Capturing carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions and pumping it deep underground may not be as useful a tool for dealing with rising greenhouse-gas levels as advocates suggest, according to a new analysis. You mean they finally tumbled to the fact it's an expensive waste of time? And money?
The reason: Rising pressure from the enormous amounts of CO2, which would have to be stored until the next ice age for centuries to a few thousand years, could trigger earthquakes. The temblors might do little more than rattle Grandma's china at the surface, but they still could be strong enough to crack rock above the formations used for storage, providing pathways for the buoyant CO2 to leak back into the atmosphere. Which I think everybody would agree is a waste of money... Champ could always talk about job saved in carbon sequestration...
Moreover, while some underground formations are well-suited for sequestration, they could represent far less storage capacity globally than required if the approach is to be a significant tool for holding down atmospheric concentrations, according to a geophysicist at Stanford University, and the lead author of the analysis, which appears in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
If the goal is to sequester 1 billion tons a year of CO2 globally by 2050, and utilities were to aim only at the most-suitable formations, some 3,500 such sites would have to be uncovered and at spots convenient enough to be economical, Zoback and Stanford colleague Steven Gorelick found in their analysis. Some 85 sites a year would have to come on line between now and 2050 to meet that goal.
Yet by some estimates, 3.5 billion tons a year would need to be sequestered to reach emissions goals countries have been discussing internationally to curb global warming.
It might be possible to find large-scale formations that could serve an entire region, the researchers say. One such formation lies beneath the southern border of Indiana and Illinois. But the formation borders on a fault zone known for quakes that have reached magnitude 7. Maybe they're thinking of the New Madrid Fault which rang bells in Boston and changed the course of the Mississippi River.
If 100 million tons of CO2 were injected into the formation each year through 2050, the sequestered carbon would place a large amount of pressure on the fault zone. The 100 million ton figure is a small fraction of the amount power plants in the region emit today, the researchers estimate.
span style=background-color:yellow;>More studies are needed. Hey! That means more grant money is needed, come to think of it!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/21/2012
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#1
The law of unintended consequences always bites planners in the ass.
#2
Turn the co2 into something useful instead of putting it in a landfill so to speak. Waste streams are resource streams that have not yet been utilized.
Sequestering CO2 is really stupid. And expensive. For nothing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/21/2012 15:58
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#3
...except for providing a revenue stream for the Bureau of Silly Walks the usual suspects.
#5
CO2 can be helpful at getting additional oil out of some formations - but it costs more to do than the oil is worth in most cases.
Nature sequesters most CO2 by combining it with calcium - how many tons of limestone and marble are there in the world?
#6
How would YOU like to be sequestered for a million years or more, hmmmmmm??? Free the carbonate ions now!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/21/2012 20:42
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#7
#6 LOL.
On a separate note, it would be more funny iff I'd never had any childhood dreams or visions of Land/Islands-sinking EQ Bombs being linked to Pro-US-vs-Anti-US OWG-NWO.
It is a term more commonly associated with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, but a Labour-run council in North London was forced to apologise today after staff were ordered to refer to its new head as “Dear Leader”.
The email was sent to all councillors at Camden Council by a junior administration worker.
The worker has been given a dressing down and told that Councillor Sarah Hayward does not need to be eulogised in such a manner, and that “plain old Sarah” will do.
The member of staff at Camden Council in north London, sent out a tersely-written email to staff after Miss Hayward took over as the new leader of the council last month.
The email, sent on June 12, stated: “Dear All - Any correspondence to Councillor Hayward should be addressed to her as 'Dear Leader’ or 'Leader’
“Please inform all your staff.”
The operation to keep the identity of the sender under wraps has all the hallmarks of an operation Kim Jong II would be proud of.
Cllr Hayward insisted she had “no knowledge” of the email at the time it was sent - and said she was quite happy being called Sarah.
She said: “It was nothing to do with me and I have no idea what prompted it. I am happy to be called plain old Sarah or anything really as long as it’s not offensive.
“I hope people are not treating it seriously. It was a well-intentioned mistake. I’m not going into any naming and shaming though.”
There is less here than meets the eye. The "Dear" part is the normal salutation in a letter. I cringe every time I write it, and avoid it when I can, but it's the custom.
The "Leader" bit is strange, though, unless it's some sort of Brit thing. What's wrong with "Councillor"?
Britain may give more millions more pounds to the controversial European Court of Human Rights, despite the Government's promise to rein it in.
The Strasbourg court is asking countries to give it extra money in an attempt to deal with a backlog of 150,000 cases. Britain already pays £20million a year to the Council of Europe, which is responsible for the court, but is considering increasing this sum,
In an unusual move, the ECHR is even telling states that they can stipulate that they want their funds to be spent specifically on cases against them.
The request for more money has come just two months after ministers claimed to have secured lasting reform of the court at a summit in Brighton.
It is likely to prompt fresh claims that judges at Europe's most powerful human rights court are out of control, and that Britain should pull out of it.
The son of Mexico's most wanted man, drug Lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, has been captured, officials have claimed.
Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 26, was detained by marines in an early morning raid in the western state of Jalisco, the Mexican Navy said in a statement.
Earlier this month the US Treasury placed financial sanctions on Guzman Salazar and several other family members.
That allowed authorities to freeze any assets they had in the US and barred Americans from doing business with them.
Guzman Salazar, who is suspected of links to drug trafficking, was taken to Mexico City amid a heavy security force presence.
More intel dump from the New York Times. This sort of thing is predicated on the assumption that
Our enemies can't read; or
They're not really our enemies; or
They're not really the newspaper's enemies. The rest of us will have to shift for ourselves; or
The enemy has surely found all this stuff out by talking to the same set of egotistical blabbermouths the Times reporter talked to so it doesn't matter; or
A story like this is more important than the nation it damages.
Take your pick.
From his first months in office, President B.O. secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America's first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program. The Times suggests that Obama the Bold immediately saw the potential of cyberweapons and unleashed them on the Medes and the Persians after Bush had merely screwed around with them. In truth, they've been around for years but nobody's head's been swollen enough to blow a major operation like this until now.
Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks -- begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games -- even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran's Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet. Had something like Stuxnet occurred in, for example, the Clinton administration, the response would have been to look blank and let the whole thing blow over. The absolute best cover for any intel operation is looking stoopid. At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm's "escape," Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America's most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran's nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. "Should we shut this thing down?" Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president's national security team who were in the room. Proper response: "Shut what down?"
Told it was unclear how much the Iranians knew about the code, You can buy a decent decompiler for under $50. If you're a Linux kind of guy (or intel organization) you can get one open source. Decompilers take binary and translate it to machine language. I haven't looked at them other than in passing for the past ten years or so, but I recall somebody mentioning that there are some available that'll translate the machine language into C code. Most decent programmers can read C code, which means that if they had the worm trapped they could look at it. Even if they were bone stoopid they would be left with a pretty good idea of what the blasted thing did and how. So I guess it was 'unclear' whether they knew a lot or a whole lot.
and offered evidence that it was still causing havoc, The fact that you can recognize it doesn't mean you can kill it. Watch 'Alien' if you don't believe that one.
Mr. Obama decided that the cyberattacks should proceed. In the following weeks, the Natanz plant was hit by a newer version of the computer worm, and then another after that. The last of that series of attacks, a few weeks after Stuxnet was detected around the world, temporarily took out nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran had spinning at the time to purify uranium. "Your Enormity! The infidels and their Zionist cohorts have mutated the worm and it has devoured 1000 of our centrifuges!"
"By Allen's Hennaed Beard! Obama is too crafty for us, curse his non-existent mustache!" This account of the American and Israeli effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program is based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli blabbermouthssecurity holes officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts. None would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day. But don't worry your pretty little head about sources and/or methods being compromised.
These officials gave differing assessments of how successful the sabotage program was in slowing Iran's progress toward developing the ability to build nuclear weapons. Internal B.O. regime estimates say the effort was set back by 18 months to two years, but some experts inside and outside the government are more skeptical, noting that Iran's enrichment levels have steadily recovered, giving the country enough fuel today for five or more weapons, with additional enrichment.
#1
Observation... a carefully crafted small earthquake/jolt would have taken out a hell of a lot more than 1000 centrifuges. Those things are spinning 40,000 to 120,000 rpm... and most made of a glass disk.. - just a jolt is all it takes..
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/21/2012 18:29
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#2
What effect would a moderate nuclear explosion in the vicinity have?
#3
I'm in awe of the Community Organizer's military-like prowess. I guess Ike was a pûssy in comparison. The puffery and treason-by-leaks should get some asshats some prison time if they aren't pardoned on Jimmuh Carter V2.0's exit
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/21/2012 20:40
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#4
"Take your pick."
6. All of the above. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
06/21/2012 20:47
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After the discovery of explosives on the premises of Swedish nuclear power plant Ringhals south of Gothenburg on Wednesday afternoon, authorities quickly raised the threat level at all Swedish nuclear facilities.
"They have all raised the threat level as a precaution," said Maria Stråhle at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) to news agency TT.
A small amount of explosives without a triggering device was found on a forklift on the grounds of the country's largest atomic power station, authorities said. Police were investigating possible sabotage, but insisted that even if there had been a blast it would not have posed any great danger.
With police providing little information, a terror expert speculated it might have been an attempt to test the security system of the Ringhals power plant with a later attack in mind.
President ObamaÂ’s assertion of executive privilege to prevent Attorney General Eric Holder from complying with congressional subpoenas on the Operation Fast and Furious fiasco will blow up in the White HouseÂ’s face. But not for the reasons youÂ’ve heard on the first day of this legal fight.
Breitbart News legal contributor Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law, and author of Making Executive Privilege Work, published by Cleveland State Law Review.
#1
From the article: The only way to beat an executive privilege claim is by court order. To take this issue to court, the full House must vote to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, then—when federal prosecutors predictably inform the House that they will not prosecute their boss—the full House must pass a second resolution authorizing Rep. Darrell Issa to file suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C. on behalf of the entire U.S. House.
Holder will lose the court fight. HeÂ’ll appeal, of course, but eventually the appeals will be over, and weÂ’ll all learn the truth of what really happened in Fast and Furious.
And whom to hold accountable.
Wouldn't it just be easier to impeach Holder?
#3
There is no time for any of these lengthy legal maneuvers. The election is little more than 4 months away. With the Congressional recess and all the campaigning there will be no big fight in the courts.
The way to go is an incessant drum beat of attacks on this despotic clique on this and other issues. Unfortuneately there will be no coverage of that by the MSM. It's now time for the new media to show its power.
#4
My guess is that they're quite aware that they're gonna lose. The tactic has to do with time -- hoping against hope that they'll win in 2012, at which point B.O. expects to 'have more flexibility' and can pressure the matter to be dropped.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012 11:09
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If BO loses in Nov. (be still my beating heart) you can expect a raft of F&F based pardons in Dec.
These criminals will get themselves all get out of jail free cards.
