posted for our Macro Troll....you know who
[PJ Media] Neoconservatism has had a bad reputation since the Iraq War, a conflagration that was supposed to turn that Middle Eastern country into Denmark.
We all know how that went. Those of us who were neocons in those days (I was, more or less, as well as tons of people who now pretend otherwise) didn't bank on the tribalism of the region as well as the fundamentalist nature of Islam that resists, to put it mildly, rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's.
So arrivederci neoconism, we thought, but here we are again with Iran. Cindy Sheehan and Herb sing together: "No blood for oil!"
A number of intelligent people -- including some with whom I normally agree but who have had enough of neocon adventures -- say we should basically ignore the mullahs because, well, what have they done to us? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, every frigging day
A lot actually. Back in the Iraq War, they killed many of our soldiers with IEDs. Bush was so deep into things at that point he turned away and did nothing. Can we blame him? I'm not sure.
And then there's the little matter of Hezbollah, Iran's giant terror army client. Way back in 1983, at the behest of the mullahs, they blew up that barracks in Beirut with 241 American servicemen who were there on a peace-keeping mission. Hezbollah's been killing Americans ever since, most of them inside our 50 states.
Indeed, the number of Americans killed by Hezbollah domestically dwarfs 9/11 because they are among the premier drug dealers in the world and Americans are dropping like flies from narcotics.
Among the most hideous aspects of Obama's hideous Iran Deal was his quietly agreeing with the mullahs to put the kibosh on Project Cassandra that was about to unmask the billion-dollar Hezbollah drug network. (If you haven't read about this, you should. The author should have won the Pulitzer instead of the creeps who got it for lying about Russia collusion.) Thanks Lightbringer!
But does all this murder by Iran and their minions mean that Trump should have gone after the mullahs for shooting down the drone? He did say he stood down because the drone was unmanned. But there have obviously been plenty of other instances.
Saturday's WSJ editorial goes full-bore neocon, or close, accusing the president of, essentially, "punking out" and even predicting he would now walk back sanctions. (They have already been proven wrong on that one. He's done the opposite.) They were calling him chicken...from their comfortable desks and padded chairs...in New York
One has the feeling that had Trump gone through with the attack, the Journal would have written an editorial worrying he hadn't been "proportional." That's how it goes in our politics, where Trump Derangement Syndrome is the only thing left that's bipartisan.
As for the Democratic candidates, it's not even worth commenting on their statements, they were so rote and unsophisticated. In any case, they're more worried about Senator Eastland (now deceased) than the mullahs.
But what should we do about Iran? I think we must stay the course of the sanctions and try to force them into talks. Time is on our side. And the mullahs' insane behavior does not make the greedy Europeans look good. Perhaps they will even come around to help us. Stranger things have happened. (Well, not much.)
Meanwhile, it's not "To Neocon or Not to Neocon?" That is not the question. Ideology is for children and college professors. The question is how do we use common sense? That sense tells me that Trump has now cleared the way for serious action against the mullahs when they pull another stunt, as we can assume they will. And they will. They're getting desperate
Indeed if they have any brains ‐ and some of them must, even with their berserk belief system ‐ they probably see this too. If I were Iran, I'd be afraid. I'd be very afraid. I might even come to the table.
And, needless to say, Trump has no interest whatsoever in a ground war with Iran, as well he shouldn't. That part of the neocon lesson holds. Any action should and would come from the air. And that would be a disaster for Iran that they would be truly insane to court. As I said, look for Iran to come to the table. My prediction: somewhere around September, after they have time to pretend it was at least partly their idea. But we'll know, won't we?
And if the talks break down, there's always what any decent person wants in the first place ‐ regime change.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2019
15:53 ||
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#1
If Americans are dropping like flies from narcotics, why are we not spraying the poppy fields in Afghanistan? It's where they all come from.
The reason Iran is the way that it is is because the US approved the overthrow of the Shah. That's a fact. Deal with it. Maybe meddling is the problem that causes all the other problems.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
06/23/2019 23:22
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#2
I would have written a longer, more detailed comment taking apart this article piece by piece, but Frank G just abuses his moderator powers to delete my comments even though they break no rule, so why bother?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
06/23/2019 23:23
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#3
No worries, mate! We pretty much know what you have to say.
[France 24] Ethiopia's army chief of staff and at least three other senior officials have been killed during a coup attempt by an army general in the northern state of Amhara, state television said on Sunday.
Amhara's state president Ambachew Mekonnen and his adviser were also killed, according to state media, which named the region's security head, General Asamnew Tsige, as the orchestrator of the attempted coup.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government faces growing pressure from regional strongmen, including in Amhara, a flashpoint in growing ethnic violence in Ethiopia.
The shooting occurred when federal officials were meeting the state president – an ally of Abiy – to discuss how to rein in the open recruitment of ethnic militias by Asamnew, one Addis-based official told Reuters.
A week earlier, Asamnew had openly advised the Amhara people, one of Ethiopia's larger ethnic groups, to arm themselves, in a video spread on Facebook and seen by a Reuters reporter.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2019
10:27 ||
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[AL Arabiya ] Iranian lawmakers chanted “Death to America” during a parliament session on Sunday after a speaker accused the United States of being the “real world terrorist”, amid escalating tension with Washington following the downing of an unmanned US drone.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he aborted a military strike to retaliate for the drone incident because it could have killed 150 people, and signaled he was open to talks with Tehran.
Iran said on Saturday it would respond firmly to any threat against it.
“America is the real terrorist in the world by spreading chaos in countries, giving advanced weapons to terrorist groups, causing insecurity, and still it says ‘Come, let’s negotiate’,” the parliament’s deputy speaker, Masoud Pezeshkian, said at the start of a session broadcast live on state radio.
“Death to America,” chanted many lawmakers.
The chants, often repeated since the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the US-backed Shah, came weeks after Trump said in a US television interview: “They (Iranians) haven’t screamed ‘death to America’ lately.”
Posted by: 3dc ||
06/23/2019
10:02 ||
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[Star Trib] Star Trib finally realizes something smells
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2019
09:54 ||
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#1
If the Strib gets involved in trying to force her out it's only because they have identified someone even more rabidly insipid waiting in the wings to replace her.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/23/2019 10:31
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#2
Or, she's really bad for image with the conventional democrat vote base.
#3
How co-incidental, that the Strib jumped on this story that they've known about for 3 years, less than a week after an email was published with donk spin-meisters saying 'shut the story down like we do with the Strib'.
Someone here called Minneapolis, "Moscow on the Mississippi", but Pravda was never this lame.
#4
Someone here called Minneapolis, "Moscow on the Mississippi", but Pravda was never this lame.
Me and you are absolutely right. They refuse to point out she married her brother. Not to mention local "news" refusing to report on any story that shows liberals in a bad light.
"Blatantly keeping Minnesotans uninformed" must be the motto.
#1
Following the model of taxing tobacco. Raise prices till they stop buying it (and go on the reservations for tax free alternatives). Not that tobacco was an underlying element to the entire economic model where so much has to be transported.
[WSJ] President Trump called off a military strike against Iran in mid-mission Thursday, and his supporters and even some of his critics are hailing it as an act of restraint and courage. The question for American interests is whether Iran and other adversaries will see it instead as a sign of weakness and indecision.
"We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone," Mr. Trump tweeted Friday morning. Layers of editors. "Sights" vs "sites"
It’s important to understand how extraordinary this is. The Commander in Chief ordered ships and planes into battle but recalled them because he hadn’t asked in advance what the damage and casualties might be? While the planes were in the air, he asked, oh, by the way? This is hard to take at face value.
More likely, he changed his mind because he had second thoughts about the military and political consequences of engaging in a conflict he promised as a candidate to avoid. Mr. Trump may have saved Iranian lives now, but his indecision and professed fear of casualties may be risking more American lives later.
Squeezed by the U.S. "maximum pressure" campaign, Iran’s rulers are trying to pressure Mr. Trump in return. In recent weeks they have attacked oil pipelines, mined oil tankers, and this week brazenly shot down a $130 million U.S. drone monitoring shipping lanes over international waters. Iran’s bet is that Mr. Trump is so averse to military confrontation that he will ease U.S. sanctions. On the evidence of the aborted mission, they may be right.
The damage from Mr. Trump’s stand-down depends in part on how Iran’s leaders respond. If they agree to talks to revise the 2015 nuclear agreement, the restraint might pay off. Yet Iran’s leaders have shown no interest in talking as long as U.S. sanctions are in place. If Mr. Trump eases sanctions to get Iran to the bargaining table, he is back to the Obama nuclear deal.
On the other hand if the Iranians escalate again, Mr. Trump’s restraint will look misguided and weak. If Americans are now killed by Iranian proxies, his failure to use force to deter attacks will deserve some of the blame.
Laying out these potential stakes isn’t "war mongering," as the new isolationists on the right claim. This is the reality of geopolitics in which credibility is crucial to deterrence. The more that adversaries think Mr. Trump’s threats of force aren’t credible, the more they will seek to exploit that knowledge.
After Barack Obama failed to enforce his "red line" in Syria in 2013, adversaries soon took advantage. Vladimir Putin snatched Crimea from Ukraine and moved into Syria, China pushed further into the South China Sea, and Iran expanded its proxy wars in the Middle East. Will they draw similar license now from Mr. Trump’s stand-down?
