Two anonymous young men in Iran, one Iranian and one Afghan, have burned a Koran in protest. This seven-and-a-half minute long video shows the two men, their faces obscured, holding the Muslim holy book and reading prepared statements. They say that Arabs have foisted this book and their homelands and because of it they have gone backwards for 1400 years. They say they dislike the Koran and want it to disappear, adding "Viva freedom!"
Afterwards they stand the Koran on a flat rock, douse it alcohol and light it. One of them hoots and laughs. The book burns fiercely, and after a few moments one of them sprays more alcohol into the flames. The video ends with them warming their hands over the blazing book.
Imagine turning your carÂ’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now youÂ’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel.
It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driverÂ’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result.
While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new small car. Chevrolet sold 50,205 Cruzes through the end of March. ThatÂ’s well short of the 76,821 units Toyota sold of the CruzeÂ’s main rival, the Corolla, but it is ahead of the 37,379 Cobalts Chevy sold in the same period. The Cruze replaced the Cobalt and is supposed to be a departure from that uninspired model.
In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car maker said it traced the problem with that particular car to a case in which the wrong wheel was put in a car and replaced later in the assembly process with the correct one. But the new wheel wasnÂ’t attached properly, the car maker says.
#1
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and the African American members of the House Financial Services Committee, known as the FS 10, were recently honored by the Black Press of America and the National Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation (NNPAF) with the 2011 Political Leadership Award for their work during negotiations for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
that would be her illegal and unethical intervention on behalf of a bank her husband was invested heavily in. Nice to see the Chollie Rangel and "Cold-Cash Jefferson"-supporting blacks are still unethical and thieving
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2011 16:02
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#2
The "Millstone" medal?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/11/2011 16:31
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#3
Can that photograph of her be considered obscene?
Not p*rn*graphic, just obscene.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/11/2011 16:49
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#4
Guess the white folks won't get their award until the White Press of America people get the word...
#2
Yah, Tim was so desparate to keep his cozy job that he invited 60 Minutes into his Board room, after Obama was elected, to show his new "transparency." Too bad that Tim had repeatedly pronounced on the soundness of the loony-finance/zero oversight practises of Wall Street. I attended a speech where Milton Friedman advocated the replacement of the Fed, with a "computer." Good idea.
Remember when Industrials, Mining, Housing, Agriculture (and sundry foodstuffs) and Transportation ruled the economy, and Financials were the bit players? Glory days.
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 15:51
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#3
But he said once those measures are exhausted the U.S. government would not have enough money to pay its bills. Military salaries, Social Security payments and jobless benefits would cease, he warned, adding that a default on the debt would drive up interest rates, erode home values and cause a new financial crisis.
So he would stop Social Security Payments (which is something people have actually paid into during their lives) And Jobless benefits (what is that? Unemployment? - something else people actually paid into) I guess this is to have something to blame the Republicans for.
And he'll keep welfare, education, EPA, etc... and Abortion Inc (aka Planned Parenthood). All the things the Federal Government has not business doing in the first place. I guess the DNC still has to pay it's voters.
And of course holding the military payroll hostage seems to be the new Treasury Budget Policy nowdays.
JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed made a rare public appearance in Islamabad today to lead the funeral prayers for Kashmiri leader Maulvi Showkat Ahmed Shah, killed in Srinagar last week. He used the occasion to trash talk Indo-Pak cricket diplomacy while promising a "jihad" in J&K.
In a rabble-rousing speech, Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, said the movement in Kashmir would serve as an example for "Muslims in Hyderabad and Junagarh who want independence from the oppression of Hindus".
"The stand taken by the Pakistan government for friendship with India is not acceptable to the Pakistani people under any circumstances," Saeed, also the founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, said.
Saeed declared that "friendship, trade and cricket diplomacy" with India has no meaning. "We make it clear that (the government) should back the Hurriyat till the last breath for the independence of Kashmir."
"We want to make it clear that we are with Kashmiris and will remain with them... All the people in Pakistan and Kashmir are unwilling to accept anything less than independence (for Jammu & Kashmir)," he exclaimed as the crowd repeatedly cheered.
He said that instead of efforts to foster friendship and trade with India, Pakistan should work to achieve the "independence" of Jammu & Kashmir.
Paying homage to Shah, the president of the Jamiat-e-Ahle Hadith, killed in the bombing on April 8, Saeed called the movement in Jammu & Kashmir "a jihad for independence where even death is part of life".
Dismissing the idea that the jihad in Kashmir had become weak in the post-9/11 era, Saeed said that "it has come very close to its final stage".
Saeed claimed that the Kashmiri leaders had kept alive their movement even "when Pakistan was under great pressure" and the government in Islamabad "always gave in to pressure".
Saeed has led several rallies in Lahore calling for jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. He said the situation in Afghanistan was a sign that India could not continue what he described as the "occupation" of Jammu and Kashmir.
"I want to tell India this is not that era when Muslims were silent (and) things have changed. Muslims have become aware. If Russia could not continue its occupation of Afghanistan, if America is preparing to pull out and they are admitting that they have failed in their mission in Afghanistan and they cannot continue their occupation... then India cannot continue its occupation of Kashmir," he said.
The gathering was also addressed by Abdul Aziz Alvi, the head of the JuD in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, United Jihad Council vice-chairman Muhammad Usman and leaders of the Hurriyat Conference.
Iran will continue enriching uranium to 20 percent level to fuel "four to five" nuclear research reactors it intends to build in the "next few years," a top official told the ISNA news agency on Monday.
So as to research, you know, plutonium...
"In the next few years, four to five (research) reactors... of 10 to 20 megawatts will be built" in the country, the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation Fereydoon Abbasi Davani was quoted as saying.
"Thus we need to continue enrichment to 20 percent in order to provide them with fuel," added Abbasi Davani, who was appointed to the post in February.
The Islamic republic is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.
"Enrichment up to 20 percent will continue and will not halt. We will increase the volume of the 20 percent enrichment based on the country's needs. For this, we will not ask for permission from anyone," Abbasi Davani said.
The aim of the new reactors is "to produce radio isotopes, and (to enable) research and development," he said.
Development of fission bombs, for example...
These reactors "will be built in different provinces," he said, without elaborating, but adding that building the first "will take three to four years."
Long enough time line that a pro-active American government could do something about it.
Iran announced in June last year it intended to build a "number" of research reactors aimed at producing radio isotopes for "sale and export to the regional and Islamic countries that need them."
So that all Islamic countries could have plutonium for research purposes...
Officials have repeatedly said that Iran would produce the nuclear fuel required for a research reactor in Tehran by September 2011.
Western powers have repeatedly said Iran does not possess the technology to make the actual nuclear fuel plates required to power the Tehran research reactor which makes medical isotopes.
But the Russians do...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/11/2011
13:30 ||
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#1
Ditto repor NORTH KOREA as per SoKor this past weekend, on more or less the North's intent to unilater expand its indigenous Nucprog despite the on-going post-YEONGPYEONG brouhaha wid the South + new national hunger issues.
* ION FREEREPUBLIC/TOPIX > AS IRAN GOES NUCLEAR, THE US [POTUS Bammer = Admin] DOES NOTHING.
#2
As per POLITICAL-LEGAL JIHAD + good intentions of the pro-Democracy "Jasmine" ME mass protests, RADICAL ISLAM is on the verge of procuring political power in a host of "moderate" sovereign Arab-Muslim countries, vee "normal" local electoral processes, + including histor powerhouse EGYPT whom already has a long-established Civilian Nucprog for energy.
The scenario is real that, come 2012 or shortly after, IRAN WILL STILL GO NUCLEAR [NucWeapons] WHILE STEADILY NO LONGER BEING THE ONLY SOURCE FOR NUKE-WMD TECHS FOR SOLE, VARIOUS ISLAMIST MILTERRS.
It will not be Iran, or even Iran + Pakistan, anymore, just as it won't be the USA-VS-RISING-CHINA ONLY anymore.
Like the original Mohammedan Conquests of the Middle Ages, the OWG Caliphate = Global Islamist-Jihadist State [Nuclear?] came = rose like a SUDDEN WIND.
** DRUDGEREPORT > UNREST IN INDIA? | [FT.com] TATA CHIEF WARNS OF INDIA UNREST, as due to US$39.0Bilyuhn telecommunications national scandal.
IIUC ARTIC = IOW, any breakout of "Jasmine" style mass protests + challenge to the curr Govt. in Indjuh NEED NOT BE ORGINALLY LED NOR INDUCED, ETC. BY EITHER COMMIE-MAOIST, MUSLIM REBELS - THE TWO LATTER, ETC. DID NOT START THE "JASMINE" BUT THEY MAY VERY WELL FINISH IT ALA EGYPT'S "MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD" + COALITION.
A blast ripped through a metro station in the capital Minsk on Monday, killing at least five and injuring several commuters. It was not yet clear what caused the explosion, which hit the Oktyabrskaya station in the center of the city. The exit to the metro leads directly to both President Lukashenko's main working office and his residence.
Witnesses said that dark plumes of smoke rose from the station tunnel, with dozens of people walking out stunned, covered with plaster and their clothing tattered.
Belarus' state news agency Belta said several people had died in the blast, without giving further details. The Interfax news agency reported that at least 30 people were carried out on stretchers.
The RIA Novosti news agency reported that at least 10 people were wounded in the blast, adding that the ceiling of the underground station may be in danger of collapse.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/11/2011 16:53
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#2
Watching the European news. They're up to more than 20 dead and 100 injured.
I've been to that metro station. Note than when they say it's the main station to Lukashenko's junk, he never uses it.
It's the most urban part of the capitol, and near just about every important government building. However, if I recall, across the street is the city's major river.
More victims of mindless violence and senseless terrorism. It is saddening to think of the dead and the injured, maimed for life.
We should all light a candle for the victims and their families.
Apparently Doku is at it again.
I am personally tired of this. We need to take the gloves off and go after this vermin and the culture that cultivates it. Like the Romans after the second Punic war, exile the survivors, plow the ground under, eradicate any evidence that anyone lived there and forbid anyone to live there for a thousand years.
It is time for the Assyrian option.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/11/2011 18:46
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#4
Interlude ...
A short summary of English numerical shorthand as shown in this title.
an event = one
a couple events = two
a few events = three to four
some events = five to six
several events = seven to nine
many events = ten or more
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Rantburg programming ...
#2
He forgot Zinn. How many books did that commie bastard sell to the schools?
According to Zinn and his sycophantic teacher fans, nothing the US did or does can ever be noble or right.
Therefore, slavery/abolition cannot be allowed to have any influence on the Civil War or its aftermath.
And many Iraqis welcomed some of my friends as liberators. That was before the insurgents started killing those who did.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/11/2011 14:16
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1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
There's going to a lot of 'opinion' in the next few days upon the anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter.
#4
FTA: Take a tour of a Civil War battlefield today, and it's difficult to connect the terrifying experience of an average Civil War soldier -- described above from various historical accounts -- with the tranquil historic sites where we now snap pictures today.
It's only difficult if you (1) failed in reading comprehension in grade school (2) have a dead imagination and (3) lack empathy.
#6
it's difficult to connect the terrifying experience of an average Civil War soldier
I'm pretty sure this photo of a Union POW who survived the Andersonville camp is easy to find at that National Cemetery. It may be difficult to behold, but it is not difficult to connect.
#8
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
The Civil War is over, and as long as liberty and justice are assured, it can never happen again.
Forces stormed the Führerbunker bunker where Ivory Coast's strongman Laurent Gbagbo hung on to power Monday, arresting the man whose refusal to hand over the presidency to the election winner left hundreds dead.
Issard Soumahro, a pro-Ouattara fighter at the scene, told The Associated Press that the ground offensive to seize Gbagbo came after the French launched airstrikes until at least 3 a.m. Monday. "We attacked and forced in a part of the Führerbunker bunker. He was there with his wife and his son. He wasn't hurt, but he was tired and his cheek was swollen from where a soldier had slapped him," Soumahro said. Rooters reports it with a slightly different emphasis:
Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo was arrested on Monday after French armoured vehicles closed in on the compound where the self-proclaimed president had been holed up in a Führerbunker bunker.
A column of more than 30 French armoured vehicles moved in on Gbagbo's Führerbunker residence in Abidjan after helicopter gunships attacked the compound overnight in bid to end a months-long political standoff that had descended into civil war.
The U.S. government has prevented more than 350 people suspected of ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups from boarding U.S.-bound commercial flights since the end of 2009, The Associated Press has learned.
