#1
It sounds like a brilliant commercial for the Israeli market, with the added benefit -- from the Israeli perspective -- of annoying Iran. And let us not forget that South Korea, home of Samsung, takes Talmud study very seriously indeed.
Posted by: Herb Anginerong5649 ||
02/04/2012 23:13
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#2
For years now, the US should have had a program to demoralize the typical Iranian on the street to the very idea of nuclear weapons and aggressive war.
Though the government prohibits satellite dishes, they are still pretty common, and could be used to spread fear, paranoia, and most importantly accurate information about how corrupt and foul their government is.
A lot of it would be character assassination of Iran's leaders, going tabloid on them with doctored photos, allegations of foreign bank accounts, orgies, real button pushers. Create fights between allied leaders. All sorts of fun.
#3
inflation is rampant, elections are rigged, protests violently put down with foreign mercenaries and Basij, and the Mullahs keep getting richer. When their economy grinds to a halt, and it is, the people will have high gas prices, no food, and worthless money. Recipe for dangerous foreign efforts at distraction, and an internal war a la Syria
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/04/2012 18:30
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#4
The old political adage "THOU SHALL NOT SPEAK ILL OF ANOTHER POLITICAN" can be modified for Islam + Muslims as "THOU SHALL SUPPORT OR NOT SPEAK ILL OF ANOTHER MUSLIM", e.g. wafflings of the Arab League.
Iran is a Muslim + Oil State - IMO as long as it continues to publicly deny any intentions to dev NucWeaps, + does not initiate any foolish or unilateral Milaction(s) in the Gulf or agz Israel, KSA it will likely receive both moral + $$$ support from sympathetic Muslims.
Wid Pakistan continuing to close off NATO's domestic supply routes into Afghanistan, CAN THE econ troubled US-NATO + ISRAEL, etc. long refrain from engaging in war agz Iran???
The Bammer was heavily criticized for allegedly diverting Mainstream or US Voters' attention from econ morass vee the raid on Osama - Iff the US does get hit wid new RECESSION in 2012 as various Perts, Credit Agencies, etc. have forecasted, WILL OBAMA WAGE WAR ON IRAN TO AGAIN?DIVERT FROM THE ECONOMY???
Russia and China braved Arab and Western fury tonight by vetoing a UN resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.
'Braved'? Were there to be consequences?
The two powers' refusal to back an Arab League plan for Syria came despite the vote coming within hours of the worst single act of violence in the 11-month uprising.
By Russian and Chinese history, the 'worst single act of violence in the 11 month uprising' barely rates. Heck, Stalin did worse than this on a weekly basis just in the Ukraine. And Mao?
Days of tortuous negotiations led to a final act of brinkmanship as Russia said it could not support a resolution backing an Arab League plan for a swift transition of power and elections. It was said to have demanded a last-minute change dropping a call, already agreed by Syria in November, for tanks and artillery to be withdrawn from the streets.
That was rejected outright by Western governments after residents of Homs reported an extraordinary bombardment overnight by mortars and heavy artillery, shattering houses and sending the injured and dying flooding to hospitals and makeshift clinics. At least 200 were killed, with some activists giving figures as high as 330.
"This is a new massacre to add to the other Assad regime massacres," a lawyer and activist in the city who gave his name as Abu Jihad told The Sunday Telegraph. "We ask for international intervention to stop this."
#1
It's an interesting report. Big grain of salt, of course.
But would we really be surprised if the Muslim Brotherhood, with the House of Saud in the background, saw an opportunity to take down Pencilneck and decided to act on it? There's been bad blood between the Saudis and the Alawites for decades. The Alawites persecute the Sunnis in Syria, and one can count on the Muslim Brotherhood to stand up for the latter.
So Pepe may have a point: the trouble in Syria may not be a democratic uprising against the Assad and the Ba'ath Party but rather a tribal affair with the overriding narrative of "We're more Islamic than you!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2012 13:59
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Zero Hedge branches away from his usual economics beat to present some interesting history on the Soviet, er, Russian naval facility in Tartus, Syria. We need confirmation of the basic facts but it serves as a survey of what the Russians are doing, and thus what the Russians think is important to them in the Middle East.
#1
They seemed quite steady on maintaining that base no matter what and I quote "You may have Israel and attack Iran, but never mess with Syria. Our Naval base is there."
I think given the current administrations tinkering (and flubbering up) they ought to take a break from it now. Not all the debris has settles and nothing is going well.
Libya's ex-ambassador to France, Omar Brebesh, has died in the custody of a militia from possible torture, less than 24 hours after he was detained by the armed group, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. HRW said a Tripoli-based militia from the town of Zintan detained Brebesh on January 19 and that a preliminary autopsy found the cause of death included "multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs."
"Photos of Brebesh's body, seen by Human Rights Watch, show welts, cuts and the apparent removal of toenails, indicating that he was tortured prior to death," the rights watchdog said in a statement.
It said a report by the judicial police in Tripoli also found that Brebesh had died from torture and that an unnamed suspect had confessed to killing him.
Brebesh, 62, served in the Libyan embassy to France from 2004 to 2008, first as cultural attache and then as acting ambassador for the last nine months of his term, the rights group said. He continued to work with the Libyan foreign ministry under Kadhafi's regime during last year's uprising and as a lawyer in the ministry under the post-Kadhafi transitional government.
HRW said that an official at the Libyan foreign ministry told the group that he saw Brebesh at work 10 days before his death, and he appeared to be in good health.
The New York-based watchdog said that according to Brebesh's son Ziad the former ambassador had himself voluntarily submitted to an investigation by the Al-Shuhada Ashura militia in Tripoli. On January 20 his family heard his body had appeared at a hospital in Zintan, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of the capital.
"I saw his face. There was blood on his nose and mouth. But I didn't see the rest of his body or his face from the other side," HRW quoted Brebesh's other son Mohammed as saying. "There was a bump on his forehead. After that, I kissed him and that was it. Later, when we saw the other side of his face at the hospital in Tripoli, it looked like his jaw was broken, like his face was not in the right place."
Militias made up of former rebels who fought Moamer Kadhafi's forces have been facing growing criticism from rights groups for allegedly torturing prisoners, most of whom are loyalists of the slain dictator.
"The torture and killing of detainees is sadly an ongoing activity by some Libyan militias," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. "These abusive militias will keep torturing people until they are held to account. Libya's leaders should show the political will to prosecute people who commit serious crimes, regardless of their role in the uprising."
Her comments come a week after Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders reported "widespread torture" in prisons under the control of militias and of some officially recognised military. The two groups said such cases were observed in the prisons of Tripoli, Misrata and smaller towns such as Ghariyan. Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in Misrata over these allegations.
On Thursday, Libyan Justice Minister Ali Hamida Ashur said the authorities would investigate all cases of "torture" in prisons and bring to justice those involved in it. HRW said that a Zintan-based prosecutor has opened an investigation into Brebesh's death.
"The Libyan government should send a message that it will not tolerate torture and vigilante justice," Whitson said. "The rule of law, and punishment for crimes, apply to all Libyans, including those who fought against Moamer Kadhafi."
Libya currently has about 8,500 detainees in about 60 facilities, majority of which are run by militias, rights group say.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2012
10:32 ||
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#1
Shoulda stayed in France....
Posted by: Barbara ||
02/04/2012 12:05
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#2
Maybe it's the Russians turn to bomb them flat in the name of saving civilians, since our bombing them flat isn't turning out so well.
A group of Russian scientists plumbing the frozen Antarctic in search of a lake buried in ice for tens of millions of years have failed to respond to increasingly anxious U.S. colleagues -- and as the days creep by, the fate of the team remains unknown. We've all seen this movie.
"No word from the ice for 5 days," Dr. John Priscu -- professor of ecology at Montana State University and head of a similar Antarctic exploration program -- told FoxNews
The team from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) have been drilling for weeks in an effort to reach isolated Lake Vostok, a vast, dark body of water hidden 13,000 ft. below the ice sheet's surface. The lake hasn't been exposed to air in more than 20 million years. Today's Rantburg Survey:
You're a Russian scientist about to investigate a lake that's been buried under ice for 20 million years. The creature you least want to encounter is:
a. A grotesque Antarctic monster that sucks your brains out through a straw.
b. Donna Shalala.
c. Paul Krugman.
d. Janet Napolitano.
e. Other (please explain.)
Posted by: Matt ||
02/04/2012
10:15 ||
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#1
"No word from the ice for 5 days"
There's your problem, silly - ice can't talk (though sometimes it groans).
Posted by: Barbara ||
02/04/2012 12:04
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Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili ||
02/04/2012 12:57
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#4
I think what would be more likely is a geyser of water like when an oil field is sometimes first drilled into. This would be for a couple of reasons:
1. The great weight of the ice pushing down on that lake, it would act like a leak in a water balloon. It could be under such high pressure that the entire lake would squirt out before they could get it stopped.
2. Atmospheric pressure was likely higher when that water was last exposed to the atmosphere. That water might have a greater "charge" of various gases than the atmosphere has now and once that water starts up the borehole, the gas begins to separate from the water. Bubbles now filling the borehole and rising act is a part of a pump, pulling more stuff up behind them.
