the utter incompetence of this admin, 100 days in, is amazing. It's pretty obviously a bow, and a deep sucking wound that they should've let go without addressing..
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009
20:05 ||
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So we're going with the other obvious choice - he was offering to give the goatherd descendant "King" a public blow job?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/08/2009 21:20
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"Obama didn't bow to Saudi King"
...and that's not my middle fingers thrust at these Phucking Leftists Phuques, either...
A US cargo ship's crew ferrying food to African refugees battled against Somali pirates yesterday, pleading for the return of their captive captain and holding out for military help.
The high-seas drama in the lawless shipping channel off war-torn Somalia erupted around 7.30am local time (2.30pm AEST Wednesday) when pirates seized the US-flagged Maersk Alabama, a 17,500-tonne container vessel whose home port is Norfolk, Virginia.
It was believed to be the first US merchant ship hijacked since the North African Barbary Wars in the early 19th century, underlining the anarchy raging off Somalia despite an international naval effort against piracy.
The 20 unarmed crew members fought back against the four hijackers and hours later regained control of their vessel, according to second mate Ken Quinn.
Mr Quinn, sounding harried in a terse mobile phone call to CNN, said the crew had released one of the pirates they had tied up for 12 hours. But the hijackers were refusing to return Captain Richard Phillips.
"Right now, they want to hold our captain for ransom and we're trying to get him back," Mr Quinn said.
"He's in the ship's lifeboat," he said, explaining the four pirates had taken the lifeboat off the Maersk Alabama and that Capt Phillips was in touch with his crew using the ship's radio.
"So now we're just trying to offer them whatever we can. Food. But it's not working too good."
Mr Quinn said: "We have a coalition (vessel) that will be here in three hours. So we're just trying to hold them off for three more hours and then we'll have a warship here to help us."
US officials said an American warship and a half dozen others are headed to the scene.
One official said the destroyer USS Bainbridge is headed there. Another official said there are six or seven ships on the way.
The 155-metre vessel had been due to dock in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on April 16 where the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) was to have taken possession of more than 5000 tonnes of relief food supplies.
It was the sixth ship to be hijacked off Somalia in the past five days, after a running battle at sea reportedly lasting at least five hours during which the US crew tried to evade the hijackers and then turned hoses on them.
The ship's chief officer, Shane Murphy, told his father Joseph Murphy that the crew used "brute force" to overpower the pirates, who were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, ABC News reported.
A multinational naval task force has been trying to stamp out the rampant piracy in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's most important shipping arteries.
As recently as yesterday, the task force warned merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia to increase their vigilance due to increased pirate attacks.
The White House said earlier it was "closely monitoring" the fate of the ship, as Pentagon officials scrambled for news of the crew.
The hijacked vessel is run out of the huge merchant and naval base of Norfolk by Maersk Line Ltd, a division of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk Group.
"This is going to Africa to people in need. We're just bringing relief cargo," Maersk Line chief executive John Reinhart said in Norfolk.
He insisted that while the crew was trained in how to fend off pirates, "as merchant vessels, we do not carry arms".
Peter Smerdon, a WFP spokesman in Nairobi, said the cargo included 4097 tonnes of corn-soya blend which was destined for Somalia and Uganda and 990 tonnes of vegetable oil for refugees in Kenya.
Up to 3.25 million people - almost half of the population - are in need of humanitarian aid in war-wracked Somalia.
The country has had no effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a bloody cycle of clashes between rival factions. Piracy has become an increasingly lucrative business.
#1
If the consequences of piracy continue to be negligible for the pirates, I suspect a lot of fishermen and coastal traders will be taking it up as a part-time occupation, at the very least. Monetarily rewarding careers with little risk involved do have a way of drawing new recruits. Fishermen and coastal traders will be first in line because they have a basic skill pirates need to have - seamanship.
#3
SPOCK > "Only Obama [Nixon] can go to Africa [China]".
IMO this is a MARITIME JIHAD which in time will likely entail more intensified and direct US mil involvement on the continent Beyond AFRICOM's advisory capacity. FOR NOW, 2009-2012/2016, RADICAL ISLAM'S PRIORITY = PRIM FOCII IS THE MILTERR-LED BREAKUP OF THE MAJOR COLD WAR NUCLEAR STATES OF ASIA, MAINLY RUSSIA + CHINA + INDIA, as coupled wid NUCTECH(S) ACQUISITION.
The author of six books published in eight countries, Kola Boof is not only Sudan's top selling novelist, but in 1996, was the mistress of Osama Bin Laden.....a fact that jeopardized her American citizenship four years ago, until Morocco's Prince Fabrizzio Ruspolli confirmed Boof's claim that she had been held against her will by Bin Laden at Ruspoli's estate for sexual purposes.
In her memoir, Diary of a Lost Girl, coming Feb. 1st in hardcover (0-9712019-8-6), Boof reveals a side of the terror chief that's never been explored before. In a telephone interview, I learned a few things that I never expected to find out...such as where he's been hiding.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
17:45 ||
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Morocco's Prince Fabrizzio Ruspolli
This is a historical figure from the Battle of Lepanto. Of course, the article is from blacknews.com, which is a site I've never heard of.
The restaurant was closed on my next visit and now, some 20 years later, it has been beautifully renovated by Fabrizio Ruspoli. Fabrizio is an Italian prince - or if he isn't, he could be. In the hotel hall there hangs a portrait of his grandfather, Edmondo, outdoing any mere Gainsborough boy in the elegance of his ruffs and lace.
Ruspoli is, in any case, part of the expatriate landscape: his grandmother was a redoubtable figure in Tangier's highly competitive society, his aunt kept wolfhounds on her farm in the Ourika valley, and all the great restaurants nearby, such as Charles de Poso's Villa Rosa, seem to be run by his devoted friends.
La Maison Arabe has just 11 rooms and serves no meals, aside from breakfast and tea. It has no pool but instead boasts a succession of elegant, well- connected guests.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 20:25
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And she is apparently
Probably born on March 3 (exact date unknown)...definitely born as Naima Bint Harith,
At a restaurant she meets Osama Bin Laden. He decides that he wants to have her as one of his "pets". He has his men bring her over to his table at the restaurant--he does not care that Naima is with a date already. He can make her life hell in Marrakech if she does not comply. He goes to visit her at her hotel. He takes her against her will. He continues to visit her. He goes back and forth to Sudan but he moves Naima to a suite at the La Maison Arabe and comes whenever he likes for four months. Naima is not allowed to go anywhere but to shop. Sometimes, he beats her, because she is not easily penetrated by him and doesn't want to have sex because of pain. When the police arrive they only tell him to beat her "more quietly". After four months of sexual experience with Bin Laden....Naima doesn't see him for two months straight. He informs her by phone that their fling is over. She is to move out of the suite--he wants to install another girl.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 20:28
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Ten men have been arrested in the North West of England after Britain's most senior counter terrorism police officer sparked a security alert.
Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick said he "deeply regretted" revealing a secret document to photographers when he arrived for a briefing at No 10. The document, clearly marked "secret", carried an outline briefing on an ongoing counter-terrorism operation.
The ten suspects were later arrested at locations across north-west England.
Opposition MPs were swift to criticise Mr Quick, with the Lib Dems describing him as "accident prone" and the Conservatives condemning his "extraordinary and very alarming" lapse of judgement.
Some hours after the Downing Street incident, two men outside the main library at Liverpool John Moores University were arrested by armed officers from the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit. Other students said they heard police shouting at the two suspects, then saw them lying face down on the floor.
Witnesses said they were advised over the library loudspeaker to stay away from the windows for their own safety. "Everyone was just panicking," one student told the BBC.
Other addresses raided by armed officers, assisted by officers from Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and Lancashire Constabulary, included an internet cafe in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester and a guest house in Clitheroe, Lancashire. Witnesses said two men were taken from the cafe after police arrived.
Mesu Raza, who lives in a flat above the cafe, said: "I saw police arrest two people and put them in a police van. They had handcuffs on, they were Asian men, and the police were armed. Two police vans arrived outside the shop and there was more police went round the back. There were many officers and a large number of police vans."
Earlier on Wednesday press photographers in Downing Street snapped Mr Quick clutching a white document marked "secret" and containing the names of several senior officers, locations and details about the nature of the overseas threat. Details of the information revealed cannot be reported. Mr Quick was attending the meeting in his role as lead for counter terrorism and for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).
On Wednesday evening he apologised to Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson for the slip. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Assistant Commissioner Quick accepts he made a mistake on leaving a sensitive document on open view and deeply regrets it.
"He has apologised to the Commissioner and colleagues."
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
16:10 ||
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The 'secret' documents clutched by Mr Quick were clearly on show
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 16:14
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Counter-terrorist police arrested 10 young men across the north-west tonight in an operation hastily brought forward following an embarrassing security leak by a senior Scotland Yard commander.
The men, detained at John Moores University in Liverpool, an internet cafe and a house in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, as well as at addresses in Lancashire, are suspected of involvement in an al-Qaida plot aimed at attacking the UK.
At least one is believed to be a student, the others were born in Pakistan.
The arrests were triggered after Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, head of Scotland Yard's specialist operations wing, was photographed this morning clutching sensitive documents as he arrived in Downing Street. Clearly visible on top of a large bundle of papers under his arm was a white document marked "secret" that carried an outline for briefing on a current counter-terrorism operation. He was on his way to attend a cabinet security committee.
Realising the existence of the photos of the document which included the names of several senior officers, sensitive locations and details about the nature of the overseas threat a "D notice" was imposed by the government to restrict the media from revealing the contents of the picture.
Quick had been due to meet Gordon Brown and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to discuss police reform. He was also addressing the meeting in his role as lead for counter-terrorism and for the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Tonight Quick apologised to the Metropolitan commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Assistant Commissioner Quick accepts he made a mistake on leaving a sensitive document on open view and deeply regrets it. He has apologised to the commissioner and colleagues."
The arrests were led by Greater Manchester police, the force which coordinates anti-terrorist operations in the region. "Ten men have been arrested as part of a counter-terrorism operation across the north-west of England," a statement from the force said. "Officers from the North West Counter-Terrorism Unit, supported by Merseyside police, Greater Manchester police and Lancashire constabulary, carried out a series of raids."
According to initial accounts a taser stun gun was used by armed police to subdue some of the suspects who were arrested at John Moores University. Ruth Jones, a third-year student at the university, told the Guardian that she was preparing to leave for the day when an announcement was made over the tannoy system warning students to stay away from the windows.
"I went upstairs at that point to find a friend and looked out the window to see police with guns standing over two young guys, who looked like they were in their twenties," she said.
A duty manager working near the campus told BBC radio that police had dealt with the situation "very calmly". He said that he saw the "evacuation of the suspects, and then police dispersed the small crowd that had gathered".
Two students were in the university library when the arrests took place and said a "distressed voice" came over the tannoy asking others to stay away from the windows for their own safety.
One, named as Craig, told the BBC: "There was shouting by the police telling them [the suspects] to get on the floor. Everybody was panicking."
Another witness, Nicholas Higgins, told Sky News that security officers had told students to stay away from windows because of fears that there might be a bomb. "I saw the lads [being arrested] lying on the floor," he said. "They were surrounded by police. The police had guns with them."
The arrests were due to happen in several days' time, but because of the leak were carried out in daylight, in direct contravention of the usual practice of arresting people while they sleep.
Two of those arrested are believed to be British citizens, another two are naturalised but born in Pakistan.
Britain's threat level today remained unchanged at severe general, meaning that officials believed that there was a high risk of attack.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 16:22
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Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
Statistics such as these, which include for the second year in a row a bump in teen pregnancies, after a 14-year decline, leave Sarah Brown concerned. She worries about the children born to unwed parents -- about the disadvantages they often face, including increased likelihood of poverty and greater high school dropout rates. See the number of out-of-wedlock births by race and age »
"I wish people spent as much time planning when to get pregnant, with whom, under what circumstances as they do planning their next vacation," said Brown, the CEO and founding director of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "The stigma [of out-of-wedlock births] has eroded, and these numbers made me feel perhaps it's disappeared altogether."
That stigma Brown speaks of, however, isn't one that LaShanda Henry, 28, or the women in her family before her, would have known. Her parents never married. And her grandmother only had a wedding when she was in her 60s.
So when Henry, of Greenville, North Carolina, and her boyfriend of now five years, Jean Paul, had Christopher two years ago, there was no pressure to race down the aisle.
"Culturally speaking" taking vows wasn't expected, said Henry, who runs the Black Moms Club, an online social network, and the Web-only Mahogany Momma Magazine. "Do we want to spend that money on a wedding or a house? ... I guess it's about priorities. I was never one of those girls that dreamed about the wedding dress."
What she said about cultural differences and expectations might help explain some of the numbers. Other data released last month showed the percentage of unwed mothers differs from race to race. While 28 percent of white women gave birth out of wedlock in 2007, nearly 72 percent of black women and more than 51 percent of Latinas did.
#1
the downfall of the black society - Patrick Moynihan had it pegged, what, 40 years ago, was it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 19:12
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Poverty is now begotten to a good extent by 'human free will' which no government program can alter other than increase it by subsidizing it. It can only be diminished by the choice of the individual. Socialism doesn't work on free will. It's easier to blame the 'Man', the institutions, society than it is to look into the mirror and see that most of life's problems start there.
B.O. Phone homeTHE real climax of President Obama's Spring Apologies Tour wasn't his photo op with our troops in Baghdad or even his "American Guilt" concerts in Western Europe.
While fans in the press cheered wildly at every venue, the real performance came in Turkey. And it was a turkey.
Obama means well. Just as Jimmy Carter, his policy godfather, meant well. But the road to embassy takeovers and strategic humiliation is paved with good intentions -- coupled with distressing naivete.
On every stage, Obama draped Lady Liberty in sackcloth and ashes, drawing plentiful applause but no serious economic or security cooperation in return. Then, in Turkey, he surrendered our national pride, undercut our interests and interfered in matters that aren't his business.
On the latter point: Suppose the European Union president went to Cuba and insisted that the world's sunniest concentration camp should be welcomed into NAFTA? That's the equivalent of what our president did in Ankara on Monday when he declared that he supports Turkey's bid for EU membership.
The Europeans don't want Turkey in their club. Because Turkey isn't a European state, nor is its culture European. And it isn't our business to press Europe to embrace a huge, truculent Muslim country suffering a creeping Islamist coup.
The Europeans were appalled by Turkey's neo-Taliban tantrum on-stage at last week's NATO summit. The Turks fought to derail the appointment of a great Dane, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as the new NATO secretary general. Why? Because he didn't stone to death the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed.
Which brings us to the even bigger problem: Obama has no idea what's going on in Turkey. By going to Ankara on his knees, he gave his seal of approval to a pungently anti-American Islamist government bent on overturning Mustapha Kemal's legacy of the separation of mosque and state.
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, means headscarves, Korans, censorship and stacked elections. The country's alarmed middle class opposes the effort to turn the country into an Islamic state. Obama's gushing praise for the AKP's bosses left them aghast.
Obama's embrace of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now orchestrating show trials of his opponents) was one step short of going to Tehran and smooching President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What was Obama thinking? He wasn't. He relied on advice from State Department appeasement artists who understand neither Turkey, Islam nor the crises raging between the Bosporus and the Indus. State's answer is always "More love, more humility, more aid."
Well, I, for one, don't think our country has anything to apologize for, either to Turkey or to Europe.
Insisting that America's always guilty, Obama omitted any mention of Turkey's wartime betrayals of our troops, its continuing oppression of its Kurd minority or the AKP's determination to turn a state with a secular constitution into a Wahhabi playground.
When it came to the Armenian genocide, Obama bravely ducked: He never dared use the g-word.
And Obama's disdainful remarks about President Bush were just shabby.
After those overpriced tour T-shirts have shrunk in the wash (trust me -- they will), what will we have gained from Obama's superstar act?
He told the Europeans that the global economic crisis is all our fault. No mention of European greed, overleveraged governments, destructive Euro-loans or Chinese currency manipulation. We did it. Whip us, please.
In return, the Europeans gave him . . . nothing.
Even though Obama was right when he said that Europe faces a greater terror threat than we do, the entire continent only ponied up 2,500 short-term non-combat troops for Afghanistan. The Europeans know we'll do the heavy lifting.
He gave the Russians yet another blank check, too. (Meanwhile, in Moscow, Putin's thugs beat an aging pro-democracy dissident to a pulp.) In return, the Russians promised to . . . well, actually, they didn't promise anything.
Then Obama went to Turkey, undercut secular political parties, infuriated the Europeans -- and disclaimed our country's Judeo-Christian heritage. (Did Turkey's leaders respond by denying Islam's importance to them? Naw.)
In Turkey, Obama got . . . nothing we didn't already have.
Then he went to Iraq and told its prime minister that Iraq would get nothing.
I believe that our president wants to do the right thing. But he doesn't have a clue how. For now, he's enraptured by the applause. But he hasn't tried to charge his fans for their tickets. And they've already made up their minds they won't have to pay.
#1
Love the last line. Reminds me of a local newscast where people got free concert tickets (Jay-Z IIRC) and interviewed 4 people in line for the tickets. 1 didn't know anything about the election and was just getting tickets; 1 knew obama was running and that the election was in November sometime; 1 knew obama and when to vote and when asked about obama's opponant, "Some old white guy, I don't know" (hard to tell if he was joking or really didn't know. The 4th knew both candidates and when the election was and who to vote for, "I'm voting McCain, I'm just here for a free Jay-Z concert." (whoops, shows that Diamond Dallas Page deal Jay-Z copied, people in line laugh).
