CNN) -- Insurgents locked in a standoff with U.S. Marines tricked them by dressing up as women to escape, a task force spokesman said Monday.
Women and children had been caught in the standoff between the armed groups, but some of the women were not what they seemed, according to task force spokesman Capt. William Pelletier.
After the Marines began taking fire from insurgents in the town of Khan Neshin, in south Afghanistan near the Helmand River, the militants ran into a multiple-room compound, the U.S. military said.
Unsure of whether civilians were inside the compound, the Marines had an interpreter talk to the insurgents, said an official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly. After some time, a number of women and children left the compound, the military official said.
The released hostages told the Marines that there were no more civilians inside the compound, Pelletier said. But the Marines held their fire anyway, the official said. About 4 p.m. (7:30 a.m. ET), in the midst of the standoff, another group of women and children emerged from the compound, the official said. The Marines continued to hold their fire and wait out the insurgents, the official said.
Finally, a screaming woman emerged from the compound with a bullet wound to her hand, Pelletier said. Then, another group of women came out, covered from head to toe according to custom, he said, with a couple of children in tow. The Marines attended to the wounded woman while the others walked away.
When the Marines went into the compound, they discovered that it empty, Pelletier said. That's when they realized the fighters had dressed up as women to escape, he said.
"Apparently these were tall, rather broad-shouldered women with hairy feet," Pelletier said.
The Marines' restrained approach differs from previous hits on compounds when airstrikes were readily called in, the official said.
Under a new tactical directive for forces in Afghanistan, some of which was unclassified Monday, forces must protect civilians soldiers and must be sensitive to Afghan cultural norms regarding women.
Pelletier said that during the standoff, "the Marines didn't have any female forces to do any searches, and they weren't going to violate cultural norms by patting down these women."
The standoff in the town of Khan Neshin was especially significant because it has been a Taliban stronghold for several years, and the U.S. military reported that the Afghan government regained control of the town Monday.
Coalition forces began talks with local leaders several days ago and have moved about 500 Marines into Khan Neshin, a U.S. military news release said. The government takeover of Khan Neshin marks the first time coalition forces have had a sustained presence so far south in the Helmand River valley, the release said.
The mission to secure Khan Neshin coincides with "establishing secure conditions" for August elections in Afghanistan, according to the release.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a six U.S. soldiers were killed Monday by two roadside bombs, a representative for NATO forces said. Four were killed in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Two soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Forces said.
I'm suprised they were able to carry this out. I wouldn't have been able to keep from rolling on the floor laughing my ass off at the stupid, stupid, americans.(1)
I wonder how many more american soldiers (not to mention _REAL_ civilians) are going to die because of this. If I were the Tallibunnies I'd be grabing every women and child I could get my hands on - the best body armor in the world.
(1) By that I am referring to whoever approved this policy. I do *not* mean the marines who were there.
#5
I seem to recall that in Iraq we put each person's finger into a thingy that took a fingerprint and a DNA sample, to build a data base. The Iraqis believed we could do magical technical things with their samples. How much more would ignorant village Afghanis and the equally ignorant Taliban believe us capable of? Make them line up -- beyond gunshot distance of the compound, of course, to protect them from the mean Taliban still holed up there -- give a sample, and write down the names and relationships each gives on a form. Meanwhile the rest of the Marines carry on with what they do so well.
The situation would be stressful to those already frightened, and would give the Marines a chance to look for masculine feet and listen for masculine falsetto voices. Not to mention that the illiterate believe that the act of writing things down is very powerful to the illiterate.
And for goodness sake, get some Lionesses out to each unit, or put a padded bra and some eyeshadow on two of the slighter, tenor-voiced lance corporals. I realize the Marines are all Eagle Scouts, but surely they could square their consciences with a little subterfuge.
#7
Sounds more like the Monty Pithon stoning skit. This would be funny if is was not so true. I trust the Marines will improvise and overcome our senior leadership's lunacies.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/06/2009 20:32
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#8
How about the US just announces "Any one found near folks waging war on US forces surrenders the cultural sensitivities as far as we are concerned."
Let the enemy make the choice and when the left starts up the propaganda machine explain the policy and the choice the enemy made.
#9
Two can play that game. Find some burkhas for 6'2" Marines and they're ready for body cavity searches.
Posted by: ed ||
07/06/2009 20:35
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#10
Seven Marines were KIA today. If we continue seeing this rate of casualties, Obama will be a one term president. And McChrystal will be turfed chop chop.
#11
Seven? FU$K! Thats seven mothers, seven fathers, seven widows, god knows how many siblings, kids and friends. The numbers of lives affected by one KIA is staggering. One too many to suffer fools as leaders.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/06/2009 23:55
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It's a hurdle that high-speed rail planners could face in other heavily populated areas of California as they embark on the nation's most ambitious intrastate rail project, threatening delays that could stall the project for years if extensive opposition surfaces.
Several California cities are challenging the route planned for a high-speed intrastate rail line - a line that could be a top choice for a piece of the $8 billion in stimulus money. They have filed a lawsuit opposing route between the Bay Area and the Central Valley. Some residents, concerned that an elevated train would split their communities, are urging officials to switch to a plan that uses underground tunnels. No problem, if you got enough billions. Like Joe said this morning, it might take a few more months for the high-speed rail jobs to materialize.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2009
15:34 ||
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But I thought that all the stimulus projects were supposed to be "shovel ready". Wow, it's almost as if Obama lied to us. Nah, impossible ...
#1
Isn't it interesting that Bambi's Columbia paper bubbles up as he sits in Moscow? It's almost as if someone has awoken to the fact that he wants to negotiate a radical, unsustainable disarmament plan.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 15:29
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#2
But then, there are some things we shouldn't have to live through in order to want to avoid the experience.
Little did Barry know that these sage words would oneday be self-applicable.
THREE proud centuries of tradition have come to an end with the revelation that Britain is no longer capable of making rifles to arm its own troops. Instead, experts believe, all European armies will one day be using the same type of weapons.
The news, branded a national disgrace by one critic, comes after a warning that Britain is in danger of overspending on defence.
The nation has been at the forefront of the design and manufacture of small arms from the Brown Bess musket of the 18th century to the Lee Enfield rifle of 1914 and the Vickers machine gun. The last attempt to produce a British rifle was the SA80 but the weapon was widely criticised for its poor quality until its manufacture was taken over by Germany's Heckler and Koch.
In its report, the political think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research said: "It is delusional to believe that the UK can go it alone. We need a major increase in European defence and security co-operation to strengthen Nato."
Last night Tory MP Patrick Mercer, an Army officer for 25 years, said: "I understand the economic argument but losing the capability to produce our own assault rifle is a national disgrace. Economics are important but so is the capacity to maintain control over strategic defence issues."
Some military historians also regretted the loss of tradition. Paul Cornish, curator at the Imperial War Museum, said: "It's extremely sad, since Britain has had a proud tradition of developing and manufacturing small arms. I think the end was pretty much written when the Government privatised the Royal Ordnance factories which, until the Eighties, had been subsidised by the taxpayer.
"I suppose that if the SA80 had been more successful, orders would have flooded in from around the world and things might have been different."
Historian and author Antony Beevor took a more pragmatic view. "The fact is that there is no room for tradition," he said. "Old local loyalties are gone. The important thing is that we buy the best, not just in terms of arms, but also armour and equipment, and it doesn't matter where it comes from."
Last night, the Ministry of Defence said: "We don't make our own assault rifle because there isn't a British company that still manufactures them. In any case, we are happy with what we are using."
Last week's report by the Institute for Public Policy Research recommended that the Ministry of Defence should make savings of £24billion from its budget. Among the possible targets for cutbacks is the nuclear submarine fleet. This includes the new class of Astute vessels, seven of which were recently said to be necessary if Britain was to be able to keep up its attack capabilities.
Last night experts warned of the dangers of eliminating the new sub marine fleet. Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said: "It's happened with our assault rifles and now there's a risk of it happening with our nuclear submarines. It's one thing to decide to abandon our capabilities to make assault rifles because it's cheaper to buy them off-the-peg elsewhere. It's quite another to do the same thing for our nuclear submarine industry.
"The problem is that nuclear submarines are so complex that once we lose that technology, it would be impossible to ever get it back again."
Britain has a decision to make, and apparently it is making it by dribs and drabs rather than all at once. The decision is simple: will Britain be a first-class world power or not? If the former, it must maintain a credible military and expeditionary force. Britain may not need to make rifles but it must have an indigenous arms industry that can ensure a credible military.
If, however, Britain no longer wishes to be a first-class world power but rather a regional power with influence in Europe, than by all means dump the nuclear attack submarines, the aircraft carriers and the expeditionary forces that could work in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. A home defense force and a modest contribution to an all-European defense force is all that is needed if Britain wants to be a regional power and nothing more.
Understand the consequences to each decision, and decide, preferably openly and not piecemeal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
14:34 ||
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#1
"The problem is that nuclear submarines are so complex that once we lose that technology, it would be impossible to ever get it back again."
That's the idea, guys - that's the idea. If we can just make manufacturing weapons impossible, then we can eliminate all wars. It's the same sort of thinking that comes up with ideas like unilateral nuclear disarmament.
#2
Steve - I'm afraid they already made that decision perhaps as long ago as the 1945 elections, and certainly by the Suez affair.
It's more a question of being a second, third or fourth rate power, and even more importantly a first rate cultural power. We share that dilemma with them, and neither of us are doing well lately, but their combined losses in both areas are disheartening. Perhaps King Charles successor (if there is one) can be a cultural and political warrior.
Hal: I understand that point and it does seem that some in our country want to tred that same path, with much the same results. But one should not delude himself into thinking that one can be a first class cultural power and a fourth class military power. Life doesn't work that way.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 15:27
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#4
I'll bet Delaware got just as upset when people learned all their weapons were to be made in Pennsylvania.
If Europe wants to be one "country" then they need to stop whining over stuff being made in Germany or Belgium or wherever.
#6
Suez, indeed, was the graveyard of the empire. U.S. interference led to decades of Arab dictatorships/tyranny/despotism/terrorism. (And the Hungarian freedom fighters were simultaneously given the shaft.)
Via Instapundit
In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of a nuclear free world. He railed against discussions of first- versus second-strike capabilities that suit the military-industrial interests with their billion-dollar erector sets, and agitated for the elimination of global arsenals holding tens of thousands of deadly warheads.
The student was Barack Obama, and he was clearly trying to sort out his thoughts. In the conclusion, he denounced the twisted logic of which we are a part today and praised student efforts to realize the possibility of a decent world. But his article, Breaking the War Mentality, which only recently has been rediscovered, said little about how to achieve the utopian dream.
Twenty-six years later, the author, in his new job as president of the United States, has begun pushing for new global rules, treaties and alliances that he insists can establish a nuclear-free world. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
07/06/2009
12:17 ||
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which only recently has been rediscovered
Amazing. If it had been Sarah Palin's daughter's grocery shopping list it would have long since been dissected in every MSM outlet in the country.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/06/2009 12:33
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#2
Shows some really shallow thinking and inability to blame the Soviets for the cold war "suit the military-industrial interests".
I'm amazed the left couldn't see the crushing of the Czechs, and Hungarians for what it was. They still can't look at Cuba and Iran and see clearly.
#3
I'm amazed the left couldn't see the crushing of the Czechs, and Hungarians for what it was. They still can't look at Cuba and Iran and see clearly.
#4
I don't understand why these kinds of things weren't combed out a long time agao. For example, it shouldn't be difficult to find if he ever made Dean's list at one of his several schools. He was editor of the Harvard Revue, wrote for the Columbia achool paper and a host of other things. Surely, there are his fingerprints left publically available in numerous places. Why haven't they been uncovered?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 17:27
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They probably were, Richard, but they didn't "fit the narrative". That doesn't mean the info has been forgotten, though, and couldn't be brought out at another time that may be convenient for them if they feel sufficiently betrayed by their creation. Just sayin'.
