A radical Islamic group in the Gaza Strip has kidnapped an Italian activist.
Italian consular officials in the Palestinian territory say Vittorio Arrigoni was taken on Thursday morning. In a video posted on YouTube, Mr Arrigoni appears blindfolded with what looks like thick black tape. He seems to have been beaten.
Mr Arrigoni is the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston was snatched in 2007.
The BBC's Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says the group that is thought to have taken Mr Arrigoni is part of a movement sometimes called Salafism.
Salafists have often been in conflict with Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs Gaza, and they consider Hamas too moderate.
In the video, the kidnappers demand that Hamas release a number of Salafist prisoners. Mr Arrigoni is a pro-Palestinian activist who has been in Gaza for several years campaigning against Israel's ongoing blockade of the territory.
Hamas has been credited with eliminating the threat of kidnapping in Gaza up to now.
Arrigoni was in Gaza working with the International Solidarity Movement, Palestinian associates of the activist said. He holds honorary citizenship for his work in the occupied territories, and "is a hero of Palestine," Khalil Shaheen of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said in an ISM statement.
Yeah, I don't see me losing any sleep over this...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2011 21:19
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Can't wait for the Pali spin...
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip The body of an Italian pro-Palestinian activist abducted a few hours earlier has been found in a Gaza City house after a clash between Hamas police and the abductors, Hamas officials said early Friday.
The officials said Hamas police stormed an apartment in Gaza City belonging to a member of the extremist group that released a video of the activist. Hamas police found the body inside, they said. It was not immediately clear how he died.
Gaza police were surrounding the small house where the clash took place. A police officer said the body was inside. He said four people were arrested in another location in connection with the abduction.
I predict it will be their usual, tu - "The Juices did it."
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2011 21:47
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heh - AP follows Fred's snark. Apparently, Hamas, the "voice of sweet reason", raided an apartment of "extremists". No doubt they were Hamas ops/affiliates off the clock. I hope he suffered all the pain of Israeli civilians killed by his cause. Useful Idiots
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2011 22:02
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A document allegedly drafted by top Syrian intelligence officers, which details strict guidelines for carrying out rebel assassinations, infiltrating anti-regime organizations and distributing propaganda sound bites and images, has been published on Facebook.
Among the instructions handed down to security forces was an order to limit the number of protesters killed in one day to 20 people. The limited killing, the document says, was necessary in order to control international anger about the Assad regime's use of force against civilians, Israel Radio reported.
The document calls for anti-rebel forces to create links between government protesters and the US and Israel. In a translated version published in an msnbc.com report on Wednesday, a media campaign connecting "the anti-regime demonstrations and protests to figures hated by the Syrian populace such as the usual Saudi and Lebanese figures, and connecting the lot of them to Zionism and to America" is laid out.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is referred to as "our highest symbol" in the text.
The document is divided into two sections: A "detailed plan" and a breakdown of a potential revolutions "political economic factor."
The "detailed plan" involves "an intensive media campaign accusing the protesters and the enemies of being agents of Saudi Arabia, Israel and America," banning journalists from protest sites, and planting plain-clothes security and "eyewitnesses" in political hot spots to deliver rehearsed quotations and feedback.
Details of "political economic factor" include staged marches in support of Assad, lowering the prices of fuel and food in order to bolster public support, and agreeing to "some of the Kurdish demands."
The veracity of the document could not be verified by US officials, who were in possession of the document. The Syrian embassy refused to comment.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/14/2011
15:44 ||
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I'm sure Bambi is taking notes....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2011 16:19
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#2
Shouldn't that number been 19.
Posted by: Louis Farrakan ||
04/14/2011 16:43
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Was the memo titled "Slow-Walking Hama II, or Democide On The Sly"?
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/14/2011 16:55
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#4
I told you he was a reformer
Posted by: Hillary Clinton ||
04/14/2011 17:25
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EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi, Libyas second-largest city and last rebel stronghold.
But Human Rights Watch has released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.
Misuratas population is roughly 400,000. In nearly two months of war, only 257 people including combatants have died there. Of the 949 wounded, only 22 less than 3 percent are women. If Khadafy were indiscriminately targeting civilians, women would comprise about half the casualties.
Obama insisted that prospects were grim without intervention. If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world. Thus, the president concluded, preventing genocide justified US military action.
But intervention did not prevent genocide, because no such bloodbath was in the offing. To the contrary, by emboldening rebellion, US interference has prolonged Libyas civil war and the resultant suffering of innocents.
The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi.
Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded.
But Khadafys acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libyas air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire each one a tragedy but that is urban warfare, not genocide.
Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The no mercy warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libyas leader promised amnesty for those who throw their weapons away. Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight to the bitter end.
If bloodbath was unlikely, how did this notion propel US intervention? The actual prospect in Benghazi was the final defeat of the rebels. To avoid this fate, they desperately concocted an impending genocide to rally international support for humanitarian intervention that would save their rebellion.
On March 15, Reuters quoted a Libyan opposition leader in Geneva claiming that if Khadafy attacked Benghazi, there would be a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda. Four days later, US military aircraft started bombing. By the time Obama claimed that intervention had prevented a bloodbath, The New York Times already had reported that the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda against Khadafy and were making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.
It is hard to know whether the White House was duped by the rebels or conspired with them to pursue regime-change on bogus humanitarian grounds. In either case, intervention quickly exceeded the UN mandate of civilian protection by bombing Libyan forces in retreat or based in bastions of Khadafy support, such as Sirte, where they threatened no civilians.
The net result is uncertain. Intervention stopped Khadafys forces from capturing Benghazi, saving some lives. But it intensified his crackdown in western Libya to consolidate territory quickly. It also emboldened the rebels to resume their attacks, briefly recapturing cities along the eastern and central coast, such as Ajdabiya, Brega, and Ras Lanuf, until they outran supply lines and retreated.
Each time those cities change hands, they are shelled by both sides killing, wounding, and displacing innocents. On March 31, NATO formally warned the rebels to stop attacking civilians. It is poignant to recall that if not for intervention, the war almost surely would have ended last month.
In his speech explaining the military action in Libya, Obama embraced the noble principle of the responsibility to protect which some quickly dubbed the Obama Doctrine calling for intervention when possible to prevent genocide. Libya reveals how this approach, implemented reflexively, may backfire by encouraging rebels to provoke and exaggerate atrocities, to entice intervention that ultimately perpetuates civil war and humanitarian suffering.
Alan J. Kuperman, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, is author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention and co-editor of Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/14/2011
15:42 ||
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encouraging rebels to provoke and exaggerate atrocities, to entice intervention that ultimately perpetuates civil war and humanitarian suffering. This is a generic propaganda move used in many wars over the years.
#1
I loved some of the reader comments on this article:
"What a contrast between the Italian and British Prime Ministers. Berlusconi spends his time dreaming up creative ways of screwing teenagers. Cameron does the same to pensioners."
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/14/2011 15:54
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During the French-language leaders' debate, Michael Ignatieff, the leader of Canada's Liberal party, was adamant that he'd let the United Nations Security Council make the final call on whether to send Canadian troops abroad.
"The Canadian army must never be used outside the country without the authorization of the UN," he told his debate partners.
When asked later if he really wanted to give Beijing and Moscow that kind of power over Canadian policy, Ignatieff chuckled and said, "That's a very funny construction to put on my words."
He then admitted there could be exceptions.
So he had to backtrack after realizing that the 'funny construction' essentially cedes Canadian sovereignty...
"Canada has always believed as a matter of international law, since the creation of the UN in 1945, that the use of force in international affairs should be authorized by the Security Council of the United Nations. And when you can't get authorization from the Security Council of the United Nations, you'd better have an extremely good case in which you can use force. There have been cases. Let's be perfectly honest, in Kosovo, where international authorization for the use of force was not granted."
So you're saying that Kosovo was wrong?
Another example is the intervention in Iraq, an action Ignatieff once supported.
He was for it before he was against it...
But the Liberal leader hasn't always been enthusiastic about the UN. In Maclean's magazine he was quoted as saying in June, 2003: "Well, the UN screwed up in Rwanda, it screwed up in Bosnia -- it screws up most of the time. The United Nations is a messy, wasteful, log-rolling organization."
But let's let them decide when we should go to war...
#1
After the upcoming Canadian Federal election in May we'll see no more of Michael Ignatieff. The Liberals' money men will make sure that he will no longer lead the Liberal Party of Canada now known as the "Libranos". . . . . or the "Lieberals".
He will go back to the Ivy League to resume his teaching career and we in Canada can go back to being Canuckistanians.
#2
Politicians on the left love nothing more than to foist their responsibility off onto unelected bureaucrats. This is no exception.
The UN is not a government, it isn't a legislative body. It is a diplomatic mission. Why would Canada or any other nation subordinate their national sovereignty to a collection of cronies appointed mostly by dictators and despots.
#3
Yup. As soon as Harper wins the next election, Iggy will be dropped and the Visiting Professor can go back to Harvard. However, if Harper fails to get a majority, the Cons might soon drop him as well.
h/t Gates of Vienna
More than 28,000 migrants reached Italy in less than three months, but many (approximately 800, but there are no official figures, so the number may even be greater) have been swallowed by the Channel of Sicily.
Hundreds of boats departed mostly from Tunisia, but also from Libya, and some sank with their human cargo.
Some 14 shipwrecks have been reported to date, the latest one today: two women drowned in Pantelleria during a landing. Immigration is a human right. Thus, by not providing immigrants from North Africa with safe passage, Italy violates their human rights. Human right violators must be bombed. Therefore Italy must be bombed.
#3
They join a large number of Italian Royal Navy and maritime sailors who ran the gauntlet of RAF interceptions between Sicily and North Africa, circa 1940-43.
The former gavel Speaker said that no matter what happens she takes no responsibility for the deal that is supposed to cut about $38 billion from last years spending deal.
As is pretty evident House Democrats were not part of that agreement Id rather call it an agreement than a deal. I feel no ownership of that or any responsibility to it, said Pelosi.
When asked if there were enough Democrats to push the deal through if some Republicans voted against it, Pelosi responded, well see.
We have not whipped it. We have not encouraged one way or another. People are just making their own judgment about it, she said.
I dont want the Republicans to think that were not serious about keeping government open. Its very important. Theres a big price to pay for our country not to do that. And I think theyre more likely to vote for it if were having our concerns about it, Pelosi added.
When asked how she would vote personally, Pelosi merely said, Im studying it and I will make an evaluation.
A man was hospitalized Wednesday evening with life-threatening, third-degree burns after catching fire inside a San Francisco porn store, authorities told CBS 5.
The fire occurred at an adult arcade at Sixth and Mission streets just after 6 p.m.
Police officers across the street from the porn shop saw a man run out the front door of the store engulfed in flames, an SFPD spokesman said.
Some firefighters who happened to be about a block away at the time were immediately summoned and extinguished the flames.
Arson investigators said it was not exactly clear how the man caught fire. Police indicated he had apparently been watching videos in a private booth when the fire ignited.
China was using our trade dollars to fund that and to fund our spending spree. Chinese banks are leveraged to the hilt and are awash in bad debt. Several people were waiting for the Chinese market to burst. Now who will fund our debt?
#3
..our children and grandchildren. Bonded by their parentage. Maybe they'll figure how to operate a government without borrowing and leave the gamblers holding the bag.
#4
..our children and grandchildren. Bonded by their parentage.
When the time comes, I have no problems defaulting on Communist Chinese debt.
Chinas $260 billion Default China is currently in default on about $260 billion worth of pre-1949 Chinese government bonds
China stiffing America for $100 billion in debt While Chinese companies are in line to benefit directly from U.S. taxpayers' $700 billion-plus bailout of Wall Street, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions, Beijing is stiffing the U.S. for $100 billion or more in unpaid debt.
One problem that should be addressed, he writes, is the $260 billion in sovereign debt owed U.S. and other investors which China has said it simply won't repay.
"The repayment obligation was inherited by the People's Republic of China, when the communists took control in 1949. The successor government doctrine of settled international law affirms continuity of obligations among international recognized successive governments," O'Brien said.
#6
I'd use the term "boom". Credit expansion inevitably lowers housing affordability (ratio between land prices and wages (read some Ricardo)). When the credit is also initially used for non-investment purposes you're left worse off.
#7
China stiffing America? Selective reading of history. Recall the state of Mississippi stiffed 1838 investors of $7million, refused to pay interest, then repudiated the debt, then even amended its constitution to bar repayments. This failure was eventually validated by the USSC rather recently, after decades of lawsuits by the stiffed investors. Other states have also defaulted on their debts. The USA as a whole has never [yet] defaulted, although its repudiation of 'gold clauses' in contracts in 1933 was upheld by the USSC and may be considered a type of default.
Moved to Home Front: WoT, Page 2, because this story is more than mere lurid crime tale.
He lets the big fish swim free... Ever hear of Walid "the Turk" Makled? No? Wonder who he is?
Go read.
A nice connect-the-dots piece on how the Obama administration made a mess of an important opportunity to make a major impact the cocaine war south of the border. We've been following the story at Rantburg for a while. See here for the posts.
The boyfriend of Crystal Mangum -- stabbed April 3 during a domestic altercation -- has died, Durham police confirmed this morning.
Durham police watch commander Lt. B. Reitz confirmed the death but did not have any information on additional charges against Mangum, who is currently in the Durham County jail on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Her bail is set at $300,000.
New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level, while core producer prices clumbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 380,000. They keep using that word, "Unexpectedly!". What the heck do they think is going to happen with the government talking about more taxes as costs of doing business rise? I sure wouldn't be hiring if I was a business owner. I think more and more of these "experts" are little more than political hacks that are paid to be cheerleaders for the government and not give any bad news. Then they act all shocked when their "predictions" head south.
Fewer American workers must navigate ever-more labyrinthine rules to make their ways home with a smaller paycheck to support an enlarged dependent class while making higher payments on unmanageable debt.
#2
"I think more and more ALL of these "experts" are little more than political hacks"
FTFY, DV.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2011 13:09
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They have been cooking the books on inflation for years now, the old way of calculating it shows almost 10% last year, and they have been cooking the books on unemployment for the past few years, and especiually this year. Just like they cooked the books on Obamacare's "savings" and how they cooked the books on the recent budget deal on last years budget.
Folks, the government, especially the democrats, are liars, they just use tricksy formulas and "definitions" to lie to you while they give your money to people who vote for them.
If you are actually surprised, you haven't been awake the past decade or two! Have a cup and joint the rest of us.....
#4
Not surprised by how much they lie, but by just how brazen it is and how many people just shrug and go on about their lives with the "Oh Well" attitude. That is how the barbarians were able to swarm over the Western half of the Roman empire and create serfs.
#5
That is how the barbarians were able to swarm over the Western half of the Roman empire That's not all. Imperial taxes got so high, some of the citizens moved in with the barbarians in search of a lower cost of living. Some Roman army officers did the same & wound up commanding barbarian forces fighting the empire.
From In These Times, a progressive blog: Revolt at the Waldorf: Rich Activists Push for Higher Taxes on Themselves.
Not really.
This is a story about some self-reported trust-fund babies protesting the fact that the trusts that fund them are tax exemot.
From the post:
Our current tax system perpetuates inequality, states Elspeth Gilmore. Wealthy people can really change that narrative.
Gilmore is the co-director of Resource Generation, a national nonprofit organization that supports and challenges young, progressive people with wealth to leverage their privilege and resources for social change.
Wait a second, these rich folks formed at tax exempt corporation (nonprofit organization to use the lefty term) to protest the fact that rich people can evade taxes?