You really can't have "gay marriage," you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say.
You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to shake out its pockets.
Such is the supposed effect of the Iowa Supreme Court's declaration last week that gays and heterosexuals enjoy equal rights to marital bliss. Nope. They don't and won't, even if liberal Vermont follows Iowa's lead.
The human race -- sorry ladies, sorry gents -- understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and projection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.
The supposed redefinition of the Great Institution is an outgrowth of modern hubris and disjointed individualism. "What I say goes!" has become our national philosophy since the 1960s. One appreciates the First Amendment right to make such a claim. Nonetheless, no such boast actually binds unless it corresponds with the way things are at the deepest level, human as well as divine. Surface things can change. Not the deep things, among them human existence.
A marriage -- a real one -- brings together man and woman for mutual society and comfort, but also, more deeply, for the long generational journey to the future. Marriage, as historically defined, across all religious and non-religious demarcations, is about children -- which is why a marriage in which the couple deliberately repudiates childbearing is so odd a thing, to put the matter as generously as possible.
A gay "marriage" (never mind whether or not the couple tries to adopt) is definitionally sterile -- barren for the purpose of extending the generations for purposes vaster than any two people, (including people of opposite sexes), can envision.
Current legal prohibitions pertaining to something called "gay marriage" don't address the condition called homosexuality or lesbianism. A lesbian or homosexual couple is free to do pretty much as they like, so long as it doesn't "like" too much the notion of remaking other, older ideas about institutions made, conspicuously, for others. Marriage, for instance.
True, marriage isn't the only way to get at childbirth and propagation. There's also the ancient practice called illegitimacy -- in which trap, by recent count, 40 percent of American babies are caught. It's a lousy, defective means of propagation, with its widely recognized potential for enhancing child abuse and psychological disorientation.
Far, far better is marriage, with all those imperfections that flow from the participation of imperfect humans. Hence the necessity of shooing away traditional marriage's derogators and outright enemies -- who include, accidentally or otherwise, the seven justices of Iowa's Supreme Court. These learned folk tell us earnestly that the right to "equal protection of the law" necessitates a makeover of marriage. And so, by golly, get with it, you cretins! Be it ordered that.
One can say without too much fear of contradiction that people who set themselves up as the sovereign arbiters of reality are -- would "nutty" be the word?
The Iowa court's decision in the gay marriage case is pure nonsense. Which isn't to say that nonsense fails to command plaudits and excite warnings to others to "keep your distance." We're reminded again -- as with Roe v. Wade, the worst decision in the history of human jurisprudence -- of the reasons judges should generally step back from making social policy. For one thing, a judicial opinion can mislead viewers into supposing that, well, sophisticated judges wouldn't say things that weren't so. Would they?
Of course they would. They just got through doing it in Iowa, and now the basketball they tossed in the air has to be wrestled for, fought over, contested: not merely in Iowa, but everywhere Americans esteem reality over ideological fantasy and bloviation. A great age, ours. Say this for it anyway: We never nod off.
#4
Gays don't want marriage for themselves. They want to take it away from everyone else. It's just another step toward destroying the family, a basic building block of our culture.
On another note, if homosexuality were purely genetic then it would have bred itself out long ago. There are other factors, including recruitment. Recruitment works (like direct mail campaigns, you don't need a lot of positive results to make it a success) and gays are doing everything they can along this front.
#5
Iblis, you have got to be kidding about that "recruitment" thing.
How are they "recruiting" new members? Reruns of "Will and Grace"? Playing Queen, Elton John and Melissa Etheridge records on the radio?
I don't know if gayness has a genetic cause, or if there is some other mechanism involved (in-utero environment or some hormonal difference), but it sure as hell wasn't because some straight guy or girl saw a pride parade and started thinking....hmmm, looks like fun! I'll give it a whirl...
#7
I don't know if gayness has a genetic cause, or if there is some other mechanism involved (in-utero environment or some hormonal difference), but it sure as hell wasn't because some straight guy or girl saw a pride parade and started thinking....hmmm, looks like fun! I'll give it a whirl...
Actually, if you look around the net [in places you really don't want to] it appears the latter is happening. A product of two decades of state and teacher indoctrination since and starting in elementary school.
#8
Sorry, not buying it. You either have a tendency to a certain kind of sexual behavior, or you don't. Unless it somehow appeals to you, no amount of pro-gay (or anti-gay) propaganda is gonna make you swing for the other team. Nobody ever became a drag queen because of some book a teacher read to them in kindergarten, ok?
Think of it this way, by using the most deviant kind of person out there, the child molester. Few of them were former victims, regardless of what the media endlessly repeats. Much like rapists who specialize in attacking adults, they get off on the power they have over their victims. And by far, the vast majority of their victims do not grow up to be child molesters themselves.
There have been many, many programs that have tried to cure them of these desires, but they have all been nearly total failures. There is something hardwired in their brains that make them look at kids in a sick, malevolent way. They are going to be that way until they die. They might get physically or pharmacologically castrated, they might on occasion be incarcerated or hospitalized so they cannot act out on their wishes, but they are still going to fantasize about kids in a way that would make 99.9% of the population retch.
We've pretty much moved beyond the "your mama made you gay" thing that Freud posited. The recruitment thing is about as logical as blaming your parents. Let it go already.
The Washoe County School District in the Reno area will give Egyptian former student Jana Elhifny $350,000 and her non-Muslim friend and supporter Stephanie Hart $50,000 as part of the civil settlement.
Elhifny and her family came to Reno from Egypt in 2003, and the girl enrolled as a freshman at North Valleys High School. She didn't finish the year after she told teachers and administrators that someone had threatened to kill her in the stairwell because of her Muslim hijab or head scarf, the district's independent attorney in the case, Robert Cox, told FOXNews.com.
Shortly afterwards, Cox said, Elhifny filed the lawsuit and returned to Egypt, where she married her fiancé.
The lawsuit, handled by U.S. District Court in Reno, alleges that Elhifny faced death threats and harassment and school administrators did nothing to stop the abuse.
Cox said that wasn't true, and the teen was unable to give any description of her tormenter -- including his or her gender, size and tone of voice.
Maybe he was veiled?
He said the high school tried to investigate her claims but was unsuccessful because of the lack of information. "The district did an incredibly thorough investigation," Cox told FOXNews.com in a phone interview. "They could never identify the person who perpetrated these acts. ... The district did everything it could do to try to help this young woman who is an Egyptian and of the Islam faith."
"Ms. Elhifny and Ms. Hart had the courage to stand up for themselves and defend their right to a safe education," said Peter Obstler, a San Francisco attorney who handled the young women's lawsuits with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.
Apparently so did the district. In what way did they fail? Sounds like more legal 'extortion' ...
The emerging scenario from Jammu and Kashmir indicates that the encounters in the north are not mere counter-insurgency rather they form part of a larger conventional conflict between India and Pakistan.
Concentrated groups, comprising hundreds of combatants, are reportedly holding ground and battling the Indian Army in eight separate locations in Kashmir Valley. The areas are Uri, Baramula, Kupwara, Lolab, Kangan, Wusan, Hafruda Forest and Gurez sector.
The Army is no longer up against just men whose best weapon is hit and run, because this is no longer just a low-intensity conflict. Rather the army is exchanging fire with a new enemy -- the conventionally trained terrorist.
Built to hold ground and fight back like a soldier, to capture territory and move forward, they're even fighting Indian para commandos and managing to inflict damage.
The militants may not be formally commissioned soldiers of the Pakistan Army, but they're definitely close. The encounters in the Valley are the result of the most organised and concerted intrusions into the state since Kargil. Clearly it indicates that the situation is more like war.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
13:12 ||
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ISLAMABAD - American policies are not of a friend but of a foe and Richard Holbrooke and Mike Mullen are in Pakistan to put a price on our loyalty to our religion and the Islamic State of Pakistan but we are not a saleable commodity. Federal Minister for Science & Technology Azam Khan Swati while commenting on the recent visit of the American military and political leadership to Pakistan said this on Tuesday.
According to a press release issued here, Swati said that NATOs presence in the region was a great threat to the very existence of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and Iran as well. American policies aim to dismantle Pakistan, neutralise Iran and contain China to make India a regional superpower to achieve her objectives, he added.
He said Obamas administration was following the conspiracy hatched by George W Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield and would lead America towards destruction. He added the US policy aimed to destroy Pak Armed Forces, marginalise state-of-the-art security agency, ISI, and ruin Pakistan. Yeah. Sy Hersh told him...
To achieve its objectives, Americans are spreading hatred in the mind and heart of the people of world by portraying Islamists as cruel, inhuman and threat to humanity, and are trying to divide Pakistani nation on religious basis, the Minister said. He added that the people of Pakistan would foil their nefarious designs, as the people of NWFP and Fata were peace-loving and practical Muslims and would never succumb to the pressure of foreign force.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
12:58 ||
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I don't want to "break up" Pakistan, I want to thoroughly eradicate it. Idiots like this one are part of the reason why.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/08/2009 18:03
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Hispanics made up nearly half of the more than 1 million people who became U.S. citizens last year, according to a Hispanic advocacy group. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said the number of Latinos who became Americans in fiscal year 2008 more than doubled over the previous year, to 461,317. That's nearly half of the record 1,046,539 new citizens overall in 2008, a 58 percent increase from 2007.
"Latinos who naturalize are eager to demonstrate their commitment to America by becoming full participants in our nation's civic life," said NALEO president Arturo Vargas, whose nonpartisan group works to improve the citizenship process and increase Latino participation in civic activities.
NALEO based its findings on Homeland Security Department data on the number of new citizens last year who immigrated from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries. In a report released in March, the agency attributed the record number of new citizens to the nearly 1.4 million citizenship applications it received in 2007. Most were from people who wanted to beat a $265 increase in the citizenship application fee, from $330 to $595.
But the department also credited "special efforts" by Hispanic media, community groups and a union with high immigrant membership, all of which urged eligible permanent residents to pursue citizenship.
In fiscal year 2008, 231,815 people originally from Mexico became citizens, up almost 90 percent from 2007. Increases in citizenship among Latino immigrants from other countries were: 39,871 from Cuba, up 160 percent from the previous year; 35,796 from El Salvador, up 109 percent; 17,954 from Nicaragua, up 120 percent; and 17,087 from Guatemala, a 109 percent rise.
Most of last year's new Hispanic citizens lived in California, followed by Florida.
Vargas cited the data to encourage the Obama administration and Congress to ease the cost of applying for immigration benefits. How do we get the free goodies?
"Despite the record number of naturalizations, there are still millions of eligible legal permanent residents who have not yet applied for U.S. citizenship or who encounter barriers in the naturalization process," Vargas said. Like rules, laws and paperwork.
Maybe they don't want to be citizens. Maybe they want to retain citizenship in their country of origin. Maybe they're comfortable with their status.
Pentagon officials said Wednesday that the American crew of a U.S.-flagged cargo ship had retaken control from Somali pirates who hijacked the vessel far off the Horn of Africa.
Go Americans!
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because information was still preliminary. But they said the hijacked crew had apparently contacted the private company that operates the ship.
At a noon news conference, Maersk Line Ltd. CEO John Reinhart said that the company was working to contact families of the crew. "Speculation is a dangerous thing when you're in a fluid environment. I will not confirm that the crew has overtaken this ship," he said.
A U.S. official said the crew had retaken control and had one pirate in custody. "The crew is back in control of the ship," a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. "It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew control -- the other three were trying to flee," the official said. The status of the other pirates was unknown, the official said, but they were reported to "be in the water."
The official said the status of the other pirates was unknown but they were reported to "be in the water." The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Another U.S. official, citing a readout from an interagency conference call, said: "Multiple reliable sources are now reporting that the Maersk Alabama is now under control of the U.S. crew. The crew reportedly has one pirate in custody. The status of others is unclear, they are believed to be in the water." Heavily shark infested water. Cue the theme to "Jaws".
#3
It'll be interesting to follow what happens to the sole "disadvantaged yoot" whom they did not toss into the drink.
Maybe The Zero's Justice Department will have him released to the custody of Moderate Muzzies (TM) who will show him how to spend his forthcoming welfare redistributive income.....
#8
Fox News is saying that the pirates are still holding the ship's captain and the crew is in 'negotiations'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/08/2009 14:25
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#9
If I were a shipping company executive, I'd be on the phone looking for a half-dozen martial arts instructors to train my crew in unarmed combat. Ex-Green Berets, Rangers, and Seals, members of the Korean Marines, and even a few Japanese martial arts instructors could mop up, and pirates would find their current occupation not quite so lucrative - or safe.
The other thought that crossed my mind is that we may have our "Q-ship"...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/08/2009 14:43
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#10
The BBC just interviewed an 'expert' who thought exactly that. He called the ship a decoy, out to find pirate 'motherships'
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 15:24
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#11
I think we would be well served if all holders of a Unlimited Tonnage Master Mariner license were required to kill, gut and then hang a pirate from a large vessel's rail at least once in their career.
Maybe make it a requirement of their continuing ed or recert.
#12
Doesn't the fact that the pirates attacked a US flagged vessel give the US Navy license to hunt them down?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/08/2009 17:16
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#13
Rambler in Virginia, the news I heard is that the ship Danish and only the crew is American.
How long before O'Bambi apologizes to the Somalis and offers ACORN assistance to the pirates. So then the pirates will really know how to steal and bully.
#14
Why keep one for evidence? Just get back to port and when anyone asks just say "Pirates? What pirates?"
I'm much in favor of the Malcolm Reynolds solution for people who try to take over your ship and threaten your crew.
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
04/08/2009 17:53
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#15
Rusty ice picks, nails, whatever discretely puncturing the abdominal cavity would ruin one's day, in a slow way. Just sayin'.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/08/2009 18:38
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#16
I can just see it. "Hay captain, make them pirates walk the plank and feed them to the sharks! Its a better fate than keel haulin down this 400 foot ship."
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/08/2009 19:59
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#17
heh - Aussie Mike - another Serenity/Firefly fan :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 20:38
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#18
Ummm, 49 Pan, keelhauling is from side to side, not longways.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/08/2009 21:16
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#19
You betcha, Frank G!
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
04/08/2009 21:31
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#20
Redneck Jim.. there is always room for innovation...
Long works...
#21
3c, in the old days hauling them from bow to stern was known as keelraking. Although it would be fun, especially on a supertanker, keelraking would only work on a ship without screws. Of course, if they came to a halt for a short time, it could be done.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/08/2009 23:25
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#22
I find the screws concern...unnecessary
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 23:47
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Update...
NDJAMENA (AFP) Helicopters led an international military manhunt Wednesday for an armed French foreign legionnaire who killed four people in Chad and fled across the southern Sahara on a stolen horse.
"The guy is dangerous because he is armed and he has a psychological problem," a French military source told AFP on condition of anonymity. "He will have been trained in desert survival techniques, which will make it all the harder to find him."
The private soldier, attached to a European force in the central African desert state, killed two fellow legionnaires late Tuesday plus a Togolese soldier operating within a UN force that is taking over peacekeeping operations. The killings took place inside their military camp, with the runaway legionnaire then shooting a Chadian farmer dead for his horse and taking flight between Abeche and Guereda in north-eastern Chad towards Sudan, his superiors said.
UN agencies highly active in the Abeche region, where camps are home to some 450,000 Sudanese refugees and displaced Chadians, have ordered the local staff to avoid travel because of the risk of running into the renegade. "We have been asked not to move. We've warned our partners in the field," Annette Rehrl of the UH High Commissioner for Refugees office in Abeche told AFP.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin told France Info radio that soldiers are searching for the unnamed man "with everything at our disposal" including help from the Chadian authorities, but that they had yet to locate his whereabouts. Helicopters were scouring the arid terrain -- with just enough trees to enable him to hide from daylight aerial surveillance -- as troops from EUFOR, the UN's MINURCAT mission and Chad, as well as local police, hunted the fugitive.
The French military source said the legionnaire could last several days on the run even in such harsh conditions."We teach them to last several days in difficult conditions and he will be better equipped than a cadet fresh out of university, but we're not talking about Rambo, or the type you see in certain films," the source stressed.
Morin said the authorities had no explanation for the soldier's killing spree "other than that he flipped." He described the man's actions as "totally out of order and intolerable." The minister insisted that the soldier had undergone a series of psychiatric tests before being accepted into the Legion in February 2007 and that none of the examinations had hinted at such potential behaviour. "His marks were good," Morin added.
Captain Christophe Prazuck of the French military high command described the man as "deranged" on Tuesday. "Gunshots were heard in the (military) camp and then the two legionnaires were found and then a little further away the body of the Togolese soldier was discovered," he said.
Within Abeche, "life is going on as normal," a local civil servant told AFP. "Most of the people here haven't been informed of this incident."
#1
This is a problem?
Of course Obamagod can control the sun as his worship desires. (Do I really need to add SARC?)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/08/2009 14:17
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#2
Just when I've finished reading two books that explain that physicists really don't have a clue what they are talking about, their theories don't have an experimental basis and they basically pull facts out of thin air.
#3
So you're gonna to cool the Earth's atmosphere, boobie?
