients, and poor people in provices.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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(AKI) - Pakistani interrogators on Tuesday grilled four suspects, including an Afghan, captured during Monday's deadly police academy siege in Manawan on the outskirts of Lahore. Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Eighteen people, including two civilians, eight policemen and eight militants, were killed and 95 people injured during an eight-hour battle between gunmen and security forces to regain control of the academy, according to the interior ministry.
Seven police cadets, a civilian and four attackers died in the assault, in which the militants were armed with guns, hand grenades and explosives vests.
It was the second gun attack on Lahore this month, sparking fears that violence is seeping out of the lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border and into the heart of Pakistan.
The chief suspects in the high-level investigation are either homegrown groups or Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants holed up in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.
Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik talked about possible 'foreign hands.' The police academy attack took place near the border with India.
"Terrorists are coming from Fata. They get help from across the border,' he said. 'Where do they get weapons and new vehicles?" he said.
Rehman urged the country to unite against insurgents, warning it had a choice between letting the Taliban take over and uniting to fight them. Pakistan's integrity was "in danger," he said.
Mourners gathered for funeral prayers for seven of the dead at a police building in central Lahore on Tuesday. The coffins, wrapped in Pakistani flags, were lined up under a canopy.
Heavy security was in place for the funerals and armed commandos were deployed on rooftops around the building. Police have been criticised for being 'soft' targets for extremists attacking the security forces in Pakistan.
"The attack is yet another reminder of the threat that Pakistan faces from violent extremism," said British foreign minister David Miliband.
"It is a threat that the international community must help Pakistan to tackle, in the interests both of Pakistan's people and of wider stability," he added.
The Manawan attack came four weeks after gunmen ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket team's bus in Lahore, killing eight people before calmly walking off unchallenged.
Pakistani officials said the attack against the Sri Lankan cricket side bore the hallmarks of the November 2008 assault on Mumbai. Around 170 people died in the attack, blamed on Pakistani militants.
United States president Barack Obama's new stategy has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
I do hope the Paki`s do not abuse the Human Rights of these freedom fighters, that would be just too awful to contemplate.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
04/01/2009 9:46
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The Afghan is the designated punching bag, I suspect. The Pakis will vanish into the mists of the ISI.
#3
DAVEUK, i was about too say where is HRW bitching and moaning because i'm sure they are using techniques a little different from waterboarding. O r do they only make a fuss when it is the US?
The UK-based controversial NGO Green Crescent was illegally operating a madrasa-cum-orphanage where the Rapid Action Battalion busted a mini ammo factory on March 24 in Bhola, say sources at the Department of Social Service.
Following the chilling arms and ammo haul from a well-furnished building of the madrasa in remote Ramkeshob village, a probe by the Department reveals Green Crescent has no permission to operate such institutions.
"Green Crescent was registered with the office of the Department of Social Service in Doulatkhan upazila in Bhola in 1999. Nothing was mentioned in its declared programmes in its charter about operating madrasa and orphanage," says an official quoting the investigation report.
Citing the probe report, the official adds Green Crescent's sphere of work was supposed to be limited in Doulatkhan municipality as per its registration. But it had set up the madrasa-cum-orphanage in Borhanuddin upazila.
"Green Crescent not only illegally set up such an institution but also stretched its activities to Borhanuddin upazila without permission of the Department of Social Service," says an official asking not to be identified.
Fasial Mostafa's father Golam Mostafa who lives in Manchester in the UK told The Daily Star earlier Green Crescent has two bank accounts with the Doulatkhan branch of Sonali Bank.
But a social service department official says Green Crescent had mentioned its bank account with the Doulatkhan branch of Uttara Bank (account no 6267).
The sources say following busting of the suspected militants' den, the Bhola district office of the Department of Social Service submitted the probe report to its head office in Dhaka on March 26.
The Rab on March 24 seized a huge cache of firearms and ammo, explosives substance, four pairs of German uniforms, and booklets on jihad, Moulana Moududi and al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.
The next day a special law and order meeting held at the Deputy Commissioner's Office, Bhola decided to run spot investigations into activities of all non-government orphanages, mosques, madrasas and lillah boardings in the district.
The meeting also formed a committee comprising officials from the district administration, police, Ansar, Village Defence Party and Department of Social Service to that end.
The sources say when Green Crescent was registered in Doulatkhan it had submitted the list of a nine-member executive committee of the organisation.