#6
The fact that there isn't _anything_ there which 'fits the narrative' of what OBambi is - is itself telling don't you think.
If there was anything significant there the MSM would have trotted it out long ago to show what a great guy their idol is.
More likely the MSM decided not to even look (by choice). Contrast the batallion of lawyers and reports who descented on Alaska with the complete lack of information on Obama. Shopping list is right.
#7
THe leftist media does not want to look - they are afraid of what they may find. It pisses me off while guys like me were taking years out in service of the nation, winning the cold war and fighting in the little unpublished wars, this little mindless prick was working for the other side - and is now CINC.
#2
"WE" want them either dead or to realize their "Religion" is a cripling nightmare, and change for the better.
Guess which will come first?
(Piss in one hand and Pray in the other, see which gets wet first)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/06/2009 14:04
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UPDATE: A U.S. military spokesman says 2 more U.S. troops have been killed in a blast in southern Afghanistan, bringing to six the number of Americans killed Monday. Navy Chief Petty Officer Brian Naranjo says all six American troops were killed in two roadside bomb attacks. Four American soldiers were killed in the north of the country. They were involved in the training of the Afghan security forces.
Naranjo did not have details about the two troops killed in the country's south, where thousands of U.S. Marines are pushing forward with the biggest American military offensive in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban from power in 2001.
KABUL (AP)--A roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan killed four American soldiers Monday, while a suicide attack in the south killed two civilians, officials said. The bombing in the northern Kunduz province targeted an American military convoy, said Kunduz Gov. Mohammad Omar.
In Berlin, German Defense Ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said that Germany was told the dead soldiers were American. "We received a message today that four American soldiers were killed in" a roadside bomb in the Kunduz area, he said. "There are no further details. So far as we know, it was a mentor team on the road in a Humvee."
Omar said the attack happened in the Ali Abad district of Kunduz province and wounded two Afghan civilians.
In comparison to the country's south and east, northern Afghanistan is relatively quiet. But roadside and other insurgent attacks have been increasing in the last few years.
The attack came after a suicide car bomber blew himself up outside the outer gate of the main NATO base in southern Afghanistan, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people. Those wounded near the gates of Kandahar Airfield included 12 civilians and two Afghan soldiers, said Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, the top military commander for southern Afghanistan.
"In comparison to the country's south and east, northern Afghanistan is relatively quiet. But roadside and other insurgent attacks have been increasing in the last few years. "
The north has been quiet because the north is mainly not Pashtun, and the Taliban are a Pashtun organization. Kunduz is the one mainly Pashtun province in northern afghanistan. This was discussed at great length in october/November/decemeber of 2001.
Some folks either dont remember, or were not paying attention.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
07/06/2009 12:27
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#2
You forgot one other factor, LH - some people just plain don't care. All they want to do is to force the US to leave the job unfinished, so they can claim credit for forcing them to leave. Most WESTERN reporters are extremely liberal and will do/say/infer anything that's negative to the image of the United States.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 15:13
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#3
STRAITS TIMES > US MARINES IN "HELL OF A FIGHT".
Also from STimes > JAPAN: INDIA MUST TAKE ACTION [agz Climate Change].
The Taliban confirmed on its Web site that it is holding an American soldier that the U.S. military had earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.
The report of the capture was last in a routine list of Taliban activities posted on the Web site. "It is to be said that five days ago, a drunken American soldier who had come out of his garrison named Malakh, was captured by mujahedeen... He is still with mujahedeen," said the report.
The short message did not elaborate on his whereabouts or their plans for him, nor did it provide any proof of its claim.
The U.S. military earlier said it had intercepted communications in which insurgents talked about holding an American.
The soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on Tuesday and first was listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown." His body armor and weapon were found on the base.
It was not until Thursday that officials said publicly that he was missing and described him as "believed captured." Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.
Two U.S. defense sources said the soldier "just walked off" post with three Afghans after he finished working. They said they had no explanation for why he left the base.
#2
Malakh would be a Jewish or Arab name, gromky, but I think more likely Arab.
I have to wonder about the Taliban claim that they captured a drunken American soldier. I thought there was no alcohol available to troops in Muslim countries.
#4
that looks like a disc harow, disc, with a hubcap glued on top.
Throw it and snap a pic before it hits the ground.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/06/2009 14:41
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#5
Based on my own personal experiences over the decades, I believe ANGELS, + GHOSTS = GUAM TAOTAMONOAS ["Shadow People"?], + FLORIDA-SOUTHERN "SWAMP APE" [Bigfoot] EXIST.
MR. KEEL IS DULY ENTITLED TO HIS BELIEFS, but FYI just saw a "Fuzzy Wuzzy", FORMLESS GHOST = TAOTAMONA here in Agana a couple of days ago, moving from the Guam Public Library towards the local PDN Building.
#6
Harmless man, led a good but odd life, was probably afraid of the dark and never hurt anyone. I hope he rests in peace.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/06/2009 20:26
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#7
Apparently my education is lacking - never heard of him (though I'm guessing from the graphic he had something to do with flying saucers).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/06/2009 21:21
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#8
just saw a "Fuzzy Wuzzy", FORMLESS GHOST = TAOTAMONA here in Agana a couple of days ago, moving from the Guam Public Library towards the local PDN Building.
That makes sense, JosephM. If I ever became a ghost, I'd spend a lot of time in the library reading... but I'd better be able to access Rantburg, or somebody is going to hear about it!
Israel's settlement policy helps strangle the Palestinian economy and makes the Palestinian government more dependent on foreign aid, the European Commission said Monday.
In an unusually harsh statement, the commission said that "it is the European taxpayers who pay most of the price of this dependence." Some things never change---not in Europe
#1
Perhaps the European taxpayers should choose to discontinue paying. Foreign aid is a discretionary item in the budget, after all, quite unlike pensions and social welfare/social security payments to citizens.
CN Carrier website describes its mission as "giving the construction of a Chinese aircraft carrier a shot of nationalistic steroids.")
According to a report appearing in today's Chongqing Times, the look of the model resembles the Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, which was to be the second Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier before construction was halted and the ship was sold to China, stripped of much of its propulsion system.
Certain parts of the future aircraft carrier's specifications were revealed: the displacement will to be 53 thousand tons light, and 67 thousand fully loaded, with a projected speed of 30 knots.
#2
Resembles? It's an exact copy, down to the deck markings. Not the first time Chinese websites have taken a foreign model and claimed it as their own.
Posted by: ed ||
07/06/2009 19:56
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ION WAFF > RUSSIA'N NAVY UNDER COLLAPSE [may in time become weaker than CHINA's OR JAPAN's]???
#4
I wouldn't go that far. I watched Fog of War, and it was clear that Bob was a well-meaning, very intelligent man who simply didn't understand Vietnam. He couldn't adjust to new data.
Sound familiar with the current crew in the White House?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 10:44
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#5
Steve,
I mostly agree with you re. McNamara but I am not so confident any more that all of the current WH crew is actually 'well-meaning'. Certainly the least transparent administration in a long time, which makes it hard to assess intent, but too many moves seem to have the same 'unintended' consequences.
#6
He was an "intellectual", not a leader. HE was so overconfident of his intellect that he believed HIS solution was THE solution and pressed it regardless of the ground truth. He refused to listen to the facts, he refused to learn from history, and he destroyed that which he claimed to be saving.
#7
He was an "intellectual", not a leader. HE was so overconfident of his intellect that he believed HIS solution was THE solution and pressed it regardless of the ground truth.
Why, that sounds just like any other ENArch or assorted Uber-civil servant here in France! And they're as susccessful, too!
#8
From Ben on Ace of Spades:
"Robert McNamara is dead. I am willing to bet there is a line of 58,000 Vietnam vets in heaven just waiting to kick the shit out of this man."
#10
He was a heavy hitter in the sixties' Cold War; then he challenged Reagan's successful foreign policy. Nobody will name an aircraft carrier after him, now.
#11
When I enlisted in the Air Force in the late 70s, there were still a lot of mid-ranked NCOs and officers who remembered McNamera very, very well - and without exception they despised him so completely, they couldn't even mention his name without cussing. I imagine that wherever his physical remains are planted, there will be a long line of Vietnam and Vietnam-era veterans lining up to piss on that place.
#12
Sgt. Mom... yes, he ranks nearly as high on the old Vet massive dislike and contemptuous spit scale as Jane Fonda, Henry Kissenger, and Jimmy Carter. As an aside, he was recruited for the beltway from Ford Motor Co. by then president John F. Kennedy who believed he "was the most brilliant member of a very smart Cabinet."
#14
As a vet who served in Vietnam, I have no use for Robert McNamara, nor the president(s) who appointed him to high office. Some of his policies were merely stupid - others were criminally insane.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 17:03
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The next step in the evolution of a revolution. Military take over security. This is actually a good thing here. Now the regular guy that was fence sitting on the issues in Iran has to choose a side.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/06/2009 11:04
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#2
The core of the criminal regime in Iran finally shows its teeth.
Violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China's volatile western Xinjiang region in decades, and officials said Monday the death toll was expected to rise.
Security forces have clamped down on the city of Urumqi and set up checkpoints to catch any fleeing rioters, state media reported, after tensions between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China's Han majority erupted into riots.
Rioters on Sunday overturned barricades, attacking vehicles and houses, and clashed violently with police, according to media and witness accounts. State television aired footage showing protesters attacking and kicking people on the ground. Other people, who appeared to be Han Chinese, sat dazed with blood pouring down their faces.
There was little immediate explanation for how so many people died. The government blamed Uighur exiles for stoking the unrest. Exile groups said the violence started only after police began violently cracking down on a peaceful protest.
Posted by: ed ||
07/06/2009
08:27 ||
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I know most of y'all have no use for the Uighurs (mostly Muslim, and some really nasty Muslims among them) but do recognize that 'State Television' (Chinese equivalent of our CNN etc. only even more so) is the source, and do remember how the Chinese government handles even peaceful protests (e.g Tiannemen Square). My understanding is that this protest was intended to be peaceful, and to get some public attention on their grievances (many of which I find legitimate - East Turkestan is treated by the Chinese government in many ways similar to Tibet but with a different religious underpinning.) Why and how that evolved into this disaster I do not yet know, but I bet it is not a 'simple' answer.
#3
This is the sequel to riots in Guangdong. Short version: factory boss brings in Uighurs to work alongside Han because they're cheaper. Uighurs start stealing from Han because they feel it's justified payback. Han get mad about it. Uighurs rape a Han girl, Han go after Uighurs. Uighurs retaliate with knives and bats, and then the Han do what they always do when there's a fight with a foreigner, call in EVERYBODY. The Uighurs were defeated and 150 or so went to the hospital (got the snot beaten out of them.) The violence will continue until the Han eradicate the Uighurs from their homeland, which should take another 100-200 years. They just bulldozed a huge historic district in the Uighur capital a few weeks ago in order to build concrete apartment blocks for Han settlers.
#4
The violence will continue until the Han eradicate the Uighurs from their homeland, which should take another 100-200 years.
My feeling is that China's Final Solution will take a lot less time than a century. Heck - ordinary Chinese literally hacked to pieces 40,000 Chinese Christians during the run-up to the Boxer Rebellion using little more than machetes and axes.
#5
Radio Free Asia has an article on the anti-Uighur pogrom in Guangdong:
Three youths belonging to the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group and now under Chinese government protection after ethnic clashes in the southern province of Guangdong said fighting began when Han Chinese laborers stormed the dormitories of Uyghur colleagues, beating them with clubs, bars, and machetes.
The deadly fighting between Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese at the Lacewood toy factory in Guangdong's Shaoguan city began late June 25 and lasted into the early hours of the following day.
Authorities said two people died and 118 were injured in the clashes, which were sparked by an online report that Uyghur migrant workers at the factory had raped two Chinese women. A Chinese man is now detained for "forging" that report.