Whatchoo gonna do when that in turn shortens the growing season and we can grow less food around the world? (Assuming you can do it, of course.)
Will you clowns be the first to volunteer to go hungry? Or is that just for the little people, too?
IDIOTS.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/08/2009 15:28
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#4
Sounds like they are hedging their bets. If the earth warms, the "noble" experiment just wasn't enough. If it cools, then that's proof that they "saved" the world from "evil" warming. Since the sun seems to be in a somewhat extended period of low sunspot activity, we are currently having a slight cooling. It may continue to the point that we get some serious cold. It may resume producing sunspots. Science doesn't know enough to be able to predict that. But this new "rainmaker" type hype would be their cover if things do cool down a bit more. Smart move if you want to keep the con going.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
04/08/2009 15:46
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Pakistan has asked for a $30 billion Marshall Plan-like package for Pakistan and Afghanistan over the next five years to fight the al-Qaeda, blunt anti-American sentiment and secure Pakistan from extremists bent on destabilising its civilian government.
The demand was made by Pakistan's Ambassador to U.S. Husain Haqqani in an interview with the Washington Times published on Wednesday.
'Demand'?
Mr. Haqqani, who plans to attend an international donors meeting for Pakistan in Tokyo next week, said that the cost to the West was negligible compared to that of rescuing failing banks and corporations.
Except that these are our banks ...
"And the impact in terms of American security and in terms of the longer term stability of the world in a very precarious region will be far greater," he said, claiming "Pakistan has the will to fight terrorists, it needs the means and the United States should provide those."
So they're threatening not to fight terrorism. Question is, will we notice?
The ambassador denied published reports that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was helping the Taliban, which the spy agency helped create 20 years ago. "There are contacts for source building," Mr. Haqqani said. "The era of active support for jihadis is over."
As of when?
Mr. Haqqani said he understood concerns regarding Pakistan's past efforts to fight Taliban extremism in the region, but that the ruling Pakistan People's Party is fully committed to the war on terror and to partnership with the U.S.. "It is time for our allies, our partners, especially the United States, to understand that any misgivings and disagreements that relate to the past should not come in the way of helping Pakistan in the present and for the future," he said.
He cautioned, however, that it would take time to change attitudes in Pakistan. "This is not a switch that can be turned on and off," he said. It "takes a while for the counter-narrative to be accepted."
"How long a while?"
"A very long while!"
Despite Mr. Haqqani's assurances that the Zardari government is gaining in strength, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman last week introduced a bill that would withhold U.S. military aid to Pakistan unless the president certifies that it is not supporting terrorist attacks on India.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
12:14 ||
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#3
Barry's big on "pay for performance". How about 5 billion for Bin Laden's head on a stick, 4 Billion for Zawahiri's, 3 billion for Blinky's...
Show us the heads, we'll show you the money.
#5
At least with the banks there's some hope that a bailout will work, but with Pakistain, you know it will not. We could pour $30 trillion into that black hole and see nothing positive emerge.
#6
What's the incentive for Pakistan to stop sponsoring islamic terrorism when the US is willing to provide their entire military budget and then some? Seems to me that Pakistan's underhanded sponsorship of the WTC attacks was the smartest, though high risk, thing they have done since independence from Britain.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 22:35
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DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) A suspected U.S. missile strike on a car killed two alleged militants and a civilian in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, intelligence officials said, a day after the U.S.-allied country reiterated its opposition to such attacks to visiting American officials.
The suspected strike indicates the Obama administration is unlikely to give up a Bush-era tactic American officials say has killed a string of al-Qaida operatives, even if it strains the relationship with Islamabad.
The attack came as residents elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest tried to push out a group of Taliban militants who ventured into their territory from their stronghold in the Swat Valley and killed five people. In the south, meanwhile, police announced the arrest of five men alleged to be planning suicide attacks on the city of Karachi.
The latest suspected missile strike occurred near Wana, the main town in the South Waziristan tribal region, according to two local intelligence officials. A drone had been flying over the area, and the missile landed after people in the car fired at the aircraft, the officials said, citing informants and agents in the field.
The attack also damaged some shops in the village of Shin Warsak, wounding at least five villagers and killing one, they said.
One of the intelligence officials said the slain militants were from Pakistan's eastern Punjab province. The officials said Taliban fighters took away their associates' bodies. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Key members of the Congressional Black Caucus are calling for an end to U.S. prohibition on travel to Cuba, just hours after a meeting with former Cuban president Fidel Castro in Havana.
"The fifty-year embargo just hasn't worked," CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca.) told reporters this evening at a Capitol press conference after returning from a congressional delegation visit to Cuba. "The bottom line is that we believe its time to open dialogue with Cuba."
Lee and others heaped praise on Castro, calling him warm and receptive during their discussion. But the lawmakers disputed Castro's later statement that members of the congressional delegation said American society is still racist. We have never, ever said anything like that.
"It was quite a moment to behold," Lee said, recalling her moments with Castro.
"It was almost like listening to an old friend," said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), adding that he found Castro's home to be modest and Castro's wife to be particularly hospitable. "In my household I told Castro he is known as the ultimate survivor," Rush said. My hero, swoooon.
Doesn't Fidel ever get tired of the tongue baths?
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Ca.) said Castro was receptive to President Obama's message of turning the page in American foreign policy. "He listened. He said the exact same thing" about turning the page "as President Obama said," said Richardson.
Richardson said Castro knew her name and district. "He looked right into my eyes and he said, 'How can we help? How can we help President Obama?'"
President Obama vowed during the 2008 presidential campaign to loosen the longstanding travel embargo on Cuba, and Lee -- who has been pushing for an end to travel and trade restrictions for some time - said now was as good a time as any to change the way the two countries did business.
There is now serious momentum in long-standing efforts to overturn the nearly five decade ban on travel and trade with Cuba. Previous efforts have been blocked by a vocal and influential Cuban American community, and former President Bush's veto threats on legislation to overturn the prohibitions have kept such proposals at bay.
In a statement following the meeting today, Castro said that the delegation had expressed to him that a segment of American society "continues to be racist," and is at least partly to blame for the travel restrictions.
But the delegation this evening said those remarks were not expressed in the meeting. Before and after but not in the meeting.
"That did not happen," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), told reporters.
#1
Nice. No acknowledgement of how the Castro regime has denigrated the swarthy amongst the Cubano population. Racism lives in Cuba. Intelligence and irony doesn't, apparently, among the leftist black caucus
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 11:58
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#2
This has got to be a BO administration overture to Cuba. It didn't happen without Obama's approval. The Black Caucus is a tool for BO. Does the majority of the black population who this caucus represents really want this to happen? How about asking the Cuban-Americans what they think.
#4
Congressional Black Caucus = The new House Negros.
How was the Masser's House, Ms Lee?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/08/2009 13:52
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#5
"It was almost like listening to an old friend," said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.),
Yeah, too bad the Panthers turned out to be some kinda cartoonish sixties joke, eh, Bobby? That could've been Fidel talking about you instead of the other way around...
#6
Inquiring minds must wonder if their redeployment back to the "bigoted, racist United States of America" included a few days shopping swarrey in the Caribbean?
#7
Do these dip-sh_ts know that just about every other country trades with Cuba?
Cuba is not the way it is because of the US embargo; Cuba is the way it is because that's how Castro wants it to be.
I also wonder if they enjoyed Castro's rubber anus as much as Hugo does.
Posted by: Bob ||
04/08/2009 15:48
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#8
Immigration to Cuba's workers paradise from the poor and oppressed in these congresscritters districts to begin in 10...9...8, oh wait, never mind.
Just how much is The Globe losing The Times? Executives told union leaders that the paper lost $50 million last year, and would lose $85 million this year.
But why did the Times Company threaten The Globe with a shutdown? It's something we've seen a bit of recently: The Newhouses did it with The Star-Ledger in Newark; the Hearst corporation with the San Francisco Chronicle. For a company as big as this, $20 million doesn't seem like a make-or-break sort of cut, especially when the paper is supposedly losing so much more.
And, as Mr. Keller said, Boston is an elite market. The New England Media Group, with The Globe representing the biggest breadwinner, brought in $523 million in revenue last year--not exactly chump change. Can an organization with $523 million in revenue really be on its last limbs over $20 million?
"At this point, it's primarily a negotiating strategy," said John Morton, the newspaper analyst. "The likelihood that The Times would shut down The Globe is pretty remote, but it does suggest that no company is required to lose $50 million a year."
This is the Sulzberger-Ochs family, we've been told more than once: They build newspapers, they don't dismantle them. So what is the real breaking point for The Boston Globe?
"It's really the trend," said Ed Atorino, the analyst from Benchmark Company who specializes in media. "The single number is not the key. If you're losing $85 million and you thought next year it's $40 million, you would ride it out. But if you're losing $85 million and you think the next year it's going to $100 million, and you think there's no stopping it, you can't let this continue."
While patient safety in US hospitals is improving, "medical mistakes still occur at an alarming rate," according to the sixth annual HealthGrades study of patient safety in American hospitals, released today.
Between 2005 and 2007, medical errors cost Medicare over $6.9 billion and were responsible for more than 92,000 potentially preventable in-hospital deaths among Medicare beneficiaries, report Dr. Rick May and others at HealthGrades, a healthcare ratings organization in Golden, Colorado.
May's group used a Medicare database to evaluate 12 patient safety indicators at nearly 5000 hospitals. The 242 best-performing hospitals were recognized with the HealthGrades 2009 Patient Safety Excellence Award.
#2
Note that this is of Medicare patients. Medicare pushes for high patient turnover rates, so doctors and nurses have less time per patient, and patients are shuttled about faster than are private patients.
Medicare is also oriented towards older patients, who it has long been noted get inferior care compared to younger patients.
I did see one hospital where they confronted this head on. They went to great lengths to take their time and do a good job with each patient, and both the quality of care and patient satisfaction went up strongly.
The secretary's new budget will leave us weaker to pay for the president's domestic programs.
By THOMAS DONNELLY and GARY SCHMITT
On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a significant reordering of U.S. defense programs. His recommendations should not go unchallenged.
In the 1990s, defense cuts helped pay for increased domestic spending, and that is true today. Though Mr. Gates said that his decisions were "almost exclusively influenced by factors other than simply finding a way to balance the books," the broad list of program reductions and terminations suggest otherwise. In fact, he tacitly acknowledged as much by saying the budget plan represented "one of those rare chances to match virtue to necessity" -- the "necessity" of course being the administration's decision to reorder the government's spending priorities.
However, warfare is not a human activity that directly awards virtue. Nor is it a perfectly calculable endeavor that permits a delicate "balancing" of risk. More often it rewards those who arrive on the battlefield "the fustest with the mostest," as Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest once put it. If Mr. Gates has his way, U.S. forces will find it increasingly hard to meet the Forrest standard. Consider a few of the details of the Gates proposals:
- The termination of the F-22 Raptor program at just 187 aircraft inevitably will call U.S. air supremacy -- the salient feature, since World War II, of the American way of war -- into question.
The need for these sophisticated, stealthy, radar-evading planes is already apparent. During Russia's invasion of Georgia, U.S. commanders wanted to fly unmanned surveillance aircraft over the region, and requested that F-22s sanitize the skies so that the slow-moving drones would be protected from Russian fighters or air defenses. When the F-22s were not made available, likely for fear of provoking Moscow, the reconnaissance flights were cancelled.
The authors began to come off the rails here. They claim that we need the F-22 as an air superiority fighter to 'sanitize the skies'. But the decision not to deploy the F-22 in Georgia was a political one, not one based on the scarcity of the airplane. If we had a full complement of F-22s the political decision would have been the same. One can have a superior military force but not the will to use it (e.g., France, 1940). At the other end of political judgment, 'sanitizing' the Georgian skies would indeed have been a dangerous provocation. Do we do that for the sake of surveillance? Again, a political decision, and one can argue that the Bush administration made the correct, prudent decision.
As the air-defense and air-combat capabilities of other nations, most notably China, increase, the demand for F-22s would likewise rise. And the Air Force will have to manage this small fleet of Raptors over 30 years. Compare that number with the 660 F-15s flying today, but which are literally falling apart at the seams from age and use. The F-22 is not merely a replacement for the F-15; it also performs the functions of electronic warfare and other support aircraft.
We will have about 180 F-22s. The issue is, do we have enough of those given the likelihood that we'll need to use them in a conflict against a country that can deploy and fight with its own fifth generation air superiority fighter? Only two such countries challenge us over the next two decades: China and Russia. Russia is going to implode for demographic reasons (not that they couldn't be dangerous in doing so), and China prefers to use its military force as a threat to bully others. The actual chance that we'll go to war with either is small.
Note that the F-22 hasn't flown a single mission in Iraq and won't fly one in Afghanistan. It's also known as a bit of a hanger queen. Is it worth $150 million a copy to have a bunch of planes that we might not use? Seems to me that's what Mr. Gates is paid to decide.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gates is further postponing the already decades-long search for a replacement for the existing handful of B-2 bombers.
Smart decision. We don't need a new manned bomber.
We have two situations in which we need to drop a lot of bombs: situations where we have air supremacy, in which case we could just as easily heave bombs out the back of a C-17, and situations requiring high-risk, deep penetration against a prepared enemy, in which case a cruise missile or super-UAV may be the better answer.
- The U.S. Navy will continue to shrink below the fleet size of 313 ships it set only a few years ago. Although Mr. Gates has rightly decided to end the massive and expensive DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer program, there will be additional reductions to the surface fleet. The number of aircraft carriers will drop eventually to 10. The next generation of cruisers will be delayed, and support-ship projects stretched out. Older Arleigh Burke destroyers will be upgraded and modernized, but at less-than-needed rates.
How many carriers do we need? Again, that's Mr. Gates' job to decide. Canceling the CG-X and the DDX seem like good decisions.
The good news is that Mr. Gates will not to reduce the purchases of the Littoral Combat Ship, which can be configured for missions from antipiracy to antisubmarine warfare. But neither will he buy more than the 55 planned for by the previous Bush administration. And the size and structure of the submarine fleet was studiously not mentioned. The Navy's plan to begin at last to procure two attack submarines per year -- absolutely vital considering the pace at which China is deploying new, quieter subs -- is uncertain, at best.
We have Los Angeles class boats sitting in reserve that we don't sail because we don't need them. Cheaper to fire them up for another ten years than to build more subs. And the LCS program has been way over budget. Again, how do you get the best bang for your buck? Maybe expensive littoral combat ships aren't the answer, perhaps cheaper patrol ships are best.
- Mr. Gates has promised to "restructure" the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program, arguing that the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan have called into question the need for new ground combat vehicles. The secretary noted that the Army's modernization plan does not take into account the $25 billion investment in the giant Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles. But it's hard to think of a more specialized and less versatile vehicle.
Whereas the FCS vehicles depend on magic to survive in a battlefield environment.
The MRAP was ideal for dealing with the proliferation of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. But the FCS vehicle -- with a lightweight yet better-protected chassis, greater fuel efficiency and superior off-road capacity -- is far more flexible and useful for irregular warfare. Further, the ability to form battlefield "networks" will make FCS units more effective than the sum of their individual parts. Delaying modernization means that future generations of soldiers will conduct mounted operations in the M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles designed in the 1970s. Finally, Mr. Gates capped the size of the U.S. ground force, ignoring all evidence that it is too small to handle current and future major contingencies.
No, Mr. Gates said that he'd rather have 45 combat brigades fully manned and ready to fight than 48 brigades that have been hollowed out.
- The proposed cuts in space and missile defense programs reflect a retreat in emerging environments that are increasingly critical in modern warfare. The termination of the Airborne Laser and Transformational Satellite programs is especially discouraging.
The Airborne Laser is the most promising form of defense against ballistic missiles in the "boost phase," the moments immediately after launch when the missiles are most vulnerable. This project was also the military's first operational foray into directed energy, which will be as revolutionary in the future as "stealth" technology has been in recent decades. The Transformational Satellite program employs laser technology for communications purposes, providing not only enhanced bandwidth -- essential to fulfill the value of all kinds of information networks -- but increased security.
Most folks on Rantburg would agree that missile defense is something we need more of, not less. But these decisions, I suspect, come from the White House and not Gates.
Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically.
Defense is not being cut: it is being restructured. Program costs are going up over last year, not down. The issue is always: you can't have everything you want so you have to set priorities.
The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.
We may have a smaller military. That might be a mistake. We'll retain more 'wallop' than anyone else. The real issue is political: whatever military we have, will we use it, and use it intelligently, when required?
Mr. Donnelly is a resident fellow and Mr. Schmitt is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They are co-editors of "Of Men and Materiel: the Crisis in Military Resources" (AEI, 2007).
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
10:46 ||
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Infiltrators from Pakistan are making one of the most organised and concerted bids since the Kargil war to cross the LoC and enter Jammu & Kashmir.
The army is locked in encounters with heavily armed infiltrators at eight locations along the LoC. As many as 400 militants are reportedly waiting to cross over from Pakistan and target the Lok Sabha elections.
Intense gunbattles are on in Uri, Baramulla, Kupwara, Lolab, Kangan, Wusan, Hafruda forests and Gurez. Sources said that 20 to 40 militants may have managed to sneak in.
The army has air dropped para-commandos into the cordoned off forests of Gurez to flush out suspected Taliban militants. A fierce encounter is on.