According to the social service department documents, the committee members are President Abul Kalam, Vice-president Bangladeshi expatriate in the UK Faisal Mostafa, General Secretary Hasan Saifuddin Badal, Assistant Secretary Yunus Sharif, Treasurer Mizanur Rahman, Office Secretary Humayun Ahmed and members Sayem Uddin, Harunur Rashid and Zobayer Hossain.
"Though Green Crescent was supposed to inform the authorities about any changes in its executive committee, it did not do so after 2005. And recently we found some new names in the committee from the media reports," says an official.
The sources say Green Crescent authorities did not mention that they have registered an organisation in the UK by the same name.
"During registration they just mentioned that their vice-president lives in the UK," says an official in Bhola.
Another official in the capital says Green Crescent was registered with the aim to eradicate illiteracy, provide health service, social development and economic self-reliance for the poor in Doulatkhan.
But the Bhola official says medical services, relief distribution, children's parade and physical exercise on national days and feeding the poor sacrificing a dozen cows during Eid-ul-Azha were visible activities of the organisation in Doulatkhan.
The official adds Green Crescent neither informed offices of the social service department in Doulatkhan and Borhanuddin upazilas nor the executive officers of the upazilas about their new programmes in Borhanuddin including setting up a madrasa and mosque.
Sources say the social service department has sent the probe report to the Ministry of Social Welfare for further decisions and actions.
An official of the department says Green Crescent committed two major offences -- it expanded its programmes in Borhanuddin without government permission and kept illegal arms, ammunition and explosives in its possession.
"For these offences the government may cancel Green Crescent's registration in Bangladesh," the official observes.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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Taliban insurgents vow to turn major Pakistani cities into a battleground after they established their rule over the north-west regions.
Claiming responsibility for the Monday's bloody attack on a Lahore police academy on Tuesday, the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsude warned a campaign of terror will continue while Pakistan collaborates with the United States.
Around a dozen assailants raided a police training centre on the outskirts of Lahore shortly after sunrise Monday. The lethal raid left more than two dozens people killed and around 100 others wounded.
The attack came four weeks after the Sri Lankan national cricket team narrowly survived an attack in the city centre.
"We claim responsibility for the attack. This was in retaliation to the ongoing drone attacks in the tribal areas. There will be more such attacks," Mehsud said.
He also claimed responsibility for the March 23 suicide attack outside a police station in Islamabad. The suicide bomb blast rocked a police station in the capital and marred celebrations for the 69th anniversary of Pakistan National Day. The blast killed one policeman and two civilians.
Pakistani authorities in early March agreed to establish Taliban rule in the troubled northwestern Swat Valley. Moderate forces however are concerned that the agreement will increase extremism in Pakistan.
Taliban militants have now set up an administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints in the troubled Swat region.
The recent violent attacks have widely been seen as insurgents' efforts to expand the area of conflict to the centre of the country.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Ministry Chief Rehman Malik have said the militants want to take over the whole state of Pakistan. "This is an attack on Pakistan," Malik said referring to Lahore incident, adding that "There are two choices, to either let the Taliban take over your country or to fight it out. At this time the nation must unite and show its unity."
Malik said this region was 'full' of thousands of trained militants. Elements trained by 28 outlawed militant organizations operating in the country were multiplying day by day.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
TOPIX > US DRONE ATTACKS PROVE PAKISTAN'S WEAK GOVERNMENT; + PAKISTAN'S ISLAMIC PARTY [Jamaat-e-Islami Party] SAYS US/OBAMA DECLARES WAR ON PAKISTAN, by accus PK of suppor and being an AL QAEDA + TALIBAN, ETC. MILTERR STRONGHOLD.
Researchers in Germany have used a modern medical procedure to uncover a secret within one of ancient Egypt's most treasured artworks - the bust of Nefertiti has two faces. A team led by Dr. Alexander Huppertz, director of the Imaging Science Institute at Berlin's Charite hospital and medical school, discovered a detailed stone carving that differs from the external stucco face when they performed a computed tomography, or CT, scan on the bust.
The findings, published Tuesday in the monthly journal Radiology, are the first to show that the stone core of the statue is a highly detailed sculpture of the queen, Huppertz said.
"Until we did this scan, how deep the stucco was and whether a second face was underneath it was unknown," he said. "The hypothesis was that the stone underneath was just a support."
The differences between the faces, though slight - creases at the corners of the mouth, a bump on the nose of the stone version - suggest to Huppertz that someone expressly ordered the adjustments between stone and stucco when royal sculptors immortalized the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten 3,300 years ago.