#6
John Hinderaker's analysis of the issue is worth a read. Of particular interest is the scope of the matter:
The public may not be aware that what we are talking about here is not some vast universe of documents relating to Fast and Furious, but rather, as Holder acknowledges, a tiny subset: “The Committee has made clear that its contempt resolution will be limited to internal Department ‘documents from after February 4, 2011, related to the Department’s response to Congress.’” February 4 was the date of DOJ’s letter which falsely represented to Congress that Fast and Furious did not involve deliberately allowing guns to make their way across the border to the cartels. DOJ withdrew that letter on December 2, 2011, ten months later. So Issa is trying to obtain only DOJ communications relating to the false letter, and the process by which DOJ concluded that the letter was indefensible, and decided to retract it.
In focusing narrowly on DOJ's decision to withdraw its false statements, Issa has pared the issue down to the point where it should be bulletproof against even the most partisan hack on the federal bench. One would think that, given the nature of the content withdrawn, documents relating to the decision to withdraw would blow the entire matter wide open.
While we might prefer that this gain significant traction ahead of our elections this fall we should nevertheless give credit where it is due (to Issa) for engaging in what appears to be an all-too-rare act of good governance.
#7
With Obama extending executive privilege, I'm thinking some investigative reporter is smelling a Pulitzer here. 21st century Woodward and Bernstein. What he needs is a 21st century Mark Felt.
#8
If the Speaker is willing to press the issue hard, it will be the end of July before it clears the House and gets to a court, and well into the fall before a district court rules. If the ruling is in Champ's favor it will be trumpeted loudly, of course. Then it's off to the Circuit Court of Appeals. That certainly won't happen in time for the election.
Impeachment won't work: the Senate will never vote to convict, and Champ won't fire Holder under those circumstances.
I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012 12:53
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The fun thing to do right now, when one encounters a liberal who defends Champ's use of executive privilege, is to ask them --
"So, what do you think President Romney will do with the precedent that Obama set in this case?"
Usually stops them for a moment or two.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012 12:54
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#10
With the election this close, investigation and publicity about F&F is better than prosecutions, the better to get Obama and Holder out my dear. The One can only pardon people who are charged and convicted. Save the prosecutions for 2013. I suspect that with BHO and Holder out of power that there will be sufficient lower echelon types to turn states evidence. If Holder did what most here think he did, then privileged immunity won't apply.
#11
F&F led to a murder; Holder is an accessory and there is no statute of limitations. Not to mention where all the documents will lead, there are other tangents no one mentions. They try to blame Wide Receiver/Gunrunner under Bush but to prove that, they have to release docs showing where it all originated. The weapons found at the Jaime Zapata murder scene were from Texas. The busts in Dallas and Columbus NM are in the area of operations of the Houston Field Division. They were not Fast and Furious busts and no one in Houston has come forward like John Dodson. We have the evidence presented by Carter's Country in Houston that they were being told to let the firearms walk, yet no one in local or national media has apparently asked the hard questions of the Houston Field Division ATF management personnel. Then there is Op Castaway, running guns south from Tx and Fl, with some going to MS-13 in Honduras; Rep. Bilirakis wrote to Holder last July demanding answers but I haven't seen compliance there either. Letting guns cross international borders requires State Dept. approval--seems like they are implicating themselves with silence or they too, would start producing evidence. Keep digging and all sorts of skeletons are bound to show up.
#12
Remember that Watergate became an issue well before the 1972 election. Nixon won that election but the Senate committee continued to investigate and in 1973 Nixon resigned because of the scandal. This is not to say that the same thing will happen to Obama but just imagine Obama making Slow Joe promise to pardon him. Then just imagine President Biden. Of course, if Biden goes under the bus we could get another President Clinton.
#13
Also from July of 2011:
Issa and Grassley name 12 senior Justice Department political officials they believe may have been involved in the decision which allowed guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. They asked Holder to provide all records relating to communications between those 12 individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious.
"As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program," Grassley and Issa wrote to Holder. "Therefore it is necessary to review communications between and among these senior officials."
Obama administration officials Issa and Grassley named in their letter were:
--Former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden(since resigned)
--Deputy Attorney General James Cole
--Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney
--Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod
--Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel
--Gary Grindler in the Office of the Attorney General
--Brad Smith, in the office of the Deputy Attorney General
--Kevin Carwile, section chief of the Capital Case Unit
--Joseph Cooley, in the Criminal Fraud Section
The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer
Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF (resigned)
William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors (see below) or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.
#15
I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away. It's very likely this whole thing will drag on beyond the election. If the "One" doesn't win and it is not known who is responsible for F & F, pardons can't be issued for unknown persons.
Fast and furious hasn’t been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. But the story is slowly unraveling and the public is catching up with the madness. On Wednesday, the The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the “gun walking” operation – documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come. Be patient, conservatives. It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President.
Here’s what Fast and Furious is all about – and for the uninitiated, be prepared for a shock. In 2009, the US government instructed Arizona gun sellers illegally to sell arms to suspected criminals. Agents working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were then ordered not to stop the sales but to allow the arms to “walk” across the border into the arms of Mexican drug-traffickers. According to the Oversight Committee’s report, “The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case…. [The ATF] initially began using the new gun-walking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed ‘Operation Fast and Furious.”
Tracing the arms became difficult, until they starting appearing at bloody crime scenes. Many Mexicans have died from being shot by ATF sanctioned guns, but the scandal only became public after a US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by one of them in a fire fight. ATF whistle blowers started to come forward and the Department of Justice was implicated. ItÂ’s estimated that the US government effectively supplied 1,608 weapons to criminals, at a total value of over $1 million. Aside from putting American citizens in danger, the AFT also supplied what now amounts to a civil war within Mexico.
It’s important to note that the Bush administration oversaw something similar to Fast and Furious. Called Operation Wide Receiver, it used the common tactic of “controlled delivery,” whereby agents would allow an illegal transaction to take place, closely follow the movements of the arms, and then descend on the culprits. But Fast and Furious is different because it was “uncontrolled delivery,” whereby the criminals were essentially allowed to drop off the map. Perhaps more importantly, Wide Receiver was conducted with the cooperation of the Mexican government. Fast and Furious was not.
So ObamaÂ’s operation is subtly different. But just as concerning is the heavy handed way that the administration has handled criticism. Obama says that the Oversight Committee has been hi-jacked by Republicans who would rather talk about politics than creating jobs (because Obama is o-so very good at generating those). But there has been Democratic criticism too, and the PrezÂ’s determined defence of Holder will only encourage conspiracy thinking that the scandal has hidden depths. Executive privilege is usually associated with protecting information that passes through the Oval Office. What did the documents reveal about ObamaÂ’s association with the operation?
Again, itÂ’s important to contextualise. Executive privilege has been invoked 24 times since Ronald Reagan, and attempts to over-ride it rarely reach the courts. Moreover, HolderÂ’s request for executive privilege made no reference to White House involvement in Fast and Furious, which seems to have been run exclusively by the ATF. Nevertheless, by refusing to sack Holder or push him to come clean, Obama may have made a very Nixonian mistake.
A lot of conservatives are writing at the moment that not only is Obama turning into Nixon Mark II, but Obama is much worse because no one actually got killed during Watergate. The comparison is based on the myth that Nixon ordered the Watergate break in and that’s what he eventually had to resign over. But that’s not true. Nixon’s guilt was in trying to pervert the course of justice by persuading the FBI to drop its investigation of the crime. Mistake number one, then, was to involve the White House in covering up the errors of a separate, autonomous political department. Mistake number two was that when Congress discovered that evidence about the scandal might be recorded on the White House bugging system, Nixon invoked executive privilege to protect the tapes. In both cases, it was the cover up that destroyed Tricky Dick – not the original crime.
And, forty years later almost to the day, here we have Obama making the same mistake. Perhaps itÂ’s an act of chivalry to stand by Holder; perhaps itÂ’s an admission of guilt. Either way, it sinks the Oval Office ever further into the swamp that is Fast and Furious. Make no mistake about: Fast and Furious was perhaps the most shameful domestic law and order operation since the Waco siege. ItÂ’s big government at its worst: big, incompetent and capable of ruining lives.
#3
So transparency is in the eyes of the beHOLDER?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
06/21/2012 13:44
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Mistake number one, then, was to involve the White House in covering up the errors of a separate, autonomous political department. Mistake number two was that when Congress discovered that evidence about the scandal might be recorded on the White House bugging system, Nixon invoked executive privilege to protect the tapes. In both cases, it was the cover up that destroyed Tricky Dick -- not the original crime.
However, everyone learned from those mistakes of 40 years ago and technology has evolved beyond tape recordings. The Oval Office isn't as secure apparently assumed.
Posted by: chris ||
06/21/2012 16:35
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#8
One blogger--can't recall which--suggested that, if the purpose was to gin up outrage to support some kind of gun rights rollback, the project needed dead Mexicans. No dead Mexicans, no outrage.
We have dear friends in Mexico, and I'm feeling too ashamed to talk to them.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/21/2012 21:01
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#9
Where's Woodturd and Bernlean when you re4ally need em?
Posted by: jack salami ||
06/21/2012 22:15
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#10
Richard - that appears to have ALWAYS been the objective: dead Mexicans - US Weapons - Cut down on weapons here. It was just clumsy and stupidly applied...note: without (!) Joe Biden. This is on his level of strategic planning
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/21/2012 22:19
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even in the Bush Admin DHS officials kept saying that 90% of the cartel guns hailed from the USA. My colleagues and I we're highly skeptical. The Administration of Barack Chavez Obama took it a quantum leap further by trying to prove the 90% to clamp down on the 2nd Amendment. Sort of sounds like what 60 Minutes does...search high and low for odd pieces to support a premise and present it as fact.
Posted by: jack salami ||
06/21/2012 22:23
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DHS officials kept saying that 90% of the cartel guns hailed from the USA
They were, but not from private dealers. They were weapons originally sold/provided to the Mexican military. Coercing private dealers to sell to the cartels was an Obamanistic innovation.
The 'forty years to the day' thing makes me fear we are caught in some sort of time loop. It's like having our own private Nixon to kick around.
Police are hunting a key terror insurgent suspect believed to have masterminded the bombing in Si Sakhon district yesterday that killed a border patrol police officer. The bomb also injured two other border patrol officers. A rebel group led by Bangsop Tolueno is thought to be behind the incident.
The bomb, buried in the middle of the road and set off by a detonation chord, destroyed the armored car in which the three officers were travelling. The wounded officers were treated at a local hospital and are now in a safe condition.
The attack occurred as the police team was patrolling on Tuesday evening to provide security for teachers.
Police have launched a manhunt for Mr Bangsop, whose group is thought to have planned the attack for a week. Police had heard the bombing might take place, but did not know when or where, said the chief of Si Sakhon district.
One soldier and a villager were injured by a bomb explosion in Narathiwat's Sukirin district on Thursday morning.
