The Anglican bishop for Brazils northeastern state of Pernambuco was killed along with his wife by their son.
Edward Robinson Cavalcanti, 68, and his 64-year-old wife Miriam were stabbed to death on Sunday, February 26, in their home in the city of Olinda.
After killing his parents, Eduardo Olímpio Cotias Cavalcanti, 29, tried to commit suicide by drinking poison, and was hospitalized.
His father frequently wrote and preached diatribes against the United States as a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, conservative nation. Yet, strangely, he visited the US regularly. And when his son was 16 years old, he sent him to study and live in the US.
Police inspector Joao Brito Alves told the Globo television network that he had learned that the son had a violent temper and was frequently under the influence of drugs.
Cavalcanti headed the Philosophy and Human Sciences Department of the Federal University of Pernambuco. He was a columnist in the leftist Calvinist magazine Ultimato. He was also the founder of Movimento Evangélico Progressista (Progressive Evangelical Movement), a NGO composed of leftist Protestant militants in Brazil.
Today the Progressive Evangelical Movement has changed its name for Evangelicals for Social Justice.
In the past, Cavalcanti was an active member of the socialist Workers Party, of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who even visited him. The Anglican bishop said that he left the Workers Party because, in his view, the party softened its socialist speech:
Since 1997, I am no longer a member of the Workers Party, because I was elected as an Anglican bishop. I have positive memoirs of my past of fights for the democratic State, for national sovereignty and for social justice. I also have increasingly negative perceptions of the ideological and programmatic rupture of that party. (Ultimato magazine, September/October 2004)
His diatribes against American conservatives consistently plagued his articles and sermons for years.
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Rev. Fernando Saburido, said Cavalcantis death was a loss for Christianity.
He was sensitive to social issues and concerned with problems that affected the poor, Saburido told G1, Globo TVs Internet portal. He will be sorely missed.
Saburido is best known in Brazil as a liberal Catholic. In 2011, the Catholic university under his responsibility hosted a symposium on homoaffective law that gave advocates of the homosexual agenda a platform for promoting their ideology.
In the same year, the archbishop also led a march under the banner, The Cry of the Excluded (Grito dos Excluídos), in which pro-abortion, homosexualist, and socialist organizations had freely participated.
The killing of Cavalcanti shocked progressive evangelicals in Brazil, and is being mourned on The Huffington Post.
China is planning an investment blitz to unlock its vast reserves of shale gas, convinced it can match the energy revolution under way in the US and meet a significant part of its fast-growing fuel needs.
#1
Well, good! Go for it, China. If it is only half the size they say it is, that could be a game changer, and would make some turbans spin the same rpms as Iran UF6 centrifuges.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/01/2012 20:59
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#2
Indeed, Alaska Paul. Not to mention that this would turn them inward rather than buying up sellable corners of the world to empty of fuel supplies, a very good thing indeed.
Nearly every fourth non-German Muslim rejects integration, questions western values and tends to accept violence, according to a study commissioned by the German Interior Ministry and released late Thursday morning.
That low? I wonder if someone jimmied the numbers. Perhaps the folks at East Anglia had a free hour...
Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the study's results were worrying, according to in an interview published on Thursday.
"Germany respects the background and cultural identity of its immigrants. But we don't accept the importation of authoritarian, anti-democratic and religiously fanatical points of view," Friedrich told the Bild newspaper.
Whoever fights against freedom and democracy will not have a future here, said the minister - a member of the ruling Christian Democratic Union's sister party, the Christian Social Union.
The survey showed that of Muslims living in Germany who were not German citizens, 52 percent favored integration, while 48 percent "strongly leaned toward separation" and clearly rejected German majority culture.
Weary Syrian rebels left a shattered district of Homs on Thursday after a 26-day military siege aimed at crushing a symbol of the almost year-long revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
Activists said a few fighters had stayed on in Baba Amr, which has endured weeks of shelling, sniper fire and privation, to cover the "tactical withdrawal" of their comrades.
"The Free Syrian Army and all the other fighters have left Baba Amr, they pulled out," one activist said from Homs.
A statement in the name of the fighters urged the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian groups to enter Baba Amr and bring aid to 4,000 civilians who had stayed in their destroyed houses.
"We warn the regime against any retaliation against civilians and we hold it fully responsible for their safety," the statement said.
One activist said Syrian soldiers had begun moving into Baba Amr from all directions after most of the fighters left and were hunting the rest. At least 17 rebels were killed, he said.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/01/2012 13:59
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#2
Rebels? I thought these were unarmed demonstrators. Sounds like a re-run of Fallujah without the drone and JDAM strikes. And just like Fallujah, the Sunni Arab rebels used human shields. Unlike Fallujah, the Sunni Arab rebels hope to get the Western powers to win their war for them.
Now that Assad has crushed the rebel stronghold in Homs after using limited artillery prep to inflict perhaps 1000 casualties on rebels and their hostages/human shields (as opposed to Assad pere's 30K killed in Hama 30 years ago), he will move on to Hama, the Islamist heart of Syria. Will the pacification of Hama prove as restrained* as that of Homs, or will it be a repeat of Hafez's WW2-style block-by-block demolition in 1982?
* Pictures of Homs have tended to be tight shots of individual structures destroyed, instead of wide angle shots of rubble in every direction. The latter was what happened to Hama.
As the battle of both words and deeds heats up between Iran and the west, some experts have begun to question whether Israel even truly has the capability to effectively strike Iran's nuclear facilities. A recent assessment by American defense officials, for example, outlined the difficulties that Israel's air force would have in conducting an attack on Iran. Other analysts have claimed that Israel is creating a disinformation campaign about its capabilities in order to deter its adversaries. The truth, however, is that Israeli ingenuity has proven itself time and again, with Israel's enemies consistently regretting when they have underestimated Israeli military capabilities.
As far back as Israel's war of independence in 1948, when Arab armies invaded the same day the nascent Jewish state was born, Israelis proved their ingenuity and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. Ben Gurion himself was told that Israel had about a 50/50 chance of being victorious. Yet with their backs against the wall, the Israeli military proved itself to be a capable and lethal force. In 1948, much like in 1967 and 1973, Israel did not have the technological superiority over its neighbors that it enjoys today. During the 1967 Six Day War, as enemy troops were amassed on its borders and international waterways were sealed off to Israeli shipping, nobody would have predicted such an overwhelming victory in six short days. During its initial air strike back in June of 1967, the Israel Air Force took the calculated risk of deploying nearly its entire fleet of aircrafts to preemptively attack Egypt and later Syria, leaving approximately a dozen planes to protect its airspace.
#1
By now, Israel should have elite forces and saboteurs all over Iran, able to disrupt just about everything. Other nations, as well, can be of great assistance in monkey wrench efforts.
For example, the Saudis and UAE owe a LOT of payback to the Iranians for attacks against them over decades.
I imagine a lot of it will be to deeply damage oil production in Khuzestan, totally neutralize the Bushehr reactor, take out electrical plants, blow some dams, etc.
#2
"I imagine a lot of it will be to deeply damage oil production in Khuzestan, totally neutralize the Bushehr reactor, take out electrical plants, blow some dams, etc."
I love it when you talk dirty sexy, 'moose. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/01/2012 21:17
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#1
...Ya know, for people so obsessed by history, they aren't very familiar with history: every time we're about to declare the Millennium and cut our military to the point where it can't hurt anybody, idiots like Zawahiri do something to p*ss us off.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/01/2012 13:58
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#2
Yeah, yeah. You'll huff and you'll puff and you'll blow our house down.
From Congressman Blackburn, a Republican serving Tennessee's 7th district.
Interestingly enough, as TSA officials like to routinely point out, their agency's acronym stands for Transportation Security Administration, not the Airport Security Administration. Not that they do the latter well...
This fact has extended the TSA's reach has far beyond the confines of our nation's airports. Many of my constituents discovered this first hand this past fall as those familiar blue uniforms and badges appeared on Tennessee highways. In October Tennessee became the first state to conduct a statewide Department of Homeland Security Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) team operation which randomly inspected Tennessee truck drivers and cars.
VIPR teams which count TSOs among their ranks, conduct searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and every other mass transit location around the country. In fact, as the Los Angeles Times has detailed, VIPR teams conducted 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year alone. The very thought of federal employees with zero law enforcement training roaming across our nation's transportation infrastructure with the hope of randomly thwarting a domestic terrorist attack makes about as much sense as EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's Environmental Justice tour. Good read on how the TSA is warping to stop us at anytime, anywhere in the name of fighting terrorism. I am reminded of the scene from Red October where the first mate is talking to the captain about he will drive state to state in his RV without papers. Those days are disappearing in America.
#1
A long time ago, I was taught that the purpose of terrorism is not "terror". It's to make the targeted government so repressive that it loses the support of the people. Frankly, at this point, I'd say the terrorists are winning.
#2
How long before we get someone banging on the stall door in the airport restroom demanding to see 'your PAPERS PLEASE!' when your trying to take a dump?(1)
I'd say any day now (if it's not happening already).
#1
For many years the price inflation rate could actually move the labor inflation rate. That era has mostly ended (because of the relative decline of labor union power). Thus, the EPI doesn't really have as much influence on the total economy as it used to have.
Of course people whose income is capped by the meager returns of T instruments, CDs and the like, are obviously going to be way ticked off at large increases in gasoline prices.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/01/2012 13:08
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#2
Real inflation at 8%
It also identifies another agency worthy of cutting from the government if it has been compromised as to provide nothing useful but political cover.