"Changes were made, but some of them are positive, others are negative," Huppertz said.
John H. Taylor, a curator for Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum in London, said the scan raises interesting questions about why the features were adjusted - but that answers will probably remain elusive. "One could deduce that the final version was considered in some way more acceptable than the 'hidden' one, though caution is needed in attempting to explain the significance of these changes," Taylor wrote in an e-mail.
The bust underwent a similar CT scan in 1992. But the more primitive scanner used then only generated cross sections of the statue every 5 millimeters - not enough detail, Huppertz said, to reveal the subtlety of the carving hidden just 1-2 millimeters under the stucco.
Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt discovered the bust in 1912 and added it to Berlin's Egyptian collection on Museum Island, a cluster of five neoclassical art halls that make up one of the city's most familiar landmarks. Currently on display at the Altes Museum, the bust will move next door when the Neues Museum reopens in October after a lengthy restoration by British architect David Chipperfield.
In 2007, Wildung denied a request from Egypt's antiquities chief to borrow the bust for an exhibition, saying it was too fragile to transport. Huppertz said the results of his scan added credence to that claim.
Taylor, the British Museum curator, said the better understanding of the bust's structure will also help preserve it. "The findings are particularly significant for the information they shed on the constructional process and the subsurface condition of the bust, which will be of value in ensuring its long-term survival in good condition" Taylor said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Sorry! But anytime I see someone's name that is similar or at odds with what they're going to do, I have to chortle a bit. In this case, Chipperfield is working on a priceles stone figure.
Three Minnesota judges today decided that 400 absentee ballots should be opened or examined to determine if they are valid for counting in the long-running U.S. Senate race.
"To be clear, not every absentee ballot identified in this order will ultimately be opened and counted," the judges wrote. The ballots that do make it through to counting will be opened and sorted on April 7, the judges ordered.
Democrat Al Franken currently has a 225-vote lead over Republican Norm Coleman in the race. Both had asked the judges order opening and counting of hundreds of absentee ballots.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Gee, keep this up and they just might declare a winner by.....December 2014.
Is there some reason they can't just have a special election and be done with it once and for all?
#2
The Special Election would still have the same cast of characters who were in place when they created the first mess in the original election. Why would you expect something different? I guess they could import some Iraqis who have recent experience in 'fair' elections to administer it.
#3
Um no. This election was goofy because you had three candidates. The independent, as I recall, got about 12% of the vote, and Coleman and Franken-the-clown split the rest. You could have a run-off with just the two.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2009 9:44
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#4
I just went to the link thinking there had to be more to this story...like why haven't those absentee ballots already been counted? It's not an unreasonable question, is it?
The U.S. and South Korean intelligence authorities have obtained information that North Korea has succeeded in miniaturizing nuclear bombs made using plutonium extracted from its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a senior analyst at an international research institute said Tuesday. The intelligence circles have also obtained information that North Korea produced nuclear warheads that could be mounted on medium-range Rodong missiles and they were stored in two underground facilities in the northern part of the country, Daniel Pinkston, a senior analyst at the Seoul-based Northeast Asia office of International Crisis Group, told Kyodo News.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
SAME ANALYST also says NOKOR has 5-6 PLUTONIUM-BASED ["dirty"] NUCWARHEADS for its Rodongs.
* TOPIX > NORTH KOREA WARNS JAPAN ABOUT WAR RISK [threatens to wipe out = mil destroy Japanese SDF assets whom fire at its Missle]; + NORTH KOREA THREATENS TO SHOOT DOWN US SPY PLANES.
#2
Until they successfully test at least one bomb, I am going to take such stories with a grain or two of salt. Really big grains. They can't "miniaturize" something they don't have to begin with.
#3
ION WORLD MIL FORUM > IIUC CHINA HAD EMERGENCY DEPLOYED TWO SQUADRONS OF F11B FIGHTER-ATTACK PLANES TO HAINAN ISLAND IN AFTERMATH OF "USS IMPECCABLE" NAVAL STANDOFF; + CHINA'S PLAN: C-803 MISSLE CAN EASILY DEFEAT THE US AEGIS SYSTEM.
* ION WORLD NEWS > CHINA SAYS IT IS NO THREAT TO INDIA.