Security practices changed after an admitted al-Qaida operative from Nigeria was accused of trying to blow himself up on a flight to Detroit on Christmas 2009. Until then, airlines only kept passengers off U.S.-bound planes if they were on the no-fly list, a list of people considered a threat to aviation.
Summary: Article and radio story this morning claims US has blocked 350 possible bad guys since the failed Christmas bombing by stopping another level of suspect. I counted three levels:
1. Visa revoked - that could be a clue.
2. On the terrorist watch list, which is where they've recently expanded the refusal. Watch list might include money men, trainers, HAMAS members, etc. as opposed to splodydope hopefuls. So we are bragging we've stopped 350 possible bag men, so we should feel safer.
3. The no-fly list, which seems to be a combo of the terrorist watch list and "considered a threat to aviation". Now - how do they decide who is a threat to aviation?
Maybe TSA is up for budget renewal.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2011
07:26 ||
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#1
I saw a cute commercial last night, where a guy's in the airport being groped by the TSA people and he's talking about how he needs his equipment to be reliable.
For the blow off his chain saw comes through the x-ray belt.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011 12:04
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#2
For the record Fred - some times those airline food 'steaks' can be rather tough....
Some people are taking a current fad to surgical levels - the new trend where body-modification artists cut the tops of young people's ears and sew them back together in a pointed shape. The procedure removes cartilage so it's not easily reversible.
"They may think its cool for a year or two, but if they ever need it reversed it's going to be nearly impossible, unless they come see me" Dr.Ramineni says. "I don't imagine seeing many CEOs out there that have elf ears." CEO? Doncha hafta work to get there?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2011
06:47 ||
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#1
Next fad: unnecessary amputations of major body parts.
#4
There is actually a bizarre mental illness that is focused on the amputation of one or more limbs. This resulted in a highly questionable bit of medical care in South America.
A young doctor, a surgeon, was stationed at a major insane asylum with four rare patients that had this mental illness. The four were unresponsive to any therapy and were "basket cases".
After several years of consultation, he got permission and support of the medical staff to amputate on of the patients' legs, that the patient had already damaged himself trying to self-amputate.
After the surgery, the patient normalized into full and functional sanity, and was able to be discharged and returned to his family.
A second patient was partially fixed, but demanded the removal of three toes on his other foot before he was likewise deemed "sane".
But the third patient wanted removal of all his limbs, and that was a no-go, as far as the doctors were concerned, so he remained institutionalized. And the fourth patient was not an issue, as word got out, and they were told to halt future surgeries until their national medical college could review their findings.
But the Internet intervened, as one of these amputation people created a website, which attracted others of his kind. Thus indicating that a lot more people had this mental illness than previously believed.
#6
It's hypothesised that Amputee wannabes have a damaged sense of proprioception (knowing where your limbs are i.e. the brains mental map of your body) and they process this mismatch by thinking of the limb as alien.
#14
Okay, Google has enough pictures of the elf-people. I believe. Still, that's pretty shoddy journalism to force people to look around for the pictures.
#2
A lawyer commenting in writing on an active case? I'd be concerned about the risk of being disbarred... If some of Rantburg's lawyers would be so kind as to comment?
Posted by: jack salami ||
04/11/2011 9:41
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#4
And if Barack or the wooky were friends or associates of Hassan what would be done different?
Posted by: Fi ||
04/11/2011 10:26
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#5
If it walks like a duck, acts like a duck and thinks like a duck, Gentlemen, it's usually a duck
Are there any questions?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/11/2011 10:40
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#6
The senator also had some choice words for the Army and the FBI, which, he alleged, were too politically correct in their handling of Hasan. He excoriated the ArmyÂ’s decision to keep Hasan on because he might provide greater understanding of Islam.
#9
Lieberman, Collins Slam DoD, FBI with buckets of HOT AIR for Fort Hood Shooting, but just like 9/11, nobody gets fired!
February 3, 2011 1:16 P.M. By Brian Bolduc
The federal government needs to drop the political correctness and call violent Islamic extremism what it is, according to a newly released report containing no recommendations or remediations on the Fort Hood shooting by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
The committee’s chairman and ranking member, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine), held a press conference earlier today to discuss their investigation into the November 2009 massacre. That month, U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan opened fire at the Texas base, killing thirteen people. “Our report’s painful conclusion is that the Fort Hood massacre could have and should have been prevented,” Lieberman said. He added that senior officers employees at the Department of Defense “had compelling evidence of [Hasan’s] growing embrace of violent Islamic extremism before the attack that should have caused them to discharge him.”
For evidence, Lieberman cited two of Hasan’s associates at Walter Reed Medical Center, who separately referred to Hasan as a “ticking time bomb.” In addition, Hasan openly had suggested revenge as a defense for the 9/11 attacks, defended Osama bin Laden, and said his allegiance to his religion and community organizing was greater than his allegiance to the constitution.
Hasan’s words, Lieberman concluded, “made him not just a ticking time bomb but a traitor” ....and obviously a long-term person of interest to the FBI.
The senator also had some choice words for the Army and the FBI, which, he alleged, were too politically correct in their cockup handling of Hasan. He excoriated the ArmyÂ’s cover story decision to keep Hasan on because he might provide greater understanding of Islam.
“The attack on 9/11 Fort Hood attack was a warning that . . . America’s enemy today is not terrorism or a particular terrorist organization or a particular religion,” Lieberman said. “The enemy is the political ideology of violent Islamic extremism.” He affirmed that the Department of Defense can “no longer subsume that reality with politically correct terms.”
Collins observed that the government had full ability to deal with Hasan: “You may recall that at first administration officials pointed to restrictions that they said made it difficult to conduct the investigation. What we have found is that there were no legal restrictions that hindered that investigation.” And the Special Prosecuter will be appointed when?
Instead, the government’s cover-up of the half-hearted effort to investigate Hasan, which it ended “prematurely,” was “a tragedy of errors,” Lieberman said.
#10
I'd be concerned about the risk of being disbarred.
On what grounds? The key rule in legal ethics is to zealously represent your client. Galligan is always pointing the finger somewhere else, so he's doing exactly what he's supposed to.
Pointing the finger at the White House, however . . . he's a lot closer to "meeting with an accident" than getting disbarred.
As for the substance of his claims:
1. Whatever. An uncorroborated report on an email to some guy named Rick doesn't do much for me.
2. The speedy trial clock ticks against prosecution delays, but not defense delays. I'm not keeping score, but the government doesn't get a year and half to dick around.
3. Military prosecutors are under a legal obligation to disclose all evidence to the defense, including and especially exculpatory evidence. That rule gets broken, but not frequently - and not nearly as often as defense attorneys claim.
However, if that is indeed what's going on, I'm not sure what the motivation would be, or why it would go all the way up to the White House. Nor would I waste any time speculating.
Defense attorneys talk a lot of shit to distract, deflect, buy time, etc., because it's the only weapon they have. Wheels within wheels, it's all a big conspiracy, eh? Yeah okay sure, huff and puff and blow my house down. We all know yer boy Hasan did it, he will get his day in court, and it will probably not go very well for him.
Thank you for your concern. COL Mulligan is the prosecutor for the case. The III Corps legal adviser is currently reviewing the documents
provided to him by COL Lamb and will advise the III Corps commander after careful review of the recommendations. The general's counsel will
take due diligence to review the documents as will the commander at which point a decision will be made on the question of whether to elevate the case to a general court martial and whether to try the case as a capital case as recommended by the Special Court Martial Convening Authority.
I do believe that whether to try the case as a capital case as recommended by the Special Court Martial Convening Authority. means to try this jihadist in a civilian court, the same thing Obama was trying to do with the Gitmo detainees?
#12
RandomJD, I am "Rick". Submitted that email exchange to Rantburg the day I submitted it to Pamela Geller. However, it did not get posted here, until Pamela wrote this article for the American Thinker.
The latest correspondence in the comment immediately above this one came from:
From : Christopher Haug - III Press Center
Date : 04/11/11 08:57
Forwarded to Christopjer Haug from PAO - Col. Benton Danner and Deputy PAO (III Corps) - LTC Andrew Mutter.
#13
Negatory. "Trying it as a capital case" means they're seeking the death penalty. It's still a court-martial, but with some additional procedural rules that come into play when the goal is to execute the accused.
#16
"Jihad" obligation defenses are not far fetched. It worked in a couple of Philadelphia cases, pre-9-11. Numerous "honor" defenses have worked in California's neo-"moorish" barrios. This savagery all has islamic roots.
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 16:07
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#17
Submitted that email exchange to Rantburg the day I submitted it to Pamela Geller. However, it did not get posted here, until Pamela wrote this article for the American Thinker.
Kofi Uleanter4027/Rick, we discussed your submission rather intensely that day. The thing is, you submitted it under an anonymizer nym, with no link and no way to contact you for follow-up and confirmation, and no background so that we could understand your connection to defense attorney, that he would so candidly answer your emailed question.
#18
TW, You did the right thing by not posting that submission. I never expected it to be posted here as I knew there was not enough source information for you. It was just a heads up for you guys to keep an eye out for any stories on the subject that met posting criteria on such as the American Thinker article posted today resulting from a much more verifiable correspondence she had from me. Pamela and I have known each other for some time.
#21
If Nidal is sentenced to death, Obama, as Commander In Chief, will have to sign-off on the execution. Obama is a staunch opponent of the death penalty.
#22
Oh man. I forgot about that. Heh. Wish I could be there to see Obozo squirm when once again he cannot simply vote "present." He's gonna need intensive golf therapy and a lavish island vacation after he flips the coin on that one!
#23
Well, with any luck (for Obama) the trial and all the appeals will delay the final result until after January 2013, so he will be out of office and can punt it to his successor.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/11/2011 22:19
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#24
Obama is a staunch opponent of the death penalty.
Except if the one being killed in an innocent unborn child (or one who survived an abortion.
On Saturday police arrested 59 people, including 19 veiled women, who turned up for a banned protest in Paris against the draconian new law, the first of its kind to be enforced in Europe.
Earlier, French police said they will be enforcing the countryÂ’s new burka ban "extremely cautiously" because of fears of provoking violence.
They fear Muslims extremists will use the law to provoke fights with officers, while rich visitors from countries like Saudi Arabia will also cause trouble.
Mr. Wife commented once about flying home after business trips to Saudi Arabia, as soon as the airline pilot announced that they'd left Saudi airspace the black abayas trooped back to the bathrooms, emerging one by one as highly fashionable, Western-style females. On inbound trips the process reversed. There's no reason to think that rich Saudi women wouldn't readily comply with the no-niqab law.
China and Pakistan have conducted a joint-air exercise called Shaheen-1, which saw the first ever deployment of a Chinese air force contingent to Pakistan. Chin wanna see how the PLAAF stacks up against those spiffy new F-16 Block52+. Collect some waveforms.
[Ma'an] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Israel will respond "with even more force" if rocket fire by Gazoocut-throats continues.
Speaking shortly after a rocket fired from Gazoo struck near the southern city of Ashkelon, Netanyahu warned that any further attacks would be dealt with harshly.
"If the criminal attacks against Israeli military and civilians continue, Israel will respond with even more force," he told public radio.
But both Israeli and Paleostinian officials expressed support for a potential ceasefire, after days of rocket fire and Israeli air raids that have killed at least 18 people in Gazoo.
The flare-up came after an anti-tank missile fired from Gazoo hit an Israeli school bus on Thursday, wounding two people, one of them critically.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel was ready to end the confrontation, if Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and other gangs stopped firing.
"If they cease firing, we'll cease firing," he said, reacting to reports that the political wing of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gazoo, was ready for a truce.
"We cannot tolerate firing" against Israel, said Barak, who has indefinitely postponed a trip to Washington in the face of escalating violence around the territory where Israel fought a devastating 22-day conflict in December 2008-January 2009.
"We will act along the lines of what happens on the ground," he added.
It was the first time that an Israeli minister had floated the possibility of a ceasefire since deadly festivities with the Paleostinians broke out.
Hamas and other gangs in Gazoo had previously announced a unilateral truce that unravelled before it had a chance to take hold, with cut-throats firing dozens of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel.
But on Saturday, a senior Israeli security official said Hamas's political wing had asked Israel for a ceasefire.
"The political branch of Hamas has sent a message asking for an Israeli ceasefire" in exchange for a halt to Paleostinian attacks, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Hamas front manSami Abu Zuhri ...a senior front man for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gazoo. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... said Sunday that the group would be willing to stop firing if Israel announced a ceasefire.