The army has cordoned off around 60 square kilometres of the Gurez forests adjoining the LoC at Hafruda. The terrorists have probably come in from several pockets in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Sources told Headlines Today that radio intercepts between two Lashkar-e-Toiba men talking to a third one led to the suspicion that these militants belong to the Taliban. The militants were helped by the Lashkar and the ISI to cross the LoC.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009
09:42 ||
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#1
Should just crash a old remote controled empty airliner full of a ammonium nitrate slurry into one of the waiting areas....
Just to make things interesting... SOS we are crashing... Oh oh .. bang...
The Obama administration has raised the prospect of selling Standard Missile-3 missile defense system, produced by Raytheon sea-based missile defense system to Israel. In return, the administration would end the current Missile Defense Agency program to develop and deploy the Arrow-3, an enhanced version of Israel's medium-tier interceptor.
SM-3, deployed on U.S. Navy cruisers, has been regarded as the most effective system to intercept enemy ballistic missiles. "SM-3 could complement Israel's existing missile defense network and the fact that its sea-based would enable the interception of ballistic missiles in the initial stage of launch," an official said.
The administration offer was part of a White House plan to cut U.S. missile defense procurement and development over the next two years. Unlike the previous administration, Obama was said to be skeptical over the effectiveness of a U.S. missile defense network.
"There is pressure that whatever U.S. [missile defense] funds are left should go to American companies without any participation of foreign partners," the official said.
Arrow-3 has marked a partnership between Boeing and the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries. Arrow-3, expected to be deployed by 2013, was designed to intercept missiles at an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, which would enable the destruction of enemy nuclear warheads.
#2
That's how I read it, though the Arrow has our hand in it as well.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009 12:59
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#3
95% of the cost of developing the Arrow was paid by US taxpayers. The interesting parts are made by US defense contractors. About of the cost of deployment comes directly from Uncle Sam. In reality, the vast majority likely comes from the US taxpayer via the Israeli share coming from the $3B annual military aid.
Putting the foot down on Arrow-3 serves to consolidate US BMD dollars into fewer overlapping systems.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 22:18
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#4
About of the cost = About half of the cost
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 22:19
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Obama's staffing problems are blatant -- from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be. There has been one needless gaffe after another -- from the president's tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives? The silence of the major media was a disgrace. But I attribute that embarrassing incident not to Obama's sinister or naive appeasement of the Muslim world but to a simple if costly breakdown in basic command of protocol.
#1
Dare not be the first servant to tarnish the crown of the beloved Lightworker! This lack of accomplishment can only be attributed to limitations associated with mere mortals. Bring us the head of the One's éminence grise.
Somali pirates seized a Danish-owned, U.S.-operated container ship on Wednesday with 21 American crew on board in the latest of a sharp rise in attacks off the Horn of Africa nation, a maritime group said.
Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme said the 17,000 ton vessel was hijacked in the Indian Ocean 400 miles off the Somali capital Mogadishu. He said all the crew were believed to be safe, and that the vessel had been tentatively identified as the Maersk Alabama.
Perhaps this is the crisis Joe Biden has been waiting for ...
Gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend.
In the first three months of 2009 only eight ships had been hijacked in the busy Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal.
Last year, heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage, often for weeks, and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms. Foreign navies rushed warships to the area in response and have reduced the number of successful attacks in recent months. But there are still near-daily attempts and the pirates have started hunting further afield near the Seychelles.
On Monday, they hijacked a British-owned, Italian-operated ship with 16 Bulgarian crew members on board. Over the weekend, they also seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug and a 20,000-tonne German container vessel. Interfax news agency said the Hansa Stavanger had a German captain, three Russians, two Ukrainians and 14 Filipinos on board.
The pirates typically use speed boats launched from "mother ships," which means they can sometimes evade foreign navies patrolling the busy shipping lanes and strike far out to sea. They take captured vessels to remote coastal village bases in Somalia, where they have usually treated their hostages well in anticipation of a sizeable ransom payment.
Pirates stunned the shipping industry last year when they seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. The Sirius Star and its 25 crew were freed in January after $3 million was parachuted onto its deck.
Last September, they also grabbed world headlines seizing a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet-era T-72 tanks. It was released in February, reportedly for a $3.2 million ransom. What a disgrace. It's past time to deploy Marine security teams and naval gunners on these ships when they are about to enter lawless waters. Thomas Jefferson wouldn't have stood for it.
#1
We should declare war on Somalia and clear out the pirate havens. If this means the fishing fleets in the Horn are eliminated too, so be it. It will help restore the balance of the ecosystem in the area.
#2
In Roman times piracy became a real nuisance, finally fed up w/the sea dogs Pompey Magnus put together a crack fleet and basically went to war on them insofar as to burn their home ports. The pirate threat died out w/in about 3 months.
#3
It will be interesting to see if Barry initiates the Jimmy Carter, Tehran hostage negotiation, do nothing protocal. I doubt he remembers the details of the incident. That affair was just over 30 years ago, and no one knows for certain what Barry was actually doing back then, fog of time or fog of something, etc.
#4
Nah - Barry will act swiftly and decisively to meet whatever the pirate's demand - thus putting a price on the head of any American in a foreign country.
#5
Not so sure CF. The ship is a Danish, as in Danish Mooslim cartoons, and owned by A.P. Møller - Mærsk A/S, an old, highly successfully, investor owned company. The ship is named the... A l a b a m a. This may drag on for a while.
WASHINGTON The Pentagon says it appears the American crew of a hijacked ship has regained control of the vessel.
Pentagon sources spoke on condiiton of anonymity because informatiomn was still preliminary. But sources say the hijacked crew apparently contacted the private shipping company they work for.
The shipping company, Maersk, has scheduled a noon press conference in Norfolk, Va.
#14
NAIROBI, Kenya Pentagon officials said Wednesday that the American crew of a U.S.-flagged cargo ship had retaken control from Somali pirates who hijacked the vessel far off the Horn of Africa.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because information was still preliminary. But they said the hijacked crew had apparently contacted the private company that operates the ship.
At a noon news conference, Maersk Line Ltd. CEO John Reinhart said that the company was working to contact families of the crew. "Speculation is a dangerous thing when you're in a fluid environment. I will not confirm that the crew has overtaken this ship," he said.
A U.S. official said the crew had retaken control and had one pirate in custody. The official said the status of the other pirates was unknown but they were reported to "be in the water." The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The ship was carrying emergency relief to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was hijacked, said Peter Beck-Bang, spokesman for the Copenhagen-based container shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk.
#16
Being ex Navy, those merchant marines I knew were a rough bunch, threw them overside? GOOD
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/08/2009 12:27
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Capt. Joseph Murphy, an instructor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, told The Associated Press the Department of Defense that his son Shane, the second in command on the ship, had called him to say the crew had regained control.
"The crew is back in control of the ship," a U.S. official said at midday, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. "It's reported that one pirate is on board under crew controlthe other three were trying to flee," the official said. The status of the other pirates was unknown, the official said, but they were reported to "be in the water."
Posted by: Stephen Wilson ||
04/08/2009 12:37
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#19
American crew members aboard a U.S.-flagged ship have regained control of the vessel hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia Wednesday, FOX News confirms.
One pirate is reportedly in custody. A U.S. official said the status of the other pirates is unknown but they were reported to "be in the water."
"All the crew members are trained in security detail in how to deal with piracy," Maersk CEO John Reinhart told reporters. "As merchant vessels we do not carry arms. We have ways to push back, but we do not carry arms."
The U.S. Navy ordered its ships to the scene after pirates commandeered the Maersk Alabama cargo ship crewed by 20 U.S. citizens early Wednesday morning. Officials would not say how many Navy ships are on the scene nor would it confirm the nationality of the crew members, but sources told FOX News the Danish-owned ship is operated by U.S. shipping company, Maersk Line Limited.
Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said he has "no information to suggest the 20 crew members of the Maersk Alabama have been harmed by the pirates."
During its one communication with the ship, Maersk was told the crew was safe, Reinhart said. He would not release the names of the crew members.
#20
For the other *15* ships still in pirate hands, start delivering ransom payments spiked with GPS transmitters and 24-48 hours later fire at will on whatever coordinates show up.
#22
Roll Alabama Roll. Not the Crimson Tide, it's a Civil War song about the CSS Alabama.
When the Alabamas keel was laid,
Roll, Alabama Roll.
It was laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird,
Roll, Alabama, Roll!
It was laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird,
Roll, Alabama, Roll!
It was laid in the town of Birkenhead
Oh Roll, Alabama, Roll.
Down the Mersey ways she rolled then,
Roll, Alabama, roll.
Liverpool fitted her with guns and men
Roll, Alabama, roll.
And across the Western she ploughed her way.
Oh, roll, Alabama, roll!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/08/2009 13:19
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#23
Expect an apology to the pirates from Washington in 10, 9, 8, 7, ....
Said Namouh's computer held all sorts of videos, of American soldiers being blown up, the executions of "infidels" and a how-to guide on suicide attacks. But are these "jihadi" videos, and hundreds of online conversations drawn from the basement computer of the Moroccan native the underpinnings of terrorism, or were they simply the goings-on of a man practising his right to free expression? It's a central question to a case unfolding in a Montreal courtroom that is challenging the constitutionality of Canada's terror laws.
"This whole business of promoting and advocating jihad is the heart of the case," said Namouh's lawyer, René Duval, outside the courtroom yesterday. "They believe my client has advocated criminal acts through jihad by putting things on the Internet."
Duval contends that the terror laws, pushed through Parliament following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, contravene the constitutional rights to freedom of expression and religion. "They have the potential to catch both speech that is acceptable and that which is not," Duval said.
Namouh faces charges of conspiracy as well as participating in and facilitating the activities of a terrorist group, and extortion on behalf of a terrorist group. The Crown says Namouh, 36, was a key member of the Global Islamic Media Front, considered a major propaganda arm of such terrorist groups as Al Qaeda. It's alleged Namouh edited, subtitled and disseminated many of the videos himself.
A resident of Maskinongé, about 100 kilometres northeast of Montreal, Namouh was arrested on Sept. 13, 2007, for his alleged role in plotting terror attacks in Germany and Austria over their military role in Afghanistan.
Yesterday's court proceedings revolved heavily around whether actions targeted by the legislation are forms of expression protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they don't involve violence. Judge Claude Leblond asked Duval if speech that encourages people to be martyrs or jihadists "is speech that supports and does not undermine freedom of expression?"
"It's a genre of speech that is better controlled in the market of ideas than by legislation," Duval replied. Earlier, Duval told the judge, "when we criminalize propaganda, we criminalize a form of speech."
Crown prosecutor Dominique Dudemaine, however, said the basic concept of jihad, which can be interpreted as "struggle," is not what the legislation is aimed at. It's the "incitement to blow something up." Dudemaine referred to judgments that have upheld Canada's terror laws, including last fall's conviction of Momin Khawaja, the first person charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Khawaja was found guilty of financing and facilitating terrorism and was sentenced last month to 10 1/2 years in prison. On balance, Dudemaine said, "the legislation is valid because it doesn't infringe on any rights."
Among the many videos the Crown attributes to Namouh is one of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza in 2007 by the Army of Islam, a group affiliated with GIMF. (Johnston has been since freed.)
Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal region have decided to shelve plans to kill Canadian hostage Beverly Giesbrecht, but her captors are apparently still holding out for a ransom before releasing her. "After broad-based consultations, the Shura [leadership council] has postponed indefinitely the plan to kill the woman," said Qari, a close associate of Taliban commander Gul Bahadur, who asked to be identified by his first name only.
The abduction of Ms. Giesbrecht, 53, has become a sensitive issue, and tribesmen of the embattled area are reluctant to speak on the matter openly. However, some locals said that while there is no hard information about her release, it could come at any time. In a video released last month, the West Vancouver resident said her captors warned that they would behead her if their demands for $375,000 (U.S.) weren't met by the end of March. That deadline was later extended to April 6.
She was seized at gunpoint in the Bannu region of northern Pakistan in November. The local government offered the captors a lower amount of money for her release, but it was rejected as "too little to be considered," according to both a Taliban source and a tribal elder negotiating her release. "For the time being, we failed to patch up the deal to secure her release," said a tribal elder who is part of the negotiation team and who did not want his name revealed. "But I am optimistic she will be freed."
Ms. Giesbrecht is a convert to Islam who also calls herself Khadija Abdul Qahaar. She publishes a pro-Islamic website, Jihad Unspun, and went to Pakistan last summer to conduct research as a freelance journalist.
When asked about reports of her deteriorating health, the tribal elder said: "I have not met or seen her, but we are told that she often feels weak and unwell."
Neither sources within the Taliban nor the tribal negotiator would reveal any information about her translator or driver, who were also abducted. Taliban officials have previously said their fate would be decided once Ms. Giesbrecht's situation is resolved.
The Canadian embassy in Islamabad has been working behind the scenes with Pakistani authorities to help secure her release. "We are in contact with all the concerned Pakistani authorities. And it is the prime responsibility of the host country to protect the lives and properties of guests," an official with the Canadian embassy said yesterday.
An official with the local government administration in North Waziristan, a rugged region along the Afghan border, said they were "making all-out efforts to get her out from their [Taliban] captivity at every cost."
#3
Perhaps the Taliban hostage takers have been able to collect a few thousand dollars and they figure maybe they can get the $375k a few thousand per month forever.
#4
go ahead, we double-dog-dare-ya, ya cowards with weak moustaches
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 14:29
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Bummer. No ransom money and if you whack her it just gets lost in the undending stream of news stories of muslims killing muslims. Some days it just don't pay to get out of bed.
#6
Ms. Giesbrecht is a convert to Islam who also calls herself Khadija Abdul Qahaar. She publishes a pro-Islamic website, Jihad Unspun
I'd chip in to pay them to keep her.
A week after an ax-wielding terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin killing a young boy and wounding another boy, at least sixteen Palestinians were wounded in a clash with Bat Ayin settlers.
From the initial investigation into the incident it seems that the Palestinians began the violence when they attacked the settlers, who were walking from Bat Ayin to the cemetery at the nearby settlement of Kfar Etzion on Wednesday morning, Army Radio reported.
The Palestinians, however, claimed that the settlers entered their village shooting in the air and damaging their property.
IDF soldiers arrived at the scene in order to break up the clash. However, the Palestinians said that the soldiers did not prevent the settlers from firing their weapons.
The IDF said that due to massive stone hurling, the soldiers used riot gear to stop the clash, including rubber bullets. But when the vioelnce continued the troops were ordered to shoot at the legs of some of the stone hurlers.
Learning from the Paleos? Shoot 'em in the feet?
There were conflicting reports regarding the number of people hurt in the clash. According to the latest report by Army Radio, 18 Palestinians were hurt in the clash. One man was moderately-seriously wounded, seven were moderately wounded, and ten were lightly wounded.
While stressing that it was an unlikely event, US Vice President Joe Biden issued a high-level admonishment to the new government, saying on Tuesday night that Israel would be "ill-advised" to carry out a military strike against Iran. Just get on the train, Juden!
#4
"You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening...
Relax, Joe, he's talking about Iran, not your boss. Get ahold of yourself...
A day after US President Barack Obama reiterated his commitment to the Annapolis process and the road map peace plan, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Tuesday that the new government will formulate a diplomatic program compatible with the wishes of the electorate.
But the world "should not stand over us with a stopwatch," he added in an address at an Israel Beiteinu forum in Jerusalem.
Saying that after 16 years of a diplomatic "dead end" in the peace process, the world must be ready to listen to new ideas
Cheez, telling the truth isn't going to get him very far as a diplomat ...
HANOI, Vietnam -- Sen. John McCain paid a quiet visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison where he was held for more than five years during the Vietnam War on Wednesday, making a few deadpan remarks as he made his way through dark corridors and past musty cells.
McCain allowed reporters to follow him while he escorted Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina through the prison.
Vietnam's communist government has turned the facility into a museum. It was originally used by French colonialists to hold Vietnamese revolutionaries, then used by the North Vietnamese after they took power to house Americans captured during the Vietnam War. The prison was called Hoa Lo but was widely known by the nickname "The Hanoi Hilton" among U.S. soldiers.
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It means shepherds at the farm may need to use methods such as beating the ground with sticks and waving their arms to control the flock.
Sheepdogs herding a flock may be a familiar farmyard scene, but it could soon be confined to the past if bosses at Tesco have their way. The supermarket chain has told its major supplier of lamb to stop using dogs, which it claims cause stress to the animals.
It means shepherds at the farm may need to use methods such as beating the ground with sticks and waving their arms to control the flock.
Wouldn't that also stress the sheep?
Outraged staff at Silver Fern Farms in Fairton, New Zealand may now have to get rid of up to 60 dogs to comply with the orders, meaning several of the animals will be destroyed. Shepherd Mick Pethram told the Telegraph newspaper: 'New Zealand sheep are used to dogs, they know dogs. There's more stress in a human herding and manhandling them, waving their arms and beating sticks. Dogs are part of a sheep's life. This is absolute baloney.'
He continued: 'We'll be desperately trying to sell them, but most of us will end up putting down three or four each. These are good dogs. Taking away our dogs is like taking a hammer away from a builder; we can't do our job without them.'
