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Violent mobs rule Peshawar
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
18:04 3 23:13 JosephMendiola [21]
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10:52 5 21:37 Barbara [25]
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10:06 6 20:02 DarthVader [17]
09:49 2 12:23 Besoeker [17]
09:38 5 19:41 JosephMendiola [18]
09:26 1 11:34 Iblis [15]
08:10 7 22:47 JosephMendiola [18] 
07:32 5 16:34 Abu Uluque [11]
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00:00 4 14:08 Angiting Snore1647 [12]
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00:00 4 16:30 Abu Uluque [10]
00:00 5 20:35 Anguper Hupomosing9418 [29]
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Home Front: Politix
AEP: Back Ben Bernanke's QE3 with a clothes peg on your nose
Posted by: tipper || 09/23/2012 18:04 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Like I said previously.

AEP = Idiot.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/23/2012 22:00 Comments || Top||

#2  AEP = Idiot.
Maybe, here's the counter argument, which I go along with.
Posted by: tipper || 09/23/2012 22:44 Comments || Top||

#3  Why worry in the US about a mere QE8 when 237% Debt-to-GDP Japan is repor launching QE8???

To wit,

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > JAPAN LAUNCHES QE8 AS 20-YEAR SLUMP DRAGS ON | BANK OF JAPAN IS TO BORROW A FURTHER Y$10.0 TRILYUHN [L$79.0B] OF BONDS.

* RELATED SAME > [BoJ Governor Masaaki -] SHIRAKAWA: JAPAN'S RECOVERY MAY BE DELAYED, by six months = 1/2 year due to increasing sluggishness in Global Growth.

versus

* SAME > CHINA TO BE "IN THE RANKS OF INNOVATIVE NATIONS BY 2020 ... TECH POWER BY 2049" | CHINA AIMS TO BE A WORLD TECHNOLOGICAL POWER BY 2049.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 23:13 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Libyan Islamists accused of killing US ambassador 'finished'
"finished" I tell ya!
The uprising has emboldened the Libyan government to issue a 48-hour deadline for militias not directly under its command to leave bases around Tripoli.

Brig-Gen Hamed Belkhair, commander of the official Benghazi garrison told the Daily Telegraph, that Ansar al-Sharia, the militant group whose members were implicated in storming the US consulate when ambassador Chris Stevens was killed had been disbanded.

"Its individual members may remain but it is finished as a force, God willing," he said.

Brig Gen Belkhair was speaking shortly after being released from a six-hour kidnap, a reflection of the insecurity that continues to plague Libya following the revolution to topple Col Muammar Gaddafi.

He was seized from outside his house in the city on Saturday morning, shortly after his troops had been on the streets protecting crowds of anti-Islamist demonstrators who stormed bases belonging to Ansar al-Sharia and other Islamist groups.

He said the masked kidnappers accused him of being "kuffar" or infidel and a "traitor", before receiving a phone call instructing them not to kill him. He was eventually thrown from a car on to a roundabout.

Brig Gen Belkhair said he originally instructed his troops to stay in their barracks on Friday, when a peaceful demonstration had been called to protest against the unchecked power of militias, especially Ansar. But when the crowds late in the evening began to march on the bases of Ansar and other groups he ordered his men to make sure civilians were protected.

The decision to protect rather than stop the crowds has caused fury among some Islamist groups which were targeted even though they are notionally allied to the government. Most notably, Rafallah al-Sahati, one of the city's most prominent Islamist battalions, was driven from its base even though it is licensed and notionally answers to the defence ministry.

In the fighting, five people were killed. In addition, the bodies of six soldiers were found in a field nearby, apparently executed with shots to the head though the circumstances of their deaths remain a mystery.

"We hoped that there would be no blood," Brig Gen Belkhair said. But he also added that the interim revolutionary government, the National Transitional Council, had made a mistake in allowing so many militias to form in the first place.

Last night, Rafallah al-Sahati hit back, announcing it had arrested 115 people including soldiers and civilians it said were involved in the attack on its base. A spokesman told The Telegraph some of them had links to Col Gaddafi and that they had been handed over to police.

State news agencies said that both Ansar al-Sharia and a smaller militia targeted, the Martyrs of Abu Salim, had both announced they were disbanding in Benghazi and in the town of Derna to the east, known as a hotbed of Islamist militancy.
Posted by: tipper || 09/23/2012 17:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
State Dept Blast CNN For Releasing Steven's Diary

Ay-Peeee. Concerned by the lack of security in Benghazi, DOS is deeply concerned about his privacy saving face and spinning the truth. The full blustery outrage smells
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 14:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Pakistan minister's bounty piously condemned
[BBC] The Pak PM's front man has condemned a minister's $100,000 (£61,600) reward for the killing of the maker of an amateur anti-Islam video.
"Oh, yasss! We condemn it most heartily!"
Shafqat Jalil told the BBC the government "absolutely disassociated" itself from comments by Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour.
"Rilly. It wudn't us."
The film, produced in the US, has led to a wave of protests in the Mohammedan world and many deaths. The bounty offer came a day after at least 20 died in festivities in Pakistain.
The film sez Moslems have a penchant for mindless violence, so what else could they do?
Friday's violence, which saw protesters pitted against armed police, occurred in cities throughout Pakistain, with Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
among the worst hit.
See here for today's Karachi Korpse Kount. We don't keep a separate category for Peshawar since it usually runs into the days' Khyber Agency festivities so it's hard to extricate the discrete threads...
"I will pay whoever kills the makers of this video $100,000," the minister said. "If someone else makes other similar blasphemous material in the future, I will also pay his killers $100,000.
I'd call that incitement to murder. That sort of thing's a crime in the civilized world. Places where Islam holds sway it's perfectly okay, since the Prophet (PTUI!) says they gotta kill people for this and that...
"I call upon these countries and say: Yes, freedom of expression is there, but you should make laws regarding people insulting our Prophet. And if you don't, then the future will be extremely dangerous."
"Freedom of expression" includes, by definition, the freedom to make fun of the Prophet (PTUI!). You can't have one without the other.
At one point, he even called for the help of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in killing the filmmaker.
... thereby reaffirming which side he's on...
His ANP party, which is part of the governing coalition, told the BBC this was a personal statement, not party policy, but added that it would not be taking any action against him.
Nobody expects them to, to include me...
Mr Jalil said: "He is not a member of the (ruling) PPP (Pakistain People's Party), he is an ANP politician and therefore the prime minister will speak to the head of the ANP to decide the next step.
... which will consist of agreeing to meet again to discuss the step after that...
They are not ruling out action against him but say he will stay in his post for now."
... and probably forever, unless he holds dual citizenship or becomes a Hindoo...
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 10:52 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [25 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Attention Pakistain!

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour is a known "catcher" in a gay relationship with a Shia.

just thought you might wanna know.

As you were
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 12:56 Comments || Top||

#2  What's all this about the Railway Minister of Pakistan being a screaming Queen? Is it true?
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:45 Comments || Top||

#3  I heard that too, Ship, so it must be true.
Posted by: Barbara || 09/23/2012 20:26 Comments || Top||

#4  I saw it on the internet somewhere (maybe here), so it must be true.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 09/23/2012 20:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Somebody told me it was announced during Friday prayers somewhere ....
Posted by: Barbara || 09/23/2012 21:37 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Champ to release 1/3 of Gitmo inmates?
President Barack Obama is about to release or transfer 55 Gitmo prisoners, despite reports that the Libyan believed to be behind the killing of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was a former Guantanamo inmate transferred to Libyan custody.
The optics of that look great, Champ. Go for it...
The large percentage of those scheduled to be released are Yemeni, according to a list made public by the Obama administration. Obama stopped the release or transfer of Yemeni inmates in 2010, because the conditions in the country were viewed as too "unsettled" at the time.
Yemen is so much more settled now...
A release or transfer of 55 inmates means Obama is moving out one third of the prisoners at Guantanamo. And while it doesn't represent a shutdown of the facility, it's certainly indicative of a move toward that end.
No worries, release them all and then drone-zap them in the field...
Could it be that Obama is trying to set himself up to campaign as the man who is taking steps to finally close Gitmo, just as he recently reversed the Afghanistan surge in order to campaign as the man who's winding down the war in the Afghanistan?
It would certainly help him with his base...
The ACLU has praised the releases as "a partial victory for transparency."
Of course they did...
Posted by: Steve White || 09/23/2012 10:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, if you're going the 'old route' of rewarding campaign donors with ambassadorial posts, its one way of opening up the available quid pro quo assignments.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/23/2012 10:45 Comments || Top||

#2  The large percentage of those scheduled to be released are Yemeni,

I really don't believe in geo-political coincidences do you?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:22 Comments || Top||

#3  After extensive evaluations by the Obama administration none of the 55 inmates were deemed capitalists so the risk of release is very low.
Posted by: Airandee || 09/23/2012 11:33 Comments || Top||

#4  The ACLU has praised the releases as "a partial victory for transparency."

The statement above confirms the fecklessness of the action. Little more need be said.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Rule #1: Never hand over what cost life and limb to overcome to the Democratic Party of the United States of America.

Rule #2: If you do, be prepared to lose life and limb to get everything under control again.
Posted by: Rupert Smiter of the Mongol Horde2008 || 09/23/2012 12:13 Comments || Top||

#6  The large percentage of those scheduled to be released are Yemeni

My theory:
1) Barak Obama knows he's losing.
2) This is his inauguration present to Mitt Romney.
3) Expect more of this.
Posted by: Frozen Al || 09/23/2012 13:33 Comments || Top||

#7  I have no problem "releasing" 55 Yemini detainees. They have two choices:

1. Take them five miles offshore from Guantanamo, force them overboard, and have them swim back to Yemen - oh, and wish them luck.

or

2) Put them in a C-141 Starlifter, fly them to Yemen, and let them exit the aircraft from - say - 20,0000 feet altitude - and, once again, wish them luck. Hell, a couple of them may even learn to fly, on the way down.
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 09/23/2012 13:37 Comments || Top||

#8  Sabotage.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 09/23/2012 14:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Wouldn't that help with the stability of the region?

Or the lack thereof.

They'd all go to Egypt, or Libya, or Syria, right?
Posted by: Bobby || 09/23/2012 15:07 Comments || Top||

#10  Go for it Barry, the cheese is right there, don't worry it's not American processed, it's wholesome, get the cheese Barry.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:36 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Debka: Israeli FM rules out revision of Egypt peace treaty military clauses
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sharply rejected Egypt's demand to revise the military clauses of its 1979 peace pact with Israel. "There is no chance of any change," he said in a radio interview Sunday. Friday, an Israeli soldier was killed and a second injured fighting off a terrorist incursion from Egyptian Sinai. Regarding Cairo's demand to open up the peace pact to permit higher levels of Egyptian military strength in Sinai, Lieberman noted that Egyptian troop and heavy weapons limits have already been mutually waived to fight off mounting Islamist and terrorist attacks on Egyptian and Israeli targets.

"The problem," the foreign minister stressed, "is not the size of the forces but their willingness to fight, bring pressure to bear and do the job."
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/23/2012 10:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Listening device disguised as rock blown up at Fordo nuclear site
Officials fear significant intelligence on Iran nuclear program may have been lost with discovery of data-catcher, UK paper reports

A spying device disguised as a rock at Iran's Fordo nuclear facility blew up when it was discovered by Iranian security forces, Western intelligence officials told The Sunday Times.
Plenty of rocks in the desert, Mahmoud. Just saying...
The device, which was discovered last month but only reported on Sunday morning, was capable of collecting data from computers at the nuclear site, which is one of the country's main enrichment facilities.

The device was happened upon by soldiers on patrol and its remains were examined by Iranian experts after it went kaboom!, according to the Sunday Times.

A significant amount of information tracking Iran's uranium enrichment activities could have been lost in the kaboom, the British paper reported.

Last week, Iran's vice president revealed that power lines near the plant had been blown up a day before officials from the International Atomic Energy agency requested to inspect the site. He accused the IAEA of harboring saboteurs bent on destroying Iran's nuclear program

Fordo, buried beneath hundreds of feet of rock, is considered Iran's most heavily guarded nuclear facility. Officials fear the uranium being enriched at the site's 3,000 centrifuges will be used to build a nuclear weapons program, a claim Iran denies.

Israel and the US have been accused of mounting a covert war on Iran's nuclear program, siccing sophisticated computer viruses on nuclear sites to sabotage centrifuges and collect data, and assassinating nuclear scientists.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/23/2012 10:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  EMSCO 2282-1. No problem. Plenty more where that one came from. We buy in bulk.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:32 Comments || Top||

#2  They can relax now,I'm sure there was only the one.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 09/23/2012 11:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Heh. The fake rebar sensor in the concrete structure was a nice touch, Juice
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 13:04 Comments || Top||

#4  "listening bug disguised as rock blows up"

I blame it on Gimli and all those dwarves from the Middle Kingdom. They always were such troublemakers :-)
Posted by: Raider || 09/23/2012 17:09 Comments || Top||

#5  But have they found the fake sand, plants, snakes, and rodents?
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/23/2012 17:59 Comments || Top||

#6  That rock has cousins and cousins on cousins. Don't dick around with the metamorphic clan.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:47 Comments || Top||

#7  In fact, that giant rock in Mecca is a listening device too. We switched them out. Don't tell anyone.
Posted by: Charles || 09/23/2012 19:36 Comments || Top||

#8  D *** NG IT, WE KNOW THE TRUTH - THE "ROCK" IS ACTUALLY ADVANCED SPACESHIP OPERATED BY AN OUTLAWED BUT FRIENDLY TINY MAD SCIENTIST FROM THE FUTURE NAMED "GAZOO/GADZOO" WHOM WAS EXILED TO BEDROCK.

Maybe Fred-n-Barney's "rock" would still be around iff it was one those very nice, glarishly silvery ones as used in US residential surveillance???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 22:00 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Occupy trashes SF bank district
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Anarchists Protesters returned to San Francisco's Mission District Friday night to destroy property protest an officer-involved shooting that left a mook man injured but still alive Thursday.

After gathering in Dolores Park around 8 p.m., the thugs protesters tramped marched through the Mission, vandalizing several lending houses banks by breaking windows and spraypainting. The ruffians protesters returned Friday night for a second anti-police slog march after a planned spontaneous riot protest gathered Thursday around the Mission District Police Station for no good reason in response to an earlier officer-involved righteous shooting.

On Thursday, dozens of hooligans protesters surrounded the police station at 630 Valencia St. around 10:30 p.m. while one hard boy person vandalized the coppe shoppe police station, according to San Francisco coppers police.

Misfits Vandals spray-painted graffiti onto the front doors of the coppe shoppe police station. The graffiti read, "KILLERS", according to police and local merchants.

The officer involved shooting that unhappy enraged anarchists protesters was reported at 8:06 p.m. in the 200 block of 14th Street, police Sgt. Michael Andraychak said.

Two plainclothes officers from the department's Gang Task Force were working along with two probation officers in separate vehicles in the area when they saw two low-lifes people they thought they recognized as gang members. One of the officers attempted to talk to one of the two yahoos people who fled ran from police with the officer in pursuit.

While fleeing running, the perp suspect pulled a rod gun, later determined to be a Saturday night special TEC-9 pistol, and the officer ordered him to get his mitts in the air drop the weapon, Andraychak said.

Instead, the villain suspect came at turned toward the officer and drew a bead began to raise the pistol. The officer calmly feared for his life and drilled the hood shot at the suspect, Andraychak said.

Police said the criminal suspect was struck hit twice and was then escorted taken to the County San Francisco General Hospital where he was patched up treated for non life-threatening injuries.

The felon's suspect's heater gun was recovered at the spot scene, loaded with 25 rounds of 9mm ammunition, police said.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/23/2012 10:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A shoot on sight order for the police would do wonders for getting rid of these thugs.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/23/2012 10:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Hit twice + non life-threatening = upgrade to larger caliber
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 09/23/2012 11:40 Comments || Top||

#3  A Tek-9? The criminal should have died of embarrassment.
Posted by: gromky || 09/23/2012 15:56 Comments || Top||

#4  And range time. Center of Mass hits would have taken care of the lack of caliber.
Posted by: tipover || 09/23/2012 16:47 Comments || Top||

#5  It's a pity if a member of the police is shot, legitimate gun owners don't go on a rampage and "whack" anarchists...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/23/2012 18:41 Comments || Top||

#6  It's a pity if a member of the police is shot, legitimate gun owners don't go on a rampage and "whack" anarchists...

There is your problem in SF. There ARE no legitimate gun owners.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/23/2012 20:02 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
'Flintstone' spy device explodes at Iranian nuclear site
A MONITORING device disguised as a rock exploded when it was disturbed by Iranian troops near an underground nuclear enrichment plant, according to western intelligence sources.

Revolutionary Guards were on a patrol last month to check terminals connecting data and telephone links at Fordo, near Qom in northern Iran, when they saw the rock and tried to move it, the sources said.

Iranian experts who examined the scene of the explosion found the remains of a device capable of intercepting data from computers at the plant, where uranium is being enriched in centrifuges.

It is feared a significant source of intelligence may have been lost for the West, which believes Iran could be preparing to use enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

The Iranians initially kept news of the explosion secret. But last week Fereydoun Abbasi, the country's vice-president and head of its nuclear energy agency, disclosed that power lines between Qom and the Fordow facility had been blown up on August 17.

The site, which was unknown until its existence was revealed three years ago, has been under scrutiny by American, British and Israeli intelligence agencies. Up to 3,000 centrifuges are hidden beneath 260ft of rock. Early reports suggested the blast was intended to cut power supplies to the plant and damage the centrifuges. But inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who visited Fordow the day after the explosion, made no mention of any damage or disruption in their report.

Mr Abbasi alleged "terrorists and saboteurs" might have infiltrated the IAEA to undermine the nuclear programme, which Iran maintains is for peaceful purposes.

Intercepting the computer and phone lines from the plant would have enabled western analysts to estimate the output from the centrifuges, which are delicate and subject to frequent breakdowns.
Posted by: tipper || 09/23/2012 09:49 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lots of rocks around every nuclear site, not to mention what might be embedded in all that concrete the Mullahs have had poured for them.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/23/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Old technology. Newer models have anti-tampering devices which do not activate until taken deep underground for examination.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 12:23 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
New York City man mauled by tiger in Bronx Zoo charged with trespassing
Posted by: Beavis || 09/23/2012 09:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A desire to be one with the tiger.

So, sir, you were for ten minutes, excepts the tasty bits which continue to be one with the tiger.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/23/2012 10:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Old Delaware Indian term clearly applies here.....watadumbass.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 12:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Reports are that he did it deliberately.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 13:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Suicide by Tiger Pappy? Obviously he forgot to wash himself before jumping in.
Posted by: Charles || 09/23/2012 19:40 Comments || Top||

#5  HUMAN-TIGER LOVE???

EEEEEWWWWWWWW ...
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 19:41 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Messina: Forget The Tied National Polls, We're Winning
Posted by: Ching Phagum8380 || 09/23/2012 09:26 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I agree with this part: "... the national polls aren't relevant to this campaign."
Posted by: Iblis || 09/23/2012 11:34 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
The U.S. Suffered Its Worst Airpower Loss Since Vietnam Last Week and No One Really Noticed
The Taliban attack on an air base in southern Afghanistan on Friday drew coverage for the way the insurgents cloaked themselves in U.S. army uniforms to gain a tactical advantage, but few have taken note of the historical proportions of the damage inflicted. 