"The ball is in the court of the occupation," Abu Zuhri said. "Our message to the occupation is that a truce will be met with a truce."
He said Hamas was not trying to increase tensions with Israel, but defended the actions of the Islamist group and other myrmidon organizations in Gazoo.
"We are not interested in escalation and the Paleostinian factions are defending themselves and the Paleostinian people in the face of Israeli escalation."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, defending themselves. Just firing rockets blindly into a neighboring country. Just so the Joooos know how tough they are scare them away!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/11/2011 7:11
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[Ennahar] Libyan hard boyz said on Sunday they had captured 15 Algerian mercenaries in Ajdabiya and killed three during in heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... on Saturday in this city in the east.
The rebels regularly denounce the presence of mercenaries, particularly from Africa, among the forces defending the regime of Muammar Qadaffy.
According to a front man for the rebels, Chemseddine Abdoulmolah, the mercenaries caught did not have identification papers, but "they said they were Algerian and had an Algerian accent."
He told AFP that several Algerian identity cards and passports had been found in a nearby building in Ajdabiya.
"They said they were selling hashish and (...) they have hashish on them," he said, referring to a "crazy" story.
Mr. Abdoulmolah explained that the group of 18 mercenaries had been brought into a city on the front line by a local, loyal to the regime of Muammar Qadaffy. The latter was also captured.
The rebel front man, who said that prisoners were well treated, accused Algeria of supporting Muammar Qadaffy, saying the country is "turning a blind eye" on the arrival of mercenaries.
"It's sad ... They (in Algeria) have the same kind of dictatorship we have here," he said.
A delegation of African presidents were to meet Sunday afternoon in Tripoli, Muammar Qadaffy to plead for a truce in fighting between the army and the rebels, which have flared up in Ajdabiya (east) and Misrata (west).
South African president, Jacob Zuma, and his counterparts of Congo, Mali, Mauritania and Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs, mandated by the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... (AU), were then scheduled to visit Sunday night and Monday Benghazi, "capital" of the rebels at 1,000 km east of Tripoli.
Their task looks difficult, the rebel leaders rejected any idea of a cease-fire involving the retention of power by Mr. Qadaffy and his son.
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[Arab News] Iran has expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after the Gulf emirate said it would throw out three Iranian diplomats in a row over spy allegations, a Kuwaiti official said on Sunday.
"Iran has expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats, and they were given 10 days to leave," Khaled Al-Jarallah, the undersecretary of Kuwait's Foreign Ministry told Rooters on Sunday.
The move comes after Kuwait expelled three Iranian diplomats this month, Jarallah said.
Kuwait's foreign minister said on March 31 three Iranian diplomats should be expelled in retaliation for what Kuwait says was an Iranian spy ring there. Press TV said the expulsions took place on April 2.
Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians and a Kuwaiti to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and Tehran.
Kuwaiti media said in May 2010 that authorities had jugged a number of people, Kuwaitis and foreigners, suspected of spying for Iran. Media reports said they were accused of gathering information on Kuwaiti and US military sites for Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Iran's relations with its US-allied Gulf Arab neighbors, who offer various facilities to US forces, have soured since popular uprisings were suppressed by government forces.
The Arab states have accused Iran of interfering in their affairs after Tehran objected to the dispatch of Saudi troops to help Bahrain put down protests.
Iran has denied the spying charge and says it avoids interference in other countries' domestic issues.
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04/11/2011
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#1
By most Pert accounts, this Saudis-vs-Iran thingy in the ME is escalating towards an unknown outcome.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... launched air strikes against Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy's ... a proud Arab institution for 42 years ... troops in the stricken port city of Misrata on Sunday after regime forces killed at least 11 people there at the weekend, rebels said.
And in Brussels, an alliance official confirmed to AFP that NATO warplanes had destroyed 11 regime tanks on the road to the eastern Libyan town of Ajdabiya and another 14 tanks near Misrata.
On the diplomatic front, a high-ranking African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... delegation was on its way to Libya on Sunday to present a blueprint for a ceasefire.
Rebels said they had captured 15 Algerian mercenaries and killed another three during fierce fighting in Ajdabiya the previous day.
Medics also said at least 12 rebels were killed in and around Ajdabiya over the weekend.
Officials at Benghazi's Jala hospital said it had received nine "deaders" from the fighting and 14 maimed people, and a doctor at the Al-Hawwara hospital said it had received three dead and three maimed.
A marked improvement
The air strikes on Misrata came on Sunday morning, a rebel front man in the besieged town told AFP, describing the raids as "a marked improvement in NATO intervention."
"They began the raids yesterday on the Qadaffy forces in the northwest of the town and near the centre of Misrata," said the front man.
"In the morning, there were new raids but we are not able to verify the targets," he said, adding that eight rebels were killed by pro-Qadaffy forces and 22 others were maimed on Saturday.
A doctor at Misrata hospital gave AFP the same corpse count for Saturday, saying they included civilians, while putting the number of maimed at 25.
The doctor said the hospital had received three bodies on Sunday, two rebels and a civilian, adding that it was possible there could be more fatalities at other medical facilities.
"As of noon today, NATO air strikes have taken out 11 tanks on the road to Ajdabiya and strikes will continue through the day and tonight," a NATO official in Brussels told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"Clearly the situation in Ajdabiya is desperate and Qadaffy forces are attacking the town with heavy weapons," the official said.
Loud kabooms rocked the battleground town of Ajdabiya for a second day on Sunday, as rebel fighters advanced cautiously after suffering a major reverse at the hands of loyalists.
The alliance had already taken out 15 tanks near Misrata on Friday and Saturday, bringing to 29 the total number of tanks destroyed around Libya's third largest city in the past three days.
Western strikes against regime forces began on March 19 under a UN mandate to protect the population after Qadaffy unleashed his security forces to quell pro-democracy protests.
The United States handed control of the operation to NATO on March 31. Libyan rebels have criticised NATO in recent days, accusing the alliance of failing to protect the population in Misrata.
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[Ma'an] Israel is ready to stop firing at armed Paleostinian groups in the Gazoo Strip if the Paleostinians reciprocate, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday on Israeli public radio.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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[Ma'an] New Paleostinian military groups in the Gazoo Strip have grabbed credit, for the first time, for firing missiles at Israeli targets bordering the strip.
Somebody changed their name again?
*shrug* Hamas is still responsible for controlling them, no matter how they wriggle. From whom did they get the rockets and launchers?
The "Abdullah Azzam Brigades - Marwan Haddad division - in the Levant" grabbed credit Sunday for firing a Grad missile at the Israeli city of Ashkelon and two homemade projectiles at the Zekeim military base.
"The shelling is part of ongoing retaliation to the crimes committed by the Zionists who were known for killing prophets. This will continue until the Paleostinian land is liberated and Tawhid flag is raised," a statement by the new group read.
Another group, identified as the "At-Tawhid and Al-Jihad - Beit Al-Maqdis," grabbed credit for launching a homemade projectile at the Nahal Oz military base.
For its part, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the An-Nasser Salah Ad-din Brigades, said in a statement its fighters fired three mortar shells towards Nahal Oz.
The group grabbed credit for another attack on the "Al-Ein settlement" east of Khan Younis firing one homemade projectile, a third on Netivot firing two projectiles and a fourth on Kibutz Ra'eim firing one homemade projectile.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades grabbed credit for launching four mortar shells at the Kerem Shalom area in the early morning Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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#1
Just some more names HamAss can hide behind so they can launch attacks under a 'truce'...
#2
Hezbollocks is pushing Hamass into a war, so they'll have an excuse to launch those 40,000 rockets they have against Israel. Israel cannot defend itself against that kind of onslaught without going Mongol on both groups. Expect the next war in the Muddled East to go nuclear early and often, and several Arab states cease to exist. It's the only way Israel can survive. I hope Israel holds one weapon back so they can launch it against Brussels in response to the growing anti-Antisemitism of the EU. A wise man would take heed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/11/2011 13:32
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#3
And to think it could all be prevented with a few good arclights south of the Litani.
[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN politician faces an ethics investigation after he was photographed apparently watching porn on his tablet computer in parliament, an official said on Sunday.
Whoops!
Cheez buddy, you think you're for the US Securities and Exchange Commission or something?
Arifinto, who represents the conservative Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS),
Double whoops.
was caught on camera on Friday looking at a pornographic image on the tablet, which he held slightly under his table, during a plenary session.
At least he was properly ashamed.
Yeah, right...
The photograph, first posted on a local news website, was picked up by other media and sparked a public outcry on the Twitter microblogging site over the weekend.
'Shameful. Just flog and stone (him). Improper!' user @benimonzieur tweeted.
The case is under investigation, House Ethics Council deputy chairman Nudirman Munir said on Sunday.
'We're carrying out intensive verification to see he had indeed violated the code of ethics,' he told AFP.
"As it turns out, the rules don't forbid watching p0rnos during plenary sessions, which are dull as dirt. Had it been a debate, however..."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
So he was holding his tablet under the table (on his lap?). I probably don't want to know what he was doing with his other hand.
#2
HMMMM, HMMM, so IIUC the Islamic Burqua which is is supposed to protect the virtues, etc. of Muslim Women is weirdly-n-mysteriously-but-only-coincidentally responsible for making Foreign, Non-Muslim? Babes [+ Not-a-few Goats, Camels, etc.]more attractive to Muslim Males.
Methinks this is where R. LEE ERMEY would come in + say Muslim Males "HAVE A SERIOUS DIIILLLEEEEMMMMAAAAA"???
#5
At least while he's watching porn he can't vote for a tax increase, tax loophole for a constituent or approve some boondoggle legislation that hurts the economy.
Come to think of it, maybe we should make all of the Congressmen and Senators watch porn.
I think we should have a moritorium on any new legislation until one year after Obamacare is repealed.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/11/2011 10:35
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#6
This displeases allah.
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 15:52
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[Arab News] Muammar Qadaffy has accepted a roadmap for ending the civil war in Libya, South African President Jacob Zuma said after leading a delegation of African leaders at talks in Tripoli.
They aren't the ones at war with the colonel, and France isn't likely to be impressed.
Zuma, who with four other African heads of state met Qadaffy for several hours at the Libyan leader's Bab Al-Aziziyah compound, also called on NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... to stop air strikes on Libyan government targets to "give cease-fire a chance."
No one at the talks gave details of the roadmap for peace in this oil-producing nation. Rebels have said they will accept nothing less than an end to Qadaffy's four decades in power, but Libyan officials say he will not quit.
"The brother leader delegation has accepted the roadmap as presented by us. We have to give cease-fire a chance," Zuma said, adding that the African delegation would now travel to the eastern city of Benghazi for talks with anti-Qadaffy rebels.
NATO stepped up attacks on Qadaffy's armor on Sunday to weaken the bitter siege of Misrata in the west and disrupt a dangerous advance by Qadaffy's troops in the east.
The alliance said it destroyed 11 tanks on the outskirts of the eastern rebel town of Ajdabiyah, which looked in danger of being overrun on Sunday, and 14 near Misrata, a lone cut-thoat bastion in the west that has been under siege for six weeks.
There was no sign of any let-up in the fighting and despite the African leaders' peace roadmap hopes of a negotiated settlement looked slim.
A rebel front man rejected a deal with Qadaffy to end the conflict, bloodiest in a series of pro-democracy revolts across the Arab world that have ousted the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.
"There is no other solution than the military solution, because this dictator's language is annihilation, and people who speak this language only understand this language," front man Ahmad Bani told al Jazeera television.
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#1
"There is no other solution than the military solution, because this dictator's language is annihilation, and people who speak this language only understand this language,"
[Ennahar] Two months after his fall, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... came out for the first time Sunday to say he was victim of "defamation" while protesters demanding his trial got the summons in connection with a judiciary investigation.
Justice has announced that former Rais and his two sons Alaa and Gamal would be convened at an unspecified date, to answer charges in conducting anti-corruption and violence that left some 800 dead during demonstrations against the regime in January and February.
The announcement, first step toward a possible trial, was made after massive demonstrations Friday, smaller Saturday and Sunday but violent with officially a death on Tahrir Square in Cairo, Mecca of the revolt that brought down Mr. Mubarak February 11.
Protesters demand a trial for the former president and other bigwigs of his regime, accusing the army in power since his departure of dragging their feet to turn the page on Mubarak's years.