Sgt Maj Worawit Inta, chief of the special unit providing security for teachers in Sukirin, told police that about 7:50 a.m., he sent 12 soldiers out to provide protection for local teachers as usual. While the soldiers, on motorcycles and a pickup truck, were travelling on a local road, a bomb buried in the middle of the road exploded, seriously wounding Pvt Wuthichai Chamruang, 21, and slightly wounding a woman who was passing by.
A New York hospital worker and her spouse have filed a lawsuit saying spousal health benefits were denied to the same-sex couple.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan sought past and future health care benefits and a declaration that the Westchester County couple is entitled to the benefits.
The lawsuit's plaintiffs remained anonymous. Defendants included Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and St. Joseph's Medical Center. Neither immediately responded to messages for comment. The lawsuit says one of the women works at St. Vincent's Westchester, a division of St. Joseph's. The women's attorney, Randolph McLaughlin, said the lawsuit was unique because it challenges the federal Defense of Marriage Act to obtain health care benefits.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Security has been stepped up on the Kenya-Somalia border as Kenyan troops prepare to seize control of Kismayu, the last remaining Al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... stronghold.
Police were on high alert to stop infiltration of the bully boyz both via land and sea routes. Coast deputy provincial police officer Jacinta Kinyua said adequate measures had been taken to enhance security at the border.
She said more officers had been sent to monitor the borders and carry out patrols across the region. Community policing would also be used to catch any suspicious people, she said.
"I urge the public to report to us any suspicious people in their midst. We welcome their sentiments," Ms Kinyua told the Nation in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
The Coast region has, just like many other parts of the country, witnessed a number of grenade attacks linked to Al-Shabaab bully boyz believed to be avenging the Kenya Defence Forces incursion into Somalia.
Kenya shares a long, mostly non-existent border with Somalia and gunnies routinely sneak into Kenya to launch attacks. The gunnies are holding a district officer and a registration of persons official whom they kidnapped in a cross-border raid in Wajir County.
This has forced security agents to closely monitor the border, resulting in a number of arrests in the recent past. Kismayu port is the lifeline of the terrorist group because its port business brings in millions of dollars in revenue. (READ: Operation Kismayu)
A significant amount of goods, including sugar and charcoal, pass through the port and are taxed by the thugs.
Al-Shabaab accuse NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... of leading war against cut-thoats
The recent fall of Afmadow to Kenyan forces and their Somali Transitional Federal Government allies opened the way for a move on Kismayu. Kenyan and Somali government troops are now reported to be less than 75 kilometres from the port town.
Also bracing for the impeding attack are 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... forces composed of troops from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti. The highly anticipated fall of the port city, the economic and political capital of southern Somalia, is expected to end Al-Shabaab's influence in the region.
KDF has said Kismayu will fall before August. Many of Al-Shabaab's imported muscle are reported to have massed in Kismayu. Lamu East DC Pius Murugu said three people who were trying to sneak foreigners into the country through the Boni forest had been placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! recently.
He said nine people had been placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! since January as they tried to enter the country illegally. Three of them are facing charges and are currently held at the Lamu Police Station as hearing of their cases continues.
Kenya has been on a state of high alert since her forces crossed into Somalia on October 16, 2011 to fight Al-Shabaab, sparking reprisal attacks, mostly against civilian targets.
Last week, Al-Shabaab leaders were reported to be fleeing Kismayu, heading to Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... and Yemen. A price of Sh2.9 billion has been put on the heads of the leaders of Al-Shabaab by the United States government.
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06/21/2012
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[Al Ahram] Austria's central bank head has issued an unusually stark warning about too much austerity, amid the eurozone's debt crisis, saying such an approach contributed to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.
"The single-minded concentration on austerity policy (in the 1920s and 30s) led to mass unemployment, a breakdown of democratic systems and, at the end, to the catastrophe of Nazism," Wald Nowotny said in comments confirmed by his office on Wednesday.
The remarks were initially made at an event on Monday in Vienna.
Germany in particular has championed painful spending cuts to balance budgets and reduce debts as the principle way of restoring investor confidence in eurozone members' solvency and ending the bloc's sovereign debt crisis.
But as evidenced in recent elections in Greece, too much emphasis on cutting spending is hugely unpopular, and new French President Francois Hollande wants to water down Berlin's austerity drive with more focus on generating growth.
British historian Niall Ferguson and US economist Nouriel Roubini drew a similar historical parallel to Nowotny in the Financial Times on June 8, attacking Germany's "wait and see" approach to the eurozone crisis.
German policy, they wrote in a joint opinion piece, "risks a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid-20th century that European integration was designed to avoid."
The said: "We find it extraordinary that it should be Germany, of all countries, that is failing to learn from history."
They also said: "Fixated on the non-threat of inflation, today's Germans appear to attach more importance to 1923 (the year of hyperinflation) than to 1933 (the year democracy died)."
Posted by: Fred ||
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and there I was thinking it was forcing Germans to pay France and other foreign countries vast amounts of it's GDP.
#4
This is true but the left really fears nationalism. They (I have been told) believed that the route cause of nazism was nationalism. With the EU breakup nationalism will happen. That is why Europe and here fought the Tea party. They feared its strength. True grass routes not controlled like a union.
#6
BP & (g)romky, I, too, thought that the humiliation and looting of the ToV were the major issues. Those are what led to the rise of a leftist, nationalist dictatorship (aka Naziism).
Hmmm, leftist dictatorship in Europe? Now why does that sound familiar?
#9
I recall the expression Socialism Democrat conferred upon Europe. Well we have that here now.
I'd bet you many loyal Democrats will refuse to vote since they have no home to go to now.
#13
Reporters laughed when Pelosi said she could have had Rove arrested whenever she liked . “I’m not kidding. There’s a prison here in the Capitol … If we had spotted him in the Capitol, we could have arrested him.”
They do have their dreams and fantasies which often get confused with reality.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Pakistain President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... has summoned the country's national assembly on Friday, when a senior aide said a new prime minister would be elected.
The presidency said Wednesday Zardari had summoned the lower house of parliament to meet at 5:30 pm (1230 GMT) on Friday.
The announcement came one day after the Supreme Court dismissed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... for contempt, forcing Zardari into crisis talks to find a replacement.
"The leader of the house (the prime minister) will be elected in the new session of the national assembly," the outgoing Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told AFP.
The speaker of the national assembly will issue a schedule for the election either later Wednesday or on Thursday, Kaira added. Zardari has chaired a series of crisis talks with coalition partners to decide on a new prime minister and was to meet MPs in his Pakistain People's Party at 4:00 pm (1100 GMT).
Ahmed Mukhtar, minister for water and power, and Textiles Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin, appear to have emerged as the front runners.
"If there is more than one candidate, the election will be conducted through show of hands," Kaira said. The PPP and its governing coalition have a majority in the 342-member national assembly.
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06/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Yemen's security forces have foiled a Death Eater plot to attack embassies in Sanaa, state news agency SABA said on Wednesday, just days after the army forced al-Qaeda out of their bastions in the country's south.
"Security forces have managed to foil a terror plot targeting foreign embassies in the capital," SABA news agency said citing a top security official.
According to the unnamed official, "three suspects armed with weapons, explosives and maps showing the location of foreign embassies," were tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! He said the residences of "military commanders and other important people" were also marked on the seized maps.
The report comes two days after a jacket wallah killed Salem Ali Qoton, the army general who spearheaded a month-long offensive against al-Qaeda in Yemen's Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... and Shabwa provinces in the south.
The offensive, launched on May 12, ended more than a year of al-Qaeda control in a string of towns and villages in the troubled south and east.
The jihadists are believed to have fled to the lawless mountainous regions of the eastern Hadramawt province.
In May, an al-Qaeda suicide bomber went kaboom!" in the middle of a battalion of soldiers rehearsing for an army parade in Sanaa, killing more than a 100 people and wounding dozens of others.
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06/21/2012
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[Dawn] IN disqualifying a sitting, democratically elected prime minister, the Supreme Court has taken an extraordinary -- and unfortunate -- step. This whole story could have played out very differently, in ways much less disruptive to the nascent democracy this country is trying to build, if the SC had steered clear of a course of action that has now brought the judiciary, parliament and the executive in direct confrontation with each other. At a number of junctures the court could have avoided pursuing the contempt of court case as doggedly as it did, especially considering that the larger issue -- corruption -- was a matter involving the president, not the prime minister. Legally there might have been a case against the prime minister, but it was best for the supreme judiciary not to have waded so deep into such obviously political waters. Even at a later stage, it could have let the speaker's ruling -- which has the backing of a parliamentary resolution -- stand. If that was not possible, it could have declared her ruling unacceptable and referred the matter to the Election Commission rather than simply asking that body to issue a denotification. Even if the outcome had ultimately been the same, at least the court would not have taken on the role of directly disqualifying an elected prime minister. By doing so, it has both disrupted an existing democratic set-up and set a worrying precedent for the future.
But the damage has been done. And the PPP has an important choice to make. The party should now take the high moral ground and focus on the system rather than the individual. There are disruptive options: refusing to accept the order, for example, or delaying the matter by using the constitution to argue that the president can ask the prime minister to continue in office until a new one is appointed. For the sake of preserving the system, if the party has reservations against the judgment it should express these, perhaps even through a strongly worded parliamentary resolution, have Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's last prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ... step aside and parliament elect a new prime minister as soon as possible.
Indications are that the ruling coalition has already embarked on this course. But it is still deeply unfortunate that matters have come to this stage; completing the five-year tenure of both an elected government and its chief executive would have been a much-needed win for Pakistain. What is critical now is that elections are held, whether early or on time and as free and fair as possible, so that the final judgment can be left to the people's court.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
Hmmm, you'd rather they didn't?
Odd, why? Maybe a little Biased?
Maybe a lot biased?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/21/2012 8:44
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(Sh. M. Network)-Deadly Armed festivities between Al Qaeda-affiliated Al shabab and local farmers are reportedly occurred on Wednesday at villages near Qorioley district, a rebel-held town which lies just 120 kilometers south of Mogadishu, reports said.
Mohammed Nur Gabow, a Local resident confirmed to Shabelle Media via phone from Qorioley district that at least one person was killed and two others injured after Al shabab fighters attacked on farmers near the district under unknown circumstances.
"Locals are fed up of Al shabab fighters who have become familiar with committing acts against locals, including robbing and killings. I call on Somali government to take strict actions to halt such from continuing," added Gabow.
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06/21/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Togo briefly tossed in the clink Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! former prime minister and opposition figure Agbeyome Kodjo Tuesday over protests held last week, the latest in a series of such arrests, officials said.
Kodjo was taken in for questioning and released later in the day in connection with an investigation into alleged violence committed during the protests, a statement from prosecutors said.
"... One of the signatories to the declaration involving the holding of the protests, Agbeyome Kodjo, was locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! today by the gendarmerie," the statement said.
"He was questioned like other previously placed in durance vile I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! organisers and immediately released."
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The Dutch upper house, the Senate, on Tuesday rejected a bill that would have banned the ritual slaughter of animals and had been criticised by both Muslim and Jewish groups.