But wait. Theres more:
Resource Generation recently teamed up with another nonprofit that organizes affluent activists, Wealth for the Common Good, to form a Progressive Tax Campaign. They will be organizing and advocating a change in the policy, laws and perceptions of our tax system. Specifically, the campaign aims to draw attention to the social services that taxing the wealthy could fund, and advocates higher tax bracket rates for top income earners, as well as higher taxes on investment income.
Its a concentration Resource Generation thinks could have a big impact, even if it focuses on the mundane world of taxes. Its definitely not sexy, Gilmore admits. Theres a lot of myths around it, and it takes education and time to understand. But it gets right to the root of inequality and wealth disparity.
So, this hypocritical protester admits her protest is ineffectual.
But it is tax exempt.
I realize that liberalism is for rich social climbers, but this one seems to be climbing the Empire State building.
By the way, if readers see a spokesman or other official with a nonprofit protesting low taxes, please e-mail the URL so I can mock the hell out of their hypocrisy. Ivy League professors qualify. My e-mail is donsurber@dailymail.com.
People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After medical pot use was made legal in California in 1996, Mills says, per-person residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50 percent compared to other parts of the state.
In order to produce some 17,000 metric tons of marijuana this year, Mills estimates authorized growers will use $5 billion worth of energy. That works out to the output of seven big electric power plants.
Much of the carbon dioxide produced by the industry comes from transportation, though the need for lights "500-times greater than recommended for reading" also uses a lot of power and generates a lot of pollution. Air conditioning, ventilation and humidity control also contribute.
In California, some 400,000 authorized growers use about 3 percent of the state's electricity for their business.
"This corresponds to the electricity use of 1 million average California homes, greenhouse-gas emissions equal to those from 1 million average cars, and energy expenditures of $3 billion a year," Mills says. However, since California is such a green state, it only generates 20 percent of national carbon dioxide emissions from pot growing, while using 70 percent of nationwide energy for this industry
#4
Reminds me of the story of the FBI finding a large stand of "GRASS" and spying on it for months,
Finally an old farmer came out with his tractor and bush hog, he proceeded to cut them down.
The Feds rushed over to stop him Yelling "What are you doing".
The farmer stopped his tractor and repied
'Cutting the weeds, they grow every year, and I cut them each year"
(Marijuana IS a Natural weed.)
The Feds were Pissed, they'd watched this "Plot" for months, and it wasn't a plot, Just weeds.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/14/2011 8:23
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So we need to add legalizing pot growing to the list of ways to save the environment (gotta be better than mandating curly-fried light bulbs.)
Back in 1972, there was a documentary called "Weed" which was unintentionally hilarious. One part was interviewing a Midwest highway patrolman, as he took the crew through a wild marijuana patch. He estimated that over a four State area there were some 1m acres of this, what he called "Kansas utility-grade grunt weed."
Then, the crew went to Thailand, where some of the highest quality marijuana in the world was sold in bunches on the street, as the narrator held up a huge bunch, still on the stems, and excitedly said that it was just 25 cents!
But right then, the camera work got rather sloppy, and they didn't film any more for two weeks. The narrator then said, looking very tired, with red and bleary eyes, that it was time for them to return home to the US.
Schweitzer vetoed the bill Wednesday along with several others he called frivolous, unconstitutional or in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana.
The man awaiting trial in the death of a soldier and the wounding of another in Arkansas almost two years ago wrote to a judge that he had killed a Nashville man in 2006 as well.
Abdulhakim Muhammad, whose birth name is Carlos Bledsoe, took responsibility for gunning someone down in East Nashville five years ago in a letter written to Circuit Judge Herb Wright.
Guess he didn't find 'peace' when he converted...
Police in Tennessee plan to send cold case unit detectives to Arkansas to interview Muhammad. They did not comment on whether Muhammad is or could be a suspect in a specific unsolved homicide case.
"We don't know what his motives are, so we would like (Muhammad) to give the details,'' said spokeswoman Kristin Mumford. "We may have a case in mind, but what if he is taking credit for a murder he really didn't commit?''
Muhammad called his letter to the judge "A Confession Letter.'' He describes the Tennessee shooting as his first "jihad operation.''
The letter didn't include a victim's name, a date or the precise location of the shooting.
Muhammad claims that the victim was targeted because he "robbed and terrorized elderly Muslims and Muslim women at gunpoint.''
The confession says the victim was shot several times with a Chinese model AK-47 that belonged to Muhammad.
Muhammad is awaiting trial in Arkansas in the deaths of Pvt. William Long and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula at a military recruiting station in June 2009. Muhammad has said the shooting was in response to U.S. military action in the Middle East.
According to previous reports, Muhammad has wanted to plead guilty, which is not allowed in Arkansas for death penalty cases.
In his most forthright speech on the issue since he became Prime Minister, he will say that mass immigration has led to "discomfort and disjointedness" in neighbourhoods because some migrants have been unwilling to integrate or learn English.
Pledging to cut the numbers entering Britain to tens of thousands, rather than hundreds of thousands, Mr Cameron will say that "for too long, immigration has been too high".
He will also promise to "stamp out" forced marriages, saying that "cultural sensitivity" cannot be allowed to stop the Government from acting.
In the speech to party members in Hampshire, the Prime Minister will attack Labour for claiming it was racist to talk about immigration, saying it is "untruthful and unfair" not to speak about the issue, however uncomfortable.
#1
Gee, it's as though they don't teach real history anymore. Here's one principle from history - it's more fun doing it to others than to have others do it to you.
#3
Soft genocide...sounds like an extremely politically incorrect thing to say but exactly the kind of thing an @$$hole like Bill Clinton would do. I like it.
I've been thinking some lately about this Lybian thing. I was wondering if it really could be all about oil since I know good and well it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any humanitarian considerations as has been claimed. But then, how could it be about oil? Daffy kept the oil flowing, did he not? So what's the problem? I mean, really?
That's when it occurred to me that it might have something to do with immigration and colonization. It seems that Europe lately has been undergoing a process of reverse colonization. People from former colonies like Pakistan and Algeria have been migrating to Europe and, in their own disorganized way, colonizing Europe.
Have Cameron and Sarkozy gotten wise to it? Could it be? And, if so, what would they do about it?
If you think about why people leave cat boxes like Lybia, Algeria or Pakistan it's obvious that the conditions created by the post-colonial governments and the prevailing Muslim cultures there are hell on earth.
Could it be that Cameron and Sarkozy are planning to re-colonize North Africa with the aim of making those places more livable? Do they think they could stem or even reverse the tide of migration from the cat boxes to Europe? Or is that too sinister a thought to even think about?
#4
I suspect NATO acting in Libya in an attempt to halt Kadaffi from killing civilians indeed has to do with trying prevent a massive influx of refugees from crossing the Med.
From places like Bahrain it would be difficult to take a boat to Europe (would required getting through the Suez Canal), but from Libya any old fishing vessel would do.
#2
So it is interest-free loans that has made Libya the socialist paradise that it is:
[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment, and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans, and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe, and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink, and are very religious.
So why would our very own socialist-in-chief want to attack them? I'm confused!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2011 6:15
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#3
Why did the ComChi attack Vietnam? Socialism is about coveting. The Eastern European states were just not in shape to resist the Soviets [though the Hungarians gave it a try] ability to 'liberate' their resources and materials. The old meme 'no blood for oil' was simply one more Freudian projection of the left.
#5
Obviously better thought out and researched than my comments on the David Cameron article.
But I still wonder if it has something to do with migration. At any rate, I never believed for a minute that it was to avoid a humanitarian crisis. There must be something they're not telling us.
#6
You can find people pushing the whole "we went to war to keep them from dropping the dollar" conspiracy theory about every war we've been in in the last twenty years and every war we're going to be in in the next fifteen.
If anyone had remaining doubts about the fog of war that descended on Libya in the last weeks, the confused bickering that has completely taken over more recently should clear those.
More cynical - or astute - observers claim that the whole thing was a masquerade from the start, a cover for a full-scale Arab counter-revolution or even a diversion of world attention from more pressing global problems such as the disaster in Japan, the financial crisis and the rattled international system.
Others blame the situation on glaring incompetence. While some
of the former claims make sense as well, evidence of the latter is overwhelming, and incompetence does not exclude conspiracy.
Some of the latest news from Libya is that France and Britain are accusing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of not doing enough. "NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday.
#2
You just had to know that once the French took a major roll things would go just swell. Plus they had the Brits and Barry backing them up, what could possibly go wrong?
Posted by: Jefferson ||
04/14/2011 9:12
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#3
It's the Germans, Dutch etc. who are the bottleneck in NATO right now.
#5
Is it wrong for me to enjoy seeing France and UK get their asses kicked by a tin pot dictator in a cat litter box country? Doubtless.
But as someone said the other day NATO is a scam where the euros pick our pockets while criticizing our pants.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/14/2011 16:24
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#6
Yes it is. UK and France (nominally) are still children of The Enlightenment. When they fall, we fall a little too.
This sad episode illustrates why we need pick our battles carefully, clearly define our goals, use overwhelming power and make it impossible those we defeat pick up where they left off. And we to think how to turn a profit on it too. No more trillion dollar interventions to save those who would slit our throats in our sleep.
In the autumn of 1816, Admiral Lord Exmouth arrived off the port of Algiers with five ships of the line, and orders to use nothing but shot to negotiate with the citys pirates. In the battle that followed, the British lost 128 men, and their Dutch allies 13. But casualties among the enemy were monumentally greater, as Algierss fleet was destroyed and its fortifications levelled. Even though the corsairs of the Barbary coast continued to prey on merchant ships until 1830, when the French occupied Algiers, their backbone was broken and tens of thousands of lives that would have been lost to the slave trade were saved.
This week, it has emerged that 17 Somali pirates captured by HMS Cornwall in February were given meals, medical check-ups and cigarettes (or, in one case, a nicotine patch) before being set free after the captain was advised that Britain had no legal framework to prosecute them.
It seems incredible, yet it is symptomatic of a far graver problem. Ever since 2008, almost 30 navies have been jointly operating against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean a level of international co-operation that has no precedent. Even Iran has a warship in the area. Yet little is being achieved. Jack Lang, the United Nations special adviser on piracy, has admitted that nine out of 10 of the hundreds of pirates captured have been released because of legal issues.
The problem, however, is getting worse. Last year, the number of hostages taken rose to 1,065, up from 867 in 2009, 815 in 2008 and just 165 in 2007. Ships are being captured ever further from the Somali coast, and there are disturbing signs that the pirates have become more efficient. Even though the number of unsuccessful attacks fell from 170 in 2009 to 154 last year, successful attacks rose from 48 to 65.Figures published by the International Maritime Bureau show that 587 sailors are now being held, along with 28 ships. This year alone, 14 ships have been hijacked, and 250 hostages taken.
The strange thing, however, is the lack of concern. Theres been none of the outcry wed have seen if even a tenth of that number of pilots were being held at Mogadishu airport. Its hard to see why, given that 92 per cent of Britains trade is conducted by sea, and piracy adds no small amount to the price of the fuel that heats our homes, the goods we export and the food we eat. Anna Bowden, a maritime expert, has estimated that the total cost to the world is as much as £7.5 billion a year up to £2 billion in extra insurance premiums, another £2 billion or so to re-route ships through safer waters, £1.5 billion for security equipment, and some £1.25 billion to maintain international forces in the Indian Ocean.
Somalias pirate cartels have their roots in a failed state: the country has had no government or law enforcement since 1991. Its administration, besieged by the powerful jihadist group al-Shabaab, has no influence outside Mogadishu, the capital. Communities, administrators and even less-than-scrupulous bankers have been seduced by the cash the cartels have brought into port towns such as Haradhere, Eyl, Garard and Ras Asir £108 million last year. Earlier this month, for example, the Thai-owned Thor Nexus and its 27 crew, hijacked 350 miles off the coast of Oman on Christmas Day, were ransomed for £3 million; last year, £5.75 million was paid for a South Korean ship.
The central problem is that where nation states break down, international law just doesnt have a structure for dispensing large-scale justice. Kenya and the Seychelles have been hosting trials of pirates, but they simply cant cope with the numbers. Last year, a court in the United States handed down convictions in the first piracy trial the country had seen in two centuries. A subsequent trial, though, has been delayed until November because of issues over evidence. Similar problems have been seen in India, while South Korea fears that the five pirates it is now trying could even press a claim for asylum after completing their sentence.
On Monday, the UN Security Council agreed to set up special courts to try pirates, but there is no consensus on where they will operate and how prosecutions will be handled. And patience is running out. Last summer, Russian special forces stormed the Moscow University oil tanker, killing one of the 11 pirates holding the ship. The authorities claimed to have released the rest of the pirates, but then mysteriously reported that they could not reach the coast and, apparently, have all died. Dmitry Medvedev, Russias president, gave some indication of what that meant when he said the country would have to do what our forefathers did when they met the pirates until the international community comes up with a legal way of prosecuting them. Ship-owners, for their part, have been deploying armed guards, who can charge up to $50,000 per voyage, and hardening defences for their crew.
Ultimately, however, no amount of warships and arrests are going to solve the problem. In March, the US government said a naval analysis had estimated that 1,000 ships equipped with helicopters would be required to provide the same level of coverage in the Indian Ocean that is currently provided in the Gulf of Aden an approach that is clearly infeasible.
That leaves just one option, which no one so far has wanted to take: punitive action against the pirates bases on the Somali coast. As in 1816, the risks are considerable. But it is increasingly clear that the easier, softer way is leading nowhere.
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#1
Take every one of these lawyers that says there is no legal basis on the high seas to do to pirates caught in the act what has always been done (drumhead trial and a swift execution), put them on a yacht and put them off the coast of Somalia.
Repeat that until you have gone though enough lawyers to find one that will allow the old law of the sea to function again.
Posted by: The Other Beldar ||
04/14/2011 10:47
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But it is increasingly clear that the easier, softer way is leading nowhere.
Capitulation to Sharia Law is the ultimate objective. Observe if you will the current capture and release program in Afghanistan. Bombing or summary execution of the economically disenfranchised and protected segments of society is never the politically correct answer. They have RIGHTS!
For a map, click here. For a map of Chihuahua, click here
Four unidentified individuals have been killed, and six homes and about 10 vehicles have been torched in Jicomorachi, Chihuahua since March 26th, according to Mexican new reports.
Reports say a celebration held March 26th in the town was the site of an initial encounter between two families which led to the fighting.
Reports also say that social media reported organized crime armed groups were in the town, although none of the reports make clear the nature of the nexus between the feud starting March 26th and reports of armed groups.
Additional fighting took place on April 1st and 9th, which resulted in a number of farmhouses in the area destroyed.
Jicomorachi is in the Uruachi municiaplity directly adjacent to the border with Sonora in far western Chihuahua.
At the moment a detachment of the Mexican Army and some Chihuahua state police agents are in the area. Life in the village is reportedly back to normal.
The area in western Chihuahua is inhabited in part by members of the Tarahumara tribe.
The Ministry of Defence announced last week that RAF Typhoons would drop bombs on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's tanks and other ground targets. But so far this has not happened, because the planes' pilots are not considered to be properly trained in ground attacks.
In a further embarrassment, laser targeting pods for the Typhoons, which cost £160 million, have been left in packing crates because the RAF has not been able to pay for its pilots to train to use them.
Four of the 10 Typhoons based at Gioia del Colle in southern Italy were to be sent on bombing missions until the RAF realised that pilots were not qualified to drop weapons. A National Audit Office report this year said that only eight of their pilots were trained in ground attack operations.
The cuts in Typhoon pilot training were ordered by the last government, but the Coalition confirmed the plans in the Strategic Defence and Security Review in October. RAF chiefs told the audit office that to save money, they would not begin training all Typhoon pilots in ground attacks until at least 2014.