John Gresham, at the Defense Media Network, has published a detailed account of the attack on Camp Bastion, in which two Marines were killed, six U.S. Marine Corps jet fighters were destroyed, and two more  "significantly" damaged. Those facts were all carried in most reports, but if that just sounds like a typical damage report from a decade-long war, you're wrong. Gresham explains the devastating damage done to VMA-211, the name of the Marine Corps attack squadron that was most affected last week, noting that it is "arguably the worst day in [U.S. Marine Corps] aviation history since the Tet Offensive of 1968." Or you could go back even further.

"The last time VMA-211 was combat ineffective was in December 1941, when the squadron was wiped out during the 13-day defense of Wake Island against the Japanese."

He spells out some more of the details of the attack:

Eight irreplaceable aircraft (the AV-8B has been out of production since 1999) have been destroyed or put out of action -- approximately 7 percent of the total flying USMC Harrier fleet. Worse yet, the aircraft involved were the AV-B+ variant equipped with the APG-65 radar and AAQ-28 Litening II targeting pods -- the most capable in the force. Given the current funding situation, it's likely that the two damaged AV-8Bs will become spare parts "hangar queens" and never fly again. A Harrier squadron commander is dead, along with another Marine. Another nine personnel have been wounded, and the nearby Marines at Camp Freedom are now without effective fixed-wing air support. The USMC's response to this disaster will be a telling report card on its leadership and organizational agility.
Posted by: Beavis || 09/23/2012 08:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I don't think you understand. I need to know Obama's fantasy football starters and whether Jay-Z helped pick them out. He has 126 points dontchyaknow?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/23/2012 10:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Champ sees this is an O&M (Operations and Maintenance) savings. Think of the food stamps those worthless dollars will buy.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:35 Comments || Top||

#3  if you go back to the days of the Russians in Afghanistan. at that time the British SAS had teams in that country ... and they were staging covert attacks on airfields and blowing up Russian Mig's. History repeats itself. The Taliban have borrowed a page from the SAS playbook.
Posted by: Raider || 09/23/2012 17:03 Comments || Top||

#4  The Taliban have borrowed a page from the SAS playbook

More like the Pakistanis.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 18:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Pentagon might make whiny noise, but the loss of the Harriers bolsters their case to force feed the F-35 to the USMC, who have already said they don't want it.
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 09/23/2012 18:16 Comments || Top||

#6  Beyond disgraceful.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/23/2012 20:03 Comments || Top||

#7  ION DAILY TIMES.PK > DANGEROUS AND DEEPENING DIVIDE BETWEEN ISLAMIC WORLD, WEST.

* SAME > US MUST RESPECT MUSLIM SENTIMENTS TO AVOID [more Embassy, etc.] ATTACKS. PAK Ambassador to UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon.

ARTIC > AMB, HAROON = also sezzes that ...
- Muslim world has historically been friendly to the US-West.
- Once great respectful institutions of the 1950's and 1960's are no more.

versus

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WIKILEAKS REVEALS NATO ATTACK PLAN AGZ RUSSIA. SecState Hillary allegedly told various foreign Dilomats,
"SSSSSHHHHHHHHH, ITS A SECRET"!?

IMO any such NATO Milplan is likely a contingency schema in case Mama Russia is attacked and in danger of being overrun by Radical Islam + Regional, Global Jihad, ala "RUSSIAN SPRING"???

"CHINA SPRING"???

Lest we fergit, MSM-NET > repor time back that the Afghan + Pak Taliban were planning to initiate Jihadi ventures agz Ex-Soviet SSRS = CENTRAL ASIA REGION [CAR], as well as possibly setting up a huge joint enclave = separate Sharia/Islamic State from parts of both Afghanistan and Pakistan in likely support of said Central Asian jihad = [West]CHINA?, espec iff the US-NATO still hold effective sway in AFPAK = Kabul + Islamabad after 2014???

Lest we fergit II, ANTI-US "GLOBALISTS/OWG" > deisre to see a WEAK US under OWG-NWO where the US is no longer a Superpower or World-dominant. IFF ONE PRESUMES THAT ANTI-US GLOBALISTS/OWG ALSO DESIRE TO DO SO WIDOUT NEED OF ANY POPULAR NATIONAL REFERENDUM(S) ON THE ISSUE, ONE WAY THEY CAN DO IS TO ENSURE THAT THE US IS FORCIBLY OR INTENTIONALLY LOSES IN WAR, WHERE IT MAY BE ARGUED THAT THE US HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO GIVE UP IMPORTAN ASPECTS OF ITS TRADITIONAL POWER + INFLUENCE, ETC. TO OTHER FOREIGN STATES = POLITIES.

IOW, "losing a War by winning it", or in alternate by "not losing" at same where major ideo, geopol concessions are still made by the US and only the US.

"SURRENDERISM" IN THE NAME OF PEACE???

In the "Great Game of Geopolitics" = Substitution of Nations, the US Govt-Establishment must not think for a moment that Radical Islam, etal. won't exploit any perceived NEW US WEAKNESS as an opportunity to launch new Jihad. THE GWOT = [Bush 43's/Dubya's] "LONG WAR" = WAR OF DECADES-N-GENERATIONS THAT ISN'T OVER JUST BECAUSE SEAL TEAM SIX WHACKED OSAMA = "CORE" AL QAEDA'S LEADERSHIP. The Crusades in the Medieval Age were defeated in large part because the Christian nations were too busy conspiring and fighting against each other, etc. to focus on dealing wid the protractive or enduring Muslim struggle agz their collective interests in the ME.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 22:47 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Romney's in Trouble, Part 99
Romney's team is defiantly upbeat but realistic

After one of their worst weeks of the general election campaign according to the Washington Post and New York Times,
As mandated by Journolist...
Mitt Romney and his advisers are scrambling to refocus their message and make up ground lost to President Obama in several battleground states.
I guess I missed the stories and polls that showed how he lost ground.
The mood around Romney's Boston campaign headquarters with just over six weeks until Election Day is defiantly upbeat in the face of a series of setbacks. "Given everything we've gone through, everybody wants to count this guy out," said Neil Newhouse, Romney campaign's pollster. "And yet the poll numbers don't do that. The poll numbers put him right in the middle of this."

Romney brushed aside questions about the state of his campaign in an interview scheduled to air Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes." Asked by anchor Scott Pelley how he planned to turn around his campaign, Romney responded: "Well, it doesn't need a turnaround. We've got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent president [of] the United States."
"Defiantly upbeat", eh? But also correct, if one believes the published polls.
But the sensibility in Boston is also decidedly realistic. Some Romney advisers acknowledge that the burden is on the candidate and those around him to quiet both doubters inside their own party and elsewhere, and to demonstrate that they have a compelling message, along with a strategy and the discipline to execute it.
The message should be easy, and he had the discipline to get where he is.
Advisers to both candidates see the Oct. 3 debate in Denver as the best opportunity for Romney to force a shift in the campaign's dynamic, which has been running against the GOP nominee for the past three weeks.
Thanks to the drumbeat of the media drones.
Romney advisers now interpret the state of the race from two somewhat contradictory perspectives. On the one hand, they see national tracking polls that a week ago showed Obama in the lead immediately after his convention but that tightened dramatically after that.
But have not been published or acknowledged anywhere.
Other national polls give Obama a lead.

The other view of the race comes from recent polls in the battleground states that consistently show Romney running behind. Especially troubling are Obama's narrow leads in Ohio, Florida and Virginia, all vital to Romney's chances of winning.

But Romney advisers see a rush to judgment about the state of the campaign by pundits and commentators, and they dismiss suggestions that the campaign has taken a decisive turn. That view is shared in Chicago among Obama's top advisers, who believe they are in a stronger position than Romney but who expect the race to be close and hard-fought until November.
Besides, that view sells more newspapers.
And it's mandated by Journolist, under orders from Axelrod...
Just in case you forgot, it was Two weeks ago, Romney's campaign was set back over a controversy about how he responded to protests in Egypt and the subsequent only by a few seconds killing of four Americans in Libya. Romney advisers were frustrated that a succession of economic reports, all of which could be used to portray Obama's economic record as a failure, were washed away by the media drones.

They included reports about the rising deficit, the poverty rate (which did not go down), manufacturing jobs (which fell) and the Federal Reserve's announcement that the economy would need sizable and indefinite help to create more jobs.
But - other than that - things are getting better as Obama moves 'Forward'.
"It's a very, very clear contrast," said one Romney adviser. "The water is not muddy on this. Obama has a worldview, and we've seen it through the first four years of his presidency, that every problem he encounters he solves by throwing more government money at it -- whether it's health care, whether it's the stimulus, whether it's the auto bailout."

Romney's advisers say they are not expecting an instant turnaround. "We're going to stay on it and keep pounding it," Gillespie said. "It may not be that it breaks through so much as it penetrates."

Although Romney has raised huge amounts of money for the general election over the past few months, he was at a disadvantage throughout the summer because he was short on money that he could spend before he formally accepted the nomination at his convention in Tampa.
Unlike the Campaigner in Chief, who has "the country's business" to attend to, while he's not campaigning.
His campaign team also made the decision -- questionable in the eyes of the Obama team -- to spend no money on ads during either convention. They didn't have the money to spend during the Republican convention and decided whatever they spent during the Democratic convention would be washed out by the media's coverage of events in Charlotte. As a result, according to a Romney adviser, they were outspent, campaign vs. campaign, $18 million to zero during that two-week period.
Sounds like a smart move to me, even though it flies in the face of Team Obama.
But they argue that the Obama team failed during the summer to knock out Romney and that the fact that he is still standing is evidence that voters are still looking for reasons not to reelect Obama. "They wanted to settle the race by August," Gillespie said. "It didn't work."

Obama advisers argue that was never their strategy. "That wasn't the goal," said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. "The goal was to lay out a vision of where we want to take the country and to set up a choice, and that's exactly what we did."
Exactly per plan, by George! Just like the last four years!
"It's our plan to keep Romney around until election day, and by George it's working!"
Finally, near the end, a little semi-honesty from the WaPo -
The other obstacle Romney ­faces is a campaign environment in which small and trivial matters can often dominate the daily discussion. Romney advisers believe Obama's campaign has been effective at feeding the media's appetite for such controversies and they recognize that avoiding those distractions or swatting them away must be an essential part of their overall strategy if they want to draw contrasts with Obama on big issues.
Maybe this is not quite as gloomy as the previous 98 parts.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/23/2012 07:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Considering that the Obama camp is now telling people to ignore the polls and they are winning, I really don't think Romney is in trouble.

Long way to go with hills to climb, yes. Losing? No.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/23/2012 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  What worries me is how easily the Republican base was swayed by stories like this during the primaries.
Posted by: Iblis || 09/23/2012 11:38 Comments || Top||

#3  That's the intent, Iblis.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/23/2012 11:44 Comments || Top||

#4  of course noted elitist dipshit Peggy Noonan got the vapors and says they need to bring in a Republican Grandee - some blue blood NE WASP that she attends all the right cocktail parties with. F*&k you Peggy. You've still got some from 2008 on your chin
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 13:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Hey Mitt! Show up a couple of days early for the debate in Denver so your body can adjust to the altitude.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/23/2012 16:34 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Jimmy Carter: Get Lost, Stop Meddling In Venezuela!
Great blog piece to read on a Saturday.
Posted by: gromky || 09/23/2012 00:01 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  :)
Octavio knows.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 4:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Go read and leave a comment. Be nice.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 8:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Worst President ever. Worst ex-President ever.
Posted by: Odysseus || 09/23/2012 10:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Odysseus: worst president of the 20th century. The verdict is still out on the current president. He could surpass Jimmeh.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 09/23/2012 11:47 Comments || Top||

#5  A failed ex-president looking for an excuse to justify his pathetic existence.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/23/2012 15:54 Comments || Top||

#6  A failed ex-president looking for an excuse to justify his pathetic existence.
Posted by Abu Uluque


Carter or Clinton.... or both ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 15:57 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
No evidence found against blasphemy accused Rimsha: police
[Dawn] In a startling development on Saturday, the Islamabad police claims to have found no evidence or witness to prove that blasphemy accused girl Rimsha Masih was seen desecrating holy papers, according to a copy of the revised charge sheet available with Dawn.com.

In the charge sheet, the police claim that the holy man of a nearby mosque, Mohammad Khalid Chishti, was guilty of tampering with evidence by adding holy pages into a shopping bag the girl had been carrying. The police claim the investigation proves the holy papers had also been burnt.

The evidence is now being sent to a forensic science laboratory in Lahore for further examination.

The Islamabad police submitted the charge sheet in a district and sessions court today.

"We have also told the court that there are witnesses and evidence against the local imam for framing a false blasphemy case against Rimsha," Investigating Officer Munir Jafri told AFP.

Judge Ghulam Abbas Shah adjourned the case till Monday, Sept 24 to decide on whether Hafiz Mohammed Khalid Chishti should face trial.

Rao Abdur Rahim, the counsel for Rimsha's neighbour Hammad Malik who had accused her along with Chishti, said he was not satisfied with the police report.

"This report is based on the bad intentions of the Sherlocks and is made to prove Rimsha innocent. But, I will fight the case and make her face trial," he told AFP.

Rimsha and her family, who fear for life after the blasphemy charges, were moved to Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location since her release on bail on Sept 8.

The district attorney, who signed the charge sheet along with a note of objections, observed: "Had Khalid Chishti burnt the Holy Koran, prior to adding them in the evidence, he could be declared accused under 196 PPC."

According to the charge sheet, no witness has so far identified the place where Rimsha was alleged to have burnt the holy papers.

The police also claim that, in reality, it was Rimsha's six year old younger sister Savera who had come to throw the garbage in front of the house of one Maqbool Ahmed. This account has been testified by two witnesses.

The police are also accusing the complainant of hiding the actual facts from the police.

The police investigation further states that the burnt holy papers were first seen by Mehreen Noor, Maqbool's daughter, who had told the same to her mother. The burnt pile of papers was then sent to the holy man Mohammad Khalid Chishti through Mehreen Noor.

The police also says that Chishti is "an educated person and knows religion and the sanctity of the Holy Koran."

Moreover, the police accuse Chishti of deliberately tearing two papers from the Holy Koran to add them into the pile of burnt papers, and preparing a false testimony. Chishti had also signed the testimony as a witness.

The police report further claims that Rimsha, a minor Christian girl, is illiterate and her mental age is not according to her actual age, which is 14.

The case has gained huge attention because of the girl's age and questions about her mental capacity. It is also a rare instance where someone has been held responsible for an apparently false accusation of blasphemy.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [8 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Former Sindh MPA shot dead in Karachi
[Dawn] Unknown gunnies rubbed out Malik Ata, a former MPA of the Sindh Assembly, in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, DawnNews reported.

Ata was killed in the city's Mahmoodabad No. 3 area, which comes within the remits of the Baloch Colony cop shoppe.

Ata, who was struck down in his prime, had been elected for a seat for religious minorities in the provincial assembly and leaves behind five daughters and three sons.

Police has initiated an investigation into the former MPA's killing.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Islamists Say Mali Must Apply Sharia before Talks
[An Nahar] Mali's government must apply Islamic sharia law before armed Islamist groups who control the north of the country will negotiate, an Islamist official said Saturday.

Alioune Toure, a security chief in the city of Gao held by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), was responding to an offer of talks made late Friday by Mali's interim president, Dioncounda Traore.

In a televised speech given on the eve of the country's Independence Day, Traore said, "As we are preparing for it, we will wage war if no other choice is left to us...."

"But we reaffirm here that our first choice remains dialogue and negotiation."

"I call on all gangs operating in the north of our country to agree to commit resolutely to the path of dialogue and of negotiation in a sincere and constructive fashion," he added.

"We accept the hand Mr Traore has held out on one condition, that Mali implements sharia, the law of God, that's the only condition," Toure told Agence La Belle France Presse.

But he warned, "If it's war that they want, we also agree. God is the strongest."

Toure said that the Islamists did not consider Traore to be president if he did not submit to God's law.

"We are for holy way, nothing will stop us on the path of holy war," he said. "I have nothing more to add."

Traore Friday described Mali's present situation as a "tragedy" and warned that the nation's very existence was at stake.

He was president, he said, of a country at war, and the army needed to be "re-equipped, morally rearmed, put on a war footing and most of all reconciled with itself."

The much-anticipated speech came as the UN Security Council on Friday called for West African nations to produce a "feasible and actionable" military plan to retake northern Mali from Islamist cut-thoats.

A statement from the 15-nation council expressed "grave concern" at the "increasing entrenchment of terrorist elements, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" in northern Mali.

Islamist groups and other rebels seized on the chaos of a military coup in Mali in March to take the north of the vast West African country. They have since imposed harsh Islamic law and desecrated traditional Mohammedan shrines.

The Economic Community of West African States has called on the U.N. Security Council to back a proposed intervention force for Mali.

But the council has repeatedly said it needs more detail on the means and aims of any military operation and the consent of Mali's transitional government.

Mali was considered one of the region's stable democracies until a March 22 military coup plunged it into turmoil.

Tuareg nationalist groups and Islamists allied to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), including MUJAO, took advantage of the ensuring confusion to step up their military campaign in the north.

They seized key towns in the huge arid north, an area larger than La Belle France or Texas. The Islamists have since forced out the Tuareg groups and imposed strict sharia law in the region, with punishments including stoning and amputation of limbs.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Ansar Dine

#1  "Do everything we want. THEN we can negotiate the rest"
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 7:26 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Suicide Attack Wounds Yemeni Commander
[An Nahar] A suicide kaboom in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Saturday maimed an army-linked militia commander involved in battling al-Qaeda, security sources said, in the fifth attempt on his life.

The attacker went kaboom!" in front of the car of Abdel Latif Sayed, Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
province commander for reserve forces fighting alongside the Yemeni army, wounding him and two others.

Hospital sources confirmed reports of the attack and witnesses said the bomber was blown apart.

The attack took place near Aden's security headquarters.

It was the fifth liquidation attempt on Sayed.

The reserve forces, called People's Committees, were involved in an all-out army offensive which drove al-Qaeda cut-throats from towns in Abyan province in mid-June.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia


India-Pakistan
Show of strength that exposed weakness more
[Dawn] Friday was a day to protest the provocative 'Innocence of Islam' film by demonstrating the love Mohammedans of all persuasions have for the Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)), but it ended in violence, exposing disunity in a common cause.

After the mayhem had ended, people of the twin cities were left discussing why the self-destructive violence and who whipped it up to whose benefit?

"Well I don't know about the movie, but I have heard from my friends that the film contained sacrilegious contents about Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)). I will watch the movie later but first I will teach lesson to the infidels on our soil," young Mohammad Zafran in the crowd gathered at Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh for a march of the US embassy in Islamabad, told Dawn.

Zafran turned out to be an activist of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain
...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts...
(SSP) group who works in a brick kiln in Taxila. He was in the company of dozens of his friends, all set to combat police if they were stopped from reaching the embassy. Some protesters had plastic bags filled with stones in their hands.

When in their march on Islamabad, the protesters reached a commercial plaza built on the site of old Naz cinema, they started stoning it, notwithstanding a banner condemning the movie the owner had hung on the plaza.