The former president himself, silent since his resignation, expressed for the first time in a audio speech of a few minutes aired on Saudi Dubai-based al-Arabiya.
He denounces the "smear campaigns" against him and defends his "reputation" and his integrity." He ensures that neither he nor his wife Suzanne have property abroad and says he is willing to cooperate with justice on this issue.
The authorities have assigned Mubarak in residence in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, and routinely deny rumors of his departure abroad.
Justice also announced the detention of Mubarak's former Prime Minister, Ahmad Nazif, following accusations of embezzlement.
Other former officials of the former regime have been for several weeks the subject of judicial action or investigation, but part of the opinion finds these actions still too timid.
A thousand protesters were still around Tahrir Square on Sunday, the entrances were blocked by barbed wire and metal bars.
Besides the trial of former president, they asked the Marshal Hussein Tantawi departure, head of the Supreme Council of the armed forces, who acts as head of state for two months.
"The people demand the overthrow of the Marshal", aged 75 and defense minister for 20 years.
The intervention of the military police, backed by riot police against the demonstrators on the night of Friday to Saturday caused one dead and 71 maimed according to official figures. Medical sources had earlier reported two deaths.
The army for its part has denied having acted with brutality and denied accusations that it had opened fire on demonstrators. She called them "off-the-law".
The presence of seven uniformed officers among the protesters had left dawn divisions within a military institution traditionally sealed on its internal debates.
These events reflect a recent escalation of tensions around the role of the army after a period of broad consensus on its efforts to stabilize the country and organize the return to elected civilian rule promised by the end of the year.
But the popularity of the military institution continues to enjoy in a wide part of the opinion has led many officials and organizations to remain cautious about these criticisms, even to dissociate themselves from the protesters.
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[Ma'an] The Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine ... Paleostinian Marxist movement, founded in 1967. It is considered a terrorist organization by more than 30 countries including the U.S., European Union, Australia, Canada, and Antarctica. The PFLP's stated goal is the establishment of a socialist State in Paleostine. They pioneered armed aircraft hijackings in the late 60s and early 70s... came out Sunday against a ceasefire proposal that has the support of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and other factions in the Gazoo Strip.
Popular Front leader Jamal Mezher described the truce as a "mistake" because Israel's army did not stop "its assault, is still committing crimes, and insists on killing and destruction against Paleostinians."
Many other Paleostinian officials have expressed support for a potential arrangement with Israel after days of rocket fire and Israeli air raids that have killed at least 18 people in Gazoo.
Mezher, a member of the secular faction's central committee, told Ma'an "the main issue is that the consensus among factions is for resistance, not truces, and no one should agree to a truce without coordination."
Hamas and other gangs had previously announced a unilateral truce that unravelled before it had a chance to take hold, with beturbanned goons firing dozens of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel.
But on Saturday, a senior Israeli security official said Hamas's political wing had asked Israel for a ceasefire.
"The political branch of Hamas has sent a message asking for an Israeli ceasefire" in exchange for a halt to Paleostinian attacks, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Calling the quick decision a misstep, Mezher said that "regrettably, there weren't consultations among the factions on whether or not to agree to a truce; the only party speaking on this issue is Hamas."
Mezher cited a controversial point proposed by Israeli officials that its their army continue to hit what they called "time bombs" which pose a threat to Israel as evidence that the offer was handled poorly.
In Jerusalem late Sunday, Israeli leaders decided to continue to "work against terrorism in Gazoo," despite Hamas' call for a ceasefire, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser was quoted as saying by Israel's Haaretz daily.
After Israel's political-security cabinet was briefed, ministers decided to instruct the army to "continue to work against terrorism in Gazoo in order to stop the firing on Israel and return quiet to southern Israel," Hauser said.
The leftist faction's rejection followed that of Islamic Jihad's armed wing, which said late Saturday it would have no part in the deal reached with the help of the UN envoy in Jerusalem. Robert Serry managed to reach the agreement which necessitates that Israel stops strikes on Gazoo and Paleostinian groups commit to stop firing shells toward Israeli towns.
In Jerusalem, meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel would respond "with even more force" if rocket fire by Gazoobeturbanned goons continues.
"If the criminal attacks against Israeli military and civilians continue, Israel will respond with even more force," he told public radio.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel was ready to end the confrontation, if Hamas and other gangs stopped firing.
"If they cease firing, we'll cease firing," he said, reacting to reports that the political wing of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gazoo, was ready for a truce.
"We cannot tolerate firing" against Israel, said Barak, who has indefinitely postponed a trip to Washington in the face of escalating violence around the territory where Israel launched a devastating 22-day conflict in December 2008-January 2009.
"We will act along the lines of what happens on the ground," he added.
Hamas front manSami Abu Zuhri ...a senior front man for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gazoo. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... said the group would be willing to stop firing if Israel announced a ceasefire.
"The ball is in the court of the occupation," Abu Zuhri said. "Our message to the occupation is that a truce will be met with a truce."
He said Hamas was not trying to increase tensions with Israel, but defended the actions of the Islamist group and others.
"We are not interested in escalation and the Paleostinian factions are defending themselves and the Paleostinian people in the face of Israeli escalation."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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#1
And you say nobody believes Obama's promises anymore.
[Arab News] Muammar Qadaffy, making his first appearance in front of the foreign media in weeks, joined the visiting African leaders at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound.
He then climbed into a sports utility vehicle and was driven about 50 meters (yards) where he waved through the sunroof and made the "V" for victory sign to a crowd of cheering supporters.
It was Qadaffy's second appearance in two days after he received an ecstatic welcome at a Tripoli school on Saturday.
The appearances, and Qadaffy's upbeat demeanour, confirmed the impression among analysts that his circle has emerged from a period of paralysis and is hunkering down for a long campaign, another sign that mediation will be difficult.
Analysts predict a drawn-out, low-level conflict possibly leading to partition between east and west in the sprawling North African Arab state, a major oil and natural gas producer.
NATO's commander of Libyan operations said the alliance, which took over air strikes against Qadaffy from three Western powers on March 31, had destroyed "a significant percentage" of Qadaffy's armor and ammunition stockpiles east of Tripoli.
Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard said after Sunday's air attacks: "The situation in Ajdabiyah, and Misrata in particular, is desperate for those Libyans who are being brutally shelled by the (Qadaffy) regime."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Anyone know if he awarded himself a couple of new sprockets? Looks like it.
#3
With the in fashion people all gaga on Michelle's outfits I believe she could start a new craze of Quddafi apparel. I am certain they would fawn over her avant-garde style.
[Tolo News] The Afghan government is determined to restore Kabul Bank and make sure people's deposits are kept safely, Afghan Minister of Finance said on Saturday.
The government will make sure that the illegally withdrawn money from the Kabul Bank by some of its shareholders is paid back.
Afghan Finance Minister, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, said the government is making efforts to restore people's confidence in Kabul Bank.
"A part of the money withdrawn from the bank has been paid back, and the rest is to be paid soon. All those who owe the Bank money have been identified. Whether they are in Afghanistan or abroad, they will have to repay the money they have withdrawn," Mr Zakhilwal said.
The Ministry says it is the responsibility of Afghanistan Central Bank (DAB) to decide about Kabul Bank, but the Ministry of Finance suggests the bank to be run by the private sector.
"The ones who earlier ran the bank no longer deserve owning it, for the violations they committed," Mr Zakhilwal said.
Kabul Bank was taken over by Afghanistan Central Bank in September last year.
The government is planning to closely monitor all private banks in the future to prevent similar situation as the Kabul Bank crisis.
The comments come as reports previously published spoke of Kabul Bank being put into receivership.
The IMF had recently demanded that Kabul Bank should either be closed down or sold, otherwise a financial assistance programme for Afghanistan could be halted.
The UN had also warned that international donors may halt or redirect their assistance if the Afghan government failed to reach an agreement with International Monetary Fund.
Kabul Bank nearly collapsed last year but was taken over by Afghanistan Central Bank in September.
Some of the Kabul Bank shareholders are accused of using millions of dollars of depositors' money to buy property in Dubai.
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[Arab News] NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... said it had increased the tempo of its air operations over the weekend, after rebels accused it of responding too slowly to government attacks.
The cut-throats hailed the more muscular approach.
The NATO strikes outside Ajdabiyah on Sunday helped break the biggest assault by Qadaffy's forces on the eastern front for at least a week.
The town is the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi 150 km (90 miles) north up the Mediterranean coast.
A Rootersnews hound saw six burning hulks surrounded by 15 charred and dismembered bodies in two sites 300 meters (1,000 feet) apart on Ajdabiyah's western approaches which rebels said were hit by air strikes. "NATO has to do this to help us every single day. That is the only way we are going to win this war," said 25-year-old rebel Tarek Obeidy, standing over the bodies.
The government attack, which began on Saturday, included a fierce artillery and rocket bombardment, while some of Qadaffy's forces, including snipers, penetrated Ajdabiyah. Rebels cowered in alleys for several hours under the bombardment.
The corpses of four rebels were found dumped on a roadside.
"Their throats were slit. They were all shot a few times in the chest as well. I just could not stop crying when I saw them," said rebel Muhammad Saad. "This is becoming tougher and tougher."
But by afternoon rebels looked back in control of Ajdabiyah, commanding key intersections, and the artillery and small arms fire had died down.
Ajdabiyah had been the launch point for cut-throats during a week-long fight for the oil port of Brega 70 km (45 miles) further west, and its fall would be a serious loss.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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#2
WAR be hard. Only the strong survive. The weak and the unlucky don't.
War also requires training. Without it, you're just an armed rabble - something the "Progressives" in this country need to remember (see Washington State).
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/11/2011 13:21
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Islamic Orcs and similar vermin have long held sway in the southern Yemeni town of Jaar. They turned it into a Taliban-style microstate, where the movie theater was converted into a mosque, men and women are banned from mingling in public and drinking alcohol is punishable by 100 lashes.
In recent weeks, they consolidated their authority in Jaar. As Yemen was thrown into turmoil by protests against President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... , armed Islamic Orcs and similar vermin pushed out the military units based in the mountain town of 50,000 people and took over without a shot, seizing a neighboring town as well.
The situation in Jaar offers a worst case scenario of what could happen if Saleh's rule crumbles: Islamic bully boyz will become bolder and move to take advantage of the vacuum of power in the Arab world's poorest country.
The biggest worry is over al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, which the B.O. regime considers the top terrorist threat to the U.S. Washington has given Saleh millions of dollars to fight the terror group, which is believed to have several hundred fighters holed up in mountain hideouts. The B.O. regime fears that cooperation would be jeopardized if the longtime leader is ousted, although it has denounced the regime's violent crackdown against demonstrators.
"It seems that al-Qaeda will at the very least be able to take advantage of any anarchy that results from the ouster of Ali Abdullah Saleh," said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Stratfor, a Texas-based global intelligence firm.
"If he's relieved what will replace him? Will it be effective enough to at least hold the line and not allow bully boyz like al-Qaeda to expand? The answer to that question is not clear," he added.
The government already has diverted forces to the capital, Sanaa, and other urban areas as it fights to stay in power, further reducing his regime's weakening hold on large parts of the country.
Some Yemeni analysts say that the country's powerful tribal leaders -- who have increasingly turned against the government -- will likely oppose any gains by al-Qaeda as a possible threat to their authority and financial networks.
"Yes, there will be a security vacuum and al-Qaeda will play a bigger role," said Shaher Mohammed Said, a Yemeni writer with expertise in Islamic krazed killer groups. "But Yemen will not be Somalia or Afghanistan because tribes -- along with religious holy mans who backed the ouster of Saleh -- will manage to cut the fuel supply to al-Qaeda: the youth."
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen specialist at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said "al-Qaeda is not going to take over." But, he warned, "what is going to happen is that they have greater freedoms to plot and carry out operations and that's what the concern is."
Jaar illustrated that the situation is more complicated than just al-Qaeda. Yemen also has other krazed killer groups that Saleh has cultivated for years and used as proxy forces to help solidify his hold on power. Thousands of Yemeni Orcs and similar vermin fought in "jihads," or "holy wars," in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries from the 1980s to the early 2000s. After returning home, they largely severed ties with al-Qaeda but kept a hard-line Islamic radical ideology.
They also provided a useful force for Saleh against threats to his regime: He used their fighters to combat secessionists in the south and Iranian catspaws in the north and as a pillar of support in other parts of the country.
That raises concern about what they will do if the man who has ruled Yemen for 32 years is deposed.