#4
From the web site of the Federal Reserve, under the title of "What is the purpose of the Federal Reserve?" Conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing money and credit conditions in the economy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices.
The everyday definite of 'stable' is NO CHANGE. Not 8% inflation, but 0% inflation. I won't mention full employment, other than to again point out the Fed is failing at its purpose and continues to get a pass from the MSM and the politicians. At least this could be mentioned in every news article about the Fed.
Andrew Breitbart passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles. Apparently it was a heart attack, he was walking near his house and just dropped dead. Paramedics were called immediately but could not revive him. He was an immensely influential voice for modern conservatism, and will be missed.
Posted by: DanNY ||
03/01/2012 11:39
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#4
Not coincidence as such, DanNY. The man always had projects either about to go live or just revealed -- dynamo doesn't come close. He was a joyful warrior for the truth, and his impact will continue through the work of the team he built and the projects yet to be revealed.
#8
The likelihood of "dead before you hit the ground" type heart attacks is the reason to take one or two fish oil pills a week, as it reduces the odds by about 1/3rd.
I gather Breitbart had also recently been diagnosed with a heart problem as well.
#10
Iblis:
It can happen. Almost the exact same thing happend to a dear friend of mine two months ago. He just dropped dead, with his wife nearby. She called paramedics and attempted CPR immediately but he was gone. He was only 46.
#12
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for an estimated 250,000-325,000 deaths each year. 95% are dead before they get to a hospital.
About two-thirds of unexpected cardiac deaths occur without prior indication of heart disease.
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/01/2012 16:16
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#17
I feell so sad for his wife and kids. I lost my brother when he was 43, leaving two young kids and a wife behind. It certainly put them at sea for a long time and the kids are still impacted.
To the left, Andrew was a hater...just filled wiht anger. They could not be more wrong. Like the Colonel said...they can't handle the truth.
#18
Famous folks have died before -- but I've never felt the depth of hurt I've had ever since hearing this report about 8:30 am on the way to work today.
#20
He may be gone, but the reason he fought, and the people he rallied to that reason, still fight on. The left might be celebrating, but we are tightening our armor.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/01/2012 20:23
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#21
He + family visited Guam long ago back in the early 1970's - surprised he didn't run into Glenn Beck, etal. I had difficulties pronouncing his last name properly. i.e. I kept overemphasizing the "t"s.
We met again later on in life - used to have dedicated, intense, even angry convabs ala Political Affairs + Conservatism-vs-Liberalism-vs-Socialism in America.
#2
I think there should be a popular recognition of a name change for the Taliban. Perhaps "primitives", "Muslim troglodytes", "Necrophages", "psychothropes", etc.
Never underestimate the brilliance of our federal bureaucracy.
The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it must delay implementation of new reimbursement codes for Medicare. Those new regulations would have increased the total number of reimbursement codes from the current 18,000 to more than 140,000 separate codes. The delay will undoubtedly come as a relief for physicians who will have additional time to try to understand the bureaucratic complexity of rules that, for example, apply 36 different codes for treating a snake bite, depending on the type of snake, its geographical region, and whether the incident was accidental, intentional self-harm, assault, or undetermined. The new codes also thoroughly differentiate between nine different types of hang-gliding injuries, four different types of alligator attacks, and the important difference between injuries sustained by walking into a wall and those resulting from walking into a lamppost.
And Democrats wonder why Americans still resist having the government control our health care?
Less than a month before the Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the American people have already reached their judgment. According to the latest USA Today poll, fully 75 percent of Americans believe the new health-care law's individual mandate is unconstitutional. And if the Court doesn't throw Obamacare out, Americans want Congress to do so: Half of voters want the law repealed, compared to 44 percent who want it retained. Moreover, those who want it repealed feel much more intensely about it. Fully 32 percent "strongly support" repeal, compared to just 18 percent who "strongly oppose" it. This is consistent with other polls -- for example, the latest Rasmussen poll has 53 percent of likely voters supporting repeal, with just 38 percent opposed -- and virtually unchanged since the law passed.
Despite constant predictions by the media and the laws supporters, Obamacare is not becoming more popular.
The public seems to understand that government intervention does not generally make things less expensive. And there are good reasons for the public's skepticism. For example, the Congressional Budget Office reported in December that at least six programs that were supposed to save money under Obamacare not only don't, but some actually are increasing costs. And Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of both Obamacare and its precursor Romneycare, now says that premiums are likely to rise under the new health-care law. In fact, Gruber warns that, even after receiving government subsidies, some individuals will end up paying more than they would have without the reform. Gee, thanks, Mr. President.
And the public understands that imposing new taxes, mandates, and regulations will do nothing to create jobs in a struggling economy. In fact, a poll released last month by the Chamber of Commerce showed that for 74 percent of small businesses they're "causing an impediment to job creation."
At the same time, the controversy over the administration's contraception mandate has brought home to voters just how coercive the health-care law really is.
Most of all, Americans understand that, from the beginning, the debate over health-care reform has been about control. The Obama administration believes that decisions about health care are simply too important and too complex for the average American and his doctor to make for themselves. Only the experts in Washington can get those decisions right. After all, only Washington can understand the difference between a burn from a hot toaster (Code No. X15.1) and a burn from an electronic-game keyboard (Code No. Y93.C1).
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the American people just don't believe them.
#1
Obamacare is not helping. Just got notice from my health insurance company that next month my premium is going up $57/month - or 8.7%. Now, $754/month for me (51) and my two teenage sons. The coverage isn't great either.
#4
Are the doctors supposed to send out teams of investigators to determine all the facts about each and every snake bite or can they just take the patients' word for it?
#7
An obvious solution to the problem of suffocating regulatory burden is to create a Bureau of Regulatory Oversight to monitor and evaluate the various regulatory agencies, and to implement and enforce the edicts of the new Regulatory Czar.
#9
A former co-worker of mine said he wanted to be the Commissioner of Bullsh*t. He would look at a decision like this, declare it bullsh*t, and it would be undone.
Very unlikely in today's climate.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/01/2012 18:26
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#10
I think the main non-financial reason people retire is not due to age, but the fact that a person can only take so much BS in life, and when you've reached that quota of BS, you either retire, die, or go postal.
Last August, while Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was in the midst of an intensive round of fundraising for her 2012 reelection bid, a four-year-old civil lawsuit alleging fraud by an education company in which she and her husband are heavily invested became public.
Nationally, most of the coverage of Snowe's decision to drop her reelection bid has focused on the centrist Republican's frustration with the polarized politics on Capitol Hill. But in Maine, a few newspapers have speculated that her husband's legal entanglements had a role in Snowe's sudden and surprising decision, which left her with more than $3 million in her campaign coffers and her party without a Senate candidate less than three weeks before the filing deadline for Maine's June 12 primary.
According to the senator's most recent financial disclosure form, she and her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan Jr., have investments worth between $2 million and $10 million in Education Management Corp., a Pittsburgh-based company that operates for-profit higher education institutions. McKernan is chairman of the board of directors of the company, now embroiled in a lawsuit in which the federal goverment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are seeking to recover a portion of the $11 billion in federal student aid that the education firm has received since July 2003.
Originally filed in April 2007 by a pair of whistleblowers, the lawsuit alleges that the company violated a federal law that prohibits schools from paying admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit and enroll. Those numbers can affect a school's revenues because more students mean a school is potentially eligible for more federal aid dollars. The whistleblowers alleged, and provided documents indicating, that they were paid bounties for the number of students they enrolled.
The Justice Department's decision to intervene on Aug. 8 made the lawsuit, which had been under seal, public. In its complaint, Justice alleged that Education Management Corp. submitted "knowingly false, misrepresented, and/or improper certifications" to the Education Department, stating that it did not offer enrollment incentives to its admissions officers. Without those certifications, students enrolling at the the company's schools, which include Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University, would not be eligible for federal financial aid. The complaint names Snowe's husband, noting that in December 2006, while he was the company's chief executive officer, McKernan personally signed certifications that Education Management Corp.'s schools complied with the ban on offering compensation to admissions officers based on the number of students they recruit.
Education Management Corp. has asked that the case be dismissed. In a press release issued after the suit was announced, Bonnie Campbell, spokesperson for the company's legal team and a former attorney general of Iowa and Justice Dept. official, described the suit as "flat-out wrong." Campbell stated that the company's compensation policies for admissions officers were based on a number of factors, not solely the number of students they recruited, and had been developed with the aid of outside consultants to ensure they complied with federal law.
According to the company's most recent proxy statement, McKernan, who was briefly named as a defendant in the suit but removed, owns more than 835,000 shares in the company, worth more than $14.9 million at current prices. That was up from the 128,000 shares he owned when he became CEO in 2003. He joined the company in 1999, and stepped down from the CEO position in February 2007.
A report from New America Foundation's Higher Ed Watch noted that Education Management Corp. in the words of its founder, Robert Knutson, was "oriented to the needs of [its] students" until 2006, when a group of private equity investors led by Goldman Sachs acquired the company. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that McKernan was involved in the acquisition talks, receiving the first contact about an acquisition and serving on a special committee to advise the board on the progress of talks. Goldman Sachs retained McKernan, but did away with the rest of the management, according to the Higher Ed Watch Report. The new management greatly increased enrollment at Education Management Corporation's schools, doubling it to 160,000 students.