In New Zealand, abattoirs are attached to farms and dogs are usually used to herd the sheep before slaughter. Buyers for Tesco visited Silver Ferns Farm, which is one of the chain's biggest suppliers of lamb, earlier this year and were said to be upset at the dogs 'running riot'. A spokesperson for the store said: ' We don't have a problem with sheepdogs, but we need to make sure they treat the sheep in a considerate manner, so they don't stress the sheep out.'
Scientists have found evidence that causing stress to animals before slaughter can cause the meat to become pale and watery. However a spokesperson for the National Farmers Union said there was no evidence that sheepdogs caused animals to feel stressed.
#3
' We don't have a problem with sheepdogs, but we need to make sure they treat the sheep in a considerate manner, so they don't stress the sheep out.'
Anthropomorphic twits.
Anyone who has ever been around sheep and watched a good sheepdog (a thing of beauty in itself) trying to do its duties knows why it 'runs riot' when trying to control them. Domestic sheep are pretty stupid, 'stressed out' most of the time anyway and don't follow human orders well (even beating the ground with sticks would only cause them to look at you once or twice and go back to grazing). You need to push, shove, drag or 'nip' them to get them to go in a predetermined direction.
My great uncle (who kept a few) told me that the domestic sheep would be one of the first animals to die off if humans ever became extinct as they are pretty incapable of fending for themselves, other than eating whatever is around them.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/08/2009 8:09
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#4
The West is rapidly committing cultural suicide.
#5
I believe New Zealand and Australia are leading suppliers of mutton to Saudi and other ME markets. Sounds like the Muzzies are 'offended' again and supermarket is bowing to Muslims.
Views are gaining ground among politicians in Seoul that South Korea needs to extend the range of its ballistic missiles now that North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket has shown its own can fly thousands of miles.
South Korea is by agreement limited to missiles with a range of 300 km and a maximum payload of 500 kg.
Not for much longer. Here you go, China, another neighbor who's arming up because you won't curb your dog. Wonder what the Taiwanese (you know, the Republic of Taiwan) are planning?
Prime Minister Han Seung-soo on Monday hinted Seoul could seek a revision of the Korean-U.S. missile agreement, saying, "Now is the time to think seriously of this matter at bilateral defense ministers' talks." The current range does not even extend as far as the North's missile launch pad in Musudan-ri.
Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan in the National Assembly on Tuesday said, "At the moment, we're reviewing" a revision of the bilateral missile agreement. When Grand National Party lawmaker Gu Sang-chan asked if the aim of getting the North's missile capabilities under control, as set forth by South Korea when it acceded to the U.S.-led Missile Technology Control Regime in 2001, had been thwarted, Yu said yes.
Military experts say now is the right time to seek extension of the range of missiles. "I think that the U.S. now has a weaker justification for restricting the range of Korea's ballistic missiles, as the North's latest rocket launch proves," said former vice defense minister Park Yong-ok.
Seoul and Washington agreed on the missile guidelines in January 2001. The same year, Seoul also acceded to the MTCR which strictly bans member states from transferring missile-related technologies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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#1
OTOH, WORLD MILITARY FORUM > IIUC NORTH KOREA IS CHINA'S NATURAL NE STRATEGIC BUFFER ZONE. WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR CHINA IS KOREAN UNIFICATION WITH AN ANTI-CHIN, PRO-AMERICAN GOVT. LOSS OF DRPK MEANS NOT ONLY THE END OF CHIN'S NE STRATEGIC BUFFER ZONE BUT ALSO A "RIPPLE/DOMINO EFFECT" OF ANTI-CHINA REGIONAL GEOPOL CHAOSES THROUGHOUT EAST-SOUTH ASIA.
Also on WMF > REPORT: CHINA TO PROCEED WITH RAPID FULL-SCALE DEVELOPMENT OF MEDIUM-SIZED AIRCARFT CARRIERS.
#2
ION SAME > INDIA'S LARGEST OPPOSITION PARTY
[BJP] DEMANDS FULL DEVELOPMENT OF "NEW BERLIN WALL" IN NORTHEAST INDIA AND JIMMU-KASHMIR [LOC]TO STOP OR CURB CROSS-BORDER MILITANCY [despite costs].
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] An Arab motorist was shot and killed in east Jerusalem Tuesday morning after hitting three border policemen, who were overseeing the demolition of the home of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a lethal bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last year.
Cops attacked during demolition of terrorist's home
The three security personnel, who were manning a security checkpoint in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Bahir, jumped out of the way and were lightly wounded in the attack, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.
Clashes erupted at the scene of the shooting, as about 50 Palestinians stoned the heavily armed border police, who fired back with tear gas. The driver's body was laid out on the street under a white plastic sheet with one of his hands sticking out. The windshield of his white Seat car was shattered by some 20 bullet holes.
The demolition crew was destroying the top floor of a two-story home where 30-year-old Hussam Dwayat had lived. In July 2008, Dwayat used a huge yellow bulldozer that he worked with on a Jerusalem railway project in a deadly rampage down a main city thoroughfare.
He steamrolled everything in his path, plucking cars off the street, swinging them in the air and then crushing them to the ground with passengers trapped inside. At one point, he rammed into the back of a crowded bus, flipping it on its side.
He killed three people, wounded more than 45 and sent hundreds of panicked residents running for cover before an off-duty soldier shot him dead.
Dwayat's use of a construction vehicle as a weapon was a departure from terrorists' previous attacks, mostly suicide bombings and shooting sprees. But since then, it appears to have spawned two copycat attacks - as well as a third incident in which a Palestinian motorist tried to ram into a crowd of soldiers walking along a sidewalk.
The demolition of Dwayat's home had previously been delayed by legal appeals.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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[Straits Times] THE Khmer Rouge regime's prisons chief on Tuesday recounted his grisly past, telling Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court that confessions extracted under his torture orders were rarely true.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, last week apologised at trial for crimes against humanity, accepting blame for the extermination of 15,000 people who passed through the regime's notorious main prison, Tuol Sleng. 'I never believed the confessions I received told the truth. At most, they were about 40 per cent true,' Duch said on Tuesday.
The grey-haired 66-year-old sat in the dock answering judges' questions about M-13 prison, a secret jungle centre he ran from 1971 to 1975 during the Khmer Rouge insurgency against the then US-backed government.
Duch told the court that he personally tortured two people, but regularly ordered his subordinates to beat prisoners who were destined to be 'smashed' to death with a stick at the back of the neck. 'The burden is still on me - it's my responsibility. I would like to apologise to the souls of those who died,' Duch said.
The Khmer Rouge were later in power from 1975 to 1979, the period when Duch is accused of supervising Tuol Sleng prison and sending thousands of people to their deaths in the so-called 'Killing Fields'.
The court is hearing about M-13 to better understand Tuol Sleng's organising structure.
Duch said M-13 was surrounded by a bamboo fence and shackled prisoners were often held in two-metre deep pits, both to prevent escape and to protect them from US warplanes carpetbombing the area.
The former maths teacher has denied assertions by prosecutors that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge regime's iron-fisted rule. Duch faces charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder for his role in the Khmer Rouge regime. He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.
#1
The Khmer Rouge were later in power from 1975 to 1979..
Made possible by the Democratic Party of the United States. Guess who cut all military assistance spending to the area just before the Khmer Rouge achieved ascendancy? /rhetorical question.
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today alleged that the BNP-backed students were creating anarchic situation in educational institutions in guise of Bangladesh Chhatra League.
The leader of the House in her speech in the parliament also said the BNP and Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal were responsible for tainting image of the BCL.
Hasina blamed the situation at different universities and colleges on late president Ziaur Rahman saying he slapped martial law in the country and distributed arms among students after 1975.
[The News (Pak)] The Jamaat-e-Islami has expressed grave concern over a video clip showing alleged flogging of a girl being aired constantly by different TV channels despite that "it was seriously disliked and public protests were held to condemn it."
"It appears that the rigorous publicity campaign of the video aims at preventing president Asif Zardari from signing the Nizam-e-Adl Ordinance or to create hurdles in the way of Shariah enforcement in NWFP," says JI central Shoora in a resolution passed in its ongoing meeting at Mansoorah chaired by ameer Syed Munawwar Hasan.
The Shoora said the video looked a conspiracy instead of some humanitarian effort, which would neither benefit the people of Swat nor help in establishing supremacy of law and eliminating the prevailing anarchy in the area.
The resolution demanded immediate implementation of the Nizam-e-Adl Ordinance and the peace agreement already announced by the government. It expressed concern over the delay in implementation of Nizam-e-Adl and reminded that it had been a longstanding demand of the people of the area. These people have been suffering from lawlessness for the past few years, particularly during the military operation of the last year, but they witnessed peace after the peace agreement signed between government and Maulana Soofi Mohammad.
The Shoora also expressed concern over the increasing murder and looting incidents in Dir Paeen district, bordering district Swat, and cited an incident in which former district Nazim and JI leader Alam Zeb Khan, his brother, district Police officer and his companion were ruthlessly murdered in broad daylight. Their killers were not apprehended.
CARACAS, Venezuela A three-judge panel of Perus Supreme Court on Tuesday convicted former President Alberto K. Fujimori of human rights abuses and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The abuses included the killing of 25 people by a military death squad created by Mr. Fujimori in the early 1990s as the country was locked in a bloody conflict with Maoist rebels.
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[Straits Times] A SENIOR Philippines official on Tuesday warned the families of two Red Cross aid workers and the Swiss and Italian governments against paying ransoms to Islamic militants holding them hostage.
The group that kidnapped Swiss national Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni has repeatedly said it is not seeking ransom money. But Filipino officials say they fear a Singaporean militant working with the kidnappers may be secretly negotiating by telephone with the relatives of the two Red Cross workers.
'Don't pay a ransom because that will only lead to more kidnappings in the future,' Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said. 'We cannot be sure that they (the kidnappers) are not talking with certain parties from afar which they are not telling us about.'
Notter and Vagni were abducted while on a humanitarian mission on the southern island of Jolo on January 15 with a Filipina Red Cross aid worker, who was eventually released unharmed last week.
The Abu Sayyaf, the group behind the kidnappings, has threatened to behead one of its captives unless the military cedes Jolo. So far, the government has refused.
The group is blamed for many of the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines, but Puno said the kidnappers only had two objectives in mind - ransom and escape.
'Of the two, the most important to them is their escape. So they cannot collect a ransom unless they are assured of their escape.' He said a number of local officials had been given leave to conduct negotiations, but that they had been told not to promise money in return for the hostages' release.
Puno said one of the authorised government negotiators, provincial vice governor Nur-Ana Sahidulla, is scheduled to resume contact with the gunmen on Wednesday.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel carried out a test launch of its Arrow II interceptor missile on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said, a system designed to defend against possible ballistic missile attacks by Iran and Syria. "It was a successful test," the ministry said.
The Arrow intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile comparable to Iran's Shahab-3, which can reach the Jewish state, that was fired by an Israeli fighter plane over the Mediterranean, a defense source said.
Israel Radio said it was the 16th test launch of an Arrow. The defense source said 90 percent of those tests have been successful.
It was the latest successful test of the Arrow, a project launched in 1988 as part of the then Star Wars program under late U.S. president Ronald Reagan that was abandoned in 1993. The project is jointly funded by Israel and the United States to serve as a strategic shield against ballistic missiles in the arsenals of Iran and Syria.
At least two Arrow batteries have been deployed in Israel, which has been testing the system to improve its performance at high altitudes and against multiple incoming missiles.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Male officers in the Kuwaiti army have expressed embarrassment at having to salute female superiors as the interior ministry denied rumors it was considering offering monetary compensation to female officers in return for not demanding to be saluted by male officers.
According to reports in local media, the Ministry of Interior was looking into alternatives after receiving complaints from male officers. One suggestion was to give each female officer an allowance of 50 dinars ($172) in return for not making male officers of lower ranks salute them.
Another option mentioned was to penalize any officers who refuse to abide by military rules, though there were concerns this could potentially lead some men not to join the army and put the ministry in an even more awkward position.
The ministry, however, denied reports it is considering alternatives to the saluting controversy. "The ministry treats men and woman equally," an official with the ministry, Colonel Mohamed al-Sabr, told AlArabiya.net. "The salute is done in respect to rank and not individuals."
The controversy started with statements by the head of the GCC Sharia Scholars Union Dr. Ajil al-Nashmi in the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan where he said women can only join the military in limited circumstances. "Women can join the military in cases like searching other women at the airport or on the borders," he told the paper. "Otherwise, it is not recommended."
#1
The military hand salute is a western colonial servile invention which clearly has racist overtones and origins. As equals, it is best the practice be done away with entirely. A simple wink or nod should suffice. [snark off]
#5
I'm surprised that Obama's clique haven't publicly considered imposing "Order #1", that was used by the democratic Russian Menshavik Duma, that abolished the rank structure in the military, as well as saluting, and required that all military decisions be made by vote.
#6
Good Gawd. Make them take out their own trash and make them pick up cigarette butts for a few hours. They'll remember to render a salute after that business.
On this day in history: April 8th
1513 Explorer Juan Ponce de León declares Florida a territory of Spain.
1820 The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
1895 The Supreme Court of the United States declares unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
1904 Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times. (Maybe it'll become Bankrupt Square)
1913 The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.
1942 Siege of Leningrad Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
1942 The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines.
1943 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices.
1952 U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.
2000 Nineteen Marines are killed when an V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashes near Marana, Arizona
#5
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#7
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1. Mary Pickford was Canadian - that's part of "America", too.
2. The 17th Amendment has been a disaster, stripping the States of THEIR representative, and giving us another politician that can be bought with campaign funds. It needs to be repealed.
3. You bake cornpone, but you deep-fry chitlins. The best dish in that photo is the cook.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/08/2009 14:26
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The Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese.
Hat tip to One Free Korea. Kimmie looks as if he stole a set of Playboy pajamas, and he's thinner than a Milan model. But see for yourself. As Joshua Stanton at OFK says, "Where's Jack Kevorkian when you need him? And does he still issue those gift certificates?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Yes, but he drools out of the right side of his body, and when told to point, has to be told repeatedly. His and Fidels curse, fufilled.
#2
My God! Kimmie's been replaced by a Team America puppet! Note to Parker and Stone: Try making the head smaller. That basketball on top of the Mao suit is just not believable.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:09
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#9
Slightly ironic in view of the Chinese puff piece from yesterday- drank us under the table, he did. Arm wrestled our champion and whipped him, yadda yadda...
[Bangla Daily Star] Bangladesh Regulatory Reforms Commission (BRRC) Chairman Dr Akbar Ali Khan today said electricity is more important than democracy for the country right now.
I guess if you've got neither you're really up the creek, aren't you?
[Straits Times] MALAYSIA is to revive caning in schools to curb discipline problems among pupils, three years after making moves to ban corporal punishment, a minister said on Tuesday. The government made the decision to revive caning last month and it will issue specific guidelines on how to implement the punishment, deputy education minister Wee Ka Siong told AFP.
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas received guarantees of weapons and helicopters from Russia during his recent trip to Moscow, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.
According to the report, Russia vowed to supply the PA with 5,000 Kalashnikov machine guns, 300 rifles, 100 hand guns and two helicopters to shuttle Palestinian leaders from Ramallah to Amman.
Also Tuesday, the radio station quoted Abbas as saying that the 25 armored personnel carriers Israel had permitted the PA to receive from Russia would soon arrive in the West Bank.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Abbas in Moscow on Monday that Russia would "support the Middle East settlement and, in particular, the creation of a Palestinian state."
TOKYO, April 8 KYODO: The House of Councillors adopted a resolution by a majority vote Wednesday, condemning North Korea's rocket launch Sunday and calling on the Japanese government to impose additional sanctions on Pyongyang. The resolution, which passed at an upper house plenary session, stresses the launch ''is an act which poses a threat to life and property'' in Japan. The move came after the House of Representatives endorsed a similar resolution during its plenary session Tuesday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] The government today declared Tk 50,000 bounty for each fugitive BDR mutiny suspects for their involvement in the February 25-26 Pilkhana carnage case. The government's decision came through a press release of the home ministry. Shahinur Mia, the public relation officer of the ministry, also confirmed the news to The Daily Star.
Tk 50,000 would be awarded to the person who would hand a absconding suspected Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) member over to the nearby police station or law enforcement agency, the press release said. The identity of the person would be kept secret, the release added.
When contacted with the BDR Director General Maj Gen Md Mainul Islam, he told The Daily Star that he did not know anything about the declared bounty. On query of the number of absconding BDR men, he said they are yet to complete the full list of the fugitive BDR members.
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[Maghrebia] Algerian army troops dismantled on Monday (April 6th) a powerful bomb on the railway line in Ouled Sidi Elmehdi (Lakhdaria province), Echorouk reported. A citizen travelling to Al Kadiria noticed wires connected to a bag and informed security services. The bomb reportedly targeted a passenger train travelling from the east of the country to Algiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Police today recovered 450 bullets of sub-machinegun (SMG) at Basail upazila in Tangail, reports our Tangail correspondent. Some construction workers found the bullets when they were digging soil under a bridge at Dapnazar village in the upazila at around 9:00am, told Abul Bashar, sub-inspector of Basail Police Station.
On information, police recovered the bullets and took these to the police station. However, the bullets have already been unusable as these were under the soil for long time, sources in police said.