The Islamists who seized Jaar appear to be from among their ranks, former members of a group known as the Aden Army, who fought in Afghanistan against Soviet forces in the 1980s and returned to side with Saleh's government to put down a 1994 civil war with the south. The hard boyz demanded payback for their help and were given key positions within security forces or as civil servants.
That has led some critics to accuse Saleh of pulling out the army and letting them assume control in Jaar to stoke Western fears of an al-Qaeda takeover. In the eyes of many, Saleh is to blame for the rise of al-Qaeda because of his cultivation of krazed killers. They say that as he struggles to hold power, the president appears to be hoping to keep Washington's support by hyping fears that the terror network could turn its foothold into an outright base on the doorstep of the oil-rich Gulf countries if he goes.
Ali Dahmas, a Yemeni expert on Islamic groups, said that with Saleh's allies abandoning him in the face of protests, he has little else but to hype terrorism fears. "He is waving al-Qaeda card again, but we all know that al-Qaeda is made by Saleh and his regime."
The bully boyz seized Jaar, a neighboring town and a local munitions factory late last month. More than 100 people were killed in an kaboom apparently set off when the impoverished townspeople entered the factory in the aftermath to seize and looted anything of valued that remained, including cables, doors and vehicle fuel.
A leader of the Islamic Orcs and similar vermin who assumed control of Jaar, about 160 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of Sanaa, said they had no connection to al-Qaeda or to Saleh, but the country's disarray forced them to move.
"The state has fallen here. If we didn't take over, others will take over," Khaled Abdel-Nabi told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named in a telephone interview.
On a possible post-Saleh state, he said: "We have tried secular rule and we have tried Socialist rule. Now we need to try Islamic rule because we have no hope but through the Koran and the (Prophet's teachings.)"
A government security official said that the military unit in Jaar has not fired a single bullet and opened up their base to the Islamists after negotiations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press.
The Yemeni terror network -- known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- has played no obvious role in the rebellion that broke out in February and has left about 120 people dead.
But it has used areas of Yemen already out of state control to launch attacks, including sending a jacket wallah who tried to down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. The device failed to detonate properly.
In an essay for al-Qaeda's online magazine last month, the U.S.-born radical Yemeni holy manAnwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is an Islamic holy man who is a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... welcomed the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and said that such will create opportunities for al-Qaeda to operate more freely.
Whatever the outcome of the revolts, "our mujahedeen brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya ... will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation," al-Awlaki wrote.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
How soon we forget. Until 1977, Yemen was divided into North and South regimes, with the South being run as a Marxist state. Once the northern islamists tossed the commies, many moved on to Afghanistan. Mid-conflict - against the Soviets - al-Qaeda set up in Peshawar, Pakistan, and was led by a paleo, Abdullah Azzam (al-Q falsely blames the CIA for his assassination) and ruled a largely Yemeni faction, led by Osama bin Laden (saud by birth only). While our own lefties color al-Q as a CIA Frankenstein, they were largely a globalist entity that didn't contribute much to the local conflict, other than as a laiasson between saud and UAE funders of the founding elements of Taleban/al-Qaeda. While recent events in Yemen largely resulted from social causes, al-Q has hijacked same. Obama's indulgence of neo-islamonazism in the muslim tyrannies, serves al-Qaeda's funding principle: to Guevarize islamonazis "bases" of "jihad." The terror group's full name is: "Al-Qaeda ut-Jihad" ("Base of Islamic-Terror").
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 15:37
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A nice summation, Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036. Thank you!
MIRPUR KHAS, Sindh: At least three labours, including a woman and a child, were killed and six others were seriously injured when a suspected bombshell went kaboom! with a bang in village Jumma Khan Magsi of district Tando Allah Yar. The kaboom came while the labours were digging a ditch,
Seems an odd place for an IED...
killing three of them on the spot, Piaro Lund cop shoppe SHO Pervez Junejo said. The victims were identified as Ashok, a boy, Makhan and a woman, Shrimeti Pathani - all of them Bheel by caste. The injured were rushed to Civil Hospital, Tando Allah Yar, for first aid. The SHO said that Bomb Disposal Squad reached the spot and examined the pieces of the exploding device but were unable to establish the kind of the material.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Arab News] Foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) unanimously pledged all support to Yemen on Sunday and called on President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... to hand over power to his vice president and allow the opposition to lead a transitional government.
They were meeting in Riyadh as part of intensive efforts to broker a solution to the escalating political unrest in Yemen and review the crises that have gripped other countries in the region.
A statement issued by the ministers expressed grave concerns over the situation in Yemen and invited Yemeni government officials and the opposition members to hold talks with the aim of ensuring peace, unity, security and stability in the country.
The talks at Riyadh Air Base discussed in detail the latest developments in Yemen and the region as whole.
The foreign ministers called on "the president to transfer powers," adding that an opposition-led interim government would prepare for constitutional reforms and new elections.
The GCC called for a meeting of the Yemeni government and the opposition in Soddy Arabia under the auspices of the six-member group to meet the aspirations of the Yemeni people for change and reform. It urged all parties to stop all forms of taking Dire Revenge™ by making assurances and signing agreements.
The new government will be entrusted with the task to ensure peace and normality on all fronts across the country, said a GCC official.
The GCC foreign ministers, who met behind closed doors, reaffirmed all support to Yemen. Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi did not attend the meeting, said Ahmed Kabi, a front man of the GCC General Secretariat.
"The ministers moved forward with new proposals and with common consensus that will solve the problems and the political crisis in Yemen once and for all," said another GCC official.
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, foreign minister, led the Saudi delegation at the meeting.
The GCC, which comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Soddy Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been pushing Saleh over the past week to hold talks with opposition parties after two months of protests against his 32-year rule.
On Friday, Saleh rejected a proposal for his exit made by Qatar. "Our power comes from the power of our great people, not from Qatar, not from anyone else. This is blatant interference in Yemeni affairs," said Saleh, who has faced more than two months of mass protests calling for him to quit.
Apprehensive about any deals under the Gulf mediation plan that would delay Saleh's departure, tens of thousands of protesters marched in the capital Sanaa on Sunday. "No, no to compromise," chanted the crowd as they marched in the streets surrounding a weeks-long sit-in near Sanaa University. Youth groups leading the sit-in later called for a campaign of civil disobedience in Sanaa on Monday and Wednesday to protest against "the persistent commission of bloody massacres of peaceful protesters... by Saleh's regime."
Violent festivities have continued almost daily over the past week, with at least 27 people killed. Security forces have used live ammunition and tear gas to rout protesters.
Dozens of anti-regime demonstrators were shot in festivities with security forces on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations in Sanaa as well as Taiz and Ibb, both south of the capital, and in the Red Sea city of Hudaidah to condemn Saturday's bloodshed.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Jennifer Esposito aka Nancy in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" aka Ruby in "Summer of Sam" aka Ria in "Crash" aka Andrea Belladonna in "Samantha Who?" (age 38)
#3
Ms. Esposito is surely a beautiful woman, but there's something about her face that kind of reminds me of a horse. Is it the huge cleft chin, or the oversized nose? Hard to decide!
#4
Gorb, some of those folks actually look like they know what they're doing on a bicycle.
And then there's Lindsay Lohen, who looks like -- well, I can't actually say, this is a family website -- but doesn't look like she belongs on a bicycle.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/11/2011 9:30
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#5
It probably looks suspicious because her bicycle doesn't have a seat.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere has warned that dozens of Kenyan youths being recruited by al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader... hard boyz pose a serious security threat to the country.
Mr Iteere said it was no secret that Kenyan youths were being lured by cash tokens to join terrorist groups, saying the police were closely monitoring their activities.
He noted that coppers were on high alert, especially on the porous 800km Kenya-Somali border, to curb the illegal recruitment.
On Friday, dozens of women from Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties held demonstrations to condemn the recruitment of their sons into the terror group.
Speaking in Mombasa, the police boss noted that the concern raised by the women is a reality that cannot be dismissed by security agencies.
"We are aware that some youth have joined the group. It a dangerous trend for our country and parents should take the initiative of instilling patriotism in their children," he said.
Mr Iteere spoke shortly after a management training course for 30 chief inspectors at the Government Training Institute.
Security sources state that as many as 10 youths recruited by al-Shabaab in Mombasa and Kwale counties have bit the dust in the battle between the group and Transitional Federal Government forces.
Mr Iteere also announced that the police department had acquired three new marine patrol boats at a cost of Sh800 million to bolster the fight against trade in illicit drugs.
He said the boats recently procured from the Netherlands will be dispatched to Malindi, Mtwapa and Lamu to patrol the Indian Ocean.
According to the police boss, two of the boats have been handed over to marine police to improve surveillance on the coastline, which investigations have established is a safe haven for drug barons.
"In addition to the 24 patrol boats, the three newly-acquired boats will scale up operations on the coastline," Mr Iteere told news hounds.
A fortnight ago, coppers impounded a heroine haul of 102kg in Shanzu, Mombasa. Six suspects including three Kenyans, two Iranians and a Pak tossed in the calaboose and charged with trafficking the illicit drug worth Sh200 million.
The police commissioner said the force is keen to catch the 'big fish' engaged in drug trafficking.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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#1
Don't fergit the AQIM/AQIY + LeT also, as new rising threats to the USA.
[Asharq al-Aswat] A Syrian rights group said on Sunday that 26 protesters had been killed in the southern city of Deraa and two in the central province of Homs after security forces opened fire on a peaceful gatherings of protesters.
The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria said security and police forces had on Saturday "dispersed peaceful gatherings in a number of Syrian provinces by using excessive and unjustified violence through the use of bullets," according to a statement on its website.
It then listed the names of people killed in Deraa and Homs.
Posted by: Fred ||
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To see the State Department report on Human Rights in Mexico click here
In early August, 2010, after suffering numerous and repeated ambushes, a Mexican Policia Federal unit based in Juarez was rotated out en masse following a mutiny and a very public protest at the temporary headquarters of the unit.
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#1
The Mexican Army and Mexican Marines at the moment are the only institutions capable of reliable direct action against drug criminals. In nearly ever instance the Mexican military gets it right, and it appears from the news reports I have read to date they get it right 99 percent of the time.
What Mexico has is a professional military currently unfairly being maligned for a few mistakes, mistakes made not because of policy at any government level, but because of the human element.
You do good work, badanov. This is why the stock price of New York Times, et al keeps dropping -- the cutting edge reporting is being done out here in the blogs.
#2
I recall sitting in a park in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, while local cops dragged 2 gamberos - or whatever - into the local cop-shop. Repeated thuds and screams followed. That's "due process" frijole style.
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 15:57
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"US State Dept. . . . The Facts"
doesnotcomputedoesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/11/2011 17:21
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Salim al-Husni, a key figure in the Iraqi Islamic Dawa Party under the leadership of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has revealed that the party is preparing for a general conference for the leaders of the Islamic Dawa Party. He said that the conference will announce Al-Maliki's removal from the party, because of his "abuse of the principles and ideas adopted by the Islamic Dawa Party."
Al-Husni, who is the former editor of the Islamic Dawa Party's newspaper (Al-Jihad) during the 1980s, said that: "Al-Maliki has used the Islamic Dawa Party and transformed it into a bridge to power." He noted that: "the ideas and principles of our party are far from power-mongering. Instead, it is a cultural and mass party that is founded on the principle of serving people, rather than serving officials and covering up for them."
The Islamic Dawa Party leader has told Asharq Al-Awsat in London that: "the complaints of the leaders and bases of the Islamic Dawa Party have made us prepare for the convening of a general conference inside Iraq, because the party is an Iraqi party." He noted that: "we will not describe this conference as a secession conference, because this has become a very shameful situation as a result of the large number of splits that have occurred within the Islamic Dawa Party." He added: "Instead, we refer to our conference as a correctional movement and a reversion to the principles and ideas adopted by the party." He said: "We will call for Al-Maliki's removal, because he has done great wrong and extensive harm to the party's history and to the political process. This is now that he has used the party as a bridge to power and held on to it."