The great weakness of Donald Trump’s foreign policy is its volatility. He is unpredictable to a fault. He has doubted his own Venezuela policy from the first week he signed off on it. He called Kim Jong Un crazy but now says he’s a swell guy. He signed a trade deal with Mexico then threatened it with new tariffs.
On Iran he has adopted a policy goal favored by hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham but wants to use only the means of isolationist Sen. Rand Paul to achieve it. He warned that "if Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," but he lets Iran shoot down a drone and interfere with international shipping.
If Mr. Trump’s real policy is Mr. Paul’s, then he should be honest with Americans and return to the Obama nuclear deal. In the meantime, Iran appears to be calling Mr. Trump’s bluff.
#2
See reporting by General Jack Keane. He insisted that he knew what had occurred and that the president had received last minute information that Iranian powers were furious that the attack threatened a devastating attack by the US.
#4
As another Murdoch organ, I don't expect WSJ to be any less biased than the worst faces on FauxNews these days.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/23/2019 10:48
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#5
Actually, he appears he's caught between using non-violent means to deal with Iran or go full 'Jacksonian' on their ass. No half way or incremental proportional response games.
#9
As far as the Democrats and the MSM are concerned, Trump was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. They had condemnations for all eventualities ready to go whatever he did.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/23/2019 15:06
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#12
I think he made a mistake - in announcing impending retaliation, and then rescinding it - but I don't know the whole story, and if there's a mistake in it, it is a minor one. I don't think it was the right time to make a massive military retaliation, and as long as there is continuing strong political and economic 'retaliation' I will continue to hold that position. Cost-wise, just the price of the cruise missiles that would be launched would be more than the drone lost.
#13
How well would you sleep, manning an IRGC base in Syria?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2019 16:17
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#14
What if this was intended to focus world attention here rather than somewhere else? I would not be surprised if we’re seeing a neat bit of Trump sleight of hand...
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
#3
I like the "...and outer space" bit. Thinking out of the box, people! And then the "...not grunts who are just there for the paycheck". Yep, overpaid and under occupying, or something.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
06/23/2019 8:33
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#4
yah. a bunch of 70+ year-olds is a force to be reckoned with
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
06/23/2019 11:46
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#8
I would like to see people who are for open boarders automatically get all the locks on their doors (home, cars, boats and jets) removed along with any walls, hedges, etc...
[Washington Examiner] A former top CIA official warned of dire consequences from the Justice Department's review of the origins of the Russia investigation.
As part of the "investigation into the investigators," U.S. Attorney John Durham's team reportedly wants to talk to at least one senior CIA counterintelligence official and a senior CIA analyst who examined Russia's role in meddling in the 2016 election.
The review is not a criminal inquiry, but should Durham find criminal activity he can take prosecutorial action. Top CIA officials are said to be anxious over the federal prosecutor's efforts.
Michael Morell, who was deputy director of the CIA during the Obama administration, said Durham's interest in speaking to a CIA analyst concerns him.
"I see no problem with a DOJ review of whether the CIA and other intelligence community agencies lived up to their legal and regulatory responsibilities related to how they handled any information related to U.S. persons ‐ U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals," Morell told CBS News, where he is now a senior national security contributor.
#4
"I see no problem with a DOJ review of whether the CIA and other intelligence community agencies lived up to their legal and regulatory responsibilities related to how they handled any information related to U.S. persons"
Review? It's about possible sedition, maybe treason, and skullduggery by the DS to nullify an election. It's about "insurance policies" to make certain that happened
#6
Michael Morell, who was deputy director of the CIA during the Obama administration, said Durham's interest in speaking to a CIA analyst concerns him.
Wasn't he part of the most open and transparent administration ever?
[Daily Caller] Mariandra Heunis and her children are the survivors of a vicious, dead-of-night attack on her family. Her husband ‐ her childrens’ father ‐ is not. He was killed in their home outside Pretoria, South Africa, in what has come to be called a "farm attack ‐ the targeted terrorizing of farmers in a country with a long history of strife over race and land.
[Reuters] KRASNOYARSK REGION, Russia (Reuters) - Viktor, 62, turned his back on society 16 years ago and moved to the remote forest wilderness of Russian Siberia where he lives in seclusion in a wooden hut, studying the Bible and foraging for food.
Gray-bearded, enigmatic and with a huge tattoo of Christ across his back, the former barge operator refuses to disclose his surname. The hut he built himself sits on the banks of the Yenisei River which carves through Siberia.
"I like the company of trees more than the company of people," he says.
[Breitbart] In an interview with GirlBoss Radio released Wednesday, longshot 2020 White House candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) declared twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was "the most qualified, capable person ever to run for president." I doubt we've seen the last of the Hildebeest.
#9
And all this time I've been thinking that George Washington (a/k/a The Indispensable Man a/k/a The Man Who Would Not Be KIng a/k/a The Father of His Country, described by a contemporary as "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen") had some pretty solid qualifications, but that's just me.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/23/2019 9:55
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#10
I thought winning the most electoral votes was the sole qualification.
#12
Didn't Jefferon and Teddy have to actually run for POTUS? I would like to see HIllary's bibliography compared to Teddy's. Gillibrand must have missed all that in her American History classes.
I guess we know now why the liberal universities are dropping history as a major.
Posted by: Fat Bob Oppressor of the Ostrogoths4848 ||
06/23/2019 14:34
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#13
And by extension, Gillibrand, who replaced her, is the second-most qualified.
#2
It's a bubble of oversold plots:
"Quick, queue up for shots from the ghats!
To forever in space
Race around in a vase,
Place deposits on popular spots!"
#4
Height of ostentation. We're so great our ashes need to orbit earth. Abuse of technology for stupid reasons.
I agree with the first and second sentences. But it’s these early adopters who pay for repeat trips that will eventually make the exercise cheap enough for the rest of us, if Mr. Musk priced it high enough. Who now remembers how expensive first generation CD players and big screen televisions were?
#5
I think it's kinda cool, a 21st century version of scattering Granpa's ashes in the ocean. But the coolest part is the $5K price which is an indicator of the growing commercialization of space. Hasta la vista, NASA!
I don't recall the date or brand, but if memory serves, the first CD player I ever saw was around a grand. While the price put it out of reach of normal people, it was the first time you could go to the store and buy something with one of those new-fangled LASER thingies in it. (LASER was capitalized back then because it was still an acronym and had not yet become a thing)
#1
So the high crime cities would not help ICE, big deal. They are totally ineffective now. The only tool the Democrats have is the large mouth. The only thing the Democrats will do is stall and delay.
#2
Full press on by media and left in their efforts to stop Trump at whatever he does. His will, will not be broken. He wants results. No results he will press on ;if I understand the man, our president.
#3
Nancy sez a legitimately elected should be in jail and people here illegaly should run amuck. A week ago she raid she was done w/Trump but Frday she calls him. She aĺso sez DOJ Barr should be arrested, for no reason. Debased.
#4
The man just raised 24 million in 24 hours. Some of that will pay well for a sustained media campaign showing the Donks supporting those who murder, rape, and rob Americans. Pelosi and Schemer are making the ads for not just Trump's reelection, but taking back control of the House.
#9
My read is the Dems caved and Nancy offered some concession on immigration.
A side effect was all the blue cities coming out against enforcing our laws, given that the deportees already had their day in court and received a deportation notice.
They're shutting it down because the Oregon State Patrol is unable/unwilling to drag these guys back, and they don't dare admit that the idea is so bad that they know they can't get it passed. So we come up with some BS 'militia threat', and we know the rubes will buy that.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/23/2019 9:15
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#3
The Dems did the same damn thing in Wisconsin and in Texas. Why is it not okay for Republicans to copy a tactic from the Democrats?
#6
#3 The Dems did the same damn thing in Wisconsin and in Texas. Why is it not okay for Republicans to copy a tactic from the Democrats?
Posted by: 3dc 2019-06-23 09:44
3dc,
The answer from the other side boils down to, "Because shut up."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/23/2019 12:54
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#3
It's stuff like this that will bring the gold standard roaring back.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/23/2019 12:29
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#4
Coming soon: "Your Financial Account has been [FROZEN] because of [Irregular Transactions]. Only deposits into the Account will be allowed."
User: But I was only giving a campaign contribution to Trump...!?!"
[DAWN] Pakistain is cautiously optimistic that the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... will soon agree to initiation of an intra-Afghan dialogue, which could pave the way for an eventual political settlement of the Afghan conflict that is in its 18th year.
"The Afghan grinding of the peace processor has reached a promising but delicate stage. Pakistain will continue to play a role in helping the peace efforts with the expectation that this can soon transition to the next critical stage: an intra-Afghan dialogue. The international consensus is firmly in favour of this," Pakistain’s permanent representative at the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Dr Maleeha Lodhi told Dawn by phone.
A breakthrough is expected at the seventh round of talks between the United States and the Taliban expected to take place in Doha early next month. The six rounds held so far have remained stalemated because of Taliban’s refusal to talk to the Afghan government until the US gives a clear commitment and timeframe for withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
According to the Voice of America, a two-day intra-Afghan meeting, which would include government representatives, is being scheduled for July 7. The meeting will follow the Taliban-US talks. It should be recalled that a similar meeting planned for April had to be cancelled at the eleventh hour because of the Taliban’s reservations over the composition of the dialogue.
US Special Envoy for Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has, meanwhile, said: "As we prepare for the next round of talks with the Taliban, (it’s) important to remember (that) we seek a comprehensive peace agreement, NOT a withdrawal agreement." He has emphasised that any deal would comprise "four inter-connected parts: counterterrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, intra-Afghan negotiations that lead to a political settlement; and a comprehensive & permanent ceasefire".