The bill, proposed by the small Party for the Animals, stipulates that livestock must be stunned before being slaughtered, contrary to Muslim halal and Jewish kosher laws, which require animals to be conscious.
[Al Ahram] Jordan's Islamists said on Wednesday they plan to boycott early polls expected this year over a "provocative" new electoral law, as analysts warned against an "official rigging" of the process.
A day after MPs endorsed the law, the Moslem Brüderbund said it was "in touch with centrist political parties and other groups to form a 'shadow government' and 'shadow parliament,' which means a definite boycott of the general elections."
"We expect many to boycott the polls. Those who bet on the participation of the Islamist movement in the vote are wrong and delusional," Zaki Bani Rsheid, deputy leader of the powerful Brotherhood, told AFP.
The new law increases the number of parliamentary seats to 140 from 120, including an expanded quota for women to 15 from 12.
It will go into effect after King Abdullah II approves it, giving voters the right to cast two ballots: one for individual candidates in their governorates and one for parties or coalitions nationwide.
But only 17 seats can be contested by party and coalition candidates.
"This is retarded and provocative... it will not produce representative lower house deputies. It does not honour those who have been demonstrating for reform since last year. It will kill political life," Bani Rsheid said.
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[An Nahar] Thirty suspected Death Eaters were killed as Yemeni aircraft pounded al-Qaeda positions between the southern provinces of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... and Shabwa on Wednesday, a local official told AFP.
The aircraft carried out several strikes, the mayor of Mahfed town on the outskirts of Abyan and Shabwa, Yaslam al-Anburi, told AFP by telephone. "There were 30 deaths in al-Qaeda ranks for sure."
"Yemeni aircraft carried out a series of raids against concentrations of al-Qaeda gunnies, mainly in the Wadi Dhiman and Dayda valleys, killing 30 and wounding many others," he said.
Earlier, a tribal chief said three suspected Death Eaters were killed and four maimed in an air raid targeting a group of al-Qaeda gunnies in a desert region between Abyan and Shabwa provinces.
Yemen's military launched a campaign in May against al-Qaeda in the south which succeeded in ending more than a year of jihadist control over a string of towns and villages in Abyan and Shabwa provinces.
The group's fighters are believed to have retreated to safe havens in the country's mountainous regions in Shabwa, Marib and Hadramawt provinces where they enjoy tribal protection.
Residents of the area where the raids occurred said dozens of jihadists had been concentrating in the region since fleeing the villages and towns lost in Abyan and Shabwa.
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[Dawn] Pak authorities will try to persuade Death Eaters in a northwest tribal area to lift a ban on anti-polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... vaccination teams imposed in protest at US drone strikes, officials said Wednesday.
Local warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur Saturday banned the anti-polio campaign in North Wazoo, a Taliban and al Qaeda-infested region bordering Afghanistan.
"We have requested the governor of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... province to direct the political agent (administrator) of North Waziristan to open a dialogue with this group," a senior government official told AFP.
Bahadur, who is allied with Afghan Taliban fighting US-led troops across the border, said the ban would remain until the US stops drone attacks in the tribal region.
"On the one hand they are killing innocent women, children and old people in drone attacks and on the other they are spending millions on vaccination campaign," he said in a statement distributed in the region's main town Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... The government official said vaccinating all children in the tribal areas was a top priority in Pakistain's polio eradication programme.
"The federal government has told the governor to use all available means to ensure that the polio campaigns in the tribal area are not disrupted for the sake of tribal children in particular and Pakistain in general," the official said.
A senior health official said authorities were concerned about the safety of vaccination teams in North Waziristan.
"With a vaccination campaign coming up this week, we are concerned for over 161,000 children under five in the area who require the polio vaccination, many of whom have never been vaccinated even once against this crippling disease,"he said.
"We are also very concerned for the safety of front line polio workers who, despite great personal risk, work to ensure every child is vaccinated."Officials said the polio vaccination programme had made headway this year in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Pakistain is one of just three countries where polio remains endemic, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.
The highly infectious disease affects mainly the under-fives and can cause paralysis in a matter of hours. Some cases can be fatal.
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06/21/2012
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate is charged with solicitation of a minor and his case has been bound over to a grand jury.
Authorities said the alleged incident occurred in May 2011, when a 7-year-old girl riding her bike in front of the Johnson City apartment of Thomas K. Owens was invited inside.
The 36-year-old then allegedly hugged the girl, unzipped his pants, and asked her to perform a sex act. The girl ran home and told her mother, who notified police.
Owens told investigators the girl had been in his apartment. As for the allegation, he stated: "I have a problem with that," but did not elaborate.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
Owens should move to Texas and try this again. Should solve at least two immediate problems.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
06/21/2012 4:00
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#2
Seems he already had a lot of the prerequisites for working as a member of Congress.
(Sh.M.Network)-- The EU special envoy for Somalia is looking into a fresh report that pirates are in business with Italian gangsters on toxic waste.
They're stealing toxic waste and holding it for ransom?
The Gay Paree-based criminologist, Michel Koutouzis, who carries out investigations for the UN and for EU institutions, described the problem in a new book -- Crime, Trafficking and Networks -- published last week.
He said organised crime groups in south Italia- the Camorra, 'Ndranghetta and La Sacra Corona Unita -- supply Somalian warlords with black market small arms from the Western Balkans in return for permission to dump waste.
That makes more sense.
"Tonnes of waste are discharged every year off the coasts of Somalia,Sudan and Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age. ... under the noses of countless warships which control sea freight in the Read Sea and the Gulf of Aden," he explained.
He noted that part of the income -- worth "hundreds of millions of euros a year" -- is laundered via the tourist industry in Kenya and Tanzania.
He added the practice has been going on for years: a UN report in 2005 said the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami broke up deposits of lead, cadmium and mercury as well as hospital and chemical waste, which washed up on the shore near the coastal towns of Hobbio and Benadir, killing some 300 people.
Speaking to press in Brusselson Tuesday (19 June), the EU's special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Alexander Rondos, a former Greek diplomat, said the book has come to his attention.
"It has been passed on to people who are better equipped than I am to look into it ... people are checking into it," he said.
"We need to find out who is funding them [Somalian privateers]. They are part of a much bigger problem we face in theIndian Ocean- the globalisation of organised crime. Investigations are under way."
British rear admiral Duncan L. Potts, who commands the EU's anti-piracy mission, Atalanta, said a new Regional Anti-Piracy Prosecution and Intelligence Co-ordination Centre -- which aims to target pirate's financial activities -- is "getting off the ground" in the Seychelles.
He added that he has no hard evidence of the Italian link, however.
For his part, Koutouzis, in an interview in his home in Gay Paree last Friday, told this website: "Of course they know about it. But they don't want to do anything."
Potts noted that Atalanta seems to have turned a corner in terms of stopping attacks.
Pirates seized 28 vessels in the first half of 2011, but just three in the second half of last year and five so far this year.
Seven vessels and over 200 passengers and crew are currently being held for ransom. Some of them have been held for more than 18 months in "awful conditions" and are in bad health.
Potts attributed the turnaround in part to an "exponential" increase in the use of private security firms by commercial shipping: more than half the 50,000-or-so vessels which pass through the region each year have their own guards.
Their activities are regulated under the laws of the country where the ship is registered, in many cases Liberia or Panama.
"At the more responsible end of the market ... they fire warning shots and then four or five targeted shots to show that the ship is armed," he said.
He did not have figures on how many pirates have been killed by private companies.
He added that Atalanta plays the role of a "constabulary" rather than doing "warfighting" and that "to his knowledge" the troops under his command have not killed a single pirate in their three and half years of operations.
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#1
i can't think of a better place too dump nuke waste that somalia
Posted by: chris ||
06/21/2012 0:20
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I remember the pirates complaining about poisoned waters ruining their fishing, explaining the impetus for buccaneering, and radioactive waste detected there several years ago. Making the link to their own Islamist-linked warlords could turn them...a little vigilante justice could be cost effective for all involved.
[Dawn] A three member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Wednesday concluded the suo moto case taken over the Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... killings case stating that the girls in question have been found alive and the claim of the killings was unverifiable, DawnNews reported.
The court stated that the investigative teams comprising a civil judge, MNA Bushra Gauhar, rights activist Farzana Bari (part of civil society) were sent twice to verify the claims aired on certain television channels and the report submitted by the team was found to be satisfactory according to the Chief Justice.
The Chief Justice, while giving his remarks, said that the court condemns the holding of any illegal jirga but no evidence was found that would suggest any error in the report and that he trusted the judicial officer working on the case.
Chaudhry also thanked former Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. and the administration for their cooperation on the case.
He further directed rights activist Farzana Bari to present the court with any other evidence that she might posses and added that the case could be taken up again in case any evidence turned up.
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#1
Umm.. yes, I too would think that if the murder victims were found to be "alive" then the murder trial should be dismissed...
I must be missing something.
Posted by: American Delight ||
06/21/2012 19:09
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Judy Holliday aka Emma 'Billie' Dawn in "Born Yesterday (1950)" aka Doris Attinger in "Adam's Rib (1949)" aka Gladys Glover in "It Should Happen to You (1954)" aka Ella Peterson in "Bells Are Ringing (1960)" aka Ruth Miller in "Winged Victory (1944)" aka Laura Partridge in "The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)" aka Emily Rocco in "Full of Life (1956)" (Died in 1965 at age 43)
[Dawn] President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... on early hours of Thursday nominated Makhdoom Shahabuddin for the post of prime minister, while, Raja Pervez Ashraf will be a covering candidate, DawnNews reported.
The president, after consulting coalition parties and Pakistain People's Party's (PPP) Parliamentary Party members, has nominated Shahabuddin for the post which became vacant after disqualification of Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... by the Supreme Court.
Both, Shahabuddin and Ashraf will submit their nomination papers today.
Earlier, addressing the meeting of the PPP's Parliamentary Party members at the Presidency, the president said that the decision to nominate a new leader of the House would be taken in consultation with the coalition partners and in the larger national interest.
Zardari said that the PPP did not want confrontation among state institutions, and that it would ensure that the democratic process continues without any disruption.
Presently a member of the National Assembly (February 2008 onwards) and textiles minister, Shahabuddin has earlier held the portfolios of federal minister for finance and health in the Gilani-led government.
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[Dawn] Six people, including a truck driver and a teenager, were killed in different parts of the city on Tuesday, police said.
They said that the trussed-up body of a young man stuffed in a gunny bag was found in Federal B Area on Tuesday.
The body was found near the coconut ground in F. B Area's Block 15 within the remit of the Jauharabad cop shoppe.
The victim was identified as Shahid Memon, 35. He was a resident of F. B Area Block 3, Hussainabad Azizabad. He was the father of two, working as a salesman at a general store.
The victim's face was muffled in polythene bags, the police said, adding that he had been missing since Monday evening.
The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities, where doctors said that the victim had been strangled to death and the body did not bear any torture marks.