Al-Husni, who joined the Islamic Dawa Party in 1973 and was the person in charge of the party's media affairs, noted that: "for the most part, the reason for the convening of the conference lies in Al-Maliki's way of working and behavior, which have detached the party from its principles." He added that: "the leadership of the Islamic Dawa Party has become preoccupied with power and ignored the party's mission." He pointed out that: "it is not a personal issue between me and Al-Maliki. He has been my friend since 1980, when he was not known even at the level of the Islamic Dawa Party leaders." He added: "In 1986, we, the leaders of the party, decided to wage a media campaign to promote some of our party members. Among them was Abu-Isra (Nuri) al-Maliki. This was his name." He said: "At that time, I was the chief editor of the party's newspaper (Al-Jihad), which was published in Tehran." He added: "I did not know how to present Al-Maliki, because there was nothing to write about him or introduce him, especially since he was not known as a leader until a later stage." He noted: "Al-Maliki was hesitant and fearful. Now, I find this transformation in his personality strange. I attribute this to him getting a taste of power."
The Islamic Dawa Party leader said that: "Al-Maliki has deliberately driven away historic and strong Islamic Dawa Party leaders. He also took weak people as close companions in order for him to easily control them and order them around." He added: "The cultural level of those who work at his office today is below average. We find it strange how these people are running the affairs of the state and the Islamic Dawa Party." He stated: "Accordingly, Al-Maliki has followed in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein, who drove away key Baath Party leaders and took the weak as close companions." He noted that: "today, the best name that can be given to the Islamic Dawa Party is Al-Maliki's party. We have actually started using this name, because the party's practices have nothing to do with the ideas and principles of the Islamic Dawa Party." He said: "This reminds us of the practices of the leader of the former regime, who transformed the Baath Party into Saddam's party."
Al-Husni said: "During the general conference that we will hold, we will employ the principles and ideas adopted by the Islamic Dawa Party. Al-Maliki's practices have harmed the party and everyone will know who represents the party." He added: "For quite some time now, we have moved toward change, and we do not say secession. This is because, as I said earlier, this was a shameful state of affairs." He explained that: "foremost among the splits that have occurred in the history of the party, and I mean major splits, was one that occurred in 1965, when Sami al-Badri seceded from the party and formed Jund al-Imam [Soldiers of the Imam] group. This was followed by the 1981 split by Izalddin Salim (Abdul-Zahrah Othman), a member of the former Iraqi Governing Council, who was assassinated in Storied Baghdad in 2004. This is in addition to the split that occurred in 1999 and the formation of the Islamic Dawa Party-Iraq Organization wing."
Al-Husni said that: "what has caused us to delay the convening of the conference is that we do not want some parties to develop the impression that we are secessionists. Rather, we want to say that this is the genuine Islamic Dawa Party." He added: "Secession means the adoption of new ideas and goals. Nevertheless, we insist on achieving the goals of our party, which rejects authority while its leader is holding on to power today." He stated: "Some people favored power over the party and got involved in acts of corruption. This is a very shameful state of affairs. Therefore, we will call for Al-Maliki's removal from the party and his deposition." He noted: "As a matter of fact, to begin with he became the leader of the party by mistake. This was a result of the vote counting method that was used at that time and led to some leaders rising to power." He stated: "Al-Maliki was also mistakenly chosen as the party's secretary general during the 2007 conference." He noted that: "Al-Maliki admitted that a mistake was made and proposed a re-election after three months in order to protect the party from harm. However, The all-purpose However... he deceived everyone and did not hold a re-election."
The Islamic Dawa Party leader pointed out that: "the influence that the Islamic Dawa Party enjoys today is attributed to the fact that it is in power. Once Al-Maliki leaves the government, the party will lose its influence, because it is not based on true mass influence." He added: "Moreover, the party won the provincial election because Al-Maliki is in power. Once he is removed from the party, he will lose a great deal of his popularity."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Al Jazeera] United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... and French helicopters have fired rockets on the residence of Laurent Gbagbo ... President-for-Life of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... , Cote d'Ivoire's incumbent president, in Abidjan.
Haru Mutasa, Al Jizz's correspondent in Abidjan, said five helicopters were used in the attack on Sunday and that they flew from a French airbase.
After flying to the Cocody area, where the presidential palace is located, they fired their rockets and returned to the airbase to reload. The process was then repeated.
Two residents from nearby neighborhoods saw two UN Mi-24 attack helicopters and a French helicopter open fire on the residence, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named news agency reported.
One resident reported seeing smoke rise from the compound. An AP news hound saw the same three helicopters take off from the French military base minutes before he heard kabooms coming from the direction of the residence.
The ephemeral Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said he has given orders to use "all necessary means" to stop Gbagbo's heavy weapons. "The continued use of heavy weapons against the civilian population and our peacekeepers, as well as the attack against the headquarters of the legitimate government, have compelled me, once again, to instruct UNOCI to use all necessary means to prevent the use of these weapons, pursuant to Security Council resolutions 1975 (2011) and 1962 (2010)," Ban said in a statement.
"We are pursuing our operation to neutralise Gbagbo heavy weapons. We had to stop the operation for a couple of days to evaluate and have realised that there are still some heavy weapons that they had used against civilians and the UN," Hamadoun Toure, a UN front man, said.
Speaking to Al Jizz, Toure said UN helicopters were only targeting heavy weapons sites and not Gbagbo himself. "We are not trying to take control of his residence ... Our objective is not to capture anybody," Toure said.
Sunday's violence comes after forces loyal to Gbagbo fired on Alassane Outtara, the president-elect's hotel headquarters, on Saturday.
Gbagbo front man Don Mello denied that his forces had targeted the hotel, and said that the incumbent leader was calling on all supporters to fight against foreign forces deployed in the country. Gbagbo, who has ruled Cote d'Ivoire since 2000, is defended by about 1,000 men, while the UN peacekeeping mission has about 12,000 troops.
Lawyers for Ouattara had earlier demanded that the UN and La Belle France "neutralise" Gbagbo's forces so that he could be put before a court. They have described forces loyal to the incumbent president as "an illegal occupation force".
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[Tolo News] Some of the Talibs who had joined the grinding of the peace processor were involved in the attack on the UN office in Mazar-e-Sharif, Sherlocks find.
A delegation that was recently sent to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif to investigate about the deadly attack on the UN office has said some of those who had apparently renounced violence and joined the grinding of the peace processor were involved in the attack and the murder of the UN workers.
Almost as if it were planned that way...
The protest was led by five members of the Clerics Council who had also directed the protesters towards the UN office, the delegation said.
A peaceful protest in reaction to the recent Koran burning by an American pastor was staged in Mazar-e-Sharif on April 1, but it suddenly turned violent with some protesters breaking into the UN office killing 7 foreign workers.
Suddenly... so like the famous unexpectedly.
Head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, has said the cause of the protests only staged in Afghanistan has to be analysed eventually.
"One day we will have to analyse why the protests only took place in Afghanistan," Mr de Mistura has said.
Because the Taliban instigated the protests, your Aloofness?
According to the delegation visiting Mazar-e-Sharif, the police has tossed in the clink 33 and there is evidence against 15 of them being involved in the violence.
CSI Afghanistan found the blood on their hands had a distinct kufr signature. Either that, or they noticed the spare head in the closet.
"Some of the Talibs who had joined the grinding of the peace processor and were residing in a safe house in Mazar were involved in the attack," a member of the delegation, Rohgul Khairzad, said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer... has written that the violence has showed a disturbing gauge of Taliban influence in Mazar-e-Sharif.
"Whether the killings were planned or not, the violence has proved to be a disturbing gauge of the depths of Taliban influence in this progressive northern city, and of its potential to foment unrest in the months ahead," the Times has written.
Or a gauge of how Pashtun the city is...
Some of the Afghan senators have blamed the provincial security forces and the governor of Balkh for not being able to control the violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Somehow I just can't manage to feel any sympathy for UN---or, indeed, anyone who refuses to admit that Islam is something else.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/11/2011 17:42
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#4
I am beginning to understand Tamerlane's approach to diplomatic relations with those of the moslem faith(?).
While he was obstensibly moslem, he was first and foremost a Mongol and he didn't believe in the peace process. He exterminated cities. Much as the Assyrians would butcher, impale and carry off into exile entire populations to insure there was never a chance for revolt from the locals...
Why is Christianity and Judaism vilified and Islam is given the kid glove treatment?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/11/2011 18:53
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[Ennahar] The promise of political reforms made by Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him... in response to the opposition calling for a "system change" in the wake of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, began to raise doubts about his sincerity.
"We already feel the renewed confidence of power, its fear passed, the recovery of lost ground and its new confidence," observed a Sunday columnist for the Quotidien d'Oran.
In early January, when nobody envisaged the rebellion that would sweep the Arab countries, take the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents, threaten dictators in Yemen, Libya and Syria, Algeria has experienced violent riots against high prices that left five people dead and over 800 maimed.
In response, the authority has agreed salary increases, granted credit for enterprise creation by young people and housing, and fell on the control of the informal market. Denying a political crisis, it conceded the lifting of emergency rule that hinders freedoms since 1992.
"Boiling is too strong to be ignored: anything that refers to the stomach is saved but all that is part of the head and suggests a political perspective is denied," added Said Sadi, the president of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD).
No doubt that made more sense in the original Arabic...
During this time, President Bouteflika who has just celebrated his 12 years as head of state remained silent. Quoted by one of his advisers, he promised March 19 to open a "new page" on "the path of comprehensive reforms," stressing that they can not "be fruitful in the absence of political reform."
The promise does not raise the enthusiasm of the leader of the RCD, whose nine attempted demonstration in Algiers on Saturday, were blocked by police.
"We must not grow any illusions about the willingness nor the capacity of Mr. Bouteflika to leave the swamp as he is convinced that the current system is what is best for the country," he said.
Wary of his side a "necessary democratic contagion" by the Arab revolution, the historic leader of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), Hocine Ait-Ahmed, observes that "a broader social base lacks all these resistances to injustice, violence and oppression."
"We can not but see that the wall of fear has been replaced and exacerbated deep in our society by a wall of fatigue and disgust. Weariness and disgust of false elites imposed in the shadow of terror, politico-financial mafia, rigged elections and media under surveillance", he denounced Saturday.
If not specified the content of political reforms envisaged, we speculated extensively on a revision of the 1996 constitution sought by the opposition and even by the three parties of the presidential alliance.
The National Liberation Front (FLN, the former unique party, the National Democratic Rally (RND) led by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia and the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, Islamist) say they favor a revision "even deeper" from the Basic Law amended two years ago to allow Mr. Bouteflika to run for a third term.
These parties do not wish, however, the election of a constituent assembly claimed by the FFS and the Workers' Party (Trotskyist - far left).
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[Pak Daily Times] Behram Khan, accused of plotting twin suicide kabooms on Syed Sakhi Sarwar's shrine near Dera Ghazi Khan, was placed in durance vile in Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central along with five other associates on Sunday, a private TV channel reported.
Security forces carried out the raid in Gharigaal area of Mamond district on a tip-off. A cut-thoat was killed on resistance while other five were apprehended. The blasts took place when hundreds of devotees had thronged the shrine to attend weeklong spring festivities in Sakhi Sarwar, 35 kilometres from Dera Ghazi Khan on April 3.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Pak Daily Times] Pak officials said troops on Sunday rubbed out at least seven forces of Evil who infiltrated the northwestern district of Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... to escape an offensive in the neighbouring tribal belt.
The shootout took place when troops intercepted the group trying to enter the Dherai area of Swat, where Pakistain carried out a sweeping military operation in 2009 that brought to an end two years of Taliban control.
When forces of Evil were ordered to identify themselves they fired back and maimed two soldiers, a military statement said. "Resultantly own troops engaged them and killed all of them," it added.
The military said that Orcs and similar vermin were reportedly fleeing Mohmand, ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Bloody Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... where Pakistain is waging offensive against Taliban.
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[Pak Daily Times] A roadside kaboom killed three tribal elders in western Afghanistan on Sunday, possibly in retaliation for their cooperation with the government.
Or possibly they were just the first to drive across that particular bit of road after the IEDs were planted.
The men were driving to a meeting with villagers and other tribal elders to discuss what sort of projects the Afghan government and international donors should fund when their vehicle hit a roadside kaboom, killing all of them, officials said.
One of the dead, Sayyed Ahmed, was the head of the group of tribal elders who organised the meeting, said Abdul Basir Kherkywi, the head of Farah province's local council.
The meeting was common knowledge in the area and officials said the men were probably directly targeted.
"The enemy probably knew they'd be driving on this road," said Yonus Rasouli, the deputy governor.
No one immediately grabbed credit for the attack, but the Taliban and other turban groups regularly target Afghans working with the government or international forces.