A holy man kept on issuing battle cries from a loudspeaker-fitted van, and criticising law enforcement agencies when no policeman was in sight.

So the protesters vented their anger by smashing decorative plants flower pots on the Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
Road.

Better sense and unity became visible when people belonging to Shia, Sunni, Alhe Hadith, Deobandi, Barelvi sects and other schools of thought started joining the protest on the way.

They came separately but presented a united mass at Faizabad interchange. They could be identified by their specific slogans inscribed on bands of some youngsters tied on their foreheads.

"We came to stand up and be counted. All Mohammedans are united in their love and commitment to protect the dignity of our Prophet (peace be upon him)," said Ali Abbas who came from Dhoke Ratta.

Abbas said the rally aimed at informing the West that the conspiracies to divide th Mohammedans would not succeed.

Perhaps the biggest among the rallies that converged at Faizabad came from Jamia Masjid Amna on Kuri Road.

Mohammad Zubair, belonging to Deobandi school of thought, agreed with him saying that sectarian differences don't stand in the way of a common cause. Another protester, Naseem Ahmed, interjected calling for a boycott of US products. "Our government should ban US products if the Americans don't act seriously to stop such acts," he said.

Afghan nationals living in Hazara Colony, Fauji Colony, Pirwadhai and along the IJ Principal Road also participated in the protest in large numbers. Most of the young among them were seen carrying sticks.

Mohammad Rahat, an observant resident living close to Faizabad, the gateway to Islamabad, noted that madrasa students among the protesters mostly carried banners. "But once festivities started with police stopping their onward march, they pulled out the sticks from the banners and used them to hit coppers, their vehicles and also public property," he told Dawn.

In Islamabad itself, the scene had a different hue. A group of youngsters on the Park Road was seen trying to hitch a ride to Aabpara. Some of them were in jeans, others in shalwar kameez and they spoke in a mix of English and Urdu, as educated young people are wont to these days.

"We spent the whole night making this US flag," said one of them.

Until he pointed to the Star-and-Stripes painted on the road for the traffic to run over it, the youngsters looked unlikely candidates for the crowds that were gathering at Aabpara and the square in front of the parliament, with plans to march on Serena Hotel, and ultimately the diplomatic enclave.

Though the protesters gathering there had different backgrounds and, as it came out later, different aims, they did not appear to have any religious or political handlers.

Traders of course were present in strong numbers. "We want to express our anger against the derogatory film," Malik Sohail, an office bearer of Federation of Pakistain Chambers Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), told Dawn. Aabpara was chosen as the main convergence point by the leaders of trade bodies. However,
the way to a man's heart remains through his stomach...
Sohail could not say who the rioters were when the trouble began. He was quick to distance his community from the violence.

"Traders and ordinary citizens are not capable keeping up with the police for hours," he noted.

Most probably workers of religio-political parties with experience of violent protests initiated the violence by throwing stones at police and pushing towards Serena.

"We have walked almost all the way from I-8/3 and the authorities should know that we can go to any extent to protect our faith and the honour of our Prophet," said Hafiz Abdullah, who along with his friends had gathered at Serena after offering prayers in Lal Masjid.

These party workers did not dominate the crowd but stood out because of their typical appearances and the flags they carried.

They came from the madrasas run different groups in the twin cities.

Flags of the banned Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat, Jamaat Ulema Islam, and some Barelvi parties were visible.

Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
was the only political party whose workers came with their party flags and were present during the festivities with police at Serena.

Otherwise, there was negligible presence of any local or national level leaders of any religious or political party.

"It is the responsibility of the parties to control their workers and abide by the law of land," said Amir Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
, Mian Aslam, who led the protest from China Chowk to D Chowk.

Activists of the MWM and Imamia Students Organisation were relatively docile on Friday, maybe because their central leadership was part of the big show outside the US Consulate in Lahore and had burnt the US flag.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Africa North
6 Libyan Security Forces 'Executed'
[An Nahar] Six members of Libya's security forces who were apparently "executed" were among 11 people killed in festivities in Benghazi between protesters and a militia linked to the defense ministry, a medical examiner told Agence La Belle France Presse on Saturday.

"From the nature of the wounds it is clear that the six were executed," the medical examiner said on condition of anonymity, adding that four of them were shot in the head while the others were shot in the chest as well as the head.

According to the medical examiner, who works at the Benghazi Medical Center morgue, "all six worked in the army or police according to relatives who identified the bodies."

"In total we've received 11 fatalities" she said.

Four of them were in "civilian clothes" while one other body was found at the headquarters of the Raf Allah al-Sahati Brigade, an Islamist militia under the authority of the defense ministry

Khaled al-Aghuri, an official at the prosecutor's office confirmed the toll, and said the bodies of the six members of the security forces were found "in Mashrua al-Safsafa, in the area of Al-Gawasha, which is in the periphery of Benghazi."

Around 70 people were maimed in the overnight violence, according to medics at Benghazi's three main hospitals, who earlier had given a corpse count of four only.

Armed demonstrators protesting against militias clashed with a government unit of ex-rebels overnight.

Early Saturday the protesters seized the headquarters of the Salafist group Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
, as well as a raft of other paramilitary bases in Benghazi, Libya's second city.

Ansar al-Sharia has been accused of, but denied, involvement in the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans who were killed when the consulate in Benghazi was attacked on September 11.

On Friday tens of thousands of Libyans erupted into the streets to protest against the powers of armed militias.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Turkey Deploys Artillery near Syria Border Post
[An Nahar] The Turkish army has deployed artillery and anti-aircraft missiles near a Syria border post being disputed between Damascus
...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti...
regime forces and rebels in fierce festivities, media reported Saturday.

A score of howitzer batteries and missiles were moved to the area as a precautionary measure amid continued fighting on Syrian soil for the control of the Tall al-Abyad border post, NTV news channel said.

The deployment comes after shelling by Syrian government forces maimed two Turkish citizens on Thursday in the southeastern border city of Sanliurfa, as they tried to win back the post from the rebels.

The two were maimed by four fragments of a shell that went kaboom! just on the Syrian side of the border. Another unwent kaboom! shell was found and the area sealed off while it exploded.

The rebels seized control of the post, which lies on the main highway between Sanliurfa and the city of Raqa in northeastern Syria, on Wednesday from troops loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Scourge of Qusayr...
Three other civilians were also maimed on Tuesday by stray bullets fired from the Syrian side, prompting local officials to warn citizens to stay away from the border line. Schools in the area were also closed until Monday.

Tall al-Abyad is about 100 kilometers (65 miles) north of Raqa and the border post was relatively little used until recently.

Since late July, Syrian rebels have seized control of at least three key border crossings with Turkey and others on Syria's eastern border with Iraq.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Ah well, time does slip away doesn't it?

You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it. It was you, Charley.

Lost O lost once and future caliphate.
LOL Turks, what maroons.

Still, it's not too late to screw things up completely, which is the Islamic way.

Go for it!

Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:41 Comments || Top||


Europe
Peaceful Protests against Islam Film in Germany
So it can be done.
[An Nahar]Around 1,500 people staged a peaceful protest in the western German city of Dortmund Saturday against a film mocking the Prophet Mohammed that has enraged Mohammedans around the world, police said.

A police front man said the demonstrators, including many families with children, marched through the city center and ended the protest with a rally.

"It was absolutely trouble-free and without problems," he said.

On Friday around 1,000 people held peaceful demonstrations in the western cities of Freiburg and Muenster. Further protests were expected over the weekend in Karlsruhe in the southwest and Hanover in the north.

Demonstrators on Friday carried signs reading "Yes to freedom of expression, no to insults" and "I am protesting against the lack of respect toward my beloved Prophet Mohammed".

Chancellor Angela Merkel
...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom...
's front man Steffen Seibert on Friday called for the protests to remain peaceful, saying violence was never justified in religious disputes, whether in Germany or abroad.

"That should be our watchword, everywhere," he told a regular government news conference.

Daily demonstrations against the U.S.-made film and French cartoons mocking Islam have rocked the Mohammedan world, with violent protests in Pakistain Friday leaving at least 21 people dead.

A far-right group has threatened to screen the video in Germany, prompting a heated debate over whether authorities can ban the film from being shown on security grounds without violating constitutionally protected freedom of expression.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Saw, the islam video, it's almost like the protesters proving the video right and the protesters are going ape sh*t because the video has some embarrassing truth to it. I'd want to read which parts insulted them most because it wasn't that shocking.
Posted by: Large Darling of the Antelope3345 || 09/23/2012 22:55 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Army Detains Suspect who Opened Fire at Patrol in al-Ghobairi
[An Nahar] The army locked away
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
on Saturday Hassan Karaki in the Beirut southern suburb of al-Kafaat, the National News Agency reported.

Hassan, who is also known as Antar, was locked away
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
after he shot up an army patrol in Beirut's southern suburbs of al-Ghobairi on Friday.

The army issued a communique confirming the arrest.

Several members of the army were maimed as they were pursuing Karaki, who is wanted on several charges, on Friday.

The Army Command announced that two officers and a number of soldiers were maimed in armed festivities that ensued during the pursuit.

It said that the soldiers came under fire by various gunnies as they were chasing the main suspect Karaki.

Reinforcements soon arrived where they cordoned off the area and began to conduct raids in the neighborhood.

A number of suspects were locked away
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
, said the Army Command.

Karaki is charged with attempted murder and involvement in recent armed festivities.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Israel Hands Egypt Bodies of Sinai Gunmen
[An Nahar] Israel has transferred to Egypt the bodies of three snuffies who killed an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid, before being killed themselves, an Israeli military source said Saturday.

"Last night we handed over to Egyptian authorities the bodies of the three forces of Evil killed yesterday," the source told Agence La Belle France Presse, without elaborating.

The three heavily-gunnies infiltrated into Israel from neighboring Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Friday at a point on the 240-kilometer frontier where an Israeli border fence is still under construction.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Iraq
Bombings Kill Six in Iraq
[An Nahar] Roadside bombs in Iraq killed six people, among them five soldiers, and maimed 10 on Saturday, security and medical officials said.

In the deadliest attack, a roadside kaboom killed five Iraqi soldiers when it went kaboom! near their Humvee armored vehicle in Dhuluiyah north of Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
, an army captain and a medical source from a hospital in Balad said.

Another roadside kaboom to the north of Baquba killed one person and maimed two, a police lieutenant colonel and a doctor from Baquba General Hospital said.

And eight people, including four security forces members, were maimed by a roadside kaboom in djinn-infested Mosul in north Iraq, police Second Lieutenant Islam Mohammed and a medical source from djinn-infested Mosul General Hospital said.

Violence is down in Iraq compared to its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks still occur almost every day.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Africa Horn
Somali lawmaker killed in Mogadishu
(Sh.M.Network)-- Unknown gunnies in Somalia's capital Mogadishu have assassinated a Somali parliamentarian, the latest in series of killings in the capital, Witnesses said.

Mustaf Mohamed Mo'allin, MP in the newly formed Somali parliament was killed after being shot several times in the head and chest in front of his house in the Waaberi neighbourhood in the south of the capital on Saturday evening after Maqrib prayer by gunnies, a villager said.

"Two Masked men armed with pistols killed the parliamentarian and disappeared before the government soldiers arrived at the shooting scene," a witness, told Shabelle Media by phone.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Kenya in creases security measures after militants issue threats
(Sh.M.Network)--Kenyan security officials have asked citizens to be on alert for possible terrorist attacks after the al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
-affiliated Moslem Youth Centre (MYC) vowed to retaliate when allied forces liberated Kismayo.

"The time of public warnings via Twitter or other social media is now a thing of the past," MYC said in a press statement. "MYC inKenyaand our mujahideen brothers in the region are preparing for any eventualities that may transpire in Kismayo, and with the grace of Allah respond accordingly and decisively."

"The die seems to have been cast by Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) and African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and now the unbelievers must be accountable for their intended actions," MYC said.

Deputy Police Spokesman Charles Owino said citizens need to be more vigilant, especially as AMISOM forces positions themselves for the battle for Kismayo.

He told Sabahi that while the MYC threats could be a ploy to instil fear, the community should look out for possible terrorist attacks.

"At the moment, we cannot say there are specific targets the forces of Evil are eyeing. The beturbanned goons have proved to be indiscriminate by targeting civilians," Owino said.

He said the seizure of a cache of weapons and arrest of two suspects in Nairobi'sEastleigh neighbourhood on September 14th was partly because of the community's co-operation. "That is the level of alertness and co-operation we are asking the residents to maintain."

In addition, Owino said residents should be wary of new tactics the forces of Evil may use to execute beturbanned goons acts.

He particularly asked porters at bus terminals to be cautious of people who may be posing as travellers, but are instead carrying weapons or strapped with explosives.

"It is very common for porters to compete for travellers at the bus terminals by grabbing the luggage into the public passenger vehicles they work for," he said. "They could easily be used to carry luggage packed with explosives, especially in Nairobi's Machakos bus terminal, which is the biggest in the country and has a high population at any given time."

Increased security measures on buses

Ann Juma, a booking clerk at Easy Coach Travellers, which operates public passenger vehicles between Nairobi and westernKenya, told Sabahi they are screening luggage with metal detectors and have updated the closed-circuit cameras at their offices in Nairobi central district.

"The safety of our passengers is now crucial and the company has beefed up security at the booking offices. Those getting on buses at any given time are thoroughly screened for everyone's safety," she said.

"We have also strengthened orderly booking and enforced a ban on people who claim to preach inside the buses and hawkers who sale their wares inside the bus," she said. "Basically, we are discouraging crowds around our vehicles and booking offices."

Western Provincial Commissioner James ole Seriani told Sabahi that MYC has been posting speeches, lectures and sermons of cut-throats to lift the spirits of its demoralised forces.

For instance, in a September 19th posting, the group provides a YouTube link to a video portraying the life and times of the Arab commander Ali Khattab from his childhood through wars in Afghanistan,Tajikistan,Chechnya and Dagestan
...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca...
Seriani said MYC resorts to posting statements and tweets of cut-throats because it is desperate.

"While the threats should not in anyway prevent the people from their daily routine, highest vigilance is needed," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab

#1  When do we pullout is the ivory futures on wall street high enough yet?
Posted by: Angiting Snore1647 || 09/23/2012 14:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Ooooh - economically as well as politically and geographically dense.

A Three-fer.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 18:02 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
PM for permanent solution to counter threat of floods
[Dawn] Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Saturday said that a permanent solution was needed to counter threat of flash floods, affecting populated areas in Rajanpur district, Southern Punjab.

Addressing a gathering of flood-affected people of the area, he said that the government would construct protective walls and channels to divert the raging hill torrents away from the populated areas.

He announced a package of Rs 100 million for the provision of food, tents and other relief goods to the thousands, who have been displaced.

He also announced a compensation of Rs 400,000 for each of the 15 people, who bit the dust in the flash floods.

The Prime Minister directed Pakistain Baitul Maal to ensure that the people are provided with quality foodstuff and other relief goods so as to ease their sufferings.

He said the Federal Government would provide the medicines and also make a significant contribution once the damage assessment is completed by the local authorities.

Prime Minister Ashraf said President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
had telephoned to him from London and directed him to visit all the flood affected areas and monitor the relief and rehabilitation of the people displaced by the recent floods.

He said the people need to stand united and work hand in hand so as to mitigate the damage caused by the natural calamity.

He said the people of the area and the nation as a whole, were strong and resilient to bravely face all challenges.

He asked the Provincial Disaster Management Authority to work at a swift pace to reach out to all the people and help in their early rehabilitation.

The Prime Minister was earlier given a detailed briefing about the impact of the flash floods and the widespread devastation caused in these areas.

He was also informed about the measures that need to be taken to avert a repeat of similar incidents in future.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Riiiight!
Posted by: tipover || 09/23/2012 16:48 Comments || Top||


Islamabad, Rawalpindi turned into battlefield
[Dawn] The twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi turned into a battlefield on Friday as people protesting against the anti-Islam film clashed with police in different areas. Over 45 people, including 21 coppers, were maimed and 35 protesters incarcerated
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
The massive clash between the police and demonstrators took place in Khyaban-e-Suharwardi, near Serena Hotel. The place is at a stone's throw from the diplomatic enclave, I.J. Principal Road, Islamabad Highway and Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
Road.

Islamabad's Tarnol cop shoppe was attacked, and occupied, by a mob of 4,000 people after an armed clash with coppers.

An ASI suffered bullet injuries and five other coppers were maimed during the scuffle. Police reinforcements wrested back control of the station after resorting to massive teargas shelling.

Over 2,000 protesters attacked the toll plaza on I.J. Principal Road, uprooted it and burnt its booths. They also damaged five vehicles.

Police posts in Sabzi Mandi, Faizabad and Suharwardi Road were burnt. Shamsabad police post was also damaged.

At least 45 buses were damaged in Pirwadhai, while a CNG station was come under attack in Faizabad. Protesters also destroyed a KFC outlet in Saddar. According to police, several shops were ransacked by the mob in Pirwadhai. A large number of people gathered outside Lal Masjid and in Aabpara shortly after Friday prayers to march towards the US Embassy.

Hundreds of people also gathered in Faizabad and tried to march towards the enclave, but they were intercepted by a contingent of police who fired teargas shelling and rubber bullets to disperse them.

But the protesters forced police to beat a retreat, managing to reach Suharwardi Road and join the demonstrators there.

They broke the first and second lines of defence consisting of containers on the road and pushed police to the third line in front of Serena Hotel. Control of the area oscillated between police and the protesters on a number of times.

The protesters pelted police with stones and attacked them with sticks. Police retaliated with baton-charge and shelling.

The protesters later tried to cross the third line of defence and climbed up containers placed on the road. But police beat them back after firing rubber bullets and teargas shelling.

This continued till the evening and at one stage a police contingent was surrounded by the mob and manhandled badly. They were later rescued by their colleagues.

The protesters were later pushed back to Aabpara and dispersed by police.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  "Back! BACK!! Filthy peasants!..."
"Sir! HQ says we're NOT allowed to fire!"
"What are we supposed to use, harsh language?"
Posted by: mojo || 09/23/2012 20:15 Comments || Top||

#2  "The twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi turned into a battlefield on Friday as people protesting against the anti-Islam film clashed with police in different areas."

Works for me.

And don't expect any "aid" to rebuild from us. Ask Arabia. Ask Allen.
Posted by: Barbara || 09/23/2012 20:34 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Rebel command base moved inside Syria
ALEPPO: Rebels have moved their command base from Turkey to “liberated areas” inside Syria, they announced yesterday as regime troops and rebels battled for control of a corridor near the border.

“The Free Syrian Army command has moved into liberated areas of Syria following arrangements made with battalions and brigades to secure these zones,” FSA chief Col. Riyadh Al-Asaad said in a video posted on the Internet. The next step would be to “liberate” the capital Damascus, he added.

Nearly 80 percent of towns and villages on the Turkish border are outside government control, and President Bashar AssadÂ’s portraits have been removed from many public buildings, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The transfer will allow the command center to be closer to the fighters,” Gen. Mustafa Al-Sheikh, head of the military council grouping rebel chiefs, told AFP, but declining to say where the new command would be located.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "The transfer will allow the command center to be closer to the fighters,"

The inherent downsides are rather obvious. Just saying.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 8:14 Comments || Top||

#2  To quote a RB poster....


GO GO GO! Rebs! Kill 'em!
GO GO GO! Alariters Kill 'em!