** Also on WMF > WHY CHINA MUST BE CONCERNED ABOUT NORTH KOREA? IIUC KOREAS = China's historical FLASHPOINT OF MILPOL CONFRONTATION, SUCCESSES OR FAILURES, VEE MAJOR WORLD POWERS [ Russia, Japan, UK-Euros, USA]. MODERNIZING BUT STILL-WEAK CHINA FEARS RUSSIAN MILITARY REACTION TO ANY NORTH KOREA-INDUCED, MULTI-NATION NORTHEAST ASIAN WAR AND CHINA'S FAILURE TO CONTROL NORTH KOREA [PRC Proxy]???
#5
Crosspatch is right that they haven't successfully tested a bomb yet, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't miniaturize the components and cross their fingers. Indeed, given that they're really just an extortion/blackmail outfit, they only need the fear that they could succeed in order to get what they want. Lil' Kimmie has always been willing to play the crazy man card.
#8
Please shoot at America, your little pissant nation has been an irritant too long.
Shoot at america and vanish from the face of the earth. you little insignifigant flea.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/01/2009 12:59
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#9
We'd have to have a president with the will to shoot back, RJ. The current office-holder would probably surrender.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/01/2009 16:04
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#10
WAFF > JAPAN REWRITES NORTH KOREA'S SCRIPT. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES > A succee NOKOR LR Missle launch could easily induce REVIVED/STRONG JAPAN = JAPANESE MILITARY???
(RIA Novosti) - The murder of Sulim Yamadayev, the former military commander of Chechnya's Vostok battalion, was organized by a criminal group, the Dubai police chief said on Tuesday. Yamadayev was shot by a lone gunman in the underground car park of the Dubai apartment block where he lived early last Saturday.
Maj. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said in an interview with The National daily that "the murder was organized by a criminal group that has foreign links."
Cheez, foreign links are everywhere; Pakistain, Yemen, Dubai ...
The high ranking police official added that "four or five people have been detained" on suspicion of the murder, and that one of them is a Russian national.
Earlier in the day Russia's Consulate General told RIA Novosti that at least seven people were detained in connection with the murder, all of whom had Slavic surnames. "The suspects are all currently at the Prosecutor General's Office in Dubai," Sergei Krasnogor said.
A spokesman from the Russian Foreign Ministry, Andrei Nesterenko, said on Tuesday that the ministry would follow the murder investigation carefully through the consulate office in Dubai, and that Yamadayev was "not just a Russian citizen, but also a Hero of Russia."
Yamadayev was officially dismissed from his post as commander of the Defense Ministry's Vostok battalion last August over alleged involvement in the 1998 abduction and murder of a Chechen businessman.
The killing of Yamadayev is the fourth in a series of assassinations of Chechen exiles in the past six months. Sulim's brother, Ruslan Yamadayev, a former member of the Russian parliament's lower house, was gunned down in central Moscow last September. He was a prominent opponent of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who has denied any involvement in the killing.
Umar Israilov, who was seeking political asylum in Austria, was gunned down in Vienna on January 13 by two men. And a month later Ali Osayev, who had fled to Istanbul six years ago after the second Chechen war, was shot three times in the head near his home in the city.
The murder of Osayev followed last year's slaying of two other Chechen militants, Islam Janibekov and Gadji Edilsultanov, who were murdered in separate incidents in Istanbul. Both deaths were linked to disputes over financial assistance for Chechen separatists.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
How ordinary. Did Putie use up all the polonium stash on Litvinenko?
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009 8:30
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Zimbabwe's prisons have long been notorious for being dirty, disease-ridden places of despair, where opponents of President Robert Mugabe languish for months, usually on murky charges of plotting against him.
But just how bad conditions have become within prison walls, while the economy collapses without, is only beginning to come to light.
A documentary to be screened on SABC television on Tuesday evening shows emaciated prisoners teetering at death's door for lack of food and medication. The documentary, which is based on secret footage obtained by officials and prisoners, also tells of how relatives coming to collect their loved ones' remains are forced to rummage through mounds of dead bodies.
The Zimbabwean Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (Zacro) estimates that at least 20 prisoners die each day in the country's 55 prisons. According to Edison Chiota, Zacro national director, most die of HIV/Aids or associated diseases such as tuberculosis, which thrive in unhygienic conditions.
The incidence of pellagra, a skin disease caused by malnutrition that can cause serious psychological problems and even death, has also soared. Cholera, on the other hand, a diarrhoeal disease that has killed more than 4 000 Zimbabweans since last autumn, had been been brought under control in prisons "to a certain extent", he said.