Excerpts of interviews with the three men, conducted on a single, hidden cell phone, follow. All spoke on condition of anonymity, and while their accounts cannot be independently verified, they are consistent:
Uyghur Man 1: Who are you?
RFA: Radio Free Asia's Uyghur service. We broadcast in the Uyghur language.
Uyghur Man 1: We do not have any freedom here. If they hear us talking on the phone, they will punish us.
RFA: Where were you when the brawl happened?
Uyghur Man 1: We were taking our meal break after the night shift, when the day shifters [Uyghurs] were sleeping in their dorms. We saw them [Han Chinese] storm into their dorms, pull them out from their beds, and start beating them, hacking and burning.
RFA: What time was it when this happened?
Uyghur Man 1: It was around 12:30 a.m. or 1 a.m.
RFA: How many people stormed in?
Uyghur Man 1: Thousands of Chinese, and 800 Uyghurs were there.
A long and illuminating interview transcript follows.
#6
and how will the Obama Administration play this?
probably they will be 'concerned' or maybe 'very concerned'
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/06/2009 15:18
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China will have to address the Xinjiang situation urgently. They've been too focused on the Eastern part of China. Most likely scenario will be based on the "make love, not war" gambit. All they need to do is is abolish the "one child" policy, for Han in the area. The policy doesn't apply to minorities, i.e Uigurs. Xinjiang is about 45% Uyghur. Han is over 40%
As Mark Steyn endlessly reiterates, "it's the demographics, stupid" It's the most potent weapon in the islamists armory, witness the takeover of Europe.
I'm also guessing that the majority of those killed and injured would have been Han.
#9
See also PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > WHY RED CHINA FEARS ISLAM?
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > JAPAN MAY DEPLOY MORE TROOPS TO DISPUTED CHINA SEA REGIONS [Daoyus] TO INCREASE ITS CONTROL [JSDF increase size of Younaguni Island Garrison just across from TAIWAN]. MANY WMF POSTERS are viewing this move as an attempt by Japan to geopol isolate = contain China as well as to MILPOL SHORE UP OR SUPPORT TAIWANESE SOVEREIGNTY AGZ MAINLAND CHINA [Japanese mil protection of TAIWAN agz CHIN]???
* WAKK > JAPANESE GOVT. GETS TOUGH WITH RUSSIA OVER KURILS ISLANDS. Tokyo = Japanese Diet unilater passes NEW LEGISLATION PROCLAIMING SOUTHERN KURILS/KURILES AS AN "INTEGRAL PART" OF JAPAN-NIPPON.
OTHER > JAPAN has also repor agreed to de facto purchase the US THAAD BMD SYSTEM + closely coordinate wid USA on ASIA-SPECIFIC TMD-RMD.
A very long piece from "reclusive Feminist," a liberal who seems to see things very clearly.
...it has not escaped my attention that many of the things Palin is accused of, falsely, are actually true of Obama. This is a guy who, as a U.S. senator from Illinois, didn't even know which Senate committees he was on or which states bordered his own. (And don't even get me started on Joe "The Talking Donkey" Biden, who thinks FDR was president during the stock market crash and that people watched TV in those days.) I'm not saying Obama's a moron, but he's sure as hell no genius. People say Sarah Palin rambles; excuse me, but have you actually heard Obama speak extemporaneously? As for being a diva, surely we all remember the Possomus sign and the special embroidered pillow on the Obama campaign plane. The fact is, Obama is an intellectually mediocre narcissist with a thin resume who's lost without a teleprompter and whose entire campaign had all the substance and gravity of a Pepsi commercial. Yet people say Sarah Palin is a fluffy bunny diva.
So: are we back to Obama after all? Is this a transference thing? Are people subconsciously frustrated by the fact that Obama is an empty suit, and are they transferring that rage to Palin? Go read it all; it's worth your time.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/06/2009
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It's one thing to get all this PDS--including knowing lies--from dems and libs. It's another, according to the reclusive feminist, to have them coming down drenched in boiling acid from feminists.
The post and the comments explore the possible reasons.
Can't say they're all right. The patriarchy is blamed without consideration for all the men who voted for and otherwise support Palin. But it's the bad menz who made the women so vicious. Figures.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
07/06/2009 8:22
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Very excellent post. I loved the term ..."Godbag."
A godbag is a bag full of hate and self-loathing wearing stage makeup that makes it look like a televangelist.
1. Not elite, and therefore unfit to lead anyone in a democracy.
2. Fertile, which threatens sterile feminists.
3. Has a handsome husband, which also threatens them.
4. It's all projection of unacceptable thoughts onto the "other".
A great piece, it's heartening to see liberals sit up and say, "hey, maybe it's not a good idea to call Palin a cunt." Only a few of them, but it's a start.
#8
A. Born into noble family.
B. Admitted to elite school on basis of ability; expected to renounce humble past and become One Of Us.
If you're not an elite, then by what means do you claim the power to govern? You're no more than an ordinary citizen, a beast to be herded really. Moreover, it lessens the accomplishments of the elite, because if anyone can do it, then what was the point of learning the secret handshake?
#9
What the feminists don't verbalize is that even they consider blacks to outrank them in the grievance list. No matter how bad women had it it was mostly a cake-walk compared to slavery. When it came up to a choice between a woman and a black man there was no comparison (ask Hillary).
When the woman was of a different political affiliation they assaulted her for forcing them to confront there own emotions on the issue.
#10
red. Don't even try to explain. "mense" is periodic, ahem.
The reference to the bad menz is permanent. The bad menz are responsible for all bad things, including making the strong, independent, deep-thinking feminists savage Palin with misogynist slanders because said strong, independent deep-thinking feminists are brainwashed by the Patriarchy, which is made up of bad menz.
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07/06/2009 14:15
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"The bad menz are responsible for all bad things, including making the strong, independent, deep-thinking feminists savage Palin with misogynist slanders because said strong, independent deep-thinking feminists are brainwashed by the Patriarchy, which is made up of bad menz..." I used to think rather a lot of John McCain - but after how he and his staff hung her out to dry, I'm afraid I think considerably less of him.
About the most sensible deconstruction I've seen yet...
Seriously, the attacks on SP from the old-line feminists were just absolutely insane ... and yest, there is a great deal of transference about it. All the most awful things of which she was accused, over and over and over, and yet one more time again ... they were all debunked, over and over and over, and yet they still kept coming up, more persistent than Freddy Kruger.
Here in the heart of flyover America, I didn't talk to a woman after she was picked for VP who didn't think she was a great pick, and an amazing and inspiring person. At a Tea Party planning meeting, when we had a a visit from a guy whose claim to fame was that he had written about Joe the Plumber, the instant he said that he had traveled with the McCain campaign, the first words out of the mouths of the other three women on the committee was "Did you meet Sarah Palin?!"
As Marine Corps forces roll into southern Afghanistan, they face an enemy familiar to US officials -- Mullah Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who now leads a reconstituted Taliban. Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is from Helmand Province and has taken a circuitous route to become head of the radical Islamic group.
Zakir was a senior fighter during the Taliban regime in the 1990s. In a memorandum prepared for his administrative review board at Guantanamo, Zakir apparently "felt it would be fine to wage jihad against Americans, Jews, or Israelis if they were invading his country." And he acknowledged that he was "called to fight jihad in approximately 1997," when he joined the Taliban. In 2001, he surrendered to US and Afghan forces in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as the regime was collapsing. He spent the next several years in custody, was transferred to Guantanamo around 2006, then to Afghanistan government custody in late 2007, and was eventually released around May 2008. American officials won't say why he was let go and have not released a photograph of him.
Zakir wasted little time rekindling his relationship with the Taliban, especially its inner shura, or leadership council, based in Pakistan. According to some accounts, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar appointed Zakir as a senior military commander in mid-2008. He quickly developed a reputation as a charismatic leader. By this time, the Taliban had established a system of shadow-government structures in parts of Afghanistan: provincial governors, military commanders, and mullahs who served on Islamic courts. The Taliban's goal, as with many insurgent groups, has been to provide more effective law and order than the Afghan government. But it has been one of the most oppressive governments in modern history, banning many forms of entertainment, prohibiting women from working, and conducting public executions of suspected collaborators.
It was in this context that Zakir made his defining contribution to the southern insurgency -- and created an opportunity for US forces to exploit. Early this year, he began to reorganize the Taliban. He helped create an "accountability commission" to monitor and evaluate the performance of key Taliban leaders and track spending. In some ways, Zakir's efforts paralleled those of the United States, which was laying out a new Afghanistan strategy under the Obama administration at about the same time. The Taliban, apparently concerned that some governors and military commanders had become ineffective and bracing for the growing US military presence, announced its own new strategy in April. They called it Operation Nasrat ("victory") and pledged to use "ambushes, offensives, explosions, martyrdom-seeking attacks, and surprise attacks." The Taliban also warned that they would attack "military units of the invading forces, diplomatic centers, mobile convoys and high-ranking officials" of the Afghan government.
As Marines move through Helmand, they will be on the lookout for Zakir and his support network. But like many senior Taliban leaders, Zakir spends a lot of time in Pakistani cities like Quetta and Karachi, frightened he'll be killed in an attack. Zakir's restructuring presents an opportunity for NATO and Afghan forces. As in any business reorganization, firing senior leaders is bound to create a contingent of disgruntled individuals who may be co-opted to turn against the Taliban. A number of fired Taliban commanders have apparently refused to give up their jobs.
A roadside bomb planted by suspected Muslim insurgents in restive southern Thailand wounded 11 security forces Monday when one of them stepped on the explosive, police said. A group of soldiers and government-trained defense volunteers was on foot patrol near railway tracks in Narathiwat province when the small homemade bomb went off at a roadside, army spokesman Col. Parinya Chaidilok said. One of the volunteers lost his left leg, he said.
Hat tip, Instapundit
July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Russia and India said the world economy is too reliant on the U.S. dollar and called for changes in how $6.5 trillion in currency reserves are managed, as Group of Eight leaders prepare to meet this week. Some prejudice against Harvard education?
They're doing it wrong. If the US dollar should not be the world's currency reserve, people, companies and countries will have been at more decision points choosing something better. If the change must come by fiat, it is the wrong decision, being taken for political rather than economic decisions.
#1
My interpretation? Like a matriarch of a once-great family fallen on hard times who quietly begins to sell the heirloom jewels. Then even more quietly, the daughters.
#3
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Lets put this in context: Ms. Weymouth is confronted with the same crisis as every publisher in the country. The Web has robbed newspapers of paying readers and advertisers, the economic downturn is cutting into what is left, and smaller, nimbler Internet competitors are learning to slake the 24-hour news thirst on their own.
(The fact that it was Politico that broke this story only added to the sting. Started by two former Post reporters, Politico has become a serious competitor right on The Posts inside-the-Beltway turf, and now has caught the paper on a fundamental lapse in the wall between church and state. In the increasingly heated race between the mainstream media and newer, digitally enabled ones, much of the remaining competitive edge for legacy media derives from a perception that they adhere to more rigorous publishing standards. Oops.)
Oops, is right, NYT.
But somehow, you seem to think you're still above it all, instead at the bottom of the pile of slime.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2009 9:36
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Gateway Pundit has updates, as well as a great pic of pro-government demonstrators denouncing CNN ("communist news network") along with Chavez, Castro, and Obama.
#3
Well, blood from casualties on his side. I can empathize with the guy, I might do the same in his shoes...'fake but accurate'. At least it doesn't purport to show something that didn't occur.
Great photo, btw. Composition, lighting and color are perfect.
#4
Tht too, Grom. The constitutional government; congress, the supreme court, the AG, etc.; is in charge in Honduras. It is lefties who conflate the "democratically elected" dictator ex-president with the government itself.
Does the State Dept and Obama really love lefties would be dictators as much as it seems?