The company's most recent annual report filed with the SEC shows that 74.3 percent of the company's revenues--some $2.6 billion--came from programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which requires recipients to certify that they don't offer incentives to admissions officers based on the number of students they enroll.
When news of the lawsuit was released, political opponents of Snowe's raised the issue, the Lewiston (Me.) Sun Journal reported. Scott D'Amboise, a Republican challenging her in the Senate primary, called on her to resign, while Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesperson Shripal Shah charged that Snowe and her husband may have personally profited while defrauding low income students.
At the time, Snowe dismissed the charges, citing the care the company took in developing its compensation policies. Her office did not respond to requests for comment.
The United States must assure Israel that if it delays any military moves against Iran's nuclear program, Washington will use its own might to stop Tehran from weaponizing its nuclear program, former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin wrote Thursday. He must be naive Naw, he's laying down a marker...
US President Barack Obama must "shift the Israeli defense establishment's thinking from a focus on the 'zone of immunity' to a 'zone of trust'" there can be no zone of trust. Obama has no intention to attack iran, he is stalling because he wants to dump the hot potato in his sucessor's lap
Yadlin wrote in a New York Times op-ed.
Last month, Defense Minister Ehud Barak alluded to Israel's "red line," when it might feel the need to attack Iran, describing that point as when Iran reaches a "zone of immunity" from an effective Israeli attack.
'"What is needed is an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity" to stop Iran's nuclear program, it will act itself to stop it. If Obama does not give Israeli leaders those assurances, Yadlin warned in the New York Times, Israeli leaders "may well choose to act while they still can." I personally wouldn't buy a used car from Obama, let alone trust him with my countrie's survival.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/01/2012
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Two people, one believed to be an Afghan National Army service member and the other in civilian clothing, turned their weapons indiscriminately against International Security Assistance Force and Afghan National Security Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two ISAF service members.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
03/01/2012 11:03
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#4
Mongol-style retaliation is way too indiscriminate. The traditional Afghan response is the blood feud. Meaning family members of the culprit are targeted, and perhaps even the tribe. Since the Taliban transcends tribal ties, targeting family members would seem to be the most effective method of deterring such attacks.
A remote control bomb wounded ten police officers on Thursday as their vehicle passed by the Istanbul headquarters of Turkey's ruling AK Party. Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said the device was placed on a motorcycle and detonated by remote control as a police vehicle drove past, near the AK Party headquarters and the offices of a conservative business association.
Capkin said, "As a police vehicle carrying 21 officers was passing by, a remote control bomb on a motorcycle exploded. Our teams are carrying out the investigation. Ten policemen were wounded, but none of them are in critical condition."
One witness said, "There are wounded people, many ambulances are coming here after the explosion."
Another said, "It was a very strong explosion like an earthquake."
The spokesman of the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen's Association, whose headquarters are next to the AK Party building, said, "We were afraid the bomb had hit our building because the blast was so loud, windows were broken and the wounded police officers were given first aid in our building."
Fire engines and police vehicles surrounded the location, and shattered glass from nearby buildings littered the streets near the scene in Istanbul's Sutluce district.
At least ten people in the Rueso district of Thailand's Narathiwat province were injured after two teenagers wearing school uniforms tossed a hand grenade at the crowd on a sidewalk early Thursday morning. Two young men wearing Islamic school uniforms rode a motorcycle to downtown Rueso district where a number of people were buying food at the roadside when a man riding pillion threw a hand grenade at the crowd.
At least ten people were wounded, including six women, three men and a three-year-old boy were hurt in the attack. Among these two were severely wounded.
Two soldiers and an assistant village leader were injured in two attacks, one each in Narathiwat and Yala provinces, on Thursday.
In Narathiwat, terrorists militants detonated a home-made bomb while a pick-up truck with six soldiers on board was heading toward a local village. Sub-Lt Rapeepat Mongkol, 25, the team leader, and Sgt Sompot Noochan, 32, were injured. The vehicle was damaged.
In Yala, Makruri Mani, 40, the assistant leader of a village was shot at by gunmen while delivering some articles to a tea shop early this morning. He was hit in the left arm.
Fires broke out almost simultaneously at six different locations in Pattani province early Thursday morning.
In Muang district, a fire began in the Super Department Store in the business district of Pattani town about 1 a.m. Fire engines rushed to the scene and the fire was brought under control in about 20 minutes after causing damage to part of the building and some stock. A security guard said he heard an explosion before seeing the fire and smoke. Police said the fire was caused by an incendiary bomb thrown into the store.
About the same time, another fire occurred in the front of Big C superstore in Muang district. The fire was quickly put out by security guards after causing some damage.
In Khok Pho district, the first fire was in a warehouse and the second at the KP Minimart in the Khok Pho municipality.
Pattani governor Theera Mintrasak said each of the four fires were started by an incendiary bomb.
In Sai Buri district, a fire broke out at a highway office on the Pattani-Narathiwat road. The fire partly damaged the highway office and another building nearby. A hand grenade was also found inside a can and disposed of by police arriving at the scene.
Another fire was set on the tires of an 18-wheel truck parked on a road causing little damage.
Police believed the arson was the work of southern terrorists militants.
Leading from well behind Gen Allen said he would be willing to walk unarmed into the Afghan interior ministry as long as my heavily armed contractor PSD is along, where two Nato military advisors were shot dead on Saturday. Their killer is believed to have been an Afghan police intelligence officer and Taliban infiltrator.Gen
Allen's party line comments were parroted echoed by the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, who told the BBC that there had been no "permanent rupture" in relations with Afghanistan.
Moved to Page 2: War on Terror Politix/Background. Page 1 is for blood, bullets, and arrests only.
#1
You'd think they would ban Carnival Lines, owner of Costa Cruises, but no, they ban the British.
Oh, well. That's what happens when you play "The Iron Lady". Blocks "Socialist Governments", but gives the USSR 1 Influence in Argentina.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/01/2012 6:55
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#2
I'm sure the argentines don't need all that tourist cash. There is probably another port in the area that wouldn't mind. Argentina is shooting themselves in the foot to make a point that nobody cares about.
#7
IIRC DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WIKILEAKS: BRAZIL WANTS BRITAIN OUT OF THE FALKLANDS [Malvinas], as it deems the South Atlantic its "sphere of influence", + stands wid Argentina, etc. agz the vestiges of alleged historical Euro-Colonialism in the Americas.
#1
After 60+ years of ceasefire with these wicked, evil totalitarian communists, and countless lies and fasehoods and repeated trickery to get things they need, and their massive counterfeiting of the US Dollar, and drug sales, and nuclear weapon technology transfers, and horrific repression of thier own people, and hostility like the USS Pueblo, still a museum there today, we are going to give them 50+ million dollars in food aid to feed their Army and lessen the brewing revolt, so Obumbles can have a 30 second soundbite, and the American people can be fed horsesh*t hope stories! And, we borrow the money from their Hegemon China, so that they don't have a mess on their hands if the country implodes as it is close to doing. Brilliant, just frickin brilliant. It goes to how ignorant the electorate must be to have then believe this stupidity will fly. Sadly, I think it will....
#2
Whew! NoMoreBS, I had to stop and catch my breath after reading that through without stopping. A short rant, but every word counted -- very intense.
#3
So. You're saying there will be no change now that the young, flabby flesh-unit prince-ling is NORK Honcho? I think that our US Pharaoh and Tubbie will adore each other! Charming.
In exchange for F-1 jetfighters, vehicles and an assortment of weapons, president for life Robert Mugabe would give the Chinese platinum, lithium, aluminum, zinc and diamonds ...
So the weapons came, amid much controversy except in the US and Zimbabwe is now at the mercy of the Communist Chinese, who now control most facets of business in the country. Platinum and diamond mines have been seized from their owners and given to the Chinese. Farms and even buildings have been mortgaged for weapons.
#3
A cheap jet fighter is just the thing for cowing your population. Ditto cheap Russian tanks and APCs. They'd never make it in a stand-up fight against a real military, but as Pencilneck in Syria is demonstrating, they're wonderful in suppressing those who oppose you.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2012 8:37
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#4
Wasn't worth fighting for then, not worth fighting for at all, the West don't need no steenking platinum, (or gold, diamonds, copper or chrome).
Posted by: kia ||
03/01/2012 9:07
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#5
In exchange for F-1 jetfighters
The actual name is FC-1; the Pakistani equivalent is the JF-17. Which makes sense of a sort, considering Zimbawe uses Pakistani contract personnel to maintain its aircraft and, at least as of a few years ago, Pakistanis flew and maintained ZimBob police helicopters.
[Dawn] Unidentified snuffies blew up a government primary school in Razzar tehsil of Swabi district on Tuesday.
It was third incident of its kind in the area during the last five days. "One of the two bombs planted by suspected snuffies at the school went off while the other was defused by Bomb Disposal Squad," police said.
Officials of Kalu Khan cop shoppe said that snuffies had planted two bombs at the school in Muradabad, Karnal Sher Khan Kallay. They said that the school building was destroyed when one of the bombs went off at midnight.
Police from the nearby post reached the site and seized the unwent kaboom! bomb, which was defused later, they said.
The boys and girls, getting education at the said school, were told to remain at home till further order. An FIR was registered in Kalu Khan cop shoppe against unidentified persons.