In the SABC documentary, entitled Hell Hole, 28-year-old Brighton Mudadi's life is shown to to be hanging by a thread. Mudadi, who is serving an 18-month sentence for robbery in the southern Beitbridge prison, has tuberculosis and is severely malnourished. His rib cage protrudes through his matchstick frame as a fellow prisoner helps him wash himself and the soiled pants he is wearing.
Accounts from three prisons revealed most prisoners receive only one fist-sized portion of maize porridge a day, with no meat and little to no vegetables.
Many rely on family for food supplements. But in a country where more than half the population -- about seven million -- can no longer feed itself, some families have nothing to spare. "The truth is there is not any food in the prisons at the moment and there is no medication to cope with the diseases," said Zacro's Chiota.
Ex-prisoners talk of excrement seeping out of blocked toilets and of uncollected bodies piling up in back rooms because families can no longer afford to bury their dead.
Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa admitted in Parliament that the hardship afflicting the country was "hitting hardest inside prisons" and appealed for assistance. While many prisoners have complained of overcrowding, Zacro backed up Chinamasa's contention that the prison population had fallen to about 14 000, below the capacity of 17 000, following an amnesty last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Can we expect the same kind of conditions in our hospitals after we get socialized health care from the One and his minnions?? Just askin', ya' know.
The Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Tuesday that 11 policemen would be tried for offences relating to the death in custody this month of a Palestinian it suspected of dealing in drugs.
The ministry said in a statement that Ismail Haniyeh, the Islamist movement's prime minister in the Palestinian coastal enclave, had fired the 11 on Tuesday and ordered them to face courts martial over the death of 40-year-old Zayed Jaradat.
His family and human rights groups accused policemen working for Hamas of torturing him, leading to his death a day after his arrest on March 15 in Rafah, a town that supports much of Gaza's trade through a warren of tunnels under the border with Egypt.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
family threatened to shut down the ammo deliveries, huh? Sucks to be a sacrificial lamb terrorist, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2009 18:16
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At least 20 migrants died and hundreds more are missing and feared dead after their overcrowded boat capsized in stormy seas off the coast of Libya, an international migration official and Libyan police said Tuesday.
The capsized boat was carrying up to 257 people and a second vessel with about 350 migrants aboard was rescued, Laurence Hart, an official of The International Organization for Migration, told The Associated Press. At least 20 bodies were recovered and more than 20 people were rescued from the overturned boat, Hart and a Libyan police official said.
"The first boat was rescued and is back to Tripoli. All of them are alive and safe," Hart said. "The second boat, I believe 240 people are missing. Rescue was quick for the first boat because they were near an oil platform that notified the Libyan coastal guards who quickly rescued the migrants," he added.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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None hurt; IDF kills 2 Gazans in the act of planting bombs along security fence; soldier lightly wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
for every one of the Kassam fired they should fire a highly more accurate artillery round into the shithole it came from or nerby shithole if that e the case
Rab yesterday detained 18 BDR personnel in connection with the massacre and looting of gold ornaments during the bloody mutiny at the Pilkhana BDR headquarters.
The law enforcers detained them from Pilkhana after being ascertained through video footages and information from intelligence agencies of their involvement in dumping army officer's bodies in mass graves and looting gold ornaments during the mutiny, Rab sources said.
The total number of arrestees in the BDR mutiny case has reached 800 as 35 more suspected BDR mutineers were shown arrested in the case yesterday.
Meantime, a Dhaka court placed eight more BDR jawans on a three-day fresh remand for interrogation. About 131 people mostly BDR members have been taken on remand in connection with the mutiny case filed with the Lalbagh Police Station on February 28. The 18 detainees divulged important information about killings, looting and destroying the evidences of the carnage, said Rab in a press release.
The detainees are nayek subedars Abdul Kader and Abdul Mannan, havildars Abu Zafar and Rafiqul Islam, nayeks Entaj Ali and Firoz Mia, sepoys Mizanur Rahman, Rahidul Islam, Mizanur Rahman (2), Mehedi Hasan, Shahinur Al-Mamun, Rafiqul Islam, Mofakkharul Islam, Abdur Rahman, Mukul Hossain, Rafiqul Islam (2), Mazharul Islam and Jahangir Alam.
Rab will hand over them to Lalbagh Police Station that recorded the mutiny case.
Of them, two were detained after looted gold ornaments had been recovered from their village homes in Bogra and Naogaon, Rab sources said.
Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), tasked with probing the case, recorded statements of around 50 more people living around the Pilkhana BDR headquarters.