[Bangla Daily Star] Another Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) man died today in the capital's Bangladesh Kidney Hospital raising the death toll to 11 after the Pilkhana carnage. Yasin Miah, 45, was admitted to the hospital after the February 25-26 BDR headquarters bloodshed as he complained of kidney complexities, the hospital sources said. His body was sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Japan will massively increase its military spending after North Korea's abortive satellite launch Sunday. Much as the North's launch of a Taepodong-1 missile in 1998 gave Tokyo justification to build up its missile defense system, so Sunday's rocket launch is likely to cause Japan to boost its missile defense and reinforce its military.
Chinese have to taking the gas pipe on this news. But this is what happens when you don't curb your dog. China now has to consider a re-armed and unhappy Japan, along with a South Korea that is moving closer to the Japanese. How's the concrete holding up at the Three Gorges Dam?
The Japanese invested over 1 trillion yen (W13 trillion) thus far in the missile defense system. It sent two Aegis destroyers equipped with SM3 to the East Sea, and dispatched a surface-to-air Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles.
Tokyo apparently feels that North Korea's attempt to launch a satellite has quelled domestic opposition to boosting the missile defense system. The Yomiuri and Asahi Shimbun newspapers on Monday both pointed out that the scope for response of the PAC-3 falls short of effectively defending Japan.
Japan is likely to increase the system's efficiency and introduce more SM3 and PAC-3. The Japanese Defense Ministry is reviewing a plan to introduce an early warning satellite that detects impending missile launches. Tokyo currently relies on information provided by the United States. Already there is talk about increasing the defense budget, with press reports that North Korea's launch "bolstered the morale of the Self-defense Forces," as the Japanese military is called.
In a poll by the Yomiuri released Monday, 88 percent of respondents said they felt insecure because of North Korea's rocket launch, and 78 percent opted for strong sanctions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Just in time then???
WORLD MIL FORUM > IIUC CHINA: THREE KINDS OF SINO-JAPANESE PRIMARY WAR CONTINGENCY SCENARIOS/MODELS SHOULD PLAN ON PREVENTING US MILITARY INTERVENTION ON THE SIDE OF JAPAN [ve pre-existing US-Nippon Treatises], OR IN THE ALTERNATE SCHEME FOR THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF ALL OF JAPAN'S MAJOR CITIES BY NUCLEAR ATTACK [approxi 25 major Japanese cities] REGARDLESS OF US MILITARY INTERVENTION. China should immediately target the USA for nuclear attack after it successfully destroy's Japan's cities = wipes out Japanese civilization???
Their arming of rogue states like North Korea and Pakistan with missile and nuclear technology may have caused pain to regional rivals like Japan and India but have had the effect of causing those nations to engage in an arms buildup aimed at China itself.
In the late 1950s, India's Nehru was strongly anti-military. He resisted nuclear weapons and wanted to disband the Indian army
Soon after Independence the first commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces, General Sir Robert Lockhart, presented a paper outlining a plan for the growth of the Indian Army to Prime Minister Nehru.
Nehru's reply: "We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. You can scrap the army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs."
He didn't waste much time. On September 16, 1947, he directed that the army's then strength of 280,000 be brought down to 150,000. Even in fiscal 1950-51, when the Chinese threat had begun to loom large on the horizon, 50,000 army personnel were sent home as per his original plan to disband the armed forces.
After Independence, he once noticed a few men in uniform in a small office the army had in North Block, and angrily had them evicted.
Then the Chinese attacked.
Though India tested a nuclear device in 1974, it actually had no deployable weapons. It was only in the late 1980s that Rajiv Gandhi ordered weaponization, in response to Chinese help to the Pakistani nuclear program.
The Chinese supply of missiles to Pakistan and their testing triggered the Indian nuclear tests and massive increase in the development of missiles by India.
There are now nuclear missiles aimed at targets in China.
And now they provoke the Japanese
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 7:31
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#3
Hmmm, you menace your neighbors and they take measures to protect themselves. Whoah, that's like some weird cause & effect thing!
#4
So if Kimmie goes nuclear it seems only logical that Japan will follow. Only thing is, the Japanese will have far greater technical expertise and resources to develop a truly effective deterrent, especially if they get the idea that Bambi is a soft headed moron without the will to help them. And then, of course, there is Taiwan. And what would be the chance that all of these people are talking to each other about the "China problem"? Maybe even considering some kind of a collective response? Good one, China. Did you think all these people would just lay down and die for you? But then, our own government for the past few decades has been appeasing them and sending them our money as fast as we could. Maybe somebody thought they'd be our friends if we did but I don't get a real friendly kind of a vibe from them.
#5
This all fits into the pattern of Japanese military rearmament of the past 2 decades : Clinton was seen as weak on the NKors so the Japanese started really pumping their close-in air defense, and building more capable frigates and destroyers. Under Bush, the Japanese were invited into Ballistic Missile Defense development and started deploying Patriot PAC3 batteries and upgrading ship defenses to Standard Mark 3. Now, with Obambi's limp response to the NKor launches, we can expect to see a lot more of the new "helo carrier" class of destroyers appearing in the Japanese Navy, and a BIG push for an all-Japanese BMD setup to protect Japan and its immediate 200 mile Nautical Zone. The Japanese tend to field really good equipment that is never exported, so the rest of the world tends to underestimate just capable the Japanese equipment is.
#6
The Japanese have the M5 SLV, a 2.5m diameter solid booster that can loft 1.8 tons into orbit.
A heavy ICBM of the MX class would not be difficult for them.
Japan has 50 tons of Plutonium. They have an advanced ICF program and are considered a virtual thermonuclear superpower.
If they made the decision, they could build a large arsenal (thousands) of high yield thermonuclear weapons and be able to deliver them anywhere.
The Chinese arsenal would pale in comparison.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 18:23
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#7
Look at all the actions in the last couple of weeks with the Big O. He does all this limp wristed grovelling Marxist globalist tranzi actions that project weakness. And now the Norks have woke up the Japanese from their pacifist sleep. At least they have a collective survival instinct.
The Big O is playing T-ball in a hard ball world.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/08/2009 19:09
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Suspected Taliban planted a remote-controlled bomb that blew up a music shop and neighbouring stalls at Charsadda bus stand in Peshawar, police said on Tuesday. "A CD and music centre, as well as three other shops were destroyed when a locally-made bomb went off in front of a bus stand in Faqirabad area," local police official Anwar Khan said. No casualties were reported as the shops were closed overnight when the bomb had exploded, police said. "It was a huge explosion," Khan said. Another security official confirmed the attack. Taliban have bombed scores of entertainment shops across the country's northwest in recent years, charging that music and films are contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said in the House that Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia's remarks on the February 25-26 Pilkhana carnage were provocative and motivated. In her speech right after the speech of Khaleda Zia, the leader of the House said the people wanted to know whether the former PM wanted to spread a civil war in the country on failure to grab power.
Hasina also raised question about the actual intention of the BNP chairperson behind such comments.
"We have brought down prices of essentials in three months. Probably, many could not like it and that was why they were trying to create an anarchic situation in the country through various plots," she added.
She said her government fulfilled its election pledges to restrain the skyrocketing prices of daily necessities.
"We come to power pledging to curb the prices of the daily essentials and we fulfilled it," she told the parliament.
The PM also thanked the opposition leader for not thanking former president Iajuddin Ahmed and her comments about Iajuddin were absolutely true.
[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN court on Tuesday found three Islamist militants of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah movement guilty on terror charges and sentenced them to 12 years in prison. The three men - Agustyawarman, Heri Purwanto and Sugianto - were found guilty of conspiring and committing acts of terror as part of an alleged 10-member JI cell arrested in Palembang, South Sumatra, last year.
The men were found guilty of involvement in largely separate plots but were given equal sentences for an 'evil consensus', head judge Aswan Nurcahyo told the South Jakarta district court. The judges found Purwanto guilty of involvement in the 2007 murder of Christian teacher Dago Simamora as well as an attack on Christian priest Yosua Winardi with a hammer.
Both Purwanto and Agustyawarman were found to have plotted attacks on other priests. Agustyawarman was also found to have been involved in a plan to bomb a backpacker cafe on Sumatra island in 2006 which was aborted on fears of Muslim casualties.
'The factor aggravating the defendants' sentences is the fact they have never shown remorse for what they did. All their actions were done consciously,' Judge Nurcahyo said.
The three men yelled 'Allahu akbar' (God is greater) as their sentences were read out.
'From the start, I haven't cared if the sentence is harsh or light,' Agustyawarman said after the trial.
Their lawyer said the men were contemplating an appeal.
Singaporean Mohammad Hasan bin Saynudin, the self-confessed leader of the cell, is on trial on separate charges and has told the court he had met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and planned to bomb Singapore's Changi airport. Hasan is set to be sentenced on April 21.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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Clerics of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) have forced women dancers participating in a traditional spring festival in Shahdadkot district in Sindh to leave the event, officials say.
Organisers of the festival say they have had to cut the 10-day festival to three days as a result of the threats. The clerics who asked the dancers to leave the area were accompanied by local police, witnesses said. "We asked the dancers to leave the area after obtaining approval of the Shahdadkot district police," Sindh JUI-F Information Secretary Molvi Abdul Razaq Abid told the BBC.
Organisers said some 18 dancers, mainly from the Punjab, perform every year in the festival in Waggan in Shahdadkot district. They said a six-member team of JUI-F clerics, accompanied by local police, came to the festival on Monday and warned the dancers to leave the place in an hour. The dancers immediately complied, they said.
Agenda: Local correspondents say the group appears to be using the rising threat of terrorism to get the local judiciary and police to implement its agenda in these areas.
Three months ago, the JUI-F obtained restraining orders from a local court to force a local television channel, Sindh TV, to abandon a music show in Nawabshah. The party has also carried out extensive graffiti campaigns across the province in which satellite dishes, cable TV and VCRs are described as "three signs of the approaching doomsday".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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Law enforcement agencies on Tuesday arrested over 300 suspected terrorists from various parts of the city after intelligence reports indicated 18 terrorists had entered the city. Hey! It could happen. Not in Pakistain, of course...
Sources told Daily Times the crackdown was against Afghans who were residing in the city's outskirts. They said the 18 terrorists who entered the city were Afghans and close associated of Baitullah Mahsood. They said about a dozen people were arrested from areas adjacent to the Data Darbar and the police also seized weapons from their possession.
They said people were arrested from Shafiqabad, Misri Shah, Shahdara Town, Bund Road, Sanda, Hanjarwal, Jia Musa and Jallo. They said around 170 people had been released after identifying them while the others were in the custody of Civil Lines police.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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[The Hindu International] Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said on Monday "the mythical belief that the LTTE is unconquerable" was shattered.
Mr. Rajapaksa's declaration came a day after the military claimed it had captured the last stretch of LTTE-held land outside the government demarcated 20 sq. km. "No-Fire Zone" (NFZ).
Coinciding with the President's declaration on "defeat" of the Tigers, the military said it had launched the "largest humanitarian intervention by a conventional military force in modern time" to rescue civilians trapped in the NFZ. The forces believe that an estimated 500 leaders and cadre of the LTTE, including Velupillai Prabakaran, have fled into the NFZ and taken shelter among an estimated 50,000 to 1,00,000 stranded citizens.
Mr. Rajapaksa said many past leaders were suspicious of the strength of the military in defeating terrorism and believed a war with the Tigers was un-winnable.
In its first reaction to military claims on ouster of Tigers from the area outside the NFZ, pro-LTTE TamilNet contradicted the claims saying the main LTTE fighting formations were in a territory outside the NFZ.
The website further charged that the SLA has stepped up attacks on civilians inside the NFZ killing at least 71 civilians and leaving 143 injured.
The military separately claimed that 2,127 civilians, including 919 children, had fled from the LTTE and had sought protection with 58 Division troops at Ampalavanpokkanai, Mullaithivu.
Sri Lanka Navy said that the eighteenth batch of 497 patients and civilians was evacuated on April 4. The evacuation of patients and civilians trapped in the un-cleared areas in Mullathivu is being carried out under the ICRC flag.
Srinagar: Two militants were killed by the security forces in Lolab forests of Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, raising the toll in the three-day-long operation to four, a senior police officer said. Two militants were killed in the ongoing operation in Maidanpora forest of Lolab, Senior superintendent of Police, Kupwara, Uttam Chand said. He said the operation in the area was still continuing and the identity of the slain militants and their group affiliation were being ascertained.
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] A car bomb killed nine people and wounded 20 in the Shiite Kadhimiya district of northwest Baghdad on Tuesday, police said, a day after seven car bombs killed 37 people across the Iraqi capital. The attack occurred the same day that US President Barack Obama arrived in Iraq for his first visit since taking office. Targeting Shiite areas such as Kadhimiya to stoke sectarian tension has been a favorite tactic of Al-Qaeda, although no one claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Eyewitnesses said a baby miraculously survived the bombing cradled in his mother's lap as she was burned alive. The baby boy's father was seriously wounded in the attack, police and witnesses said.
"The father was badly burned. We don't know whether he will survive or not. We took the baby out of the car, but we don't know what to do with him," said an eyewitness who gave his name as Asaad Raad, holding the child in his arms. "This child lost a mother and a father. What else can I say?"
Violence has fallen dramatically in Iraq in the past year, but Al-Qaeda and other insurgents have shown themselves still capable of launching frequent bomb attacks.
US and Iraqi officials blamed Monday's series of bombings on Al-Qaeda.
But a senior Iraqi intelligence source, who requested anonymity, said there was evidence the bombs could be the work of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI). ISCI is allied to Premier Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party in Parliament, but the two have become somewhat estranged.
Dawa trounced ISCI in local elections in January after a campaign in which Maliki sought credit for increasing security and called for national unity. ISCI by contrast pushed overtly religious themes and called for an autonomous Shiite south.
Maliki's strong showing gave him some momentum ahead of elections at the end of the year.
The intelligence source said the authorities had received intelligence 10 days earlier that Badr fighters might set off bombs across Baghdad to send out a message that Maliki's government is not delivering on security as it claims.
But National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, asked if the bombings could be the work of the Badr Organization instead of Al-Qaeda, replied: "All the [finger] ... prints of Al-Qaeda were there."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Lets not be eurocentric and judgemental of other people cultures.
[Bangla Daily Star] Criminal Investigation Department (CID) today recorded the statement of Joj Miah in the case filed against three former investigators of the August 21 grenade attack case. The statements of Joj's mother Jobeda Begum and brother Babul Hossain along with Joj Miah were recorded in Kashimpur Jail of Gazipur from 12:30pm to 2:30pm, CID Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rownakul Huq Chowdhury, the investigation officer of the case confirmed to The Daily Star.
The CID also summoned Abul Hasem Rana and Shafiqul Islam to the CID Malibagh headquarters on April 12 for recording their statements.
Joj, Rana and Shafiqul were allegedly forced or lured into making false statements before magistrates in the case filed in connection with the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on an Awami League rally that claimed 24 lives. In the statement, Joy described how the three former CID investigators forced him to give false statements.
Continued on Page 49
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US Senator Carl Levin, head of the Armed Services Committee, has said that the Obama administration should not link its efforts in Afghanistan too closely with Pakistan. "The evidence is mixed as to whether or not the government in Pakistan is going to take on the religious extremists," Levin told the National Public Radio on Monday. "The border is wide open now. Extremists are flowing across that border into Afghanistan; Pakistan has not done anything to stop them," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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International navies will fail in their bid to eradicate Somali piracy if they do not commit more towards assisting the local authorities on the ground, the northern region of Puntland said Tuesday.
Puntland security minister Abdullahi Said Samatar, whose breakaway region is the main hub for piracy in the Gulf of Aden, made his appeal for help after pirates seized five foreign ships in 48 hours. "We can see that international allied forces operating off Somalia are not succeeding in their crackdown on the pirates, who despite their increased presence are still hijacking as many ships as they used to," he told AFP.
He's got a point, but why do I think he's just shaking us down for 'international aid' ...
Between Saturday and Monday, Somali pirates hijacked a British-owned cargo, a German container carrier, a Taiwanese tuna fishing vessel, a Yemeni tugboat and a small French yacht with a three-year-old boy on board. Close to 150 attacks by Somali pirates on foreign ships were reported in 2008, most of them in the Gulf of Aden, where 16,000 ships bottle-neck into the Red Sea each year on one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes. The European Union's months-old Atalanta anti-piracy naval mission is estimated to cost more than 300 million dollars annually.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Sounds more like throat-clearing prior to a request for tribute.
Or, less sarcastically, a prelude to the request for international recognition of Puntland - if the naval powers recognize it as a sovereign nation, then they'll close the piratical bazaar.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/08/2009 10:10
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#2
There's the money paid to the pirates to get the ships back and the money paid for help to eradicate piracy and then there is the money paid to rebuild Puntland for damages after eradication of the pirates. Triple-play shakedown. I'm in the wrong business.
#3
Well, hell, if we're gonna give money to Pakistan and Gaza we might as well give some to these guys too. I'm sure the results will be about the same.
[Khaleej Times] The leader of an Arab tribe in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul has been fatally shot, police reported.
Police sources said unknown gunmen killed Shaikh Farhan Falah Mohammed Yunis on Monday night in the district of 17 Tamuz, west of Mosul, in Iraq's ethnically divided Nineveh province.
Shaikh Farahan was the leader of a local Arab tribe and an important politician with the Hadba List, the Arab nationalist coalition that won January's provincial council elections in Nineveh on a platform of taking control of the province from Kurdish parties.