#5
crosspatch; ice is less dense than water, so if the ice is 'floating' on the water of the lake, a 'blowout' should not occur. However, if the water is under pressure beyond that of the weight of the ice (heated from below, for instance, or filled from inflow from an elevation higher than the ice surface) then the drillers will need a fluid density in the borehole that is greater than that of the lake water. To prevent freezing they have used kerosene as the base fluid (we use diesel in many oil wells, though not for anti freezing purposes), which is less than water density, but they will have added suspended clay or other solids to try to ensure a fluid density adequate to both hold the bore hole open and prevent the lake from blowing out. As I understand it, their biggest official concern is to prevent their drilling fluid from contaminating the lake..... but I watched X-Files, etc.
#8
Geothermal heating of the water is what keeps it water. So its pressurized. And guess what? Its thoerized there is a much higher oxygen content trapped in there due to heat and pressure. Adiabatic expansion will cause a blowout, and the drop in pressure will cause the oxygen to outgas. All the makings for an explosion.
The creature I would least want to encounter is an ancient fatal virus for which we have no resistance at all. Maybe this is how the zombie plague starts...
#10
Natural gas dissolved in oil or water is what generates the high borehole pressures in 'normal' oilfield wells, and we can routinely double the density of drilling fluid to keep the well under control (though we get it wrong sometimes). I can't imagine the lake has that much pressure, because I think the ice would fracture and release pressure before it got to that point. I am concerned with the drill crew though, it is a most challenging drilling environment, and then there's the ancient virus and bacteria that could be released and wipe out the planet....
#17
Leon Panetta: Large snot-locker, minuscule brain and a proven perfidious, traitorous consciousness. Leon sports a baggie-assed trouser attitude by having been kicked-upstairs so many times. His puss, again, looks like 40 miles of hard road. May Heaven Help us. Amen.
Iran's supreme leader has pledged to confront and defeat the ''cancerous tumour'' of Israel as international concern grows of a pre-emptive Israeli strike on the Islamic regime's nuclear installations as early as April.
In a two-hour televised stemwinder speech on Friday,
Cheez, is he taking lessons from Castro?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei defied international sanctions aimed at his country's suspected atomic weapons agenda and promised to retaliate if Israel or the United States opted for military action.
The ayotollah's threats of retaliation came as Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, reportedly said there was a ''strong likelihood'' of Israel launching a unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear facilities in ''April, May or June''.
Amid signs of a growing rift between Israel and the US over the use of military force to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, Mr Panetta said: ''Israel has indicated they're considering this, and we have indicated our concerns.''
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, believes Iran's program is entering an ''immunity zone'' that will put crucial elements deep underground beyond the reach of bunker-busting bombs.
Western allies are worried the international coalition built to impose tougher sanctions on Iran could be wrecked by an Israeli air raid against its nuclear facilities, which Tehran insists are for peaceful purposes.
It would probably prompt immediate retaliation against Israel by Iran or its proxies in the Middle East, and if large population centres in Israel were hit, the US could then be drawn into a conflict in defence of its close ally.
With the drumbeats of war growing louder from Tel Aviv, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to Israel yesterday as a ''cancerous tumour that should be cut and will be cut'', a comment illustrative of his country's historic antipathy to the Jewish state.
''From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this,'' said the ayatollah, speaking to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution against the Shah. He also offered a rare affirmation of the open secret that Iran assisted the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.
Dozens of U.S. Park Police descended on horseback and foot upon the Occupy D.C. camp in McPherson Square before dawn on Saturday to continue an enforcement of its ancient no-camping rules launched earlier this week.
U.S. Park Police Capt. Phil Beck said "We are not evicting people from the park, we are asking folks to come into compliance." How about that! PC works on the left, too!
"It's pretty excessive if all they wanted us to do was take down the tarp," said a protester. Besides, he added, they surprised us.
The U.S. Park Service announced a week ago that it would begin enforcing the longtime regulations that prohibit camping in federal parks. Protesters at both McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza were told they'd be arrested if they didn't remove all sleeping gear and other equipment. Oh. So they can still occupy the park, just no sleeping. "Yeah, we're in a sleeping bag, Officer, but does it look like we're sleeping?"
Campers were told they couldn't sleep at the park, prompting some to go on "sleep strikes." But while some campers complied with the rules and left the McPherson encampment over the past week, others remained.
At least three protestors who refused to leave the area around the statue of Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson were arrested.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/04/2012
09:05 ||
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#1
*snork*
Posted by: Barbara ||
02/04/2012 10:09
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#2
The 'Occupy Seattle' was going to have a march and protest at the local Wells Fargo in downtime Seattle last week. The media and city mad a big deal about it.
I work across the street from the Wells Fargo building they were going to protest. Now maybe I was a bit late; but when I went to look at what was happening there were perhaps a dozen people there and a couple of signs.
An unexpectedly rosy jobs report set off a chain reaction Friday, upending economists' gloomy predictions for the coming year, leading to a surge on Wall Street and potentially boggling the political calculus of the 2012 presidential campaigns. Boggling? In your dreams.
The surprise -- that the unemployment rate had dipped for the fifth straight month, to 8.3 percent -- was first reflected in the stock market, where the Dow Jones industrial average soared to its highest mark since the beginning of the financial crisis. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, meanwhile, hit an 11-year high.
"This morning we received more good news about our economy," Obama said during an appearance at an Arlington firehouse. "Still, far too many Americans need a job or need a job that pays better than the one they have now. But the economy is growing stronger." Our economy? He said "our". That means he agrees it is no longer "Bush's economy".
The report forced his presidential rivals to adjust their rhetoric about the economy, which has played a leading role in the Republican debates. But they appeared ever ready to remind listeners that the unemployment rate remains elevated. Ever ready. Evil Rethuglicans! Picking on The One, OUR President. No journalistic bias here!
"This is a game changer early in the thirteenth quarter," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said of Friday's employment figures. "The payroll numbers validate, in the market's eyes, what all the other data are saying."
The nation's economic forecasters, many of whom had predicted that the unemployment rate would remain stubbornly high this year, seemed to back off their gloomiest positions. Right. Eight percent is not high. Let's see what happens when the good news gets some folks back in the market.
The Congressional Budget Office has predicted 8.9 percent unemployment for the year; the Federal Reserve has predicted between 8.2 percent and 8.5 percent for the year. Likewise, Moody's Analytics had expected the unemployment rate to remain at 8.5 percent through the end of the year.
Moody's Analytics, for one, is now reconsidering its predictions."The collective psyche seems to be turning a bit more optimistic," said Marisa Di Natale, the firm's director of economic research. "We're certainly going to revise our forecast."
Here we go. On page 2 -
The unemployment figures were startling enough that some analysts wondered whether they were correct. Friday's figures from the household survey were the first to incorporate the new population numbers from the 2010 Census. But the new unemployment rate was unaffected by the change, the Labor Department said. The Obama Labor Department.
Obama's campaign team, and some political scientists, believe that voters are more likely to be swayed by the direction the unemployment rate is moving -- downward -- rather than its exact level. Quick! Find somebody who supports that theory! Call California! Start with UCLA.
Lynn Vavreck, an associate professor of political science and communications at UCLA, has studied the effect of gross domestic product and the unemployment rate on presidential campaigns going as far back as 1952. Her analysis shows that there appears to be little or no connection between an incumbent president's vote share and the unemployment rate.
But there is a clear connection between votes for the incumbent and the direction the unemployment rate is moving. Which way were the unemployment numbers moving when Carter ran for re-election?
On its Web site, the Obama campaign posted a chart that illustrated 23 consecutive months of private-sector job growth and encouraged supporters to e-mail it to friends "to make sure people know the good news about President Obama's record on jobs." I wonder who made that up? Valerie Jarrett?
The chart included a summary of White House initiatives since Obama took office, including the Recovery Act, which provided a $787 billion stimulus; a bailout loan to the auto industry; and the payroll tax cut.
The campaign official said the chart had already become one of the campaign's most popular social media items, having been e-mailed and posted on Facebook and Twitter hundreds of thousands of times by Friday afternoon. I wonder who made that up? Valerie Jarrett?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/04/2012
08:48 ||
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#1
Crud. I intended to add a foto of the smug Obama and then submit.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/04/2012 9:03
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#2
I call BS on this
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
02/04/2012 9:15
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#3
Remember back in the day when a 4.5 unemployment rate during the Bush administration was widely derided as a "jobless recovery"?
#4
no mention of the 1.2 million that have left the workforce, giving up on finding a job. An honest media would note that's why the % went down. *spit*
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/04/2012 9:38
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#5
There were interesting graphs yesterday that showed that the employment rate (not unemployment) was going down also NOT because of retirees. This is simple game playing with the numbers and means nothing except that they are all liars.
#6
The news media in their cheering doesn't tell you is that there are still 5 million fewer employed than 5 years ago when Bush was president. They also don't tell you that ion the meantime there are 15 million more Americans in the time there are 5 million fewer jobs.
It's like the constant homeless features on the evening news during Reagan, Bush 1 and 2. When was the last homeless feature since Obama assumed office and millions of families really did lose their homes. Give me Pravda any day. At least I can see topless women on their pages.