Afghanistan's Caped PresidentAshraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money... is due to visit Islamabad on June 27 for an attempt to reboot the bilateral relationship that has been deeply undermined by mutual mistrust.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2019
00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Hong Kong police on Saturday vowed to pursue anti-government protesters who launched a 15-hour siege of their headquarters as historic rallies aimed at ousting the city's pro-Beijing leader evolve.
Thousands of largely young protesters surrounded the headquarters throughout Friday and into the small hours of Saturday morning, the latest manifestation of angry demonstrations roiling Hong Kong.
The international finance hub has been rocked by the worst political unrest since its 1997 handover to China.
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[Jpost] Iris Hefets, spokeswoman for Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, confirmed that the German Bank for Social Economy pulled the plug on the group’s account because Jewish Voice refused to stop promoting the BDS campaign against Israel.
The Wiesenthal Center included the bank in its 2018 top 10 list of worst outbreaks of antisemitism.
The closure of the account follows a May German parliament resolution declaring BDS antisemitic.
Jewish Voice’s account with the bank was first exposed by the Post in 2016. The bank terminated the account in November of that year, but reopened it in 2017 after a campaign from pro-BDS and pro-Palestinian activists.
[Jpost] The Protestant Church of Germany has canceled an event that was scheduled to feature two hardcore pro-BDS activists, one of whom has ties to fund-raising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the EU and the US have designated a terrorist organization.
“We at Church Day have a clear attitude and have therefore asked the @rosaluxstiftung to disinvite the controversial speakers or to cancel the event,” the church tweeted on Thursday. “The foundation has canceled the event planned for Friday.”
Church Day is a Protestant mass event that is being held this year in the city of Dortmund from June 19-23. The tweet cancelling the event was sent to the Church Day’s more than 7,200 followers.
The @rosaluxstiftung is the Twitter feed for the left-wing Rosa Luxemburg Foundation that is affiliated with the The Left Party – a German political party in the Bundestag filled with scores of anti-Israel MPs.
The news website Ruhrbarone first broke the story about the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation hosting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activists: South African Islamic theologian Farid Esack, chair of BDS South Africa, and Protestant theologian Ulrich Duchrow, who has praised Hamas “as a serious political force with great social depth.”
[AnNahar] Leb says that complete border control between Leb and Syria is very difficult because of intertwined boundaries that also extend along a large distance of about 360 km which negatively affects the security and economy of the country, Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday.
"The main factor that makes it very difficult to completely control the Lebanese-Syrian border is that it is very large (about 360 km) and intertwined in many locations," military sources told the daily on condition of anonymity.
Lebanese officials have long recognized the existence of illegal crossings between Leb and Syria dating back to the 1970s, through which people and goods are smuggled, which negatively affects the security and economy of the country without succeeding in putting an end to this phenomenon, said the daily.
But the recognition by Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil a few days ago of the existence of more than 124 smuggling points in Leb, he said "threatens the economy of the country, contributes to the public deficit and reduces imports." He also spoke about the "contribution of some parties" in these violations and whether there was a serious official decision to terminate them.
The military sources said that despite all of this, the situation has greatly improved especially after the "Dawn of Outskirts" battle launched by the army in 2017, that expelled holy warriors of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terror group from Lebanese border land.
They pointed out that currently, the border control is greatly dependent on control towers, barriers and patrols, because deploying army elements on the entire border is not possible because of the limited potentials.
"Absolute control of the border is almost impossible, mainly in North of Leb, where the land is largely intertwined," they said.
People and goods are smuggled through illegal crossings between Leb and Syria, especially after the closure of the border to displaced persons. They are forced to issue official residence permits and pay fees. They also smuggle cigarettes, electronic devices, fruits and vegetables, marble, poultry and other goods.
Due to smuggling, the Lebanese government loses an estimated $600 million in customs expenses.
During the discussion of the draft 2019 state budget in Cabinet and during the recent meetings of the Higher Council for Defense, a decision was made to control these crossings to ensure that these funds go to the treasury and reduce the deficit.
[IsraelTimes] Cybersecurity firms see surge in attempts to gain access to American government agencies, oil and gas sectors.
“This is not a remote war (anymore),” said Sergio Caltagirone, vice president of threat intelligence at Dragos, Inc. “This is one where Iranians could quote unquote bring the war home to the United States.”
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has increased its offensive cyberattacks against the US government and critical infrastructure as tensions have grown between the two nations, cybersecurity firms say.
Continued on Page 49
[AnNahar] Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an diplomats have reportedly advised Leb to stay impartial from any military confrontation that could take place in the gulf, amid escalating US-Iranian tensions, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday.
Well-informed Lebanese ministerial sources said "several European and non-European diplomatic sources have advised senior Lebanese officials to safeguard Leb from being entangled in any confrontation that could take place in the Gulf," in reference to Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... party, said the daily.
The sources quoted diplomats as stressing the need for "restraint and not to provide any pretext that could be exploited by Israel or others to threaten the stability in Leb."
They said it is a "proactive advice so that Leb can take all the precautions and not be dragged into uncalculated reactions."
Earlier in June, amid escalating US-Iranian tensions, Hizbullah leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... warned that if there was a war against Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... the whole Middle East region would "erupt."
"We have precision missiles in Leb, and enough to be able to change the face of the region," said the head of the Iran-backed movement.
[ToloNews] The peace marchers who met with the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... earlier this month held a gathering in the city of Lashkargah in the southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province on Saturday, where they reiterated their call for a ceasefire to expedite the peace efforts.
Dozens of Helmand residents attended the gathering who chanted the slogans of "war is enough", "no to war" and "we want a ceasefire".
The calls for a ceasefire has been rejected even when the peace marchers had a few days stay in Taliban-influenced Musa Qala district in Helmand during the Eid al-Fitr earlier in June.
The group has said that a ceasefire "will only benefit foreigners" and that they will not agree on it until there are foreign troops in the country.
"We went to Taliban-controlled areas and we talked for three hours but unfortunately Taliban did not allow us to meet and talk with the residents," Iqbal Khyber, head of the People’s Peace Movement, under which the peace marchers are operating.
"We want to know why the Taliban did not allow us [to talk to residents who are living in areas under their influence] and what actually the Taliban want to hide?" Khyber asked.
"We call on the Taliban that there is no option except peace and we ask them to announce a ceasefire and expedite the grinding of the peace processor," said Abdul Khaliq, a member of the movement.
Those who attended the gathering said the people, especial the residents of the southern provinces, are tired of the ongoing war in the country.
"We are tired of the war. We have lost our relatives in the conflicts. We want peace," said a Helmand resident who has lost her son in a clash between Afghan forces and the Taliban in the province.
"We have the support of the people with us and we will raise our voice for peace across the country. We call on the other residents to cooperate with us," said Abdullah, a Helmand resident.
THE HELMAND PEACE CONVOY
The People’s Peace Movement, also called the Helmand Peace Convoy, initially started their marches for peace when a group of at least a dozen activists staged a protest in the city of Lashkargah last year in March 2018 against an attack that killed around 16 people that month. About a month later, the activists left Helmand and marched on foot towards Kabul.
The activists walked through towns and villages, crossed provinces and met with local residents along the way. For 38 days, they walked and as they progressed, so their numbers grew.
About 700kms later, the group of eight had grown to an estimated 100. They arrived in Kabul on June 18 and handed over demands for a ceasefire and peace to both the Afghan government and the Taliban.
During their stay in Kabul, they held sit-in protests outside diplomatic offices in Kabul. They also met with President Ghani on a Kabul street where they asked him to accelerate the peace efforts.
The activists, whose ages ranged from 17 to 65, came from all walks of life and include students, athletes and farmers among others. It was these and other activists that then extended their walk from Kabul to Balkh.
Investigators pleaded Saturday for members of the public to come forward with information that could help them determine why a pickup truck hauling a trailer collided with a group of 10 motorcycles on a rural highway, killing seven bikers.
The crash in remote northern New Hampshire involved members of Marine JarHeads MC, a motorcycle club that includes Marines and their spouses, authorities said. The tragedy sent shockwaves through New England's communities of motorcyclists and military veterans, which often overlap.
"When something like this happens, we all feel it," said Cat Wilson, who organizes a motorcycle charity event in Massachusetts and is a friend of some of the crash victims. "There is no tighter community than our biker community."
Authorities identified the pickup driver as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, an employee of a Springfield, Massachusetts, company called Westfield Transport.
Zhukovskyy survived the accident, did not need to be hospitalized and has not been charged, authorities said, but they didn't address details on his whereabouts. A phone listing for him couldn't be found.
Dartanyan Gasanov, the owner of Westfield Transport, told The Boston Globe that he planned to talk to investigators Monday and has been unable to reach Zhukovskyy, who has not been answering phone calls.
The National Transportation Safety Board is among the agencies investigating. Authorities asked for the public's help in the form of videos, photos or other information about the accident or the vehicles involved.
"This is one of the worst tragic incidents that we have investigated here in the state," New Hampshire State Police Col. Chris Wagner said at a Saturday news conference in nearby Lancaster. "It's going to be a very lengthy investigation."
A 2016 Dodge 2500 pickup truck towing a flatbed trailer of the kind used to haul cars collided with the bikers around 6:30 p.m. Friday on U.S. 2, a two-lane highway in Randolph, police said. Randolph is about a two-hour drive north of Concord, the capital, and a three-hour drive from Boston.