In the same area, three persons were killed on Feb 10 when hand grenades were hurled at them as they were returning from the public meeting of Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... . In Karak, police foiled a bid of terrorism on Tuesday by defusing a missile, planted at a hilltop near the Gurguri oil and gas plant.
A shepherd informed police about the presence of the four-foot long missile, planted ostensibly by unidentified cut-throats on Monday night to target the oil and gas plant.
A heavy contingent of police along with Bomb Disposal Squad was sent to the area to defuse the missile. Police said that range of the missile was 30 to 35 kilometres.
DPO Sajjad Khan told journalists at his office that apparently the cut-throats had come from North Wazoo side as the tribal region was only at a distance of eight kilometres from the border of the district.
The Gurguri oil and gas plant was extremely vulnerable, the DPO said. He added that checkpoints of Frontier Constabulary and Levies should be set up on the nearby hilltops to make the oil and gas plant secure.
Mr Khan said that it was second attempt of its kind in the current month. The first attempt was made by cut-throats on Feb 11 when they targeted the plant with rockets.
"After the first attack on the plant, I provided three new vehicles, heavy weapons and a platoon of Elite Force to Banda Daud Shah police to beef up security of the oil and gas installations," he added.
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Catherine Bach aka Daisy Duke in "The Dukes of Hazzard (TV Series 19791985)" aka Melody in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)" aka Marcie, Lamborghini Babe in "Cannonball Run II (1984)" aka Peggy Summers in "Hustle (1975)" aka Tamarra in "Street Justice (1990)" (age 58)
#3
For a while, I've been trying to figure out what was different about the turn of the last centry beauties and present day. They all had a certain look. I think part of it is they all had tiny mouths. I mean, compare Ms Adrienne above with say, Julia Roberts....
#5
Fashions in appearance change, Mercutio. There is no deeper meaning than that whatever our fathers wanted to see in our mothers is not what we want to see nowadays...whenever nowadays might be. the Twenties look was a reaction to the wasp waisted torture of the generation before (for men as well as women, so be grateful we modern girls prefer our uncorsetted men able to breathe freely!), which was a reaction to the wedding cake hoop skirts, etc. Facial features and hair style and colours likewise.
[An Nahar] The March 14 Those are the good guys, insofar as Leb has good guys... General Secretariat condemned on Wednesday Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn's statements from Iran, deeming them as insulting to the Lebanese people.
It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: "We demand that he clarify his statements and call on the parliamentary defense council to convene to question him."
His remarks reflect the government's attempt to link Leb to foreign axes, it continued.
"The March 14 General Secretariat is committed to the slogan of 'Leb First'," it stressed.
Ghosn stressed Sunday that "Leb's people, army and resistance are an invincible fortress in the face of Israel," noting that the Lebanese "will never forget that Iran stood by them in great difficulties."
He made his statements during talks with Iran's diminutive PresidentMahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
He hailed after meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's "all-out support for the Lebanese state, government and resistance," ISNA reported on Sunday.
Addressing the appointment of Salim Jreissati as the new Labor Minister, the March 14 General Secretariat said: "It has been confirmed to the people that the new members of government are chosen based on foreign and regional standards, not Lebanese ones."
On the new history book being assessed by the government, the March 14 said: "We had previously condemned the mechanism in which decisions have been made regarding the book."
"It is being studied in a suspicious manner, away from academic standards," it stated.
MP Sami Gemayel had condemned the new book on Tuesday, saying that it has been selective in recounting historic events.
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[An Nahar] Kuwaiti MPs overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Wednesday calling on the government to recognize the opposition Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
Forty-four members including all cabinet ministers present voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, while five MPs opposed it.
The motion noted that the "Syrian people are facing bloody massacres at the hands of the brutal Baathist regime of (President) Bashir al-Assad."
"This is a butcher regime that is killing its own people and has lost its legitimacy," opposition MP Mussallam al-Barrak said.
A number of Shiite MPs opposed the recommendation.
Thirty-three MPs also filed a motion calling to debate the Syrian issue on Thursday with the aim of calling for "moral and material support" for the Syrian people.
Last week, five opposition MPs, including parliament speaker Ahmed al-Saadoun, submitted a bill calling for the scrapping of all economic cooperation agreements with Syria.
The bill would also require the government to cancel a host of agreements, sever diplomatic ties with Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... and ban all loans to Syria.
Earlier this month, Kuwait joined other Gulf states in expelling the Syrian ambassador and recalling its own envoy from Damascus.
Kuwaitis have held repeated demonstrations against the deadly crackdown in Syria by Assad's regime, which the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... says has left more than 7,500 people dead since last March.
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The Iranian and Pak crew of a hijacked fat merchantman were treated like slaves by Somali pirates before their release in a deadly rescue operation, Denmark's navy said on Wednesday. But... but... But slavery's against the law! I'm trying to get all worked up about a few Medes and Persians, and a few lords from the Land of the Pure, being held as slaves by their fellow Muslims. It is a character flaw, I admit, that I am unable to get past 'tepid' in my outrage...
A front man for the Danish navy, which carried out the dramatic rescue, said it was not clear that the pirates had any idea how to navigate the Iranian vessel which they had been using as a mother ship.
"They were therefore using the crew as sort of slaves," Kenneth Nielson told AFP, pointing out that the pirates had not demanded ransom for the crew members and had not tried to enrich themselves "on the hostage-taking itself."
Sixteen of the crew were rescued on Sunday night in an operation by the Danish warship Absalon, part of a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... -led counter-piracy mission. However two other hostages, one Iranian and one Pak, were killed in the rescue bid.
The navy has now launched an investigation into the operation, and acknowledged that the two casualties could have by killed by the Danes.
"We cannot rule out that we were the ones who caused the deaths," Navy captain Steen Engelbrecht Pedersen told the Ritzau news agency on Tuesday.
A Danish military prosecutor had opened an investigation to "shed light on what happened," he added.
The Danish warship had been following the hijacked vessel for several days off the Somali coast, according to a Navy statement.
"When the pirates tried to leave the coast, Absalon intervened and stopped the mother ship, before it could pose a threat to shipping in the open sea."
NATO, meanwhile, said the Absalon had approached the vessel "that had been previously captured by pirates and was being used as a mother-ship."
"When warning shots were unsuccessful, small arms fire from ... Absalon disabled and stopped the vessel. Shortly after, the vessel stopped and the suspected pirates were seen dropping their weapons overboard."
Seventeen pirates had been taken into custody during the operation, according to NATO.
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Ron Paul, who has consistently engaged in anti-Semitic nonsense over the course of the past few decades, has largely attempted to hide his anti-Semitism throughout his campaign. No longer. Ron Paul has issued this Arabic-language flyer outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan:
Image at link
The flyer actually has two sides. The English side promotes Pauls Plan to Restore America and touts his deficit cutting prowess and dislike of the Federal Reserve. The Arabic side, however the side shown above is far less subtle. It says that Paul will cut foreign aid, and specifically mentions only foreign aid to Israel as the target of cutting.
And thats the point. Pauls appeal to the Muslim community is strictly and completely based on his opposition to Israel. Pauls anti-Semitism is well-documented; see his section on Zionism in Pauls book Liberty Defined (better titled All The Weird Things Ron Paul Believes). His CYA maneuver, stating that he wants to cut all foreign aid, then determine to whom American should restore aid, is just that a CYA maneuver. His real target is and always was Israel. I dont see Ron Paul supporters handing out Hebrew flyers at my synagogue proclaiming his desire to cut off aid to Egypt, Libya, and the Palestinian Authority.
The Islamic Center of America, by the way, is a moderate establishment run by Imam Hassan Qazwini, who has refused Saudi funding for his mosque. Hes also hosted Louis Farrakhan, who according to Debbie Schlussel, took the time to call Jewish Americans forces of evil with a Satanic mentality, and according to Schlussel, has expressed support for terrorist groups including Hezbollah and Hamas. So its no surprise that Paul sees his parishioners as rich ground for recruits.
#1
I thought he was a Randian but how could he be Randian and anti-Semitic at the same time? Is it just the religion he dislikes and not the ethnicity?
#2
Rep Paul is probably not anti semitic in the 19th and 20th century meaning of the word.
However, he has tried over many years to raise funds and get votes from anti-semites, Israel haters and so on. The flyer noted in the article is just such a case. Although not super successful, there are more of those folks than there are people who believe in Federal Reserve conspiracy theories and the like.
Of course the problem, for Paul, is that the people in the anti-semite and Israel hating political sector is crowded. Paul has to compete with,for example, Louis farakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Daily Kos, Media Matters and several dozen Juan Cole types in academia.
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03/01/2012 12:53
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#3
how could he be Randian and anti-Semitic at the same time
Rand's attitude was essentially Russian, which is by nature not necessarily condusive to being pro-semitic.
#4
I understand about Russians but my understanding is that Ayn Rand was ethnically Jewish although she did not practice the religion. Does Ron Paul ignore that, does he think it's OK because she did not practice, or does he have some other convoluted way of working around it? Or, maybe it doesn't matter because he's a just a kook? But he's liable to be a kook with some influence at the convention.
#7
I don't understand RuPaul's anti-Jew/Israel stuff either. Libertarians hold (and I agree) that racial/ethnic prejudice is inefficient. Let people behave as they will, and the markets will sort everyone out. How is anti-semitism consistent with that?
#8
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Hate and convenience are common enough companions, RandomJD. He may well be as pleasant a man as everyone says, but a good many of his companions most definitely are not. The exact same should be said about our beloved president, whose own boon companions have been antisemites, terrorists and open supporters of terrorists.