How's the ammo holding up?
Drop us a line, we can handle.

/br 549
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:53 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Deadly Attack on cattle herders in central Somalia
(Sh.M.Network)--At least one person was killed and two injured when gunnies attacked on livestock-herding community in the rural areas located in central Somalia, witnesses said Saturday.

The attack took place Friday afternoon at a pastoral village, just 10 Km away from Galka'yo town, the thriving provincial capital of Mugug region, 750 Km north east of Mogadishu, Somali capital.

"The raiders arrived at our village at around 5:30 p.m. and started shooting men sitting under a tree, causing death of one person and panic wounds," a witness said, adding that attackers fled the area uncaught.

Cattle rustling and festivities over grazing and farming land are relatively common between communities often escalate into Dire Revenge™ attacks in central Somalia.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jerusalem Palestinians Protest Anti-Islam Film, Cartoons
About 500 Paleostinians on Saturday staged what banners proclaimed a "Festival of the followers of Mohammed" in east Jerusalem in protest against French cartoons and a U.S.-made film offensive to Islam.

"We are all faithful to Mohammed" and "Mohammed the Prophet of Islam," read the banners, brandished alongside flags of Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
's Fatah movement and the rival Islamist Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, in the city's Issawiya neighborhood, an Agence La Belle France Presse journalist said.

Police did not intervene in the rally, which included a marching band, he added.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday published cartoons portraying Mohammed naked, further fueling earlier protests over the U.S.-made film "Innocence of Mohammedans" which have raged since September 11, leaving dozens dead worldwide.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
12 Killed in Yemen Salafists-Zaidi Clashes
[An Nahar] Twelve people were killed in renewed festivities between Shiite Zaidi rebels and Salafists
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
in northern Yemen on Saturday, the second straight day of bloodshed, tribal sources said.

They died in fierce fighting in the streets of Reda in Amran province, some 80 kilometers north of the capital Sanaa, witnesses said, adding that few residents ventured out because of the festivities.

"Eight men from Sunni tribes were killed and 11 maimed in the fighting," a tribal source told Agence La Belle France Presse, while a Shiite rebel source spoke of "four dead and nine maimed among the Zaidi ranks."

Saturday's corpse count was earlier put at eight, a day after another Salafist was reported killed.

Witnesses said Zaidi rebels shelled a mosque in Reda on Saturday morning and also blew up a Koranic school. Fighting still raged in the afternoon.

The confrontations first broke out as Salafists and rustics tried to prevent a Zaidi protest against administrative appointments in their regions.

The two sides, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, brought in reinforcements and the situation was tense in the city, witnesses said.

Residents said tensions escalated after the appointment of supporters of the Islamist party al-Islah to head Yemen's northern provinces, a move rejected by the Zaidis.

The festivities come ahead of a national dialogue scheduled for later this year as part of a political agreement that led to the February departure of president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
following a year of unrest.

Zaidi rebels have indicated they would take part in the dialogue.

Dozens of people have been killed since last year in sectarian festivities between the rebels and Sunni Salafists trying to tighten their grip on northern Yemen, in the absence of government control.

Zaidis make up a minority in the Sunni-majority country.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Houthis


China-Japan-Koreas
Hundreds in Tokyo Rally against China
[An Nahar] Hundreds of Japanese on Saturday rallied against Beijing over an escalating island row, days after anti-Japanese protests saw shops and factories vandalized in China.

Some 800 demonstrators waved national flags as they marched through downtown Tokyo, denouncing Beijing as a "brute state" and "fascist".

Protesters marched through the Roppongi entertainment district, near the Chinese embassy, shouting: "We will never give in to China's military threat!"

They criticized the sometimes-violent anti-Japan demonstrations which saw tens of thousands march across China last week, forcing firms to close or scale back production.

"We get excited sometimes, but we don't loot shops like those in China, where the demonstrations deviated from their original intentions," said Shuhei Takagi, 21, clad in a camouflage uniform.
It did? Are you sure?
The row centers on the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by Beijing under the name Diaoyu.

Asia's two largest economies have wrangled about the islands since the 1970s, but the row flared in August after pro-China activists landed on one of them.

Tensions escalated dramatically after the Japanese government bought three of them from their private owners.

Japan's coastguard said Saturday it was monitoring seven Chinese ships in waters near to the chain. There had been 14 in the area on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  See also CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > EX-JAPANESE SENIOR POLITICIAN APOLOGIZES TO CHINA.

Ex-Chief Cabinet Secretary, MP, + ex-SecGen of the LDP Hiromu Nonaka, whom is well-known for favoring SINo-Japanese friendship.

* SAME > CHINA DELAYS APPROVAL OF [JAPANESE] WORKING VISAS, FIRMS MADE TO WAIT AS BEIJING RETALIATES AMID SENKAKUS FLARE-UP.

* SAME > POSTER THREAD-IMAGE: PLAN TYPE 054A NEAR DIAOYU ISLANDS.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 3:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Gimme 2 points and Japan.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 8:39 Comments || Top||

#3  You think the boards and chairmen of major Japanese technology and export firms are having second thoughts about outsourcing their production to China? If Bernanke keeps creating magical money without backing, soon American labor will be as cheap as Chinese. However, like the Chinese workers, the Americans won't be able to buy those products either.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/23/2012 9:06 Comments || Top||

#4  New York Times getting in on the act.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/23/2012 11:06 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Doctors urged to boycott US-made drugs
Allama Iqbal Medical College former Principal Prof Dr Javed Akram has urged doctors to boycott the medicines and other products manufactured by US-based pharmaceutical companies as a mark of protest against the anti-Islam film.

Addressing a rally of doctors on the Jail Road taken out in connection with 'Love for Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)) Day' on Friday, Prof Akram asked medical practitioners at both public and private healthcare facilities to stop advising medicines manufactured by the US-based companies to their patients and prescribe alternate drugs in protest against profane film.

A large number of doctors from various teaching hospitals of the lovely provincial capital and private sector facilities participated in the rally, including the members of various medical associations.

Prof Javed Akram also urged Punjab government to ban all the US-made products in order to encourage the form of protest he was advocating.

"We strongly request our brothers and sisters to tender resignations from all the US-based the companies operating in our country in order to show their solidarity with our beloved Prophet Muhammad ((PTUI!)) and to register their protest against the Americans involved in making the anti-Islam film", Dr Javed Akram said.

He urged the doctors to also stop giving access to the officials of the US-based companies to the state-run health facilities and seminars.

He announced a 'grand ceremony' on the coming Thursday in Lahore to be attended by health professionals from all over the country "to express anguish against USA for hurting the Moslems' feelings".
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  These protests have brought out who are the most radical countries with Pakistan number one by a mile,Egypt and Libya next.
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 09/23/2012 5:03 Comments || Top||

#2  boycott all our products. Please. In the meantime, no more visas for YOU!


/Visa Nazi
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 7:19 Comments || Top||

#3  while you're at it, please boycott US aid so your people can return to living in the 7th Century.




Posted by: jack salami || 09/23/2012 7:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Embracing a drug boycott and self imposed reduction in life expectancy is a solution I suppose. Everyone knows modern pharmacologic science and research is controlled by the Joooos.

I salute you! Please proceed with the boycott.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Allen be praised, Besoeker! We know how well that polio boycott-thingy is working out! These guys are waaaay too smart for us!
Posted by: Bobby || 09/23/2012 7:58 Comments || Top||

#6  All our drugs contain pork fat.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 09/23/2012 8:07 Comments || Top||

#7  This from an area of the world where the water used to swallow the pill is more dangerous than anything else they put in their mouth.
Posted by: Airandee || 09/23/2012 9:20 Comments || Top||

#8  Well, that ought to get rid of a few more of them--sort like being a participant in a circular firing squad.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/23/2012 9:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Boycott everything US guys! Go ahead. Make our day.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/23/2012 9:32 Comments || Top||

#10  How do ya' think those backroom counterfeit drugs will work out for ya'?

Good, continue thinking that way.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/23/2012 11:15 Comments || Top||


Two cops among 17 killed in Karachi
[Dawn] At least 17 people, including two coppers, were killed in sporadic acts of violence during rallies taken out by different religious organizations in protest against the anti-Islam film on Friday. Over 100 people, 12 coppers among them, were maimed.

Five cinema houses, three police mobiles, three banks and a number of shops were set on fire and looted by the protesters. Two cop shoppes were also attacked by the violent mob.

Most of the violence took place on M.A. Jinnah Road, Merewether Tower and PIDC as the protesters fought pitched battles with police. A heavy exchange of fire took place near Tower where police had placed containers to block access to Jinnah Bridge.

Initially police fired teargas shells at the protesters, but when the situation worsened they resorted to firing. The mob wanted to march towards the US consulate from Jinnah Bridge to register their protest.

The Tower showdown between police and protesters left a policeman dead and five others maimed. Four protesters suffered fatal gunshot wounds.

"Six bodies, including that of a policeman, and 40 maimed have been brought to Civil Hospital. A maimed policeman died during treatment," a medico legal officer at the hospital said. The crowd turned hostile at the emergency ward when a power failure hit the hospital. They ransacked the ward and took away an AC and a computer.

"Six men were brought dead in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and one died during treatment," Dr Seemi Jamali, in-charge of the hospital's emergency ward, said, adding: "We have treated 83 gunshot victims brought from different areas of the city."

Ten injured were taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The protesters resorted to violence at emergency wards of both the hospitals.

Four cinema houses -- Nishat, Prince, Capri and Bambino -- were set on fire when protest rallies were passing through M.A.

Jinnah Road on their way to the US consulate. Gulistan Cinema was torched in Quaidabad. The DC Office, Malir, was also set on fire.

"Two of our fire tenders were attacked by the protesters. Five firemen were maimed at Tibet Centre when we tried to reach the cinema houses," said an officer at the central fire station. "We received complaints about fire in cinema houses, cars and banks, but our vehicles were not able to reach the place because of the volatile situation". The protesters acted with impunity at the PIDC intersection for a few hours, setting fire to a bank and ransacking almost all banks located on the stretch of the road described by police as the 'red zone'. The shops located adjacent to PIDC building were also damaged and looted by the protesters.

The NIB Bank was set on fire at PICD, while UBL, MCB Bank and National Bank were ransacked and looted by the protesters.

They ransacked ATM machines of the banks at PIDC and tried to snatch cash out of them.

Another bank was ransacked in Tower area.

A traffic police post at PIDC was set on fire. The protesters also ransacked front shops at Sheraton Hotel and an international fast food chain outlet in the PIDC House, taking away their furniture.

At least three police mobiles were set on fire near the Chief Minister House.

"We don't have ammunition to use against the protesters", said a policeman who was hiding behind a container.

Although the SSP and DC South were seen patrolling the areas around the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
Press Club, along with their big escorts, but none of them reached the PIDC when the loot and arson attacks were taking place.

A number of coppers were maimed when the protesters attacked two cop shoppes near Keamari and Manghopir. There were reports that the protesters snatched some arms from the coppers. One of the maimed coppers, identified as sub-inspector Illyas, later died in hospital.

According to sources, an ammunition shop and an FC post were set on fire in Kharadar.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
4 arrests in Belgium over suspected Somali jihadist Network
(Sh.M.Network)--Belgian authorities claimed to have dismantled a jihadist network sending young men to fight in Somalia, according to local media Saturday.

Four people were placed in long-term storage
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
in Brussels, while another three are to be extradited from Gay Paree. One of those tossed in the clink
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
is an Algerian national who had reportedly obtained political asylum in May.

The suspects are due to appear in court on Monday.

Belgian authorities had identified four other myrmidons, but lost track of them. They are believed to have travelled to Somalia in 2011 to fight for al-Shabaab
... the personification of Somali state failure...
, an Islamist rebel group that is affiliated with al-Qaeda and controls much of southern and central Somalia.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Aoun Convoy Comes Under Fire in Sidon
[An Nahar] Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
leader Michel Aoun
...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
's convoy came under gunfire in the southern port city of Sidon on Saturday while he was returning from Jezzine.

Aoun's press office confirmed the incident after denying it for "security reasons."

LBCI reported that the convoy was attacked near Bahaa Eddine al-Hariri's mosque in Sidon around 7:30 p.m.

Earlier, Aoun visited Jezzine to reach out for his supporters in the southern town of Jezzine.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
More than 10000 people flee Somalia's port city of Kismayo: UN
(Sh.M.Network)--The UN refugee agency said on Friday that more than 10,000 people have fled Kismayo in southern Somalia since the start of September fearing the ongoing military operation by the UN-backed African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
forces.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Somalia Representative Bruno Geddo said in a statement issued in Nairobi that some 7,500 Somalis fled the city in the last four days.

"In September alone, more than 10,000 people have fled from Kismayo fearing the resumption of fighting.

"Movements substantially increased on Monday and have been continuing since," UNHCT said in the statement.

"Some 7,500 people fled the area in the past four days due to growing tensions and belligerent statements," the statement said.

The AU forces have been battling Al-Shabaab
... the successor to the Islamic Courts...
bully boyz that are blamed for bomb and grenade attacks in Kenya, having being pushed out of capital Mogadishu.

The bully boyz still control some parts of Somalia especially in the south-central regions including Kismayo, their only remaining bastion.

The UN and international humanitarian agencies have been calling on AMISOM forces to minimize the impact of their ongoing military operation to allow the agencies to help Somalis deal with the impact of drought, as well as the after-effects of famine in some areas.

The statement came after the AU envoy to Somalia on Thursday called on the UN-backed AU forces in the Horn of Africa nation to minimize the potential of civilians being injured during the ongoing military operation to capture Kismayo.

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission for Somalia, Ambassador Boubacar Gaoussou Diarra, reiterated AMISOM's commitment to minimizing the impact of its operations on the civilian population and urged all forces active in the country to follow its example.

"AMISOM takes its responsibility for the safety of the people of Somalia very seriously and fully understands its obligations to conduct operations without causing undue risk to the local population," Diarra said inNairobi.

Diarra said it was only with the support of the Somali people that AMISOM had been able to achieve success in the capital,Mogadishu, and elsewhere.

In its statement, UNHCR said it is closely monitoring the situation around the Somali port city of Kismayo as thousands of city's residents flee in anticipation of military activities and new festivities.

"Our monitors on the ground report that some civilians fear being used as human shields, should fighting erupt in Kismayo, while others also fear possible retribution in the chaotic aftermath of battle," said Geddo.

Geddo said most of the internally displaced Somalis are leaving Kismayo and its surroundings on minibuses, adding poorer households undertake the journey in lorries and trucks, in some cases using donkey carts.

The agency said the majority of those displaced are heading to villages in other parts of Kismayo district as well as villages in the neighboring Jilib and Jamame districts. Some are also moving towards Mogadishu and Dadaab refugee camps.

"According to our partners, most of those fleeing Kismayo say that they are planning to return as soon as the situation stabilizes.

"There are reports of sporadic militia attacks and looting," Geddo said.

Kenyan soldiers have captured a string of towns leading to Kismayo, the third largest city which is considered the hub of the bad boy group, Al-Shabaab, which formally merged with the dreaded global terror network, the al Qaeda, after several years of pledging loyalty and ideological similarities.

According to UNHCR, the displaced also fear being caught in the crossfire and possible reprisal attacks by gangs operating in the town.

After two decades of conflict and violence,Somalia remains one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, generating a large number of refugees, only after Afghanistan and Iraq.

At present, more than 1 million Somalis live as refugees in the neighboring countries. Another 1.3 million are internally displaced across Somalia.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Google to Block Jordan Links to Anti-Islam Film
[An Nahar] Google
...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign...
has agreed to block all links connecting Internet users in Jordan to an anti-Islam film made in the United States that has stirred outrage across the Mohammedan world, a Jordanian minister said on Saturday.

"We asked Google to block all links to this film in the kingdom and we have had a favourable response," said Communications and Information Technology Minister Atef Tel, quoted in Al-Dustur newspaper.

Agece La Belle France Presse journalists in Amman, however, were still able to access the film on Saturday morning.

The low-budget film "Innocence of Mohammedans," incited a wave of bloody anti-American violence in cities across the Mohammedan world which targeted symbols of U.S. influence ranging from embassies and schools to fast food chains.

At least 30 people have died so far in unrest connected to the film in over 20 countries.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, said on Wednesday that the film would be restricted "in countries where it is considered illegal by local authorities" such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
YouTube last week restricted access to the film in Egypt and Libya after unrest in those countries, and has been adding countries to the list. Some others, including Pakistain and Sudan, have blocked access themselves.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Satire: Media Has Trouble Covering Up for Obama
from The Onion:
WASHINGTON--More than a week after President Barack Obama's cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime....

So far, the president's double-homicide has not been covered by any major news outlets. The only two mentions of the heinous tragedy have been a 100-word blurb on the Associated Press wire and an obituary on page E7 of this week's edition of the Lake County Examiner
Posted by: lord garth || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let's face it: this story could be real, and there are lots of people who would still vote for Obama.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 09/23/2012 11:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Media Named Ritt Momney as chief suspect.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 09/23/2012 15:04 Comments || Top||

#3  NYT: "Under Paul Ryan's budget plan, psychotics like the President would be left without the medication they so desperately need. Don't balance the budget on the backs of America's craziest citizens. Vote Obama, before he kills again!"
Posted by: Matt || 09/23/2012 17:50 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Egypt Court Upholds Dissolution of Parliament
[An Nahar] Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court on Saturday rejected an appeal by Islamists demanding the reinstatement of parliament, saying it was no longer legal, according to a judicial source.

"The parliament no longer exists legally since the June 14 ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC)" deeming it unconstitutional and ordering its dissolution, the Supreme Administrative Court said.

Officials in the powerful Moslem Brüderbund and its political arm the Freedom and Justice Party had hoped that the Supreme Administrative Court would support their demand for parliament to be reinstated.

But the court said that any SCC decision could not be overturned.

The lower house was elected late last year, with Islamists winning an overwhelming majority. But on June 14 the SCC ruled it invalid, saying there were irregularities in the electoral law.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which ruled after Hosni Mubarak
...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011...
was ousted in last year's popular uprising, then dissolved the house. The army was given legislative control, provoking outrage among those wishing to see the military cede power.

On July 8, President Mohammed Morsi, who had risen through the Moslem Brüderbund's ranks, issued a decree ordering the reinstatement of parliament, which the SCC froze two days later.

In August Morsi ordered the surprise retirement of his powerful defense minister and scrapped a constitutional document which handed sweeping powers to the military, in a move some said was aimed at ending the SCAF's power.

The relationship between the Islamist Morsi and the army has been uneasy, testing the balance of power between the first civilian president in Egypt's history and a military that had moved to limit his power.

Fresh legislative elections are to take place two months after the adoption of a new constitution, which is being drafted by a committee dominated by Islamists and due to be finalized by the end of the year.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


India-Pakistan
Pakistani Minister Offers Bounty Over Anti-Islam Video
[NY Times] A cabinet minister on Saturday offered a $100,000 reward for the death of the person behind the anti-Islam video made in the United States that has roiled Mohammedans around the world, drawing fresh criticism of the Pakistain government's handling of the crisis.

A day after violent protests paralyzed Pakistain's largest cities, leaving 23 people dead and more than 200 injured, the federal railways minister, Ahmed Ghulam Bilour, said he would personally finance a bounty aimed at the maker of the crude, low-budget video at the core of the controversy.