"We have started taking statements of the people residing around Pilkhana since Sunday to gather information about the massacre. We have received some valuable information," said CID Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Kahar Akand, also investigation officer of the case.
Senior CID investigators discussed the progress in the probe into the case at a meeting at Pilkhana yesterday.
Our court correspondent adds: Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Tofael Hassan granted the petition for showing the 35 suspected BDR mutineers arrested in the case and sent them to the Dhaka Central Jail as the CID did not pray for their remand. It also put 15 other suspects in prison after they were produced before it on completion of their five-day remand.
The same court placed eight other suspected BDR jawans on a three-day fresh remand. They are Sepoys Abu Taher, Nafiul Kazi, Joynul Abedin, Masud Ahmed Khan, Shafiul Azim, Asaduzzaman, Kamruzzaman and Raihan Chowdhury.
In the forwarding to the court, the CID said the eight have already divulged important information about the carnage and need to be remanded further for more information.
Posted by: Fred ||
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House prices in the 20 largest US cities have fallen by a record 19 per cent in January from a year ago, according to a private survey. A separate index of home prices in the 10 largest metropolitan areas also posted a record decline, of 19.4 per cent since January 2008, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller survey said on Tuesday.
"There are very few bright spots that one can see in the data. Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path," David Blitzer, head of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said.
The three worst-hit cities were the former flourishing towns of Phoenix, Arizona, where prices fell by 35 per cent; Las Vegas (down 32.5 per cent) and San Francisco (down 32.4 per cent). Dallas, Denver and Cleveland showed the smallest declines of around five per cent in January compared to the same period last year, the survey said.
House prices in the 20-city index have plummeted 29 per cent from their peak in summer 2006, while the 10-city index has fallen by 30 per cent.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
HMMMMMMM, thought so, but CNN + CNBC still repor sales going for pre-Recession = US$500K-or-Higher prices.
#3
Actually what I've personally found as good rule of thumb to find out if property is overpriced in your area is look at rental income versus property pricing on triplexes and duplexes in your area. For example if a triplex in your area costs 1 million to buy and takes about 30 years to pay off from just the rent (in the best case analysis) you're WAAAAY overpriced for the property there.
#4
'Record fall' usually comes after 'record inflation' when it comes to real estate. Anyone who thought that their house's value had tripled or quadrupled permanently has no knowledge or history.
At some point, with real estate as well as everything else, we'll get to an organic base price and organic increases/decreases based upon location and a healthy (not overblown or blown apart) economy. I'm guessing that it won't be for another year or two at minimum nationally.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/01/2009 6:35
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#5
Does it really take anyone at the bank or lending institution much effort to find out what the median income is for an application locale, then do the math of 10/20% down and 30-40% of the income for housing to figure out what is a 'sustainable' housing price. Even calculating growth by raising the bar to 10/20% above that median, a honest analyst still couldn't justify the loans that banks et al were writing. All parties ignored proven principles.
#6
Women, children, and the poor hardest.... Wait a sec? Who's the victim here, I gotta know so I know who to cry for. Wow, being such sensitive liberal is really hard sometimes.
The UN chief confronted Sudan's embattled president on Monday with demands to allow the return of expelled aid groups to Darfur -- and was met with a defiant response as Arab leaders rallied to his side to formally reject international war crime charges against him.
The Arab League declaration is likely to boost Omar al-Bashir's willingness to challenge the West and flaunt his wide support among Arabs in opposing the arrest order by the International Criminal Court.
Al-Bashir's attendance among other Arab leaders was his boldest public snub of the ICC's decision, bringing him to the same conference hall as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for the summit's opening speeches. Ban's spokesperson, Michele Montas, said the two men were in the same room, but did not speak or interact.
"Relief efforts should not become politicised," Ban said. "People in need must be helped irrespective of political differences," he added in an appeal to resume relief efforts to Darfur.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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#1
Ban's spokesperson, Michele Montas, said the two men were in the same room, but did not speak or interact.
So exactly when and where did Ban actually confront Bashir? In the men's room? Out in the parking lot? Down by the loading dock?
Online vids! I like it! Like those wiggers and arab wannabe french gangsta rappers who exchange deaththreats and put "contracts" on each others through vids, complete with airsoft guns waved around and pitbulls and all, while living in the same city and seemingly never finding each others. Excellent! How fitting.
The Bahawalpur police on Tuesday arrested five suspected persons, including four Afghan, in different raids here. The police said that police uniforms and number plates were recovered from the suspects' possession.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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A top Indian court declares Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt ineligible to contest elections due to his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai bombings.