Also Sunday, a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... service member was killed in an attack in the north of the country, the international military coalition said. It did not provide further details or the nationality of the dead.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Ffffirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room... Afghan officials said they captured a district-level Taliban capo in southern Uruzgan province. Kareem Daad, who was captured in an overnight raid, oversaw turban operations in Shahidi Hassas district, said Milad Ahmad Mudasir, a front man for the provincial government.
Taliban representatives could not be immediately reached to confirm whether Daad was one of their operatives.
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[Ennahar] The Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... will ask the Security Council of the United Nations ...an organization whose definition of human rights is interesting, to say the least... to impose an air exclusion zone over the Ghaza Strip to prevent the Israeli air force to intervene, said on Sunday Leader of the pan-Arab organization, Jerry Lewis doppelgänger Amr Moussa ... who has been head of the Arab League since about the time Jerry and Dean split up ... .
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#1
You know, I did 10 years of reserve duty with an artillery unit, and we always resented the fly boys having all the fun.
[Bangla Daily Star] Two Bahraini Shia activists jugged in the wake of anti-regime protests have died in detention, the Gulf kingdom's interior ministry said yesterday.
Ali Issa Saqer, 31, died at the hands of prison security guards after "causing chaos in detention", police said in a statement posted on the interior ministry's Twitter page.
"Security men had to intervene to restore security ... but he resisted, forcing them to engage him, which resulted in him receiving several wounds," it said.
He died in hospital, police said, without specifying whether he was shot or had suffered other injuries.
Police said Saqer was tossed in the clink on suspicion of having killed coppers by running them over with a car.
The ministry said another detainee, Zakaraya Rashed Hassan, 40, tossed in the clink on April 2 for "inciting hatred against the regime and spreading fabricated news", had been "found dead" in his prison cell.
A post-mortem examination showed sickle cell disease was the cause of death.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said a leading opposition figure and rights activist, Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja, was beaten up and tossed in the clink on Saturday in Manama.
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#1
A post-mortem examination showed sickle cell disease was the cause of death.
Heh. That's pretty creative. Next one? "He had a fatal case of genital warts"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/11/2011 7:56
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[The Nation (Nairobi)] Lawyers for Ivorian president-in-waiting Alassane Ouattara demanded on Sunday that the UN and La Belle France "neutralise" forces loyal to his rival Laurent Gbagbo ... President-for-Life of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... and bring the strongman to justice.
"We call upon the impartial forces from UNOCI, with the support of the French Licorne troops, to eliminate with no further delay the heavy weapons, neutralise the snuffies on Gbagbo's payroll ... and to bring to justice the defeated (presidential) candidate," the French lawyers said.
The statement, issued in Gay Paree, described Gbagbo loyalists as "an illegal occupation force" as fighters backing the two rival claimants to the presidency battle it out in Cote d'Ivoire's main city Abidjan.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow... scores of people living near the luxury lagoon-front Golf Hotel where Ouattara has been sheltering for more than four months decamped after it came under attack on Saturday, apparently by Gbagbo loyalists, residents said.
The UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI), Ouattara's camp and witnesses said the attack was carried out by fighters for Gbagbo, who has refused to step down since elections in November which the UN-backed election commission said were won by Ouattara.
Gbagbo's side however denied there had been an attack, after hotel occupants reported close gunfire and UNOCI said its peacekeepers had responded to mortar fire.
The attack was the first on the hotel since the start of the political crisis, although it has been under siege from the pro-Gbagbo Defence and Security Forces (FDS).
"The FDS are attacking us and we are trying to push them back," a fighter with the pro-Ouattara forces said Saturday.
But Gbagbo front man Ahoua Don Mello told AFP: "It's absolutely false. There has been no attack on the Golf (hotel). It's an imaginary attack."
Though outgunned, Gbagbo loyalists are putting up stiff resistance and have even regained some lost positions.
Ouattara's forces had on Wednesday tried to storm Gbagbo's residence in a bid to bring a final end to the dragging dispute, which has left hundreds of people dead amid allegations of massacres and sent tens of thousands fleeing their homes.
They had to turn back, however, unable to extract the strongman from his bunker.
The lawyers' appeal, which was cleared with Ouattara, was in line with "the spirit and the letter" of UN Security Council Resolution 1975 adopted last month, they said.
The resolution calls for necessary measures to protect civilians and prevent the use of heavy weapons against civilian populations.
"It is urgent. The survival of Abidjan's people is threatened; Alassane Ouattara's physical security and that of his government are at stake," the lawyers said.
Ouattara was meanwhile under increasing pressure over allegations that his forces had committed atrocities in the west of the country.
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[Arab News] Russia is to sign an agreement with the Kingdom on developing space technology, Russian Ambassador Oleg B. Ozerov told newsmen on Sunday.
What a novel way to take Saudi money! Still, it would give boys something to dream about and study math and science for... and girls, too, just for the joy of understanding. It might even occur to some that MIT.edu has entire courses on-line for those who don't want to rely on inferior schools for their education.
The Russian envoy was addressing news hounds in Riyadh on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel into space, on April 12, 1961.
"We regard Soddy Arabia as one of the major partners in space cooperation, because the Kingdom became the first country to be directly engaged in space exploration," Ozerov said, recalling Prince Sultan Bin Salman's performance in 1985 when he circumnavigated the Earth and became the first Arab and Mohammedan to travel into space.
Considering the economic potential of Soddy Arabia and the Russian technologies,
Yeah, and Googling "Uganda scientific research" yields 84,200,000 hits. Seriously. So The Magick Kingdom(tm) is not even three times as advanced as Uganda!
the ambassador said the combination would make a promising and fruitful cooperation between the two countries.
Ozerov said arrangements are being made by the two countries to sign the Intergovernmental Agreements on Cooperation in the Development and Use of Outer Space For Peaceful Purposes and the Development and Sharing of the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS).
He said that the Kingdom will become a leading space power in the Arab world.
Is there any competition?
"I would like to assure that on its part, Russia will be glad to contribute to this sector in every field," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#4
I can't help but comment on the graphic - cover art by Dick Calkins, for the Big Little Book "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D."
A classic vintage science fiction collectible! Values range from around $25 ("Good") to approximately $100 for a like-new example. If you have a Near-Mint copy send it to me and I'll happily pay $100. I'm not kidding!
#5
..I'd like to point out that the Magic Kingdom has had Chinese-built IRBMs for years, and we know it:
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/saudi.htm
Now, given Saudi reluctance to actually get their hands dirty, it wouldn't at all surprise me to find that there's a very well paid group of Chinese missile techs babysitting the damned things. But I guarantee enough Saudis know enough to run the things - briefly - if they want.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/11/2011 11:40
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#6
I guess if Russian engines are good enough for the US Air Force Space Command they should be good enough for Saudi Arabia.
#8
Russia supplies the Iranians with nuclear 'power' technology. And KSA with space (ballistic missile) technology. And has lots of oil for the marketplace which would command a premium price if Iran and KSA were busy destroying each other.
#9
Saudi Arabia has OIL + SILICA [sand], both of which the US will need to manufacture advanced materials for deep space travel + colonization.
As said before, the USA is content on letting other World Nations explore the Moon, where we've already been, while the US goes forward to the other planets.
GREEN TECHS/REVOL = 'tis more zabout DEEP SPACE HUMAN ECON, SURVIVAL ACTIVITY, NOT EARTH.
* SNAFU/FUBAR = comes in iff the NASA Boyz take too long to begin post-LUNA MANNED EXPLORATION, ALLOWING OTHER NATIONS TO OVERTAKE US AS PRINCIPAL FOR SPACE..
[Ma'an] Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, is willing to commit to a truce with Israel if it stops attacks on the Gazoo Strip, a front man for the Islamist group told Agence La Belle France-Presse on Sunday.
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[Tolo News] Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs said in a presser on Sunday that it will launch a military operation in eastern Nuristan province to recapture Waigal district.
Good luck, guys. We want you to do well.
The Ministry is also determined to eliminate poppy cultivation in 7 key provinces of Afghanistan.
Insurgents captured Waigal district of Nuristan two weeks ago, but Afghan forces have not yet been able to retake it.
Nuristan province is bordered by Pakistain and Afghan officials have previously said that forces of Evil infiltrate from the other side of the border to carry out attacks against Afghan border forces.
"We are working on a plan to retake the district and make sure our forces will remain their without any threats," Zemarai Bashari, a front man for MOI, told news hounds.
Mr Bashari also agreed that there is a flaw in the Afghan police forces, and he urged international community to support the Afghan Ministry of Interior with better equipment of its forces.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a meeting. It was to be their last... Mr Bashari said 85 cut-thoat attacks have occurred in the last one week and the MOI has tossed in the calaboose 185 people in connection with the incidents.
Currently Afghan National Police has 150,000 soldiers.
Afghan cops are expected to take over security responsibilities in seven areas in July this year when the first phase of foreign troops' withdrawal will begin.
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[Arab News] Authorities in the United Arab Emirates jugged a second pro-democracy advocate just two days after they took a leading reformist blogger into custody, a prominent lawyer and political activist said Sunday.
Fahad Salem Al-Shehhy was jugged late Saturday in Ajman, an emirate north of Dubai, after participating in an online forum calling for democratic reforms in the UAE, said Mohammed Al-Mansouri, an activist.
The United Arab Emirates is an alliance of seven sheikdoms run by ruling families where political activity is severely restricted.
The forum had been run by Ahmed Mansour, a blogger and human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... activist, who himself was incarcerated on Friday in Dubai after he signed a petition in favor of an elected parliament.
Police and government officials have not responded to calls for comment.
There are no official opposition groups in the Emirates and political parties are banned. The oil-rich federation has not seen the kind of pro-reform unrest spreading elsewhere around the Middle East.
There has, however, been increased online discussions about the need for political reform.
Last month, 130 people signed a petition demanding constitutional and parliamentary changes in the Emirates, free elections for all citizens and a share in the country's oil wealth. A similar petition was also sent a few days ago.
Activists have complained of stepped-up harassment and monitoring of blogs and social media in the past year even as the federation -- where Dubai and Abu Dhabi pride themselves on their Western outlook -- showcases itself as an economic and cultural powerhouse.
Mansour said on Thursday that he's been getting threats for signing the petitions.
He also said he's been a target of an online smear campaign after commenting on Arab revolts in the region and explaining Emiratis' demands for an elected parliament in the media.
The Emirates' current parliament, based in Abu Dhabi, serves as an advisory body. Its 40 members are either directly appointed by the ruling sheiks or elected by citizens hand-picked by the rulers to vote.
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[Al Jazeera] Nigeria's ruling party look set to see its grip on parliament weakened after results emerging from the first of three crucial elections this month showed it losing key parliament seats.
Results by voting district began trickling through on Sunday, though some areas of the country's north voted late into the morning because of high turnout, residents said, possibly delaying announcements there.
Early indications showed opposition parties making gains at the expense of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP).
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) appeared to have a strong showing in the country's southwest, where the economic capital Lagos is located, while the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), appeared to make inroads in the north.
The CPC's presidential candidate Muhammahu Buhari, an ex-military ruler, is seen as the main challenger to Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... , the incumbent president.
The PDP's Dimeji Bankole, the speaker of the House of Representatives, lost his seat, while the daughter of Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president and PDP stalwart likewise lost her bid to remain in the Senate.
But elsewhere PDP kept their seats. Of those declared for the House of Representatives by 15:50 GMT, the ruling party had just over half, compared to 77 per cent in the outgoing parliament.
Only around a fifth of the seats had been declared at that time.
'Freely spoken'
Millions voted on Saturday, despite deadly kabooms and delays.
But while violence cast a shadow over the ballot, the polls were seen as the fairest for decades in Africa's most populous nation.
"Nigerians have freely spoken for once," said Emma Muogbo, a lecturer in the southeastern city of Onitsha.
"Now committed people could come up to serve knowing that if they fail to do well, people could vote them out."
Observers cautioned that they had not yet been able to gain a full picture of Saturday's vote, but said initial signs were positive.
Kenneth Wollack, who head the National Democratic Institute, with more than 60 observers in Nigeria, said the election appeared to have been a change from the country's heavily criticised polls since a return to civilian rule in 1999.
The twice-postponed parliamentary polls, held on Saturday, are to be followed by presidential elections on Saturday and governorship and state assembly ballots on April 26.
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[Pak Daily Times] Around hundred families have migrated from Bazaar Zakhakhel area in Tirah Valley to safer places due to fresh festivities between Zakakhel tribe and Lashkar-e- Islam (LI).
Also, a LI commander and three others were killed in a fresh gunfire in Bazaar Zakhakhel area on Sunday.