Furthermore, Mr. Bilour told news hounds in his home city, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
, he would approve of Al Qaeda or Talibs carrying out the liquidation. "I also invite Taliban and Al Qaeda brothers to be partners in this noble deed," Mr. Bilour said, according to news reports.

His comments offered fresh ammunition to critics of the coalition government, which declared a public holiday on Friday to facilitate what it hoped would be peaceful protests, calling it a "Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad."

"Pakistain was truly leaderless on Friday," said Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, a former ambassador to the United States. "By ceding space to the mob, the government actually joined the mob. These statements only reinforce how playing to the gallery has very dangerous, long-term consequences for the country."

Mr. Bilour said he recognized that it was illegal to offer an incitement to murder, but said that if any court found him guilty, he was "ready to be hanged in the name of the Prophet Muhammad."

He is a member of the Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist party that is a minority partner in the coalition government led by President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
's Pakistain People's Party. It was unclear whether the government intended to punish Mr. Bilour; the minister for information could not be reached on Saturday evening.

Mr. Bilour did not name the target of his bounty, but it was widely presumed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old who lives in the United States and has been linked to the 14-minute video, described as a trailer for a movie named "Innocence of Mohammedans."

Mr. Nakoula has not confirmed reports of his involvement, but he has been questioned by police near his residence Cerritos, 20 miles south of Los Angeles. He was not cooled for a few years
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
In Pakistain, Mr. Bilour's offer was taken more as a piece of political grandstanding than a serious threat. A day earlier, at least six people had died during protests in Peshawar, and rioters destroyed property that included a cinema belonging to Mr. Bilour's brother, Aziz.

Mr. Bilour's assistant, Zulfikar Ahmed, said he had made the offer to encourage Paks to divert their anger toward the root of the problem.

"It is not for us to destroy our country and our own poor people. That's why he said this," said Mr. Ahmed by telephone.

Ironically, Mr. Bilour's party has suffered many attacks at the hands of the Taliban, which has killed dozens of his party members in recent years.

Pakistain Railways, the state-owned company Mr. Bilour presides over, is deep in debt and marred by frequent strikes, poor service and train crashes.

His statement coincided with fresh protests, albeit peaceful ones. Several thousand people, including hundreds of women, marched outside the Parliament in Islamabad, chanting "punishment for those who humiliated our prophet."

In Lahore, hard-line Islamist groups gathered outside the United State Consulate chanting slogans about "jihad."

Mr. Bilour's statement came at an awkward time for the government because it coincided with a visit to the United States by the foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar.

After a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
... sometimes described as For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillary and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another John C. Calhoun ...
on Friday, Ms. Khar said the violent protests "cannot be tolerated."

On Capitol Hill, where Ms. Khar met last week with members of the foreign policy and intelligence committees, politicians responded warily to Pakistain's decision to allow the protests that later turned violent.

"Pakistain knows we're watching very closely, and how they handle these protests will have an on impact on our relationship," said Representative Adam Schiff, a Caliphornia Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Meanwhile protests continued to roil other parts of the subcontinent. In Bangladesh, festivities between Islamist groups and the police left over 100 people maimed after the protesters tried to march through the capital, Dhaka, in defiance of a ban on demonstrations that has been in force since Friday afternoon.

In Pakistain, a group of Christians in the northwestern city of Mardan said they would hold their Sunday service on the road to protest the destruction of their church during Friday's riots.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  We talk about Iran but Pakistan is clearly number one enemy in the WOT.
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 09/23/2012 5:08 Comments || Top||

#2  So he is trying to hire a hit man? May not be against Sharia Law but it is definitely against our laws.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/23/2012 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  The cartoon rage spreads, expect Christians, Jews and Hindus to start rioting in 3, 2, Oh never mind!
Posted by: tipper || 09/23/2012 16:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Netisans should up his ante with public donations for his head.
Posted by: Large Darling of the Antelope3345 || 09/23/2012 22:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Netizen (sp?)
Posted by: Large Darling of the Antelope3345 || 09/23/2012 22:37 Comments || Top||

#6  NOT-MUTINY-ON-THE-BOUNTY-OR-TAHITI-HULA-BABES-EITHER ...

Mr. Christian.

versus

* IIRC TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WAS PAKISTAN RESPONSIBLE FOR CAMP BASTION BASE ATTACK?

Secrets.

Maybe UK's Prince Harry had to good a time in Vegas for the ISI's taste???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 09/23/2012 22:59 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan Border Guards Clash with Gunmen
[An Nahar] Jordanian border guards clashed at dawn Saturday with gunnies in a border area and cooled for a few years
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
all of the gunnies, Information Minister Samih Maayatah said.

"Jordanian border guards cooled for a few years
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
at dawn a group of gunnies in one of the border areas after an exchange of gunfire," he said in remarks carried by the state-run Petra news agency.

The were no further details and later Maayatah declined, in reply to Agence La Belle France Presse, to say where the festivities occurred or identify the gunnies.

"This is a military issue," he said, refusing to give further details.

Jordan shares land borders with Iraq, Israel, Syria, the West Bank and Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face...
The tiny desert kingdom has beefed up its security along the border with Syria, since a deadly uprising against the government of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
erupted in mid-March.

In an interview with AFP earlier this month, Jordan's King Abdullah II warned of a spillover of the Syrian conflict into neighboring countries, saying the risk is "looming closer."

Jordan currently hosts more than 200,000 Syrians who have fled the bloodletting.

The king said that not all Syrians who came to Jordan were seeking safe haven.

"We have discovered that a few came here, not to seek safe haven, but to carry out other missions -- intelligence gathering on refugees, or schemes to target Jordan's stability and security," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran accuses Siemens of sabotaging nuclear program
Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi on Saturday accused German company Siemens of sabotaging its nuclear program, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported.

According to the news agency, citing Boroujerdi, Iranian security experts discovered small explosives embedded in equipment Tehran bought from Siemens for its nuclear program. DPA quoted Borojerdi as claiming, "the equipment was supposed to blow up after installation in order to destroy our [nuclear] systems."

Siemens immediately dismissed the allegations, with DPA quoting company spokesman Alexander Machowetz as saying, "we have no business dealings related to the Iranian nuclear program."

The United Nations has banned the sale of nuclear-related equipment to Iran.

Iranian security experts discovered small explosives embedded in equipment Tehran bought from Siemens for its nuclear program.
The latest allegations of sabotage come less than a week after Iranian atomic energy organization chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani claimed that explosives were used to cut the electricity power lines to Iran's Fordow underground enrichment plant on August 17.

Abbasi-Davani also told the annual member state gathering of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that "the same act" had been carried out on power lines to Iran's main uranium enrichment plant near the central town of Natanz, without giving a date.

He concluded by accusing the IAEA of a cynical approach and mismanagement and suggested that "terrorists and saboteurs" might have infiltrated it.

Iran has previously accused Israel and the West of being behind the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists and of trying to damage its nuclear program in other ways, such as cyber attacks.
Posted by: Glinesh Craling7938 || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [29 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The olde red mercury solder trick.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 4:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Most interesting is the admission that Siemens has been selling stuff to Iran that is being used in their nuke programs, if only light switches and circuit breakers
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/23/2012 10:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Saddam's Iraqi tomato blight research facilities were full of Swiss and German laboratory instruments. Mirage F1s were also pretty common. Not all the USAID funding goes to bread and water well drilling. Thanks to our US State Department's military assistance programs, the Military-Industrial Complex has been grinding on in Egypt as well.

Ike was RIGHT!
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Siemens has supplied much more than switches and circuit breakers. The PLCs (programmable logice controllers) used to control the centrifuges are made by Siemens. The unique thing about the Stuxnet virus is that it was the first virus to infect PLCs, and not just computers. You've got to wonder if somebody from Siemens had a hand in that.
Posted by: AuburnTom || 09/23/2012 16:15 Comments || Top||

#5  I was thinking more on the lines of something like a PLC embedded (where it is not expected) in an ordinary-appearing circuit breaker or outlet, causing a catastrophic failure upon receiving a command through its usual power supply line. Siemens of all companies should be able to create devices just like that.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 09/23/2012 20:35 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Obama visits Wisconsin
WaPo so you know what you're going to get.

A small point: confident campaigns that claim to be ahead in battleground states don't spend time in states that they're supposed to have locked up. Time is the most precious commodity a candidate has, and the election is running down. Why is Champ in Wisconsin?

Because (I'll wager) the campaign's internal polls show him behind, that's why.

Don't get cocky.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I love the Star Wars reference, but I actually would like to see him get cocky ;) all for the cause
Posted by: Jan || 09/23/2012 2:15 Comments || Top||

#2  There is only one reason for the oiled one to visit Wisconsin.... the motel of motels.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 8:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Hopefully his presidency goes the way of the 'Gobbler', Shipman. It's already run down, moldy and decrepit and 'gone'.

That's one motel that exemplified style over substance and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase. It was a landmark in south-central Wisconsin for many years, but people never really could bring themselves to say that they actually loved the place. The rotating bar was kind of a fun experience for a few 'go rounds' however. Getting out of the bar stool after a 'few' could be interesting.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/23/2012 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Staghorn, the REAL reason for the Wisconsin trip.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Staghorn's not too bad. 'Spotted Cow' is another good one from the same area.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/23/2012 12:19 Comments || Top||

#6  One thing probably not plentiful in the lovely alpine like meadows and hills where Spotted Cow or Staghorn are brewed.....folks like our Champ.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 12:25 Comments || Top||

#7  Time is the most precious commodity a candidate has, and the election is running down. Why is Champ in Wisconsin?

Cause the golf courses and Letterman are overbooked?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/23/2012 12:43 Comments || Top||

#8  But the ladies on The View always have time for him and Michelle.
Posted by: lotp || 09/23/2012 18:58 Comments || Top||


Africa North
EgyptÂ’s New Leader Spells Out Terms for U.S.-Arab Ties
We're not the ones who can't feed our people, Mohamed. Think about that. Then think about a quaint Western phrase, something about biting the hand that feeds you...
CAIRO — On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger.

A former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and EgyptÂ’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The New York Times to introduce himself to the American public and to revise the terms of relations between his country and the United States after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, an autocratic but reliable ally.

He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of regional stability.
Nice try, but we're not the supplicants here. Or at least, we shouldn't be...
If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said, Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to Palestinian self-rule.
Okay, abrogate the Camp David accords. Think your military can stand up to Israel? How about in a year when you can't feed your people?
He said the United States must respect the Arab worldÂ’s history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.
By 'respect' he means do things their way...
And he dismissed criticism from the White House that he did not move fast enough to condemn protesters who recently climbed over the United States Embassy wall and burned the American flag in anger over a video that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.

“We took our time” in responding to avoid an explosive backlash, he said, but then dealt “decisively” with the small, violent element among the demonstrators.

“We can never condone this kind of violence, but we need to deal with the situation wisely,” he said, noting that the embassy employees were never in danger.

Mr. Morsi, who will travel to New York on Sunday for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, arrives at a delicate moment. He faces political pressure at home to prove his independence, but demands from the West for reassurance that Egypt under Islamist rule will remain a stable partner.

Mr. Morsi, 61, whose office was still adorned with nautical paintings that Mr. Mubarak left behind, said the United States should not expect Egypt to live by its rules.

“If you want to judge the performance of the Egyptian people by the standards of German or Chinese or American culture, then there is no room for judgment,” he said. “When the Egyptians decide something, probably it is not appropriate for the U.S. When the Americans decide something, this, of course, is not appropriate for Egypt.”
How about when Egypt depends on the U.S. and Europe to be fed, and on Saudi Arabia to pay for it?
He suggested that Egypt would not be hostile to the West, but would not be as compliant as Mr. Mubarak either.

“Successive American administrations essentially purchased with American taxpayer money the dislike, if not the hatred, of the peoples of the region,” he said, by backing dictatorial governments over popular opposition and supporting Israel over the Palestinians.
Okay, we can stop paying...
He initially sought to meet with President Obama at the White House during his visit this week, but he received a cool reception, aides to both presidents said. Mindful of the complicated election-year politics of a visit with EgyptÂ’s Islamist leader, Mr. Morsi dropped his request.
Surprising. You'd thought Champ would have opened up space on his calendar by refusing Bibi...
His silence in the immediate aftermath of the embassy protest elicited a tense telephone call from Mr. Obama, who also told a television interviewer that at that moment he did not consider Egypt an ally, if not an enemy either. When asked if he considered the United States an ally, Mr. Morsi answered in English, “That depends on your definition of ally,” smiling at his deliberate echo of Mr. Obama. But he said he envisioned the two nations as “real friends.”
You might be the only one...
Mr. Morsi spoke in an ornate palace that Mr. Mubarak inaugurated three decades ago, a world away from the Nile Delta farm where the new president grew up, or the prison cells where he had been confined by Mr. Mubarak for his role in the Brotherhood. Three months after his swearing-in, the most noticeable change to the presidential office was a plaque on his desk bearing the Koranic admonition, “Be conscious of a day on which you will return to God.”

A stocky figure with a trim beard and wire-rim glasses, he earned a doctorate in materials science at the University of Southern California in the early 1980s. He spoke with an easy confidence in his new authority, reveling in an approval rating he said was at 70 percent. When he grew animated, he slipped from Arabic into crisp English.

Little known at home or abroad until just a few months ago, he was the BrotherhoodÂ’s second choice as a presidential nominee after the first choice was disqualified. On the night of the election, the generals who had ruled since Mr. MubarakÂ’s ouster issued a decree keeping most presidential powers for themselves.

But last month Mr. Morsi confounded all expectations by prying full executive authority back from the generals. In the interview, when an interpreter suggested that the generals had “decided” to exit politics, Mr. Morsi quickly corrected him.

“No, no, it is not that they ‘decided’ to do it,” he interjected in English, determined to clarify that it was he who removed them. “This is the will of the Egyptian people through the elected president, right?

“The president of the Arab Republic of Egypt is the commander of the armed forces, full stop. Egypt now is a real civil state. It is not theocratic, it is not military. It is democratic, free, constitutional, lawful and modern.”
As you purge your opponents...
He added, “We are behaving according to the Egyptian people’s choice and will, nothing else — is it clear?”
That might be a true statement...
He praised Mr. Obama for moving “decisively and quickly” to support the Arab Spring revolutions, and he said he believed that Americans supported “the right of the people of the region to enjoy the same freedoms that Americans have.”

Arabs and Americans have “a shared objective, each to live free in their own land, according to their customs and values, in a fair and democratic fashion,” he said, adding that he hoped for “a harmonious, peaceful coexistence.”

But he also argued that Americans “have a special responsibility” for the Palestinians because the United States had signed the 1978 Camp David accord. The agreement called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza to make way for full Palestinian self-rule.

“As long as peace and justice are not fulfilled for the Palestinians, then the treaty remains unfulfilled,” he said.

He made no apologies for his roots in the Brotherhood, the insular religious revival group that was Mr. MubarakÂ’s main opposition and now dominates Egyptian politics.

“I grew up with the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “I learned my principles in the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned how to love my country with the Muslim Brotherhood. I learned politics with the Brotherhood. I was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He left the group when he took office but remains a member of its political party. But he said he sees “absolutely no conflict” between his loyalty to the Brotherhood and his vows to govern on behalf of all, including members of the Christian minority or those with more secular views.

“I prove my independence by taking the correct acts for my country,” he said. “If I see something good from the Muslim Brotherhood, I will take it. If I see something better in the Wafd” — Egypt’s oldest liberal party — “I will take it.”
He's pretty easy with the word, 'take'...
He repeatedly vowed to uphold equal citizenship rights of all Egyptians, regardless of religion, sex or class. But he stood by the religious arguments he once made as a Brotherhood leader that neither a woman nor a Christian would be a suitable president.

“We are talking about values, beliefs, cultures, history, reality,” he said. He said the Islamic position on presidential eligibility was a matter for Muslim scholars to decide, not him. But regardless of his own views or the Brotherhood’s, he said, civil law was another matter.

“I will not prevent a woman from being nominated as a candidate for the presidential campaign,” he said. “This is not in the Constitution. This is not in the law. But if you want to ask me if I will vote for her or not, that is something else, that is different.”

He was also eager to reminisce about his taste of American culture as a graduate student at the University of Southern California. “Go, Trojans!” he said, and he remembered learning about the world from Barbara Walters in the morning and Walter Cronkite at night. “And that’s the way it is!” Mr. Morsi said with a smile.
Baba and Uncle Walt? No wonder he doesn't understand America...
But he also displayed some ambivalence. He effused about his admiration for American work habits, punctuality and time management. But when an interpreter said that Mr. Morsi had “learned a lot” in the United States, he quickly interjected a qualifier in English: “Scientifically!”

He was troubled by the gangs and street of violence of Los Angeles, he said, and dismayed by the West’s looser sexual mores, mentioning couples living together out of wedlock and what he called “naked restaurants,” like Hooters.

“I don’t admire that,” he said. “But that is the society. They are living their way.”
Posted by: Steve White || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So in the end we are fighting for Naked Restaurants?

Hell, I'm down with that.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 4:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Cut the aid, cut the food. Let the Egyptians get a taste (no pun intended) of real hunger.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man || 09/23/2012 6:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world

I agree, change is need. Perhaps not in the manner in which Mr. Morsi thinks however.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:17 Comments || Top||

#4  ask this m-F-er, hey shithead, what has Egypt ever done directly for the US?...and don't cite the extortion billions we paid for you not to loose another war with Israel.
Posted by: jack salami || 09/23/2012 7:27 Comments || Top||

#5  The only phrase that comes to mind...


...and the horse you rode in on.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/23/2012 9:20 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Senate GOP : Newspapers got better briefing on Benghazi
Senate Republicans are furious the Obama administration rebuffed their attempts to learn details of the Benghazi attack, only to give the coveted information to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Senators say they were rebuffed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when they pressed for more information about the attack that killed U.S. envoy Christopher Stephens in Libya. GOP lawmakers were incensed to find many of the details they tried to learn Thursday were in a front-page article in The Times the following morning.

The Times published a timeline of the attacks chronicling militants gaining access to the U.S. compound after 9:35 pm on Sept. 11, American security forces attempting to retake it at 10:45 pm and American and Libyan forces regaining control of the main compound around 11:20 pm, before evacuating. According to the timeline, Libyans found Stevens in the compound after midnight and took him to a hospital, and 20 embassy staff members were hit by mortar rounds around 2 am, an attack that killed two former Navy SEALs.

The official Senate briefing was less informative.

The Wall Street Journal published a similarly detailed account of the attack.

Senators asked Clinton about the sequence of events during the Benghazi attack. She and other officials declined to provide any specifics, citing an ongoing investigation. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter also attended the briefing.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  because it's all about the public perception via the spin, not actual, you know, reality
Posted by: Frank G || 09/23/2012 7:27 Comments || Top||

#2  The administration and the Obama controlled governmental regime illustrate an open disdain for congress, both parties in fact. No surprises here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:30 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
7 found dead in Michoacan state

For a map, click here

Seven unidentified men were found shot to death and immolated in Michoacan state Saturday morning, according to Mexican news accounts.

A news item posted on the website of Televisa television said the victims were found inside a truck on the Venustiano Carranza-Jiquilpan road, near Morelia, the state capital of Michoacan. The specific area is called Ciénaga, near the village of San Gregorio. The grisly discovery was made by local farmers.