The United States plans a new push to promote comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday, suggesting a stronger U.S. hand in trying to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Barack Obama will lay out U.S. policy toward the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks, Clinton told Arab and U.S. policy makers in a speech that placed particular emphasis on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Obama's launch of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks last year went nowhere and he is under pressure to make a new initiative or face the prospect of the Palestinians seeking the U.N. General Assembly's blessing for a Palestinian state.
"The president will be speaking in greater detail about America's policy in the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks," Clinton said at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, a gathering sponsored by Qatar and the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
"America's core interests and values have not changed, including our commitment to promote human rights, resolve long-standing conflicts, counter Iran's threats and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies," she added. "This includes renewed pursuit of comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace."
Clinton spoke against the backdrop of the popular revolts that have toppled long-time authoritarian leaders in Tunisia and Egypt this year and spurred public protests in much of the Arab world, including Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen.
"The status quo between Palestinians and Israelis is no more sustainable than the political systems that have crumbled in recent months," she said, saying the only way to meet both people's aspirations was through a two-state solution.
"And while it is a truism that only the parties themselves can make the hard choices for peace, there is no substitute for continued, active American leadership -- and the president and I are committed to that," she added.
While Obama came into office saying that settling the six-decade Arab Israeli conflict would be a priority, he has little to show for his effort.
Peace talks aimed at ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians broke down last year after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.
The core issues in the conflict include borders, security, the future of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Two problems - 1) One side in not interested in peace. 2) Barry thinks it's the other one.
#3
No insanity here Darth. Just continuing effort by "progressive humanity" of destroying a state that that hate but is too well armed to attack directly.
#4
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you proof the dhimocrats are insane.
The Republicans have interfered in the peace processor, too, DarthVader. Americans aren't good at sitting back and doing nothing, even when being helpful... isn't.
#5
It must be time for Shillary to get her Nobel Prize. She could place it next to all the other SOS who have won them for bringing peace to the middle east.
#7
" Can't they just pretend that Netanyahu is Syrian?"
I don't see why not, Thing.
They pretend they know what they're doing.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2011 15:06
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#5 It must be time for Shillary to get her Nobel Prize. She could place it next to all the other SOS who have won them for "bringing peace to the middle east." Posted by Cyber Sarge
The nuus had Biden sleeping in a session of Congress. More proof (not that it is needed) that he is kapoot, and the Vice Presidential looking Hildebeast is inbound.
[Arab News] Thousands of Syrian women and kiddies holding white flags and olive branches blocked a main coastal highway Wednesday to protest a crackdown by Syrian authorities on opponents of hereditary President Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist presidents-for-life. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... authoritarian regime, eyewitnesses said.
The crowd was demanding the release of hundreds of men who have been rounded up by authorities in the northeastern villages of Bayda and Beit Jnad in the area in recent days.
Some 200 people have been killed during more than three weeks of unrest, said Syria's leading pro-democracy group, the 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... Declaration.
"We will not be humiliated!" the crowd shouted Wednesday, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. They were gathering along the main road between the coastal cities of Tartous and Banias.
Protests erupted in Syria almost one month ago and have been growing steadily, with tens of thousands of people calling for sweeping reforms. The Assad family has kept an iron grip on power for 40 years, in part by crushing dissent.
Assad blames the violence on armed gangs rather than reform-seekers and has vowed to crush further unrest.
He has made a series of overtures to try and appease the growing outrage, including sacking local officials and granting Syrian nationality to thousands of Kurds, a long-ostracized minority.
But the gestures have failed to satisfy protesters who are demanding political freedoms and an end to the decades-old emergency laws that give the regime a free hand to arrest people without charge.
Details about what happened in recent days around Bayda and Beit Jnad were sketchy because the Syrian government has placed severe restrictions on the media and has expelled news hounds, including journalists from The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
But residents and activists say hundreds of men, young and old, were incarcerated Tuesday as security forces and pro-government gunnies attacked the villages in northeastern Syria in a move to crush the growing dissent there.
Witnesses and members of the Syrian opposition said security forces used automatic rifles in the two villages.
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[Ennahar] Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been placed in intensive care Tuesday at a hospital of Sinai (east), after suffering a heart attack, reported the official MENA news agency.
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Julie Christie aka Diana Scott in "Darling" aka Lara Antipova in "Doctor Zhivago" aka Clarisse / Linda Montag in "Fahrenheit 451" aka Constance Miller in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" aka Jackie Shawn in "Shampoo" (age 70)
[Ma'an] Officials from Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' armed wing, the Al-Qassam brigades, said a member was killed Tuesday night in a car accident in the southern district of Khan Younis.
Identified as Ibrahim Barakah from the southern Gazoo Strip city, the statement from the brigades mourned his death and said had made significant contributions to the resistance.
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Libyan rebels are receiving reports that female snipers from Colombia have joined other mercenaries fighting to keep dictator Moammar Gadhafi in power.
No Colombians have been captured or killed, but rebels this week said they have received accounts of their deadly marksmanship from pro-Gadhafi prisoners and from eyewitnesses in the besieged city Misurata, the largest city in western Libya still under partial rebel control.
Rebel sources said the Colombians are part of a wider force of snipers firing from vantage points atop buildings in Misurata.
They are shooting to kill, said Khalid, a doctor in Misurata who gave only his first name. He said most of the injured have head, chest and neck wounds.
The account of the female warriors from Colombia came this week as rebels identified a host of foreigners fighting for the Gadhafi regime or supplying the dictator with valuable material. Mercenaries are paid up to $1,000 a day, according to some reports.
The rebels said they have captured Algerian mercenaries and claim that the authoritarian government of Belarus has sent more than 100 military advisers to help Col. Gadhafi. They said the regime also has received aid from supporters in Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Ukraine.
Algerian and Belarusian officials have denied the rebels allegations. Officials with other governments cited by the rebels could not be reached for comment.
A U.S. official, meanwhile, said he doubts that Col. Gadhafi is receiving significant foreign help. Gadhafi is basically on his own. He isnt receiving much help - financial, military or otherwise - from his neighbors, even those deemed his friends, the U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity.
However, two Western officials who spoke on background said the mercenaries are likely fighting because of their own individual reasons and not at the behest of another country.
The presence of the South American mercenaries suggests that Col. Gadhafi could be recruiting fighters from the communist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by their Spanish initials, FARC.
FARC has long-standing ties to the Gadhafi regime, according to information found on the computers of Raul Reyes, a rebel commander killed by Colombian soldiers in 2008. One computer included a Sept. 4, 2000, letter to Col. Gadhafi, asking for a loan of $100 million to buy weapons.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said this month that it is clear that [FARC] still has connections to Gadhafi.
Libya even offered them $300 million. But we dont know whether FARC actually received the money, he said in an interview with Germanys Der Spiegel magazine.
FARC also has highly trained female fighters capable of handling modern firearms, said Jaime Daremblum, a former Costa Rican ambassador to the United States who is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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How many virgins a Lion of Islam shoot down by a female sniper gets?
[Yemen Post] Local sources in Marib province said on Tuesday that pro-government militias had attacked the power lines that transmit power to the capital Sana'a to mislead the people and frame the protesters who have been calling for an immediate resignation of President-for-Life Saleh. ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence...
The Alsahwa website quoted the sources as saying that the government is using the official media outlets to fabricate that the revolutionists were behind the attacks against the power lines in Marib and other problems including road closures leading to an acute gas shortage.
The sources within the popular committees in charge of protecting the people and the public and private properties also said the pro-government militias carrying RPGs had been seen near the power lines on Sana'a-Marib road after they failed to carry out attacks on Monday.
The supporters of the antigovernment uprising in Marib warned of criminal acts against the country, accusing the official media of conspiring to accuse the antigovernment protesters of targeting the country and committing sabotage acts, while the fact is that the government is responsible for that.
Many stores in the capital Sana'a have been closed down amid the gas shortage that also sent the price of a gas cylinder three times higher, as drivers of gas trucks were quoted as saying that the national security had prevented them from transporting gas to the capital.
"The national security forces have been holding us for days outside the capital to prevent the supply of gas. No trucks can pass except after permission from the forces, which only allow a few to transport gas," they were quoted as saying.
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It's the Dhimmicrats favorite ruse: we'll spend like maniacs on social welfare programs and pay for it all by cutting defense and taxing the 'rich'. People still fall for it, too.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States may have to scrap some military missions and trim troop levels if President Barack Obama sticks with his goal of saving $400 billion on security spending over a 10-year period, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
Arms makers' shares sold off after Obama made a speech on the budget deficit in which he called, in effect, for holding growth in the Pentagon's core budget, excluding war costs, below inflation through 2023, starting in fiscal 2013.
The squeeze on the Pentagon's budget, which has roughly doubled since 2001, is part of a larger drive to cut the budget deficit by $4 trillion over the 10-year period.
"It's not just a math exercise which is 'cut $400 billion'," said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. "It's 'let's review our roles and our missions and see what we can forgo, or pare down, in this age of fiscal constraint, where we are all collectively trying to work with the deficit problem.'"
The Pentagon has been tightening its belt in the hope of warding off deep cuts amid the concern over budget deficits. Defense Secretary Robert Gates already had eliminated or scaled back more than 20 troubled or "excess" weapons programs since April 2009. Last June he ordered the military to come up with more than $100 billion in overhead savings over five years, which could be reinvested in higher priority programs.
The chairmen of Obama's deficit commission as well as a Bipartisan Policy Center Debt Reduction Task Force each had called for cuts in projected military spending of up to $1 trillion over 10 years, far more than Obama proposed.
The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, roughly $10 billion less than Gates said was critical when the Obama administration sent Congress its spending plan for 2012.
The Defense Department could easily meet Obama's goal -- which amounts to saving an average of about $40 billion a year -- without jeopardizing the U.S. military's global dominance, said Gordon Adams, a senior White House official for national security budgets from 1993 to 1997.
"It's fundamentally trivial," he said. "This is stuff a comptroller can do while playing with his prayer beads." He suggested it would mean shrinking the force "a bit," trimming and deferring some hardware purchases and finding more efficient ways to handle operations and maintenance spending.
Couldn't we cut Medicaid, unemployment insurance, ethanol subsidies, and high-speed rail in the same way?
But Mackenzie Eaglen, a national security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the world was not getting any safer and the U.S. bill would come due.
Gates said in January the United States planned to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years, including a reduction of up to 47,000 troops. That came on top of the $100 billion cost-savings drive that Gates kicked off last year. "My greatest fear is that in economic tough times that people will see the defense budget as the place to solve the nation's deficit problems," Gates said last August.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
See GUAMPDN FORUMS POSTER THREAD > MILITARY CONSTRUCTION IS REALLY GETTING CUT, which IHO may explain why Mil Contrux on Guam has seemingly stopped???
#5
Not counting monies allocated separately for the prosecution of the war, using 2010 levels, all cuts in defense and in manning authorization must be applied proportionately to all other federal departments and agencies. That is what should be negotiated.
[Iran Press TV] Bahraini authorities have expelled scores of students from school after they hollered poorly rhymed slogans against the government, witnesses say. At least 33 students were expelled from Shahrakan primary school for voicing support for anti-regime protests across the country on a school bus.
The move came shortly after a fourth Bahraini anti-government protester died under severe torture while in police custody. Witnesses say Bahraini authorities did not allow Abdul Kareem al-Fakhrawi's family to see his body and only his face was shown.
Bahraini authorities had earlier suspended over 200 athletes for joining the popular revolution in the country. Several leading basketball, volleyball and handball players are among those suspended. Four national team players, who are also among those suspended, will be automatically disqualified from playing in tournaments.
Since the beginning of anti-government protests in Bahrain in mid-February, scores of protesters have been killed and many others gone missing. Victims' bodies are usually discovered days later.
The Bahraini Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has announced that the number of jugged opposition activists in the Persian Gulf state has exceeded 800, including 17 women.
The protesters are demanding an end to the rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Bahraini security forces are brutally cracking down on civilian demonstrators with assistance from troops deployed to the country from Saudi and UAE.
Protesters, however, say that they will continue their street protests until their demands for freedom, constitutional monarchy as well as a proportional voice in the government are met.
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[The Nation (Nairobi)] The focus of the Libyan conflict shifts to the Gulf state of Qatar on Wednesday as the rebels' shadow government will be given the chance to address an international contact group.
Libya's former foreign minister Mussa Kussa will be present in Doha, but rebels made it clear he would not be representing them in any way at talks ahead of the meeting.
An 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... peace plan for Libya was in tatters after rebels stuck to their demand that Muammar Qadaffy step down and 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... came under pressure to drop more bombs on the strongman's forces.
The Libyan opposition's shadow government, the Transitional National Council, will address the contact group, an invitation which marks another step in the armed rebel group's gradual march towards international recognition as an alternative voice for Libya's people.
On March 29 in London, the TNC was not permitted to attend the plenary session of an international ministerial conference on the crisis, although its envoys held bilateral talks with several world powers.
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#1
ION WORLD NEWS > {Siasat Daily = UN CHief Ban Ki-moon] "OVER THREE MILYUHN LIBYANS NEED AID".
Approximately 490,000 Libyans have left since the trubles began.
* Also from WORLD NEWS > [Domestic] HARDSHIP BLUNTS [mainstream = ordinary] IRANIAN INTEREST IN ARAB PROTESTS.
[Arab News] Rival Yemeni forces clashed in the capital Sanaa on Wednesday, killing two people, as the opposition awaited clarification from Gulf Arab mediators on the timeframe for a proposed transfer of the president's powers.
Three people were killed in violence elsewhere in Yemen, including two rubbed out in the southern city of Aden when security forces tried to break up a march demanding an end to President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh's ... 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. ... 32-year rule, witnesses said.
Gulf Arab foreign ministers have said they will invite Saleh and his opponents to mediation talks on a transfer of power in Yemen to end a standoff after two months of street protests.
The opposition initially rejected the plan, but met ambassadors of Soddy Arabia, Kuwait and Oman on Tuesday to seek clarification of the proposal.
Opposition sources said they expected an answer from the Gulf on Wednesday on the timeframe and details of the plan, and could respond immediately. An opposition source said talks could start as early as Saturday in Riyadh.
In Sanaa, tension remained high near the encampment of a powerful defected army general, Ali Mohsen, whose forces are protecting thousands of anti-Saleh protesters in their tent camp near Sanaa University.
"Central security forces clashed with the forces of the first armored division, and two troops were killed outright while four more are in a critical condition," a military source said. One of the dead was from Mohsen's forces, the other from the government side.
A source close to Mohsen's forces said pro-Saleh security forces had fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles at Mohsen's troops who had set up a checkpoint on a road leading to the protest zone.
Mohsen's forces returned fire and battled the government forces for an hour before Saleh's forces retreated, leaving the checkpoint intact, the source close to Mohsen said.
Scattered Clashes Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in the capital after the festivities despite driving rain, saying they remained committed to the president's removal.
"What worries us is that a war will break out between the army forces supporting the revolution and those who support the president staying. At that point the revolution will end and Yemen could turn into another Somalia just as Ali Saleh wants," protester Ali Ahmed said in Sanaa.
More than 100 protesters have been killed in festivities with security forces since late January, and there are fears the violence could escalate in the impoverished country, half of whose 23 million people own a gun.
Yemen's Western allies and neighboring Soddy Arabia fear that chaos in Yemen, where Saleh has already lost control of some provinces, could benefit an Al-Qaeda arm that has used the country as a base to launch attacks on Saudi and US territory.
But nearby countries became convinced that Saleh is an obstacle to stability in a country that overlooks a shipping lane used to transport over 3 million barrels of oil a day.
At least two demonstrators were killed in Aden when police tried to stop protesters marching from one district to another. Protesters hurled rocks at police as they tried to clear makeshift roadblocks, residents said.