Those Kurdish parties swept to power in Nineveh's local government after a Sunni-Arab boycott of the last provincial polls in 2005.
Nineveh is among the most ethnically and religiously diverse provinces in Iraq. Almost every day, deadly bomb attacks and shootings have made its capital, Mosul, and the area around it, among the most dangerous places in Iraq, despite successive security pushes aimed at fighting Sunni insurgents in the area.
Earlier on Monday, four civilians and two policemen died in a blast that targeted a police patrol in the southern Mosul neighbourhood of Al Ghazlani.
Police said they had earlier detained four suspected members of Al Qaeda in Iraq who are wanted on charges of planning bomb attacks against police officers in and around Mosul, roughly 400 kilometres north of Baghdad.
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04/08/2009
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[Bangla Daily Star] BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia today said the militancy spread in the country during the past Awami League but the then government blamed the opposition BNP without any evidence. The leader of the opposition added that the four-party alliance government did not follow their predecessor. It captured and punished the militant kingpins.
Khaleda slammed the immediate past caretaker government saying it halted the development process the BNP-government had left. She also alleged that the former caretaker government almost shut every door for the businessmen and hiked daily essentials' prices.
[Straits Times] PROTESTERS attacked a car carrying Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday as a minister warned that opposition elements wanted to cause chaos at a big rally this week in a bid to topple the government. Mr Abhisit was unhurt, but a window in his car was smashed when a group of red-shirted demonstrators surrounded the vehicle in Pattaya, a resort town where the cabinet held its weekly cabinet meeting.
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[Mail and Globe] Shares of Ford soared 16% on Monday after the company said it completed tender offers that will reduce its debt by 38% and shave millions of dollars off its interest costs. The caraker retired about $9,9-billion in securities in exchange for cash and shares under terms of the debt buybacks.
Combined, the moves are expected to reduce the Ford's interest expenses by more than $500-million this year, as it tries to weather the worst auto sales downturn in 27 years. The Dearborn, Michigan-based company said it will pay a total of $2,4-billion and issue 468-million shares as a result of the offers.
Shares of Ford rose 52 cents to close at $3,77 on Monday.
About $4,3-billion in Ford's senior convertible notes were tendered under an offer that expired on Friday. Up to $344-million will be used to pay cash premiums to note holders. A separate offer to repurchase notes from its financing arm resulted in $3,4-billion in securities being tendered. Ford Motor Credit will use $1,1-billion to purchase that secured term loan debt.
Ford Motor Credit previously said a second cash tender offer that expired on March 23 was "over-subscribed," and it doubled the amount of cash it would spend to buy back the debt. That resulted in the use of $1-billion to purchase $2,2-billion in term loan debt.
Its total debt was reduced to about $15,9-billion after the buybacks.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Venezuela's President, praising Obama's promise to free the world from nuclear weapons, calls for US apology to Japan over nuking the country.
"It is very encouraging that the president of the United States called for the end of, and the destruction of, nuclear arms in the world," Hugo Chavez told reporters in Tokyo, where he signed an investment deal with Japan.
"Obama launched a missile -- an Obama missile," he added, according to AFP.
Earlier on Sunday at an EU summit in Prague, the US President Barack Obama vowed to lead the quest for a world free from nuclear weapons.
Obama's call to cut stockpiles, restrict testing, cut back on fissile production and to secure loose nuclear material, comes at a time when the US still possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
The US is "the planet's number one nuclear power. It is also the only country in the world that dropped the atomic bomb," Chavez said. "At any rate, I think America should apologize to Japan."
#2
You know Hugolito, the second time is much easier.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:31
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"It is also the only country in the world that dropped the atomic bomb,"
A staple of Kremlin rhetoric during the Cold War(and of lefty academics to this day), as though Stalin would have refrained from nuking Berlin if it had been within his power.
#4
It would have been much better if we had bombed the railroads so that the food could not have gotten from the farms to the cities, resulting in mass starvation. Starvation is a slow, painful, horrible way to die. Probably millions of Japanese would have died.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/08/2009 7:09
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#5
Suggested wording for the apology:
"Yeah, we're sorry you followed a berserk military cult into a war you couldn't win, slaughtered and raped your way across half of Asia, butchered prisoners of war, forced tens of thousands of women into sexual slavery, and dispersed your war industries throughout your fire-trap cities; but, hey, it does seem that you learned your lesson. We sincerely apologize for not being ready to kick you into the Stone Age in 1941, a consequence of listening to peacenik assholes like the ones who fawn over Chavez today and work around the clock to make sure Iran can get its own nuclear weapons."
Lt George Bush, then a 20-year-old pilot, was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids on Chichi Jima, a tiny island 700 miles south of Tokyo, in September 1944 - and was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.
The horrific fate of the other eight "flyboys" was established in subsequent war crimes trials on the island of Guam, but details were sealed in top secret files in Washington to spare their families distress.
Mr Bradley has established that they were tortured, beaten and then executed, either by beheading with swords or by multiple stab-wounds from bayonets and sharpened bamboo stakes. Four were then butchered by the island garrison's surgeons and their livers and meat from their thighs eaten by senior Japanese officers.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, has accused the Guardian Council of partiality over the Presidential hopefuls.
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An angry Sikh journalist attending a Congress press conference on Tuesday hurled a shoe at Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, in an echo of the attack on former US president George Bush in Iraq last year. It's already old, Bubby. It was old the second time it happened. This is, what? The 29th?
Chidambaram ducked as the trainer flew past him, but remained calm and pardoned the journalist for his emotional response. Had more dignity than Shoe Boy, apprently.
Jarnail Singh, the journalist, was angered by the minister's response to former Congress minister Jagdish Tytler being absolved of all involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots by the Central Bureau of Investigation. "My manner of protest might have been wrong, but I did not intend to hurt anyone," AFP quoted Singh as saying when he was detained by police before being released without charge. The Shiromani Akali Dal announced Rs 200,000 for Singh as a reward for having the courage to display the Sikhs' pain and suffering.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
It may be old but it has had en effect like none previously.
Trains in the Punjab are stopped as people sit on the tracks. There is genuine anger and the Congress looks set to lose parliamentary seats. They are looking at dumping Tytler from their ticket.
They've been making hay for years about the Hindu nationalists and Gujarat, but silent about their own pogrom, with its far greater death toll. Now it has come back to bite them.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/08/2009 7:16
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Update from Aunty Beeb: police have taken the place back.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Thousands of youth protesters stormed the Parliament building and president's offices in Moldova Tuesday after a rally against a Communist election victory boiled over into violence in Europe's poorest country. Moldova's ruling Communists - the first Communist Party to win power in the former Soviet Union - swept the weekend's legislative elections by winning half the vote, according to official estimates.
But the liberal opposition denounced the results as flawed and, according to the organizers, around 15,000 demonstrators turned out in the streets for a second day, hurling stones at the president's office and burning Communist flags. Communist President Vladimir Voronin, who is due to step down on April 7 after serving a maximum two consecutive terms, accused the demonstrators of trying to organize a "coup d'etat" in the country.
"We will show that in Moldova there is a power which will act strongly to protect the country's statehood from a handful of fascists drunk on anger trying to cause a coup d'etat," he said in a televised address.
Voronin called on the West for help in restoring order. "Moldovan authorities are extremely concerned by the mass disturbances in the center of the capital and call on Western structures to intervene to resolve this situation," Voronin was quoted as telling foreign ambassadors by Interfax news agency.
The opposition, although taken aback by protests initiated by youth groups rather than established political factions, vowed that the actions would continue until their demands were met.
Vlad Filat, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said he and other liberal opposition leaders later held talks with the government but failed to reach agreement on their main demand for a recount of the election. "We have not received an official answer. Therefore our action will continue and we call on our supporters to behave in a civilized fashion and not give into provocation." Police used water cannons and tear gas but the protestors still managed to enter the president's offices and hoisted a European Union flag.
They also dragged furniture out of the Parliament building and set it on fire, filling the air with thick black smoke. Over 30 people including both protesters and police were injured in the clashes, the head doctor at Chisinau's emergency hospital told AFP. A woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning after inhaling fumes in the Parliament blaze, Moldova 1 television reported.
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[Straits Times] THAILANDŽS prime minister vowed to prevent a Žcivil warŽ in Thailand as the nation braced for a massive anti-government protest on Wednesday amid fears of bloodshed, just two days before Asian leaders gather in Thailand. Publicly admitting the insecurities of his four-month-old government, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said security forces do not want to clash with protesters but will do what is necessary to maintain law and order.
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A Canadian warship has had a busy weekend on the Arabian Sea, thwarting a pirate attack and delivering supplies to a boatload of Somali refugees all in the same 24-hour period.
On Saturday, HMCS Winnipeg, currently involved in an anti-pirate NATO mission called Operation Allied Protector, saw three skiffs approaching an Indian merchant vessel.
The Pacific Opal radioed for help and Cmdr. Craig Baines, the commanding officer of the Canadian warship, sent out a Sea King helicopter to investigate. Baines told CTV Newsnet that HMCS Winnipeg got the call for help while it was busy escorting another ship. "We were actually escorting another vessel at the time when we noticed that another ship launched three smaller vessels that rapidly closed in on a merchant vessel that was nearby in the area," he said Sunday.
Pilot Maj. James Hawthorne said the pirates complied with Canadian instructions, which came in the form of a sign hanging from the side of the helicopter with the word "Stop" written in Somali. "Whatever their intentions were, they complied without instructions and allowed the merchant vessel to proceed," Hawthorne said, when quoted in a military statement that was released Saturday.
Baines said the helicopter shadowed the suspected pirate skiffs for about 15 minutes in total. "After we've deterred something, if they haven't actually done an act of piracy, which in this case they hadn't because we intervened beforehand, we usually just let them carry on and try to monitor their position," Baines said.
Few pirates would engage a military ship or helicopter, he said, because the risks are too high. "The fortunate thing is that the pirates want nothing to do with warships or helicopters," Baines said. "They are in this for economic gain only and so they know that if they ever tried to engage a ship or a helicopter, it would end badly for them."
Afterward, the HMCS Winnipeg crew got a thank you message from the crew on board the Pacific Opal, Baines said.
Lieut. Gen. Michel Gauthier said the incident "highlights the importance of our mission and the efforts to make a difference with our coalition partners in the fight against piracy and international terrorism."
HMCS Winnipeg saw further action on Sunday when it brought supplies to a boatload of Somali refugees who were hungry and thirsty after being at sea for two days.
The warship has a crew of some 240 officers and non-commissioned members and is based out of Esquimalt, B.C. It has been at sea since February and is scheduled to return to B.C. in August.
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[Kyodo: Korea] North KoreaŽs state-run television station on Tuesday broadcast video footage of SundayŽs rocket launch by the country, which Pyongyang says put a satellite into orbit. In its news broadcast in the evening, Korean Central Television Station showed the white three-stage rocket blast off into the sky.
Baitullah Mehsud's claims of responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan may indicate jockeying for power among militant groups, analysts say.
"There is an internal power struggle going on now," a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) station chief in Peshawar told MSNBC. "When [Mehsud] thinks that someone new is coming up and could overshadow him, he kills him."
Mehsud first gained attention by sending suicide bombers into Afghanistan to attack US and NATO forces. Then in 2007 he declared war on Pakistan, forming the Tehreek-e-Taliban to target the Pakistan Army for supporting the US in Afghanistan.
A former Mehsud lieutenant from another tribe first claimed responsibility for the attack. That seemed to have forced Mehsud to quickly call local reporters and take 'ownership'. The two commanders often argue, according to a Taliban leader. "The Lahore attack could have been his [Mehsud's] idea, but he could not have done it without some help from the Punjabis," said a Pakistani intelligence official. "What's more, all of these Punjabi groups have splintered and shifted in part out of the Punjab and into the Tribal Areas to band, but not always bond, with the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. ... Mehsud has become very powerful among the tribal militants, but he may be feeling the heat from the Punjabis. ... They are better trained .... and perhaps even more motivated than his men. While there is increasing coordination among the groups, all of them may not want to take orders from him."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Because he feels secure his Paki intel buddies won't inform the Americans of his location.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:23
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#3
but he may be feeling the heat from the Punjabis. ... They are better trained .... and perhaps even more motivated than his men. While there is increasing coordination among the groups, all of them may not want to take orders from him."
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the government's petition seeking the cancellation of bail of the former chief cleric of the Lal Masjid.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Ijaz Ahmed also adjourned until April 9 the hearing of a petition of the cleric, Abdul Aziz for grant of bail in the Children's Library case.
In June 2008, a division bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) accepted Aziz's bail in four cases, including the murder of a paramilitary official, abduction of police personnel and Chinese citizens. The government had filed an appeal in the SC seeking cancellation of the bail granted by the IHC, which the court dismissed on April 7.
Another IHC division bench in July 2008 rejected a bail plea in the alleged forcible occupation of the Children's Library in Islamabad after which Aziz moved the SC. Aziz had been granted bail in 25 of a total of 27 cases against, while he was acquitted in one case.
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[The News (Pak)] The Lahore High Court on Monday admitted for regular hearing a petition challenging the detention of the aeer of the banned Jamat-ud-Daawa, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, and three other leaders Col (retd) Nazeer Ahmad, Mufti Abdul Rehman and Ameer Hamza.
The court directed the provincial government to file its reply regarding the detention of these persons till April 16. The court has fixed April 20 for further proceedings on the petition. The court turned down the request of petitioner counsel A.K Dogar requesting for production of Hafiz Saeed before the court and hold proceedings in his presence.
On this point, the court sought reply from the provincial government. Punjab acting advocate general Hanif Khatana informed the court that due to security reasons Hafiz Saeed could not be produced. After the statement of Mr. Khatana, the court, if need be, will hear Hafiz Saeed in person.
Mr. Dogar moved the petition under Article 199(1)(b)(i) of the constitution seeking directions that the petitioners in custody within territorial jurisdiction of the court be brought before it so that the court might satisfy itself that they were being held in custody without lawful authority and in an unlawful manner.
He said that the detention of the petitioners issued on Jan-9 and March-9, 2009 by the Home Department were without lawful authority and of no legal effect. He submitted that Hafiz Saeed had earlier been detained by the government of Pervez Musharraf but was released by of the Lahore High Court observing that there was no allegation on the record against the petitioner or his organization.
The counsel said the LHC had also observed that JD had never been involved in any terrorist activities in Pakistan and no FIR had ever been registered against his organization or any of the persons under arrest. He said there was no finding of any blood-shed, terrorism or destruction of property anywhere in the country. He claimed that the JD was an independent organization and it had no connection with Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
He said on January 9, 2009, the Punjab home secretary had passed another order of two-month detention against Hafiz Saeed, Col. Nazeer Ahmad, Ameer Hamza, Qazi Kashif, Mufti Abdul Rehman and Qari Yaseen Baloch.
He said for their release a representation was filed before the home department, Punjab, which remained pending for quite some time but no action was taken upon it. Later, a petition was filed before the LHC which was disposed of on the ground that the home department secretary would decide the matter within one week.
Since the period of two months came to an end, a review board comprising three judges of the Lahore High Court on March 9, held in camera proceedings during which even the counsel was not allowed to represent the petitioners.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Heat's off boyz. Back to Death to Hindus! with yuz.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:17
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[Jakarta Post] President Raul Castro met Monday with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, his first face-to-face discussions with U.S. leaders since he became Cuba's president last year.
State television showed images of Castro, who holds the rank of four-star army general, wearing a business suit instead of his trademark olive-green fatigues and sitting down with Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, and other members of the American delegation behind closed doors.
Seven Democratic representatives traveled to Havana but an official communique read on the air said only six attended the meeting with Castro. The statement provided no details of what was discussed or how long the meeting lasted. It added that the group also spoke in recent days with the head of parliament and the country's foreign minister.
The lawmakers came to talk about improving U.S.-Cuba relations amid speculation that Washington is ready to loosen some facets of its 47-year-old trade embargo against the island.
The meeting came as Fidel Castro said Cuba is not afraid to talk directly to the United States and that the communist government does not thrive on confrontation as its detractors have long claimed.
In a column published in state-controlled newspapers earlier Monday, the 82-year-old former president also praised U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, saying the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee "is walking on solid ground" with a proposal to appoint a special envoy to reshape U.S.-Cuba relations.
Fidel Castro wrote that "those capable of serenely analyzing the events, as is the case of the senator from Indiana, use an irrefutable argument: The measures of the United States against Cuba, over almost half a century, are a total failure."
Though they share a strong and mutual distrust of Washington, both Castro brothers have said for decades that they would be willing to talk personally with U.S. leaders. Fidel repeated Cuba's desire for dialogue in the column, saying direct negotiation "is the only way to secure friendship and peace among peoples." Currently, the countries do not have formal diplomatic relations.
"There is no need to emphasize what Cuba has always said: We do not fear dialogue with the United States," he wrote. "Nor do we need confrontation to exist, as some foolish people think. We exist precisely because we believe in our ideas and we have never feared dialogue with the adversary."
Suffering from an undisclosed illness in a secret location, Fidel Castro was succeeded by the 77-year-old Raul as president last February.
Lawmakers in both houses of the U.S. Congress have proposed a measure that would prohibit the president from barring Americans from traveling to Cuba except in extreme cases, effectively lifting a travel ban that is a key component of the embargo.
Lee has said tat many of the representatives, who arrived in Cuba on Friday and are scheduled to leave Tuesday, support the travel legislation.