The police said that the motive for the murder could not be ascertained immediately.
A case (FIR 151/2012) was registered against unknown persons on a complaint of the victim's father at the Jauharabad cop shoppe.
Truck driver rubbed out
A truck driver was rubbed out in a North Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... area on Tuesday, police said.
They said that the incident took place near Madiha stop in North Bloody Karachi within the remit of the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri cop shoppe.
They said that Abdul Sattar Khan was driving his truck (JU-1270) when gunnies on cycle of violences fired at him and rode away.
He died before he could be shifted to hospital, the police said. The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.
The police said that the victim was a resident of North Bloody Karachi and might have been killed due to some personal enmity.
Bullet-riddled body found
The body of an unidentified man, also stuffed in a gunny bag, was found along the Malir river within the remit of the Korangi Industrial Area cop shoppe on Tuesday, police said.
They said that the trussed-up body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.
Area SHO Malik Ayub said that the victim had been shot in the head and the body bore torture marks.
He said that apparently the body was thrown at the scene and he was kidnapped before being murdered somewhere else.
The police said that the victim's appearance suggested that he originally hailed from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... . Nothing was found in his possession which could help the police ascertain his identity.
Later, the police shifted the body to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.
Paperwork was started but nothing else was done against unknown persons on behalf of the state.
Man found murdered in Quaidabad
In another incident, the body of a teenager was found in the Quaidabad area on Tuesday.
Police said that the body was found in Star ground in Quaidabad. It bore torture marks on the head. He was killed with some sharp-edged weapon.
They said that he was clad in shalwar-kameez. The body was shifted to the JPMC and later moved to the Edhi morgue for identification, the police added.
Teenager bumped off
A teenage boy was rubbed out in Landhi's Future Colony within the remit of the Sharafi Goth cop shoppe on Tuesday, police said.
They said that Saleem Sultan, 19, a resident of Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south... Colony Landhi, was targeted in Future Colony by unknown assailants. He was struck down in his prime.
The body was shifted to the JPMC for medico-legal formalities.
A duty officer at the Sharafi Goth cop shoppe said that the victim's uncle, Fazal, was killed along with three people a few weeks ago during a clash over theft of sandals in Quaidabad.
He said that the teenager's killing could be linked with that case.
Later police handed over his body to his heirs.
Till late in the night, no case was registered.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... a man was rubbed out and another was maimed in Cattle Colony on Tuesday.
The Sukhan police said that the incident took place in Cattle Colony Road No.6 after Mohammad Adnan came to the house of Abdul Hameed.
After an altercation, Adnan shot Hameed, 32, and his cousin Abrar Ali, 28, the police said, adding that Hameed or his cousin also shot Adnan as he also suffered gunshot wounds.
The police shifted the maimed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where Abrar died.
The police said that Hameed had contracted a freewill marriage with Adnan's sister a few months back. However after a fight with her husband, she had returned to her parent's house. Adnan had gone to Hameed's house to resolve the issue.
Adnan was taken into custody and the police were questioning him.
ST man maimed
An activist of the Sunni Tehrik ...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and liquidations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities... , identified as Anwar Siddiqui, was maimed in an armed attack in Khudadad Colony within the remit of the Brigade cop shoppe on Tuesday, police said.
They said he was admitted to the JPMC where his condition was said to be critical.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[Yemen Post] Yemen's Council of Ministers on Tuesday approved to set up a fund to reconstruct Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... , days after the army drove Al-Qaeda Islamic fascistiout of the southern province after months of a US-backed offensive.
In its exceptional meeting in Aden, the Council urged to accelerate the formation of the fund and announced YR10 billion in government contribution to the fund besides expected internal and external aid to return the situation to normal in Abyan.
In the meantime, the authorities are removing and detonating landmines, which were planted by the Islamic fascistiin key towns and working hard to restore basic services to enable the displaced people to come back.
Furthermore, the Council approved to deduct a day's wage from the salaries of the state employees which will be collected and given in aid to the displaced families in Abyan.
The UN has said about 170,000 people fled Abyan to Aden and other nearby provinces due to the battles against Al-Qaeda.
At the meeting, it discussed the report of the local government on priorities topped by immediate interventions to rebuild the areas, which were damaged in the offensive against militancy over the past few months.
It stressed the importance to meet urgent needs in this province, especially necessary security equipment to enable the authorities to do their job perfectly.
In association with pro-government fighters, the national forces retook control of key towns in Abyan including the capital Zinjibar, which were seized in mid-2011. The army has launched massive hunts to pursue the remaining Al-Qaeda Islamic fascistiin nearby provinces.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
Sure, reduce the pay for employees who already support the state, and give it away to drifters. That should work.
Posted by: American Delight ||
06/21/2012 12:43
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[Al Ahram] A military source who spoke to Ahram Online on condition of anonymity spelt out the ruling military council's position on Egypt's current uncertain political situation, in which the Moslem Brüderbund appears to stand on the verge of winning the presidency.
"The military council is determined not to allow the Moslem Brüderbund to seize power," said the source. "It will not relinquish the reins of power until a new constitution is issued and the arena is set for a balanced political process."
"There are political forces that want to discredit the political process by making people believe that matters are being decided by political deals," he added. "To avoid any sudden shifts that could lead to confrontation and drive the situation to the brink, the military council remains the only force capable of regulating the political process so as to preserve the stability of the state."
"The United States and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... have both been sending messages reflecting their preference for [the Moslem Brüderbund's] Mohamed Mursi as Egypt's president," the source said. "In the belief that they enjoy this support, the group has adopted a policy of pressuring Egypt's interim rulers regarding upcoming political arrangements."
"Moreover, the Moslem Brüderbund's guidance bureau has been exchanging messages with the US -- to which Israel is privy -- containing reassurances about the group's stance on Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, Gazoo and the Camp David accords," he added.
True messages or taqqiyah? We report, you decide.
"It remains unclear, however, whether the US would prefer to see Mursi or Shafiq in Egypt's highest office."
The source further explained that the Moslem Brüderbund had escalated the situation to the point where it had "unacceptably" protested the recent High Constitutional Court verdict that led to the dissolution of Egypt's Islamist-led parliament and attempted to monopolise the Constituent Assembly responsible for drafting a new constitution. Any future talks between the two sides, therefore, the source said, "will be of a confrontational, rather than friendly, nature."
"For the first time in its history, the Moslem Brüderbund is adopting a confrontational attitude, after having long depended on a policy of negotiation," the source said. "Their performance during the transitional phase put them in a weaker position than ever, and now they're doing everything they can to regain their popular support base."
Following the constitutional court ruling that led to parliament's dissolution, the military council issued an addendum to last year's Constitutional Declaration, in which it reassumed parliament's legislative powers until fresh parliamentary elections can be held. It also assumed the authority to select constituent assembly members, which had, under last year's Constitutional Declaration, been the sole prerogative of Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
Military junta vs. Islamonutter theocracy...ain't it grand to have choices?
This situation vaguely reminds me of a ballot initiative campaign in California about 20 years back. I can't even remember what the issue was, but the trial lawyers were vocally supporting and funding one side, the insurance companies doing the same for the other. More than one newspaper op-ed proclaimed what a shame it was that BOTH sides couldn't lose.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
06/21/2012 12:48
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#2
Wow, SOCAL HAS ITS OWN AIR FORCE + WANTS TO BOMB THE BROTHERHOOD IN EGYPT!
(CNN) -- The Paleostinian group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, says its military wing has agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire with Israel following a sharp increase in violence between the two sides.
In a statement posted early Wednesday, Hamas -- which controls the Paleostinian territory of Gazoo -- says it will observe the cease-fire as long as Israel remains committed to the agreement.
There was no immediate response to the cease-fire announcement from Israel, which said more than 75 rockets had been fired into its territory from Gazoo in the past three days.
The Israeli news service Ynet puts it at more than 120, but clearly they are too close to have CNN's perspective on the situation.
Six Paleostinians and one Israeli died between Sunday and Tuesday in a spate of rocket attacks and Israeli Arclight airstrikes, officials on both sides reported.
Israeli warplanes struck two targets in Gazoo on Tuesday in response to the rocket fire, the Israel Defense Forces said. Hamas security sources told CNN the strikes targeted a site used to train Paleostinian forces of Evil to launch rockets and another training facility run by the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, with two people injured.
Rockets hit Israel hours after Hamas says itÂ’s ready for ceasefire
Five rockets hit southern Israel early Thursday morning, hours after Hamas announced it would be willing to cease its fire on Israel. There were no reports of injuries or damage after the Kassam rockets slammed into the Eshkol region. A number or rockets hit open areas near the Gaza Strip later in the day, with no reports of injuries or damage.
Taqqiyah and hudna, all in one.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
" Ok Ok, cease fire, we are out of rockets and Iran is late in the resupply"
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/21/2012 15:48
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[VOA News] Egypt's Election Commission says it has delayed Thursday's planned announcement of the results of a runoff presidential vote while it continues to review appeals from the two candidates, hiking tension as allegations of fraud mounted.
The commission said Wednesday that judges are still looking into some 400 complaints of alleged campaign violations and disputed vote counting submitted by Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, and his rival, former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.
No new date to announce a winner was given.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The Islamists occupying northern Mali on Wednesday gave a couple 100 lashes of a whip for having a child out of wedlock as they continue enforcing sharia law, witnesses told AFP.
"At Sankore Square in Timbuktu, a man and a women got 100 lashes for having had a child outside of marriage," said local official Mohamed Ould Baby.
"People were watching it was like a show. I was there, I saw the youths arriving at the square, I saw them being whipped, it is the first time I have seen something like that."
The official said Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) carried out the punishment.
Ansar Dine, which seized control of the north of Mali flanked by other rebel groups, has been implementing strict Islamic law, sharia, since late March, but this is the first time a couple has been punished in this fashion.
They have asked women to wear veils, whipped smokers and destroyed cartons of cigarettes while banning the sale of alcohol.
According to sharia, 100 lashes of a whip is the punishment for "fornicators" or those who have sex outside of marriage.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
100 lashes for that, but none for the illions of inbred children produced in the muslim world every year
Posted by: chris ||
06/21/2012 0:18
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[An Nahar] A car boom on Wednesday in the north Iraq city of Kirkuk went kaboom! as a judge's car was passing, wounding him and nine others and leaving two people dead, security and medical officials said.
The bomb went kaboom! as Judge Aziz Abdullah of the Kirkuk criminal court was driving near the Kirkuk Palace hotel in the center of the city, police Brigadier General Sarhad Qader said.
Qader, who put the toll at two dead and a total of 10 maimed, said the judge was in a stable condition.
Dr. Mohammed Abdullah of Kirkuk General Hospital meanwhile put the toll at two dead and 12 maimed.
Details of those killed and others maimed in the attack were not immediately available.