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/06/2009 13:47
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Gee, KBK, would you empathize if military or police personnel or pro-government demonstrators did the same? "Fake but accurate" is just fake, moving the bar for the goebbelist media and its numerous slaves.
Via Legal Insurrection, this blog seems to offer sensible, factual analysis of world events. Based on the few posts of his that I read, it's prolly worth bookmarking.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Turkey's armed forces say a law under which army personnel will be tried in civilian courts in peacetime rather than military ones is unconstitutional and they have told the president so, media reported on Sunday. The legislation, aimed at meeting European Union membership criteria, has fuelled tensions between the powerful secularist military and the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in predominantly Muslim Turkey.
"Politics will enter the barracks," said a front-page headline in the liberal Milliyet newspaper which detailed the military General Staff's objections to the law, which has still to be approved by President Abdullah Gul.
The army, the second biggest in NATO, has ousted four Turkish governments in 50 years and regards itself as guardian of the country's secular system. But its power has been reined in by democratic reforms in recent years.
According to the military, the law infringes the inviolability of military areas and will lead to clashes between the military and civilian judiciary.
The military also voiced concern at the way the legislation was passed by Parliament in a late-night session at the end of June after Defense Ministry officials had left the assembly.
The articles, also published in Radikal newspaper, did not specify a source.
Posted by: Fred ||
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"Politics will enter the barracks," said a front-page headline in the liberal Milliyet newspaper which detailed the military General Staff's objections to the law, which has still to be approved by President Abdullah Gul.
With the fate of Zelaya staring him in the face from the T.V, I doubt that Gul would want to tempt fate, even if he thinks Allah is on his side.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani arrives in Doha to hold talks with Qatari officials on the realms of mutual interest including regional issues.
Larijani, heading an Iranian delegation, arrived in Qatar on Sunday and was received by Emir of Qatar Sheik Hamed Bin Khalifa Al-Thani at al-Bahr palace.
The two-day visit comes at the invitation of his Qatari counterpart, Mohamed Mubarak Al-Khuleifi.
Before his departure, Larijani told reporters that the visit was originally scheduled for an earlier date but was postponed due to Iran's presidential election.
Regional issues including the developments in Palestine and Lebanon will be high on the agenda of the talks, Larijani added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[Iran Press TV Latest] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expresses concern over a series of missile launches by North Korea, saying such moves are 'unhelpful' for peace in the troubled peninsula.
Ban told reporters in Geneva on Sunday that the test firings had defied UN resolutions. The UN chief also noted that Pyongyang had closed all diplomatic channels following the recent moves. "North Korea has now closed all doors of communications and dialogue."
Posted by: Fred ||
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That's why I come here; to get the NEWS!
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/06/2009 9:23
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They was just wishin' us a happy Fourth of July is all...just a little fireworks.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/06/2009 10:41
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Ala WORLD MIL FORUM, VARIOUS > Without RUSSIAN or CHINESE PRE-APPROVAL, the USA will "DARE NOT" lead/conduct an invasion agz NORTH KOREA???
* SAME > IIUC CHINA FOREIGN MINISTRY: SIX-PARTY TALKS WITH NORTH KOREA IS NO LONGER REQUIRED; + NORTH KOREA SPEEDS UP ITS ABANDONMENT OF CHINA.
SEOUL (Reuters) - A report said Pyongyang may have shot mid-range missiles in a series fired on Saturday. North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles, South Korea's defense ministry said, in an act of defiance toward the United States on its Independence Day, further stoking regional tensions already high due to Pyongyang's nuclear test in May.
The North appears to have fired two mid-range Rodong missiles, which can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan, and five Scud missiles, which can strike most of South Korea, Yonhap news agency quoted a South Korean official as saying.
The official said two of the missiles travelled at a greater velocity than the others, indicating they were the Rodong type. "We found five of the seven missiles fell near the same spot in the East Sea (Sea of Japan), which indicates that their accuracy has improved," another official told Yonhap.
The missiles flew about 420 kms (260 miles) and it will take a few days to confirm what was fired, the official said. Initial reports on Saturday said all the missiles appeared to be Scuds.
The Scud and Rodong are ballistic missiles. North Korea has more than 600 Scud type missiles and 300 Rodong missiles which have been deployed and target U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, defense officials have said.
Japan is considering introducing a new ground-based missile defense system to complement interceptors it currently has, the Japanese daily Mainichi reported.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Bangladesh Rifles' (BDR) jawans at Teknaf arrested 28 Rohingyas of Myanmar and pushed them back to their country yesterday. The Myanmar nationals including seven men, 11 women and 10 children were held at about 9:00am at Shah Parir Dwip of Teknaf upazila while they were infiltrating into Bangladesh crossing the Naf river.
Deputy commander of 42 Rifles Battalion Major Shahinur Rahman confirmed the incident.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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If Bangalash is worth a dangerous swim across the border for oneself and one's family what doe that say about life in Myanmar? Trying to escape to Banglash is a little hard to rap my mind around.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 8:11
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Heavy shelling between Somali rebels and government forces near the presidential palace killed at least 12 people on Sunday, witnesses said, and the prime minister looked for help from more African Union peacekeepers. Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke said more AU troops were expected soon to back his forces but gave no further details Sunday. "It was a very gruesome scene," said Sahra Abdulle, a Mogadishu resident who saw bodies in the streets Sunday and wounded people running from the mortar shells. Another witness, Suleyman Abdel-Kadir, said at least 12 people died.
On Saturday, at least 23 Somalis, mostly civilians, were killed and more than fifty wounded in Mogadishu in clashes between government troops and insurgents, medics said. "As of now, I can tell you that 23 died and more then 50 injuries were dropped at the hospital," Ali Muse, a paramedic told Reuters.
Over 100 people have been killed since Wednesday as government troops try to drive insurgents out of their Mogadishu bases. African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) have warned hardline Islamist insurgents who have been advancing on Somali government positions to back down or face retaliation. "There is a limit, when they [the insurgents] cross that line we shall engage them immediately," Major-General Francis Okello, AMISOM's commander, told Reuters. "That is in our mandate, and we are carefully watching them."
The 4,300 Ugandan and Burundian troops have been confined to their bases and are limited to protecting key sites such as the presidential palace, airport and seaport.
How well can they protect anything except themselves, when confined to their bases?
African leaders who met at an AU summit in the Libyan city of Sirte last week did not adopt a much anticipated proposed resolution to give AMISOM troops a mandate to do more than just defend themselves from rebel attacks. Instead, the 53-member AU summit adopted a resolution condemning insurgent attacks in Somalia and backing the government. They also accused Eritrea of supporting the rebels and called for sanctions on the tiny country.
The government of former hardliner turned moderate President Sheikh Sharif Ahmad, has been pushing for the AMISOM mandate to be beefed up so it can help the government take on the rebels. But the Al-Shabaab group had warned that a stronger AMISOM would have made the situation worse.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
But the Al-Shabaab group had warned that a stronger AMISOM would have made the situation worse.
Yeah, for Al-Shabaab. Yet the idiots bought it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 15:35
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[Quqnoos] Gunmen kidnapped 16 de-miners Saturday in Afghan south-eastern province of Paktia, official said. The mine-clearance personnel, affiliated to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACA) were abducted in Wochekhas suburb, about 12 km north of the provincial capital, Gardiz. Head of UNMACA in the Afghan south-eastern region, Engineer Shir Agha Ahmadzai, confirmed the kidnapping and urged any involved parties to immediately secure the release of the Afghan humanitarian aid workers.
No groups or individual, including the Taliban militants have yet claimed responsibility for the seizure. A purported Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, dismissed any involvements of Taliban insurgents in the kidnapping. He said Taliban militants have 'no problem' with mine-clearance employees.
Unless it's Taliban mines being cleared ...
A top provincial security official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Quqnoos that the efforts have begun to secure the release of the de-miners.
Quqnoos' Neyaz Mohammad Aseel in Paktia said, this is the first abduction case of mine-clearance personnel in the restive Afghan province. Last year, in Paktia's eastern district of Sayed Karam, three health employees were kidnapped who were later released under secret agreements with the kidnappers, Aseel added.
Recall, there are plenty who claim the name of Taliban who are no more than common criminals... and kidnapping foreigners is practically a sport in Afghanistan, just as it is in Yemen.
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#1
They want the de-miners out of the way so they Talib can do the de-mining and recover the HE, allegedly because they are getting constrained logistically.
[Maghrebia] As Algerian military helicopters hovered overhead to ensure security, repentant terrorist Hassan Hattab on Friday evening (July 3rd) visited his son and two daughters in the eastern Algiers neighbourhood of Benzarga, L'Expression reported. It was his first public appearance since 1992. In footage of his visit aired on Al Jazeera, Hattab launched a new appeal to Algerian terrorists to lay down arms and benefit from national reconciliation. Hattab, who surrendered to authorities in 2007, said that he and other repentant GSPC members had begun an initiative to convince al-Qaeda members to stop acts of violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[The Dallas Morning News] An estimated crowd of 25,000 to 35,000 people attended the Independence Day tea party at Southfork Ranch on Saturday, one organizer said. While the official figures haven't been tallied yet, Debbie Meyers said the bulk of the crowd arrived after 7:30 p.m. to avoid the heat of the day. The temperature reached a high of 101 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
"I was standing on the stage and couldn't see the end of the people," said Meyers, president of the event-planning business Bravo Entertainment.
The event had been billed as the largest tea party in the nation, and some organizers had said the crowd could reach 50,000.
#4
I estimate the crowd in Baton Rouge at only about 1000. Good speakers, well organized event, but not the crowd I had hoped. Hot, and competed with family events, but still, the apathy among people who ought to understand the problems is very scary.
#6
We had a crowd of 5,000 at the San Antonio Tea party - it was also at a ranch venue - but in late afternoon it was 105! It did cool off after the sun went down. Everyone there was very keen, though - and the speakers were well-received, also.
Governor Perry came, and signed off on our "Contract with the Constitution". He came and sat down opposite my daughter and I, the mother of one of the executive committee members and the husband of another member, who was wearing an 82 Airborne ball cap. He started up a joking conversation about how paratroops will jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and talked with us for about fifteen minutes - about the military, and Texas, and how we all wound up here; my daughter had the brass enough to tell him about my books, and he was very interested to hear that I wrote about Texas history in a big way; he seems to be a mad fan of historical fiction. (Yes, of course I gave him one of my author business cards!) Daughter says she thinks he glommed on to us because we weren't talking about politics! And that he doesn't seem to get out much...
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- Honduran troops used tear gas and fired shots into the air to hold back protesters at Tegucigalpa's airport Sunday evening ahead of an attempted return by deposed President Jose Manuel Zelaya, injuring at least one person, protest organizers said.
One injured, but no deaths claimed by the protest organizers? The fog of protest, it appears.
Soldiers lined barricades surrounding the airport in expectation of confrontations between Zelaya and his supporters and the provisional government that has vowed to keep him from coming back from a weeklong exile.
Zelaya was en route to Tegucigalpa on Sunday evening, and several thousand supporters gathered outside the airport in expectation of his arrival. But Civil Aviation Director Alfredo San Martin said in a radio address that the ousted leader's flight would be barred from landing in Honduras and diverted to El Salvador. At a news conference, provisional President Roberto Micheletti said Zelaya's return could create unrest in a country that has seen demonstrators for both sides in the streets since the June 28 military-led coup that sent Zelaya into exile. "I don't want a single drop of blood to be spilled in Honduras," Micheletti said.
At the same moment, speaking from aboard a small jet that was transporting him from Washington to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, Zelaya told Telesur TV that he intended to land in his native country. "I am the commander in chief of the armed forces elected by the people, and I ask the armed forces to comply with this order to open up the airport and avoid any problems with the landing," Zelaya said. Zelaya was accompanied by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto. A delegation supporting Zelaya, including the head of the Organization of American States and Presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, were to fly on a separate plane heading to neighboring El Salvador.