Later, snipers spread across rooftops in two districts of the city and police repelled an attempt by protesters to storm a cop shoppe, a political activist said. Sporadic gunfire could be heard across the city all morning.
"There is a deployment of snipers on rooftops in Mansoura and Krater districts. This could lead to a violent kaboom," the activist said, declining to be named.
Elsewhere in Aden, former capital of an independent southern state before the two Yemens merged under Saleh in 1990, security forces deployed in armored vehicles or with water cannon.
South Yemenis, who complain of marginalization since a civil war with the north in 1994, insist any deal must give them a say in government.
In Taiz, an industrial city south of Sanaa where tens of thousands have joined protests, eight soldiers were maimed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit their car, the state news agency said. It blamed the attack on the umbrella opposition group.
Police and plainclothes gunnies fired on protesters in the town of Ibb, also south of the capital, wounding 10 university students, a protest movement leader and witnesses said.
In the southern province of Lahej, where separatists are active, a soldier was rubbed out when he tried to prevent gunnies from taking weapons through a checkpoint in the town of Yafie.
Even before the start of the protests, inspired by the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents, Saleh was struggling to quell a separatist rebellion in the south and cement a truce with Shiite Mohammedan rebels in the north.
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[Tolo News] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... on Monday warned all those responsible for the crisis in Kabul Bank will be prosecuted.
Mr Karzai called on the US and European countries to send all the Kabul Bank related money to Afghanistan without any conditions.
He said Kabul Bank shareholders would have one month to repay the money they have withdrawn and if failed they could face prosecution.
"The former shareholders can no longer be part of the Bank. They must pay all their debts in a month or face prosecution," President Karzai said at a presser in Kabul.
President Karzai cites internal and external factors to have been behind the Kabul Bank crisis and puts a part of the blame on foreigners, especially an American company he names as Price Water House Cooper.
"The American audit company had reported positively about Kabul Bank and it was three months ahead of the crisis, and the Central Bank also trusted the report. This company is under investigation now," Mr Karzai said.
He also partly blames Bearing Point and Delight for what Kabul Bank suffered.
On Saturday the Afghan Finance Minister Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal said that restoration of Kabul Bank was one of the Afghan government priorities and that efforts were underway to restore people's confidence in the bank.
Recently there have been reports saying that Kabul Bank was being put into receivership.
The IMF had 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 personally using millions of dollars of depositors' money.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2011
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#1
The bank's managers, of course, would NEVER give bogus books to the PWC auditors...
(Itar-Tass) -- A dreadful terrorist act committed in the Minsk metro last Monday is solved, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said here on Wednesday.
"The security agents and the police needed 24 hours to carry out a perfect operation without any noise and fuss to detain the perpetrators of the terrorist act already on 9 p.m. local time on Tuesday," the president said at a meeting devoted to the investigation into the Minsk terrorist act.
The tossed in the calaboose already gave testimony, he said. "The most important thing is that we are aware who they are, but it is unclear yet why they committed the terrorist act, but it will be made clear soon," Lukashenko underlined.
The tossed in the calaboose in the April 11 terrorist attack case in the Minsk metro confessed in two previous terrorist acts in the republic, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Wednesday. "They are to blame for the terrorist acts on the Day of Independence in Minsk and earlier in Vitebsk," he noted.
"It is awful but the fact that these villains, who committed the crime, worked in concrete staffs as lathe operators and mechanics," Lukashenko noted. Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths... he accused the directorate of these enterprises that they failed to find the real nature of these bandidos. "Who are the accomplices and probably the contractors it is very important for us," Lukashenko underlined.
Lukashenko demanded to interrogate the opposition politicians over a dreadful terrorist act in Minsk. "I instructed to investigate all requests from the politicians," Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting devoted to the investigation into the Minsk terrorist act. "We are searching for accomplices and contractors today," he noted. "May be, these elements from the so-called 'fifth column' will disclose their cards and will point to those who contracted it (the terrorist act)," the president underlined.
"We should interrogate all despite any appeals and moans from foreign sufferers," he said. "We should show the face of these bastards to the whole world," Lukashenko noted. "This came down to a blatant blasphemy," he noted. "We have the tragedy, but European partners in Strasbourg are contemplating about some human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... and our domestic oppositionists (from the fifth column) are calling for sanctions," the president stated. He believes that it is "the dance on the bones." "They could have waited for the mourning to end," Lukashenko pointed out.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... he noted that this does not concern the opposition, which should exist in the state. "But 'the fifth column' will exist any longer," Lukashenko underlined.
Lukashenko also demanded to curb panicking moods in the society over a awful terrorist act in the Minsk metro.
He warned that those responsible for spreading such moods will be prosecuted. "I cannot but to focus attention on the attempts to fan up the panics and to spread the rumors about new terrorist acts," the president said. The president noted that "they are spreading the rumors that not only the authorities committed these crimes, but also the military, police and even the Church." "I instructed to find these villains and interrogate them as criminals. They will not be forgiven," Lukashenko said, noting that this was them who are creating this nervous atmosphere and are stirring up people.
He added that "any panics over foodstuffs and the currency should be suppressed either."
"A team of detectives should complete all procedural actions as quick as possible and pass the criminal case for a trial," Lukashenko said.
He thanked all law enforcement agencies for an urgent work. "But you shouldn't loosen your attention anyway. The police should stay on alert," Lukashenko said. "The terrorist act is solved and probably other crimes should be solved either," he noted.
Lukashenko thanked people, who responded to his appeal to help the investigation. "Thanks to people, we received a thousand of various signals," the president remarked. The most important thing now is to draw lessons from this tragedy, he noted. "All this talking about democracy, which is imposed on us, has nothing in common with a real democracy, which should be established in our country," the president said. He noted that a calm situation in Belarus "lulled us too much." "The toughest order and organizational structure lay the foundations for our survival. Our people are ready for this," Lukashenko remarked. He pointed to the fact how heroically ordinary citizens were acting in a complicated situation right after the terrorist act in the metro. "A next step is with the authorities," the president underlined.
Lukashenko instructed the chief of the State Security Committee to find all unregistered weapons and ammunition within a month. "All offenders with unregistered weapons found should be imprisoned. We will be able to avert terrorist acts only this way," Lukashenko underlined.
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[Yemen Post] According to the medical staff in change square Hodieda, at least 21 protesters were maimed when pro government followers clashed with anti regime marchers.
The source said that most of the injuries were hits to the heads of marchers by batons and rocks.
Security forces dispersed both sides and were not involved in the festivities.
Marches have been growing in Yemen over the last two weeks after more than 50 day of anti regime protests.
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[Dawn] Militants who were driven out by the military operations by Frontier Constabulary in the Frontier Region of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar a year ago are returning to their old strongholds, official sources said.
"Militants fleeing the ongoing operation in Tor Sapari area of FR Kohat have moved back to Maroofkhel, Tauda Cheena, Pakhi Parizi and Aka Khel areas bordering the Peshawar district, FR Peshawar and Khyber Agency," said the sources.
They said the Taliban who were dislodged from their base camp in Pastawana village in FR Peshawar by Frontier Constabulary during 'spring cleaning operation' in February last year had decamped to FR Kohat and Khyber Agency. The operation was supervised by late FC Commandant Safwat Ghayyur.
Officials said that hard boyz returned to the area just after a few months and started murder of pro-government elders and members of peace bodies in Bora and other villages owing to failure of political administration to maintain its writ there after the operation.
Sources said that most of the hard boyz had shifted to FR Kohat and Khyber tribal region when government deployed FC in the area to keep vigil on movement of suspected people.
"In the recent past, when security forces launched operation against Islamic fascistiin Khyber Agency and FR Kohat, they again changed their locations and came to the border areas near Peshawar," a source said.
He said that some close aides of Taliban leader Tariq Afridi, including Ikramullah and Bilal, were killed during the operation. "Now Taliban want to take Dire Revenge™ of their killing from law enforcement agencies in Peshawar," he added. The security, he said, had been beefed up both in Peshawar and at the border area.
Officials at Matani cop shoppe, when contacted, said that they didn't have any such information. Police tightened security in the settled areas to check movement of terrorists, they said. However, The contradictory However... sources in Adezai Qaumi Lashkar said that hard boyz had come close to the area and that was why anti-Taliban volunteers had further stepped up their activities and performed night duties regularly.
"There may be 60 to 80 Death Eaters, who always change their positions," Farman Khan, a lashkar volunteer, said.
He added if serious action against them was not taken they could target the activists of peace body and coppers.
"Flushing out Islamic fascistiis not so difficult if the law enforcement agencies properly devise strategy for hitting them hard in their hideouts of Pakhi Parezi areas of FR Peshawar," he said.
He said that owing to suicide kaboom at the funeral of a woman on March 9 in Adezai, the volunteers were extremely tense, however, they were ready to sacrifice their lives for protection of people.
He asked government to take stern action against hard boyz to eradicate them once for all and secure lives and properties of people.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2011
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#1
Peshawar!
It had to be said.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/14/2011 9:11
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Official sources within the rebel Libyan National Transitional Council informed Asharq Al-Awsat that anti-Qadaffy rebels intend to carry out an operation in the Libyan capital Tripoli in the coming days in an attempt to encourage Tripoli residents to take to the streets and protest against the Qadaffy regime.
The source within the Libyan National Transitional Council, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, said that plans are underway to surprise the Qadaffy regime in the heart of its stronghold, namely the Bab al-Aziziyah military compound in Tripoli. The source added that the rebels had rejected the initiatives put forward by Turkish and African mediators because they are insistent on the complete departure of Colonel Qadaffy from power.
The source also commented on the unprecedented public threat issued by National Transitional Council chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil, to Colonel Qadaffy yesterday, that he would be facing a "flood" of opposition. Former Libyan Justice Minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, who defected from the Qadaffy regime in protest to the use of force against the Libyan demonstrators, is not known for utilizing the language of threats and intimidation.
Sources close to Abdul Jalil told Asharq Al-Awsat that "Qadaffy must take this threat seriously, this is not an empty threat...we are marching on him."
The source also revealed the presence of sleeper cells affiliated to the anti-Qadaffy rebels in the heart of Tripoli. He said that even though the Libyan regime continues to prevent Tripoli residents from access to the internet, the rebels are utilizing non-conventional means to stay in contact with these sleeper cells. The source told Asharq Al-Awsat that "sometimes we use cell phones to pass private information utilizing secret codes to circumvent the ongoing wire-tapping carried out by the Libyan security and intelligence agencies on cell phone communication."
The source also told Asharq Al-Awsat that an extensive popular uprising being sparked in Tripoli is a possibility, provided there is good preparation for this, clarifying that some pro-rebels operating in the heart of Tripoli are continuing to carry out resistance operations against the Qadaffy regime.
The source added "it is as if Tripoli is under occupation, for this is truly an occupation, we have men [working there] and they are gathering information on the inside, and we know everything that the [Qadaffy] regime is doing."
A military official loyal to the anti-Qadaffy rebel forces told Asharq Al-Awsat that "Qadaffy's fate will be like the fate of the president of the Ivory Coast who was tossed in the calaboose by French troops and handed over to the president-elect." The military official added "if Qadaffy does not step down, we will come for him in his home, it is only a matter of time, we will arrest him and bring him to trial for his terrible crimes against the people of Libya over 42 years."
The military source, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, added "he [Qadaffy] must understand that he has no hope, there will be no dialogue and no roadmap unless the first article of any of these is assurances that [Colonel] Qadaffy and his sons step down [from power]."
The source pointed out that the noose had tightened around Qadaffy after his forces suffered a number of military losses over the past few days, he stressed that "the revolutionaries taught the Qadaffy forces a harsh lesson forcing them to retreat, leaving behind military equipment, whilst 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... planes continued the task by bombing the Qadaffy forces as they were retreating."
Libyan state media has reported that the situation in Tripoli is calm, and that pro-Qadaffy rallies continue to take place there. However a Tripoli resident speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat via satellite phone yesterday said "do not believe what the official media affiliated to the Qadaffy regime says, we are hostages, and if we had the opportunity, we would do what the people in eastern Libya did [and rise up against Qadaffy]." The Tripoli resident said that the foreign media in Tripoli are not given the opportunity to talk with Tripoli's residents, stressing that "if people were given the opportunity to speak freely, I am certain that the world would be deeply shocked because what is being published about the situation in Tripoli is not the truth."
In an incident that seems to corroborate the claims of the presence of sleeper cells loyal to the anti-Qadaffy rebels in Libya's capital, Tripoli residents have revealed that revolutionary forces attacked a government check-point in eastern Tripoli last week, capturing weapons. A Libyan opposition figure living abroad told Asharq Al-Awsat that he is in contact with anti-Qadaffy rebels hiding out in Tripoli, he said that "they are carrying out attacks in Tripoli. They have killed many members of Qadaffy's army."
However there have also been reports of Qadaffy security forces impersonating anti-Qadaffy rebels in Tripoli, calling on people to take to the streets, only to arrest and attack anybody who does so. This has further complicated the situation, and spread confusion and chaos in Tripoli.
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[Iran Press TV] Syria says it has incarcerated members of a terrorist group that planned acts of sabotage to destabilize the country following weeks of unrest.
Did he get his instructions from the refrigerator?
According to Syrian security officials, foreign organizations provided the group with financial as well as military assistance to incite unrest in the country.
The head of the armed terrorist group, Anas al-Kanj, has confessed to receiving instructions "to incite people to protest, particularly outside the Ommayad Mosque in the capital, 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... , and in the towns of Daraa, Latakieh and Banias."
He also confessed that he was ordered to use live ammunition and open fire on "protesters in order to sow disarray and lead people to believe that the security forces were shooting on the demonstrators."
According to al-Kanj, there were some other "cells" carrying out similar acts in the country.
Other members of the group have also stated in their confessions that they were supplied with various types of weapons and were trained on using them.
A large amount of weapons, including pistols, hand grenades and automatic rifles, were seized from the group.
Syria has witnessed weeks of protests since mid-March as scores of people were killed after peaceful demonstrations turned violent.
Damascus has repeatedly denied allegations that its security forces were responsible for shooting at protesters, inisisting that officers were given clear instructions not to harm civilians.
"No, no, perish the thought!"
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[Iran Press TV] Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the continuous vigilance and preparedness of the Iranian Air Force has frightened the enemies.
"The sustainable security of Iran's air, marine and land borders is indebted to the readiness, vigilance and bravery of the Iranian Army," IRNA quoted the minister as saying on Wednesday.
He added that the vigilance of Iran's Army has greatly contributed to the deterrent power of the Islamic Theocratic Republic against enemies.
Vahidi praised the Air Force personnel for their relentless efforts and innovation in the maintenance of the country's combat aircraft.
"With your high spirits and vigilance you have taken away any chance for the enemy to act [against Iran]," the Iranian minister noted.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Substitute "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" for "Iran"...
#2
Enemies: "You bet we're scared! All those planes of theirs falling on our territory will screw up the environment for years!"
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/14/2011 9:27
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Vahidi,
Remember you can't kill what you can't lock on, say hello to the F-22 and the F-35.
Actually I think there is one parked on the roof of his HQ right now listening to Fifty Cent...and waiting for orders.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/14/2011 14:13
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#4
"the continuous vigilance and preparedness of the Iranian Air Force has frightened the enemies"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thanks for the laugh, V.
If by "enemies," you mean us, the only thing keeping our Air Force from giving you the spanking you so richly deserve is your friend and dhimmi, our Presi-weenie.
But don't worry - we'll change that in 2012. That's hope and change I can get behind! :-D
You have a nice day delusion now, y'hear?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/14/2011 15:01
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For a map, click here. For a map of Tamaulipas, click here.