Democratic Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina said Monday that Fidel Castro's column made it "clear that both countries can exist without either dialogue or adversity to each other."
"But wouldn't it be so wonderful," he added, "if we struck a dialogue and found the things that were mutually advantageous and mutually of interest to our two countries and stopped the historical divisions that have separated us (though we are) so close geographically?"
#3
Only a Democrat could meet with a leader clad in Fatigues and think is just some swell guy who is no threat to anyone. Please stay there, we won't miss you.
#4
Following their Cuban adventure, here's an international discrimination cause celeb that the BCC can clearly undertake. It's a long flight, but just south of the southern border of Botswana lies a small village called Pomfret. If it's not been bulldozed, it is home to a few hundred veterans of the 32nd Battalion and their families. They are brave blacks of predominately Portuguese ancestry who, under the former flag of South Africa, fought the communists for years. Oh, forgive me. I just stumbled onto the reason why the CBB won't want to get involved.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Sudan's embattled president told a rally on Tuesday that his own officials would track down war criminals in Darfur, dismissing Western attempts to bring justice to the region.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir - who is himself wanted on charges of masterminding atrocities in Darfur - addressed a crowd of thousands in Zalingei, one of the most politically charged towns in Darfur.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Bashir to face charges of alleged war crimes carried out during almost six years of fighting in Sudan's violent west, but he has refused to deal with the court. "We know about justice between us and we know how to solve our problems. We have a committee for tribal reconciliation," he told the crowd.
"After the reconciliation we will investigate those who are criminals and those who committed crimes and those who were killed and those who were killers. This is all guaranteed. Compensation will be paid. Everyone will get their right. This is justice." Bashir again refused to reconsider his decision to expel 13 foreign aid groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, which he accused of helping the global court.
The president also accused Darfur rebels of sabotaging efforts to develop the region and appealed to members of the crowd with links to insurgents to persuade them to lay down their arms.
Zalingei is the birthplace of some of Darfur's best-known rebels, including Sudan Liberation Army founder Abdel-Wahed Mohammad Ahmad al-Nur, and is a hotbed of anti-government sentiment.
But there was no obvious sign of opposition at the rally where Bashir arrived on the back of an open truck, as streams of white-robed Darfuris rode past him on horses and camels.
On the edges on the crowd, people climbed trees and stood on the raised scoop of an industrial digger to get a better view.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Bashir and OJ should get together and make a reality show to search for the real killers.
Posted by: ed ||
04/08/2009 1:06
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#2
Looks like he picked up a Big Giant Hat to go with his Big Giant Epaulets...
#3
I got an idea. How about we give some money to the Sudanese while we're giving it to Pakistan, Gaza and Somalia? That's all Bashir needs to stop the trouble in Darfur, right?
[The News (Pak)] DERA GHAZI KHAN: Police claimed on Monday to have arrested two accused involved in the suicide attack on a Shia procession here two months ago.
Addressing a press conference, RPO Khan Mubarik Ali Athar disclosed that Qari Muhammad Ismail and Ghulam Mustafa had planned the attack with Tehrik Taliban Pakistan Commander Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. He said the suicide bomber was identified as 20-year-old Abdullah alias Arshad Pathan of Waziristan. The RPO said that the suicide bomber reached DG Khan on February 4, a day before the attack, and stayed at the residence of Ghulam Mustafa.
The police official claimed the accused had surveyed the route of the procession and prepared its map before the attack. The suicide bomber was taken to a nearby petrol pump on a vehicle and he blew himself up there, killing 27 people and injuring 50 others, he said.
The RPO claimed that Qari Muhammad Ismail was a resident of Vidore Town and allegedly belonged to a banned outfit. He said the accused had confessed to the crime, saying he had taken the revenge of the murder of Maulana Azam Tariq. He added that the terrorists had a big network, which comprised people from Bahawalpur, Multan and Azad Kashmir. He said the accused were also planning to kidnap foreign engineers, attack sensitive installations and public places.
He said Ghulam Mustafa was planning to flee to Dubai as he was working as a sales representative with a pharmaceutical company. He further disclosed that the accused had planned to siege the Dhodak oil and gas plant and had completed their planning.
Qari Ismail had received training from a Jihadi camp in South Waziristan in 2008, he said, adding the Jihadi camp belonged to Commander Qari Imran alias Hakeem Nasir of the Mehsud group while the suicide attack on the procession was planned by the Naib commander of the Baitullah Mehsud group Qari Hassan Ahmed Mehsud.
Khan Mubarik Ali Athar added that the accused had also confessed to killing five Shiites at Kacha Khoh, Khanewal in August 2008. He also claimed that they had recovered sims, maps of sensitive installations and CDs from the accused. However, the police neither presented the accused before the media nor shown the things recovered from them.
[Maghrebia] The European Union on Monday (April 6th) officially suspended co-operation with Mauritania for two years, international press reported. "Without a consensus and a return to constitutional order, there is no possibility of any substantial resumption of EU-Mauritanian co-operation," the EU Council said in a statement. Regular monitoring missions will be sent to the country during the 24-month period to assess progress towards the return of constitutional order. The EU statement noted, however, that the measures "do not close the door to political dialogue between the EU and the Mauritanian parties".
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[The News (Pak)] Pakistani police Monday found the bullet-riddled bodies of four local aid workers in a forest in northwest Pakistan, police said.
The bodies of three women and a man were found dumped in the Kund forest, near the mountainous town of Shinkiari, 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of the capital Islamabad, local police official Sudhair Ahmed told AFP.
"According to initial information the murdered people worked for a non-governmental organisation and were visiting schools in the area in a Pajero jeep," Ahmed said. The official said the motive for the killings was not known but the possibility of Islamic militants being behind the shootings could not be ruled out.
The Taliban have agreed to allow the partial broadcast of cable TV in Swat and operators have started to make arrangements to resume the service in Mingora city eight months after it was banned. "We have been allowed to resume cable TV service by Taliban leaders with certain conditions," cable operators told Daily Times by phone from Mingora city. They said the decision to allow the broadcast was taken on Sunday after a delegation of cable operators met Maulana Shah Dauran, an influential leader of the Taliban in Swat.
Around 500,000 Mingora residents were denied access to information through news channels for eight months after the Taliban banned the service and bombed a local cable network. According to cable operators, the new arrangement allows for the broadcast of 17 channels. These channels are all either Pakistani news or Islamic channels, and no western news or entertainment channels have been allowed. "The infrastructure of the service was damaged during the militancy and we have to provide cable and boosters again, which requires technical expertise from Peshawar," cable operators, requesting anonymity, said.
However, despite the lifting of the ban by the Taliban, several cable operators are unsure about resuming their business. A cable operator said that resuming the service "is risky" as the Taliban could change their mind at any time. "These people are quite moody," he added. Residents of Mingora, meanwhile, have welcomed the move.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
They want to be able to catch the next season of Mad Men.
Yonhap: A North Korean commercial vessel that set sail for the Pacific Ocean with a mission to locate a rocket that the North launched over the weekend turned back with mechanical trouble, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday.
''We don't clearly know the mechanical problem that appears to have prevented the ship from further sailing,'' an unidentified South Korean official was quoted as saying.
Made it tough to collect telemetry. Wonder if they told Kimmie?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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From last week's Telegraph but we didn't comment on it then.
Barack Obama, concerned about offending Britain and Germany, rebuffed strenuous attempts by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to persuade the new American president to make a trip to Normandy this week.
White House officials travelled to France at the start of March to discuss a visit by Mr Obama to Omaha Beach, the site of the American Cemetery, established in 1944 just after D-Day and where 9,387 American personnel are buried. Among them is Theodore Roosevelt Jr the eldest son of the 26th US President.
French officials and senior American military officers walked with White House staff through the cemetery discussing how the two presidents might follow the same route. But even before their trip, the White House had decided that Mr Obama would not travel there this week.
"It wasn't going to happen," said an American official in Washington. "We went through the motions to placate President Sarkozy but giving special treatment to France was not on our agenda.
But we did get Nick a nice set of Jerry Lewis DVDs ...
"During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France".
A White House spokesman in London declined to comment.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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#1
"During this trip, we wanted to maintain a balance between the British, German and France".
But obviously not to the Americans forever in Normandy...
#4
Why would he visit Omaha Beach? It's not like the soldiers and sailors would rise up and give him his required standing ovation for oratory brilliance.
#7
I'll have to pitch the BS flag on this one. At La Cambe, Marigny, Lisieuz, and Orglandes lie over 55,000 fallen Germans. Graves that are still visited and decorated by surviving kith and kin. While I have a few ideas, I don't know what his reasons were for not visiting Normandy but it had little to do with the Germans.
#10
WTF? The reason to visit Normandy is not to "placate" France, but to honor those brave Americans (and British, Canadians, and Poles) who died there. The Germans would not have been insulted. In fact, he could have visited the WWI cemetaries, too.
And the closest he'll ever get to a WWII Nazi Concentration Camp will be channeling his great-uncle, Charles T. Payne, a member of the 89th Infantry Division, who helped liberate Ohrdruf.
Can't offend the 'Holocaust Deniers', now can we.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/08/2009 11:18
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he could've visited Normandy, and apologized to the Germans
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2009 12:02
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I have mixed feelings on this. When was the last time a head of State visited Verdun, Marne, Ypres, or Somme?
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
04/08/2009 13:50
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#18
This came to a head when President McAleese and Queen Elizabeth inaugurated the Peace Tower at Messines in Belgium on November 11th, 1998, in the presence of King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium. The tower, dedicated to the memory of those from the island of Ireland who fought and died in the first World War, was erected at the site of the Messines Ridge battlefield, the only location in that conflict where the 36th (Ulster) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division fought side by side. The Irish and British governments helped fund the project.
#19
To a size of 172.5 acres, the Normandy American Cemetery has 9,387 burials of US service men and women. Of this number, some 307 are unknowns, three are Medal of Honour winners (see below) and four are women. In addition there are 33 pairs of brothers buried side by side. It is the largest American Cemetery from WW2, but not the largest in Europe: that is the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery from WW1 with more than 14,000 burials.
There are 9,387 reasons to pay respects--this number doesn't include all the wounded who sacrificed. Normandy is hallowed and sacred like Gettysburg.
#22
There is no reason for a Head of State not to visit the graves of the brave fallen soldiers of his country. It might concentrate his mind about his ultimate responsibilities. He can also pay his respects to the brave fallen soldiers of those who were at the time the enemy. Again a useful lesson.
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
04/08/2009 18:02
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#23
I can tell you from having visited that cemetery and some others like Margraten - it indeed concentrates the mind and provokes an overwhelming emotion.
#24
IMO an American president when overseas should have time available to pay his respects to those who in life were better than any of us.AND IT SHOULD NOT BE A FUCKING PHOTO-OP. Shouting over
Posted by: and it shouldnCheaderhead ||
04/08/2009 19:45
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North Korea on Tuesday released a video clip of leader Kim Jong-il looking frail but healthy. The official Korean Central Television broadcast no footage of Kim between last August, when he apparently had a stroke, and November, when he resumed duties.
Don't pull a Castro on us, Kimmie, die already ...
According to the South Korean government, Kim could barely move his left arm when he had just begun resuming his official duties, but this has improved. "It seems to corroborate the observation that the left side of Kim's body had been paralyzed but got better," said a government official. Footage does not show him walking very quickly, which leads to a speculation that the North Korean government is trying to hide the fact that his leg is still troubled.
"North Korean TV released the video clip right before they aired the launch of the satellite, for propaganda purposes of praising Kim's leadership," a government source here said. "It seems that the North Korean government wanted to air a preview before Kim shows up in the first general meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly on Wednesday."
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2009
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#1
Many of Koreans are skeletal but wiry and strong at the same time. A female friend stationed there, weighing in at 117 pounds, was called "fat."
I hope he doesnt live to be a hundred so we are forced to bear a double dose of his pimping of north korea to Iran and other monstrous countries he has befriended.
A six-member team of the United Nations (UN) arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday, to prepare the ground for an international fact-finding commission to look into the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
According to sources, the UN investigation team -- during its three-day stay in Pakistan -- would meet senior officials from various ministries. The team would also meet police and officials from law-enforcement agencies. An inspection of the site where Benazir was assassinated on December 27, 2007, is also on the agenda of the team -- which includes legal experts, field support, political experts and consultants.
The sources said the six-member team, headed by Mark Quarterman, would prepare a review report on technical and security assistance that would be handed over to the central commission on April 10. The government has provided the team with tight security.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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#1
A year and a half later? Did they walk to Pakistan?
This must've been put on the UN "fast track".
Taliban killed five people, including three policemen, in clashes with tribesmen and police, officials and witnesses said on Tuesday. Seeking anonymity, the officials said Assistant Sub-Inspector Afreen Khan, Head Constable Jehanzada and Constable Muhammad Akbar had a clash with the Taliban who crossed into Buner district from Swat. "Malakand Division Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed has held talks with senior Taliban leaders, but they have refused to leave Buner," they said. "The chief of police has held talks with Machine Gun Kelly, but he refuses to get out of town."
Separately, unidentified men kidnapped a traffic police official at gunpoint from Green Chowk in Mingora and took him to an unidentified location, witnesses said.
Meanwhile, scores of Taliban occupied the hostel of polytechnic college in Mingora. Taliban sources said students had been ordered to leave the hostel, as the Taliban wanted to stay there.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2009
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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.
Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers, according to data released last month by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 1.7 million out-of-wedlock births, of 4.3 million total births, marked a more than 25 percent jump from five years before.
THE real climax of President Obama's Spring Apologies Tour wasn't his photo op with our troops in Baghdad or even his "American Guilt" concerts in Western Europe. 
Just how much is The Globe losing The Times? Executives told union leaders that the paper lost $50 million last year, and would lose $85 million this year.
While patient safety in US hospitals is improving, "medical mistakes still occur at an alarming rate," according to the sixth annual HealthGrades study of patient safety in American hospitals, released today.
HANOI, Vietnam -- Sen. John McCain paid a quiet visit to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison where he was held for more than five years during the Vietnam War on Wednesday, making a few deadpan remarks as he made his way through dark corridors and past musty cells.
Views are gaining ground among politicians in Seoul that South Korea needs to extend the range of its ballistic missiles now that North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket has shown its own can fly thousands of miles.
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] An Arab motorist was shot and killed in east Jerusalem Tuesday morning after hitting three border policemen, who were overseeing the demolition of the home of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a lethal bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last year. 
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today said in the House that Opposition Leader Khaleda Zia's remarks on the February 25-26 Pilkhana carnage were provocative and motivated. In her speech right after the speech of Khaleda Zia, the leader of the House said the people wanted to know whether the former PM wanted to spread a civil war in the country on failure to grab power.
[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN court on Tuesday found three Islamist militants of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah movement guilty on terror charges and sentenced them to 12 years in prison. The three men - Agustyawarman, Heri Purwanto and Sugianto - were found guilty of conspiring and committing acts of terror as part of an alleged 10-member JI cell arrested in Palembang, South Sumatra, last year.
Clerics of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) have forced women dancers participating in a traditional spring festival in Shahdadkot district in Sindh to leave the event, officials say. 
International navies will fail in their bid to eradicate Somali piracy if they do not commit more towards assisting the local authorities on the ground, the northern region of Puntland said Tuesday.
[Khaleej Times] The leader of an Arab tribe in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul has been fatally shot, police reported.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Venezuela's President, praising Obama's promise to free the world from nuclear weapons, calls for US apology to Japan over nuking the country. 
A Canadian warship has had a busy weekend on the Arabian Sea, thwarting a pirate attack and delivering supplies to a boatload of Somali refugees all in the same 24-hour period. 
Baitullah Mehsud's claims of responsibility for a series of terrorist attacks in Pakistan may indicate jockeying for power among militant groups, analysts say.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the government's petition seeking the cancellation of bail of the former chief cleric of the Lal Masjid.
[The News (Pak)] The Lahore High Court on Monday admitted for regular hearing a petition challenging the detention of the aeer of the banned Jamat-ud-Daawa, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, and three other leaders Col (retd) Nazeer Ahmad, Mufti Abdul Rehman and Ameer Hamza. 
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Sudan's embattled president told a rally on Tuesday that his own officials would track down war criminals in Darfur, dismissing Western attempts to bring justice to the region.
The Taliban have agreed to allow the partial broadcast of cable TV in Swat and operators have started to make arrangements to resume the service in Mingora city eight months after it was banned. "We have been allowed to resume cable TV service by Taliban leaders with certain conditions," cable operators told Daily Times by phone from Mingora city. They said the decision to allow the broadcast was taken on Sunday after a delegation of cable operators met Maulana Shah Dauran, an influential leader of the Taliban in Swat.
North Korea on Tuesday released a video clip of leader Kim Jong-il looking frail but healthy. The official Korean Central Television broadcast no footage of Kim between last August, when he apparently had a stroke, and November, when he resumed duties.
Taliban killed five people, including three policemen, in clashes with tribesmen and police, officials and witnesses said on Tuesday. Seeking anonymity, the officials said Assistant Sub-Inspector Afreen Khan, Head Constable Jehanzada and Constable Muhammad Akbar had a clash with the Taliban who crossed into Buner district from Swat. "Malakand Division Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed has held talks with senior Taliban leaders, but they have refused to leave Buner," they said. 