[An Nahar] U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... on Wednesday named Norman Farrell of Canada as the new prosecutor of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Leb, which is probing the 2005 liquidation of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. This is, if I recall correctly, 2012. This is the third STL prosecutor.
Farrell takes over as chief STL prosecutor from another Canadian, Daniel Bellemare, whose three year mandate ended Wednesday. The court has charged four Hizbullah members over the liquidation.
Farrell, 53, had been deputy prosecutor at the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He has also worked for the International Committee for the Red Thingy in the Balkans and Ethiopia.
"The secretary general once again reiterates the commitment of the United Nations ...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas... to the efforts of the Special Tribunal for Leb to uncover the truth regarding the terrorist attack" that killed Hariri and 22 others, said U.N. front man Martin Nesirky.
Ban wants to "send a message that impunity will not be tolerated."
The U.N. last week extended the mandate of the tribunal for another three years.
The tribunal, set up by the U.N. Security Council at the request of the Saniora government, announced in February that it will put four Hizbullah members on trial even though they have not yet been jugged.
Warrants have been issued for Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Anaissi and Assad Sabra. The Lebanese authorities have failed to arrest the four.
Ban also appointed Daniel David Ntanda Nsereko of Uganda as an international judge of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Tribunal.
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#1
This is, if I recall correctly, 2012. This is the third STL prosecutor.
And it still doesn't mean Slower Than Light. Not literally, anyway.
[Dawn] US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Liberatress of Libya and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Elihu Root ... on Wednesday accused Sudanese 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. of trying to undermine newly independent South Sudan, adding Washington would consider increasing pressure on Bashir to reverse course.
Clinton told US politicians that "what we've got with Bashir is a very determined effort to try to undo the results of the comprehensive peace agreement," which led to the creation last July of a separate state in South Sudan.
She recalled "the United States played a very important role in negotiating that agreement," a 2005 deal that ended more than two decades of war between the Islamic government in Khartoum and rebels representing the mainly Christian and animist south.
"The people of South Sudan voted for independence and ever since, despite Bashir going to Salva Kiir's inauguration, there has been a steady effort to undermine this new state," Clinton said, referring to the new southern president.
"We will certainly look at trying to up the pressure on Khartoum and on Bashir personally," the chief US diplomat told a House of Representatives committee.
On February 3, Bashir said on national television that Sudan is closer to war than peace with the breakaway state of South Sudan, with a dispute over oil and other issues stoking tensions.
Bashir spoke after Kiir warned 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.
"We also believe there has to be an agreement to finish out the comprehensive peace agreement and try to finalize all of the border issues, the oil issues, and that's going to be very difficult, too," Clinton said.
"We support the process that the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... is running in Addis Ababa but it doesn't seem to be making a lot of progress yet," she said.
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[An Nahar] On Friday, Iran's 48 million voters are being called on to decide their next parliament in elections whose turnout will be weighed to give an idea of support for the Islamic republic's regime.
It will be the first nationwide poll since the 2009 disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad, which sparked months of opposition protests and a bloody crackdown by security forces.
This time, no protests are expected.
But voter turnout is seen as an indicator of how much of the country backs the conservatives who dominate the legislative chamber, with officials keen to present figures showing widespread support.
The last legislative elections, in 2008, saw turnout of 55.4 percent, according to interior ministry figures. Previous election turnouts have gone as high as 70 percent.
There were no reliable estimates as to how many voters would participate this time. But several officials and media have advanced a figure of 60 percent or more.
The country's top leaders have urged as big a turnout as possible to show they enjoy wide popular support and legitimacy as they confront pressure from the West and Israel over Iran's controversial nuclear program.
The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that a massive turnout was needed "to show our determination to the enemy, so it understands it cannot resist our nation."
Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency on Tuesday saying that voting was "a national duty," and Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the same agency last week that a big turnout "guarantees the security" of Iran.
Vahidi added: "Without a doubt, the higher the participation, the stronger the national security."
Iran's voters will decide among the 3,444 candidates vying for the 290 seats in the parliament, known as the Majlis. All the candidates have been vetted by the Guardian Council for loyalty to the Islamic regime and Khamenei.
The election essentially boils down to a struggle between two conservative currents: those supporting Ahmadinejad, and those against him.
The outcome will help set the political scene for Iran's 2013 presidential election, when Ahmadinejad, who has reached his term limit, will have to hand the reins over to a successor.
Very few reformists are on the voting lists for the parliamentary elections, and the main reformist parties are boycotting the poll.
Campaigning, launched just last week, has been extremely muted, and no debates have taken place over the main issues confronting voters -- the economic hardships they endure under high inflation and Western sanctions, and Iran's increasing international isolation.
No particular extra security measures have been announced by authorities, but they remain alert to any sign of dissent.
Amnesia Amnesty International said in a report published on Tuesday that repression of freedom of expression in Iran had been stepped up ahead of the elections.
"Anything from setting up a social group on the Internet, forming or joining a NGO, or expressing your opposition to the status quo can land you in prison," Ann Harrison, interim deputy director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, said.
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#1
I predict Ahmadinejad gets 95% of the vote and Putin gets the remaining 5%.
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a leading Democratic lawyer who takes a hawkish line on Israel, has declared a personal war on the liberal group Media Matters, which has branched out into sharp criticism of Israel.
Not only will [the Media Matters controversy] be an election matter, I will personally make it an election matter, Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, told WABC's Aaron Klein today.
Dershowitz has been sharply criticizing Media Matters for weeks, but suggested for the first time today he intends to drive the controversy into the political conversation.
"I dont know whether President Obama has any idea that Media Matters has turned the corner against Israel in this way," he said. "I can tell you this, he will know very shortly because I am beginning a serious campaign on this issue and I will not let it drop until and unless [writer and activist MJ] Rosenberg is fired from Media Matters, or Media Matters changes its policy or the White House disassociates itself from Media Matters."
Mr. Rosenberg is the lovely man who coined the term "Israel Firster"
#1
Dershowitz is a valuable lesson. As a leftist, he was a parody, a joke, just another silly person ranting idealistic inanities. But turning against the left in defense of Israel, he has become a heretic to their herd. Shun any part of the leftist agenda and a person becomes an outcast.
Yet at the same time, his credibility and strength increase notably. He is a tenacious defender when he defends in the here and now.
[An Nahar] Syria on Wednesday refused to let U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos enter the country to assess the growing crisis blamed on the government's deadly clampdown on protests, the U.N. official said.
The U.N. undersecretary general had been in the region waiting for a visa to go to 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... . But Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's government did not respond to U.N. requests, diplomats said.
"I am deeply disappointed that I have not been able to visit Syria, despite my repeated requests to meet Syrian officials at the highest level to discuss the humanitarian situation and the need for unhindered access to the people affected by the violence," Amos said in a statement.
The rejection came as Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general who has been named as the international envoy on the Syria crisis, prepares to head to the region.
Annan was to hold talks in New York with U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... on Wednesday. Diplomats said Annan was expected to leave for the Middle East on Friday -- probably for Cairo to meet the head of the 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... , Nabil al-Arabi.
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[Dawn] India's home minister said Wednesday that police had foiled an attack by suspected Islamic fascistiallegedly from the Pakistain-based Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LeT) group who were caught with explosives at a rail station.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram told news hounds that two men were tossed in the clink at New Delhi's main station after a tip-off from intelligence agencies and work by three state police agencies.
"They were planning to detonate a bomb or more than one bomb in a crowded locality," he said, citing initial reports from the police investigation.
The pair is to be produced before a local court and jugged for 10 days.
An unspecified number of other suspects had also been jugged in connection with the alleged plot, Chidambaram said.
Chidambaram said it was "an important module" of the group that had been planning a "terrorist incident in Delhi".
Neither he nor the police, who also reportedly said an attack had been imminent, would disclose when the men were jugged.
The arrests, if followed by convictions, would be an intelligence coup for the Indian security forces which have been criticised for failing to prevent, or catch those responsible for, a string of blasts over the last few years.
New Delhi has been a frequent target for terror attacks.
In September, a bomb outside Delhi High Court killed 14 people, while in early February a kaboom badly maimed an Israeli diplomat in the heart of the city near the prime minister's residence.
A senior New Delhi police official, P.N. Agarwal, told news hounds that security forces had recovered material for making bombs from the suspects.
"We have recovered items required for making an IED (improvised bomb), passports and memory cards that show how to make a bomb and training in weapons handling," Agarwal said.
"We are expecting one or two more arrests."
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#1
At current birth + demographic rates, Muslims will a too-big-n-powerful/influential minority group in India well before 2050 - India's Hindus will likely stay the superior but not by much.
[An Nahar] The United States on Wednesday summoned Syria's envoy in Washington to express "outrage" over his government's month-long bombardment of the flashpoint city of Homs.
During talks at the State Department with Syrian Charge d'Affaires Zuheir Jabbour, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman also urged Syria to live up to its November 2 commitment to the 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... to end such violence.
The meeting was "to express our outrage over the month-long campaign of brutality and indiscriminate shelling of the city of Homs," the State Department said in a statement.
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... on Wednesday said Leb had concerns Israel might deny it "its right to more than 850 nautical square kilometers" in maritime resources, stressing that "the problem is not between Leb and Cyprus, but rather between Leb and Israel."