The death toll in the mass grave in San Fernando, Tamaulipas rose today by 10 making the total count 126 found since eight days ago, according to Mexican press accounts. To see the Rantburg report on the original finding click here. An update is here.
[Tolo News] A former Taliban executioner has been jugged by Afghanistan's national directorate of security (NDS) in southern Helmand province, officials said on Tuesday.
The man, Mullah Joma, was jugged in an special operation carried out by NDS in Helmand province, NDS said.
Mullah Joma, 30, has admitted beheading many people while working with the Taliban.
He has also admitted being involved in the public execution of three men in March last year who were accused of spying to foreign soldiers.
Joma admittedly has worked for the Taliban since 2009.
Lutfullah Mashal, a front man to NDS, said Joma's job has been to behead suspicious people who were jugged by the Taliban.
"His job was to behead suspicious people jugged by the Taliban on allegations of cooperating with the Afghan cops and foreign troops," Mr Mashal said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... a Pak would-be jacket wallah has surrendered to the NDS and has admitted to have received training in an ISI centre in Miranshah.
The man has said he was sent to Afghanistan by ISI along with two others to carry out attacks against Afghan police and national army.
"I am a poor man. I decided not to do it and surrendered myself to Afghan forces," said the man.
NDS also said a Pak terrorist who was involved in plotting the recent attack on Jalalabad airport has also been jugged.
The man has admitted that 12 other Pak nationals were involved in the attack on Jalalabad airport.
The 12 Pak faceless myrmidons are said to have been killed in the counter-offensive of the Afghan forces who resisted the attack on the airport.
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04/14/2011
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[Dawn] Two civilians were maimed when Death Eaters fired about a dozen rockets at Thall Fort in Hangu district ... Hangu is famous for its greenery, hills, beauty and water. Most of the people of this area are Bangash & Orakzai Pashtuns. Part of the Bangash are Shia. The Orakzai and the Sunni Bangash are determined to kill them... on Tuesday.
Officials said that faceless myrmidons fired at least 12 rockets from Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... side at Thall Fort of army in Hangu district but failed to hit the target. The rockets went kaboom! in fields and injured two pedestrians identified as Imran and Nazir, they said. The injured were taken to Tehsil Civil Hospital.
Eyewitnesses said that rockets were fired from Orakzai Agency where military had been engaged in an operation against Death Eaters since last March.
Sources said that the army opened heavy firing on the hideouts of Death Eaters in retaliation but there were no immediate reports of casualties. The residents of the area said that army did not retaliate because it was already engaged in operation against Death Eaters in Orakzia Agency.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... a jirga of Haleemzai tribe held at Nahqi IDPs camp on Tuesday extended support to security forces and political administration in restoration of peace and government writ in their respective areas in 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... tribal region.
The jirga, held with Haleemzai Peace Committee chief Malak Mohammad Ali in the chair, was attended by a large number of tribal elders including Malak Amir Nawaz Khan, Malak Haji Kaeem Said, Malak Dawran Bacha, Malak Sahib Dar, Haji Sanak, Karimullah Kamal, Umar Said and Malak Aurang Zeb.
The jirga decided that local tribes would protect government installations in their respective areas. It said all the tribes would support each other in case of any attack by beturbanned goons.
Addressing the jirga, Mohammad Ali said they were peace-loving people and would not shelter suspected people, who were bent upon destroying peace of the region. He said the rustics would fight alongside security forces to protect frontiers of their motherland from enemies.
The jirga also decided that tribal elders would rebuild the two destroyed government schools in Shah Beg Kamali Haleemzai area.
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[Tolo News] The Afghan Ministry of Defence says it has taken strict measures to prevent anti-government armed bully boyz infiltrating Afghan cops.
At a news conference on Wednesday Gen. Zahir Azimi said there have been a few incidents of bully boyz infiltrating the Afghan National Army.
"It is obvious that anti-government gangs are trying to infiltrate the Afghan cops to carry out attacks," Gen. Azimi said.
He said Afghan cops have their own filtering methods to identify genuine recruits.
The Ministry is optimistic all the challenges ahead of Afghan cops will be resolved by the end of the year 2014.
It has stepped up efforts to prepare for the security transition scheduled to begin in July this year.
Mr Azimi said the security transition plan will not be reversible.
But he admits the Afghan cops are still faced with challenges.
"The transition plan will be implemented based on the Afghan forces' potential to take over responsibilities, transition will be done gradually and it will not be reversible. International community has promised to support our forces to stand on their own feet by the end of 2014," Mr Azimi said.
According to the Ministry, over seven billion dollars have been spent on the equipment of the Afghan National Army in the recent years.
Afghan forces are to begin taking over security responsibilities in July, when the first phase of foreign troops withdrawal from Afghanistan is scheduled to be started.
Presently Afghan National Army has 174,000 recruits and the number is expected to rise to more than 200,000 by the end of 2011.
The former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Dr Antonio Maria Costa, had previously warned that the Taliban had infiltrated the Afghan army and police. He had said Taliban sleeper cells had been set up inside the Afghan cops to plan attacks 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... -led troops in the country.
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[Ennahar] Between 2,000 and 3,000 students, according to local journalists, marched Tuesday in the streets of Algiers, where street demonstrations are banned.
The students were protesting against such a new system for issuing diplomas and the malfunctioning of the university. Gathered at the Post Office, they forced several cordons of coppers deployed in the center of the capital in the early hours of the morning.
From several provinces of the country, they failed to reach the government palace where all the streets leading to it were blocked by an impressive police devise.
Demonstrators then headed towards the Presidency of the Republic on the heights of Algiers, but they were blocked halfway by the police.
The demonstrators chanted such as "Zenga, Zeng, dar bdar, houkouma tachâal ennar" (the government puts the fire in all streets and in every house), a slogan inspired by a speech by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, "we are sick of this ministry, we are sick of poverty " or "Harroubia (Minister of Higher Education) go out!".
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[Tolo News] At least five workers of a Construction Company were killed in roadside mine blast in eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday, local officials said.
The incident happened yesterday afternoon in Fateh Meena area of Lal Poor district of Nangarhar province while the workers were passing by, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a front man for governor of Nangarhar told TOLOnews.
Lal Poor is an insecure district in the province bordered by Pakistain.
Insurgents use Improvised Explosive Devices to target Afghan and foreign forces, but civilians are often the main victims.
Previously Afghan and foreign forces have launched military operations in the district to wipe out the jihad boys.
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[Asharq al-Aswat] At a time when Syrian President [Bashir al-Assad] described some of the victims of state violence against demonstrations in Syria as deaders, an Iranian Foreign Ministry front man came out to say that what is happening in Syria is a Western conspiracy!
In a presser, Iranian front man Ramin Mehmanparast said that the protests in Syria are taking place within the framework of a western conspiracy to destabilize a government which supports "the resistance" in the Middle East. He said that "what is happening in Syria is a mischievous act of Westerners, particularly Americans and Zionists" adding that the conspirators "want to avenge some countries like Iran and Syria, which support the resistance, by facilitating small [opposition] groups." Worse still, the Iranian front man said that the conspirators are trying, with the aid of the western media, to "tell the world that these people [the demonstrators] are the majority of the society, and this is the biggest lie and distortion." Can you believe this audacity?
The Iranian official said that the Syrians' demands were nothing more than foreign treachery; however everyone knows that the demands of the Syrian people are genuine, in a state with the longest-running repressive emergency law in the Middle East. The state lacks all kinds of freedoms, and even the Syrian president himself is considering reform, so why would he talk about reform if these were the demands of foreign agents? Why would the government decide to increase salaries, and why would the president grant the status of martyrdom to the protest victims -- which is a remarkable story in itself in a secular state -- if the protestors were foreign agents?
The other issue is that Iran falsely claimed that the protestors in Syria are a small group. Is this conceivable considering that demonstrations have taken place in seven cities in Syria over the past three weeks, with the corpse count standing at over two hundred? The demonstrations have reached the mosques, and the University of 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... , and so is it conceivable to believe that the demonstrators themselves are only a small group, a minority? Although the Sunnis are the overwhelming majority in Syria, there is no sectarian undercurrent, but rather the demonstrations consist of most components of Syrian society. The demonstrations have even spread to rural areas, specifically Deraa, a key ally in the balance of power in Syria. Thus the Iranian assessment is certainly incorrect.
As for the Iranian front man's talk of resistance, this is ironic, for it appears that Tehran and its allies did not pay attention after the Arab citizens grew tired of such fake slogans and lies. All demands in the Arab world today are national and internal, so where is this resistance that the Iranians talk about? Syria has not even killed so much as a pigeon in its resistance battle over the past three decades. It did not even react to Israeli attacks on its territory; instead it always reserves the right to respond, without actually responding. [As for resistance elsewhere] Hezbullies has now rounded on the Lebanese, specifically the Sunnis of Beirut, and terrorized all other factions, and Hassan Nasrallah is now unofficially responsible for appointing the Sunni Prime Minister! Even Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has begun to suppress demonstrations held against it in Gazoo, although the media has not focused on this as it has been preoccupied with the open theater that is the Arab world. As for Iran itself, we have not seen them support the resistance, there have been no shots fired in defense of Arab blood, and we all remember that [Grand Ayatollah] Khamenei forbade the Iranians from going to Gazoo during the last war!
Thus we are right to say if you have no shame, become an Iranian official!
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[Straits Times] THE Philippines has protested to the 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... over China's claim's to disputed areas in the South China Sea, saying Beijing's stance has no basis under international law.
The Philippines claims illusory sovereignty over parts of the Spratly Islands and its adjacent waters, an area believed to be sitting on huge deposits of oil, gas and minerals. China claims the whole territory.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim all or parts of the South China Sea.
In an April 5 protest sent by the Philippine's permanent mission in the United Nations in New York, a copy of which was seen by Rooters, Manila asserted portions of the Spratly Islands, known as the Kalayaan island group, are an integral part of the country's territory.
The Philippines said Beijing's claim had no legal basis under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and said parts of the Spratly Islands were part of the Philippines based on international laws.
The Philippine protest was sent to the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. The Philippines questioned China's sweeping claims laid out in its 'nine-dotted line' claim over the entire South China Sea submitted to the UN in 2009.
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[Straits Times] MALAYSIA'S top news portal Malaysiakini remained crippled on Wednesday, more than 24 hours after cyber attackers struck ahead of hotly contested state elections on Borneo island.
Mr Steven Gan, its co-founder and chief editor, said the site would continue to report on Saturday's vote in Sarawak state despite the shutdown, which came days after whistleblowing website Sarawak Report was hit by a similar attack.
'I believe the attack is linked to our reporting on the campaigning for the Sarawak elections and it is no coincidence that this has happened to us three days after Sarawak Report was also attacked,' he told AFP.
'We are trying to get our website up and running and we are providing our content for free at the moment as we will continue reporting on what is happening in Sarawak. We will not stop, we will prevail,' he added.
Malaysiakini, which gained international fame as an alternative source of news during the rule of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, earns part of its revenues from subscriptions.
Mr Gan said the 'denial of service' attack began on Tuesday morning when the portal's servers were swarmed by massive and coordinated traffic from overseas, forcing it to post its reports on blogsites as well as Twitter and Facebook. Malaysia's major newspapers and broadcasters are closely linked with the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, but online news portals and blogs have become a lively forum for dissent and debate.
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In a first for U.S. anti-piracy efforts, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents ventured into Somalia to arrest the man who allegedly oversaw ransom negotiations for four Americans held hostage and later killed by pirates. Mohammad Shibin, 50 years old, was captured in a joint operation, led by the FBI and coordinated with Somali authorities.
#6
The bit that surprised me is the "coordinated with Somali authorities" - I didn't realize there were any Somali authorities to coordinate with, nor that there were even any pseudo-authorities who would be willing to do so.
#7
That's what I was thinking, Glenmore, but maybe they found some dude willing to be "an authority" for the price of, - oh, I don't know - say, $50?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2011 13:01
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Some more detail at Strategy Page. Shibin was arrested more than a week ago. April 6, 2011: In Puntland, American FBI agents and local police arrested pirate leader Mohammad Shibin, and sent him back to the United States for prosecution. Shibin was the leader of the gang that seized four Americans and their sail boat two months ago. Sabin handled the negotiations, but his men panicked when U.S. warships intercepted them at sea, and killed the four Americans. Most of the pirates were arrested and taken to the United States for prosecution. Sabin was a known pirate leader, and once he was identified as the guy in charge of seizing the Americans, plans were made to arrest him.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Clashes involving heavy weapons rocked Cote d'Ivoire's Abidjan today as President Alassane Ouattara struggled to return security to the commercial capital after capturing his rival Laurent Gbagbo.
The fighting was heard in areas largely loyal to Gbagbo, the central Plateau district and Cocody in the north, as pro-Ouattara forces tried to return the city to normality after 10 days of bitter street battles.
Ouattara addressed the nation late Monday, the day his troops captured Gbagbo from a besieged presidential bunker in a joint operation with French and UN troops, vowing justice, reconciliation and security.
"I ask you to remain calm and show restraint," Ouattara, the 69-year-old elected leader of the west African country, said in a televised address, hailing "the dawn of a new era of hope".
Meanwhile, it's still 3am and the night is full of screams and sickening thuds.
Legal proceedings
He also announced "legal proceedings against Laurent Gbagbo, his wife and his allies", adding that "all measures are being taken" to protect them following their dramatic capture after a four-month crisis.
Gbagbo, who had held power since 2000 and stubbornly refused to admit defeat in November's presidential election, also called for a laying down of arms in televised comments shortly after his capture from a bunker.
Gbagbo, his wife Simone and son Michel are being held at Ouattara's temporary headquarters at an Abidjan hotel, where they are being guarded by UN police amid fears of reprisals or summary justice
By which is meant "summary execution"...
and as fighting continued.
"There were festivities using heavy weapons," around midday, a resident of Plateau, largely deserted since fighting erupted and home to the presidential palace, told AFP by telephone.
"This morning we saw a convoy of cars with lots of 4x4s: (Ouattara's military chief) Cherif Ousmane told us they were going to flush out snipers posted on all tall buildings in Plateau," said a young woman.
"Shortly after they went by, loud blasts began," said the woman, who asked not to be named.
In Cocody, where Gbagbo was incarcerated at his official residence on Monday, a resident said "there was sporadic small arms fire in the morning, after which we heard rocket and heavy machine-gun fire for several minutes."
Fighting in Abidjan has left streets littered with bodies and parts of the city in the grip of looters.
The north of the sprawling metropolis was particularly affected, with gunnies aboard 4x4 vehicles smashing down house gates under cover of darkness and making off with electrical goods, residents said.
But a semblance of normal life appeared to return to the southern district of Treichville and to Adjame in the north.
"There's car traffic, woro-woros (public transport), taxis. There's even some food shops that have opened," said a Treichville inhabitant.
UN secretary-general the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon welcomed Ouattara's promise to set up a truth and reconciliation commission to look into accusations of massacres and other crimes made against both sides in the Ivory Coast conflict.
The UN, which has more than 9,000 troops and police in Ivory Coast, will keep up its mission helping to restore law and order and Ban offered help coping with a "critical" humanitarian emergency after the conflict.
The UN has said that at least 800 people have been confirmed killed in the conflict between the rival camps following the November election.
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But, but, but, we were told it all about Gbagbo's refusing to accept "the Will of the People"---and he's in custody.
[Ma'an] US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Walter Q. Gresham ... pushed for Arab leaders to embrace a "spirit of reform" that has swept the region and move swiftly to respond to the growing demands of their citizens.
While the American stance was welcomed by regional officials, the lack of progress on the Israeli-Paleostinian grinding of the peace processor was criticized, and leaders urged the US to take stronger action, saying the issue was at the heart of regional politics.