In a conference call with journalists, senior U.S. administration officials -- who insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities -- said that Zelaya is expected to be back in Washington Monday, if he is denied entry, to continue conversations at the Organization of American States.
Sunday's political standoff follows a vote Saturday by the OAS to suspend Honduras from the organization after the provisional government failed to respond to a 72-hour deadline to restore Zelaya as president. The OAS had demanded Zelaya's return in a resolution. Following a visit to Honduras, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said he found Micheletti's government "extremely firm" and "inflexible."
Micheletti and his supporters have repudiated the characterization of the transfer of power as a coup. The provisional government maintains the military action against Zelaya was backed by a court order and that arrest warrants have been issued against him for violating the constitution. In his remarks Sunday, Micheletti extended a diplomatic branch to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, two of Zelaya's closest allies. Micheletti also said small groups of Nicaraguan soldiers were mobilizing on the Honduran border, something that Ortega denied. Micheletti said his government was open to "good faith" talks with the OAS, but reiterated that his government was legitimate and would not be moved. "We are going to remain here until the country becomes calm," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Is this the same incident I referred to with the video question before the witching hour? If so that would explain why the "gun shots" really didn't sound like gun fire. Rather tear gas.
[Geo News] Islamabad police has arrested 3 alleged terrorists, sources said here on Sunday. The arrested belong to South Waziristan and Buner, sources added. According to police sources, heavy arms and explosives have been recovered from the accused. During initial interrogation the accused said they were planning to target important buildings and places in Islamabad, the police said. Important maps have also been recovered from the accused who have been shifted to unknown location for further investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Haaretz Defense] audi Arabia has indicated to Israel that it would not protest use of its airspace by Israeli fighter jets in the event the government resolves to launch a military assault against Iran, according to a report which appeared in the British newspaper The Sunday Times.
The Prime Minister's office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that "the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless."
According to The Sunday Times, Mossad chief Meir Dagan held secret meetings with Saudi officials, who gave their tacit approval to Israel's use of the kingdom's airspace.
"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia," The Sunday Times quoted a diplomatic source as saying last week.
The report also quoted John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as saying that it would be "entirely logical" for Israeli warplanes to fly over Saudi Arabia en route to bombing nuclear targets in Iran.
Though any Israeli attack would be roundly condemned by Mideast leaders at the UN, Bolton said Arab leaders have privately expressed trepidation at the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.
"None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success," Bolton told The Sunday Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Of course Israel has to formally deny this rumor. They might still overfly Saudi Arabia on their way to Iran.
#3
I don't understand why this "secret Saudi-Israeli agreement" ever got out. Doesn't seem like it benefits either party. Maybe they will hire Governor Palin to teach them how to keep a secret. She could use the money. Looks like her attorney fees may have just begun.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 8:50
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There are secrets and then there are secrets. It's no secret that Israel has but three routes for their airplanes to deliver ordnance in Iran:
a) fly over Jordan and Iraq
b) fly over Turkey
c) fly over Saudi-controlled Arabia
Even the Iran air defense generals know this. So it isn't a secret to speculate openly about option (c), and it helps rattle the cages of the Mad Mullahs, who recently have been pre-occupied.
This isn't a revelation of a secret, it's part of the psy-ops war.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 9:29
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#5
mebbe. Or mebbe its just fleet street rumor mongering.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
07/06/2009 12:32
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Sure, and nobody is better at that than Fleet Street :-)
But combine this 'revelation' with the news that a Israeli Dolphin class sub transited the Suez Canal and "Stumblin' Joe" Biden's statement that the Israelis are free to do as they wish, and if you're an Iranian general or admiral, you have to be worried.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 14:47
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#7
a(n) Israeli Dolphin class sub transited the Suez Canal
on the surface. Who knows how many were submerged. Heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/06/2009 21:26
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The government has said it aims to rely more on cleaner ways to power its economic growth, with the development of wind power a focus.
It has set a target to install 100 gigawatts of wind power capacity by 2020, likely making the country the world's fastest growing market for wind energy technology.
Zhang Guobao, head of China's National Energy Administration, said last year that the government would build several "Three Gorges of wind power" by 2020 in provinces and regions including Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu and Jiangsu.
#3
And exactly how much land would be required to generate 100GW of wind power? To produce 1GW it takes about 300 square miles, according to some sources. You do the math.. I know China is big, but jeez, that's a lot of freaking giant turbines.
#5
And even fewer powerlines & less infrastructure to take "advantage" of any large-scale windfarms they might build next to the pinwheels in outermost Tibet.
Feh. Windpower buffs bore me. It's worse than Keynsian hole-diggery, because the resulting plant disrupts existing, previously productive plant & causes cascading malapportionment of maintenance respurces.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/06/2009 11:19
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#6
And exactly how much land would be required to generate 100GW of wind power? To produce 1GW it takes about 300 square miles, according to some sources. You do the math.. I know China is big, but jeez, that's a lot of freaking giant turbines.
China, at 3.6m sq miles, is just a little larger than the US. 30,000 sq miles would be less than 1% of China's total land area. China does have huge areas of desert in its western border region.
#8
Im into wind power, but it's not practical until the storage problem is solved, Batteries cannot be made that large (Yet), and intermittent wind is the killer here.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/06/2009 14:36
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What is the impact, if any, of these mega-wind farms on normal air flow, and therefore the environmnent? Taking that much power out of an air-stream would seem to have some effect in it's lee.
#11
My, AlanC, you have stumbled on a great point. Let's not go for nonpolluting power, instead let's stick with coal in China. What a great idea. I know that environmentalists like to invent mythical threats in order to block anything new, but this is just nuts.
#12
Here's the kicker most do not realize: for Wind to be effective it needs a fast-turn-on standby. And that's natural gas, if you look at available technology these days.
So look for China to start building NatGas power-plants to go along with the wind power. And for the price of Nat Gas to zoom when they turn those plants up.
Sidenote: Alaska, thanks to Palin's pipeline, will be in a great position to deliver a lot of Natural Gas to the lower 48 if they can get the enviro-whackos out of the way and drill for it.
At least one person was shot dead by the Army in Honduras last night and dozens were injured as the country's ousted President tried to fly back to take power.
Manuel Zelaya, who set out from Washington in a small jet vowing to resume his presidency, was told that the military would prevent him from landing. He was expected to be diverted to El Salvador. After a week of clashes since military coup on June 28, troops fired teargas and warning shots into crowds of Mr Zelaya's supporters who gathered yesterday in anticipation of his return.
Warning shots into the crowd? How very queer.
There's a fair bit to the story that we aren't hearing from Mr. Ferry ...
It really isn't fair to expect verbal proficiency from a news photographer. The dears' strengths tend to lie elsewhere.
Stephen Ferry, a photographer working for The Times, was at the airport in the capital, Tegucigalpa, where the Army fired on protesters. "I saw a kid being shot in the head, I think he is dead," Mr Ferry said. "There are lots of injured -- I don't know how many. They just opened fire -- it was completely unprovoked."
Oh absolutely, the chavezistassandinistasbolivaristascastroistas protesters would never do anything to provoke a reaction, no sir, Senator ...
About ten thousand protesters marched to the airport despite the Micheletti government's announcement, facing riot police and soldiers, who set up blockades throughout the city. Pumping fists in the air and chanting "Coupsters out!" the demonstrators, some masked, pressed up against riot shields, demanding they be allowed through to greet the man they still hoped would come. "You are Honduran too!" some shouted.
No news report of the anti-Zelaya protests. How unexpected of the MSM ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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Just posted on the WaPo website:the airplane carrying ousted president Manuel Zelaya was forced to circle the nation's main airport [in Tegucigalpa] twice before flying away Sunday evening after coup leaders who deposed Zelaya blocked his landing with troops on the runway. Zelaya later landed in Managua.
An unnamed US official was quoted in the article: "we respect the right of President Zelaya as a Honduran citizen, and the legal and constitutional leader of Honduras, to make his own decisions." The comments on this article are all over the map, as might be expected.
#2
Nice opinion piece in CS Monitor: A 'coup' in Honduras? Nonsense.
Don't believe the myth. The arrest of President Zelaya represents the triumph of the rule of law.
North Korea has threatened a Christian ministry to stop sending Gospel messages to the country through fax, saying the consequence will be "very bad," amid testing of seven missiles on U.S. Independence Day.
Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) confirmed that an anonymous fax apparently from the North Korean embassy for Finland on 5 June promises workers affiliated with VOM that "something very bad will happen to you" if VOM continues a special project to share the Gospel.
VOM said during the past year it had collected many fax numbers from inside North Korea, and have been sending weekly faxes containing Christian messages and Scripture passages on love and forgiveness to each of the fax numbers.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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#1
Let's see now, the Romans did that and ended up a Christian nation, albeit a mighty corrupt one.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 9:16
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[Quqnoos] Two British soldiers have been killed in separate incidents in Helmand, late Saturday, according to UK military A soldier was killed when a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) hit an army vehicle during a 'deliberate operation', and the second one was killed due to an explosion.
May their memory be for a blessing to their comrades and loved ones, and for those whose lives they made better by their choice to serve.
Both incidents that occurred last night near Gereshk, a district in central Helmand, took the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 173.
Three days ago, two other British soldiers were killed in Helmand after a roadside bomb went off beneath their vehicle in which the most senior British Army officer to die in action since 1982 was killed in Helmand. "The loss of these soldiers, and colleagues, has come as a huge blow to us all," said Lt Col Nick Richardson, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand. "But it is the family, friends and loved ones, as well as the men and women who served alongside them, who feel the greatest pain," he added.
Thank you all. May we be worthy of your sacrifice.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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#1
Tragic, but these numbers should go down as the offensive succeeds.
#2
To put the numbers in perspective, the Brits lost over 400 men in aircraft and glider crashes in the opening hours of Operation Market Garden. The US didn't fare any better. Modern warfare and effective training has made fighting far less hazardous than it was during WWII, but the MSM has nothing to compare it against. They totally lack any education in military matters or history.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 15:25
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[Mail and Globe] UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon ended a mission to Burma on Saturday saying he was "deeply disappointed" that the isolated nation's top military ruler denied him a visit to jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
In two days of rare talks with Senior General Than Shwe, the UN chief urged the reclusive 76-year-old autocrat to release Suu Kyi and other political prisoners and embark on democratic reforms ahead of elections scheduled for next year.
But their meetings on Friday and Saturday in Naypyitaw, the junta's remote administrative capital, left Ban saying that his diplomatic gambit had produced no immediate results and amounted to "a setback to the international community's efforts to provide a helping hand to Myanmar".
"I am deeply disappointed that they have missed a very important opportunity," Ban said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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#1
But, was the food good? Did he get a nice shoe shine?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/06/2009 0:55
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Friday announcements are supposed to pass by the press, evading close scrutiny. Not this one! She beat Michael Jackson's ongoing death extravaganza and even some of the Fourth of July events. What a woman! And she managed to catch everyone by surprise. Not many can accomplish that these days.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 8:06
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She's out there donks, and she's coming after YOU! All of YOU!
#3
Leave it to Rush to state the obvious part that everyone else either missed or willfully ignored: we don't know why she did it.
She hasn't told us. She knows why and she'll explain it in time.
But today it's all speculation on our part.
Instapundit has suggested that it's part of a move to grab hold of the Tea Party. Maybe, but third parties typically don't do well. Others have suggested that she'll work to change the Pubs from within just as Reagan did in the 1970s. Still others say that she's going to go the talk show route.
We don't know. But she's going to show us. And it's going to be interesting.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009 9:23
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It may be too little, too late. Obamageddon is upon us.
(CNN) -- United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon was denied permission to see Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, reporters traveling with the secretary-general said Saturday.
Ban told reporters about the denial after he met with Than Shwe, leader of Myanmar's military junta. Ban is in Myanmar at the invitation of the ruling military junta for talks that are expected to include the detention of Suu Kyi, as well as the detention of other political prisoners.