During a joint presser with his Cypriot counterpart Yiannakis Omirou in Cyprus, where he arrived Wednesday on an official visit, Berri said "the U.N. has recently become convinced that it has to intervene in order to resolve this issue," referring to the disputed oil and gas resources.
"The problem is not between Leb and Cyprus, but rather between Leb and Israel, and all that we fear is that Israel might take advantage of the tensions concerning the issue of Turkey in order to exploit the situation and deny Leb its right to more than 850 nautical square kilometers," Berri added.
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[An Nahar] Egypt has lifted a travel ban on democracy activists, including Americans, on trial for receiving illicit foreign funding in a case that has tested relations with Washington, prosecution sources said on Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Chateaubriand ... quickly welcomed the news but said Washington was still awaiting confirmation.
A day after judges trying the case stepped aside for unspecified reasons, the Egyptian sources said the defendants, which are said to include 19 Americans, may leave the country.
Hafez Abu Saada, a lawyer for some of the defendants, said he had been told the ban had been lifted but that the defendants would have to post bail of two million pounds (roughly $330,000/247,000 euros) each.
None of the defendants have been locked away.
Several of the Americans have sought refuge in their Cairo embassy, including Sam LaHood, the head of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute and son of U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood.
The trial has led to one of the widest rifts between Washington and its ally Egypt in recent history.
U.S. politicians have threatened that pressing on with it could imperil more than $1.3 billion the U.S. yearly gives to Egypt, mostly to the military.
Clinton said in Washington she was encouraged by the latest reports.
"We do not have confirmation that the travel ban has been lifted. We hope that it will be and we will continue to work toward that," she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
But she added: "The reporting is encouraging."
At the White House, front man Jay Carney told news hounds: "I don't have any specific information about the reports that you mention."
Carney added: "We have made clear throughout the process that we consider it a very serious matter and that it had the potential of affecting our (U.S.-Egypt) relationship. I don't want to get too far ahead of these reports."
On Tuesday, Clinton had told senators that the administration was moving towards a resolving the case "very soon."
"We've had a lot of very tough conversations and I think we are moving toward a resolution," she said.
Soon after Clinton made her remarks, the judges presiding over the trial, which opened on Sunday, recused themselves. They used a phrase that could have either meant unease at the proceedings or their sense that they were being restricted.
The activists worked with five foreign NGOs accused of receiving illicit foreign funds and operating without licenses.
Four of the groups are American and the remaining one is German, and there are 43 defendants altogether.
Aside from the Americans, they are Egyptian, Paleostinian, Norwegian, Serbian and German. None of them attended Sunday's session.
The defendants and their lawyers have denied the charges, which they said were political.
Prosecutors, backed by police, raided the groups' offices in December, confiscating equipment and sealing their doors.
The investigation came as the country's ruling generals, who took power after an uprising overthrew president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... a year ago, faced growing protests pressuring them to hand power to civilians immediately.
Fayza Abul Naga, the international cooperation minister believed to be the driving force behind the trial, claimed to investigating judges that the NGOs were part of a U.S. plan to spread chaos in Egypt.
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[An Nahar] A Syrian opposition leader voiced skepticism on Wednesday over plans for a new U.N. Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian access to protest cities where thousands have been killed.
"It is better to have a meeting between the interested countries and to have a political compromise," Haitham Manaa from the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC) told Agence La Belle France Presse on the sidelines of a meeting in Rome.
He said such a summit should include "the United States, China, Russia, Britannia and the moderate Arab countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco."
Manaa also rejected the idea of setting up humanitarian corridors in Syria.
"I think this is a very bad idea. It is very easy to have great concepts but what we look for and what we need now are realizable ideas. If it is theoretical, keep it for (French Foreign Minister) Alain Juppe," he said.
Diplomats in New York said that the United States is drawing up a new draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria, which would be the third time Western nations have tried to pass a resolution on the 11-month old crisis.
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03/01/2012
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[An Nahar] Twenty people died when a group of gunnies attacked a market in Xinjiang, the latest outbreak of violence in the ethnically divided Chinese region, authorities said Wednesday.
The motive behind the attack late on Tuesday was not immediately clear, but Xinjiang -- a vast northwestern region that is home to the mainly Moslem Uighur minority -- has suffered repeated outbreaks of ethnic unrest in recent years.
The Xinhua state news agency initially put the toll at 12 dead, including two suspects. But the official information website Tianshan said Wednesday the corpse count was 20.
It said 13 were "innocent people" and police potted seven "terrorists". Another two "terrorists" have been set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock.
"Nine violent cut-throats rushed into the crowd with knives, killing 13 innocent people and wounding several others," Tianshan said.
A police officer told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone earlier Wednesday that around a dozen Uighurs wielding axes attacked the market in the remote town of Yecheng, killing 10 people and police then shot five of the attackers dead.
Xinjiang, which borders Pakistain and Afghanistan, is home to around nine million Uighurs who complain of oppression under Chinese rule.
The number of Han -- China's dominant ethnic group -- living in the region has increased dramatically over the past decade, which government critics say results from a policy of migration to dilute any Uighur nationalist tendencies.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2012
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#1
See also CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [Uighur] TERRORISTS ATTACK IN XINJIANG - 12 DEAD!
The biggest question here is how many foreign Jihadists will now divert to West China due to this + other incidents, espec as traveled thru China's BFF + "Little Brother" Pakistan???
A bone of future past contention between Beijing + Islamabad???
[Dawn] IN the 2008 general elections, according to Election Commission data, over 560 female polling stations -- nearly 480 of them in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... -- saw a zero per cent turnout. Over 580,000 women were registered at these stations. As the next countrywide polls approach, recent by-elections indicate that this unacceptable state of affairs may well continue. In by-elections held on Saturday, women were effectively barred from voting at certain polling stations in Mardan and Mianwali.
These are not cases of women being physically held back from going to cast their votes. Instead, pandering to the conservatism of certain areas of the country, political candidates in those areas develop informal agreements, or at least understandings among themselves, that they will not try to bring out the female vote. Over time this regressive approach has taken hold to the point where voting for women in some constituencies has become as taboo as going to the mosque or walking into the male section of segregated wedding functions. It has, in other words, become the cultural norm, one perpetuated by those in a position of power.
What is particularly alarming is that this is true of parties across the political spectrum. The ANP and PPP are dominant in the Mardan constituency that was contested on Saturday and the PML-N in the Mianwali constituency. These are all significant and mainstream parties, and at least the former two clearly position themselves as being secular and progressive. Yet Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where the ANP and PPP have dominated in 2008 and since, is the province where this problem is most acute. The National Commission on the Status of Women and the Free and Fair Election Network have called for the by-election results from the relevant polling stations -- and therefore the constituencies in which they are located -- to be scrapped. This is a perfectly legitimate demand; political parties need to be held accountable for failing to make it clear to their candidates that creating conditions that effectively bar women from voting is both unconstitutional and against the spirit of democracy.
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[Dawn] US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY: Pak national Majid Khan pleaded guilty Wednesday at a Guantanamo military tribunal in a landmark case that could speed the trials of September 11 suspects.
Majid Khan, 32, a protege of September 11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, and to material support for terrorism and espionage.
Dressed in a dark suit and pink tie, he spoke in English without an interpreter in delivering his plea.
Khan, who has spent the last nine years behind bars, faced possible life in prison but is expected to receive a reduced sentence as part of a plea agreement.
In exchange for the lighter sentence, he will testify against other "high value" detainees, including Mohammed and four others alleged to have taken part in the 2001 attacks.
Many of the terms of the plea agreement remain classified. The Washington Post reported that the military plans to delay Khan's sentencing for four years to ensure he complies with the agreement.
"It's part of a strategy of building more solid cases against the handful of defendants that the government plans to try before the commissions," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who has represented other Guantanamo detainees.
More than 10 years after the September 11 attacks, Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of plotting them are still awaiting trial at the prison, part of a US naval base in Cuba.
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JERUSALEM -- Russia has upgraded a surveillance station it maintains in Syrian territory in order to provide Iran early warning of an Israeli attack, according to the Israeli security-related blog Debkafile.
Grain of salt but this certainly sounds reasonable. If there's ever a time for Putin and Co. to put their markers down, it's to defend Iran from an Israeli air strike. If the Israelis pull it off no one is going to want Russian air defense systems ever again.
The surveillance station, located south of Damascus, had been able to monitor air traffic in Israel as far south as Tel Aviv, as well as northern Jordan and western Iraq.
Since the upgrade, its range reportedly extends to all parts of Israel and Jordan and as far south as the northern part of Saudi Arabia.
According to the report, Russia has introduced cutting-edge technology to the station and expanded its manpower.
Is it good enough not to be jammed (again) by the Israelis? That's the key question.
Russia has taken a firm stand against any military attack on Iran or any attempt to force Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.
This then adds to the reasons why Russia would veto any attempt to remove Pencilneck from Syria: both Russia and Iran need Syria as part of Iran's defense, and the Russians don't think that Assad's successor will be nearly as cooperative. That's a big flaw in their thinking; they should have had a successor lined up in the wings for just such occasions. Then they could have offered Assad a dacha on the Black Sea and kept things nice and quiet.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this week that Russia is concerned about the threat of an attack against Iran.
"If it happens, the fallout would be truly catastrophic," he said, also warning that any outside attempt to displace Mr. Assad would open Syria to "a Libyan scenario."