"The long Arab winter has begun to thaw," said Clinton on the opening day of the US-Islamic World Forum being held in Washington, praising Arab youth for rising up against "false narratives" that she said had choked political and economic reform for generations.
"All the signs of progress we have seen in recent months will only be meaningful if more leaders in more places move faster and further to embrace this spirit of reform," she said.
Before an audience that included representatives of more than 30 Mohammedan nations, the top US diplomat said in the wake of historic unrest in the region that "for the first time in decades there is a real opportunity for change."
Arab youth, she added, will no longer "accept the status quo" and "know a better life is within reach -- and they are willing to reach for it."
Officials from Mohammedan majority nations including Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistain and Afghanistan are in Washington for the annual meeting, which aims to build greater understanding between the United States and Mohammedan countries.
In its eighth year, the forum is being held at a time of unprecedented change in the Arab world, with uprisings against autocratic leaders across the Middle East and North Africa, officials said.
"There is no reason why this region cannot be among the most prosperous in the world," Clinton told the forum.
"Despite the best efforts of the censors," she added, Arab youth "are connecting to the wider world in ways their parents and grandparents could never imagine. They see alternatives."
Leaders in the region -- rattled by the dramatic departures of Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia after mass protests calling for regime change -- could get ahead of the calls for reform "if they work with their people to answer the region's most pressing challenges," Clinton said.
Among the challenges are how to diversify their economies, open up political systems, clamp down on corruption, and respect human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... of women and minorities, she said.
A poll released by the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution think tank found that a majority of Americans, 57 percent, are supportive of the uprisings seen across the Arab world, "even if they lead to regimes more apt to oppose US policies," noted the forum organizers.
Earlier Tuesday, opening the forum, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference OIC is an international organisation with a permanent delegation to the UN, with 57 member states. It represents all countries with substantial Moslem populations (as opposed to the Arab League, which excludes members not of the Master Race) except those which member countries block from joining. These include India, which has more Mohammedans than does Pakistain, whose membership is vetoed by Pakistain... Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called for the United States to be more active in solving conflicts, including the long-running dispute between Israelis and Paleostinians.
Calling on Washington to take a "more active role in seeking solutions to conflict-ridden situations in the Mohammedan world," Ihsanoglu pushed for a revived Middle East grinding of the peace processor to be the cornerstone of US-Mohammedan world relations.
The grinding of the peace processor "should take prevalence in relations between the United States and Mohammedan world," Ihsanoglu said, adding that it was "high time" for talks to resume to find a two-state solution between Israelis and Paleostinians.
US Senator John I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden... called at the three-day forum for "anyone here who can intervene and play a role to do so" in reviving the peace talks between Paleostinians and Israelis.
Mohammedan officials insisted, however, that the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict remains at the heart of relations between the United States and the Islamic world.
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Arab Reform?
Be careful what you wish for.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/14/2011 12:02
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[Ennahar] The departure of Colonel Muammar Qadaffy ... dictator of Libya since 1969. From 1972, when he relinquished the title of prime minister, he has been accorded the honorifics Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya or Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the longest serving of all current non-royal national leaders. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Tripoli became an Ottoman province in 1551. When Chairman Mao was all the rage and millions of people were flashing his Little Red Book, Qadaffy came out with his own Little Green Book, which didn't do as well. Qadaffy's instability has been an inspiration to the Arab world and to Africa, which he would like to rule... and his sons from Libya is a prerequisite for any political settlement in the country, reiterated Tuesday a front man for the rebels, Mahmoud Chammam on the eve of a meeting of the Contact Group on Libya in Qatar.
The political arm of the rebellion the National Transitional Council (CNT) is involved in the meeting scheduled for Wednesday in Doha with a delegation led by its international representative, Mahmoud Jibril.
"We will not accept any initiative for a political settlement if the departure of Qadaffy and his sons from Libya does not appear at the top" of a potential agreement, said Chammam.
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See RELATED > TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > WHY THE LIBYAN REBELS DON'T TRUST THE AU!?
[Arab News] A jacket wallah detonated his vest full of explosives in northeastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 10 people, including five schoolboys and an influential tribal elder and former military commander who supported the Afghan government.
The target of the midday bombing in Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Binny's house in Chitral... was Malik Zareen, a leader of Afghan forces during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, a provincial police chief said.
The police chief, Khalilullah Ziayi, said seven others were also maimed in the blast in the province's Asmar district.
"Unfortunately, the suicide kaboomer targeted a local council meeting of the tribal elders," he said.
The Afghan Ministry of Education said five schoolboys -- students in the eighth, sixth, fourth and first grades -- were among the 10 killed in what the ministry called an "anti-Islamic and inhumane act." Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... also condemned the bombing, saying it was a "terrorist attack against the Afghan people." He said that by killing tribal leaders, the attacker was trying to silence the voice of the Afghan people.
"The strong pillars of Afghanistan are the tribal elders," Karzai said in a statement. "They are trying to solve the problems of the local people." He called Zareen a brave and influential jihadi leader who was working for peace and stability.
The province, along the Pakistain border, has been the scene of heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... in recent weeks. Six US soldiers were killed in the area on March 29.
Also in the east, 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 a roadside kaboom Wednesday. So far this year, at least 115 foreign troops, have been killed in Afghanistan. The coalition did not disclose the nationality of the service member who died or where he was killed.
In Pashtun-infested Logar province, south of the capital Kabul, a roadside kaboom killed one person and maimed two others who were riding on a tractor, according to the Afghan Ministry of Interior.
The ministry said a security guard was killed and three others were maimed Wednesday when their vehicle struck a roadside kaboom in Sayd Abad district of neighboring Wardak province.
Two children also were killed Wednesday when an old rocket went kaboom! in Waza Khwa district of Paktika ...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo... province, the ministry said.
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Has Iran begun to reap the fruits of its support for Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,? Some observers believe that the recent conversion of several Gazooks to Shiism represents one of these fruits. The Al-Arabiya website, citing a report published by the Arsiran website -- which is affiliated to a number of conservative groups in Iran -- published a story claiming that the Shiite doctrine is beginning to spread in Gazoo and that the number [of converts] reaches into the hundreds. Abdul Raheem Hamad, a Gazook convert, also expressed the same point [in this report].
Anybody familiar with Hamas literature and its intellectual roots cannot imagine that the group could be content with the spread of Shiism, let alone that it would accept "Shiite missionary activity" in the Gazoo Strip, as a trade-off for Iranian support. If that is the case how is it possible that Hamas was not aware that the preaching of the Shiite doctrine in the Gazoo Strip would most certainly have been one of the hidden agendas that the "ideologically-driven" Iranian government aims to fulfill?
Through simple arithmetic the hundreds of Paleostinians who have become Shiite will come to represent thousands and then tens of thousands and they will demand a political and sectarian presence. This converted group will represent a thorn in the side of the sectarian harmony known by the Paleostinian people. This was emphasized by the "convert" Abdel Raheem Hamad when he said that Paleostinian Shiites will play a prominent role in running this region in the future!
It is within the rights of the regional states to be concerned about Hamas-Iranian rapprochement, which led to the strengthening of Iranian influence in an ultra-sensitive region and then to Shiite missionary work. However the pivotal question here is: did Hamas turn to Iran out of choice? It is well known that Hamas is not accepted by the key states of the Middle East even though it surpasses all other Paleostinian organizations in terms of popularity, organization and military strength, including Fatah. However due to this lukewarm relationship with Hamas, the Middle Eastern states refrain from [providing] the organization with financial support. Consequently, Iran exploited the opportunity and filled the vacuum and so Hamas has been suckled by the Iranian breast until it is able to cover its obligations to its own members, and the Gazoo Strip which it governs, and there is no solution to this except to wean Hamas from this Iranian support.
But weaning Hamas from Iran requires the provision of an alternative [to Tehran] and at present we do not expect to find any alternative. Despite the fact that Hamas surpasses [other organizations] in terms of popularity and military strength, the Paleostinian Authority, which is affiliated to the Fatah movement, continues to be recognized internationally. This takes us back to square one which is the continuation of Iranian support [for Hamas], and the continuation of Iran's political and doctrinal influence [on the Gazoo Strip], unless the regional states take it upon themselves to deny Iran this opportunity by establishing and normalizing relations with Hamas and pushing it towards [normal] political operation by allowing the organization to obtain its political share, to be determined by the forthcoming legislative and presidential elections.
Let us go back to the Shiites in the Gazoo Strip. After my last article in which I warned against the Iranian expansion in Egypt, and after others also warned against this and against Iran's missionary activities that resulted in the conversion of hundreds of Egyptians to Shiism, Shiite intellectuals objected and asked: is it not Iran's right to "preach" its ideology and engage in the marketing of ideas and doctrines? Fundamentally the answer is yes but we said "no" to Iran because it always plays the tune of Islamic unity and claims there is no difference between Sunnis and Shiites, but if that was the case then there would be no need for allocating large sums [of money] to missionary activity and "correcting" the beliefs of the Egyptians and the Paleostinians, not to mention the vile exploitation of Hamas' need by stabbing the Paleostinian people in the back and shattering their sectarian unity.
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No telling what he was doing with an animal drug...
[Iran Press TV] Authorities in the US state of Ohio have executed an inmate, who had spent more than 23 years on death row, with a drug normally used for killing animals. How appropriate... Clarence Carter was put to death on Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, and was the second person to have been killed using the sedative pentobarbital in Ohio, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reports.
A shortage of sodium thiopental -- an anesthetic usually used to make death row inmates unconscious just before their execution -- has forced Ohio to use pentobarbital.
I suppose Ohio could always hang them from a crane - like they do in Tehran.
Experts argue that the use of the new sedative, which is typically used to put down old and sick animals, is inhumane since inmates could be conscious but paralyzed when the other drugs are administered. Likely he was in a better space at that moment than the person he murdered...
Carter was convicted of killing another inmate, Johnny Allen Jr., 33, who died two weeks after a December 1988 beating in the Hamilton County jail. At the time, Carter was in jail, awaiting sentence for another aggravated murder conviction.
His support committee had argued against the execution, saying that Allen's killing was not premeditated. They stressed that former US Army soldier Allen died during the fight -- likely to have been instigated by himself -- when it got out of control, not because Carter intended to kill him.
The lawyers also said that a key witness, whose testimony played a major role in Carter's conviction, had changed his story years after the murder trial. The witness had earlier testified that he had seen Carter "sucker punch" Allen and then beat him for more than 20 minutes after the latter changed a TV channel.
But later the witness admitted to Sherlocks that he didn't really see who started the fight.
Lawyers say the distinction is important, as it means that Carter did not kill Allen with "prior calculation and design," making him ineligible for the death penalty.
They also said that Carter suffered from a borderline personality disorder, and that his upbringing was marked by violent role models, including a stepfather who beat him when he stuttered and a cousin who paid him 50 cents to fight other children.
However, The punctuational However... despite the belief by Carter's lawyers that there was a lack of proper evidence, Carter was executed on Tuesday.
In his final statement, Carter told his family he was enjoying his last moments. He also asked Allen's family for forgiveness.
"I'd like to say I'm sorry for what I did, especially to his mother. I ask God for forgiveness and them for forgiveness," he said.
There are nearly 3,260 death row inmates in the United States, as of January 2010, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a leading US civil rights organization.
Posted by: Fred ||
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pentobarbital I would've taken the reds man.....
#9
It's supposed to be an execution, not a house-warming party. As long as the guest of honor ends up very dead at the end, I don't particularly care how he came to assume that state.
#11
The real cruelty is that this piece of shit sat on death row for 23 years. An inevitable drawback of the 'rule of law' and 'due process.' Similar to the drawbacks of the 'right to bear arms' (occasional killings) and the drawbacks of the 'pursuit of happiness' (massive frauds and swindling). Freedom really isn't free, but better than other alternatives so far tested.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon revealed for the first time Wednesday that U.S. fighter jets have continued to strike Libyan air defenses after turning the mission over to NATO. Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said the jets were assigned to NATO and are operating under NATO command. They can be used when needed to take out enemy defenses as part of the enforcement of the no-fly zone.
CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin reported the missions, announced in an oh-by-the-way fashion by the Pentagon, have involved a handful of F-16s that have dropped a half-dozen bombs. While officials may claim American is taking a back seat in the campaign, U.S. jets have attacked Libyan targets three times in the last 10 days. Add in aerial refueling, reconnaissance and electronic jamming missions and the U.S. is flying 35 percent of all the NATO missions.
Separately, the U.S. has said that since the Libyan mission was turned over to NATO last week, special requests must be made for American fighters to conduct airstrikes to protect civilians. Lapan said there have been no requests for that kind of help.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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announced in an oh-by-the-way fashion by the Pentagon, have involved a handful of F-16s that have dropped a half-dozen bombs.
I'm not at all sure six bombs merit even that much attention.
Unless you happen to be under one of them, I suppose.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2011 5:57
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[Straits Times] A SUSPECTED bad boy believed to be a liaison between Mohammedan rebels and a Southeast Asian terrorist network was tossed in the calaboose in the restive southern Philippines, officials said on Wednesday.
Security forces apprehended Abi Pamanay in the central part of Mindanao Island on Tuesday based on an arrest warrant for murder in connection with bombing attacks, said Philippine army chief Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz.
Mr Ortiz accused Pamanay of being a member of the largest Mohammedan separatist group and a 'senior associate' of notorious bomb-maker Abdul Basit Usman, who has been on the run for his alleged links with the Indonesian-based terrorist network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) and the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf ...also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, an Islamist terror group based in Jolo, Basilan and Zamboanga. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, kidnappings, murders, head choppings, and extortion in their uniquely Islamic attempt to set up an independent Moslem province in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf forces probably number less than 300 cadres. The group is closely allied with remnants of Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiya and has loose ties with MILF and MNLF who sometimes provide cannon fodder... group, both blamed for a series of deadly attacks across the region.
Pamanay was being interrogated after his arrest in Isulan town in Sultan Kudarat province, Mr Ortiz said. Other officials were quoted as saying he did not resist arrest and had denied the charges against him.
Usman is a Filipino on the US State Department's list of most-wanted faceless myrmidons who carries a US$1 million (S$1.2 million) bounty.
Pak military intelligence officers last year claimed that Usman was killed with other forces of Evil in a US drone strike in Pak tribal regions, but a Philippine military official later denied it, saying that Usman had been sighted near southern Maguindanao province.
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[Ennahar] Egyptian public prosecutor began Tuesday evening to question two son of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... Gamal and Alaa, in the town of Al-Tour, capital of South Sinai, said a judicial source.
Hosni Mubarak has also been heard on Tuesday and suffered a heart attack during interrogation, which required his hospitalization in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh (East), announced the official television.
The Egyptian judiciary announced on Sunday convened at an unspecified date, Hosni Mubarak and his two sons, put under house arrest in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, south of Al-Tour, after the Egyptian president's resignation Feb. 11.
The three men must explain the use of violence against demonstrators during the uprising in January and February, which had caused formally nearly 800 dead and thousands injured.
They must also be questioned on charges of use of public money in the context of counter-corruption courses to the former regime.
The Interior Minister Mansur al-Issawi had warned Monday that the ousted president and his sons could be tossed in the slammer if they did not answer to the summons.
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The beggars change places but the whip goes on.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Cote d'Voire strongman Laurent Gbagbo, ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker... nabbed after hiding out for days in a bunker, dragged his country into disaster by refusing for months to accept he lost November presidential elections.
The 65-year-old's dogged ability to hang on to power is nothing new, having ruled the world's top cocoa producer since 2000, including for five years after his mandate ended in 2005.
A skilled orator who likes to play the man of the people, shedding suits and ties for African shirts, he conceals a ferocious will behind an affable exterior.