The Supreme Court in New Delhi on Tuesday refused to suspend his conviction in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, PTI reported. "We are not inclined to suspend his conviction," a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said.
Dutt was convicted under the Arms Act and sentenced to six years in jail in July 2007 by a court for buying weapons from bombers who attacked the port city of Mumbai.
He is the most high-profile of 100 people convicted in connection with the lethal bombings. The actor, who found fame playing gangsters, has said the weapons were necessary in order to defend his family during the 1993 Hindu-Muslim riots. He is out on bail at present and wanted to stand as a Samajwadi Party candidate in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
India's parliamentary elections, the world's largest exercise in democracy, begin in less than three weeks. Under Indian electoral laws, anyone who is given a jail sentence more than a period of two years is not eligible to contest elections.
Around twelve bomb blasts rocked several sites across Mumbai in April 1993, killing 257 people and wounding over 700 others.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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CAIRO - The Egyptian authorities have destroyed six tunnels used to smuggle contraband fuel and food to the Gaza Strip, the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday. The tunnels along Egypts border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip also contained piping, toys, car spare parts as well as clothes and other products destined for the Palestinians.
MENA did not say when they were discovered or when they were destroyed.
Egypt installed surveillance cameras along its border with Gaza as part of efforts to curb arms smuggling into the Palestinian territory, an Egyptian security official said at the end of January. He said it was the first phase of a high-tech security system being installed with US assistance, to bolster ceasefires that Israel and Hamas declared on January 18 to end the Jewish states 22-day war on Gaza.
MENA also reported that security officials seized pick-up trucks that were transporting cattle and electricity generators to Gaza across Egypts Sinai peninsula, without providing a date.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2009
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The man who ran the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison in Cambodia accepted responsibility Tuesday for torturing and executing thousands of inmates and expressed "heartfelt sorrow" for his crimes. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, told the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal that he wanted to apologize for his actions under the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies while in power from 1975 to 1979 left an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians dead.
"I am responsible for the crimes committed at S-21, especially the torture and execution of the people there," Duch told the tribunal. "I would like to express my deep regretfulness and my heartfelt sorrow for all the crimes committed by the CPK from 1975 to 1979," he said, referring to the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the official name for the Khmer Rouge.
Duch, now 66, commanded the group's main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths. He is charged with committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as torture and homicide, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2009
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I would like to submit these 1.7 million pieces of evidence that there is not a death penalty if subject is Khmer. Perhaps his punishment could be to work a rice field 12 hours a day with only a tin of rice to eat, 2 short breaks.
Via Instapundit
Unfortunately, this is not an April Fools Joke
The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s.
New pledges from the Fed, the Treasury Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. include $1 trillion for the Public-Private Investment Program, designed to help investors buy distressed loans and other assets from U.S. banks. The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nations gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008. Details at link
Posted by: ed ||
04/01/2009
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#2
The 'toxic' asset programs are pure rip-off. They've been wanting to create a SIV to absorb them, no one is buying in.
It looks like AIG is going to be the sacred cow that buys the toxic assets and gets slaughtered in the end. They have no hope of paying back what they've borrowed, might as well make their failure useful.
#5
Whenever I hear someone talk about how its all over and how well the feds did the keep it from getting worse I think about the Greensburg KS Big Well.
Sure, you made a great hole down to the water table, but now how ya gonna get out?
#7
CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > ECONOMIC MELTDOWN: THE "DOLLAR GLUT" IS WHAT THE US USES TO FINANCE ITS GLOBAL MILITARY BUILDUP [Author read, OWG-NWO = US Imperialism].
CMF POSTER > USA HAS NOTHING LEFT TO SPEND, + CHINA IS NO WILLING TO KEEP BUYING US T-BILLS.
IOW, NO $$$ = NO HONEY for the Amerikan Global USDOD???
Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif said on Tuesday the new U.S. administration was much better than the previous one, but needed to understand his country''s concerns as it battles extremism. He said reaction to President Barack Obama''s new plan for Pakistan and Afghanistan, announced last week, had been "mixed" in the country. "As we are very willing to address the concerns of all our allies and friends, I think they should also understand our problems and handicaps," he told a foreign news agency at the Raiwand. "It has to be reciprocal." To a question, he rejected charges against ISI, saying there was not "any room for any suspicion of the ISI". He also called for an end to American drone attacks on tribal regions, which have led to civilian casualties and inflamed anti-American sentiment. "Some of the policies followed by President Bush have given rise to a lot of anti-American feeling in Pakistan," Sharif said. Â"For example the drone attacks are affecting our relationship. The people of Pakistan have criticised them very severely. It damages the sovereignty of our country. On this issue the United States of America must move carefully."