#13
I'd like nothing more than to see a few million americans get back to work. But I'm skeptical that any new jobs have been regained recently. It's an old research trick from way back. If you torture your data enough, you can make it conform to any hypothesis. Well, almost any. Just because he brought unemployment down a couple % wouldn't make me a swing voter anyway, look at all the other despicable shit he and his Ohio Gang have done besides wrecking the recovery.
#14
Sorry Nimble, but Obama will fool a lot of people with those numbers. The real numbers will not make the MSM.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/04/2012 12:59
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#15
He may fool some about the unemployment rate. But he won't fool many about the economy because they have direct contact with it and they know it sux. People aren't getting raises, there is inflation at the grocery store and gas pump, People know there aren't enough jobs around to replace the one they hate. So he's going to have a hard time running on the economy. Fantasy numbers just don't square with actual experience.
#17
Nimble, high grocery prices are the fault of the evil Monsanto and high gas prices are the fault of the evil Exxon and Chevron. Obama is exceeding all metrics for what could possibly be expected of him in such a situation. Or so I am told...
#18
Remember all those 'press' briefing back during Vietnam. It didn't match up with what the troops were saying when they got home. At a certain point no matter how much you repeat the lie, the line is crossed and the messenger is treated with derision and contempt. #10 up there shows that even in the absolute state controlled media, at a certain point people don't buy it.
#21
That employment figure has a numerator and a denominator.
If you can't get the numerator to do what you want, fudge the denominator by not counting the people who dropped out of the workforce (i.e. fell off the end of their unemployment).
The only statistic that matters is what percent of the non-institutional persons are full time employed.
Also, you'll recollect that the stimulus made three years ago was inexplicably back-loaded. They just couldn't figure out how to spend it all at the time. Right.
This stuff is perfectly obvious, but people don't get it because they aren't told.
#22
If people see that their kids can't get jobs and that their own jobs continue to be insecure, and the same for just about everyone they know -- especially those working for the state and local government -- it won't matter what the official statistics are.
Pyongyang, February 2 (KCNA) --As the proverb a crow is never whiter for often washing goes, the south Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo has always taken the lead in obstructing the unity of the compatriots and national reunification. On Feb. 1 it released extremely malignant misinformation about compatriots.
It cited lies invented by human scum, misrepresenting the atmosphere of mourning over the great loss to our nation this or that way.
The nation's enemies were so upset by the perfect unity of the DPRK unprecedented in history displayed during the mourning period, touching the world, that they are making a shriek of despair.
People are greatly infuriated by what this reptile paper has done as not an iota of soul of the nation, much less ethics of media, could be found in it. Hey, I think the "sea of fire" guy got his job back after Kimmie croaked! Chosun Ilbo was forsaken by the nation long ago.
This paper faced the nation's judgment for encouraging the Japanese imperialists in hurling many young Koreans into their battle fields in the past.
As servants for the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces the paper took the lead in escalating the confrontation with the compatriots and creating distrust, wearing different masks with regime changes. U.S. imperialists...south Korean puppets...doing well so far Chosun Ilbo committed the above-said wrong, pursuant to the policy pursued by the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors towards the DPRK.
The group is making desperate efforts to divert the south Korean and world people's attention elsewhere as it is breathing its last owing to the total bankruptcy of its domestic and foreign policies. It is now busy conducting false propaganda against the DPRK by setting in motion all hues of riff-raffs.
The Lee group and tricksters of Chosun Ilbo are old hands at doing something baffling human imagination. They are so pitiable that they are unable to jump from the wrecked ship due to their indelible crimes committed against the nation.
The sworn enemies of the nation can never understand the DPRK's single-minded unity till they breathe their last. Come on...say it! Say it!
The world will come to clearly see what miserable end the group of traitors will meet. "The traitors will be swept away by a sea of fire" Awww...maybe next time.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of a "scandal" if a Western-Arab drafted resolution on Syria comes to a vote on Saturday in the UN Security Council.
The remarks which Lavrov made in an interview to be shown later on state-run television, suggest Russia would likely veto the resolution if its latest proposed amendments were not taken into account. Lavrov said, "If they want another scandal for themselves in the Security Council, then we probably cannot stop them."
Lavrov said he hoped there would be no vote on the draft without changes "because our amendments to this draft are well-known."
Lavrov was quoted as saying, "I sent them to (US Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton yesterday, and to our representative at the United Nations to convey them to our partners. The reasonableness and objectivity of these amendments should not raise any doubts. I hope that a prejudiced view does not prevail over common sense."
At the UN, the Security Council was due to meet at 10 a.m. to vote on a draft resolution endorsing an Arab League plan calling for Assad to resign. It was not clear if Russia, which has opposed significant council action on Syria would vote in favor, abstain or veto it.
Western diplomats said the latest violence might make it more difficult for Russia to block it. One diplomat asked, "Would they dare, with what is happening in Homs?"
On Twitter, the British UN mission posted: "After the horror in Homs Friday (it is) vital all Council members back (the) resolution."
#1
He might be a tad nervous about how a Russian veto would look back home. While supporting dictators and tyrants has long been done by the Kremlin, it has likely never had much appreciation at street level. That for once, might have at least a little influence.
Philippine troops battled Islamic extremists on a remote southern island on Friday where a day earlier three of the region's senior terror suspects were killed in a US-backed air strike.
When soldiers who approached the bombed area on the outskirts of a small village on Jolo island after the raid, they faced dogged resistance from surviving terrorists militants. The troops had moved into the scene of the strike in an effort to retrieve the bodies of the three top terrorists militants who were killed, as well as to take on the survivors of Thursdays aerial assault.
At least Khomeini's cut out 'placeholder' does the Iranians less harm than the cut out 'sham' we see in the media 93+ times a day, and simultaneously in all 57 states, posing as our CIC.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/04/2012 6:47
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#2
Did the cut-out Khomeini get torn to pieces too?
Dubais police busted a human trade ring involving an Arab man who brought three Latin American girls to the emirate through Facebook and forced them to practice prostitution in the first vice case involving a social networking site.
Units from the anti-organise crime division stormed an apartment in the emirate and seized the man and the three girls, who all confessed to the crime.
The girls told police they knew the man through Facebook and that he misled them into believing he wants to be their friends and would find jobs for them in Dubai.
Once they arrived, he took them to his flat and had sex with them before forcing them to indulge in vice by hunting for customers at nightclubs.
He received them at the airport, took them to his apartment and had sex with them he later forced them to go out and hunt for customers are night clubs he was beating them up if they return to the flat without money, said Major Wisam Al Darai, head of the anti-human trade unit.
He told 'Emarat Al Youm' daily that the defendant denied he was involved in human trade and that he beat them up because they came back to his apartment drunk and tried to make fool of him.
FIVE people were arrested after gaining entry into the Syrian embassy in London during a protest.
The five were among some 150 demonstrators who had rallied outside the embassy at about 2.00am local time (1.30pm AEST) in protest against the reported killing of more than 200 people in the Syrian city of Homs.
"We came to the embassy because there were 300 people killed in Syria today, this is why we're here," Syrian MBA student Anass Toma told the BBC.
"People are angry. I'm worried about the situation back home. I've been in London two years but I'm Syrian, from Aleppo," he said, referring to Syria's largest city, 350km north of the capital Damascus.
"We don't know what message the Syrian regime is giving out with this massacre today... we don't really understand what they're doing. But we must stop the bloodshed in Syria," Toma said.
While the BBC said "a number of people" had been detained, the UK Press Association and news agency AFP put the number arrested at five.
According to the Press Association, the embassy's windows were smashed as the demonstration got underway.
A Scotland Yard spokesman told AFP that "appropriate policing" was in place at the building.
#1
"What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.
"To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said.
"What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.
For they're hangin' Private Manning, you can hear the Dead March play,
The regiment's in 'ollow square -- they're hangin' him to-day;
They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,
An' they're hangin' Private Manning in the mornin'.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, at his capacity as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has presided over a broad meeting for the leading Security Commanders and some Provincial Governors and Army Divisions Commanders, with the presence of the Acting Defense Minister, to discuss plans to confront the security situation in general, according to a government statement on Thursday.
"The meeting, chaired by Maliki and attended by the Governors and Officials of Kirkuk, Thi-Qar, Salahal-Din, Missan, Ninewa and Muthanna Provinces, has discussed the security conditions in those provinces and measures to control the security situation and close the possible loopholes that the terrorists try to sneak through to commit their crimes," the statement confirmed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2012
00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder to what extent those plans include Venezuela. Short Round visited there recently, now there is this big pow-wow going on with Cuba and others. I don't have a good feeling about all of this. Are we actively looking for Iranian missile sites in Venezuela? I think we should be.
(Ma'an) The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of Paleostinians to assess the presence of "Hamas, always the nvoice of sweet reason, members and sympathizers", a police document shows.
The document, published Thursday by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, calls for canvassing the Paleostinian community in search of "terrorists" linked to Hamas and groups affiliated with the Iranian government.
The disclosure is the latest in a series the AP has reported for months detailing that the NYPD infiltrated mosques, eavesdropped in cafes and monitored Moslem neighborhoods with plainclothes officers.
Its spying operations were begun after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York City with help from the CIA, which the AP called a highly unusual partnership.
That part is old news, and has resulted in a number of arrests and convictions over the years. It might be better to phrase it "and unusual but successful partnership," but that would require approving of the result.