Officials in Myanmar delayed the resumption of the trial of Suu Kyi Friday. The delay is the latest in a string of postponements and came as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the Asian nation for talks with government officials.
"The secretary-general believes that the sooner these issues are addressed, the earlier Myanmar will be able to move towards peace, democracy and prosperity," Michele Montas, Ban's spokeswoman, said this week. "He looks forward to meeting all key stakeholders to discuss what further assistance the United Nations can offer to that end."
Suu Kyi -- the face of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement -- is on trial on allegations of subversion. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and two of her maids have been charged in a May 3 incident in which an American provocateur, John William Yettaw, 53, swam across a lake to her house and stayed for at least a night. If convicted, Suu Kyi, 64, could face three to five years in prison. Her trial is being held inside a prison compound near Yangon. The proceedings have repeatedly adjourned while Suu Kyi's lawyers have challenged the court's rulings in the case.
Ban told CNN in May that he was in talks with Myanmar's leadership about traveling to Yangon to seek Suu Kyi's release, as well as push for democratization. "This is an unacceptable situation when she has been under detention for such a long time," Ban said. "She's a Nobel peace laureate."
Myanmar's military regime has held Suu Kyi under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years and rarely allows her visitors. Suu Kyi has been barred for life from running for political office, but human rights groups suspect that Myanmar's junta worries that her release would invigorate the opposition.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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[Mail and Globe] Zimbabwe has pledged to remove its troops from diamond fields in the east, an official newspaper said on Sunday -- a week after a rights group alleged the military was committing killings and abuses in the area.
The Ministry of Mines has denied last month's report by Human Rights Watch that said troops had killed more than 200 people at the Marange diamond fields while forcing children to search for diamonds and beating villagers who got in the way. The coalition government said the military was there to secure the area, about 250km east of Harare, while the mining is managed by the state's Mining Development Corporation.
But Mines Minister Obert Mpofu on Saturday told inspectors from the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme -- the world's diamond control body -- that the troops would be withdrawn from the diamond fields and the country would meet international mining standards, according to the Sunday Mail. "We are going to work toward getting in line with the standards proposed," the paper quoted Mpofu as saying during a meeting with the Kimberly delegation.
Deputy Mines Minister Murisi Zwizwai -- a member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's former opposition party -- said the coalition government had "agreed to remove the soldiers, but it will be done in phases while proper security settings would be put in place," Zwizwai was quoted as saying.
The 60 000-hectare Marange diamond fields were discovered in 2006 -- at the height of Zimbabwe's political, economic and humanitarian crisis. Villagers rushed to the area and began finding diamonds close to the surface.
Officials of the Kimberley Process recently visited the fields following allegations that security chiefs and loyalists of President Robert Mugabe were either perpetrating or tolerating rights abuses and illegal diamond exports. "There cannot be effective security where diamonds are concerned with the involvement of the military," the Kimberly delegation said in a report to the Zimbabwean government quoted by the Sunday Mail.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Security forces on Saturday set ablaze 10 houses and 14 shops owned by the militants in various areas of Swat district while the body of an unknown person was recovered here on Saturday.
Sources said security forces torched shops and houses of the militants in the surrounding areas of Mingora city.
In Oudhigram area, security forces set ablaze four shops owned by a militant identified as Ziarat Gul, the sources said. In the Haji Ishaq Mohalla, security forces burnt the houses of the militants identified as Haji Bahadar, Musa Khan and Akhtar Ali.
The house of another militant, Sherzada, in the Faizabad area was also torched. Security forces also set ablaze three houses of alleged militants in Khwaja Abad area and recovered arms and ammunition.
An unidentified body was recovered from Amankot area, who was reportedly killed by unknown persons.
In a statement, the ISPR said during a search operation in general area Shamozai Mines, three tunnels approximately 50-60 metres long were found. Security forces also recovered 15 rifles, three pistols, 11 SMGs, five mortar shells, one binocular, safety fuzes, one roll of detonating cord, plenty of ammunition and police bullet proof jackets.
During a search at Surgalai and Parinda Baba Ziarat, one IED attached with a mortar shell, five rocket launcher fuzes, one rocket of RPG-7 and currency of different countries were recovered.
Similarly, during a search operation at Mangaltan valley, six terrorists were apprehended. Security forces also recovered two rifles, 22 pistols, eight grenades, remote control sets, four IEDs, three wire rolls, explosive RDX, electric detonators, rations in abundance, large quantity of camouflage uniforms and medical kits.
During a search operation in Dangram and Kokarai, security forces recovered three vehicles (Pajero, Hiace and Hyundai). A small machinegun, one pistol and a motorcycle were also recovered in Sangota and Shamlay. A known militant of the area Sher Alam, who was also second-in-command of Khush Mir, surrendered before security forces on Friday at Bahrain. Security forces during a search operation at Shah Dheri recovered five small machine guns.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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SEOUL, July 5 (Yonhap) -- Top South Korean and Japanese negotiators at the six-nation disarmament talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program will hold a meeting in Seoul on Monday to discuss how they will implement U.N. sanctions against the North for its recent nuclear test, officials said Sunday.
South Korean chief negotiator Wi Sung-lac and his Japanese counterpart, Akitaka Saiki, will also exchange views on North Korea's recent belligerent acts, including Pyongyang's recent launches of short-range missiles, officials the South's foreign ministry said.
"The meeting between chief negotiators from South Korea and Japan is aimed at checking the current situation after North Korea's second nuclear test and the adoption of the U.N. Resolution 1874," said an official at the ministry.
The Monday meeting is also regarded as a preparatory step to tune positions of South Korea and Japan as five members of the six-party talks, including the United States, Japan and Russia, were set to begin a series of diplomatic efforts to lure North Korea to the negotiating table, according to the official.
China's chief envoy for the disarmament talks, Wu Dawei, already started a visit to Russia last week. Wu plans to visit South Korea, Japan and the U.S. to discuss the North Korean issue. Wu is scheduled to visit South Korea on July 12-14, according to the South Korean ministry.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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#1
Japan can actually stop Korea's nuclear weapons pursuit. All it has to do is to declare that, because North Korea is developing nuclear weapons, it must do so also to deter an attack by the North. Also, in lieu of the danger posed by NORK, Russia and China, it will change its constitution and re-arm. That will engender a pucker-factor in China and Russia as nothing else would, and they'll rein in their crazy sock puppet.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 16:29
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#2
I believe NORTH KOREA = KIMMIE fired its missles at GUAM, as based on my visual observations of several strange fireballs = fiery streaks, including one spherical-shaped full explosion, in the night skies oer my home island. REMINDED ME MORE OF "MISSLES/ROCKETS", AS OPPOS TO FIERY "METEORS", ETC. USDOD AIRCRAFT WERE ALSO OBSERVED BUSILY DARTING TO AND FROM ALL OVER AGANA + AGANA BAY.
Iff these phenomena were indeed Kimmie's missles, as I believe them to be, then IMO US-ALLIED INTEL HAS GROSSLY UNDERESTIMATED THE STATE OF NOKOR'S MIL/NUCTECHS, and by extens prob also THE NOKOR MISSLE, NUCLEAR THREAT IN GENERAL INCLUD FOR IRAN.
One of these fireballs "burned up" high in the shy oer CENTRAL-SOUTHERN GUAM, whilst the rest did same seemingly just offshore AGANA BAY = WESTPAC [downward trajectory]. The single explosion I'd observed as above could either be a successful US BMD hit, or more likely one of NOKOR's infamous missle failures.
"NUTSHELL" > IMO ANY US-ALLIED INTEL INTERPRETATION SHOULD BE THAT MOST OF THESE MISSLES CAME THROUGH AND HAD EFFEC REACHED GUAM ISLAND + SHORT DISTANCE BEYOND.
* NK Missles can now reach as far away as Guam
* NK can fire its missles in BARRAGE.
* SURFACE/MARITIME VESSEL LAUNCH, aka NOPNO-TRADITIONAL NAVAL/MIL LAUNCH [ASBM = Anti-Carrier Asenal-Fire Ship]???
* DID THE US FAIL TO STOP THE LAUNCHINGS, OR IN THE ALTERNATE ALLOWED NOKOR TO LAUNCH???
IFF THE US IS WRONG ABOUT NOKOR'S MISSLES, IS IT WRONG ABOUT NOKOR NOT HANING ADVANCED NUCMATS FOR STRATEGIC + NUKE WEAPONS???
** GUAM PDN NEWS/OTHER this AM > REPORT: NORTH KOREA MAY TEST/LAUNCH EXTENDED RANGE SCUD ["SCUD-ER" IRBM].
[Bangla Daily Star] The BNP Parliamentary Party (BNPPP) has yet to decide whether to join the current session of parliament, which has only four workdays left to go.
Though the main opposition's parliamentary body has lately issued several statements, most of its lawmakers had no knowledge about those.
Last month, opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farroque read out at least eight statements on behalf of BNPPP at press briefings at the Jatiya Sangsad media centre.
The statements concerned various issues. In those, BNP demanded trial of recently-retired army chief Gen Moeen U Ahmed and withdrawal of Indian high commissioner, and proposed names of five water experts for inclusion in the parliamentary team to visit Tipaimukh dam site.
Besides, it accused the ruling party of turning parliament into a hub of one-party activities and reiterated their stance on joining the House proceedings.
"I drafted the statements in consultation with one or two lawmakers, and later those were okayed by Madam [Khaleda Zia]," Farroque told The Daily Star Wednesday.
Queried if BNPPP met to draw up the statements, he said, "No meeting was held. But senior leaders have been in contact with the party chairperson."
Reminded of the party charter attaching importance to the role of its lawmakers, the opposition chief whip said, "Khaleda Zia is the owner of BNPPP. We are always in contact with her.
"We speak whenever she wants us to speak and we say whatever she wants us to say."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[Mail and Globe] Iran's hardline rulers are set to punish reformists linked to the boldest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution, despite the damage this might inflict on the system's legitimacy and relations with the West.
Now that security forces have quelled the street turmoil that erupted after a disputed June 12 presidential election, the leadership is preparing to put on trial some of the hundreds of political activists and opinion-makers detained since the vote.
Hints abound that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shocked by the furore over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in a vote critics say was rigged, is striking back.
The editor of hardline Kayhan daily urged on Saturday that losing candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and reformist ex-President Mohammad Khatami be tried for their "terrible crimes".
On Friday, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council that certified the election, said British embassy local staffers accused of inciting unrest had confessed and would face trial. They include the mission's chief political analyst.
The hardline Javan newspaper said 100 lawmakers had asked the judiciary to prosecute the leaders of "post-election riots", citing Mousavi and another defeated candidate, Mehdi Karoubi.
Further stifling of dissent risks discrediting "republican" institutions that have in the past cloaked Iran's clerical rulers with a degree of popular legitimacy, analysts said.
"Once the attempt to steal the elections didn't go as planned, Ahmadinejad opted for the politics of elimination," said Trita Parsi, president of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council. "That too will fail, I believe.
"The violence and brutality shown by the government will not be forgotten. It came at the expense of whatever legitimacy the government had left," he said. "Khamenei and Ahmadinejad can only rule by force now. Their reliance on the security apparatus is greater now than ever before."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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#1
I wasn't aware that this government needed legitimacy. They have the guns and Allah's Will and a healthy lust for power on their side. They need more to force a brutal clamp down on any dissent? I don't get it.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 8:42
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#2
only an idiot or an america hater would have given this govt legitimacy before the election
and some idiots and america haters are still fans of the govt
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/06/2009 21:12
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[Bangla Daily Star] The all-party parliamentary probe body yesterday finalised its report, which recommends scrapping the House membership of former speaker Jamiruddin Sircar on graft charges.
The other recommendations in the report include taking legal actions against former deputy speaker Akhtar Hamid Siddiqui and former chief whip Khandaker Delwar Hossain on similar charges.