Along with the seven dead, state police said, three people were taken to hospitals. Two of them were released Saturday. Police did not provide names of the injured or dead but said they could release the names of victims as early as Sunday.
The road reopened Saturday, and skid marks were still visible on the road, which has mountains and fields as a backdrop. A patch of burned grass remained.
Bill Brown, a 73-year-old military veteran and motorcyclist, arrived at the scene near a gentle curve in the road to plant flags, calling the victims "brothers in arms" and vowing to keep riding.
Members of the motorcycle community are already organizing help for the victims' families, Wilson said.
A small memorial was held at a church in nearby Berlin on Saturday evening.
The pickup truck was on fire when emergency crews arrived. Witnesses described a "devastating" scene as bystanders tried to help riders lying in the road.
A photo posted by WMUR-TV showed motorcycles and wreckage scattered across the highway and a truck on the shoulder in flames.
The crash created a chaotic scene in the town of about 300 people.
"There was debris everywhere," said Miranda Thompson, 21, of Manchester, who was several cars back and recalled seeing a truck in flames on the side of the highway and six motorcycles.
"People were in the grass," she said. "There were people putting tourniquets on people, trying to make sure they didn't move."
Cairo (IraqiNews.com) ‐ Libya’s coasties says it has intercepted Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... -bound vessels carrying nearly 200 migrants colonists, including women, off the country’s Mediterranean coast, the U.S.-based News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
Spokesman Ayoub Gassim said Saturday that five rubber boats carrying 199 migrants colonists were intercepted over the past several days near the capital, Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... He says the coasties intercepted 39 migrants colonists Wednesday in two boats, another boat with 17 migrants colonists Thursday and two more with 143 migrants colonists Friday.
All were Africans, except eight from Bangladesh. They were given humanitarian and medical aid, then taken to refugee camps in Tripoli.
Libya became a major conduit for African migrants colonists and refugees fleeing to Europe after the 2011 NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... -backed uprising that ousted and killed longtime ruler Muammar Qadaffy ...The late megalomaniac dictator of Libya, admired everywhere for his garish costumes, funny hats, harem of cutie bodyguards, and incoherent ravings. As far as is known, he is the only person who's ever declared jihad on Switzerland...
...thus post-Qadaffy Libya fulfilled the threat President Qadaffy had made to Europe if they did not give him whatever it was that he’d wanted at the moment. But at least he isn’t around to make threats anymore...
Libyan authorities have stepped up efforts to stem the flow of migrants colonists, with European assistance.
[FDD.ORG] Paraguayan authorities extradited Nader Mohamad Farhat yesterday to Miami, where he faces criminal charges of money laundering. Farhat’s case promises to reveal the intricacies and magnitude of trade-based money laundering in the Tri-Border Area (TBA)
...we have a bunch of articles in the archive about jihadi groups in the TBA, going back to 2003. Enjoy perusing, dear Reader...
of Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... , Brazil, and Paraguay, including the role played by Lebanese Hezbollah.
A Miami federal court will decide whether Farhat will be tried there or in New York, where he faces similar charges. In the case before the New York court, Farhat is an alleged co-conspirator in a case involving another Paraguayan national of Lebanese origin, Mahmoud Ali Barakat, and three other defendants who are accused of assisting in the laundering of drug monies from inside the U.S.
Court documents refer to Farhat as a "known money launderer for narcotics organizations and other illicit organizations," while media reports allege a possible connection to Hezbollah. According to a Department of Justice blurb announcing the indictment of his co-conspirators, Farhat participated in "an international money laundering scheme relying on the complexities of global trade, and the use of ... businesses here in New York and in Florida, to launder millions of dollars for transnational narcos and other bad actors." (The cases have since been merged.)
These cases highlight how Latin American narco mobs and other organized crime groups continue to exploit complex, trade-based schemes to launder their ill-gotten gains. Critically, many of the companies involved are in the United States, exposing the U.S. financial system to considerable reputational risk.
The case also reveals the growing importance of the TBA to this type of financial crime. Almost a decade ago, a large Drug Enforcement Administration investigation exposed the connection between Latin American narco mobs and Hezbollah financiers. The investigation focused on the Lebanese Canadian Bank and revealed Hezbollah’s use of extensive trade-based money laundering networks in Colombia and Venezuela, which laundered cartel drug money through West Africa and used car businesses in the United States before repatriating the funds to the cartels through Lebanese-based financial institutions.
Colombian cartels have now shifted some of their operations to Paraguay, making the landlocked country an important transit point for cocaine. Three years ago, another Lebanese national, Ali Issa Chamas, was arrested in the TBA and extradited to Miami, where he was sentenced in December 2017. Evidence obtained by the author from Paraguayan intelligence officials shows that Chamas had business ties to Colombia and to Brazilian drug syndicates. In July 2018, Paraguayan authorities raided a lab where Colombian nationals were found to be working on processing cocaine into fake charcoal as a way to ship the drug to the Middle East. The ringleader had previously worked for Colombian cartels.
There are good reasons for this shift. The TBA is well-known hub for contraband and the sale of counterfeit goods. With an estimated value of $18 billion a year, the TBA illicit economy has gained prominence for organized crime groups in search of opportunities to move merchandise and launder revenue.
It will likely be months before Farhat and his co-conspirators go to trial. Court documents suggest that the electronic evidence alone, seized in part during raids on Farhat’s home and the money exchange house he ran, includes several terabytes of material. U.S. law enforcement should be aggressive in its investigation of Hezbollah-related criminal activity in the TBA, which is becoming an increasingly important source of revenue for the Lebanese terrorist organization.
This article starring:
Tri-Border Area
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2019
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#1
Lebanon tried to block his extradition. While Hezbollah’s arsenal and fighters are concentrated in Lebanon and Syria, latin America is an indispensable theatre of operations for the criminal networks that generate much of Hezbollah’s revenue.
Paraguay hosts a significant money laundering operation connected to Hezbollah in the 'Triple Frontier', where Paraguay intersects with Argentina and Brazil. It has local operatives involved in cocaine trafficking, with senior Hezbollah commanders overseeing operations and paying off Paraguayan officials. Ever since the Trump administration's attention was piqued by the Triple Frontier, federal/DEA operations have begun to unearth illicit trade worth billions. Farhat was arrested by Paraguayan police on insistence from the US Treasury, and the US demanded immediate extradition. Two days later, Lebanese foreign ministry officials demanded the Paraguayan attorney general to resist the US attempt and refuse extradition. This is the kind of pull they had in the Obumble regime and had grown accustomed to it.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Sudanese protest leaders said Saturday that an Æthiopian envoy mediating with the ruling generals has proposed forming a civilian-majority governing body for a political transition in Sudan.
Citing a compromise blueprint for the transition which they saw, two protest leaders told AFP it suggests the creation of a 15-member body led by civilians.
Tension between the protest leaders and generals, who seized power after ousting President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. in April, has been high since a deadly crackdown on a protest camp in Khartoum killed dozens earlier this month.
The crackdown carried out by men in military uniforms came after talks between the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the composition of the new ruling body and who should lead it - a civilian or soldier.
Days after the crackdown, Æthiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed tried to mediate between the two sides.
His envoy on Saturday Mahmoud Dreir was to discuss the compromise blueprint for a political transition with protest leaders.
One of them, Amjad Farid, said the document "asserts the previous agreements, as well as a proposal to form the sovereign council of eight civilians and seven military."
He said of the eight civilians, seven would be from the umbrella protest movement the Alliance for Freedom and Change.
Another protest leader Madani Abbas Madani also confirmed that compromise calls for a civilian-majority governing body.
In previous talks, protest leaders and the generals had agreed on a three-year transition period and to form a 300-member parliament, with two-third politicians from the protest movement.
Æthiopia stepped up its efforts to resolve the political crisis in Sudan since the deadly June 3 dispersal of a long-running protest camp outside army headquarters in Khartoum.
At least 128 people have been killed in the crackdown, the majority of them on that day, doctors linked to the protest movement say.
The health ministry put the June 3 corpse count at 61 nationwide.
The generals deny they ordered the army HQ protest broken up, insisting they authorized only a limited operation to clear drug pushers from around the camp.
It expressed "regret" over the "excesses" that happened on June 3.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2019
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Good idea. Heat is a big problem for robots. For example, look at all the times HillaryBot overheated, sending her stability systems into uncontrolled oscillation.
[KhaamaPress] Heavy festivities are underway between Talibs and ISIS holy warriors in Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... A senior government official in Kunar said the festivities are underway in remote areas of Chapa Dara and Manogi districts.
The official did not disclose further informatoin regarding the ongoing festivities and possible casualties inflicted on Taliban ...Arabic for students... and ISIS hard boys.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream... the official confirmed that the Afghan Special Forces killed 5 ISIS commanders during an operation in Nurgal district of Kunar.
The military officials had earlier said the Special Forces have killed 4 ISIS murderous Moslems during the operation.
In the meantime, the official said the Special Forces also arrested 14 ISIS murderous Moslems and confiscated some weapons and ammunition during the operation.
The anti-government armed murderous Moslems including Taliban and ISIS sympathizers have not commented in this regard so far.
The security situation in some districts of Kunar province has tanked during the recent years.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/23/2019
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[Jpost] Paleostinian officials on Saturday dismissed the US administration’s plan to spend billions of dollars in the Paleostinian economy over 10 years and said they remain opposed to the "peace to prosperity" conference scheduled to take place this week in Manama, Bahrain. "We seethe. It's what we do. Don't try to help us better ourselves"
The officials’ response came shortly after the White House published the economic portion of its long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East.