According to US Census data, 3,100 Paleostinians reside in NYC, the document says.
A passage from the document says "It is likely that if Hamas were to conduct a terrorist operation in New York City, it would do so indirectly so as not to jeopardize its tenuous status as a legitimate govemment entity.
"It is more probable that ancillary groups or persons associated to Hamas would carry out any terrorist act sponsored by them. Rural jurisdictions surrounding New York City provide atmospheres conducive to the covert planning and preparation of a terrorist attack. Consequently, the danger posed from an Iranian attack on New York City may ernanate fiom these environs."
Another passage: "Law enforcement research reveals that alleged members/sympathizers of known terrorist organizations traditionally supported and financed by Iran, have a presence in NYC area. Paleostinian, Iraqi and Lebanese individuals and locations affiliated with Hezbullies, Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... (PIJ) are the subjects of ongoing NYPD investigations.
"Hamas supporters/members have been identified among a NYC group of Paleostinian nationals who originate from a small town in Paleostine, Ein-Yabroud, which is a Hamas stronghold. Many others from that town now reside in the US (NYC, Chicago, NJ, Georgia and Puerto Rico) and own and operate fumiture and carpet stores, generating funds that are allegedly funneled to Hamas."
Good to know they aren't fooling anyone... A thought occurs: if the authorities were aware of a sales manager's poorly worded text message, what must they know about this lot?
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Egyptian protesters clashed with police for a second straight day on Friday as anger against the ruling military boiled over amid fury at the deaths of 74 people in football-related violence.
Marchers descended on parliament from mosques across Cairo to demand that the generals cede power immediately after a night of demonstrations in major cities across Egypt left at least two people dead.
In a sign of the growing threat the political turmoil poses to Egypt's economy, two female American tourists and their Egyptian tour guide were kidnapped on the road from the historic St Catherine's monastery in the Sinai peninsula, security officials said.
In the capital, riot police outside the interior ministry building fired tear gas at demonstrators, who hurled rocks back, after a night of confrontations left hundreds injured, an AFP correspondent reported.
The ministry said the injury toll since Thursday had reached 1,482 while one pro-democracy group, the Coalition of Maspero Youth, said one of its members had lost an eye during the festivities.
A soldier injured outside the ministry building on Thursday died in hospital on Friday, the state MENA news agency reported.
Masked protesters cut through barbed wire and lit fires on Mansur Street which leads to the ministry, as rocks flew overhead in all directions, the AFP correspondent said.
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#1
As Barry Rubin of The Rubin Report has pointed out, non-Islamist demonstrators are trying to get the military to hand over power to the Islamists immediately. We know what Islamists are like. Unfortunately, it's becoming pretty obvious that some Egyptian non-Islamists are seriously warped.
#2
As long as they're fighting each other, they're not much of a threat to Israel. To that end, I hope the Egyptians, Syrians, etc., spend the next 10 years in civil war. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
02/04/2012 10:05
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#3
When will the State Dept. put out tourist warnings for Egypt?
Since tourism is one of very few sources of revenue that would put a real crimp in things.
I still expect to see the Egyptian antiquities destroyed by the fanatics in the same way as the Bamiyan Buddhas.
[An Nahar] Phalange Party The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology. leader Amin Gemayel stressed on Friday that an liquidation attempt against his son, MP Sami Gemayel, had been thwarted although security forces tried to minimize the impact of the new revelation, saying the politician had only been advised to avoid attending a dinner.
In remarks to al-Liwaa newspaper, the Phalange chief said: "We received information from the generate-directorate of the Internal Security Forces -the Intelligence Branch about a plan to assassinate MP Sami Gemayel whose preparations were made at the time and place where he would be."
According to the daily, Gemayel was going to attend a dinner in the Metn town of Bhersaf.
An Nahar newspaper said that Intelligence Branch chief Col. Wissam al-Hassan contacted the MP and asked him about his dinner plans. The politician then wondered "where did you get that information?"
Al-Hassan replied: "I will let you know and I urge you to take your precautions and not to attend the dinner."
The two men met the next day and discussed the issue, An Nahar said.
Gemayel family sources told the daily that an official report was referred by the security agencies to Premier Najib Miqati about the alleged plot.
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Oh goody, another domino fallen. Have fun with that, guys.
[Dawn] Kuwait's Islamist-led opposition has won a landslide majority in Kuwait's snap polls by securing 34 seats in the 50-member parliament, with women and liberals the big losers, results showed Friday.
That reads like a NYT headline...
Sunni Islamists, including 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... took 23 seats compared with just nine in the dissolved parliament, while liberals claimed only two places against five previously, according the official results.
And no women were elected, with the four female MPs of the previous parliament all losing their seats.
Voters punished pro-government MPs during Thursday's parliamentary election, reducing them to a small minority, the results showed.
Only two of 13 former MPs who the public prosecutor questioned over corruption charges were re-elected, and the rest either lost or did not contest the poll.
Following the announcement of the results, hundreds of opposition supporters gathered at the campaign tents of candidates they backed to celebrate the outcome.
Speaking after his victory, new opposition MP Obaid al-Wasmi warned all "corruption files will be opened," including claims that hundreds of millions of public funds were stolen.
"I tell the decision-makers that the Kuwait of tomorrow will not be the same as of the Kuwait of yesterday," said the outspoken independent opposition figure.
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#1
Fortunately they still have an absolute monarch, so they might actually get something out of the deal, since Islamists at first sometimes do clean up a lot of institutional corruption, before putting in their own corruption. And the king can veto anything too egregious, if he is of a mind.
[An Nahar] Turkey's military jets on Friday hit Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq where members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are holed up, the army said.
"Three targets belonging to the separatist terrorist organization in the Zap region ... were effectively hit by Turkish air force planes," the General Staff said in a statement posted on its website.
Fighting between Turkish forces and PKK rebels has escalated in recent months.
In October, Turkey launched a major air and land offensive against the rebels in the southeast of the country and in neighboring northern Iraq after 24 of its troops were killed in a night-time ambush by rebels.
The PKK took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives. It is labeled a terrorist outfit by Ankara and much of the international community.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Dale Brown develops this theme in his novel 'Rogue Forces.'
[An Nahar] Protesters flooded towns and cities across Syria defying a brutal government crackdown on Friday to commemorate the notorious 1982 massacre in the city of Hama that killed tens of thousands.
At least 36 people were reported killed on Friday, including 11 soldiers and three army deserters, activists and a rights group said.
Security forces killed seven people in the flashpoint northwestern province of Idlib, three in the central protest hub of Hama, 10 in the Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... suburbs of Darayya and Rankous, five in the northern province of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , two in the central opposition bastion Homs and one in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the uprising, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.
In Hama's central neighborhood of Junub al-Malaab, security forces met the demonstrators with hot lead, killing at least one and wounding three more, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It reported two more killed by security force fire in Darayya in Damascus province and said at least another five people were killed -- among them two children -- across the country.
The Britannia-based group said the 11 soldiers were killed in festivities in the southern Daraa province and the central Homs province with fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), made up of defectors and sympathizers.
Another soldier was also killed earlier in the village of Jasem, also in Daraa province.
Protesters emerged from Friday prayers in the port of Latakia where security forces opened fire to disperse them, the Observatory said, reporting a similar demonstration in Yabrod in Damascus province.
Under the slogan "Hama, forgive us," regime opponents had urged protesters to wear black and march in honor of the estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people who died in the massacre ordered by Hafez, father of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama...
Demonstrators turned out in their thousands in Hama itself, Idlib in the north, Daraa in the south and in Damascus province.
"Hafez is dead, Hama is not! Bashar will die and Syria will not!" read placards brandished by protesters in the al-Qadam district of Damascus, according to an Internet video posted by beturbanned goons.
"Collective punishment won't work this time!" read another.
Rallies were also staged on Thursday in memory of the Hama victims as Western and Arab countries sought to reach agreement on a draft U.N. resolution to pressure Syria to end its almost 11-month crackdown on dissent.
The latest text being considered by U.N. Security Council members does not explicitly call on Assad to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, but "fully supports" an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... plan to facilitate a democratic transition.
Washington is "cautiously optimistic" Russia will support the draft resolution, a senior State Department official ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Woman to Call at 3 a.m. and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Everett ... speaking by phone to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"This is the kind of resolution the entire council should support and the secretary and Ambassador Susan Rice are working the phones, working the halls to get a strong vote in the coming hours and days," said the official.
Diplomats said on Thursday that the new draft took into account concerns by Moscow, a staunch ally of Damascus.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the U.N. wrangling was harming the Syrian people.
"All those still hesitating must recognize that their hesitation is no longer tolerable for the people who are suffering from this violence and repression," he said in a clear swipe at Russia.
"The international community must negotiate. It must find common language."
Relations in the Security Council between Russia and the West were badly strained over a resolution last year that authorized the use of force to protect civilians during Libya's uprising.
The violence in Syria has killed at least 6,000 people since it erupted in March, rights groups estimate.
The ruthless crackdown and the mounting corpse count have not deterred protesters, however. Demonstrations are held almost daily, and in recent weeks have reached the doorstep of Damascus itself.
Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said in a report released on Friday that children as young as 13 are a particular target in the "rampant" use of torture by government forces battling opposition protests.
While the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... says hundreds of children have been killed in the crackdown, HRW highlighted cases of children shot in their homes or on the street, or grabbed from schools.
It documented 12 cases of children being tortured in detention centers and said many more may have suffered similar treatment.
"In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults," said Lois Whitman, children's rights director at the New York-based organization.
"Children, some as young as 13, reported to Human Rights Watch that officers kept them in solitary confinement, severely beat and electrocuted them, burned them with cigarettes, and left them to dangle from metal handcuffs for hours at a time, centimeters above the floor," said the report.
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[Pak Daily Times] Yet another case of blasphemy was reported in Korangi Industrial Area cop shoppe, where a man was overpowered over the charge of using abusive language against Khulfa-e-Rashideen.
SHO Malik Ayub said the jugged person, Mujahid Ali, was tossed in the slammer when he was busy in using abusive language and also sending text messages to his colleagues' cell phones against those Islamic leaders, enraging other workers of factory. The SHO said factory workers beat up and tried to kill him, but police rushed to the scene and took the accused into custody. A case (79/12) was registered against him under section 298-A and 28 on the complaint of provision of Telegraph Act.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Seventeen activists of Islami Chhatra Shibir ... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh... were jugged in New Mansurabad area of Chittagong yesterday evening on suspicion of hatching anti-state plot, police said.
The jugged, Shamsuddin Ahmed, 22, Nasimul Arefin, 18, Sazzad Hossain, 21, Maharul Islam, 21, Shahidul Islam, 21, Muhin Uddin, 21, Akram Hossain, 20, Nurul Alam, 20, Fakhruddin Ahmed, 21, Manik Hossain, 19, KM Mawla, 22, Syedul Islam, 20, Faruk Hossain, 20, Kamrul Islam, 26, Md. Hasan, 18, Ishtiak Hossain, 20 and Nizam Uddin, 21, are members of the pro-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 close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. 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... student organization.
Syed Faruk, a sub-inspector of Pahartali Police Station, said acting on a tip-off, they raided a house of Mahabubul Alam around 6:00pm and found the activists holding a "secret meeting".
Law enforcers suspect the meeting was called to plan subversive activities against the state, he said.
Police seized a large number of books on Islamic revolution, some of which are written by Ghulam Azam, training modules for self-protection and battle, and also anti-government leaflets and banners.
The detainees were being quizzed, the SI said.
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[An Nahar] The Syrian army is slowly disintegrating as troop morale plummets and more soldiers defect to join rebels fighting a regime crackdown against dissent, a front man for the Free Syrian Army said Friday.
"The regular army is in a pitiful state and getting close to collapsing," said Major Maher Nuaimi, who is based with the FSA in Turkey, in a telephone interview with Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Even though the army has huge military capabilities, soldiers no longer have the will to fight or are ready to do so."
Nuaimi said there was also growing discontent among officers and the rank and file against army commanders, who are largely drawn from Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Supressor of the Damascenes... Alawite community, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
Most of the conscripts in the military are from Syria's majority Sunni Moslem community.
A growing number have been defecting and joining the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as the 11-month government crackdown on a popular revolt continues.
An estimated 6,000 people have died in the bloodshed, according to rights groups.
"In the last 24 hours many defections have taken place in all of the provinces where there is unrest," Nuaimi said. "Some involve one soldier and others a whole group."
Nuaimi said several soldiers defected on Friday in the southern province of Daraa where nine regime troops were killed in festivities with the FSA.
He said in many instances dissident soldiers have literally had to fight their way out, braving checkpoints by security forces to escape.
Nuaimi added that young men over the age of 18 were also no longer reporting for their compulsory military service.
"This is a sign of defeat for the army," he said.
Although heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Free Syrian Army has increasingly launched bold attacks against regime forces and managed to seize control of some neighborhoods of the central flashpoint town of Homs.
The FSA claims to have some 40,000 members, including defectors and sympathizers.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The rebels have a huge advantage in that all they have to do is yell to the Syrian forces, "Hey! We are Sunni, you are Sunni. Why are you working for a heathen Shiite?"
In past this sort of thing has been devastatingly effective against draftee standing armies in comparable situations.
Another big plus is that pencilneck himself comes across as a weakling, with brutal underlings.
#2
It's heartening that Baghdad Bob Major Maher Nuaimi has found gainful employment with the Free Syrian Army. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia has the following on the Syrian military:
The majority of the soldiers in the Syrian armed forces are Alawites, like President Bashar al-Assad. Alawites make up 12 percent of the Syrian population but are estimated to make up 70 percent of the career soldiers in the Syrian army.[8][9] Of the 200,000 or so career soldiers in the Syrian army, 140,000 are Alawites.[10] A similar imbalance is seen in the officer corps where some 80 percent of the officers are Alawites. The militarys most elite divisions, the Republican Guard and the 4th Mechanized Division, which are commanded by Bashar's brother, are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syrias 300,000 conscripts and air force pilots are, however, Sunni.[8][11] Because of the Alawite composition of the Syrian armed forces, its interests are closely aligned with those of President Bashar al-Assad and the Assad family.
If true, that would explain how the Hama massacre was carried out without too many hiccups. The Ottoman empire, which carried out similar punitive massacres against rebellious non-Turkish populations, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, was a small minority within its territorial boundaries. The key to its longevity, at over 6 centuries, was that the core of its military was always composed of ethnic Turks. The Assads appear to have heeded the lessons of history, and kept the Syrian military mostly Alawite.
#3
The usual response of a tyrant in such cases is to use foreign soldiers. Any reports of Iranian/Lebanese troops engaging the population?
If Pencil Neck is serious threatened, I would expect him to bring Hezbollah forces in, dress them in Syrian uniforms, and have them in the street doing his dirty work much like Qaddafi used other African nationals for that sort of job.
#4
No direct reports. If one uses 'street intel', then there are Iranian and Palestinian elements involved, with the latter as indirect fire assets (snipers) and the former as a combination of technical advisers, discipline enforcement and special forces.
I wouldn't discount Russian military assets being used in technical support. To go out way on a limb, the Bekaa Valley is likely a favorite 'vacationing' spot.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Brandy Ledford aka Fiber Op Girl in "Demolition Man (1993)" aka Mimi Chandler in "Fast Track (TV Series 1997)" aka Vicky in "Rat Race (2001)" aka Wendy Barnet in "Zebra Lounge (TV 2001)" aka Dawn Masterton in "Baywatch (TV Series 2000)" aka Ultimate Woman in "We All Fall Down (2000)" aka Alex Monroe in "The Invisible Man (TV Series 20002002)" aka Renee in "Ice Men (2004)" aka Doyle in "Andromeda (TV Series 2005)" aka Jisel, Penthouse Magazine's 1992 Pet of the Year aka Born Again Christian (age 43)
[An Nahar] Russia's deputy foreign minister said Friday that Moscow could not support the latest U.N. Security Council draft resolution on Syria in its current form, the Interfax news agency reported.
"Some of our concerns and the concerns of those who think the same as us have been taken into consideration but all the same this is not enough for us to be able to support it in this form," deputy minister Gennady Gatilov said.
"We still have a whole number of concerns over the content of this text and we will be ready to continue consultations on the draft resolution," Gatilov said.
"We are ready to continue work on modifying it, taking into consideration and based on our principled positions."
He spoke after a senior U.S. State Department official said that Washington was "cautiously optimistic" about winning Russia's support for the draft.
The latest draft does not explicitly call on Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, though it "fully supports" an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... plan to facilitate a democratic transition.
The latest attempt at consensus emerged amid an impasse in the U.N. Security Council, with Russia leading the opposition to a tougher draft resolution authored by Western powers and the vaporous Arab League.
The new draft "fully supports" the January 22 Arab League request that Assad transfer power to a deputy and a government of national unity within two months but does not call on him to step down, according to a copy obtained by Agence La Belle France Presse.
Instead, it calls for a "Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system ... including through commencing a serious political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition under the League of Arab States' auspices, in accordance with the timetable set out by the League of Arab States."
Like previous versions, the draft "condemns all violence, irrespective of where it comes from."
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[Pak Daily Times] LAKKI MARWAT: Police on Friday tossed in the clink 25 suspects during a search operation in an Afghan refugees' camp in Gandi Chowk area. Police, on a tip-off about presence of myrmidons in the camp, cordoned off the area and started a door-to-door search operation, after which the camp was sealed. In the backdrop of the terror attack on a police van in Shahbazkhel, which claimed three lives, security forces have been searching the area to apprehend the culprits.
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Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
02/04/2012
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#1
Is haggling over danegeld for the Taliban really preferable to precipitous withdrawal?
The West should just leave Afghanistan, preferably after destroying whatever was built with Western aid after 2001. Tell the Afghans that there will be retaliation for every terror attack facilitated by Afghanistan.
Then we'll see whether the realists' claim that islamofascists can be deterred is actually true.
#2
The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee took aim Thursday at an Obama administration plan to transfer five prisoners out of U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay as part of a package of negotiations with the Taliban.