Debkafile said the upgrade of the electronic surveillance station at Jabal Al Harrah was in response to concern expressed by Iran that the station's resources were being stretched to the limit by providing so much intelligence to the Assad regime in Syria that Tehran no longer could rely on its real-time warnings of an Israeli attack.
The monitoring station had been providing Mr. Assad with information on the Syrian resistance movements.
That's a little strange: Pencilneck needs radar warning of what the resistance is doing?
Russia also has expanded the capabilities of a Russian-equipped Syrian radar station on Lebanon's Mount Sannine in order to extend its range to include Cyprus and Greece, and observe U.S. and Israeli naval and aerial movements in the eastern Mediterranean.
This expansion also would permit Russia to provide Tehran with a warning if American planes head east from the Mediterranean in the direction of Iran.
While the upgrade of Jabal Al Harrah was under way from January through mid-February, the Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov was in the Syrian port of Tartus, where its electronic systems maintained an alert for possible Israeli air formations heading east.
It's interesting that the Russians were worried enough to do this. Wonder what is going on behind the scenes...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2012
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Fine. They can use their new senses to add a new dimension to mess with their minds. It also suggests that everyone thinks the attack will be airborne.
#4
Wikileaks reported Israeli tech sold to Georgia and Russian codes for surveullance system they sold to, Iran exchanged so so Putin has made his strategic play to cover his butt with the mullahs--he better have a 360 pivot on his neck as he'll never know where or when the Reaper will come....
#5
"If it happens, the fallout would be truly catastrophic," he said,
depends on the prevailing wind
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2012 10:41
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"It's interesting that the Russians were worried enough to do this. Wonder what is going on behind the scenes..."
a russian firesale and extraction - the impending disress on russian foreign affairs needs to be nipped in the bud by the Kremlin - call it 'cover ya asses boys , the truth may come out '
#8
Nice turn of phrase g(r)omgoru , unfortunately we are beyond the point of preclude . To give a British understatement ... I cant see anything on the horizon apart from a major situation aka fuck up based on Russian and Chinese arse covering . It will be interesting to see how they untangle the fish nets on this one , especially when they've had 20 years to sort their backyard out yet happily sat on the apathy band wagon whilst raking in the finances .
#9
Incidentally, the carrier and its support group in Tartus could actually be backhanded support for a strike on various complexes in Iran - a buy off during the clean up . Internationally, the scales need to be balanced to save face
Who knows ? - half the fun though eh , this is the most fascinating and interesting play of gamesmanship and brinkmanship for a loooong time
On Tuesday, an Egyptian court dismissed lawsuit brought by an Islamist ultraconservative Muslim lawyer who accused a Christian tycoon of insulting Islam by posting an online cartoon of Mickey Mouse with a beard and Minnie in a face veil. The court tossed out the case and fined the plaintiffs less than $10 for the court's time.
Media mogul Naguib Sawiris enraged Muslim hard-liners in June by posting the cartoon on his Twitter account. The picture was a parody about the growing influence of Islamists in Egypt following Mubarak's ouster. After the cartoon sparked an uproar, Sawiris tweeted an apology and removed the post. He tweeted, "I apologize for those who don't take this as a joke; I just thought it was a funny picture; no disrespect meant. I am sorry."
Salafis began an online campaign in June calling on Egyptian Muslims to boycott Sawiris' mobile phone company, Mobinil. Shares of Mobinil and Orascom Telecom, founded by Sawiris, briefly fell on the Egyptian stock exchange that same month.
Lawyer Mamdouh Ismail, who filed the complaint against Sawiris, is a memeber of the Salafi Al-Nour party that won 25% of elected seats in both houses of parliament.
Following Mubarak's ouster, Sawiris helped found a political party that advocates a secular state. It is part of a liberal coalition in the newly elected parliament, which won just 9% of the seats in the more powerful of the two houses.
Earlier this month, one of the Arab world's most famous Egyptian comedians was sentenced to three months in jail for offending Islam in his films. Adel Imam, who has appeared in many films and ten plays in a career that spans nearly 50 years, has the right to appeal.
[Dawn] 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 Wednesday said that deployment of police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) had been enhanced to ensure security of passengers traveling at Karakoram Highway (KKH).
Addressing a joint presser with Chief Minister Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Mehdi Shah, he condemned the Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... firing incident and said those indulged in this heinous act, have been traced out and would be exposed within a few days.
He said the snuffies had not attacked some people but they have attacked on the integrity of Pakistain.
Malik, who also held meetings with different Ulema, said GB Scouts have been authorised police powers to ensure peace and security of people.
Expressing thanks to Ulema for their cooperation after the incident, he said some elements were trying to create chaos but they will not succeed in their negative designs.
The minister said President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... , Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... , entire federal cabinet and people of Pakistain were grieved on the unfortunate incident and expressed sympathies with the bereaved families.
Malik said he would also meet all religious scholars of the area so that steps could be taken for peace in GB.
He said families of the victims would be financially supported by federal as well as GB government.
Syed Mehdi Shah thanked federal government for taking prompt action to trace out the criminals and asked people to remain calm as the joint investigation team has been working hard to probe the incident.
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[An Nahar] North Korea's new leadership said Wednesday it would suspend nuclear and missile tests and its uranium enrichment program as part of a deal that includes U.S. food aid for the impoverished nation.
The agreement, confirmed simultaneously by Washington, represents a potential breakthrough in efforts to halt the North's drive for atomic weapons following the death of longtime leader Kim Dear Leader Jong-Il ... hereditary dictator of North Korea. His definition of reunification isn't the same as the definition in Seoul... last December.
The deal followed talks in Beijing last week between the two sides, the first dialogue since Kim's young and untested son Kim Jong-Un took power.
A Pyongyang foreign ministry front man said Washington had promised 240,000 tons of "nutritional assistance", with the prospect of additional food aid for the North, which has suffered severe food shortages since a famine in the 1990s.
The North said it would allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment.
The enrichment program, first disclosed in November 2010, could give the communist state a second way to make atomic weapons in addition to its longstanding plutonium program.
This is believed to have produced enough material for six to eight atomic weapons.
The North said the U.S. side offered to discuss the lifting of sanctions and provision of light-water reactors to generate electricity as a priority, once long-stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks resume.
The Beijing discussions were aimed at persuading the North to return to the six-nation talks which it abandoned in April 2009. It staged its second atomic weapons test a month later, following the first in 2006.
There were widespread reports in December that the two sides were close to such a deal, but the sudden death of Kim Jong-Il threw the process into uncertainty.
The new leadership headed by Jong-Un has taken a generally tough tone with the United States and South Korea, blasting joint military exercises which started on Monday as a rehearsal for war.
"The United States still has profound concerns regarding North Korean behavior across a wide range of areas, but today's announcement reflects important, if limited, progress in addressing some of these," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Henry Kissinger ... told U.S. politicians the announcement "represents a modest first step in the right direction". The United States, she said, "will be watching closely and judging North Korea's new leaders by their actions."
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano called the deal "an important step forward" and Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba welcoming it in similar terms. His country is a member of the six-party talks along with the two Koreas, host China, the United States and Russia.
The North said it "agreed to a moratorium on nuclear tests, long-range missile launches, and uranium enrichment activity at Yongbyon and (to) allow the IAEA to monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment while productive dialogues continue".
It said both sides reaffirmed their commitment to a September 2005 six-nation deal. This envisaged the North scrapping its nuclear programs in return for major diplomatic and economic benefits and for a peace treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War.
In the 2005 deal, the six parties agreed to "respect" the North's desire for light-water reactors to generate electricity. Such reactors are less easily converted to military applications.
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#1
And restart the instant the food is actually delivered,
Count on it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/01/2012 20:32
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[An Nahar] The opposition Syrian National Council announced Wednesday setting up a military bureau to supervise the "armed resistance" against the regime, as Washington raised fears of al-Qaeda taking advantage of arming the rebellion.
"The SNC has decided to set up a military bureau, acknowledging the importance of putting controls on the armed resistance in Syria and in support of the Free (Syrian) Army," the umbrella exile-alliance of several opposition groups said in a statement.
It said the new body will be made of officers and civilians and will be charged with "organizing the ranks of the armed resistance forces, as well as assessing its needs and managing its finances and operations."
The armed rebellion will be "put under the political supervision of the SNC," it said.
Mohammed al-Sarmini, a front man of the SNC, told Agence La Belle France Presse that the decision was taken in "coordination" with the rebel Free Syrian Army, comprised mainly of army deserters.
He said the head of the SNC, Burhan Ghalioun, was to hold a presser on Thursday in Gay Paree to give further details on the new body.
The White House said Tuesday that al-Qaeda's efforts to take advantage of violence in Syria meant now is not the time to send arms to rebels in Syria, days after Soddy Arabia and Qatar appeared in favor of arming the rebels in the face of a deadly crackdown by regime forces.
More than 7,500 people have been killed in Syria since protests against the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... erupted in March 2011, according to U.N. figures.
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[Dawn] Egyptian security officials said the man they placed in durance vile at Cairo airport on Tuesday believing him to be a senior Al Qaeda leader is an Egyptian Islamist wanted in his homeland not an Al Qaeda operative.
"He is wanted for involvement with the Al-Jihad (group). He is not Seif al-Adel," said a source at the National Security apparatus.
Officials and state media earlier said the man was the senior Qaeda myrmidon Seif al-Adel.