The scene is close to the Michocan-Jalisco border, where last weekend 17 individuals were also found dead aboard a truck in Tizapan El Alto municipality in Jalisco state. As with this morning's massacre. the 17 dead were also all males and all shot to death.
Posted by: badanov || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A relatively slow day.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 8:08 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Gallup: U.S. Distrust in Media Hits New High
Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 -- as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.

This year's decline in media trust is driven by independents and Republicans. Independents are sharply more negative compared with 2008, suggesting the group that is most closely divided between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is quite dissatisfied with its ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election. ore broadly, Republicans continue to express the least trust in the media, while Democrats express the most. Independents' trust fell below the majority level in 2004 and has continued to steadily decline.

Americans are clearly down on the news media this election year, with a record-high six in 10 expressing little or no trust in the mass media's ability to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. This likely reflects the continuation of the trend seen in recent years, combined with the increased negativity toward the media that election years tend to bring. This is particularly consequential at a time when Americans need to rely on the media to learn about the platforms and perspectives of the two candidates vying to lead the country for the next four years.

On a broad level, Americans' high level of distrust in the media poses a challenge to democracy and to creating a fully engaged citizenry. Media sources must clearly do more to earn the trust of Americans, the majority of whom see the media as biased one way or the other.
And the money quote:
At the same time, there is an opportunity for others outside the "mass media" to serve as information sources that Americans do trust.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  By extension, I can only hope those who control and manipulate the media are held in similar contempt.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:13 Comments || Top||

#2  On a broad level, Americans' high level of distrust in the media poses a challenge to democracy and to creating a fully engaged citizenry.

Hmmm, no. It's not the American people who've finally are waking up to the duplicity, distortions, and fabrications of the 'Media' that's the problem. It's the Media's whoring for causes or agendas rather than 'just the facts' that has endangered the republic. Most of us want the free flow of information that somehow is quashed by the institution known as the 'Media'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/23/2012 9:02 Comments || Top||

#3  60%? I'm surprised so few have caught on--should be much higher. That explains to some degree why so many fall for frauds.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/23/2012 17:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Curiously, it's almost the same percentage that think the country is on the 'wrong track'.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 18:13 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Mardan Christians unhappy with security; demand reconstruction of burnt church
The Christian community of Mardan, on Saturday, demanded reconstruction of the Paul Lutheran Church which was burnt down by angry mob during the anti-Islam film demonstrations in the cantonment area on Friday.

The Christian community staged a demonstration near the burnt church and said that the police had failed to protect their worship place when angry protestors set the church on fire along with two Pastor houses and the adjacent head-teacher's house.

Vice president of the church Andaryat, speaking to news hounds in Mardan, on Saturday said that the Christian community equally condemn the sacrilegious film and demand action against the pastor and the filmmaker.

"Due to personal acts of a few fanatics the Christian community and its worship places in Pakistain are becoming unsafe, which is regrettable."

He remarked that the church and the Christian school had been looted and the newly-installed computers had been stolen by the myrmidons while the looters also take away other stuff from the church

The protestors carrying placards and banners also condemned the act of violence and decried the police for its failure for not protecting the church.

Andaryat said: "The divine books in the church have also been burnt down while the church has totally been ransacked and in a shambles," adding, "we would need a lot of government support to rebuild it and hope the KPK government and the Chief Minister from Mardan will be coming to our help."

Bishop of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
Rt. Rev. Humphrey Peters has also appealed for support from the Anglican Communion and said "the damage had been very severe, and we will need to rebuild. We are asking for people around the world to keep us in your prayers."

Placards showing dissatisfaction over the state of security for Christians said proper measures must be take to protect Christians properties and worship places

Andaryat to a query said: "we are Paks first and then Christians, so we would condemn any such act which would be against Islam or any other religion and would expect the same treatment from our Moslem brothers as well."

"We are peaceful and hold Moslem and their religious faith in high esteem and condemn the individual act which had become a source of embarrassment and outrage for the Moslems across the world, but we also need protection and respect from them."
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Christians should be moved to the west and muslims moved to the middle east and we will have more peace in the world.muslims have proved time and time again they cannot live peacefully with other religions.
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 09/23/2012 5:40 Comments || Top||

#2  There is "the west and the rest". They really don't make very good neighbors.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:18 Comments || Top||


Economy
EPA stifles U.S. coal but subsidizes it in China
by Reps. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)

Two weeks ago, the United States national debt surpassed $16 trillion. To put that into perspective, that is more than $50,000 per person in the U.S. To finance this overwhelming debt, the U.S. is borrowing roughly 40 cents of every dollar we spend, a good portion of it from foreign countries like China.

There are many news stories highlighting instances where the federal government wastes our money, but Americans may not be aware that our federal government is actually using taxpayer dollars to subsidize projects that benefit our foreign competitors, including China.

Last week, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing on the Accountability in Grants Act, which would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from awarding grants under Section 103 of the Clean Air Act for foreign projects. Since 2001, the EPA has awarded grants to foreign recipients totaling more than $100 million. In many instances, these taxpayer-funded grants help foreign companies at the expense of domestic ones.

On the list of recently awarded grants, one is especially troubling to us -- EPA's grant to the China Coal Information Institute for a "Technical Assessment of Coal Mine Gas Recovery and Utilization in China."

Taxpayers may wonder why the EPA is funding coal projects abroad, and in China no less, while simultaneously spewing regulations that are helping to destroy coal mining here at home.

Coal still accounts for nearly half the country's electricity production, even though the coal industry goes through cyclical ups and downs. Recently, natural gas has become a viable alternative to some types of coal, especially for electricity generation. But as the global use of coal is rapidly increasing, the U.S. has seen a decline in coal electricity generation, thanks in large part to new EPA regulations.

More than 30 years ago, Ronald Reagan said, "We're not energy-poor. There's energy yet to be found and developed in this country, including the biggest coal pile that any country in the world sits on."

Even President Obama acknowledged the potential of America's rich coal reserves, once touting the U.S. as the "Saudi Arabia of coal." Unfortunately, our current policies aren't permitting us to utilize this abundant and affordable resource. Just this year, as a result of harsh new regulations, American coal companies have announced premature plant retirements and been forced to lay off thousands of workers. This is why the House of Representatives will stand up for jobs and pass the Stop the War on Coal Act this week. China, on the other hand, continues to dominate the world in terms of coal production, and in the last few years, Chinese coal production has surpassed U.S. levels.

As in a number of other areas, the Chinese don't seem to have any problems competing with us when it comes to coal production. We welcome the competition, but would prefer that our own taxpayer-funded federal government agencies didn't tip the scales by investing in Chinese projects. Thousands of American workers have already been laid off as a result of the EPA's actions, so we question why, in this time of high unemployment, the EPA would want to fund coal projects abroad at the same time the agency is imposing regulations that are helping eliminate coal mining jobs here at home.

Last summer, our committee released a report on EPA's foreign grants. Since then, numerous members of Congress have expressed concern that the EPA is exceeding its core mission by investing taxpayer dollars abroad. Given our nation's mounting debt and deficits, and our continued high unemployment, we believe it is irresponsible to continue to permit the EPA to fund foreign grants. How about betting on American projects and American coal?
Posted by: Au Auric || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You Republican politicians don't get it. The opposition party is all Karl Marx. When they have taken total control of the energy sector, they have totalitorian/despotic control of the population.
Posted by: Spolurt Thrairt9715 || 09/23/2012 0:57 Comments || Top||

#2  In effect a subsidy on the creation of carbon credits that are then sold on to western companies.

What a scam.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/23/2012 1:45 Comments || Top||

#3  We no longer accept cash or checks (which are essentially worthless now anyway). Natural Gas and electricity will cost you nothing in Obamaland. You will be issued carbon credit stamps for utilities payment based on your actual needs.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:34 Comments || Top||

#4  So I googled "hydrocarbon emissions by country" and, as you may have guessed, China emits a heckuva lot more than the United States.

But somehow that doesn't stop people from blaming those bad, bad energy producers and consumers in this country for man made global warming.

The next step in the cognitive process is to ask why China pollutes more than we do. IMHO at least part of the answer is our trade policy with China. We encourage them to do our manufacturing for us and then we wonder why so many of our people are unemployed.

Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/23/2012 16:30 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
U.S. Drone Strike Kills Three in Northwest Pakistan
[An Nahar] A U.S. drone strike on Saturday killed at least three Islamic gunnies in Pakistain's restive tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said.

The strike took place in the Datta Khel area of North Wazoo, known as a bastion of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The drone targeted a moving vehicle and fired two missiles, they said.

"The identity of the gunnies was immediately unclear but this area is mostly occupied by members of the orc commander Gul Bahadur's group," a security official in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
told Agence La Belle France Presse.

Another official on the ground in Miranshah
... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
said that the vehicle had been driving through a village 35 kilometres (around 20 miles) west of Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal district, when it was hit.

"We have reports that two gunnies of Gul Bahadur group were also injured in the attack," he told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The security officials said that the vehicle was engulfed in flames after the attack and gunnies cordoned off the area, not allowing anybody to go closer, while they removed the bodies.

The al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network in North Waziristan, blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan, is one of the thorniest issues between Islamabad and Washington.

Washington has long demanded that Pakistain take action against the Haqqanis, whom the United States accused of attacking the U.S. embassy in Kabul last September and acting like the "veritable arm" of Pak intelligence.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan


Olde Tyme Religion
Self-damage from Muslim rage
The fear in the Islamic world is not so much that the enraged Moslems will kill non-Moslems, but that they will end up killing fellow-Moslems and destabilise their governments

On 15 September 2012, Din TV discussed the blaspheming film 'Innocence of Moslems' with the host taking the view that innocent people should not be killed to avenge the crime of one person in America. He tried to attract the attention of half a dozen discussants to the fact that an American ambassador had been killed in Libya which was an outrage against Islam itself because an innocent man had been killed; he also warned that offended Moslems should not destroy Moslem property and kill innocent Moslems to quench the fire of their rage.

After regulation expression of outrage, most discussants were inclined to the cautious view but two holy manal scholars tended to excuse the killing of Americans becae the US as a state was to blame 'on the basis of the passage of the offending film by US Censor Board and its widespread showing in American cinema' houses before it finally appeared on Youtube. Qari Zawwar Bahadur was full of anger and insisted together with another holy man that Moslems should express their outrage and let the Americans be shown all over the world that their government was guilty of an inexcusable crime.

US Special Envoy Ambassador Grossman was in Islamabad planning the next tripartite Pak-Afghan-US talks later in the year. He announced that his government condemned the blaspheming film and was in no way involved in making it public. American website American Spectator on 15 September 2012 put out this observation: 'The supposed source of all this froth is a satirical movie called "Innocence of Moslems" directed and produced by a man named Sam Bacile, isn't packing theatres nationwide; in fact, it hasn't even been released yet. But a few trailer snippets drifting around YouTube were supposedly enough to incite a mob to murder an ambassador'.

The state has erred by embracing an unrealistic anti-Americanism which lacks capacity to harm the target country but prompts the Paks to attack their own state as a 'slave of America'
The American ambassador was killed at the consulate in Benghazi after he had issued an official condemnation of the blaspheming film. In Washington the Republicans attacked President B.O. for taking an apologetic position on the film. The violence at the consulate in Benghazi was followed in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
when a mob attacked the US consulate in the city. Just as in Libya, through the salafists, and in Egypt, through a flag, Al Qaeda may have been acting behind the scenes in Bloody Karachi too, threatening to assert its domination through the creeping conquest of the Taliban - as reported by interior minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
. Police mobiles have been burned and one man killed as if according to a plot aimed at damaging Pakistain under the pretext of protest.

More ominous events are foretold for Afghanistan where American troops are physically exposed to an Afghan Army that the US has built up as its surrogate after it leaves the country in 1914. After Laghman, where the Taliban killed American troops, luring a counterattack that killed a number of innocent Afghan women, Afghan Army troops have killed their American partners in Zabul and Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
. Elsewhere Moslem protesters will kill fellow-Moslems, destabilise their countries in the process and pave the way for turban organizations like Al Qaeda and its affiliates for takeover.

The American News Agency that Dare Not be Named agency dug out the truth about the offending maker of the film. The man behind 'Innocence of Moslems' is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Coptic Christian with a criminal past who lives in Caliphornia. He has admitted to providing logistical support for the production of 'Innocence of Moslems' but has denied being Sam Bacile, the name given as the film's maker. But the evidence so far unearthed suggests he is the man. He has stated that the film cost $5 million, which was raised from 100 Israeli donors.
Or not. But Pakistanis do love hating those Juices.
The film is of poor quality. Priest Terry Jones, the Florida-based, Koran-burning pastor, is also said to be involved.

In Pakistain the National Assembly condemned the Youtube outrage and called the incident 'shameful' and 'derogatory' and demanded that YouTube, the platform which hosts the video, remove the 14-minute clip. (It has since been removed.)
Has it? I thought they refused.
It is still available here in the USA, but has been blocked in several foreign countries.
The foreign Ministry had already sent out a strong condemnation earlier.

Meanwhile,
...back at the sea battle, the Terror of the Baltic's career had come to an abrupt and watery end...
Pakistain Moslem League-Nawaz (PML-N) Christian minority member Dr Nelson Azeem called for a ban on the video and said that every Christian in Pakistain condemns this act.
"Please don't hurt us!"
The Christian community of Pakistain condemned the blaspheming film to demonstrate their solidarity with the Moslem community of Pakistain. Pakistain has mounted special security for European and American diplomatic missions in Pakistain to prevent Death Eaters from committing vandalism.

The fear in the Islamic world is not so much that the enraged Moslems will kill non-Moslems but that they will end up killing fellow-Moslems and destabilise their governments. It has happened in Pakistain after the Salman Rushdie affair and in the wake of the insulting cartoons published in Denmark in 2006.

Predictably,
Indeed.
Egyptian demonstrators clashed with police, protests in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Yemen and Sudan went kaboom!. American and Western embassies came under threat and Christian minorities in the Islamic world anticipated terror. Expat Moslems in the West came out in the streets to shout their outrage, their media coverage worldwide sparked further action, while Afghanistan promised to be the final battleground because of the physical presence of American and Allied troops there.

Pakistain should tremble at what might happen next. Al Qaeda has stamped its presence in Egypt, Syria and Libya where a new prospect of carnage of Moslems to punish the West is opening up. Already Pakistain's innocent citizens are being massacred by Al Qaeda with the help of Punjabi Taliban and jihadi warriors laid aside by Pakistain Army when it decided to abandon jihad in Kashmire.
Did they do? I missed that.
Memories of what happened in Pakistain in 2006 in Lahore and other cities after a newspaper in Denmark published blaspheming cartoons will inspire Al Qaeda in its latest round of terror. In this it could be helped by the generalized outrage against the film among the prospective victims.

In March 2006, the blaspheming Danish cartoons caused one of Pakistain's most historic cities, Lahore, to be put to the torch.
In March 2006, the blaspheming Danish cartoons caused one of Pakistain's most historic cities, Lahore, to be put to the torch. The politicians, keen to steal the thunder of the clergy, joined in the anti-cartoon march and refused to act as the moderating influence in society. Getting together with the clergy to stage a protest march in Lahore against Denmark was a not a wise policy.

The Denmark cartoons which had been published in September were avenged in November. The Punjab government thought it could capitalise on the Moslem rage and win the 2007 or 2008 election. On Lahore's Mall, the rioters torched hundreds of cars and cycle of violences and damaged government buildings and private businesses. Outlets of foreign fast food companies McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut as well as several local restaurants and businesses were attacked and set on fire. Several shops and travel agencies were broken into and looted.

The demonstrators entered the Punjab Legislative Assembly and torched a room next to the chamber of the opposition leader. After that they moved on to the Pakistain International Airlines (PIA) building and broke its front. They attacked the hotel Holiday Inn on Egerton Road and the nearby Aiwan-e-Iqbal, smashing windows and burning cars. On The Mall, Dayal Singh Mansions came in for thorough destruction. The blaze at the KFC restaurant spread to the upper stories of the Coopera Art Gallery, a Moslem Commercial Bank branch, a National Bank branch, and a Telenor franchise. The mob had earlier set fire to a petrol station there.

Pakistain's capacity for self-damage on the basis of outrage is enhanced because of two factors: 1) presence of America and Al Qaeda close to Pakistain and 2) the persistence in force of Blasphemy Law which victimises non-Moslems. The public mind has been rendered dull by repeated scenes of death and annihilation - which is ignored by the victims as America's war. The state has erred by embracing an unrealistic anti-Americanism which lacks capacity to harm the target country but prompts the Paks to attack their own state as a 'slave of America'.
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You need to put a bounty on those who sell, Import, or reload bullets and clamp down on their Bullet-Makers, that'll end this war.
It's not so much fun if you have to hack people to death, far easier to pull a trigger.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/23/2012 1:05 Comments || Top||

#2  passage of the offending film by US Censor Board

AH... What US Censor Board?
obviously these dorks will never understand...
freedom!
Posted by: Water Modem || 09/23/2012 1:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Water Modem, for now....
Posted by: twobyfour || 09/23/2012 1:32 Comments || Top||

#4  I hope that Israel coordinates with India so that whenever Iran is bombed the Pakistani nukes can be grabbed at the same time. After that let the muslim world rage itself to death.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/23/2012 19:03 Comments || Top||

#5  "not so much that the enraged Moslems will kill non-Moslems, but that they will end up killing fellow-Moslems and destabilise their governments"

1. They don't have actual governments, just the looney strong-men du jour.

2. What's the downside?
Posted by: Barbara || 09/23/2012 20:30 Comments || Top||


It's A Holy War, Stupid
Analysis: Radical jihadists determined to establish Sunni Islamist state in the Levant

While discussing the bloodshed in Syria at a September 7 conference held in Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan drew a chilling parallel. "What happened in Karbala 1,332 years ago is what is happening in Syria today," he said, comparing the Syrian revolution to the most divisive
...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled...
event in Islamic history, the Battle of Karbala.
 
Those in the West with any interests in the region have much to learn from Erdogan's history lesson. What was originally depicted as a popular uprising against tyranny is now undeniably a war for religious supremacy in the Middle East. In this war, those Syrians who originally erupted into the streets in their aspirations for democracy have become the only guaranteed losers.
 
In the year 680 AD, Hussein Ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and 70 of his followers confronted 1,500 fighters from the Umayyad Caliphate in present day Iraq. Hussein had embarked on a crusade to wrest control of the caliphate from his archrival Yazid I, only to be slaughtered along with his family. Hussein's followers would eventually form the Shiite sect of Islam, and remain locked in a bitter rivalry with Yazid's fellow Abu Bakr supporters, whose descendants comprise the Sunni sect.
 
Now, 1,332 years later, Hussein's descendants are marching into Syria to fend off another onslaught in the historic territory of the Umayyad Dynasty. In recent months, Iran's elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has become an important gear in Assad's ever-resilient fighting machine, while Iranian currency and equipment continue to flow across Iraq to into Assad's coffers. Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact...
Tehran has also begun to send in hundreds, if not thousands, of rank and file Basij Orcs and similar vermin - the notorious henchmen responsible for crushing Iran's Green Revolution - to intimidate the opposition. In addition, reports indicate that Iran is dispatching members of Iraq's notorious "Mahdi Army" - the foot soldiers of firebrand
...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments...
Shiite holy man Moqtada Tater al-Sadr
... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah...
- to do battle in Syria at the ayatollah's behest.
 