The Taliban are playing Obama for a sucker. He is supposedly responding to a letter from bug-eye. One official said Omar complained the US had not done enough to establish good faith for negotiations, such as arranging the release of Taliban prisoners held in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Now they deny sending any letter. Taliban deny sending letter to Obama
[Dawn] Minister for Interior Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. on Friday apprised the Senate that the murder of wife and daughter of Mir Bakhtiar Domki, member of the Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... Assembly was a conspiracy against the country.
What, the whole thing?
Replying to various points of order, Malik said it was not an ordinary incident and the conspirators would not be spared.
"Whenever we head towards positive development in Balochistan such things start happening," he said and added that it was an attempt to disrupt peace in the province.
Malik said the government was taking the matter seriously and on the directives of President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... , a high-level committee was set up under the supervision of Additional Inspector General of Police, comprising intelligence and security agencies officials to probe the incident.
He said that it was decided that four public representatives, including two MPAs each from Sindh and Balochistan would also be included in the committee.
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[Dawn] At least four people were killed and several injured as a large kaboom hit Beautiful Downtown Peshawar on Friday, DawnNews reported.
Several people were trapped underneath the rubble of a building destroyed by the heavy kaboom, which jolted the neighbourhood located on the Peshawar Ring Road.
The car kaboom outside the residence of the tribal elder Aastana Gul in the Pishtakhara suburb of Peshawar damaged one house and a private office in the street, police said
Peshawar's bomb disposal expert Hukam Khan said up to 40 kilograms of explosives were packed in a car and detonated remotely.
Bashir Bilour, senior minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... also said that at least 30 to 40 kilograms of kaboom had been used. Several pieces of a missile were also found at the location, added Bilour.
One of the injured had been freed from the debris and shifted to the hospital, while rescue workers and police personnel were busy helping recover the rest of the maimed.
Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , blamed a homegrown turban group Lashkar-e-Islam led by the warlord Mangal Bagh ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... and based in the lawless tribal district of Khyber for the killings.
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[An Nahar] Iran has its "own threats" to respond to any military attack or sanctions against its oil exports, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday.
"In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats which will be implemented at the right time, if necessary," he said in a televised speech as he led traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.
His comments came amid heightened speculation that Israel -- with or without U.S. help -- was contemplating air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The West has also ramped up sanctions aimed at severely curbing Iran's vital oil exports.
Khamenei, who spoke as part of events marking the anniversary of his country's 1979 Islamic revolution, focused on warnings by arch-foe the United States that it was mulling "all options" -- including war -- to undercut Iran's nuclear program.
"They have threatened that all 'options are on the table'... Threats of war are detrimental to the United States, and carrying out a war would be 10 times more detrimental for that country," he said.
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A alleged "GAME OF NUCLEAR CHICKEN" in which various Perts believe the US WILL BLINK FIRST, NOT IRAN???
* TOPIX > NATO HOPES AFGHAN FORCES TAKE LEAD IN 2013. US-NATO forces charged to nominally still engage in anti-MilTerr Combat Ops until 2014 datelines as pertinent.
OTOH both Kabul + Internat Analysts feel that US SECDEF PANETTA's comments as per 2013 will FUEL/SPARK MORE TALIBAN = MILITANT ATTACKS, NOT LESS???
#2
From VOA: Some U.S. officials worry that the "red line" for Israel may be when Iran moves key sections of its nuclear facilities to hardened underground sites out of the reach of missiles and bombs.
Whatever its threshold, Israeli Defense Minister Barak said this week Israel cannot wait until it is reached. "Whoever says later," Barak told a gathering of security experts, "may find out that 'later' is too late."
As if to emphasize his point for a Western audience, he switched from Hebrew to English for the phrase.
The MSM hasn't stated the case this plainly. The first Iranian nuclear test may take place in Israel.
(AFP) A Moslem businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to "blow away" the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.
Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was tossed in the calaboose three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and jugged while police searched his home, said the Moslem Council of Montreal.
"The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff's wife that her husband was a terrorist," said court filings in a lawsuit filed by Allami, cited by local media. Allami was released after four hours of questioning.
Some of his colleagues reportedly claimed they were also held for hours at the Canada-US border on account of the accusations made against their boss.
"Mr Allami's statements, when considered in the context of which they were given, were nothing to draw such alarm or suspicion," said Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Moslem Council of Montreal.
"It is clear that his arrest was the result of racial profiling and a knee-jerk reaction to label him as a terror suspect simply due to his religious background."
Allami is seeking Can$100,000 ($100,603) from Quebec's provincial police, a police sergeant and the justice department for unlawful detention, unlawful arrest, loss of income and damage to his reputation. The Quebec Superior Court is to hear the case on March 5.
#3
Actually, it was the sexual connotation that likely interested the cops. Hey! Lets call this guy in for questionning and possible partying. The bomb reasoning was just a cover
#4
"Allami is seeking Can$100,000 ($100,603) from Quebec's provincial police, a police sergeant and the justice department for unlawful detention, unlawful arrest, loss of income and damage to his reputation."
Too bad he didn't thrown in $1 million for cop stupidity. He's got them dead to rights.
Posted by: Barbara ||
02/04/2012 9:59
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#5
It might be a good idea Saad, to copy Obummer and pretend you've changed your religion. Being a Muslim is not flavor of the month you know. Might be good for business too.
[An Nahar] Sudan is closer to war than peace with the breakaway state of South Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. said on national television Friday, with a dispute over oil and other issues stoking tensions.
"The climate now is closer to a climate of war than one of peace," he said.
Bashir spoke after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir warned on Thursday that renewed conflict could erupt if oil negotiations with Khartoum do not include a deal on other key issues, including the contested Abyei region.
Tensions have also been raised by the still undemarcated border, parts of which cut through oilfields, as well as mutual allegations that each side backs rebel forces against the other.
But Bashir said Sudan will not go to war "unless it is imposed on us."
South Sudan separated last July after an overwhelming vote that followed two decades of civil war which killed two million people.
The crisis between the neighbors has become a major threat to regional peace and security, United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... has said.
Juba announced last Sunday it had nearly completed a protest shutdown of its oil production after talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa failed again to resolve a disagreement with Sudan over oil fees.
Khartoum admits to confiscating 1.7 million barrels of South Sudanese crude since vowing in November to take 23 percent of southern oil exports as payment in kind during the fee dispute.
The South calls this "theft."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2012
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#1
As long as the UN allows this guy to take a breath as a free man, what he says is probably the truth.
The UN has failed the people of Darfur just as it failed those in Rwanda and Serbia.
I think it would be a good thing to pull the plug on this sham and send them the way of the League of Nations.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
02/04/2012 11:54
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[Dawn] Two American women and their Egyptian tour guide, who were captured by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula on Friday, were released unharmed after several hours, security officials said.
The three arrived back at their hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where they were met by South Sinai's governor and security chief, officials said.
Tourism Minister Munir Fakhry Abdelnur said he had spoken to the three who said they were "in good health" and that they "had not been mistreated".
Abdelnur told the official MENA news agency that he has invited the two tourists to dinner on Saturday to apologise over what happened.
Masked gunnies had held up the tourists' bus at Wadi al-Soal in southern Sinai as it left the historic monastery of St. Catherine en route to Sharm el-Sheikh.
They stole watches, mobile telephones and money before snatching the three and taking off.
Authorities had spent several hours negotiating with kidnappers Salem Atwa and Salem Abu Khoshb, who were demanding the release of Khoshb's two sons, in jail on drugs charges, a security official said.
State television said a military aircraft was deployed over South Sinai, as a search operation quickly got underway after the kidnapping.
The abductions came just days after Bedouins in North Sinai briefly seized 25 Chinese workers employed by a military-owned cement factory, to demand the release of Islamist relatives jugged over bombings in the peninsula's Red Sea resorts between 2004 and 2006.
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Embattled Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... said Friday he will respect the outcome of a Supreme Court move to indict him on contempt charges.
"I will go there and I will present my stance before the court," Gilani told news hounds in Lahore.
He said the matter was "sub-judice" and he should not comment on the issue, but added that he "will respect the court order" and reiterated his opposition to conflict between state institutions.
"I have attended the court when summoned in the past and I will attend again now," he said, adding that "every body should follow the constitution".
Gilani told news hounds that he had said before that conspiracies were being hatched to stop the Senate elections.
He assured that the Senate elections would be held on time and conspiracies would be revealed soon.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A member of Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... has confirmed one of the group's high-ranking members was locked away, but refuted reports that the jugged person was its front man.
In a phone conference with journalists in the northeastern city of Maiduguri late Thursday, the man said Boko Haram's head of "public enlightenment" Abu Dardaa was locked away and not front man Abul Qaqa.
The man speaking on the phone claimed to be Abul Qaqa himself, but his voice sounded different from previous such conferences in which the purported front man has grabbed credit for scores of deadly attacks.
There has also long been speculation over whether those going by the aliases Abul Qaqa and Abu Dardaa are the same person.
"We want to react on what security agents said regarding the arrest of one of our members," the man said.
"The person that was locked away was Abu Dardaa and not Abul Qaqa. I am Abul Qaqa ... Abu Dardaa is the head of the 'Lajina', the department of public enlightenment, and not the front man."
A senior secret police official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , said it appeared the person who issued the comments was indeed connected to Boko Haram, but he dismissed the statements as propaganda.