Munir al-Jaghoub, a bigwig with the Paleostinian ruling Fatah faction, said in response that the US administration was proposing a solution based on Arab money to "kill the political ambitions of the Paleostinian people."
Continued on Page 49
[BREITBART] A Florida man’s trial for burglary was delayed after he allegedly attempted to throw feces at the judge and missed.
Dorleans Philidor, 33, was sitting in a wheelchair in the courtroom before closing arguments on Friday when he "cast feces" in the direction of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lisa Walsh and missed, the Miami Herald reported. "Dorleans Philidor", uh huh
County law enforcement officers and corrections officers swarmed the scene while lawyers bravely ran away from the commotion.
"It’s protein! It’s good for you!" Philidor yelled, according to witnesses. Poop is not protein, and it's not good for you. Just making sure everyone knows.
Cleaning staff sanitized the courtroom before the trial was allowed to proceed. None of the jurors witnessed the incident.
Miami-Dade Circuit Court spokeswoman Eunice Sigler told the News Agency that Dare Not be Named Philidor defecated on himself while imprisoned in a holding cell Thursday.
Jurors then deliberated on Friday afternoon in a separate area for an hour before finding Philidor not guilty of the burglary charge against him. But despite the thumbs up from the jury, Philidor will not be leaving jail anytime soon.
Philidor is facing another trial for a grand theft auto charge, and it is unclear whether he will face charges for throwing feces in the courtroom.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2019
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#2
And of course dung beetles like poop. And lots of judges don't seem too different from dung beetles, so I can understand a Florida man's confusion...
[KhaamaPress] The security forces killed 10 Talibs during the operations in three provinces of the country.
The informed military sources said Friday that the Afghan Special Forces killed 4 Talibs during an operation in Gurziwan district of Faryab.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch shot Black Bart's knife out of his hand...... the security forces conducted an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Bala Boluk district of Farah and killed 3 Taliban ...Arabic for students... fighters.
The security forces killed also conducted a similar airstrike in Shinkai district of Zabul and killed 2 Taliban fighters.
Furthermore, an airstrike killed 1 Taliban fighter in Shah Joy district of Zabul province.
This comes as the security situation in some districts of Faryab, Farah and Zabul provinces has tanked during the recent years.
Talibs are active in remote and restive areas of the three provinces and often conduct terrorist related activities.
[AnNahar] The head of the U.N. agency for Paleostinian refugees said Friday he hopes donors will be as generous this year as they were last year after the United States cut all funding for the $1.2 billion program to help some 5 million Paleostinians.
Pierre Krahenbuhl said at a news conference that 42 countries and institutions increased their funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency last year. He called that "unprecedented," adding that it was also "very remarkable" that every single pledge in 2018 was honored.
He praised the strong mobilization of funds from Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... , the Gulf countries, Asia, the Americas and beyond, adding that "we're very inspired by that result."
Krahenbuhl said the agency is pursuing the same appeal for $1.2 billion this year and hopes donors will pledge that amount at a conference Tuesday at U.N. headquarters.
UNRWA was established after the war surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948 to aid the 700,000 Paleostinians who fled or were forced from their homes.
Today, it provides education to 500,000 Paleostinian students, health care at 144 centers that handle 8.5 million patient visits a year, and social services to some 5 million Paleostinians in the West Bank and Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip as well as Jordan, Syria and Leb. The agency is also a major employer in the Paleostinian areas.
Krahenbuhl said UNRWA has covered its expenses for the first five months of 2019 "in a fairly stable way ... and that is positive."
But, he said, "in June, we started entering deficit figures."
At Tuesday's pledging conference, Krahenbuhl said, "If every single donor would preserve and maintain their level of contribution reached in 2018, we would be able to cover the financial needs of UNRWA."
He said he will be appealing for immediate funds to avoid any break in services.
The big question, Krahenbuhl said, is whether there will be enough money for schools to open in late August and early September.
The U.S. government contributed $360 million to UNRWA in 2017, but the Trump administration cut that to just $60 million last year and to nothing this year. "You'll get nothing and like it, Spalding!"
In announcing the total cutoff in funding, the Trump administration called UNRWA an "irredeemably flawed operation." It said the U.S. was no longer willing to pay for a "very disproportionate share" of UNRWA's costs and criticized what it called the agency's "fundamental business model and fiscal practices" and its "endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries."
The UNRWA pledging conference is taking place on the same day that the architects of the long-awaited U.S. plan for Israeli-Paleostinian peace ‐ Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and the president's special envoy for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt ‐ are rolling out their economic plan for the Paleostinians at a workshop in Bahrain. The Paleostinians are boycotting.
Krahenbuhl told news hounds that "contrary to what you might expect, I do not see any elements of tension between a conference and workshop that is being organized in Bahrain and our own focus."
"Our focus is a very immediate one," he said, stressing that UNRWA has to ensure education, health care and food for 1 million Paleostinians in Gaza and other services "not in two years, but today and tomorrow."
Krahenbuhl said UNRWA is focused on delivering on its mandate immediately while the Bahrain discussions "have value" but are not immediate.
"We are just going to be very, very focused on our event ... and to seek to mobilize all the support that we can," he said.
#2
“The bell marker, which memorializes the California Missions and an imagined route of travel that once connected them, is viewed by the Amah Mutsun and many other California indigenous people as a racist symbol that glorifies the domination and dehumanization of their ancestors,”
“The California University System, which memorializes Progressives and an imagined route of the Left that once connected them, is viewed by the American people as a racist symbol that glorifies the domination and dehumanization of them and Western Civilization,”
#3
how do ppl have s much free time too be offended bt everything?
Posted by: chris ||
06/23/2019 8:21
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#4
Remember when Bath House Barry refused to negotiate with Republicans and snarked "I won?" Time to snark right back to the "indigenous" (says who? Can you prove it?) complainers, "you lost..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/23/2019 9:04
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This article by a Columbia University Prof, is quite telling on the nature of politics the Muslim Brotherhood wants to encourage and train migrant and foreign students in.
Hamid Dabashi Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He received a dual PhD in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He wrote his dissertation on Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time. Professor Dabashi has taught and delivered lectures in many North American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities.
Professor Dabashi has written twenty-five books, edited four, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, and comparative literature to world cinema and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). His books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan.
His books include Authority in Islam [1989]; Theology of Discontent [1993]; Truth and Narrative [1999]; Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future [2001]; Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran [2000]; Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema [2007]; Iran: A People Interrupted [2007]; and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema[2006]. His most recent work includes Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest (2011), The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (2012), Corpus Anarchicum: Political Protest, Suicidal Violence, and the Making of the Posthuman Body (2012), The World of Persian Literary Humanism (2012) and Being A Muslim in the World (2013).
[AlJazeera] "Saudi Arabia Declares War on America's Muslim Congresswomen," a title ran in Foreign Policy magazine recently, where we find out: "Gulf Arab monarchies are using racism, bigotry, and fake news to denounce Washington's newest history-making politicians.” Meaning dem misadventures, Tlaib and Omar
So, why would the Saudis, or any other tyranny in the Arab and Muslim world whose very existence is dependent on the benevolent generosity of the US military, pick up a fight with these two newly elected members of the US Congress? My guess would be because they're on the other side in one of those Moslem family feuds that periodically result in major mustache cursing, followed by heaps of corpses.
According to the FP, "academics, media outlets, and commentators close to Persian Gulf governments have repeatedly accused Omar, Rashida Tlaib ... and Abdul El-Sayed (who made a failed bid to become governor of Michigan) of being secret members of the Moslem Brüderbund who are hostile to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE." MB is of course owned and operated by the govt of Qatar, which is currently aligned with the Medes and the Persians against the Saudis, the UAE, and the civlized world.
The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US as a scary monster predates the brief fortune of leading member and deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. In the Arab world, however, it was in the aftermath of the Arab Spring that the ruling regimes of Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE considered it their number one enemy. Because of Hamas, Israel joined these Arab states in their shared fear and loathing of political Islam.
The Muslim American youth, being politically active at home, is also very much vocal about the tyranny in their homelands, readily exposing the deep corruption and the evil banalities of the regimes that rule them.
And this is what is scaring, not just the Saudi elites, but also the Egyptian, the Emirati, the Iranian, etc regimes in the Arab and Muslim worlds which detest freedom of expression. They would very much like these outspoken Muslim Americans back home where they can arrest, jail, torture, and murder them in peace. It goes on to criticize the saudi-zionist alliance and a number of such make-believe conspiracies for the plight of muslims in America. Islamophobia is word thrown about every sentence or so. Some stand out in their clear encouragement of hostility toward America and its foreign policies.
With Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... from one side, bourgeois feminism Meaning only islamist hijab wearers should vote
at the service of war machines on the other, and the Saudi-Zionist alliance aiming to silence and kill voices of Muslim dissent, Muslim living in the US and elsewhere have their work cut out for them.
This article starring:
Authority in Islam
Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future
Hamid Dabashi
Harvard University
Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran
#1
commentator indicates that the Moslem Brotherhood and Iran are allies
not really, more realistically they are frenemies
they are both opposed to Saudi govt but the MB has also opposed Assad in Syria where Iran has supported Assad
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/23/2019 5:02
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#2
He writes without a sense of irony: "Muslims living in the US are emerging as a peculiar vintage. Their small number is not a significant portion of the population but their cumulative resistance to the diabolical Islamophobia that is coming their way in their adopted country is making them stronger citizens of a fragile democracy."