The alliance between the Assad dynasty and the region's Shiites is a classic example of realpolitik - Middle East style. Assad's secretive Alawite minority is by no means similar to Shiism, having been branded as an offshoot of Islam following a politically-motivated fatwa (religious decree) issued by a prominent Lebanese holy man named Musa Sadr in the 1970s.
 
Foreign policy swamp
The fatwa enabled the Assads to stave off accusations of heresy from Syria's majority Sunni population. In return, the Assad regime agreed to bolster Leb's previously impoverished Shiites and Syria's Alawites into the formidable force they are today. Today, the Shiite Hezbollah faction continues to return the favor, funneling its members into Syria to participate in hostilities, while even firing rockets previously aimed at Israel into rebel strongholds across the border.
 
This strategic alliance, born out of mutual fears of domination by the region's Sunni majority, has placed Syria at the heart of Iran's Shiite axis. Losing Assad would ultimately put Shiite rule in Leb and Iraq in jeopardy, and Iran on the defensive against a Sunni-Islamist surge backed by petrodollars from the Gulf Arab states and diplomatic cover from the West.
 
The Iranians now unabashedly admit their support for the world's most isolated regime. Iran's defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi said, "Syria is managing this situation very well on its own, but if the government can't resolve the crisis on its own, then based on their request, we will fulfill our mutual defense-security pact." It is well known that Vahidi's defense pact is already in play. Farsi is now a common dialect spoken in Assad's command centers, while Shiite holy warriors dispatched by Iran are fighting alongside Alawite Orcs and similar vermin in the alleyways of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
In their eyes, Iran's ayatollahs and Shiites across the region are as outnumbered in today's Middle East as when Hussein confronted Yazid 1's army in the eighth century. Under the patronage of Sunni powerhouses in the Arabian Gulf, radical jihadists are making their presence felt, determined to establish a Sunni Islamist state in the Levant. The growing rate of suicide kabooms, beheadings, and persecution of religious minorities across Syria are further indicative that these gunnies have stolen the show from a secular opposition long-abandoned by so-called "Friends of Syria" coalition in the West.
 
The apocalyptic scenario unfolding in Syria combined with anti-American protests gripping the rest of region are enough to turn the deserts of the Middle East into a foreign policy swamp for decision makers on both sides of the Atlantic. Disengagement, however, will only bring the specter of terrorism and instability closer than ever to Europe's soft underbelly. In an age where the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction threatens global security, Syria's continued position as an Iranian outpost is as threatening to the region as the prospect of Syria becoming an assembly line for Sunni jihadists.
 
In a conflict which will ultimately be determined by foreign support, the United States and its NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
allies must be religiously devoted to bolstering Syrian moderates. Only by matching the resolve of Assad's allies with a fanatical commitment to secular and rational elements in the Syrian opposition, can the United States and its allies finally re-establish themselves as a major influence in the Middle East, and stop the age old battle of Karbala from wreaking havoc on the region for years to come.

The authors are intelligence managers and senior analysts at Max Security Solutions, a geo-political risk consulting firm based in Tel Aviv, Israel They specialize in Middle East and North African affairs..
Posted by: trailing wife || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  admit their support for the world's most isolated regime

North Korea?
Posted by: AlanC || 09/23/2012 9:38 Comments || Top||

#2  One of the things that makes America exceptional is there are no 1,300 year old battles to keep fighting. While the Civil War is more alive in the south than the north, it's been a long time since there was a massacre in the name of Gettysburg or Shiloh.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/23/2012 10:47 Comments || Top||

#3  it's been a long time since there was a massacre in the name of Gettysburg or Shiloh.
Posted by Bobby


Exactly correct, it was settled! State's Rights... we no longer have any.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 11:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Civil war of some sorts still rages in parts of east Texas! Big hairy people who like following people in bathrooms!
Posted by: Angiting Snore1647 || 09/23/2012 14:08 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Kenyan court jails confessed Al Shabaab member for 59 years
(Sh.M.Network) -- A Kenyan court sentenced a Somali national to 59 years in jail on Thursday after he confessed to being a member of the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab
... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord...
rebel group following his arrest in the capital Nairobi last week.

East Africa's biggest economy has been on a heightened state of security since sending troops intoSomaliato crush al-Shabaab, an Islamist group which carried out a double suicide kaboom in neighboring Uganda in 2010.

Abdimajid Yassin, 26, was locked away
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
last Friday when police seized a cache of boom vests, grenades and automatic rifles in an apartment in the Nairobi's Eastleigh district.

Yassin pled guilty to 10 counts of possession of explosives, ammunition and illegal possession of firearms. There was also a charge of engaging in organized criminal activity and one of being in Kenya illegally.

A second suspect locked away
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
in the raid pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
to the same charges.

Earlier this week police said they believed Yassin intended to carry out a suicide kaboom but provided no further details.

"I have considered the interest of the country and national security of the state ...the accused is not remorseful and I convict him on his own plea of guilty," Magistrate Lucy Nyambura told the court.

Western embassies in Kenya have warned of potential attacks several times in the last nine months.

Suicide bombings inUganda's capital Kampala in July 2010 which killed 79 soccer fans watching the World Cup final were al-Shabaab's first on foreign soil and highlighted both their intent and capability to strike beyond Somalia's borders.

Hundreds of disenchanted Kenyan Mohammedans and Mohammedan converts have been lured into the ranks of al-Shabaab since its Death Eaters launched their insurgency in Somalia five years ago.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Burt Leer? The original furry?
Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 18:03 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Violent mobs rule Peshawar
[Dawn] Life in the picturesque provincial capital was paralysed by riots, the worst of its kind in decades, on Friday after people protesting the production of an anti-Islam film in the US went on the rampage.

Protesters emerged on the streets early in the morning and stayed put until late in the day.

Police made elaborate security arrangements to stop people from going to sensitive places.

Some protesters exchanged fire with police in an apparent bid to sabotage the latter's security plan.

According to front man Jamil Shah, Lady Reading Hospital received five bodies, including that of ARY TV driver Mohammad Amir, and more than 50 injured people, including 11 coppers and DSP Faqirabad area.

One body and 16 injured were taken to Khyber Teaching Hospital.

"We have shifted 14 injured people from Saddar Bazaar to hospitals and 14 from University Road and four coppers from Tehkal area," said a front man for Edhi Foundation.

Police said ARY TV driver Mohammad Amir, a resident of Gari Khana area, had suffered injuries by three bullets as he accompanied his TV channel team for covering protests outside Shama Cinema.

They said the driver succumbed to critical wounds at Lady Reading Hospital.

According to them, the rest of the dead people were Kamran of Nawikili, Rifaqat of Bala Mani, Asif and Usman of Bara Gate, and Habibullah of Beri Bagh.

Police said protesters set on fire public and private properties, including telephone cabinets, damaged fire tenders, hoarders, and shattered shutters of shops in different areas and tried to take away valuables.

They said the emotionally-charged protesters ransacked a number of commercial plazas by University Road and looted a commercial bank's branch before setting it on fire.

According to them, protesters also damaged a KFC outlet and private cellular company offices on University Road.

Protesters tried to put a local cinema on fire in Hashtnagri area prompting police to resort to fire tear gas shells on them besides firing gunshots in the air to disperse them.

The mob also burned old tyres on the roads shouting anti-US slogans.

Most of the city roads, including Sher Shah Suri Road, Khyber Road and Jamrud Road, were blocked by large containers and blocks.

However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken...
Shuba Bazaar Road remained opened.

The call for strike was given by various groups of traders, transporters, political parties and students.

The main processions were taken out from Chowk Yadgar, Peshtakhara, Tehkal and Arbab Landi areas after Friday prayers. They had already announced to besiege the US consulate.

Protesters, who succeeded to reach Stadium Chowk, marched towards the consulate but couldn't reach there due to road blockades.

According to capital city police officer Imtiaz Altaf, the injured included 18 coppers and five of them received bullet injuries.

He said leaders of political, religious and other groups had given a strike call but they disappeared when the mob emerged on the streets.

"Such protesters were a surprise for me as I have never people, who stepped out to protest against an anti-Islam film but destroyed public and private properties," he said, adding that destruction of parks, shops and cinemas was unwarranted.

"Yes, we will take action against all those who incited people to violence," he said. he, however, said FIRs had yet not been registered in this respect.

About the killing of the ARY driver, he said judicial inquiry into the case had already been ordered and the prime suspect would be identified in the inquiry.

In Mansehra
...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
, rallies were taken out from mosques after Friday prayers.

Protesters shouted slogans against the US and demanded public hanging of the maker of the sacrilegious film. They blocked roads suspending traffic for long hours.

Women, too, staged a rally in the city. They marched on the main Ghazikot Township road holding placards and banners.

Educationist Salma Tabbasum led protesters, including some wheelchair users.

In Kohat, people from all Violent mobs rule Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
segments of society demonstrated after Friday prayers against the production of the sacrilegious film. They demanded expulsion of the US ambassador.

A rally was taken out by Khatme Nabuat Conference from Tehsil Gate to Saad Shaheed Park, while others were staged in Lachi, Shakardarra, Bilitang, Gumbat and Sherkot areas.

In Chitral, a procession was taken out from Shahi Masjid to Parade Ground.

The rally was attended among others by Chitral DCO Rehmatullah Wazir, former district nazim
...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council...
Maghfirat Shah, Seerat Council chairman Hafiz Nooruddin and JUI-F leader Abdul Jalil Jan.

In all parts of Lower Dir district, including Timergara, traders observed shutter down strike.

No violence was reported in the day.

Residents of Chakdara, Talash, Timergara, Rabat, Samar Bagh, Khall, Munda and Maidan staged rallies against the anti-Islam film.

In Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
, Galayat, Havelian and Haripur, too, people protested the making of the sacrilegious film. Markets were closed, while public transport remained off the roads.

Protesters blocked the main Karakoram Highway in Haripur and Havelian throughout the day.

In all parts of Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
district, a complete shutter down and wheel jam strike was observed to protest against the anti-Islam film.

Rallies were also organised after Friday prayers in Mingora city, Madyan, Mianadam, Khawazakhela, Matta, Kabal, Saidu Sharif, Amankot, Barikot and Charbagh. Protesters shouted anti-US slogans holding placards and banners against the anti-Islam film.In Tank, a number of small and big processions were taken out from various mosques in Tank city after Friday prayers to protest against the making of anti-Islam film.

In all parts of Malakand, including Batkhela, routine life remained suspended as rallies were taken out on Friday.

In Buner, Mohammedans and members of religious minorities erupted into the streets after Friday prayers shouting slogans against the government and the US president to protest the blasphemous film.

Processions were taken out in Pir Baba, Swari, Jowar Chowk, Bazaar Torwarsak, Dewana Baba, Chinglai, Totalai, Jangai, Ambela, Nagrai, Topi and Gulbandi.

All bazaars remained closed and traffic was taken off the roads. The people of religious minorities also participated in the rallies.

In Swabi, all political parties, welfare bodies, business community and people of all walks of life staged a demonstration against the anti-Islam film in Karnal Sher Khan Chowk.

Bazaars in all four tehsils and district headquarters of Swabi remained closed, while no transport plied the roads.

In Karak city, Terri and Gurguri areas, political and religious parties, and traders took out rallies against the anti-Islam film and burned effigies of the US president and US flags.

Members of Christian community also took out a rally to express solidarity with Mohammedans over the sac religious film. Bazaars remained closed across the district.

In different parts of Lakki Marwat district, activists of political, social and trade organizations staged demonstrations to protest the production of anti-Islam film.

In Nowshera, a complete shutter down strike was observed on Friday.

Different groups staged rallies on GT Road blocking traffic for hours.

Protests were also seen in Nowshera cantonment, Nowshera Kalan, Pabbi, Akora Khattak, Jehangira, Rashakai, Taru Jabba, Khairabad and other areas.

In Parachinar and other parts of Kurram Agency
...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
, a complete shutter down strike was observed on Friday.

Workers of political parties, welfare organizations and rights groups took out processions to condemn the production of the anti-Islam film, saying it spread hatred against Islam.

In Ghalanai and other parts of Mohmand Agency
... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
, demonstrations were staged against the anti-Islam film. People from all segments of society joined rallies. They shouted slogans against the US.

In Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central
...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth...
, including its major town of Khar, too, all bazaars remained closed as a protest against the blasphemous film.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [41 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Which country is more anti american Pakistan,Iran or Afghanistan?
Posted by: Fester Clunter7205 || 09/23/2012 5:01 Comments || Top||

#2  There really is no "more or less" Fester. It's either all or nothing in my view.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 7:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Berkely...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/23/2012 19:05 Comments || Top||

#4  "Life in the picturesque provincial capital was paralysed by riots, the worst of its kind in decades, on Friday after people protesting the production of an anti-Islam film in the US went on the rampage."

And this is our problem because . . .?
Posted by: Barbara || 09/23/2012 20:32 Comments || Top||

#5  With this great response of Islamonaut on Mooselimb violence, has anyone considered a sequel to the film?
Posted by: Ackoopmed || 09/23/2012 21:36 Comments || Top||


Friday's violence
[Dawn] PRIME Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf's speech at the Ishq-e-Rasool conference in Islamabad on Friday combined denunciation of the anti-Islam movie with an appeal to the people to be peaceful, an appeal also made by all major political parties -- the PPP, PML-N, ANP, MQM and PTI. Yet even before the prime minister had finished, the strike had turned violent. By the time the faithful headed towards mosques for the Friday prayer, violence had spiralled out of control in several cities. The intensity of the violence was shocking. Reason fell victim to emotions, even though the hate-filled film, made by a man who can only be described as a bigot, was condemned by American leaders, including President B.O..

In principle there's nothing wrong with a strike which is a democratic way of expressing protest and resorted to only when all other options have been exhausted. In Pakistain, unfortunately, political parties and even professional bodies like those of lawyers and doctors have abused this principle irrespective of its consequences for citizens, and often for themselves. Horrifying as it is, every Pak crowd is now violence-prone: whether it is a justifiable protest against power outages or an Eid rush for railway tickets, people attack unrelated targets. Political rhetoric has much to do with it, for we have developed a popular culture in which citizens have come to believe that violence pays. Those who call for strikes cannot escape their responsibility by blaming violence on outsiders, for it is their duty to control their acolytes. The violence the day saw in no way advanced the cause of the world's Moslems. Instead, it painted Pakistain as a country where bloodthirsty mobs roamed. Friday is a day that is meant for congregational prayers and piety. But for some strange reason, our religious parties invariably choose this day for tormenting the Pak people.

The government's eagerness to share the people's sentiments and not let the opposition make political capital out of it can be understood. But the way it chose to express its solidarity with the people was astonishing -- by declaring a holiday. The result was a total shutdown, with banks and business transactions frozen for three days. We have seen protests in many Moslem countries, but nowhere did political parties call for a nationwide strike and find the government 'cooperative'. A government's job is to keep the state going and not to help strikers. Yesterday's violence should goad our politicians and leaders of civil society into realising the damage the 'wheel jam' strikes and the accompanying violence are doing not only to the economy but to the nation's moral fibre.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Europe
French Police Nip Banned Islam Demos in the Bud
[An Nahar] French police enforcing a ban on on protests over an anti-Islam film and cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed made 21 arrests in Gay Paree on Saturday and thwarted plans for a march in a northern city.

Those tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
in the capital, who included several veiled women, were placed in durance vile
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
near the Place de la Concorde, where a week ago an unauthorised demo against the film led to 150 arrests.

Riot police were deployed in several areas of Gay Paree Saturday to enforce the ban on protests over the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Moslems" and the cartoons published in a French satirical magazine.

Squads were positioned near the city's Grand Mosque, on the Trocadero square that overlooks the Eiffel Tower, and on the Place de la Concorde.

Agence La Belle France Presse news hounds in the northern city of Lille saw police stopping a group of about a dozen women trying to unveil a banner and detaining a man who appeared to be giving orders to the women.

The would-be protestors said they wanted to demonstrate against "provocations against Islam".

In Marseille in the south, a police helicopter and 60 riot police deployed to prevent any protests, but only a single demonstrator turned out. Around 30 journalists were also on hand to witness the man's attempt to defy the ban.

Social networks have been awash this week with appeals for Moslems in La Belle France, home to western Europe's largest Islamic community, to hold fresh protests.

La Belle France's Moslem leaders on Friday urged gunnies to respect the law.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls has said he will not sanction any protests this weekend on the grounds they will inevitably represent a threat to public order.

Also Saturday a 24-year-old rail worker was sentenced to three months in jail for carrying a weapon and taking part in an armed gathering during last Saturday's protest in Gay Paree.

French police have meanwhile tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
a man for apparently calling on a jihadi website for the decapitation of the editor of the magazine that published the cartoons mocking Mohammed, a judicial source said.

The man was placed in durance vile
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in the western city of La Rochelle for calling on the radical website for the head of Stephane Charbonnier, boss of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which on Wednesday published the cartoons of a naked Prophet.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [22 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Excellent, they went Fyfe on their butts. No more PB&J Mamoud.

Posted by: Shipman || 09/23/2012 4:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Squads were positioned near the city's Grand Mosque, on the Trocadero square that overlooks the Eiffel Tower, and on the Place de la Concorde.

Appears the French mean business.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 8:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Interior Minister Manuel Valls has said he will not sanction any protests this weekend on the grounds they will inevitably represent a threat to public order.

...and another round of Carbeque. It's not Carbeque season, yet.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/23/2012 9:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Notice that with a Socialist government in place, this can happen and little is said in the way of disapproval.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 18:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Of course, because the Left is Pure in Heart.
Posted by: lotp || 09/23/2012 19:10 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Rehman Malik strikes again
[Dawn] The violence on Friday kept the nation spellbound and hooked to their television sets but despite the rampage it was a very quiet day for many.

The reason for this was the blocked phone service. Cellphones had fallen silent across Pakistain on early Friday morning cutting off nearly half of the 100 million users from the world at the behest of the interior ministry.

Even angrier than the inconvenienced citizens were the telecom industry leaders -- they claimed that the blockade across 15 cities caused a loss of over Rs450 million, as the duration of the blockade was longer than last time.

This is not the first time that cellphones services have been shut off to prevent mischief, terrorist activities and violence. On 'Chaand Raat' before Eidul Fitr and in Quetta on Aug 14, the ministry of interior under Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
had ordered the Pakistain Telecommunication Authority to impose a similar blockade. The problems it posed for the ordinary people on Friday were no less than on other occasions.

Dr Farhana Niazi, a physician working at a leading private hospital, was on her way back home when she got caught in the middle of a small mob. Scared she pulled out her phone to call home for help but to no avail.

The 29 years old had a frightening 10 minutes till she managed to escape unhurt.

Similarly, Ghazala Saleem, a software engineer by profession, waited in her office for her father to pick her up.

"He called from home to say he was on his way but he got stuck enroute till six in the evening," she said. Ms Saleem and her family had no idea where her father was for four hours. "My ailing mother fainted from all the worry and fear," she added.

Countless such stories were the order of the day across the country.

But the anger in the telecom industry was no less.

"Closing down the mobile phone services is becoming an 'extortion' tactic of the federal government. It also shows their lack of regard for international investors and multinational companies," asserted a senior executive vice president of a mobile phone company. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

His words were echoed by others.