"Parliament should enact new laws if necessary to implement the recommendations," Fazle Rabbi Mia, chief of the probe body, told reporters after the final meeting of the committee at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.
By means of its inherent power, the legislature can punish anyone for offences related to moral turpitude, provided there is no law in this regard, he noted.
The committee examined the constitutional provisions of India and Canada and parliamentary practices and procedures in the UK before settling on the recommendations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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Big admission from Vice President Joe Biden today.
"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Biden told me during an exclusive "This Week" interview in Iraq.
Not everyone, Joe, just you, your boss and your pals in Congress ...
Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June -- the worst in 26 years.
"The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited," said Biden, who is leading the administration's effort to implement it's $787 billion economic stimulus plan. "Now, that doesn't -- I'm not -- it's now our responsibility. So the second question becomes, did the economic package we put in place, including the Recovery Act, is it the right package given the circumstances we're in? And we believe it is the right package given the circumstances we're in," he told me.
The vice president argued more time is needed for the stimulus to work. "We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package," he said. "The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money."
Krugman knows international economics but knows nothing else, to the point where he's become a caricature. If he's wanting a second stimulus, that's reason enough for me to oppose it.
I pressed the vice president, who is also leading the administration's middle-class task force, on whether he'd rule out a second stimulus package.
"So, no second stimulus?" I asked.
"No, I didn't say that," Biden said, "I think it's premature to make that judgment. This was set up to spend out over 18 months. There are going to be major programs that are going to take effect in September, $7.5 billion for broadband, new money for high-speed rail, the implementation of the grid -- the new electric grid. And so this is just starting, the pace of the ball is now going to increase."
Poor dear Vice President Biden will keep saying things. He just promised the U.S. will not stand in Israel's way if Israel believes military action is needed to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat. He added that the U.S. "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do." He got the right thought, but aimed it at the wrong object.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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This is a crock: "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Leave out me and many other people, some with actual qualifications, from Joe's "everyone else." Plenty of people read the economy correctly, and were either ridiculed or ignored until it was too late. Even now there is no fact-finding operation going on at the executive or legislative level to determine what went wrong and how it might be fixed. Instead they are trotting out the same discredited "experts" who had a hand in causing the crisis, to fix it. Joe, your people are still misreading the economy.
#2
Not everyone, Joe, just you, your boss and your pals in Congress ...
Not to mention those who actively participated in obstructing real oversight and regulatory action. "Misread" is not a defense when the evidence clearly shows gross negligence and dereliction of duty by your beltway buddies up to the time the 'crisis' finally unfolded. Put this up there with "I didn't know the gun was loaded" even when you were repeatedly warned.
#3
So, what makes you think you have gotten it right this time?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/06/2009 7:57
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#4
AH they don't WANT to fix it. At least not as you or I would define "fix".
What they want are excuses and crises that can be used to grab more and more power over the economy (see also Oogo) and continue to implement their fascist / communist / socialist ideals.
#5
I seem to remember the stimulus being necessary because we were in "the worst economy since the Great Depression". Now Biden says he underestimated how bad it was? The Party needs to do a whole lot of airbrushing.
#6
This statement is self-serving. Rather than take credit for all their efforts to further damage the economy, they take blame merely for not immediately understanding how bad Bush left it for them. Gawd how I hate these people. Only thing worse is the idiots who listen to them.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/06/2009 17:59
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#8
Any different from the upper echelons of the old Soviet Union who actually believe the reports of their minions who were lying through their teeth telling their bosses what they wanted to hear? It wasn't till it was too late that the boys at the top discovered [along with the CIA who also believed the reporting] that they'd based their decisions on fiction. Then again, when you insist on running a corrupt political machine, what more can you expect.
[Geo News] India is "very cautiously" and "responsibly" evaluating the conflicting signals emanating from Pakistan on punishing the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks and was waiting for its "visible and credible" actions against them.
Voicing his disapproval over the release of JuD leader Hafeez Saeed, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today said India has not yet received any official communication about Pakistan government's appeal against the release of the terror mastermind in a higher court.
"The brain behind the terror attack has been released. We have not heard about Pakistan government taking it up in an appeal. So, in the light of that conflicting signals are emanating from Pakistan," he said while talking to local news publication on his way back from his four-day trip to Japan.
Krishna said India has to "very cautiously and responsibly" evaluate these signals.
Asked about the "credible action" India expects from Pakistan, he said "well, it is very simple, we want perpetrators of the attack on Mumbai to be brought to justice. That is the only thing India is asking for and we are waiting."
"I have repeatedly said that it has to be visible and it has to be credible. There must be some commitment on the part of Pakistan that they are going after the Mumbai attackers," he underlined.
Krishna said if required he would meet his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit meeting in Egypt later this month.
"If there is a requirement, I will be too willing to meet with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Anyway, we are going to be under the same roof. So, let us see how things move on," he said, adding that India has never hesitated from holding talks with Pakistan at any level.
"I don't think that some of the other developments, parallel developments which have taken place in Pakistan would add credibility to Pakistan's desire for the Composite Dialogue to move forward," he said.
On suggestions from the international community that India should talk to Pakistan, Krishna said New Delhi has never said no to talks with Islamabad.
"India has never said no to talks with Pakistan. India has taken a very consistent position that we will talk. But we will talk about terror. We will discuss about terror. India is ever willing to talk about terror," he underlined.
On US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit, Krishna said he had spoken to the American leader and was looking forward to it.
The Minister said he would raise the issue of terrorism emanating from Pakistan with Clinton when she visits New Delhi later this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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Irans biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejads re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown. The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom is an act of defiance against the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has made clear he will tolerate no further challenges to Mr Ahmadinejads victory over Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Its a clerical mutiny, said one Iranian analyst. This is the first time ever you have all these big clerics openly challenging the leaders decision. Another, in Tehran, said: We are seeing the birth of a new political front.
This is a pretty big deal; it makes clear that Khamenei and Short Round are now nothing more than a bunch of thugs with guns. So much for the islamic part of the Islamic republic.
Professor Ali Ansari, head of Iranian Studies at St Andrews University, said: Its highly significant. It shows this is nowhere near resolved.
The Association of Researchers and Teachers is based in Qom, the clerical nerve centre of Iran, and includes many leading ayatollahs with impeccable revolutionary credentials and big personal followings. The association did not support a candidate in the election, but has now lined up firmly behind Mr Mousavi. In a rebuke to the regime it declared on its website: Candidates complaints and strong evidence of vote-rigging were ignored . . . Peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed . . . Dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested . . . The outcome is invalid.
It called on other clerics to speak out, demanded the release of all those arrested in the past three weeks, and directly challenged the authority of the Guardian Council, a body of 12 senior clerics that has openly backed Mr Ahmadinejad and his patron, Mr Khamenei. How can one accept the legitimacy of the election just because the Guardian Council says so?, it asked.
The associations statement also shows how deeply the political establishment is divided, and the extent to which the Supreme Leader now derives his power from military might, not moral authority. It makes it much harder for the regime to arrest Mr Mousavi and other opposition leaders.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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Khamenei and Short Round are now nothing more than a bunch of thugs with guns
[Iran Press TV Latest] More than 30 people are killed in separate incidents of violence in northwestern Pakistan where the army has opened several fronts against pro-Taliban militants.
Fresh clashes between the army and insurgents erupted on Sunday in the town of Mingora north of Swat.
"Gunship helicopters shelled militant hideouts at Mangaltan area of Charbagh town. At least ten militants were killed in the shelling," said a military spokesman.
This is while the military claims to have 'almost cleared' the volatile Swat valley of Taliban-linked militants.
In addition to Swat, at least six insurgents related to pro-Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud were reportedly killed in the tribal North Waziristan when jet fighters bombed militants' hideouts in the conflict-torn region.
Also, in the Orakzai region, gunship helicopters shelled militant positions in two areas, killing at least three alleged militants.
Moreover, nine members of a tribal voluntary force, lashkar, and three militants were killed during a clash in the volatile Mohmand Agency, according to the Dawn newspaper.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] The United States will encourage Ethiopia not to return to Somalia as it would be against the interests of both Horn of African nations, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said on Saturday. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late 2006 to topple an Islamist movement in the capital Mogadishu. The intervention sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the fact Ethiopian troops pulled out in January.
Sparked? I thought the mighty AEthiop army wandered across the border because the Islamists had gotten entirely too rambunctious.
"The Ethiopian government continues to look very closely at developments in Somalia," Carson told Reuters in Kenya ahead of a visit to Ethiopia on Monday. "Given the long-standing enmity between Somalis and Ethiopians I will encourage the Ethiopians not to re-engage in Somalia. It is not their interest to so and their efforts might in fact prove counterproductive to the government," he said in an interview.
Neighbors and Western governments fear that if the Somali administration is overthrown, the lawless nation will become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda to train militants to destabilize the region.
Residents in several regions of Somalia have reported seeing Ethiopian soldiers in the past two months. Addis Ababa initially denied this but later acknowledged it had made "reconnaissance" missions. It still insists no combat troops are in Somalia.
"Ethiopia has a right to defend its borders, should do so vigorously if individuals cross into their territory, and their efforts should be directed at defense of their territory and not necessarily involvement inside of Somalia," Carson said.
We only don't interfere with certain countries. Others we try hard to shove into line, it seems.
Carson held talks with senior officials from all Horn of Africa countries, including the Eritrean foreign minister, during an African Union summit in Libya this week.
Washington has accused Eritrea of supporting the hardline Al-Shabaab insurgents who are fighting to oust Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. It says Eritrea has aided the movement of weapons and foreign fighters into Somalia.
If Ethiopia is not permitted to invade Somali, perhaps they ought to wander across Eritrea's border in force instead.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Perhaps they can send some troops to help Honduras as BHØ doesn't seem interested in supporting a constitutional government. /s
Actually now that I think about it, it's not such a bad idea.
#6
I would rather read that the "US urges Somalians to stay out of the U.S. I have completely unassimmilated Somali neighbors. The women are covered from head to toe and acknowledge no-one's existence outside of their family.
The mother vigorously cursed at my autistic son for staring at her.
The father shields his face while driving past our house if my wife and daughters are outside. They Somalis seem to have ample funding from the feds, state, and city of Tucson. They have three sons and two daughters (covered head to toe). They live in a city owned house for which I presume they pay peanuts in rent. Mother and father clean rooms at a local resort. They have accumulated three late model cars since moving to Arizona two years ago. I am not a nativist but I cringe seeing my tax dollars(which I have been paying since the 1960's) used in this manner. What in the hell is going on in this country???
Cynthia McKinneys mom said shes learned that her daughter is on the way home. Leola McKinney said a friend who contacted the U.S. Embassy in Israel reported that the former congresswoman was released from Israeli custody and taken to Ben Gurion International Airport.
We finally got word that she was released, Leola McKinney said late Sunday afternoon. We dont know what time she is supposed to fly out. All we know is that they took her to the airport.
I would be more relieved when I know shes on the flight, Leola McKinney added. But I am relieved that shes away from there.
McKinney had been in custody since Tuesday, when she and 20 others were swept up by the Israeli Navy while allegedly trying to sail through a navy blockade. The group says it was attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. McKinney and the rest of her group could have been released soon after they were taken into custody but they refused to sign a document admitting they violated Israels blockade, according to McKinneys parents. The group was due to appear in an Israeli court Sunday.
Leola McKinney said she had no information about the court hearing. Leola McKinney said she had not spoken with her daughter since shortly after she was taken into custody.
Cynthia McKinney and other members of the Free Gaza Movement left Cyprus Tuesday on the Greek-registered ship Arion. Their ship was stopped when they tried to pass through the Israeli Navys security blockade at Ashdod. The group was taken into custody and their ship was seized. Israel officials promised to deliver by ground all of the humanitarian supplies that were on the boat.
Leola McKinney said the trip would have received no publicity if they had been allowed to deliver supplies to Gaza. They [Israel] made an issue out of it by taking the boat and escorting them into Israel.