He steadfastly refused to bow to demands to quit after the UN-backed electoral commission said he lost the November 28 poll with only 46 per cent of votes compared to 54 per cent for rival Alassane Ouattara.
"I am president of Cote d'Ivoire," Gbagbo insisted, leaning on a ruling of a constitutional council headed by one of his allies that he took 51.45 per cent of the votes.
Houphouet-Boigny
Gbagbo cut his teeth in the union during his years of opposition to the "father of the nation," president Felix Houphouet-Boigny (1960-1993).
Born on May 31, 1945, educated in a Christian seminary the historian soon came to annoy the authorities with his union activities.
His wife, the one-time "Iron Lady" of Cote d'Ivoire, Simone Gbagbo stood firmly by her husband Laurent through highs and lows, including his ignominious arrest from a bunker.
She was dragged out with Laurent Gbagbo in Monday's dramatic end to a nearly five-month fight for the presidency and taken with him to the hotel headquarters of rival Ouattara, whom she called "head bandit".
Simone Gbagbo, 61, became First Lady of the world's top cocoa-producing country in October 2000 when the man she married just over a decade earlier won presidential elections.
Known popularly as "Simone" or "Mother", she was often regarded as the power behind the president, respected for her own political activism but also feared for alleged involvement in death squads targeting her husband's rivals.
An evangelical Christian after "miraculously" surviving a car accident in 1998, she convened daily prayers at the presidential residence.
In the 2002 attempted coup, Simone fought for her husband. She rejected the 2003 peace accord that paved the way for a unity government including former rebels, even though it was accepted by her husband.
In the 2010 campaign she was the first to condemn Ouattara, "the scourge".
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[Arab News] A senior Fatah official on Tuesday said that his movement rejected a Turkish offer to hold partial elections in a bid to end the internal Paleostinian split.
Perhaps they're not ready to be a country after all.
Azzam Al-Ahmad, a member of Fatah Central Committee and the chief of its delegation to the reconciliation talks with Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, said in a press statement that Turkey offered to hold a meeting between Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Istanbul to discuss a reconciliation agreement between their movements.
Al-Ahmed added that Turkey "proposed holding elections of the Paleostine National Council and postponing the parliamentary and presidential elections."
The Fatah official said his movement rejected the offer "since the elections have to be comprehensive."
The Fatah official said the meeting with Meshaal will be considered a move which nullifies the Egyptian document of understanding between Hamas and Fatah formed during former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... regime.
Hamas suggested postponing the presidential elections to a later date. Paleostinian sources said that Abbas rejected Hamas' proposal explaining he believes postponing presidential elections will cause those opposing a national reconciliation dialogue to declare him an illegal president, thereby compromising his ability to represent the Paleostinian Authority in reconciliation talks.
He added that "Abbas willing to visit Gazoo Strip to end the internal split." Al-Ahmed said that Abbas welcomed the offer of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to accompany him during the visit to Gazoo Strip.
In mid March, Abbas announced that he is ready to go to Gazoo Strip to end the internal split and to form an independent government. Abbas said he would not restart national reconciliation dialogue with Hamas, because the controversial issues had been discussed several times in the past.
Hamas seized control of the Gazoo Strip in 2007, routed pro-Abbas forces, ousted his Fatah movement and took over Gazoo Strip. Abbas consolidated his rule in the West Bank, widening political rift with Gazoo besides the geographical split.
Since then, representatives of the two parties held several meetings in Arab countries to solve the crisis, but failed to reach agreement over the main sticking point: security.
In late September, the two movements reached a paper of "understandings" in a meeting held 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... related to the restructure of Paleostine Liberation Organization (PLO) and general elections.
Paleostinian and Arab initiatives, mainly Egypt, failed to bring the two rivals to a reconciliation deal that ends their split and lead to holding general elections in the Paleostinian territories.
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[Dawn] According to a report in the Washington Post, US defense officials have claimed that there is no plan to suspend or restrict the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistain, and that the agency has not been asked to pull any of its employees out of Pakistain.
US and Pakistain's relationship was the focus of a nearly four-hour meeting Monday at the CIA headquarters between agency director Leon E. Panetta and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
The report stated that during the meeting, Panetta said that he has an obligation to protect the American people and was responsible for national security and therefore he had no plans to call an end to the drone strikes in Pakistain and nor was he planning to alter their frequency.
However, The over-used However... the CIA agreed to reveal more about its operatives and their activities in Pakistain but said that it would offer no information on the under-cover personnel.
The report also clearly stated that Raymond Davis was a CIA agent who was in Pakistain to spy on the country's nuclear program and find information on faceless myrmidons groups.
It was agreed in the meetings that efforts would continue to be made to reduce tensions in the Pak-US relationship.
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[Ennahar] The trial of the bombing against the government palace April 11, 2007 in Algiers was postponed again Tuesday to the next criminal session of court scheduled to open in May.
Think they'll ever actually go to trial?
The bombing had killed 20 people and injured over 222.
The presiding judge Omar Benkherchi said he had agreed to the postponement due to the absence of counsel for one of the accused who recently surrendered to the security services.
The trial had already been postponed once on March 14 because of the absence of defense of some accused.
Eighteen people were charged in the case, including a leader of Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Abdelmalik Droukdel, ... aka Abdel Wadoud, was a regional leader of the GSPC for several years before becoming the group's supremo in 2004 following the death of then-leader Nabil Sahraoui. Under Abdel Wadoud's leadership the GSPC has sought to develop itself from a largely domestic entity into a larger player on the international terror stage. In September 2006 it was announced that the GSPC had joined forces with al-Qaeda and in January 2007 the group officially changed its name to the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.... absent. They have already been convicted in other attacks.
According to the indictment, the defendants are part of an gang operating in the region of Thenia, near corpse-littered Boumerdes (50 km east of Algiers) and affiliated with AQIM.
The attack against the government palace had been committed at the same time as another against the seat of urban security in Bab Ezzouar, a suburb of the capital near the airport.
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[Dawn] Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif said Wednesday that the government is involved in the drone attacks and is still following the policies of former president General Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... , according to DawnNews.
Speaking to the media after a prize distribution ceremony, Sharif stated that everyone should unite against the drone attacks including judges and generals.
He stressed that the menace of terrorism could not be eliminated through violence but that education was the answer.
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#1
Eliminated? No. probably not. "Suppressed all to hell", now...
[Dawn] The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday acquitted nine men convicted in a case of carrying huge quantity of kaboom, and rejected the appeal of prosecution for enhancing their sentences.
Justice Chaudhry Mohammad Tariq of LHC's Rawalpindi bench accepted the appeals of Qari Mohammad Illyas and eight others, setting aside their convictions after their lawyer argued that the prosecution had failed in proving that the men were placed in durance vile from a house in the outskirts of Rawalpindi on January 29, 2009.
The nine men have already been acquitted by an anti-terrorism court in the case of killing Army Surgeon General Mushtaq Baig in a suicide kaboom in Rawalpindi on February 25, 2008 for want of evidence against them.
Qari Illyas alias Qari Jamil, a resident of Chakwal, Mohammad Rizwan alias Shamsul Haq, Zeeshan Jalil alias Khizar, and Mohammad Sarfraz alias Mohammad Khan, residents of Bloody Karachi, Dr Abdul Razzaq, a resident of Lahore, Faisal Ahmed Khan and Osama bin Waheed alias Hadayatullah, residents of Bhakhar, Mohammad Naeem Shakir alias Zubair, a resident of Sheikhupura, and Mohammad Nadeem alias Babu Salahud Din, a resident of Rawalpindi, were given 10 years jail terms each on November 16 last year by the court of a magistrate after they were placed in durance vile by Saddar Barooni police with kaboom and illegal weapons.
The high court on March 1 suspended their conviction and granted them bail but they could not be released after Islamabad administration issued their detention orders. The Islamabad High Court on April 6 set aside the detention orders, saying the men had been in jail for the last two years and could not be a threat for public peace.
Police claimed arresting the men in January 2009 from a house in Dhoke Lakhan near Dhamial Army Aviation Base, saying they had recovered kaboom and illegal weapons.
Talking to Dawn after the decision, Advocate Basharatullah Khan for the appellants said they had pleaded before the court that the nine men were picked by intelligence agencies about three months before they were shown placed in durance vile in January 2009. Different petitions were filed with the high court for the recovery of these men but they were later implicated in two terrorism cases.
He said the trial court gave seven years jail for carrying weapons and three years imprisonment for illegal weapons.
The court could not give two different sentences for one offence, the lawyer said.
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#1
Pic of kid with boomer vest? Is it Halloween already?
[Iran Press TV] Italy has called on the international community to arm Libyan revolutionaries in efforts to aid their fight against the country's embattled ruler Muammar Qadaffy.
So that they'll be illiterate, untrained boys with guns, rather than just illiterate, untrained boys...
"The discussion about arming the rebels is definitely on the table ... to defend themselves," AFP quoted Italian Foreign Ministry front man Maurizio Massari as saying on Wednesday.
Massari stressed that the measure is not against UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1973, which states that "all necessary measures" should be used to protect civilians.
His comments come as members of the Libya Contact Group gather in Qatar's capital of Doha for talks on the Libyan conflict.
"We want some sort of oil-for-food program like in Iraq," Massari explained.
Italy would be in a prime position for the graft and concessions...
But Belgium's foreign minister said his country was opposed to the plan and that arms were not covered by UNSC Resolution 1973.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also lent voice to his Belgian counterpart, saying that he sees no military solution to the crisis in Libya.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. It smelled phony... Qadaffy's former allies, the United States, Britain, La Belle France, Canada, Denmark and Belgium have launched Arclight airstrikes on Libya since March 19, under the same mandate.
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FYI YNETNEWS > [Foreign Minister]ITALY: WE NO LONGER HAVE [Diplomatic]RELATIONS WID "WEST LIBYA", aka that part of Libyuh controlled by Muammar Gaddafi???
[Maghrebia] Tunisian Education Minister Taieb Baccouche announced on Tuesday (April 5th) that wearing the niqab in educational institutions would remain prohibited.
"The niqab is categorically rejected in educational institutions and cannot be allowed at all, because there is no relationship between that attire and Islam," the minister said. The move came after a number of women chose to don the veil after the January 14th revolution.
The minister's decision was warmly welcomed by many in the education establishment. Student Rayan Nouri agreed with the decision because the niqab was a barrier to communication.
"We are a mixed community, where there is no separation between genders. I believe that there is no room for the niqab here. Besides, it can be taken advantage of to cheat during exams," Nouri said.
Wearing the niqab in educational institutions is not feasible because schools need to identify those entering, school guard Abd Hakim Ben Arbia said.
Regulations require that students in Tunisia maintain proper attire, prohibiting beards or clothing foreign to the country's tradition or that which separates one sect from another.
"So, the hijab only must be permitted because it is not a problem and is allowed," Ben Arbia added.
"The niqab is not a religious requirement, it is a new phenomenon, alien to our traditions," Noha Maazaoui commented. "I think that if it is permitted to spread, any one will be able to use it to commit crimes anonymously, which will create security problems that must be addressed before it is too late."
"Women who want to wear the niqab have a right to, provided that they do not impose it on others," Mustapha Meftah said. "If they wish to enter a place that requires lifting the face veil, they should do so."
Nevertheless, Meftah said that the best solution that fits within Tunisian culture was the hijab. The hijab has also grown in popularity since the revolution ended the ban on its use. In early April, authorities permitted images of veiled women on national ID cards.
According to the interior ministry, the new procedure falls within the framework of "on-going reforms in order to uphold the principles and values of the revolution and ensure actual respect for public and individual freedoms".
The decision was a victory for the Mohammedan community against repression, according to the Committee for the Defence of Veiled Women.
The ban on the hijab was first implemented in 1981, when the Tunisian government issued the famous "108 Decree" that outlawed sectarian garb.
"Many veiled women bemoaned the campaigns launched by the police in the former era to remove the veil," sociology researcher Amira Riahi told Magharebia. "Women appearing with the hijab on ID cards is a right demanded by women and also a kind of freedom that women sought and are delighted to gain today, knowing that we respect human rights." ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... However, The over-used However... others said that allowing the hijab on official documents set a dangerous precedent. Teacher Sana Saidane said she saw no point in the decision "because such concessions will only invite others to ask for more".
"It is good to respond to women's demands, because banning hijab is against individual freedoms," Dorra Harrar said. "But, on the other hand, I am against promoting hijab as if it is an icon of identity."
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The North Korean regime has promoted two military officers to colonel generals, five to lieutenant generals, and 38 to major generals as founder Kim Il-sung's birthday approaches.
The official KCNA news agency on Wednesday said one of the two new colonel generals is O Il-jong (57), the director of the Workers Party's Military Affairs Department and a son of leader Kim Il-sung's closest aide O Jin-u, the former minister of the People's Armed Forces
"It seems many senior military officers who are expected to play key parts in the era of Kim's son Jong-un benefited from the latest promotions," a South Korean government source said. "Some may even be promoted to vice marshals and four-star generals just ahead of the North Korean Army's anniversary on April 25."
There is speculation that Sonny Boy Kim Jong-un, who was given the title of a four-star general last September, will be promoted to vice marshal.
One feature of the latest promotions is that many of the beneficiaries are the sons of first-generation revolutionaries who fought against the Japanese alongside Kim Il-sung.
As the director of the Military Affairs Department since last year, O Il-jong supervises reserve forces including the 4 million-strong Worker-Peasant Red Guards. Experts believe that O Junior managed to get promoted thanks to his late father's influence although he was a schoolmate of Kim Jong-il's quasi-exiled brother Pyong-il, the perennial ambassador to Poland.
One of the most prominent second-generation leaders is Choe Ryong-hae (63), a party secretary and son of former minister of People's Armed Forces Choe Hyon. As a senior secretary in North Hwanghae Province, he was promoted to four-star general alongside Kim Jong-un last September. He has been appointed to almost all key party posts, including party secretary, member of the Central Military Commission, and associate member of the Politburo.
Paek Ryong-chon (49), who was appointed governor of the North Korean Central Bank last month, is the third son of Paek Nam-sun, the foreign minister from 1999 to 2007. Paek junior climbed up the career ladder rapidly from department chief at the Cabinet secretariat to central bank governor.
Right after the party congress last September that saw Kim Jong-un make his first public appearance, the state-run TV showed two parts of a film titled "The Inheritance" that glamorized Choe Hyon and O Baek-ryong, who are believed to have been a key force in Kim Jong-il's victory over rivals for his father's succession.
"In the 1970s when he competed with his uncle Kim Yong-ju and his stepbrother Kim Pyong-il to become successor, Kim Jong-il got a lot of help from the first-generation revolutionaries," a North Korean source said. "It seems that the regime is trying to use the descendants of these revered fighters to buffer the hereditary transition of power."
Several of them are said to have sworn an oath in June last year to protect Kim Jong-un at the risk their own lives.
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TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > GENERAL SHARP: NORTH KOREA WILL NOT GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR CAPABILITY, as it believes it needs NucWeaps for DETERRENCE, INTERNAT CREDIBILITY, as well as TO SCARE = IMPRESS THE WORLD INTO GIVING IT ANY + ALL KINDS OF AID GOODIES [on-demand].
[Arab News] Tens of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated across the country on Tuesday against a mediation proposal by neighboring Gulf nations because it offers the president immunity from prosecution.
"We are mob, hear us roar
In numbers to big to ignore
We am strong (strong)
We are invincible (invincible)
We are mob"
Protesters in the capital Sanaa carried flowers to give to security forces and wore signs saying they were ready to die as they repeated their two-month-old call for Yemen's president to leave office after 32 years.
The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council offered its own proposal Sunday to end the unrest and called on Saleh to transfer power to his deputy as part of a deal with the opposition.