"The government left over 50 million subscribers in trouble while the estimated financial loss is over Rs450 million," said a bigwig of a mobile phone company.

He added that around 100 million active users of mobile phone companies are using the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) network across Pakistain." Half of these mobile users are urban; and on Friday even some rural areas were denied the service till the evening," he said.

Even essential services suffered because of the blockade. Doctors were out of touch with hospitals on a day that expected to see more than the usual medical emergencies.

"A number of senior physicians could not be consulted on the phone and a few surgical procedures had to be delayed," one medical officer at the Pims hospital told Dawn.

Another sector badly hit by the closure was security firms.

Major (retd) Sheryar Khan, a bigwig of a private security company, told Dawn that "most of our private guards deployed at residences in different parts of city are connected through mobile phones and we found it difficult to manage routine duties and tasks."According to the data shared by an official of a national mobile phone company the mobile phone services were down in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawlapindi, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
, Faisalabad
...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after...
, Multan, Quetta, and a number of cities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
and Punjab, along the Grand Trunk Road. "We started shutting down the service early Friday morning since the entire exercise takes time and it's easier to do it at night when the phone traffic is less," a network supervisor of one company told Dawn.

Industry insiders fear that the damage is not limited to the duration of the blockade as the frequent use of this tactic will in the long run impact profits; morale; and investor confidence.

"We are planning to approach the Chief Justice of Pakistain over the high-handedness of the federal government," said an official of a multinational mobile company.

An industry analyst said that telecom sector's contribution to Pakistain's GDP declined in the financial year 2010-11 due to a drop in profits and that such measures would hit it further.

"Eventually, the government will be affected as investors will be less enthusiastic about the upcoming 3G licences auction," he said.

What has angered the citizens and telecom officials more is that the measure did not help control the mayhem on Friday. The violence still went out of control at a number of spots in different cities.

This is why security operatives are no less disgusted with the interior ministry than the telecom officials.

One security agency official told Dawn: "Our job also became more troublesome. We could not get in touch with each other except those of us who were on wireless communication."

He then narrated a story from Oct 12, 1999, when the military coup happened.

"The 111 Brigade had taken over the national telecommunication grid and we were considering jamming the cellphone communication also."

But he added that the military leadership immediately realised that this would be a mistake because the officers were using mobile phones to communicate with each other as federal government installations were being secured.

"Shutting down the mobile phone service means that you are shutting your own eyes and ears. Communication is the backbone of swift intelligence operations in such crisis and rioting," the official said.

But the question then remains -- who is allowing Interior Minister Rehman Malik to get away with the same mistake again and again?
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Friday's forecast: A quiet day with scattered rampage.
Posted by: Grunter || 09/23/2012 9:49 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Snipers Sow Panic in Aleppo as Fighting Rages
[An Nahar] Troops clashed with rebels near the center of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
on Saturday as snipers sowed panic in Syria's second city, residents told Agence La Belle France Presse as monitors reported at least 85 people killed nationwide.

The fighting raged in Suleiman al-Halabi, one of Aleppo's main streets, and the army prevented residents from venturing in the area as steady gunfire rattled the district.

"The festivities broke out two days ago," said Salah who fled his home on Suleiman al-Halabi with his wife and three children on Friday for a safer location two streets away in neighboring Midan district.

"When the festivities began, we would go down to the basement with four other families, but for the past two days the fighting has been almost non-stop so we decided to move to a safer area," he said.

According to Salah "almost 80 percent of the people in Suleiman al-Halabi left their homes after rebels entered the area."

In the adjacent neighborhood of Midan, which is held by the regular army, residents panicked as they heard gunfire and some shouted: "Watch out there are snipers."

Streets in the neighborhoods were empty and shops were locked up while several buildings were gutted and apartments destroyed.

"The battle is now between snipers," Sheikh Walid, the head of a rebel brigade in the southern Amiriya district, told an AFP correspondent who reported that only few hundred meters separate the rival snipers.

The correspondent witnessed a sniper as he took cover behind a pile of sandbags to open fire while behind him other fighters armed with rocket launchers and machine guns prepared to swing into action.

Elsewhere in Aleppo, five members of the same family, including children, were killed in the eastern Maysar district, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Residents also told AFP that rebel reinforcements were pouring into the eastern district of Sakhur and Shaar.

Saturday's corpse count also included 11 soldiers who were killed in fighting and rebel attacks in Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey, said the Britannia-based Observatory which relies of a network of activists on the ground.

The soldiers, and six rebels, were killed in the Orm and Kaf Jum areas, the monitoring group said, adding that a woman also died in shelling as rebels attacked checkpoints in Abezmo.

"The state has no presence except for military and administrative posts" in the western region of the Aleppo province in northern Syria, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by telephone.

In Damascus
...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
province, three women were among seven people who died when a shell hit a civilian bus and the bodies of six people killed by gunfire were found in the central Qadam neighborhood of the capital, said the Observatory.

According to the Local Coordination Committees, the six people were from one family and died at the hands of regime forces.

In the northwest province of Idlib, a Syrian-Arab Red Islamic Thingy worker was rubbed out along with another man by regime forces, the Observatory said.

Violence nationwide left at least 85 people -- 34 civilians, 28 soldiers and 23 rebels -- killed on Saturday, according to the watchdog.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  ...snipers sowed panic

Only successful snipers accomplish "panic".
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/23/2012 8:10 Comments || Top||

#2  34 civilians, 28 soldiers and 23 rebels --

Almost an even three-way split.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/23/2012 10:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Good old days drop weapons Iran and Iraq and watch and gas was alright then!
Posted by: Angiting Snore1647 || 09/23/2012 14:05 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
President Zardari to move UN over profane film
[Dawn] President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
is to arrive in New York on Sunday to lead the Pak delegation at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly in which over 120 world leaders are expected to participate.

The President will raise Pakistain's concerns at the United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
over the profane film disrespecting the Holy Prophet ((PTUI!)), senior Pakistain People's Party (PPP) leader and Governor Punjab Sardar Latif Khan Khosa told news hounds on Saturday.

President Zardari will address the 193-member assembly on Tuesday when the high-level debate begins.

The session is shaping up to be one of the busiest general debates ever -- with 123 heads of states and governments in attendance and around 50 separate side events.

During his four-day stay, President Zardari will confer, among others, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Abel P. Upshur ...
, British Prime Minister David Cameron
... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  And here I thought from the head that he was going to propose moving the UN to Pakiwaki.

Damn, another hope dashed.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/23/2012 9:21 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hizbullah Backers Protest Anti-Islam Film in Bint Jbeil
[An Nahar] Thousands of supporters of Hizbullah protested on Saturday in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil against a film mocking Islam.

"This film that insults the Prophet is not merely a trivial creation carried out by a group, but American politics intended to be disseminated to the Western world," Hizbullah MP Nawaf al-Moussawi told the crowd.

Women in black chadors carried colorful Islamist flags alongside young children holding the Qoran, the Moslem holy book.

Moussawi ruled out a backlash against Christians in Leb, saying: "We participated with our Christian brothers wholeheartedly in the mass given by Pope Benedict XVI."

Several participants held posters of Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah alongside pictures of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
, whose ruling clan hails from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiism.

Some attacked Salafist holy man Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, who has gained notoriety over the past year for his anti-Damascus
...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
stance.

"This Sheikh who instructs Moslems on the right path, what did he do for the south and for Leb? Did he say a word condemning the Israeli attacks?" asked demonstrator Mohammed Ali Bazzi.

"His every move was to disarm the resistance (Hizbullah), which is Israel's first demand," he told Agence La Belle France Presse.

On Friday, al-Assir held his own smaller rally in Beirut, where participants waved Syrian revolution flags, alongside Islamic flags and a large Turkish flag.

Leb is deeply divided between a Western-backed opposition, which supports the Syrian revolt, and the ruling majority led by Hizbullah, which is staunchly pro-Damascus.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


India-Pakistan
Rangers go AWOL as Karachi burns
[Dawn] As the city descended into anarchy on Friday with police struggling to stop violent mobs from setting fire to public and private properties, Rangers were conspicuous by their absence while repeated appeals by the leadership of protesting political and religious groups failed to pacify charged activists.

The day that amply demonstrated the paralysis of the security administration, leadership of political and religious parties and the government ended with the loss of more than 15 lives and properties worth millions of rupees, attracting condemnation from the world and catapulting Pakistain into the headlines once again for all the wrong reasons.

When contacted, representatives of the three key segments defended their position and at times justified their 'planned move' that 'helped stemming the violence'.

But Friday's episode -- which came as a grim reminder of the Dec 27, 2007 violence following the liquidation of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto
... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in...
-- is hardly being seen as a wake-up call for the security administration, political authorities and parties condemning the situation after the damage had already been done.

"We moved to the PIDC traffic intersection after the police called for help," said a front man for the Rangers when asked about the response of the paramilitary force, which have been given police powers, to the daylong violence.

"It was only our presence that allowed fire tenders to access the affected areas, otherwise they were not even able to move to the fire site," he added.

The officer insisted that the Rangers only moved in when asked by the police for assistance and that the system of the paramilitary force did not always automatically activate in the kind of extreme situation of violence that was witnessed on Friday.

"You see, we don't have an elaborate system like the police have. So we helped them out whenever asked by the police or the authorities," added the Rangers front man.

The performance of the law-enforcement agencies was also appreciated by Sharjeel Memon, the Sindh information minister and big shot of the ruling Pakistain People's Party, saying that both police and Rangers followed a strategy. He lauded police performance while counting the casualties police suffered in their efforts to stem the violence, but he could not come up with a long list of sacrifices rendered by the Rangers.

While Mr Memon condemned the violence calling it a source of Pakistain's humiliation across the world, he could not explain the political government's strategy to counter the much-anticipated violence when the federal government itself declared Friday a national holiday, designating the day as Yaum-e-Ishq-e-Rasool, and urged President Asif Ali Ten Percent Zardari
... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who has been singularly lacking in curiosity about who done her in ...
to raise the hate film issue in the UN general assembly during his visit next week.

"I contacted religious leaders and scholars, requesting them to keep their workers and followers calm and under control," he claimed.

But the minister could not explain the absence of government leaders and lack of an organised move to observe Yaum-e-Ishq-e-Rasool, which could have deterred the violence in the first place.

"If we had organised any event or taken to the streets, the situation would have turned even worse. So we deliberately avoided such things and tried to keep in touch with the leaders of the protesting groups," he added.

Sunni Tehrik
...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and liquidations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities...
, one of the leading groups protesting the hate film and also among the parties that gave a call for Friday strike before the government announced it a public holiday, claimed that the party had not planned any main protest rally or demonstration for the day.

In this situation, the presence of a large number of marchers holding green flags in the south district -- the centre of daylong violence -- remained a mystery as the leaders denied any such directives from them.

"We kept ourselves away from all the brutal incidents that happened on Friday," said Shahid Ghori of the Sunni Tehrik.

"We staged a protest rally on Tuesday that concluded peacefully. The people you are talking about are those who deliberately infiltrated into a crowd that really wanted to lodge a protest against blasphemy. We want complete and transparent investigation into the entire episode so that those people can be identified."

Mr Ghori agreed that the leadership of the parties should be more vigilant and play a proactive role.

"With today's violence, we have in fact strengthened the argument of anti-Islam forces and it's the government responsibility to hold an independent inquiry into the incidents so that the people who in an organised way did all that can be traced and identified," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Montreal, 1969.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/23/2012 18:10 Comments || Top||

#2  But with worse food and hotels...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 09/23/2012 18:37 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Hartal today
[Bangla Daily Star] Twelve like-minded Islamist parties called a countrywide daylong hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
for today following festivities with police for around an hour near the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.

The festivities erupted around 11:15am when activists of the parties tried to bring out a procession, violating a ban on demonstrations there, to protest against the screening of a film and publication of a cartoon demeaning Prophet Hazrat Muhammad ((PTUI!)) abroad.

The clash left at least 100 people including 30 law enforcers injured.

The protesters set alight five vehicles including a police van and vandalised more than 15 others.

Transport movement in the area halted for over three hours causing panic and public sufferings.

During the festivities, the protesters armed with sticks, threw brickbats at the law enforcers while the coppers lobbed teargas canisters, charged truncheons and fired bullets to disperse them.

Police also tossed in the slammer
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
around 50 people.

Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan Ameer Maulana Shah Ahmadullah Ashraf and its Assistant Organising Secretary Fakhrul Islam and Islami Oikya Jote
... a political party in Bangladesh. In the 2001 elections the party won 2 out of 300 elected members in an alliance with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. It has a focus on building an islamic state, and has used the madrassas to gain support...
Secretary General Abdul Latif Nejami were among the arrestees.

The arrestees also include Vice-President Khalilur Rahman of Dhaka city Jubo Dal and activists of Kotwali and Lalbagh unit of Jubo Dal, the youth wing of opposition party BNP.

Syed Nurul Islam, deputy commissioner of Ramna division, said as there was a ban imposed by the DMP on any kind of rally or procession, they resisted the protesters when they tried to violate the ban.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) imposed the open-ended ban on demonstrations in Paltan, Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, Kakrail, Dainik Bangla intersection, Bijoynagar and adjacent areas from 5:00pm Friday.

The ban was imposed after two rival Islamist organizations announced rallies at the same place yesterday.

Witnesses said the leaders and activists of the 12 Islamist parties assembled inside the press club premises around 9:30am and held demonstrations there protesting the anti-Islam film and cartoon.

The activists tried to come out of the press club in a procession when police obstructed them. At one stage, some protesters started hurling brick chips at the police while others clashed with the law enforcers halting traffic on the road.

The demonstrators torched a cycle of violence of a newsman parked at the press club, a police van in front of it and two others on the road.

Secretary general of the 12 Islamist parties Moulana Jafrullah Khan announced the hartal from a short rally inside the Jatiya Press Club later on.

Deputy Commissioner Nurul Islam said Moulana Jafrullah had instigated the violation of the ban.

"We tried to persuade them not to bring out the procession but they paid no heed. Rather, they launched an attack on us prompting us to retaliate," the DC added.

He said they were forced to lob 70 teargas canisters and fire two shells of shotguns in the air and arrest "around 40" agitators.

He claimed, "Mainly Jamaat-e-Islami
...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores...
men had led the attack and vandalism while around 1,200 BNP men posing as members of Pintu Mukti Gay Pareehad, who were on the press club premises, also took part in the violence."

In the morning, pro-BNP Chhatra Dal and Jubo Dal men held a rally at the press club auditorium demanding release of former BNP politician Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu.

BNP leaders Mirza Abbas and Amanullah Aman addressed the rally.

Police were deployed at the press club as of 8:10pm.
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami


Africa North
Libyan Islamist militia swept out of bases
(Rooters) - The two main Islamist militias in Derna, a city in eastern Libya known as an Islamist stronghold, withdrew from their five bases on Saturday and announced they were disbanding, residents said, a day after a militia was driven out of Benghazi.

The Abu Slim and Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
militias' announcements were apparently motivated by events in Benghazi, where Ansar al-Sharia, a group linked with last week's deadly attack on the U.S. consulate, withdrew from all its bases in the city late on Friday amid mass demonstrations in support of the government.

Those demonstrations in Libya's second city, also in the east, erupted into violence when the crowd turned against another group that had sworn support for the government.

"The militia in Derna saw what happened last night and they decided: we will not kill our brothers. So they disbanded," Siraj Shennib, a 29-year-old linguistics professor who had been part of protests against the militia, said by telephone.

"They said they no longer exist as militias in Derna. They will go home and leave security to the interior ministry and army."

Shennib said anti-militia protesters had been maintaining a vigil against the groups in Derna for 10 days, and the protests became much larger after a car-jacking three days ago. Residents blame the militia for creating a climate of insecurity.

"The people started coming because it has reached the limit. They are saying: we've had enough," he said. "It was a very peaceful operation. We are happy and we appreciate the effort the militias have done to save people from conflict."

Libyan LANA news agency quoted commanders from both militias as saying they were disbanding and vacating their compounds.

Abu al-Shalali, 27, an Abu Slim fighter who trained as an electrical engineer, said there was a non-violent confrontation at one camp between protesters and fighters who did not initially want to leave but ultimately decided they could not use force against the crowd.

"We can't kill our brothers and our cousins," he said, adding that camp housed a jail with 50 prisoners, all of whom were freed. He said they were common criminals and that their release would probably cause a crime spree.

Derna, a coastal city overlooking the Mediterranean, is known across the region as a major recruitment centre for fighters who joined the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

Shennib said the city's reputation was an exaggeration.

"Yes, we have a group of people who are jihadis. But it's not very dangerous at all. It's a normal city. And no one would say that it's a base for al Qaeda. That's just talk," he said.

Ansar al-Sharia was driven out of Benghazi in a surge of anger against the gangs that control large parts of Libya more than a year after the overthrow of Muammar Qadaffy
...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest...
A front man for Ansar al-Sharia, which has been linked to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, said it had evacuated its Benghazi bases "to preserve security in the city".

In a dramatic sign of Libya's fragility, after sweeping through Ansar's bases the crowd went on to attack a pro-government militia, believing them to be Islamists, triggering an armed response in which at least 11 people were killed and more than 60 maimed.

The invasion of Ansar al-Sharia's compounds, which met little resistance, appeared to be part of a sweep of militia bases by police, troops and activists following a large demonstration against militia units in Benghazi on Friday.

Demonstrators in Benghazi pulled down militia flags and set a vehicle on fire inside what was once the base of Qadaffy's security forces. Hundreds of men waving swords and even a meat cleaver chanted "Libya, Libya", "No more al Qaeda!" and "The blood we shed for freedom shall not go in vain!"

"After what happened at the American consulate, the people of Benghazi had enough of the Death Eaters," demonstrator Hassan Ahmed said. "This place is like the Bastille. This is where Qadaffy controlled Libya from, and then Ansar al-Sharia took it over. This is a turning point for the people of Benghazi."
Posted by: Fred || 09/23/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring



Who's in the News
35[untagged]
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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.
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In no particular order...
Steve White
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tu3031
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2012-09-23
  Violent mobs rule Peshawar
Sat 2012-09-22
  Pakistani gov minister offers $100K reward for death of film maker
Fri 2012-09-21
  Pakistan film protests: 15 die in Karachi and Peshawar
Thu 2012-09-20
  Ex-Gitmo hard boy involved in consulate attack
Wed 2012-09-19
  Rally against sacrilege: Ten Lahore rioters injured in clash with police
Tue 2012-09-18
  U.S. military suspends joint patrols with Afghans
Mon 2012-09-17
  Libya arrests 50 after US envoy's killing
Sun 2012-09-16
  Yemeni official: DNA tests did not prove the killing of Al-Shihri
Sat 2012-09-15
  Al Qaeda in Yemen urges Muslims to kill U.S. diplomats over film
Fri 2012-09-14
  Pakistan orders anti-Islam video block on YouTube
Thu 2012-09-13
  Egyptian protesters, police continue to clash near U.S. Embassy
Wed 2012-09-12
  US Official Killed In Libya Prophet Protest
Tue 2012-09-11
  Somali election: Hassan Sheikh elected as president
Mon 2012-09-10
  Yemen says kills deputy regional head of al Qaeda
Sun 2012-09-09
  Three injured in blast at Indonesia ''bomb workshop''

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