Posted by: Fred ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Ask any soldier who's been to both countries: Afghanistan is not Iraq. It's a different war against a different enemy in a different country with an entirely different terrain and altitude.
Presently known for playing Detective Mac Taylor on the hit TV series, CSI NY, the talented Gary Sinise has done it all--acting, directing, making music and producing everything from plays to films. Now, Sinise plays the role of executive producer for the recently released documentary feature, Brothers At War. Since Sinise has been nominated for an Oscar (Forrest Gump), a couple of Emmys and a Tony (for directing Sam Shepard's Buried Child), he's a good man to have on board. 
USA Today President and Publisher Craig Moon announced his sudden retirement Tuesday, leaving the country's largest newspaper with its top two jobs unfilled during perhaps the most difficult stretch in its 27-year history. He also said the newspaper has lost about 100,000 subscribers just from the slowdown in travel.
FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection. The FBI lab reports, obtained by The Associated Press from someone not involved in the criminal case, allow for both possibilities.
Nine Maldivians have been arrested with weapons near the Pakistani-Afghan border, the minister of defence and national security has revealed. According to Ameen Faisal, none of the detainees had criminal records, but Minivan News has learnt that one, Ali Shafeeq, 25, of R.Kandholhudhoo, had been arrested for his involvement in the bomb blast in September 2009, which injured 12 tourists in Males Sultan Park. He was later cleared of all charges and released.
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea accused the United States of spying on the site of an impending rocket launch and threatened Wednesday to shoot down any U.S. planes that intrude into its airspace.
...There was a time when our government under President George W. Bush believed we would never leave Iraq and would retain some kind of permanent base there. Now we have signed agreements with Iraq's government committing us to leave permanently no later than December 31, 2011, and if any referendum in Iraq requires that we leave by June 30, 2010, we have agreed to do so. If I had my way, we would leave at once.
A federal judge yesterday ordered the United States to release a prisoner from the Guantanamo detention center who is accused of hiding out with Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. US District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a one-page judgment ordering the release of Yasin Muhammed Basardh, a 33-year-old from Yemen. The judge didn't say why Basardh should be let go, but she said it was explained during a closed hearing in her courtroom earlier in the day.
The CIA is attempting to recruit more spies by advertising on the internet, radio and television, and by holding meetings with American Muslims to make up a severe shortage of Arabic speakers. 
The Obama administration has decided to seek a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Tuesday, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to shun the U.N.'s premier rights body to protest the repressive states among its membership. 
The foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and the United States reaffirmed their consensus in separate bilateral talks Tuesday that should North Korea go ahead with a rocket launch, the issue should be taken up at the U.N. Security Council, sources involved in the talks said. Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone met with his South Korean counterpart Yu Myung Hwan on the sidelines of a donor conference on Afghanistan in the Hague. Nakasone later held bilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
North Korea on Monday morning arrested a Hyundai Asan staffer working at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex on charges of insulting the regime. A South Korean government official said North Korea claims the staffer denounced the political system, and "sought to corrupt a North Korean female worker and cajole her into defecting from the North." The veracity of the claim could not be confirmed.
[Geo News] WANA: Banned 
Somalia's opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys might soon return to Mogadishu after quitting self-imposed exile in Eritrea. 
(AKI) - Two Dutch tourists were abducted on Tuesday in the Yemeni capital Sanaa and taken to a mountainous area. They were allegedly kidnapped by militants from the al-Siraj clan, which are part of a local tribe.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel's hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu was set to become the country's new prime minister on Tuesday, heading a predominantly right-wing cabinet, which has sparked international concern over the future of troubled peace talks.
The UK-based controversial NGO Green Crescent was illegally operating a madrasa-cum-orphanage where the Rapid Action Battalion busted a mini ammo factory on March 24 in Bhola, say sources at the Department of Social Service.
Rab yesterday detained 18 BDR personnel in connection with the massacre and looting of gold ornaments during the bloody mutiny at the Pilkhana BDR headquarters.
CAIRO - The Egyptian authorities have destroyed six tunnels used to smuggle contraband fuel and food to the Gaza Strip, the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday. The tunnels along Egypts border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip also contained piping, toys, car spare parts as well as clothes and other products destined for the Palestinians.