Keane on Fox: Trump was told "that the Iranian national leadership was furious with the tactical commander that shot down the drone because they clearly did not want that provocation to take place. Based on those facts, new information to the president, he called off the strike.”
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2019
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#1
...They were furious with him because he hit the wrong target - there's indications they were trying to shoot down an airliner, and then say it was actually our fault because we had patrol/surveillance burds in the area.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/23/2019 8:11
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#8
Drone seems not to have been in Iranian airspace but was certainly close and may have been 'taunting' to determine how Iran would respond - or not. Iranian response may have been a local 'mistake' or an authorized response. Higher officials may have thrown local command under the bus for reason or for plausible deniability. Higher officials may deny the allegation that they admitted the attack was a mistake because the allegation is wrong/a lie or to save face. Lots of plausible scenarios, lots of possibly justified lies... I personally suspect there were back channel discussions and this is the way that was found to de-escalate military tension, because I don't think either country wants a real war, though both have political 'needs' to look warlike.
#10
How cute that you'd use the imperative
Disputin' the neocon narrative.
Yer huffin' and puffin'
And Hatfield-rebuffin'
Is futile... but very aperitive.
Herb hosted a prosy symposium:
No wine, but the whine, was it rosy,
Imparting a buzz
To his foes... so they dozed
As he endlessly droned... not ad nauseam.
Also, did I call AOC an expert? Maven, dammit, maven! Dementia's a helluva fug.
"Unknown buyers" are buying 30 houses a week in Old Mosul. Sometimes they buy 20 house a day. People are leaving to Kurdistan because they have not even basic services. Govt. isn't providing anything. UNDP did nothing so far regarding infrastructure or what makes people return.
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06/23/2019
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#1
Just a guess, but it seems like "basic services" will be lacking until enough of a certain type of person sells their house for a song and moves away. When enough of a certain type people leave, "basic services" will magically arrive along with a different certain type of person who will buy the houses, probably at a profit to the "unknown buyers." Hmmmm...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/23/2019 8:58
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[Jpost] Three days ahead of the Bahrain summit, the White House unexpectedly released the financial part of its Middle East peace plan on Saturday, highlighting a potential $50 billion in investments over the next decade.
Under the title "Peace to Prosperity ‐ The Economic Plan: A New Vision for the Paleostinian People," the Trump administration published a 40-page document that lays out a detailed vision in all aspects of life, from roads and rail to taxes and education, which it says is to be built upon three pillars: "the people, the economy and the government."
According to the document, "with the potential to facilitate more than $50 billion in new investment over 10 years, Peace to Prosperity represents the most ambitious and comprehensive international effort for the Paleostinian people to date. It has the ability to fundamentally transform the West Bank and Gazoo
Continued on Page 49
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Four civilian workers were killed in a terrorist attack near el-Arish International Airport in Egypt’s North Sinai province, an Al Arabiya correspondent reports.
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported quoting Egyptian officials that Lions of Islam have attacked construction workers in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, killing at least four civilian workers.
The officials say Saturday’s attack took place in the Mediterranean city of el-Arish as workers were building a fence around the city’s airport. They say the Lions of Islam maimed five other workers and burned two vehicles.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
No group immediately grabbed credit for the attack, which bore hallmarks of an affiliate of the ISIS.
Egypt has been battling Islamic Lions of Islam for years, and the country’s security forces launched an all-out offensive against Lions of Islam in February last year.
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Senior spokesman for General Staff of #Iranian Armed Forces warned #US against mistake of taking military action on Iran, saying any attack will draw #Tehran’s crushing response, cost the US dearly, and blow up a powder keg in regionhttps://t.co/UqCgW4rgcApic.twitter.com/sIwrmm3cr7
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#1
A new science of war has a chance to emerge now that drones and not people are the casualties. It will be interesting how Trump plays this new way of war.
In the past, the loss of military assets also meant the loss of life because those assets required humans to be at the controls. Now, unmanned is being relied on heavily by the Trump admin in the military and a first strike against these assets does not mean the loss of life any longer so the enemy just as well be shooting blanks and may get discouraged at a non response as long as life is not lost on our side and more heat from painful sanctions can be enacted.
Also, it seems that Trump has found a way to make threats that elicit a painful response from opponents that results in new negotiations in order to prevent him from pulling the trigger (Mexico illegal immigrants/threat of tariffs=Mexico activated their national guard to stop that; mobilizing to deport undocumented democrats then pulling back after demands by dems to negotiate immediately; threatening military action against Iran but stopping at the last minute and instead implementing more sanctions but at the same time offering to do lucrative deals that benefit their economy.
Trumps unique art of the deal is a bit unique compared to US past history in my opinion.
#2
The next Iranian shoot down of a US drone or targeting of a tanker will force Trump's resolve.My recommendation...start a 2nd carrier group on the way and remember the ole adage: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on ME!". He can only "push the button" or "grab the soap" now.
[KhaamaPress] The security forces killed 7 Talibs during the operations in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... and Uruzgan provinces.
The informed military sources said Saturday that the Afghan Special Forces killed 2 Talibs during an operation in Helmand province.
The Special Forces conducted the operation in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand.
The Special Forces also maimed another holy warrior and arrested 3 others during the operations.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch cautiously raised his hat over the edge of the horse trough on the end of a stick...... the Special Forces destroyed 75 pounds of homemade explosives, 4 pressure plates and other IED components during the same operation.
Furthermore, the security forces killed 5 Talibs by conducting Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... in Tarin Kot district of Uruzgan.
[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Special Forces killed 4 Lions of Islam of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria during an operation in Kunr province.
The informed military sources said Saturday that the Special Forces conducted the operation in Nurgal district of Kunar.
The Special Forces also detained 14 Lions of Islam of the terror group during the same operation.
The anti-government armed elements have not commented regarding the operations so far.
The security situation in some districts of Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... has tanked during the recent years.
Taliban ...Arabic for students... and ISIS Lions of Islam are active in some districts of the province and often conduct terrorist related activities.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth ordered the space pirate fleet to attack Zemblonia... the Afghan forces routinely counter-terrorism operations against the anti-government gangs in this province.
The U.S. forces also conduct regular Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in restive parts of the country to suppress Taliban and other anti-government hard boys.
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[Jpost] Security forces in Kenya killed three suspected bandidosfaceless myrmidons from Somalia's Islamist group al-Shabaab ...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa... after they attacked a police outpost in Garissa county near the border, police said on Saturday.
The incident happened on Friday night after the bandidosfaceless myrmidons raided a camp used by a border patrol police unit, according to a statement. No security personnel were maimed in the operation, it added.
"Our officers effectively engaged them and with quick reinforcement from special forces, the attackers were repulsed," police said. "The enemy suffered three fatalities during the incident."
Al-Shabaab frequently stages attacks in Kenya to put pressure on Nairobi to withdraw its soldiers from Somalia.
[KhaamaPress] The security forces conducted Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against the compound of a Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... commander in Farah province killing at least 6 Death Eaters.
The Police Headquarters of Farah in a statement said the security forces carried out the airstrikes in Rokan Village of Posht-e-Rod district.
The statement further added that the airstrikes targeted the compound of Taliban commander Syed Shafiq alias Fahim Agha.
The airstrikes also maimed five other Death Eaters, the Police Headquarters of Farah added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, there was only one thought in the mouse's mind: I can do this! I can do this! Then the trap sprung... the security forces conducted similar airstrikes in Gowhar area of Charsada district in Ghor province.
The Police Headquarters of Farah said the airstrikes destroyed a 75mm artillery, a 82mm mortar, 2 cycle of violences and a fighting position of Taliban.
The Talibs have not commented regarding the airstrikes so far.
The security situation in some districts of Farah and Ghor provinces has tanked during the recent years .
Talibs are active in the restive districts of the two provinces and often conduct terrorist related activities.
[Rudaw] Iraq and the Kurdistan Region’s aviation authorities have not rerouted commercial flights away from the Persian Gulf, nor have they discussed doing so in response to the shooting down of a US drone by an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Thursday, officials said Saturday. "Now boarding: Martyrdom Airlines Flights 647 and 182"
Major international airlines including Emirates and Etihad announced on Friday they are rerouting some of their flights to avoid a passenger jet being mistakenly identified as a military aircraft and potentially shot down.
The potential for such a disaster is fresh in the minds of airlines and policymakers following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... Air Flight 655 was accidentally shot down by the US Navy over the Strait of Hormuz on July 3, 1988, killing all 290 people on board.
Speaking to Rudaw English on Saturday, Anwar Hama Amin, commander of the Iraqi Air Force, said there had been no changes to the flight routes of airlines operating from Iraqi and the Kurdistan Region’s airports.
Amin downplayed the potential threat, saying aviation authorities have not even discussed the issue. In fact, Iraq’s airspace has seen an increase in flights in recent weeks, he added.
Sulaimani’s international airport told Rudaw English on Saturday there had been no changes to flight routes among its partner airlines.
Dana Mohammed, front man for Sulaimani International Airport, said: "There have not been any changes in the routes."
Airport management has not discussed the issue with airlines, but is monitoring the situation, he said. Responsibly for changing flight routes lies with the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority and the airlines themselves.
Rudaw English has approached the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority and Erbil and Baghdad’s international airports for comment, but is yet to receive a reply.
The Kurdistan Region’s airports saw a significant rise in the number of travelers in the first five months of 2019.