The latest killings bring to at least 141 the number of people killed in attacks in Iraq since June 13 -- more than were killed in all of May, according to official figures.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Kuwait's constitutional court on Wednesday declared February's legislative polls in which the opposition swept to victory illegal and reinstated the previous pro-government parliament, state media said.
Nothing like making life infinitely more interesting for all involved.
Leading opposition MP Mussallam al-Barrak described the verdict as "a coup against the constitution" and called for the opposition to take a united stand.
"The court declared that the emiri decree that called for the 2012 election was unconstitutional and ordered reinstating the previous assembly," the state-run KUNA news agency reported.
Rulings by the Gulf state's highest court are final and cannot be challenged.
Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a decree in early December dissolving the parliament following youth-led street protests calling for reforms and for the sacking of former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
A few days later, the emir issued another decree inviting Kuwaitis to elect a new parliament on February 2.
The court ruled that the second decree was "unconstitutional," thus nullifying the results of the general elections in which the opposition scored an impressive victory.
The previous parliament was controlled by a pro-government majority.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
Islamists won. The eventual result would have been the kind of standoff where Iran's Mossadegh tried usurp the Shah's power back in the 50's. What Kuwait needs is a non-troglodyte electorate. Short of a Muhammad-style conquest by a foreign power and mass executions of hundreds of thousands of devout believers accompanied by a renounce Islam-or-die policy, it's hard to see how the Kuwaiti populace will self-moderate.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] University students staged anti-regime protests in Khartoum for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, with Sudanese riot police using tear gas and batons to disperse them, witnesses said.
The demonstrations, which began on Saturday and have spread to different parts of the capital, come amid a rapidly deteriorating economic situation that has forced the government to make drastic spending cuts and driven up the cost of living.
Groups of students gathered in streets around the University of Khartoum, located next to the Blue Nile river in the city centre, shouting slogans such as "Khartoum, rise up! rise up!" and "The people want to change the regime!"
Riot police responded by firing tear gas to scatter them, while one witness said plain-clothes men carrying sticks and whips, and some wearing masks, had closed the street in front of the main university campus.
At a private business college nearby, riot police again used tear gas and batons against student protesters, thought to number about 100, who were trying to close off a main street in the centre of the capital.
In Omdurman, Khartoum's twin city, hundreds more demonstrated outside Ahlia University, as they had on Monday, denouncing the sharp rise in food prices and calling for regime change, witnesses told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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(Sh.M.Network)- The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, has on Wednesday opened formal talks with Somaliland administration delegates inLondon, the first ever face-to-face dialogue between the two sides in two decades.
The first round of direct talks between the two sides kicked off in London on Wednesday and each has already designated a panel for the talks in London with international observers, including the hosting UK government.
Somalia's negotiating team, headed by interior and national security minister Abdisamad Mo'alin Mohamed, left on Tuesday morning from Nairobi to London to meet with the self-proclaimed Somaliland delegates led by Mohammed Abdullah Omar, a foreign minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
"Self-proclaimed Somaliland delegates." Isn't Somaliland one of the only two parts of the country that's been functional for the last decade while everything else burned down?
#3
And yes, Somaliland and Puntland are quietly thriving even as the rump of Somalia has ridden hard to Hell in a handbasket, a fascinating experiment in the benefits of benign neglect.
[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Wednesday of a foreign plot coupled with a local participation to drag the Palestinian camps throughout Lebanon to strife.
"The incidents at the Palestinian camps and the targets against the Lebanese army are not innocent and call for concern," Berri told several newspapers.
"The foreign plot is present but there is an internal participation in it," he warned, reiterating that the security incidents from the North to the South are not a coincidence.
He claimed the facts on the ground match the information that he received several weeks ago about preparations for a clash between the shantytowns and their surrounding areas.
Berri was referring to a warning from an Arab leader to a Lebanese official that Palestinian refugees could be pushed to ignite strife in Lebanon similar to the upheaval in Syria.
Al-Akhbar newspaper said Tuesday that the official, who is likely to be Berri, contacted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who sent Azzam al-Ahmed as an envoy to Lebanon to cooperate with the Lebanese authorities in the attempt to thwart the plot.
Angry Palestinians have clashed in the past five days with the Lebanese army at the entrances of the Nahr al-Bared and Ain el-Hilweh refugee camps, leaving three people dead.
Berri rejected "tampering with the morale of the army and the role that the national institutional plays in protecting Lebanese and Palestinians against the Israeli enemy."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Zim-bob-we President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... has denied reports that he is building a luxurious mansion with an underground bunker in neighbouring South Africa.
According to weekend reports, the KwaDukuza municipality in South Africa obtained a court order to stop the Zim-bob-wean ruler's former personal pilot from constructing the R200 million mansion citing environmental concerns.
Retired Air Vice Marshal Robert Mhlanga was rumoured to be building the mansion on be behalf of President Mugabe. A private newspaper, The Standard speculated that the Zim-bob-wean ruler wanted to use it as a "bolt hole."
But President Mugabe's spokesperson Mr George Charamba dismissed the reports. "There is no substance to that," he told the paper.
"The only relationship between them (President Mugabe and (Mr Mhlanga) is the name Robert and that they are Zim-bob-weans."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
The Jihad in Central Africa continues unabated, hence a realistic NT or LT strategic threat to Zimbabwe proper - is "Muggsy" planning to bug out + go where US-NATO Forces are most likely to be sent???
["GET SMART'S" SIEGFRIED, AKA "THE FIRST MAN OUT OF EL ALAMEIN" here].
Support for the doctors' strike was crumbling on Wednesday night after a public backlash caused many who voted for action to have second thoughts.
In May, the British Medical Association insisted it had a "strong" mandate for industrial action -- its first strike in nearly 40 years -- when half its members responded to a ballot with 79 per cent of votes in favour.
The slump in support for industrial action over pensions follows fierce public criticism and claims that doctors are being "greedy and immoral".
But a survey by The Daily Telegraph found that two thirds of GP surgeries expected to have all their doctors working on Thursday and would be open for business as usual. The vast majority of hospitals said few or no operations would be cancelled.
The slump in support for industrial action over pensions follows fierce public criticism and claims that doctors are being "greedy and immoral". One poll on Wednesday found that only a third of Britons backed the action.
David Cameron said doctors should not strike as most already had gold-plated pensions which people working in the private sector "can only dream of".
The BMA, representing two thirds of doctors, is fighting cuts to their £1million pension pots. Under government proposals, new doctors will have to work until 68 and make bigger contributions to earn a pension worth £68,000 a year.
"This Fast and Furious debacle started under the Bush administration," Jackson Lee declared. "And it is been evidenced by various reports that it started under the ATL office in Arizona unbeknownst to leadership in Washington DC, at least leadership that came in under the Obama administration in this instance, Eric Holder."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
This idiot woman obviously wasn't told that (With)Holder had already walked back his accusation that Bush administration was involved.
#2
Jackson's position and statements as an elected official are simply a microcosm of a reparations focused sector of society. She and her coharts lash out at anything that may threaten their boodle or privilege.
#11
Jackson-Lee is not an idiot, uneducated, nor crazy. It's easy to dismiss her as just another politician. But without any sense of remorse she preys on the gullible for her own personal gain. Back in the day people of her caliber were simply called a Crooks.
[Daily Caller] House Minority Leader Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of politicians. Formerly Speaker of the House, but it's not her fault they lost. Really. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace... attacked House Republicans for pursuing contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder on Wednesday.
"I could have tossed in the clink Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! Karl Rove on any given day," Pelosi said on Wednesday, The Huffington Post reports. "I'm not kidding. There's a prison here in the Capitol. If we had spotted him in the Capitol, we could have tossed in the clink Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! him."
"Oh, any number" of charges could have been brought against Rove, Pelosi said. "But there were some specific ones for his being in contempt of Congress."
Pelosi also criticized Republicans pushing for justice for Border Patrol agent Brian Terry -- as House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings ...Representative-for-life from Maryland, representing half of Baltimore City, which makes his district ultra-safe, and most of Howard County, which is out-populated by the city. Cummings' politix are so liberal they're tedious... has on numerous occasions -- as "just strictly political."
"It's just the irresponsibility of the Republicans," Pelosi said. "We want jobs. Why are they spending this time doing this?"
Pelosi attacked House oversight committee Chairman Darrell Issa too. "'Loose cannon' would sort of be like such a compliment to Darrell Issa," Pelosi said. "'Loose cannon' would be a moderate phrase. This is an bomb. It doesn't serve our country, and it undermines the true purpose of contempt of Congress."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#3
Someone considered, due to self admission, as having compromised her own principles for personal gain; and the name commonly used to describe such a person is?
#4
Pelosi rips Holder contempt charges: 'I could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day'
Yep, COULD have, But DIDN'T, and that's the charge.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/21/2012 8:39
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#5
So what you are saying is that arresting Holder is ok.
Are they trying to be deliberately vague and baffling to hide the threats, or am I watching a person at a chess board who takes their king, diagonally jumps three of their own pieces, and yells yahtzee!
#6
Love the picture. I am fairly certain that is what her death mask will look like. Comparing Karl Rove, a mere aide, to someone who was appointed to such a powerful office is ludicrous. Like monkeys in the zoo, these people will continue to fling poo at everything that moves in order to prevent the masses from seeing that the emperor has no clothes.
Posted by: Past Master of the Obvious ||
06/21/2012 9:31
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#7
Pelosi always reminds me of the main character's mother in "Brazil" So utterly clueless and ignoring what happens around her.
#8
"Are they trying to be deliberately vague and baffling to hide the threats, or am I watching a person at a chess board who takes their king, diagonally jumps three of their own pieces, and yells yahtzee!"
#9
The dems are in pure panic, reactionary mode. They just say what comes off the top of their head to defend themselves and don't think about what it means.
#11
delusional partisan b*tch. By what powers does she assume she can arrest a political advisor?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/21/2012 10:58
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#12
By what powers does she assume she can arrest a political advisor?
Why on "any number" of charges. That's what she says in the article. But you'll notice that she doesn't get specific. All she has are vague allegations that it's all Bush's fault. Damn it, I know the Republicans have screwed up too. That's no excuse.
#15
'I could have arrested Karl Rove on any given day'
Nancy, no one has been arrested. Now go have another drink.
Posted by: Fat Bob Dark Lord of the Gepids7701 ||
06/21/2012 17:17
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#16
My view of the current Washington crowd... Many of the pubs are not driven by the best of motives BUT TOO many Dems like Miss Nancy are BATSHIT CRAZY!
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/21/2012 18:46
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[An Nahar] An Israeli air strike on southern Gazoo on Wednesday killed a "global jihad" myrmidon who put together a bushwhack on Israel's border with Egypt, the military said.
The strike targeted a man riding a cycle of violence in the southern city of Rafah which lies on the border with Egypt, killing 21-year-old Ghaleb Ermilat, Paleostinian medics said. Another person was maimed in the strike.
Residents said Ermilat was an activist with the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Gazoo's ruling Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement.
His death raised to seven the number of Paleostinians killed in three days of violence in and around Gazoo. Another six people were maimed.