Billy McKinney, Cynthia McKinneys father and a known Juice hater former state legislator, said his daughter was only trying to show the devastation in Gaza Anybody who has a humanitarian spirit would not want to see those people live in those conditions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Darn Israel, I was hoping they would send their asses to jail, mostly hers. Now we are gonna have to put up with this nut job on all the news channels. Now you know with all the starving Norks she would never help there.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/06/2009 0:11
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Rats. I was hoping Israel would trade her to Iran for some fake oranges or potatoes, anything but send her back here.
#5
I am sure there were some serious long-term issues involved: only G-d knows how much worse the mental make-up of the average Israeli-imprisons Palestinian terrorist would be seriously infected with even casual contact with a world-class froot-loop like McKinney.
[Haaretz Defense] The Be'er Sheva District Court on Sunday charged a Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip with attempting to set up a terror network on Israeli territory with the intention of carrying out a massive bombing attack.
Abd El-Rahman Talalkeh, a resident the Nuseirat refugee camp, was arrested early last month in the Negev by Dimona police officers, after allegedly receiving classified intelligence pertaining to the Shin Bet security forces.
Talalkeh was interrogated thoroughly by agents from the Shin Bet and the southern police district's unity for Hostile Destructive Activity. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, contact with a foreign agent, and illegal military training.
Talalkeh is suspected of fomenting terrorist connections within Israel and plotting mass attacks against Israel Defense Forces bases and police stations. He was also charged with attempting to abduct an IDF soldier as collateral for the release of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.
The suspect told interrogators that he had undergone extensive military training in the Gaza Strip, on behalf of the Popular Resistance Committees, in order to establish a terrorism infrastructure inside Israel.
His training was said to include the use of small arms; preparation of various chemicals, car bombs, explosive belts and bags; use of GPS devices; and intelligence gathering.
According to the indictment, Talalkeh was initially active with Hamas, but broke off his connections to a difference of opinion with the leader of his cell. The suspect told interrogators that he believed Hamas members need to become more involved in their religion and carry out their attacks from a place of faith.
Talalkeh is suspected of learning from his dispatchers the various interrogation methods used by the Shin Bet, in case he were to be caught. He was allegedly planning to carry out a mass bombing on a multi-story building using a car laden with explosives which he was to detonate from afar.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Fifteen men of an armed tribal Lashkar and three militants were killed when fierce clashes erupted in Fam Pokha and Kharai Darra areas of Ambar Tehsil in Mohmand Agency in the wee hours of Saturday.
Sources said the militants attacked the armed men of tribal Lashkar of Utmankhel tribe in Fam Pokha area, killing 15 Lashkaris on the spot. Official sources put the death toll at 12. It was learnt that three Lashkaris were still missing.
Some of the slain Lashkaris were identified as Bacha Khan, Qabil Khan, Mullah Zar Wali, Ali Rehman, Masood Khan, Misal Khan, Hazrat Bacha, Gul Bacha, Lal Gul, Hazrat Shah and Taza Khan.
Also, the sources said three militants were killed and seven others sustained injuries in the pre-dawn clashes in Fam Pokha and Kharai Darra areas.
Official sources said the slain militants belonged to Dawezai area of the Mohmand Agency. However, their identity could not be established.
Meanwhile, security forces arrested a local militant commander, Fazal, of Qandaro area from the Nadra Centre in Ghallanai. The militant commander had come to make a computerised national identity card, but someone informed security forces about his presence. Fazal was apprehended and shifted to an unknown location for interrogation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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#1
Fred - would it make sense to somehow combine the Pakistan and Afghanistan sections?
I love rantburg and will read it any way you organize it of course.
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, said yesterday that he expected the eighth of the nine British Embassy employees arrested ten days ago to be released soon but a lawyer representing the ninth -- a political analyst named Hossein Rossam -- said he would be charged with threatening national security. Mr Miliband expressed "cold anger" at the way the nine had been treated.
That and a pound note will get you tea in Trafalgar Square ...
The regime freed Iason Athanasiadis, an Anglo-Greek journalist arrested on June 19. However, a lawyer for Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist working for Newsweek, said he faced charges of "instigating riots and acting against national security".
Posted by: Steve White ||
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That would be a pound coin.
/pedantic intervention
[Khaleej Times] Iran's ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said on Saturday that there was no power struggle in Iran following the crisis triggered by alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election, ISNA news agency reported. "The election scene was a competition within the system and should not be considered by some as a power struggle or crack in the system," Rafsanjani was quoted by ISNA as saying in his first reaction to the post-election turmoil.
Rafsanjani, who backed opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi in the presidential election, was accused by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both before and after the election, of corruption.
Due to the open support of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for Ahmadinejad, there had been press reports and speculation that the influential Rafsanjani might start a power struggle against both the president and the leadership.
"These kind of interpretations are de facto an insult against the Iranian people ... We have to maintain the long-term interests of the establishment," Rafsanjani said.
The former president and current head of the Experts Assembly an influential clergy body - however made the reconciliatory remarks in a meeting with families of officials who were arrested and detained since the outbreak of the protests against President Ahmadinejad's re-election.
Besides the arrests of hundreds of dissidents, journalists and protestors, a number of former officials have also been detained by Iranian security, including cabinet members of former president Mohammad Khatami as well former parliament deputies.
Visiting the families of the detainees was a clear sign of Rafsanjani's sympathy and support for the opposition. The cleric has also refrained so far from acknowledging the re-election of Ahmadinejad whose internal and external policies Rafsanjani strongly opposes.
"Unfortunately after the elections, some problems were caused for some people which left a bitter taste and I don't think that anybody is happy about the status quo," Rafsanjani said referring to the deaths of at least 20 protestors and eight pro-Ahmadinejad militia in addition to the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of critics.
The moderate cleric however said he hoped that the crisis would be settled and the prisoners freed through wisdom and goodwill.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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[Geo News] An unknown man abducted a 6-year old girl in Allahabad area of Kasoor and subjected her to sexual assault. The girl is now presently under treatment at the ICU of a children's hospital,
Mumahhand Hanif, father of the young girl, Anisa, said that she was playing outside the house when an unknown man appeared and enticed her into going with him into the fields where he raped her. A passerby spotted the girl lying in the fields and informed at her house.
Muhammad Hanif has appealed that the perpetrator of the crime be awarded an exemplary punishment.
Death would be suitably exemplary ...
According to the girl's doctor, her condition is now better and that she will be discharged in a couple of days.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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The girl's father will have a serious advantage in negotiating a dowry.
[Quqnoos] The 4,000 US Marines have regained the control of two Taliban stronghold districts of Nawa in the north and Khanshin in the south of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Now, the fighting moves towards another Taliban stronghold, Garmsir District, in the southern Helmand, to setback the militants, says our correspondent Baryalai Rahimi in Lashkar Gah.
According to fresh reports, militants have planted landmines to prevent the US Marines and Afghan Army to speed up the offensive in the volatile Afghan province.
There have been no causalities reported yet in the major fighting but a Taliban spokesman claimed to have killed five US soldiers in Shinkai and Zor Abad villages of Nad Ali districts, Saturday evening. Moreover, a militant website quoting a purported Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid reports that a US military helicopter was knocked down by insurgents, Saturday, in Garmsir district.
Brave, brave lions of Islam ...
"The offensive is not going-on as speedy as we expected, because of landmines planted on the way," said Maj Gen Zahir Azimi, spokesman for Afghan Defence Ministry.
A militant commander in Nad Ali district said Taliban cannot fight face to face with the US and Afghan troops in on-going offensive, Khanjar, ...
... that's a correct statement ...
... therefore planting mines is a preferred tool, holding up the troops to enter further districts.
US officials said the aim of the operation in short term is to secure the area to run the elections in August and in long term, the US army would seek people's support to stablise the province. The US troops would station the districts regained from the Taliban, US military officials insisted. "The operation is to clear up the area, provide security, good governance and to begin construction programmes," MoD spokesman further said.
It seems operation Khanjar is a long-run one as a large number of militants are positioned in Helmand province.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/06/2009
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#1
good luck, good hunting, and blessings to the Marines.
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
07/06/2009 12:22
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You can say that again. And the opposite of blessings to the sovereign nations that are in close proximity to Afghanistan and do nothing.
SEOUL, July 5 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean cargo ship being tracked by the U.S. Navy on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons has been sailing in international waters off the Yellow Sea of South Korea, military sources said Sunday.
The freighter Kang Nam left North Korea's western port of Nampo June 17 and is the first vessel the U.S. Navy has tracked on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons under U.N. Resolution 1874.
"I believe that the North Korean cargo ship Kang Nam is heading toward North Korea in international waters 200km off the western coast of South Korea," a source said, adding the ship is expected to enter into the North Korea's territorial waters at about 10 a.m. Monday.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/06/2009
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so probably NOT heading to a Chinese port on the return trip?
Posted by: liberal hawk ||
07/06/2009 12:17
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Q-ship. They want to instigate an international incident to force the US to drop its sanctions. The US didn't fall for it, so it's going home. The Norks will try again.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/06/2009 15:40
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Taliban confirmed on its Web site that it is holding an American soldier that the U.S. military had earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands. 
CN Carrier website describes its mission as "giving the construction of a Chinese aircraft carrier a shot of nationalistic steroids.") 
As Marine Corps forces roll into southern Afghanistan, they face an enemy familiar to US officials -- Mullah Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who now leads a reconstituted Taliban. Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is from Helmand Province and has taken a circuitous route to become head of the radical Islamic group. 
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani arrives in Doha to hold talks with Qatari officials on the realms of mutual interest including regional issues. 
[Iran Press TV Latest] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expresses concern over a series of missile launches by North Korea, saying such moves are 'unhelpful' for peace in the troubled peninsula. 
[Quqnoos] Gunmen kidnapped 16 de-miners Saturday in Afghan south-eastern province of Paktia, official said. The mine-clearance personnel, affiliated to the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre of Afghanistan (MACA) were abducted in Wochekhas suburb, about 12 km north of the provincial capital, Gardiz. Head of UNMACA in the Afghan south-eastern region, Engineer Shir Agha Ahmadzai, confirmed the kidnapping and urged any involved parties to immediately secure the release of the Afghan humanitarian aid workers.
[The Dallas Morning News] An estimated crowd of 25,000 to 35,000 people attended the Independence Day tea party at Southfork Ranch on Saturday, one organizer said. While the official figures haven't been tallied yet, Debbie Meyers said the bulk of the crowd arrived after 7:30 p.m. to avoid the heat of the day. The temperature reached a high of 101 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. 
(CNN) -- United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon was denied permission to see Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, reporters traveling with the secretary-general said Saturday.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] The United States will encourage Ethiopia not to return to Somalia as it would be against the interests of both Horn of African nations, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said on Saturday. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late 2006 to topple an Islamist movement in the capital Mogadishu. The intervention sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the fact Ethiopian troops pulled out in January.
[The News (Pak) Top Stories] Fifteen men of an armed tribal Lashkar and three militants were killed when fierce clashes erupted in Fam Pokha and Kharai Darra areas of Ambar Tehsil in Mohmand Agency in the wee hours of Saturday.
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, said yesterday that he expected the eighth of the nine British Embassy employees arrested ten days ago to be released soon but a lawyer representing the ninth -- a political analyst named Hossein Rossam -- said he would be charged with threatening national security. Mr Miliband expressed "cold anger" at the way the nine had been treated.
[Geo News] An unknown man abducted a 6-year old girl in Allahabad area of Kasoor and subjected her to sexual assault. The girl is now presently under treatment at the ICU of a children's hospital, 
[Quqnoos] The 4,000 US Marines have regained the control of two Taliban stronghold districts of Nawa in the north and Khanshin in the south of the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Now, the fighting moves towards another Taliban stronghold, Garmsir District, in the southern Helmand, to setback the militants, says our correspondent Baryalai Rahimi in Lashkar Gah.