Amid the intense gunbattle between Zakhakhel armed lashker and Mangal Bagh-led LI, locals have started migrating to safer places in Landikotal, Jamrud and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar via Ali Masjid route.
The displaced persons have started taking shelter with their relatives in safer areas along with their womenfolk and children.
A local eyewitness told Daily Times that he watched hundreds of families leaving the area via Ali Masjid to avoid casualties as a result of skirmishes between LI and Zakhakhel tribe here on Sunday.
An official of Khasadar Force, belonging to Zakhakhel tribe, also disclosed that a LI commander, identified as Mahar Gul, was also reported killed in the gunfire.
He confirmed the displacement of one hundred families to safer places as the fight is at its peak between the two warring factions.
He also said that Zakhakhel lashker laid siege to Qandhar, a LI centre, in Bazaar Zakha khel area.
It has also been learnt that local people, belonging to Sepah and other Afridi tribes, living in Bazaar Zakhakhel area, are facing serious famine after the fight broke out between LI and Zakhakhel tribe.
Mehboobul Haq-led Ansarul Islam is also backing the Zakhakhel armed lashker in Maidan, Sanda Pal and other areas in Tirrah Valley.
Khasadar and local sources confirmed that Mangal Bagh-led LI had been overpowered in Bazaar Zakhakhel area, adding that Zakhakhel gang was dominant whereas in some parts of Tirrah Valley the power and strength of LI was intact till the filing of this report, but waning gradually.
Local people fear that Zakhakhel lashker may become another invincible force that may create problems for the local people. However, The essential However... some officials are optimistic that situation will not deteriorate anymore in the area.
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#1
Memo to all "civilians" in Afghanistan:
This is what you are supposed to do when festivities break out. Otherwise you are likely
to be mistaken for combatants and liquidated. Not that we really care much one way or the other.
[Ma'an] The Israeli army said Sunday that Paleostinian cut-throats in the northern Gazoo Strip fired three rockets into the western Negev, in an attack shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a harsh response for continued projectile fire.
The rockets landed in the Sha'ar HaNegev and Eshkol regions of southern Israel, an army spokeswoman told Ma'an. There were no reports of injury or damage in the attack, the first since both sides appeared ready to agree to a ceasefire after an escalation in violence killed 19 Paleostinians in three days.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Alamo, Davey was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... the Israeli news site Ynet, quoting Paleostinian sources in Gazoo, reported that Israeli forces fired on the suspected site of a recent projectile launch in the northern strip. The army spokeswoman said the military had no immediate comment on that report.
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[Tolo News] Killing civilians will never help us succeed the fight against beturbanned goons, Afghanistan's Caped President's Office said in a statement on Saturday evening.
The statement came after foreign forces killed five civilians in a military operation in Sayad district of northern Sar-e-Pul province on Tuesday.
President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... has condemned the killings and has ordered an investigation.
Sayed Anwar Rahmati, Governor of Sar-e-Pul has contacted the Afghanistan's Caped President confirming that those killed in the operation were civilians, added the statement.
The issue of civilian casualties caused by foreign forces is one of the controversial and sensitive issues between President Karzai and his Western allies.
President Karzai has also condemned Taliban's recent attack in which they killed Daud Esaqzai, Police Chief of Sar-e-Pul's Gosfandi district.
See? He's being balanced.
The incident happened on Friday while Esaqzai was out on patrol and Talibs shot him dead.
The Taliban have grabbed credit for the murder.
Sar-e-Pul was considered a relatively peaceful province in the north, but hard boyz have recently become active in some villages.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Memo to Hamid:
Don't worry. Sooner or later US and NATO troops will leave your pitiful excuse for a failed state because it's more trouble than it's worth. Then all of your "civilians" can proceed to murder each other without restraint.
#3
He is another Diem. Don't forget that most Pashto sections weren't liberated by the Northern Alliance; there were a series of near status quo armistices. In fact, the talibanimal who organized the destruction of the Buddhas, was allowed to run for the islamic-shura ("parliament"); he was later killed while attempting terror.
Posted by: Glese Prince of the Veal Cutlets6036 ||
04/11/2011 15:43
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[Arab News] Sudan said on Sunday that remnants of a missile used in a mysterious attack that killed two people on April 5 proved that Israel carried out the strike.
Israel has declined to comment on the incident, which mirrored a similar attack on Sudan's east in 2009 for which it neither admitted nor denied responsibility.
A car carrying two Sudanese nationals was targeted near Port Sudan's airport.
"The definitive proof that Israel was behind this attack is that the rockets used by the American-made Apache helicopters are only owned by Israel in the region," the Foreign Ministry statement said.
It said remnants at the scene showed the weapon was an AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missile.
The aircraft, the ministry said, had flown in from the direction of the Red Sea, scrambling Sudanese radar systems and following Port Sudan airport flight paths.
East Sudan has long been a route for the smuggling of arms that often pass through Egypt's Sinai desert and reach the Gazoo Strip, territory controlled by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, Islamists, via tunnels under the border.
According to the website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which monitors arms transfers worldwide, the United States delivered 250 Hellfire missiles to Israel in 1998-1999 and 680 in 2005-2006.
Sudan said Israel, which it considers an enemy state, was trying to derail efforts to normalize ties with Washington. The United States started the process of removing Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terror after Khartoum recognized a vote by its south to secede in July.
Sudan has close ties with Hamas, but denies it offers direct support to the group. Washington designates Hamas a terrorist organization, citing its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing Israeli-Paleostinian interim peace deals.
Khartoum says it has begun the process of lodging a formal complaint against Israel at the UN Security Council.
What the northern Sudanese don't seem to get is that Israel has a longer reach then they have. Israeli aircraft can stage and whack a target in the Sudan, but the Sudanese don't have a prayer of reaching the Negev. An intelligent thug dictator would learn a lesson from that.
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#3
Did you find the little card that said "... and don't make us come back here again."? Expect more of the same as the Israelis work around the edges to improve their odds in the coming war.
SteveS, I've read recently that Israel has been quietly hunting down Hamas members around the world -- this and the Hamas arms buyer in Dubai just happened to get the world's attention.
[Straits Times] ARMY troops have safely defused a powerful bomb outside a school in Basilan province in the southern Philippines. A blast destroyed a lodging house and another explosive was found near a hotel earlier in the same province.
Army front man Mr Alex Macario says Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... bully boyz most likely left the bomb, which was hidden in a biscuit can. It was found by troops Sunday in front of a school compound in Basilan's Lamitan town.
Mr Macario says the military has tightened security after a bomb destroyed a lodging house in the Christian town in predominantly Mohammedan Basilan late Saturday. No injuries were reported.
He says another bomb was found near a hotel in Basilan's capital city of Isabela later.
Washington has blacklisted the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group.
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[Asharq al-Aswat] It seems that the "Wikileaks" documents have begun to have a positive effect in Leb, as today we see a media battle taking place between the Shiite Amal movement, and the Iranian sponsored Hezbullies. This is a positive development because, although we've yet to see them reach a consensus, we are witnessing them settle scores amongst themselves.
In the "Wikileaks" documents, it was revealed that during interviews with the Americans, a number of MPs and ministers belonging to the Development and Liberation Bloc, affiliated with Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Knobby Berri, Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... had shown indignation towards Hezbullies, its weaponry, its domination of Leb, and they even talked about Hezbullies's apparent subordination to Iran. The documents also revealed the restlessness of Berri's men with regards to Syria, saying that if a clear arrangement was not reached with Syria to deal with the International Tribunal for the Assassination of Rafik Hariri, then Hezbullies would turn Leb into a living hell by resorting to car booms and terrorist attacks. To make matters worse, the sources claimed that Syria was also capable of mobilizing its agents in Leb, namely the Paleostinians, and its sleeper cells, in order to do the same thing!
These are important words, and they must be taken seriously, rather than just be labeled as propaganda. This is for the simple reason that Hezbullies itself is taking these words seriously - it has called for the immediate resignation of each political figure quoted in the Wikileaks documents. Berri's group, like Hezbullies, have already relied much on the Wikileaks documents to damage their opponents like Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. and Fouad Siniora, let alone other Arab countries, so they cannot deem them to be credible here, and false there. How could Hezbullies, or the Amal movement, claim that the documents are true when they serve their interests, and false if they do not? Furthermore, these documents are not the first, but there have been other documents revealing that followers of General Aoun have talked in the same vein about Hezbullies!
Through these Wikileaks documents, which quoted followers of Nabih Berri and revealed their opinions of Hezbullies, the danger of its weaponry, and its affiliation to Iran, we can deduce that the so-called moderate Arab camp has been, and still is, correct in its view of the gravity of Hezbullies and its weapons, the seriousness of its alliance with Syria, and the role they play in Leb. This is not the opinion of the moderates only, but also the view of Hezbullies's allies in the Amal movement, as the documents show.
It is true that the events in our region today, and the position of Iran and Hezbullies towards them, specifically their stances towards what is happening in Bahrain and Syria, have exposed Tehran and Hezbullies completely. While they criticize the Bahraini government, in support of the Shiites there, we find them supporting the regime in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... , which is suppressing the Syrian demonstrators with violence, even depicting the demands of the Syrians as being fostered externally. Yet more importantly here are the Wikileaks documents, and what they reveal about Hezbullies's allies in Leb. They reveal that everyone, whether in Leb or the wider region, or even in the Shiite Amal movement, is in agreement about the affiliation of Hezbullies towards Iran, and the danger of its weaponry, and this is highly important!
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2011
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[Al Jazeera] Security forces have placed in durance vile the brother of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the north African nation's ousted leader, according to the state TAP news agency.
Quoting the Tunisian interior ministry, TAP said Slah Ben Ali was placed in durance vile on Sunday evening in the city of Sousse, south of the capital Tunis.
"The interior ministry has informed that security forces in Sousse placed in durance vile Slah Ben Ali, the brother of the former president, at a house in Sousse around 18:30 [local time] today," TAP said, without giving further details.
Ben Ali was toppled by mass protests on January 14 after 23 years in power and decamped to Soddy Arabia.
Several members of his family and security detail as well as some of his closest allies were jugged shortly after he was forced out.
Seeking to assert their authority and gain legitimacy in the eyes of protesters who forced Ben Ali to flee, the caretaker authorities are attacking the vestiges of his 23 year rule.
Tunisia's interim authorities appointed a new government on March 7 and disbanded the state security apparatus, notorious for human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... abuses under Ben Ali.
Last month, the interim government said it would freeze assets of 112 people close to the ousted president pending the completion of judicial investigations.
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04/11/2011
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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.
JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed made a rare public appearance in Islamabad today to lead the funeral prayers for Kashmiri leader Maulvi Showkat Ahmed Shah, killed in Srinagar last week. He used the occasion to trash talk Indo-Pak cricket diplomacy while promising a "jihad" in J&K.
A blast ripped through a metro station in the capital Minsk on Monday, killing at least five and injuring several commuters. It was not yet clear what caused the explosion, which hit the Oktyabrskaya station in the center of the city. The exit to the metro leads directly to both President Lukashenko's main working office and his residence. 
Some people are taking a current fad to surgical levels - the new trend where body-modification artists cut the tops of young people's ears and sew them back together in a pointed shape. The procedure removes cartilage so it's not easily reversible. 
[Arab News] Iran has expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after the Gulf emirate said it would throw out three Iranian diplomats in a row over spy allegations, a Kuwaiti official said on Sunday.
leader Muammar Qadaffy's
[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN 
[Ennahar] Two months after his fall, former Egyptian President 
Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine
Muammar Qadaffy, making his first appearance in front of the foreign media in weeks, joined the visiting African leaders at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound.
[Tolo News] The Afghan government is determined to restore Kabul Bank and make sure people's deposits are kept safely, Afghan Minister of Finance said on Saturday.
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
al-Shabaab
Laurent Gbagbo
The ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[Tolo News] Some of the Talibs who had joined the 
Bouteflika
[Pak Daily Times] Behram Khan, accused of plotting twin 
[Pak Daily Times] Pak officials said troops on Sunday 
[Ennahar] The 
[Arab News] Russia is to sign an agreement with the Kingdom on developing space technology, Russian Ambassador Oleg B. Ozerov told newsmen on Sunday.
[Arab News] Authorities in the United Arab Emirates 
Goodluck Jonathan
Around hundred families have migrated from Bazaar Zakhakhel area in Tirah Valley to safer places due to fresh 
Hamid 