In a statement, the military said the air force had targeted "a global jihad terror operative involved in the planning and execution of a terror attack on Monday, June 18 against Israeli construction workers on the Israel-Egypt border, in which an Israeli civilian was killed."
During Monday's attack along the Egyptian border, at least three hard boyz sneaked into southern Israel from Sinai and ambushed two civilian cars carrying Israeli construction workers, killing one and sparking a firefight in which two of the gunnies died.
The third is understood to have fled back to Egypt.
On Tuesday, a previously unknown Islamist group grabbed credit for the attack in a video message reported by the U.S.-based monitoring service, SITE Intelligence.
The video, which was made by the "Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem," showed two gunnies standing in front of al-Qaeda's black flag saying they were poised to carry out an attack against Israel.
One claimed to be from Egypt, while the other said he was from Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
"thanks to Hamas for providing the intel on his name and location!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/21/2012 10:39
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[Yemen Post] The Supreme Security Committee on Wednesday said a senior Al-Qaeda leader was killed in an Arclight airstrike along with two would-be bombers in Baidha province.
Salah Al-Jawheri, dubbed Al-Thalaja, was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Yafi in south Yemen and the commander of suicide cells in Sanaa and Baidha provinces, a source at the committee said.
The two, killed in the Arclight airstrike which came within an ongoing hunt for gun-hung tough guys in several parts of the country, had been prepared to attack military and security officials in Baidha, the source said.
Within the upgraded counterterrorism efforts after the huge victory on Al-Qaeda in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... , the authorities also thwarted a plot to target foreign embassies in the capital Sanaa, the source added.
"The authorities seized a car inside which three terrorists, explosives and maps showing the locations of foreign embassies and houses of senior military commanders in Yemen were captured," the source continued.
Furthermore, the authorities have set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a terrorist cell led by Nizar Abdulrahman Al-Jumai, a Tunisian who was one of the most dangerous foreign hard boyz wanted by Yemen, the source said.
"The cell was spotted while moving among the provinces of Abyan, Shabwa and Hadramout." ...the formerly independent Qu'aiti state and sultanate, annexed by Communist South Yemen in 1968, encompassing a region along the Gulf of Aden, extending eastwards to the borders of the Dhofar region of Oman. The people are called Hadhramis and speak Hadhrami Arabic. The city Tarimis estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (PTUI) anywhere in the world, approximately seven in every square yard... Yemen has launched a massive hunt for myrmidons, who escaped after the forces drove Al-Qaeda out of its strongholds seized last year in Abyan province.
Many gun-hung tough guys including big shots have been killed in the hunt in provinces adjacent to Abyan so far.
Hundreds of gun-hung tough guys including leaders were killed in the Abyan offensive over the past few months.
After its severe defeat, Al-Qaeda vowed to retaliate through attacking key US and Yemeni targets.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[Dawn] THERE seems to be no end to the relentless murder of members of the Shia Hazara community in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . Many of the victims of Monday's suicide car booming that targeted a university bus in Quetta, in which at least four people died and over 70 were maimed, belonged to this beleaguered ethnic group. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... has grabbed credit for the attack saying that its latest atrocity was 'Dire Revenge™' for the bombing of a madressah in Quetta earlier this month. Members of the Balochistan Assembly have rightly questioned the role of intelligence agencies, particularly their inability to pre-empt such acts of terrorism. The deadly violence in Balochistan, especially in its capital city, has created a state of fear and mistrust between the ethnic and religious communities that reside in the province. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... while the provincial government has largely played the role of spectator as violence consumes Balochistan, it is the security establishment that must primarily explain why terrorist outfits have been allowed to operate with impunity in the province.
As we have argued before, trying to stop a jacket wallah when he is about to strike is next to impossible. Also, it is not possible for the security forces to be everywhere all the time. The fact is a police vehicle was accompanying the ill-fated bus in Monday's tragedy, yet it could do little to prevent the carnage. The key, then, to checking the violence is to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist groups through better intelligence gathering and pre-emptive action. The intelligence agencies' role in this regard has been woeful to say the least, with snuffies striking at will in Balochistan. These shortcomings need to be addressed and the authorities in Islamabad as well as Quetta need to shake off their apathy so that the lives of the people of Balochistan can be secured.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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Top|| File under: Lashkar e-Jhangvi
WASHINGTON: India and the United States, partners in prime, concluded the third round of their strategic dialogue last week. It was a talk session so vast and varied, it took 13 pages to summarise the discussions. The comfort level is obvious as is the keenness to help each other without pushing the wrong buttons.
The discussion has expanded from geostrategic issues to cover a dizzying array of fields - from agriculture to education, from science and technology to women's empowerment, from cyber security to counter-terrorism, from police training to creating virtual institutes on mathematics - a very large palette is coming alive.
To be sure it is an experiment in building a new kind of relationship, one never attempted by either country. Because it is an experiment, finding the right ingredients and a catalyst is a search. But the fundamental logic of strategic convergence holds. Of that, there is little doubt. And there is new logic unfolding daily.
Top officials in both governments have reached a good understanding on how to structure this "special relationship". The Americans know India will not become an "ally" and no one is pushing for it. They have enough treaty allies. Expectations have been adjusted and Washington well understands that India wants a partnership of equals. For historical, psychological and philosophical reasons, India won't be anyone's junior partner.
Neither is the US egging India onto adventures it doesn't want to undertake but at the same time it has determined it would help India to build capacity. As more US defence technology becomes available, India can gather greater "comprehensive national power"- a phrase the Chinese casually throw around to disparage India.
India is smartly hunting for strategic autonomy while getting closer to the US. It packages the alignment differently at different times. This may disappoint the with-us-or-against-us Americans but they are a minority. The big picture is good and getting better.
If former president George Bush cut through decades of diplomatic weed to put India in clear sight as a partner, President Barack Obama is shedding years of dependency on Pakistan to contain it. Bush changed the game by crafting the civil-nuclear deal with India and Obama is changing it further by relentlessly targeting terrorists ensconced in Pakistan. The slow realisation about Pakistan's dangerous designs has solidified into a cold determination to break the habit. Obama's eyes today are wide open after a year or two of trying to look into the hearts of Pakistani generals.
The Bush-Obama teamwork in South Asia is welcome and a source of greater stability in the long run. Pakistan has lost its primacy as a geographic and strategic blackmailer. Its bad choices in the past - no strategic reasoning can justify nurturing and unleashing terrorists - are closing its options in the present. If Pakistan's leadership does not see the writing on the wall and act positively, the future may be one of solitary splendour.
Meanwhile, India and the US will start a trilateral dialogue with Afghanistan. Surely a stark new reality for Pakistan as Washington begins to think of India as a net security provi-der in a country Islamabad considers its backyard. But India is understandably cautious because for all the "recognition" that India can take on more security-related responsibilities in Afghanistan, it was only yesterday that Washington was against New Delhi marking its presence - at the prompting of Pakistan - and issuing demarches. A copy of one such was brought to Washington as a reminder of unhappier times.
Within the span of the Obama Administration, Washington has courted China, then India, lectured India for engagement with Burma and then made a turnaround. One could call it nimble, fickle or evolutionary. The important point is that Obama's team is continuing with India where Bush left off despite some stone-throwing from the margins by those who continue to try to undermine the US-India civil nuclear deal.
But the "habits of cooperation" are building. More groundbreaking work can be done bilaterally, especially in defence production and research, as India wants. This will help foster trust. Strategic space for India has opened wider with US help. The question is how to use it wisely, timely and gamely. There is a lesson for both countries in the exercise.
Finally, the Pakistan hang in US policy towards India may have gone but China remains the biggest complicating factor for both India and the US. The Chinese vice-premier's attempt to play India was baldly obvious when he whispered during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting that the "real relationship" of the century was one between India and China. By implication, India was wasting its energy on a partner far away.
But China plays for itself while America can and does try to play in a team, especially in these times of economic trouble. India can help shape the team while gaining in strategic autonomy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012
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ION FORMER "GREATER INDIA", DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > BURMA/MYANMAR SHOULD BE PARTITIONED FOR GREATER REGIONAL STABILITY + PEACE.
* SAME, TOPIX > AFGHANISTAN NEEDS US$7.0BILYUHN IN AID AFTER WESTERN PULLOUT [2014], i.e. US$6-7.0Bilyuhn a year over 10 years [US$60-70.0Bilyuhn tote], + on top of US$4.1Bilyuhn already earmarked for 2014 + Afghan-specific training + devlopment as per Afghan Army-Police = Security forces, etc.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NOLA.COM: THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE [Drill]: AIR NATIONAL GUARD FIGHTERS [159TH FW = aka "Bayou Militia"] DEPLOYED TO SOUTHWEST ASIA.
Exact Mission, Locale cannot + will not be confirmed or denied.
* TOPIX > THAIS PROTEST US RETURN [NASA] TO U-TAPAO.
LOCAL THAIS > D *** NG IT, USA, WE CAN DO OUR OWN "WEATHER RESEARCH", THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > PINOY PRESIDENT [Aquino] THREATENS TO CONFRONT CHINESE SHIPS IN HUANGYAN ISLANDS [PHIL = Panataq/Panatag Reef] |
[Global Nation Inquirer] AQUINO: PHILIPPINES MAY SEND SHIPS BACK TO SCARBOROUGH/PHILIPPINES SHIPS TO GO BACK IFF CHINESE DON'T LEAVE PANATAG SHOAL.
* ALso from GLOBAL NATION INQUIRER > CHINA: WE STAKED CLAIM TO SCARBOROUGH IN 1949 [post-Kai Shek, Civil War founding of PRC/PROC]. Also, post-1949 via then-Premier Chou Enlai in 1951 as per the XISHA [Paracels], NANWEI, NANSHA [Spratlys], ZHONGSHA, + DONGSHA ISLANDS.
[An Nahar] An alarming number of journalists are killed each year and those responsible are rarely brought to justice, U.N. experts said on Wednesday.
"Journalists who play a crucial role in ensuring a society that takes informed decisions, are killed at an alarming rate by state and non-state actors," said special rapporteur Christof Heyns in a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Sixty-five journalists were killed in the first five months of 2012 around the world, a 50 percent rise on 2011, according to Swiss news agency ATS.
Of those, Syria saw at least 15 victims, Mexico seven and Somalia six.
In his report Heyns, rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, called for a new specific declaration on the protection of journalists "that would emphasize the recognized obligations of states with regard to the protection of the right of life and safety of journalists".
Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on freedom of expression, said on the sidelines of the council meeting: "What we are asking for in the report is that (in) countries that are not in an armed conflict situation, but that are in a situation of extreme violence because they are combating organized crime that harasses journalism from different angles ... that there should be a mechanism of protection."
La Rue said successful steps had been taken in countries including Colombia that "actually saved lives", but the main threat to journalists remained the impunity with which many are targeted around the world.