The deal did not, however, specify a time frame and included immunity from prosecution for Saleh and his family.
"The initiative does not clearly mention the immediate departure of the head of the regime and it did not touch on the fate of his relatives who are at the top military and security agencies that continue killing the peaceful protesters," said the anti-government Civil Alliance of the Youth Revolution in a statement.
The alliance, which includes 30 youth groups, said the GCC proposals were an attempt to abort the peaceful revolution.
Protesters carried banners reading, "after bloodshed, Saleh should be tried" and "you (Saleh) will not escape unpunished." Hundreds of army and security officers in uniform also took part in Tuesday's demonstration.
Lt. Col. Mohammed Al-Khollani said the participation of him and his fellow officers was to "tell our military colleagues that your right place is among the revolutionaries and the revolution." Similar demonstrations were also held in the cities of Taiz, Aden, Ibb, Hadramawt, Saada and Thamar.
In response, the president's office issued a statement saying Saleh "has repeatedly expressed no reservations to the peaceful and smooth transfer of power within the constitution," which would allow him to remain in office until the 2013 elections -- an option long rejected by protesters.
Posted by: Fred ||
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WE are Mob, equals We are shit.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/14/2011 12:15
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[Dawn] Pakistain is short of $600 million needed to help millions of families rebuild their lives nine months after the country suffered nationwide floods in its worst ever natural disaster, the UN said Wednesday.
The rich infidels don't see why they should give you money to wage jihad against them.
The international community was slow to come to Pakistain's aid in the immediate aftermath of last year's monsoon-triggered floods, which affected up to 21 million people, amid allegations of official mismanagement of funds.
Besides, they're pretty confident none of the donated funds will manage to fall out of oligarchy pockets to land near those in actual need.
As the aid operation now moves from its emergency phase to "early recovery" to rebuild homes and restore livelihoods, the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... said a huge shortfall in funds remained.
More than $600 million is still to come from donors, with more than $176.5 million needed for agriculture and food security, more than $174.5 million for housing, and more than $106.6 million for water and sanitation projects.
The rest of the funds are required to improve education, health, livelihoods, governance, and infrastructure, the United Nations and Pakistain's National Disaster Management Authority told news hounds in Islamabad.
Perhaps y'all might consider spending less of your budget on weaponry and more on physical and human infrastructure?
"It is critical that the international community supports this effort both technically and financially," UN humanitarian coordinator Timo Pakkala said.
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[Tolo News] At least six non-combatants were killed in Talibs' shooting in northern Faryab province on Tuesday, Isaf said in a statement.
The incident happened in Pul-e-Cheragh district of Faryab province where Afghan and foreign forces had launched a military operation to capture a Taliban local commander in the district, the statement said.
Taliban opened fire on civilians and killed three women and three children, added the statement.
Isaf did not provide further information about the arrest of the Taliban local commander. Afghan and foreign forces have suffered no casualties in the operations.
The Taliban have not yet commented about the incident.
Not even to disclaim responsibility.
Recently bully boyz have targeted Afghan civilians in their attacks claiming scores of lives.
Militants are active in most villages of Faryab province and have often targeted Afghan police check posts.
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[Dawn] US drones on Wednesday resumed missile attacks in Pakistain for the first time in a month, killing six fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network on the Afghan border, officials said.
Unmanned aircraft fired four missiles into a vehicle travelling through the South Wazoo district, targeting a common root for Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked gunnies who infiltrate Afghanistan to attack US troops.
"It was a dronezap. Four missiles were fired. The target was a vehicle. Several gunnies were killed. The corpse count is six," a Pak military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Another Pak security official confirmed the same details of the attack near the small town of Angoor Adda in South Waziristan, around six kilometres from the border with Afghanistan.
Pak intelligence officials said the dead belonged to the Haqqani group, an al-Qaeda-allied outfit run by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani and based in the neighbouring North Waziristan tribal district.
An administration official in South Waziristan said those who died were "all Afghans. They were in a pick-up which came under attack."
The Haqqani group is loyal to the Taliban and has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide kaboom at a US base in Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.
The attack came just one day after a Washington meeting between Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the chief of Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, and Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, which runs the drone war.
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[Iran Press TV] The recent move by La Belle France to impose a ban on burqa, a cover-all headdress some Mohammedan women choose to wear, has come in contrast with the country's tolerance of public nudity. That's not a bug, it's a feature...
The ban came into force on Monday and was followed by immediate arrest of nearly 60 women that defied the ban by walking outside the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in Gay Paree, reported a Press TV correspondent from the French capital.
A recently-surfaced video, meanwhile, featured a naked male running around the country's streets while trying to cut a figure as a pole vaulter.
That's one way to quickly become skinless in a sandpaper world...
Kenza Drider, a young Mohammedan that left the southern city of Avignon for Gay Paree to participate in a television program on the day the ban became law, was among the detainees.
"This law infringes my European rights; I cannot but defend them, that is to say my freedom to come and go and my religious freedom," she said.
"This law breaches these rights," said the mother of four.
Her husband, Allal, said, "According to this law, my wife would have to remain cloistered at home, do you find that normal?"
"They come here for their liberty for their freedom to dress as they want. I thank them to come here to defend this form of liberty," said a female supporter of the Mohammedan women.
"I think the law is nonsense. Politicians have nothing better to do than attack our veils," said another Mohammedan woman that had taken his child out while observing the Islamic dress code in spite of the restriction.
Advocates of the ban in country that purportedly advocates democracy and basic freedoms say the regulation protects women's freedoms as well as La Belle France's firmly-embedded principles of secularism.
"Quite a large part of the people believe that the women are weak. So they think that the republic has to protect the minorities, the people, who are weak and then they thought that it was necessary to make a law," said Velentine Zuber, religious practices professor at Sorbonne -- the University of Gay Paree.
Based on the procedures dictated by the burqa ban, the police would take the female violators to a cop shoppe until they consents to be unveiled for identification.
A spokesperson for the coppers' union warily stated that the police have many other problems to solve.
There are fewer than 2,000 women wearing a full-face veil in La Belle France, which is home to five million Mohammedans -- the largest Mohammedan community in the EU.
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#1
Sounds like a win / win to me. How about we make the punishment for sack wearing be that you have to go nude in public for 2 months? That should definitely lessen both issues ;^)
#3
glenmore, that was my badly stated intention to lessen BOTH problems!! Especially if you get some sack potatos out in the buff!! Now that's truly frightening.
Now, if it was only Carla and her like in the buff.........8^)
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Three piracy cases failed to proceed at the magistrates' court in Mombasa.
This was despite a stay by the Court of Appeal of a High Court ruling declaring that Kenyan courts lack jurisdiction to try the cases.
Magistrates handling the three cases did not give any specific directions but only fixed the matters for mention in a month.
Two of the cases were coming up for judgment while the other was scheduled for defence hearing.
The Court of Appeal stayed the ruling by Justice Mohammed Ibrahim in a criminal case filed by the prosecution against nine Somalis charged with piracy, pending determination of an appeal filed by the Attorney General.
Justice Ibrahim stopped proceedings in the lower court against the nine suspects and barred any magistrates court from dealing with the case.
He said Kenyan courts had no authority over matters that take place outside the country.
After the ruling, all piracy cases in which suspects have been charged under Section 69 (1) of the Penal Code have stalled.
By the time the High Court ruling was made, there were seven cases involving 57 accused persons, all Somalis.
The matters have been coming before the courts for mention, waiting for a decision from the Court of Appeal.
At the same time, the European Union (EU) said the fight against pirates in the Indian Ocean was facing a serious challenge over gathering of sufficient evidence to sustain charges against suspects.
With only a handful of naval ships patrolling the sea, it is difficult to arrest pirates when they carry out attacks, and this has compromised the evidence presented, the EU ambassador to Kenya, Mr Ludowick Briet, said.
He was speaking in Mombasa aboard a French frigate that docked at the port on Tuesday.
French ambassador to Kenya Etienne de Poncins said the EU delegation had earlier visited the office of the deputy prosecutor in Mombasa to find out what measures can be put in place to improve on the evidence presented in courts.
"We want to examine in detail what evidence is needed by Kenya's Judiciary to successfully prosecute the pirate cases brought before the courts," Mr Poncins said.
The ambassadors said that there was a danger that nine out of 10 pirates tossed in the clink will be released due to lack of sufficient evidence.
They further said that another clarification meeting with government authorities will be held next week.
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#1
Lest we fergit, a US Commander fears that Al-QAEDA, ETAL. will one day link up or ally wid the Somali Pirate Boyz.
[Dawn] Three activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) were bumped off in Mehmoodabad on Tuesday while they were taking a rest during their `assistance` to government staff engaged in a house count under the recently launched census, officials and party sources said.
The second incident of political activists having been killed for a second day running prompted fresh fears among Bloody Karachiites, but the killing scourge remained beyond the control of political and security administrations of the province.
There was also no word from any of the key members of the Sindh cabinet about government efforts to halt nonstop assassinations.
In the first half of the day, four gunnies riding two cycle of violences pulled up at a street in Mehmoodabad No 2 to target the three young men associated with the MQM, and rode away in a flash after executing the job.
"The incident was witnessed near a mosque, Noor Masjid, in Mehmoodabad No 2," said Inspector Ahsan Zulfiqar, the SHO of the Mehmoodabad cop shoppe. "Witnesses saw two of the four men get off the two cycle of violences and fire at the three men engaged in chatting. They fired multiple shots at the victims and sped away."
Syed Asif Ali, in his late 30s, 45-year-old Muneer Ahmed and 40-year-old Muhammad Naeem were critically maimed in the shooting. They died one after another during treatment in the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
"They're dead, Jim."
Earlier they were believed to be enumerators engaged in a house count, but the police later found that the victims were actually `assisting` the census staff and were associated with the MQM.
"There was a house count going on in the area and they were with the staff engaged in the exercise," said SSP Amir Farooqi of Jamshed Town. "Such an association led to the confusion but later it became clear that they were only assisting the enumerators and one of them was resident of the same locality where the incident took place."
He said the victims were hit mostly in the head, chest and face while the attackers took a few seconds to meet their target and accelerated away from the scene.
"We found more than 30 casings of spent bullets of 9mm pistol at the scene of the crime.
Such thoroughness is certainly...thorough.
The bodies have been handed over to the families after medico-legal formalities," added SSP Farooqi.
Fear gripped the densely populated neighbourhood and businesses were shut down amid frequent crackle of gunfire. Transport on the roads passing through the locality gradually disappeared.
The killing of the activists angered MQM leaders, but they urged party workers to stay calm. They demanded that the government protect activists` lives.
"The coordination committee has demanded that Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan and Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah take notice of the incident and ensure the arrest of killers and their patrons," said an MQM statement.
The statement also carried a message from MQM chief Altaf Hussain, condoling with the victims` families and condemning the killings.
"Syed Asif Ali was a former sector member of the party and was a resident of the Mehmoodabad area," said the statement. "Muneer Ahmed had retired as a deputy superintendent of the Sindh government`s land and revenue department only two months ago. Muhammad Naeem was a resident of the Surjani Town area and employed with the Bloody Karachi Water and Sewerage Board as a fitter."
Earlier, in the small hours of the day, a tea boy was killed in an armed attack on a roadside restaurant in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. Area police said the gunnies on two motorbikes fired at the roadside restaurant near Rabia City that left two youngsters badly maimed.
"One of the maimed, 19-year-old Shamsul Haq, died during treatment. The other, Hazrat Ali, was hit in the abdomen but was declared stable after he underwent a surgery," said an official at the Sharea Faisal cop shoppe.
Though the police remained clueless about the motive and people behind the shooting, the Awami National Party claimed the attack was ethnically motivated.
"We don't want none o' their kind round these parts!"
"The attack was part of the series of attacks targeting people of a particular background and ethnicity. The trend is a serious threat to city peace. And we demand immediate and effective measures by the authorities to curb assassinations," said an ANP front man.
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[Arab News] Bahrain has put two Iranians and a Bahraini on trial on charges of spying for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the state news agency said on Tuesday.
"They are accused of contacts with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to give them military and economic information from 2002 to April 2010... with the intention of damaging the national interest," the Bahrain News Agency said.
It said the men requested money from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard force in return for the information.
The next session for the trial has been set for April 20, the report said, but did not say when the trial began or provide other details.
Gulf Arab countries are concerned over what they see as the ambition of Iran to extend its influence in Arab countries.
The island state, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet, accuses Iran of fomenting the protests.
Kuwait said this week it had expelled three Iranian diplomats for involvement in a spy ring and in a tit-for-tat move Tehran has given three Kuwaiti diplomats 10 days to leave Iran.
Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians and a Kuwaiti to death for being part of the alleged spy ring.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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Meanwhile, TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > RIVAL MILITARY FACTIONS CLASH IN YEMEN [Yemen moves closer to Civil War].
[Ma'an] Paleostinian politician Mustafa Barghouthi condemned Tuesday the decision to postpone the upcoming meeting of the Mideast Quartet, ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... which had initially been scheduled for Friday in Berlin.
Braghouti said the decision amounted to bowing to pressure from the American administration, accusing the US of failing to exert pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction.
"This is a bad and negative sign and is only in Israel's interest," he told Ma'an.
A report in The News Agency that Dare Not be Named said the US blocked a plan to gather the Quartet tabled by Britain, La Belle France and Germany. They reportedly sought to restart peace talks by proposing the outlines of a final settlement.
According to the report, the proposed plan would have seen UN Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon and the European Union propose a settlement text at the Friday meeting of the Quartet.
US officials, however, told the AP that "It wasn't the right time."
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[Ma'an] An gang in the Gazoo Strip claimed Tuesday that it launched missiles toward Israeli targets.
The missiles targeted the "Nirim settlement" east of Khan Younis at 7:50 p.m., a statement from the "Tawhid and Jihad" group said.
Nirim is an Israeli kibbutz near the border with southern Gazoo.
The group said in the statement that its attack came as a response to Israeli aggression on the Gazoo Strip.
An Israeli army official said the military had no knowledge of such an event, the Israeli news site Ynet reported late Tuesday. The group which claimed the attack is associated with Al-Qaeda, Ynet said.
Did the missiles land in Gaza again?
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
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.
During the French-language leaders' debate, Michael Ignatieff, the leader of Canada's Liberal party, was adamant that he'd let the United Nations Security Council make the final call on whether to send Canadian troops abroad.
The former 
New claims for unemployment benefits 
People growing marijuana indoors use 1 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and they create 17 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year (not counting the smoke exhaled) according to a report by Evan Mills, an energy analyst at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The Ministry of Defence announced last week that RAF Typhoons would drop bombs on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's tanks and other ground targets. But so far this has not happened, because the planes' pilots are not considered to be properly trained in ground attacks.
The cuts in Typhoon pilot training were ordered by the last government, but the Coalition confirmed the plans in the Strategic Defence and Security Review in October. RAF chiefs told the audit office that to save money, they would not begin training all Typhoon pilots in ground attacks until at least 2014.
hereditary President Bashir 
[Ennahar] Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been placed in intensive care Tuesday at a hospital of Sinai (east), after suffering a heart attack, reported the official MENA news agency.
[Ma'an] Officials from 
Three people were killed in violence elsewhere in Yemen, including two 
Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in the capital after the 
[Iran Press TV] Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the continuous vigilance and preparedness of the Iranian Air Force has frightened the enemies.
Orakzai Agency
Mohmand
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hillary Clinton
Muammar Qadaffy
suicide kaboom
[Ennahar] Egyptian public prosecutor began Tuesday evening to question two son of former Egyptian President 
Punjab
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Three piracy cases failed to proceed at the magistrates' court in Mombasa.
cycle of violence
Quartet,