According to data supplied to Rudaw by Erbil and Sulaimani airports, 901,220 passengers arrived and departed between January 1 and May 31 ‐ an average of 6,000 people per day. Erbil alone saw 369,779 departures and 361,441 arrivals ‐ a total of 731,220.
[BREITBART] Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) is not deterred by the sexual assault allegations leveled against him, saying he is still "thinking seriously" about a gubernatorial run in 2021.
The embattled Democrat told news hounds at a roundtable discussion on Thursday he was "hopeful" about his political future, especially given how the allegations have raised his profile across the commonwealth.
"Many people a year ago would not have recognized me, now they really do," Fairfax said. "People come up to me at gas stations, they say, ’Hey, we recognize you. We love you. We know what they are saying about you is false.'"
"I’m very hopeful about the future," he added. "We’ve gotten a lot of encouragement about future political steps. I’m thinking very seriously about 2021."
First elected in 2017, Fairfax was widely expected to succeed incumbent Gov. Ralph Coonman Northam ...Governor of Virginia, another Dem Great White Hope. He won election by calling his Publican opponent Ed Gillespie a racist, but then, don't they all?... this year when the latter was embroiled in a blackface scandal. Hope for a smooth succession, however, was dashed when two women came forward to accuse him of sexual assaulting them in the mid-2000s.
Fairfax strongly denied the allegations. No, no! Certainly not! even hinting they were part of a smear campaign organized by Northam to save his governorship. In February, Fairfax compared himself to victims of lynching for the lack of due process he’s received since the allegations were made public. Despite the stringent defense, an overwhelming majority of the Democrat Party’s leadership in Virginia and nationally has called on him to step down.
Fairfax’s accusers, on the other hand, have lamented the lack of "action" since they came forward. Meredith Watson, who alleged that Fairfax raped her while both were students at Duke University, explicitly questioned why the Virginia General Assembly has not moved to investigate the allegations.
"I want some action from the Virginia legislature," Watson said in April. "I want the people of Virginia to know the truth, and I would like the Virginia legislature to do the right thing."
The accusations would likely be a big obstacle if Fairfax were to launch a bid for governor. Not only has Fairfax’s fundraising shrunk exponentially since the scandal, but his staff has been by rocked by high-profile departures.
Fairfax would also likely face a contested primary for the Democrat nomination. Both former Virginia Gov. Terry McAulliffe and Attorney General Mark Herring, who is embroiled in his own blackface controversy, have signaled their interest in the race.
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#1
given how the allegations have raised his profile across the commonwealth.
Now all he needs is a dead girl or a live boy and he has a lock on the governorship. Unless he has this PR thing totally backwards.
[AnNahar] A state of emergency was extended by Sri Lanka's President Saturday, going back on pledges to relax the tough laws introduced after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed 258 people.
Maithripala Sirisena said in a decree he believed there was a "public emergency" in the country, and was invoking provisions of the public security act extending the state of emergency.
The tough laws, granting sweeping powers to police and security forces to arrest and detain suspects, were due to expire on Saturday.
Just over 100 people, including 10 women, are in jug in connection with April's Easter Sunday suicide kabooms against three churches and three luxury hotels in Colombo.
In late May, Sirisena told diplomats -- from Australia, Canada, Japan, the US and Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an states -- the security situation was "99 percent back to normal" and he would allow the emergency laws to lapse by June 22.
He assured diplomats security forces had either detained or killed all those directly involved in the attacks, blamed on a local jihadi group and claimed by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group.
There was no immediate word from the government why Sirisena changed his mind, but security remains tight in the capital.
The emergency can be declared for a month at a time, and parliament must ratify it within 10 days.
The continuation of the emergency came as police announced criminal investigations against several top officers, including the Inspector-General, for negligence and lapses ahead of the bombings.
Sirisena himself has been criticised for failing to act on precise Indian intelligence that jihadists were about to hit Christian churches and other targets in Sri Lanka.
A parliamentary public inquiry has been told Sirisena -- who is also the minister of defence and law and order -- failed to follow proper national security protocols.
The mainly Buddhist nation of 21 million people was about to mark a decade since ending a 37-year-long Tamil separatist war when the Islamic Lions of Islam struck.
#1
J Imran Khan, 32, interrogated by NIA in Kochi(India), revealed information leading to another Srilankan module that has evaded arrested by SL police so far. It is a family and several symps that seem to be aiding them. The fellow had a conversation with one of the members and arranged to have money wired to them.
Last saturday another Indian agency came across a 'post-attack video' from the laptop of a jihadi in a dorm in Trivandrum , the kind jihadists post after committing an act. The video alluded to having 'shown the Sinhalese and Buddhists their place', and that they should fear their community and not target muslims and so on and so forth. Naturally, the video is alarming as no attack has taken place on the threatened communities yet.
[IsraelTimes] State news agency says Jalal Haji Zavar confessed to spying for US for money; ex-wife serving 15-year sentence for ’involvement in espionage.
Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... has executed a "defense ministry contractor" convicted of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency, semi-official news agency ISNA reported Saturday.
"The execution sentence was carried out for Jalal Haji Zavar, a contractor for the defense ministry’s aerospace organization who spied for the CIA and the American government," ISNA reported, quoting the Iranian military.
ISNA said he was convicted by Iran’s military court and that he was executed, at an unspecified time, at the Rajayi Shahr prison in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran.
The agency did not say when Zavar was arrested, noting however that his contract with the defence ministry had been terminated during the Iranian year 1389 (March 2010-2011).
He was identified as a spy by the defense ministry’s intelligence unit, ISNA said.
During the investigation the suspect "explicitly confessed to spying for the CIA" in return for money, ISNA said, adding that "documents and espionage devices were found at his house."
Zavar’s ex-wife was convicted of "involvement in espionage" and is serving a 15-year jail sentence, the agency said.
The report comes days after Iran said it had dismantled a "new" US spy network in the country linked to the CIA, amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Investors could snap up sold-off Ottoman Turkish assets or dump them with force depending on the outcome of Sunday’s re-run election in Istanbul and, days later, a high-stakes meeting between President Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... The Ottoman Turkish lira, stocks and bonds have sagged since March amid uncertainty over how the vote might affect Erdogan’s economic policies, and strained relations between Ankara and Washington over The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... ’s purchase of Russian S-400 defense systems.
The outcomes may set the stage for a rebound or a further slump in the lira by the end of next week, bankers and analysts say. The currency has lost 10% against the dollar so far this year, following a 30% fall in last year’s currency crisis.
The stock market, at its lowest levels in dollar terms in about a decade, might revive after the Istanbul election if foreign investors regain trust in Turkey, said Mehmet Gerz, who heads Ata Portfoy fund management firm. Graveyard, whistling,- some assembly required
When the initial March vote was scrapped, investors questioned the integrity of Turkey’s democratic institutions and wondered whether the months of additional campaigning would distract from needed economic reforms.
A slew of unorthodox government measures to protect the lira raised further questions.
"Ottoman Turkish stocks are at the cheapest level in a decade," Gerz said, adding "the political framework that will be formed after the election" would set the new direction.
On March 31, the main opposition party pulled off a mayoral victory over Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, a stinging defeat for the president seen in part as a rejection of his handling of the economy that tipped into recession last year.
Another AKP loss on Sunday could weaken his iron grip on power, but also restore some faith in democracy. Concerns over the central bank’s autonomy, as well as a separate diplomatic row with Washington, set off last year’s lira plunge.
In May, when the re-run was announced, foreign investors sold a net $345 million of Ottoman Turkish stocks.
Compounding the pressure, locals have flocked to foreign currencies since last year’s lira crisis, with forex deposits and funds including precious metals held by Ottoman Turkish local individuals and institutions rising to a record high by June 7.
The trend could change, however, and confidence in Ottoman Turkish assets increase if reforms are put in place "to get back to rational and rule-based economic management," Gerz said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
sounds familiar - keep re-running the election until it has the 'correct' outcome
It doesn’t sound like it’s a War on Terror event, so it’s on Page 3 until further information comes in.
[IsraelTimes] Condition of top general unknown and internet in country cut amid reports of gunfire in capital overnight and unrest elsewhere in country.
Æthiopia’s army chief of staff has been shot, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on television Sunday as the government said it had thwarted an attempted coup in a regional state of this Horn of Africa nation.
Abiy took to national television in the early hours of the morning dressed in military fatigues and announced that army chief Seare Mekonnen had been shot, an AFP correspondent said. His condition was unknown.
The internet was cut in Æthiopia, and more details were not immediately available.
The United States embassy issued alerts about reported gunfire in the capital Addis Ababa, and violence around Amhara’s main city Bahir Dar.
"The embassy is aware of reports of gunfire in Addis Ababa. Chief of mission personnel are advised to shelter in place," the embassy said in one of its two alerts.
Earlier, Abiy’s office announced that an attempted coup had taken place in Amhara, one of nine autonomous regions in the country.
A statement from his office did not give details on who was believed responsible for the attack, the latest blow to his efforts to stabilize and reform the Horn of Africa nation.
"The coup attempt in Amhara regional state is against the constitution and is intended to scupper the hard won peace of the region," said the statement.
"This illegal attempt should be condemned by all Æthiopians and the federal government has full capacity to overpower this gang."
No details were given of the targets of the attack in the second-most populous state in the country, headed by regional president Ambachew Mekonen.
A journalist in the regional capital Bahir Dar told AFP shooting had begun shortly after sunset and continued for several hours before calming.