"It is no surprise they are making this ridiculous claim," the source said. "Abul Qaqa is part of the 11-member Shura council, the sect's decision-making body, and his arrest is a serious setback to the sect."
Security sources said Wednesday that a suspect believed to be the person who goes by the alias Abul Qaqa had been locked away. Authorities have not officially confirmed his detention or his identity.
The man claiming to speak on behalf of Boko Haram alleged that Dardaa was locked away when he was sent to the northern city of Kaduna for negotiations with government officials.
"The arrest of Abu Dardaa is an outright deception and betrayal by the Nigerian Government and security agents," he said.
With authorities unable to stop attacks blamed on Boko Haram, there have been growing calls for dialogue to bring an end to the violence.
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02/04/2012
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[Dawn] Seven Pak soldiers were killed and three others maimed in a Taliban attack on their check post in the country's northwestern tribal belt, security officials said on Friday.
The overnight attack on Shidano Dand post in the 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... triggered festivities in which 18 hard boyz were also killed, a senior military official said.
"Armed hard boyz stormed the post around midnight and killed seven soldiers," said the official, who did not want to be named, adding that the troops retaliated killing 18 thugs.
Possibly, the two incidents are even related.
Other security officials also confirmed the attack.
"Yeah -- they didn't lie at all!"
Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan in a telephone call to AFP grabbed credit for the raid, saying 12 Frontier Corps soldiers were killed and four others captured by thugs.
"We carried out this attack to avenge the killing of our commander Taj Gul in Khyber agency," Ehsan said, without giving details when he was killed and his significance to the group.
"We have killed 12 FC soldiers and captured four others alive," he said, adding that hard boyz also seized a large cache of weapons.
Independent confirmation of corpse counts is very difficult in the tribal area, a Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold barred to journalists and aid workers.
The post is located between Kurram and North Wazoo tribal region on the Afghan border, a zone considered a stronghold of Pak Taliban and Al Qaeda linked thugs.
The region has experienced a spike in festivities in recent weeks.
On Tuesday dozens of heavily armed Talibs attacked a Pak military post in the area, sparking festivities that killed eight soldiers and maimed another 15, the military said.
Helicopter gunships were mobilised when the fighting broke out and officials said 35 hard boyz were killed.
Last July, Pakistain launched an offensive to oust religious hard boyz from Kurram, mirroring operations that it has carried out -- with limited success -- across much of the rest of the tribal belt, only for hard boyz to regroup and return.
Pakistain's semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan is rife with a homegrown insurgency, Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked thugs.
On Monday, President Barack Obama In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died -- an entire town destroyed... confirmed for the first time that US drones target Taliban and Al Qaeda hard boyz in Pakistain's tribal badlands, a program that has escalated under his administration.
Pakistain, whose relationship with the United States deteriorated in 2011 over the raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden ... who abandoned all hope when he entered there... and air strikes that killed 24 Pak soldiers, says more than 3,000 troops have died fighting the thugs.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2012
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[Pak Daily Times] The UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia ruled on Friday that the Khmer Rouge's prison chief should serve the rest of his life in jail, extending a 19-year sentence handed down in July 2010 that outraged survivors of the "killing fields" regime. The Supreme Court Chamber handling an appeal by Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, ruled that the former chief of the notorious Tuol Sleng Prison should take full responsibility for the estimated 14,000 people killed there during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 reign of terror. "The penalty must be harsh to prevent similar crimes, undoubtedly among the worst in human history," the president of the court, Kong Srim, said in reading the verdict.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Good op-ed piece by Joshua Stanton, the proprietor of One Free Korea, the go-to blog about North Korea and oppression in general. He has a more positive view on the events in Libya than I have and credits NATO with engendering more goodwill than I've seen, but I'd like Mr. Stanton to be right about this.
There is no question that, as Mr. Stanton says,
...the Assad family's legacy has been decades of poverty, oppression, torture, massacres, sectarian oligarchy, and the conjuring of pathological hatred for a neighbor that has repeatedly inflicted humiliating defeats on the Syrian Army.
Mr. Stanton advocates rapid development of close links with the Syrian opposition both to put an end to the civil war there and to keep Syria from turning to a Muslim Brotherhood-like organization to fill the gap in Syrian society. As with Libya, I'm not that optimistic -- once Pencilneck is gone, my bet is that the Syrian people will turn to militant Islam, not western liberalism, just as the Egyptians, Libyans, and Tunisians have done. In the end, the culture is Islamic, and in times of terrible turmoil people return to the culture they know.
But the best course for now is precisely what Mr. Stanton suggests, if only to end the suffering of the Syrian people and to keep the Middle East from exploding.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2012
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#1
Hate to sound cynical, but sometimes it seems that inflicted suffering on people in the Middle East is the only way to keep it from exploding. Without that, they tend to band together & go a-jihading.
As I've said previously, we should not get involved in Syria. Frankly, if I *had* to pick a side in Syrias internal strife, I would pick Assad.
Yep: I said it. I would pick Pencil Neck over the so-called Syrian opposition, which is quickly turning into a typical fundamentalist Sunni movement that is pitting itself against everybody else in the country (Kurds, Christians, Shia, Druze, Alawis, etc.). Theyve shown even less pro-democratic leanings than the Muslim Brotherhood. If the opposition wins, you can expect the butchery, displacement, and oppression on a mass scale possibly even something along the lines of the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide. If Assad wins, things suck for the Sunni but remain basically the same. He doesnt want to wipe out millions of them. Hell, hes been working on forcing his own people (the Alawi) into becoming pseudo-Sunni for years for Pan Arabist purposes. Hell kill a few thousand as examples, but thats it.
Syria has a population of 23 million people. Roughly 9 million of them arent Sunni, and arent supporting the opposition. Whats going to happen to them under a new, fundamentalist Sunni government? Not hard to figure out, is it?
From Wikipedia:
A striking feature of religious life in Syria is the geographic distribution of the religious minorities. Most Christians live in Damascus and Aleppo, although significant numbers live in Al-Hasakah Province in northeastern Syria, Tartous and Latakia. Nearly 90 percent of the Alawis live in Al-Ladhiqiyah Province in the rural areas of the Jabal an Nusayriyah; they constitute over 80 percent of the rural population of the province. The Jabal al-Arab/Jabal al-Druze, a rugged and mountainous region in the southwest of the country, is more than 90 percent Druze inhabited; some 120 villages are exclusively so. The Twelvers Shia's are concentrated between Homs and Aleppo; they constitute nearly 15 percent of Hamah Province. The Ismaili Shia's are concentrated in the Salamiyah region of Hamah Province; approximately 10,000 more inhabit the mountains of Al Ladhiqiyah Province. Most of the remaining Shia live in the region of Aleppo. The Jewish community is also centered in the Aleppo area, as are the Yazidis, many of whom inhabit the Jabal Siman and about half of whom live in the vicinity of Amuda in the al-Jazirah.
Charming, actually - and doomed if the opposition wins. Weve seen that in Egypt already.
#3
Secret Master, AH yes, Ditto. Egyptians and Libyans will suffer for years. Iran and Lebanon haven't turned out that well. There was a plan to promote instability in this area of the world. This allows for so much mischief. Brings back memories of the Shaw. I'm inclined to listen to the Russians on this. They are closer to this and want to keep their ally. That means a stable country. Many will leave this country or die because of one thing or another if Assad is deposed. Look at Egypt falling apart now. Western in many ways now appears to be lost.
[An Nahar] Jordanian military prosecutors on Friday charged an outspoken former MP with incitement against the regime and calling for a revolt, a judicial official said.
"State security court prosecutors charged Ahmed Abbadi with inciting the public to oppose the regime and urging a revolt during a protest for military retirees last month," the official told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Three retired officers have filed an official complaint against Abbadi, after he publicly said the revolt starts with the retirees."
Abbadi, a controversial MP who served in parliament from 1989 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2001, faces 15 years in prison if convicted.
He has said on a YouTube video that Jordan "will turn into a republic in two years," and that "the country should be freed from the Hashemite monarchy because it is ruling against the people's will."
In 2007, he was sentenced to two years in jail for allegedly posting on the Internet a letter he wrote to U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid ... the charismatic senator-for-life from Nevada, currently majority leader ... , branding the regime of King Abdullah II as "corrupt" and making allegations of human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... abuse.
Jordanians have been protesting since January last year, demanding sweeping reforms and an end to corruption.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/04/2012
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Iran does not interfere in Bahrain's internal affairs, IRINN TV channel quotes Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying. He added that if it had, the situation there would have been quite different.
"If we participate in any processes we recognise it, as in the 33-day war of Israel against Lebanon in 2006 when we were against Israel," Ayatollah Khamenei said.
Riots in Bahrain began simultaneously with the revolutionary developments in other countries of the Arab East in the spring of 2011. At present, there are dozens of dead and more than 1000 arrested who took part in the anti-government protests in Bahrain. Most of them are Shiite Muslims. Shiites constitute the majority in the country, but the power belongs to the Sunni minority.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/04/2012
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#1
Shia Muslims on the other side of the Gulf from Iran have been ascribed by Perts as pro-Reform, pro-Power-Sharing + of course pro-Shia, BUT NOT NECESSARILY PRO-IRAN/PERSIANIST, I.E LIKE BEING SOVEREIGN.