"Impunity is a problem all around in terms of humanized violations, but for journalists there is a more emphatic focus with a lack of interest from states and justice systems to investigate violence," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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Does this include "journlists" that make up "facts" and change quotes to further their political agendas?
[An Nahar] Twenty-nine soldiers and a Shiite Mohammedanholy man were among 58 people killed in violence across Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
At least 20 troops died in festivities in the northwestern province of Latakia, while another five were killed in fighting that erupted late Tuesday in the Kurdish Mountain region, the watchdog said.
"The majority died in direct fighting... while other soldiers were killed in a rebel attack on two buildings which the army was using to launch mortar attacks against the Kurdish Mountain," the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said.
In Idlib, another northwestern province, five troops were killed when a car boomwent kaboom! at their checkpoint. Two civilians were also killed in the region.
The Observatory reported kabooms and shooting in the town of Maaret al-Numan, where the Local Coordination Committees activist group said there was fierce shelling and gunfire aimed at residential areas.
Fighting in the Hama province town of Kernaz left three soldiers dead, the Observatory said. Five non-combatants were killed elsewhere in the central region.
"Unidentified gunnies assassinated a Shiite holy man in Sayyida Zeinab," it said, referring to an area of south Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... that houses a revered Shiite shrine of the same name and is home to many Iraqi refugees.
Nearer the city center, festivities broke out between rebel fighters and government forces in Tadamon, the Observatory said.
Also in Damascus, a military doctor was killed by an bomb planted in his car.
Northeast of the capital, troops shot a civilian dead in Harasta, while a rebel died of wounds suffered in an earlier attack. Six civilians died in Douma, including three executed by regime forces, Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Troops also shelled villages in the northern province of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , killing one civilian, the Observatory said.
"There are festivities near the Hreitan and Anadan villages, and the regime is trying its hardest to make people turn against the revolt," an activist told AFP via Skype. "They burnt all the fields, leaving us with nothing to eat."
In the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, sniper fire killed a civilian in the al-Qusour district, while in the southern province of Daraa, four non-combatants were killed.
One child was killed in shelling of the Homs province town of Rastan, the Observatory said.
In Homs city, a rebel died near Baba Amr district amid fierce festivities between troops and rebels. Baba Amr was in rebel hands until it was pounded relentlessly for a month in March.
The opposition Syrian National Council warned at the weekend of a looming massacre in Homs, which it said was besieged by 30,000 troops and pro-regime militiamen.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq in retaliation for a deadly attack in Turkey's southeast, the military said Wednesday.
The strikes come after rebels on Tuesday attacked Turkish military units in the town of Yuksekova in Hakkari province near the Iraqi border. The fighting between Turkish soldiers and rebels claimed 34 lives.
"The targets belonging to the separatist terrorist organization across the border in the north of Iraq were effectively hit by Turkish Air Force aircraft," the general staff said in a statement posted on its website.
The jets safely returned to their bases in Turkey after fulfilling their mission successfully, it added.
Twenty-six rebels who were shot dead by the military belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and crossed into Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq to attack Turkish military posts.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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I read one of those miltary techno-yarns (Dale Brown?) that started this way.
[Haaretz] A gunman who had past psychiatric problems took four people hostage Wednesday in a bank in Toulouse ...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France... , claiming he was acting for religious reasons, then was captured in a police raid about six hours later, authorities said.
The hostages were released unharmed, and the hostage-taker was lightly injured, regional police official Frederic Tamisier said. Another police official said he was hurt in the leg, though the cause of the injury was unclear.
Gunshots were heard from the site around the time the gunman was captured.
The incident plunged this city in fear for the second time in recent months.
Tensions have been high in Toulouse since March, when a gunman who police said claimed links to al-Qaeda killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in the area. Those were La Belle France's worst terrorist attacks in years, and led to a crackdown on suspected Islamist hard boyz around La Belle France.
In Wednesday's incident, a man with a firearm entered a CIC bank branch in central Toulouse at about 11 a.m. (0900GMT) and took the bank director and three other bank employees hostage, police officials said.
Authorities started negotiations with the gunman, and he released one hostage mid-afternoon, a woman in her late 20s who was feeling ill, a police union official said.
French media reports say the gunman is claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda. Police officials who spoke to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named could not confirm this claim.
Toulouse Mayor Pierre Cohen said the gunman had been known to authorities for having psychiatric problems.
French Prosecutor Michel Valet said that during negotiations, the gunman said he wanted to advertise the religious motivation behind his act.
"The hostage-taker ... wants us to make it known that he is acting not for money, and that his motivations come from his religious conviction," Valet told news hounds at the scene. He did not say what faith the gunman adheres to.
French media reports say the gunman is claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda. Police officials who spoke to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named could not confirm this claim.
The neighborhood around the bank was cordoned off, and neighboring buildings were evacuated. Officers from GIPN specialized police units were brought to the scene from Bordeaux and Marseille.
The bank is in the same neighborhood where Mohamed Merah, the suspected gunman in the March attacks, was shot and killed by police. It is near the cop shoppe where authorities were overseeing the operation to surround and negotiate with Merah.
The mother of a child evacuated from a neighborhood school said on RTL radio that she had received a text message in the morning saying the CIC bank was being robbed.
Doriane Clermont, 23, lives across the street from the bank with her 3-year-old son ... and said she's "thinking of moving."
"I'm worried about the climate that reigns in this city," she said, waiting behind the police barrier to be able to return home after she was evacuated.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Algerian troops killed eight Islamists gunnies in the Kabylie region, where al-Qaeda-linked groups remain active, the official APS agency reported Wednesday, updating an earlier toll of six.
Soldiers opened fire on a van carrying suspects near blood-stained Tizi Ouzou, the main city in Kabylie, APS said, quoting a security bigshot. The van veered off the road and crashed into a ravine.
The security forces recovered five assault rifles and two shotguns after the operation that left five gunnies dead late Tuesday, the source added.
Algerian forces killed three further suspects on Wednesday and captured one more.
Troops continued to comb the area for remaining members of the cell, believed to be responsible for a June 15 attack on a cop shoppe in a nearby town that left two officers dead.
Soldiers killed six gunnies with suspected ties to al-Qaeda in the same region on June 5.
Following the brutal decade-long war that left up to 200,000 people dead, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him... started a process of national reconciliation and offered amnesty to all Islamists.
Former members of the Armed Islamic Group and its offshoots who have since proclaimed their allegiance to al-Qaeda have largely been flushed out, but incidents remain frequent in Kabylie, east of Algiers.
Algeria's police chief, General Abdelghani Hamel, said last month that "the terrorist threat remains in all regions of Algeria".
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Terrorist group Al-Qaeda announced Wednesday that it would now include Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... on its attack list.
Senegalese authorities, however, respondend that they would "not yield to any form of threat" emanating from the international terrorist group.
A report quoted by the independent Le Quotidien newspaper in Dakar said the decision by Al-Qaeda stems from Senegal's decision to contribute troops to the Economic Community Of West African States Mission in Mali (Micam).
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012
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#1
The Central Africa jihad goes on ....
At this rate, the Bammer + UK PM Cameron will end up sending SPECOPS, other Troops to Liberia + South Africa.
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.
Britain may give more millions more pounds to the controversial European Court of Human Rights, despite the Government's promise to rein it in. 
More intel dump from the New York Times. This sort of thing is predicated on the assumption that
From his first months in office, 
At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm's "escape," Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America's most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran's nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised. "Should we shut this thing down?" Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president's national security team who were in the room.
This account of the American and Israeli effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program is based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli 
A New York hospital worker and her spouse have filed a lawsuit saying spousal health benefits were denied to the same-sex couple.
Security has been stepped up on the Kenya-Somalia border as Kenyan troops prepare to seize control of Kismayu, the last remaining A
Pakistain President 
[An Nahar] Yemen's security forces have foiled a
IN disqualifying a sitting, democratically elected prime minister, the Supreme Court has taken an extraordinary -- and unfortunate -- step. This whole story could have played out very differently, in ways much less disruptive to the nascent democracy this country is trying to build, if the SC had steered clear of a course of action that has now brought the judiciary, parliament and the executive in direct confrontation with each other. At a number of junctures the court could have avoided pursuing the contempt of court case as doggedly as it did, especially considering that the larger issue -- corruption -- was a matter involving the president, not the prime minister. Legally there might have been a case against the prime minister, but it was best for the supreme judiciary not to have waded so deep into such obviously political waters. Even at a later stage, it could have let the speaker's ruling -- which has the backing of a parliamentary resolution -- stand. If that was not possible, it could have declared her ruling unacceptable and referred the matter to the Election Commission rather than simply asking that body to issue a denotification. Even if the outcome had ultimately been the same, at least the court would not have taken on the role of directly disqualifying an elected prime minister. By doing so, it has both disrupted an existing democratic set-up and set a worrying precedent for the future.
Dutch upper house rejects ban on ritual slaughter
Thirty suspected 
Wazoo
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate is charged with solicitation of a minor and his case has been bound over to a grand jury.
(Sh.M.Network)-- The EU special envoy for Somalia is looking into a fresh report that pirates are in business with Italian gangsters on toxic waste.
He noted that part of the income -- worth "hundreds of millions of euros a year" -- is laundered via the tourist industry in Kenya and Tanzania.
Asif Ali 
Six people, including a truck driver and a teenager, were killed in different parts of the city on Tuesday, police said.
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
(CNN) -- The Paleostinian group 
Egypt's Election Commission says it has delayed Thursday's planned announcement of the results of a runoff presidential vote while it continues to review appeals from the two candidates, hiking tension as allegations of fraud mounted. 
The Islamists occupying northern Mali on Wednesday gave a couple 100 lashes of a whip for having a child out of wedlock as they continue enforcing sharia law, witnesses told AFP.
[An Nahar] A 
University students staged anti-regime protests in Khartoum for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, with Sudanese riot police using tear gas and batons to disperse them, witnesses said.
(Sh.M.Network)- The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, has on Wednesday opened formal talks with Somaliland administration delegates inLondon, the first ever face-to-face dialogue between the two sides in two decades.
Speaker Nabih Berri warned on Wednesday of a foreign plot coupled with a local participation to drag the Palestinian camps throughout Lebanon to strife.
Zim-bob-we President 
"This Fast and Furious debacle started under the Bush administration," Jackson Lee declared. "And it is been evidenced by various reports that it started under the ATL office in Arizona unbeknownst to leadership in Washington DC, at least leadership that came in under the Obama administration in this instance, Eric Holder."
Nancy 
An Israeli air strike on southern 
The Supreme Security Committee on Wednesday said a senior Al-Qaeda leader was killed in an 
THERE seems to be no end to the relentless murder of members of the Shia Hazara community in 
An alarming number of journalists are killed each year and those responsible are rarely brought to justice, U.N. experts said on Wednesday.
Twenty-nine soldiers and a Shiite 
[Haaretz] A gunman who had past psychiatric problems took four people hostage Wednesday in a bank in 
[An Nahar] Algerian troops killed eight Islamists 
Bouteflika