Since coming to power in April 2018 after two years of anti-government unrest, Abiy has been hailed for his efforts to end the iron-fisted rule of his predecessors.
He has embarked on economic reforms, allowed dissident groups back into the country, sought to crack down on rights abuses and arrested dozens of top military and intelligence officials
He also sealed a peace deal with neighboring 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... , a longtime foe.
But he has battled a surge in tensions between ethnic groups in the diverse country ‐ usually over land and resources ‐ leading to deadly violence in the nation of more than 100 million people.
Over a million people have been displaced by the ethnic festivities, which analysts attribute to multiple causes, such as the weakening of the once all-powerful ruling EPRDF and different groups trying to take advantage of opportunities presented by the political transition.
The coup attempt comes a year after a grenade explosion at a rally Abiy was addressing left two people dead.
[NKNEWS.ORG] North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday "reached a consensus on important issues" and agreed to develop bilateral relations regardless of changes that may occur in the international situation, North Korean state-run media reported on Saturday.
In the first detailed reporting on the second day of this week’s fifth Kim-Xi summit, party daily the Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported the two leaders had "sat together without reserve, in a cordial atmosphere like family members."
First Ladies Peng Liyuan and Ri Sol Ju were also present at a banquet at a "specially-arranged luncheon site at the rosarium of the Kumsusan State Guest House," state media continued.
The two leaders agreed that their five summits since March 2018 had seen them develop "profound communications as well as beneficial talks" and meant that they "have a deep understanding of each other, reached a consensus on important issues, and deepened the comradely trust and special relations of friendship."
Kim and Xi, notably, "expressed their will to glorify the friendly relations between the two parties and the two countries in the future, no matter how the international situation changes," the Rodong and KCNA said in Korean-language reports.
The luncheon, the report continued, "proceed in a harmonious atmosphere overflowing with feelings of friendship from the beginning to end."
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#1
I thought kim-xi was that spicy fermented cabbage stuff.
#3
Manchurian swine are totally fine.
There is no problem, we told ya.
So everything's good in the farm and the 'hood.
And stop asking about the Ebola!
Nineveh (IraqiNews) A security source in Nineveh Province informed, on Saturday, that security forces apprehended a smuggler on charges of transferring a number of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... ’s members from Syria to Iraq.
In a press statement, the source said that Iraqi security forces arrested a smuggler, after receiving accurate information that he is transferring members of the Islamic State group from Syria to Iraq.
He further added on condition of anonymity that the necessary approvals were obtained and the suspect was arrested and admitted the validity of the information received against him.
The suspect was sent to the competent authorities to complete the remaining investigation, he explained.
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[BREITBART] [BREITBART] During a faith breakfast in Columbia, SC on Saturday, Sen. Cory Spartacus Booker U.S. Senator-for-Life from Noo Joisey, formerly the mayor of Newark. Booker is a candidate for president in 2020, running on a platform of Make America Newark. He once wrote an essay on how to grope babes. He is noted for having an imaginary friend named T-Bone... (D-NJ), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, was asked if he would be willing to have "an audience" with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Farrakhan in recent years has made many outlandish and antisemitic remarks. Booker said he did not feel as if he needed to meet with him but said that he would not rule it out.
"I live in Newark, so we have famous Mosque 25," Booker said. "We have Nation of Islam there. As mayor, I meet with lots of folks talking to him. I have heard Minister Farrakhan’s speeches for a lot of my life. So, I don’t feel like I need to do that, but I’m not one of these people that says I wouldn’t sit down with anybody to hear what they have to say. But, I live on a neighborhood where I’m getting guys on the streets offering and selling his works. I am very familiar with Minister Louis Farrakhan and his beliefs and his values."
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[BLOOMBERG] At least 42 fighters aligned with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... West Africa Province were killed in Nigeria on Friday and several maimed after troops launched an offensive in the Lake Chad area of country’s northeast.
One Nigerian soldier was killed and 10 were maimed in the operation led by the Multinational Joint Task Force, military front man Timothy Antigha said in an emailed statement Saturday. It was the heaviest loss inflicted on the group known as Iswap in six months, he said.
The raid came after five Iswap fighters were killed and one captured earlier in the week following a failed attempt Curses! Foiled again! to attack a military base in Ngouma, Cameroon ...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there... , Antigha said.
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[KhaamaPress] The Afghan armed forces conducted 14 Offensive operations, 75 Special Operations and 12 Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s against the Death Eater groups.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) in a statement said Saturday that the operations were conducted in past 24 hours.
The security forces conducted the operations in Faryab, Kapisa, Uruzgan, Zabul, Farah, Nimroz, Takhar, Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , Paktika ...which coincidentally borders South Wazoo... , Badakhshan, Balkh, Sar-e-Pul ...a city and eponymous province in northern Afghanistan, population about 500,000. Demographically it is majority Tadjik and Uzbek. There are small Pashtun, Arab, and Hazara ...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets... communities, of which the Hazaras mostly don't bother anyone... , Ghazni and Pashtun-infested Logar provinces.
The security forces killed at least 60 snuffies including two foreign nationals during the same operations.
The Ministry of Defense also added that the security forces maimed several snuffies during the operations.
The security forces also and destroyed the compounds, weapons and ammunition belonging to Death Eaters.
The anti-government armed elements have not commented in this regard so far.
[Jpost] Two philanthropists donated more than $4 million to security for Jews in Malmo, Sweden.
Lennart Blecher, who is Jewish, and Dan Olofsson, who is not, decided to donate the total sum to "instill some hope in the Jewish population, so they feel that even if the politicians do not want to do something, there are people who are prepared to stand up for them," Olofsson told Dagens Nyheter Sunday.
The announcement prompted some criticism about the community’s need for philanthropy to cover its security costs, which the municipality does not fully cover.
"It is unreasonable that a members of the Jewish community should finance basic security arrangements to protect themselves against attacks," journalist Sofia Nerbrand wrote in an op-ed about the donation published Monday in Dagens Nyheter. "It’s a fundamental task for state and municipality."
The donation came amid preparations for an international conference on fighting anti-Semitism planned by the government in Malmo and plans to open Holocaust museum in the Swedish city.
Malmo, a city where a third of the population is from Moslem countries, has several hundred Jews and dozens of anti-Semitic incidents annually.
On May 1, supporters of the country’s ruling party chanted about "crushing Zionism" at a rally in Malmo, whose previous mayor led the procession.
The incident on a march for workers’ rights by the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League ‐ a branch of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s party ‐ prompted an outcry by Malmo’s Jewish community. Lofven also condemned the chants.
would be better to pay for them all to leave Sweden for Israel
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/23/2019 4:44
Comments ||
Top||
#2
There is no point to spending for the holocaust museum and security anymore. Sweden is going to be beyond fucked soon. Jews will be really better of in Israel. Selling off assets in Sweden and relocating to Israel, though it sounds daunting, would actually be economically sound in the long run.
[DW] Officials near Bosnia's border with Croatia feel abandoned by the federal government and the international community. With shelters bursting at the seams with people trapped in limbo, they're taking drastic measures.
Under a new curfew imposed by authorities in the western Bosnia city of Bihac, residents of the Bira refugee shelter are picked up by the police and returned to their confines if they're caught out between the hours of 10 p.m and 6 a.m.
"We can't go to the supermarket," said Tahir, a man from Pakistain. "We can't buy anything to eat. We are not allowed to leave the camp, as if this were a prison ‐ but we don't want to be prisoners." He added: "The situation is impossible.
Continued on Page 49
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.
Iranian lawmakers chanted “Death to America” during a parliament session on Sunday after a speaker accused the United States of being the “real world terrorist”, amid escalating tension with Washington following the downing of an unmanned US drone.
[Star Trib] 
[Daily Caller] Mariandra Heunis and her children are the survivors of a vicious, dead-of-night attack on her family. Her husband ‐ her childrens’ father ‐ is not. He was killed in their home outside Pretoria, South Africa, in what has come to be called a "farm attack ‐ the targeted terrorizing of farmers in a country with a long history of strife over race and land.
[Breitbart] In an interview with GirlBoss Radio released Wednesday, longshot 2020 White House candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) declared twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was "the most qualified, capable person ever to run for president."
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
[FDD.ORG] Paraguayan authorities extradited Nader Mohamad Farhat yesterday to Miami, where he faces criminal charges of money laundering. Farhat’s case promises to reveal the intricacies and magnitude of trade-based money laundering in the 
...Arabic for 
[Jpost] Paleostinian officials on Saturday dismissed the US administration’s plan to spend billions of dollars in the Paleostinian economy over 10 years and said they remain opposed to the "peace to prosperity" conference scheduled to take place this week in Manama, Bahrain.
...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do...
The 'under the bus' theory could also apply. 
[Jpost] Three days ahead of the Bahrain summit, the White House unexpectedly released the financial part of its Middle East peace plan on Saturday, highlighting a potential $50 billion in investments over the next decade.
...... al-Qaeda's tentacle in East Africa...
...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...Governor of Virginia, another Dem Great White Hope. He won election by calling his Publican opponent Ed Gillespie a racist, but then, don't they all?...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
North Korea
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
U.S. Senator-for-Life from Noo Joisey, formerly the mayor of Newark. Booker is a candidate for president in 2020, running on a platform of 
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
[DW] Officials near Bosnia's border with Croatia feel abandoned by the federal government and the international community. With shelters bursting at the seams with people trapped in limbo, they're taking drastic measures.