Twenty-one violent jihadis have been convicted and jailed over the past six years in a series of court cases which put a new home-grown brand of Australian terrorism on display after operations Pendennis and Neath, the two biggest joint ASIO-police investigations ever. These culminated in December with 13½-year prison sentences for the Neath targets, Wissam Mahmoud Fattal, Saney Edow Aweys and Nayev El Sayed, over their Holsworthy plan. Part of their motivation was fury over the jailing of the 18 men netted by Pendennis.
And to help them while away the long, slow years they can ponder what a brilliantly effective idea that was.
The 21 men and their accomplices forever changed the country, not with bombs or heavy artillery destroying a symbolic site as they had planned. Instead, they have revolutionized counter-terrorism in Australia.
#1
Violence is better than sex, Benbrika deemed when Abdullah Merhi, a Melbourne cell member asked for advice about the carnal temptations he felt when watching salacious videos on his brother's computer.
I like stories with a happy ending. Just think, he can have all the sex and violence he wants in prison. Win-win.
[Iran Press TV] Thirty-seven people have been killed in South Sudan during a shootout at a peace meeting held to resolve disputes about stolen cattle, officials say.
Local officials from the state of Unity and neighboring Lakes and Warrap states and the United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... met on Friday for peace talks in the remote town of Mayendit in Unity state in an effort to reduce interethnic tension.
"These guys just started shooting everywhere," said Unity State Information Minister Gideon Gatpan Thoar.
"The fight just started there and no one knew the cause," said Lakes State Governor Chol Tong Mayay.
He added that people were just shooting at each other, without knowing whose police and army they were.
A number of non-combatants were killed in the incident, but most of the victims were coppers.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Pak Daily Times] Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. on Friday stressed the need for improving law to control activities of banned ...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all...
organizations.
Malik told the National Assembly that the delay in approval of an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act was the main reason behind banned outfits' holding rallies across the country.
He was replying to a point of order raised by Sheikh Waqas Akram of Pakistain Mohammedan League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Sahibzada Fazal Karim of Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N). Malik said that revamping of laws was the solution but an amendment bill had been lying with the Senate standing committee for the past two years.
Earlier, Sheikh Waqas Akram said that Rehman Malik had lied before the cabinet committee that the provincial government was responsible for the rallies of the Defence Council Pakistain (DCP). "This is a shame for the interior minister. How can you fight the war against terror, if you are unable to stop rallies of banned outfits in the country?" Akram added.
Fazal Karim endorsed the view of Waqas Akram and urged the government not to allow banned outfits to hold rallies in the country.
In response, Malik said that these organizations had been rallying by changing their names. He assured the House that action would be taken if any rally was held in the federal capital.
"Revamping of laws is the only solution to the problem and parliament is the authority which can do that," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Iran banned its citizens on Friday from travelling to Syria by road following the abduction of nearly 30 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally, state media reported.
"Due to the terrorist acts against Iranian pilgrims who are taking road trips to the holy sites in Syria, from Friday and until further notice road trips to this destination are forbidden," the head of Iran's passport and immigration police, Mahmoud Sadeqi, told the official IRNA news agency.
Sadeqi appealed to nationals to travel to Syria, a major pilgrimage destination for Iran's Shiite majority, only by plane.
Eleven Iranian pilgrims were kidnapped last Wednesday in the central Syrian city of Hama, IRNA reported. Another 11 were reported kidnapped on January 26.
A group of seven Iranian engineers were kidnapped near the central city of Homs in late December, bringing the total to 29, according to IRNA.
Last week, the rebel Free Syrian Army claimed to have captured five Iranian military officers in Homs, and urged Tehran to withdraw any other troops it may have in Syria. It was not clear whether the five referred to were among the seven kidnapped engineers or were a separate group.
Tehran has called on Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... "to use all means... to release" the captive Iranians.
Hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims travel to Syria each year to visit Sayyeda Zeinab, a revered Shiite shrine just south of Damascus.
Syria is also Iran's principal ally in the Middle East. The United States and La Belle France accuse Iran of supplying Syria with arms to put down a rebellion that has seen more than 6,000 people killed since last March, according to human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
losing too many IRGC and Basij in burkas?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/04/2012 17:55
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#2
I wouldn't let Stephen Strasburg visit Syria either. We need him.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/04/2012 18:25
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[Tripoli Post] The ceremony to take over the prison of Ain Zara from the control of the local brigade took place on 2 Feb 2012. It was the first of its kind.
The deputy minister of Justice Mr. Khalifa Ashour told the media that it's the 2nd prison to be taken over by the Justice ministry, the other prison is in Misrata.
Mr. Ashour also told the media that the ministry has sent letters all over the country asking the brigades to hand over the prisons to the national police.
He said that it is the first step to ensure the rule of law applies to the state and to ensure that all the prisoners get a fair trial as soon as the judicial system is put in place.
The National Transitional Council and the government have been working hard to put their hands on the detention facilities around the country. As the Libyan Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense are gaining control, it seems only a matter of time until this issue is resolved.
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[An Nahar] Germany's foreign minister said Friday that U.N. wrangling over a resolution on Syria was harming the people, as he pushed for decisive action amid Russian hesitation and frantic diplomacy.
Speaking ahead of the opening of the Munich Security Conference, Guido Westerwelle called on his counterparts at the gathering to use the time to continue talks on finding language acceptable to all in a resolution.
"All those still hesitating must recognize that their hesitation is no longer tolerable for the people who are suffering from this violence and repression," said Westerwelle in a clear swipe at Moscow.
"The international community must negotiate. It must find common language," he said, as diplomats at the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... consider a draft Security Council resolution that was amended to overcome Russian-led opposition.
The latest draft does not explicitly call on Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... to step down or mention an arms embargo or sanctions, although it "fully supports" an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... plan to facilitate a democratic transition.
Westerwelle said the international community must recognize "that this regime cannot continue with this repression and that President Assad must allow a peaceful transition of power".
The violence in Syria has killed at least 6,000 people since it erupted in March, according to rights groups.
Westerwelle also addressed the thorny issue of withdrawal from Afghanistan, stressing that the international community had already agreed a timetable for handing over responsibility to Afghans and that the situation on the ground was key.
"If the security situation and progress in Afghanistan develop well, then we of course have some room for maneuver," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
So what do they think now that Russia & China have shot things down?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Russia and China braved Arab and Western fury tonight by vetoing a UN resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down. 
Libya's ex-ambassador to France, Omar Brebesh, has died in the custody of a militia from possible torture, less than 24 hours after he was detained by the armed group, Human Rights Watch said on Friday. HRW said a Tripoli-based militia from the town of Zintan detained Brebesh on January 19 and that a preliminary autopsy found the cause of death included "multiple bodily injuries and fractured ribs."
Dozens of U.S. Park Police descended on horseback and foot upon the Occupy D.C. camp in McPherson Square before dawn on Saturday to continue an enforcement of its 
An unexpectedly rosy jobs report set off a chain reaction Friday, upending economists' gloomy predictions for the coming year, leading to a surge on Wall Street and potentially boggling the political calculus of the 2012 presidential campaigns.
The group is making desperate efforts to divert the south Korean and world people's attention elsewhere as it is breathing its last owing to the total bankruptcy of its domestic and foreign policies. It is now busy conducting false propaganda against the DPRK by setting in motion all hues of riff-raffs.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, at his capacity as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has presided over a broad meeting for the leading Security Commanders and some Provincial Governors and Army Divisions Commanders, with the presence of the Acting Defense Minister, to discuss plans to confront the security situation in general, according to a government statement on Thursday.
(Ma'an) The New York Police Department recommended increasing surveillance of Paleostinians to assess the presence of "
Egyptian protesters clashed with police for a second straight day on Friday as anger against the ruling military boiled over amid fury at the deaths of 74 people in football-related violence.
[An Nahar] 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Yet another case of blasphemy was reported in Korangi Industrial Area 
[Bangla Daily Star] Seventeen activists of 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dawn] Minister for Interior 
At least four people were killed and several injured as a large 
(AFP) A 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Two American women and their Egyptian tour guide, who were captured by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula on Friday, were released unharmed after several hours, security officials said.
Embattled Prime Minister 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A member of Islamist group 
Kurram Agency
Wazoo
The UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia ruled on Friday that the Khmer Rouge's prison chief should serve the rest of his life in jail, extending a 19-year sentence handed down in July 2010 that outraged survivors of the "killing fields" regime. The Supreme Court Chamber handling an appeal by Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, ruled that the former chief of the notorious Tuol Sleng Prison should take full responsibility for the estimated 14,000 people killed there during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 reign of terror. "The penalty must be harsh to prevent similar crimes, undoubtedly among the worst in human history," the president of the court, Kong Srim, said in reading the verdict.
Iran does not interfere in Bahrain's internal affairs, IRINN TV channel quotes Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying. He added that if it had, the situation there would have been quite different.
[Iran Press TV] Thirty-seven people have been killed in South Sudan during a shootout at a peace meeting held to resolve disputes about stolen cattle, officials say.
[Pak Daily Times] Interior Minister 
[An Nahar] Iran banned its citizens on Friday from travelling to Syria by road following the abduction of nearly 30 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally, state media reported.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