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[Dawn] ON a Friday night last November Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... was running three hours late. A group of foreign academics, journalists and selected Russian TV cameras were quarantined in a restaurant in an equestrian centre. Deadlines were lapsing and Putin's guests began asking questions about the odd location. Everything from the oak beams, log fires and snug bars had been rigged. The venue had been constructed for this one meal.
Putin finally emerged wearing a ski jacket. He stopped in the entrance. An unseen hand removed the puffer jacket, another slipped an elegant sports coat onto his shoulders. Putin hardly paused, but in a flash he had changed roles. He emerged on the other side of this catwalk as the tanned chief executive of Russia Inc.
He had just made the biggest mistake of his career. In front of millions, he forced his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, to nominate him for another two terms as president. In a spectacular miscalculation of political timing, Putin had destroyed not only Medvedev's career as a reformer but severely damaged his own. He had made nonsense of the elections that followed -- a parliamentary vote in December and the presidential one this coming Sunday -- because everyone already knew the result. This might have worked for the old Russia -- passive, fatalistic, offline -- but the new middle class was not buying it.
Four mass demonstrations later, Putin's campaign is on a knife edge. He has to be elected president on the first round on Sunday. If he succeeds, most political analysts in Russia are agreed that a third term of office as president will be a transitional one. There is unlikely to be a fourth.
This was not in the script. The man who had pulled Russia back from the brink of collapse had a vision. That vision -- to restore Russia to what he saw as its rightful place in the world, one which was not just deserved but ordained -- needed him to stay in power for at least another two terms. Not anyone else, just him, Vladimir Putin. How did the man with the penchant for Soviet slang and the swagger of the new Russia, lose his greatest asset: his political nose for what Russians thought?
Putin's family lived through one of the bleakest periods of Soviet history, the Nazi siege of Leningrad. His father was a commando, one of only four to return from one mission. The family lost their first son, to diphtheria, and when Putin was born in 1952, he was regarded as miracle of fate.
Until 1996, Putin was a virtual unknown. But he had also become indispensable to the democrats because of his skills in taming the monster created through the chaotic privatisations of the Russian economy: the oligarch.
What Putin created was not a restoration of the Soviet state. Nor was it totalitarian, because Putin's reach was not total. He created instead a personalised state, one with his name written right through it like a stick of rock. Putin lost no time in creating his own cult following. As Boris Yeltsin was swaying under the influence of drink and a series of mini-strokes, Putin, his prime minister, was active.
There are two questions Putin faces in this third and final period of office. Can he separate himself from the dead hand of the elite around him -- can he separate himself from Putinism? The second is even harder to achieve. Can Russia separate itself peacefully from him?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2012
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By my read of various MSM-Net Artics, Pootey's popular support remains subtantially larger than that of his opposition.
#3
He faces the same problems that every major leader before him has faced. He adequately maintained things, but he is not a builder. Russia needs to again decentralize and devolve power away from Moscow, then begin to rebuild and renew.
But Russia can only do this if Putin picks a successor capable enough to do these things, but strong enough to fend off the ambitious.
#4
My Wash. Times today will vouch for that. Pootie-Poot is the only one that has the intestinal fortitude to dominate over the competition; who apparently are lacking in passion. Here, under a normal administration, we could take advantage of an obvious leadership vacuum.
[Dawn] The bloodbath of Shia Mohammedans at the hands of fundamentalist Sunnis continues along the streets and roads in Pakistain. The Shia victims of sectarian violence have little hope for justice since three out of every four terrorism cases end up in an acquittal on technicalities.
Yesterday, Shias en route to their homes in Gilgit were removed from buses, lined up along the road, and shot in cold blood near Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... . Eighteen perished, while scores others were maimed. Less than two weeks ago in Parachinar 43 Shias were killed in a kaboom and subsequent firing by the security agencies. Eyewitness account reveals that the bomb exploded remotely after it was placed on an empty cart in the Kurrami Bazaar by a person who disappeared in the same hotel where security forces were hosting reportedly "internally displaced people."
While the convoy of buses near Kohistan was attacked by Jundallah, a sectarian outfit that thrives on murdering Shias, the attack in Parachinar was perpetrated by the supposedly "good Taliban", who only recently were presented to the world as those who have renounced violence. However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... killing Shias for the Taliban, both good and bad, is fair game.
Shias, however, have not been the only victims of violence in the past two weeks in Pakistain. Beautiful Downtown Peshawar is experiencing a spell of murderous violence. A kaboom at the Kohat Road bus stand killed 13 last Thursday. The very next day four coppers died in a coordinated attack on the fortified Kotwali cop shoppe by hard boyz who blew themselves up during the attack. Yesterday, a Chinese woman and her guide were murdered in the centre of the Peshawar City. In the neighbouring city of Nowshera, six people were killed in a kaboom after a political rally on Monday.
While the attacks on police and indiscriminate violence against civilians is equally reprehensible, the perpetrators of violence, however, are not attacking the victims for their religious, political, or any other beliefs. The attacks on Shias and other religious minorities are assassinations primarily motivated by the bigoted religious intolerance exhibited by certain fundamentalist Sunni sects.
The State seems helpless in delivering justice even when it is successful in arresting those accused of terrorism. The path from arrest to conviction is punctuated with traps that capture the public prosecutors, but give a free pass to the accused. Several well-known snuffies have been acquitted by the anti-terrorism courts because of the flawed judicial system where errors and omissions during documentation, investigation and prosecution of the crimes have earned the accused their freedom who wasted no time in rejoining beturbanned goon outfits.
When courts fail victims
During 1990 and 2009, the anti-terrorism courts (ATC) in Punjab alone failed to convict the accused in 74 per cent of the 311 cases in which a final verdict was delivered. Most of the accused were acquitted not because they were able to demonstrate and/or substantiate their innocence, but because the judicial system in Pakistain is not capable of handling terrorism cases where prosecution's case rests on circumstantial and forensic evidence, and not on the eyewitness account.
A systematic review of 178 ATC verdicts by Syed Ejaz Hussain, who until recently served as the deputy inspector general of police for anti-terrorism in Punjab and also holds a doctorate in criminology from University of Pennsylvania, revealed that the courts acquitted the accused in 77 per cent of the cases. Most of the accused were apprehended for being involved in sectarian violence.
The review of cases revealed that errors, omissions, misconduct and the judicial system's undue requirements during the registering of the complaint (first information report (FIR)), investigation of the crime, and prosecution lead to the acquittal in three out of four cases.
In 36 per cent of the cases, the courts acquitted the accused because they were not personally named in the FIR. This is an absurd requirement in terrorism cases. How can one ascertain the identity of the accused immediately after the terrorist attack when the FIR is registered? In most instances, FIRs are registered against unknown accused, which should not be the reason for the courts to acquit the accused because their identity was not known to the police or to the victims the very second the attack took place.
In 11 per cent of the cases, the courts have acquitted the accused because eyewitnesses could not put the accused at the scene of the crime. Again, an absurd requirement by the anti-terrorism courts. The dead victims of the terrorist violence cannot step out of their graves to identify the accused for the courts. The injured may have never seen the person/s detonating the bomb through a remote control device. Victims of sniper firing never know where the bullet has come from. Why then are the courts acquitting the accused because the eyewitnesses could not place them at the scene of the crime?
In another 17 per cent of the cases, the courts have acquitted the accused because the FIR registered soon after the incident either did not describe the unknown accused or his role in the crime.
It appears that the courts fail to appreciate the fact that perpetrators of terrorist violence are not immediately known to the victims or to the police. Their identities are ascertained much later as the case is investigated. Just because the accused have not been singled out in the first information report, which is filed immediately after the incident either by the victims or by the state, the courts should not necessarily acquit the accused, especially when other compelling circumstantial/forensic evidence is available to consider.
The review of the 178 cases further revealed that many cases were thrown out because of the shortcomings during investigation. In 35 per cent of the cases issues with the police line-up (identity parade) resulted in an acquittal. In some cases the witness failed to identify the accused in the line-up, while in other cases a police line-up was never put together. In 26 per cent of the cases, the recovered evidence was found unsatisfactory by the courts. For instance, the recovered evidence, such as the weapon used in the crime, did not match the weapon described by the forensic expert. In another 14 per cent cases, the confessional statements were not recorded adequately, which resulted in an acquittal. Excessive delays in submitting cases to the courts, improper recording of witness statements, and compromised medical or forensic evidence also resulted in acquittals.
The above suggests that there is an urgent need to train the Sherlocks in modern detective work that now involves forensic scientists, and computer and communication experts. Furthermore, there is a need to have the public prosecutors and magistrates advise detectives so that the evidence collection procedures comply with the regulations set by the courts. For instance, there should never be a delay in presenting the accused in front of the courts. The public prosecutors are intimately aware of the repercussions of such delays, and hence they can advise the detectives of the legal requirements. In fact, the government may want to show episodes of shows, such as Law & Order, and CSI to the Sherlocks in Pakistain so that they may learn about the intricacies of investigative work.
Lastly, missteps during prosecution have also resulted in acquittal of the accused. Most problems arise with witnesses who often change their testimony, fail to show up during the trial, offer contradictory testimony or settle with the accused. Most of the time the witnesses feel intimated by the accused and out of fear for their lives or that of their families, they refuse to bear witness. This suggests that there is an urgent need for a witness protection program in Pakistain to offer necessary safety to the witnesses in terrorism cases. In fact, the witness protection program may work only if the witnesses are settled abroad afterwards rather than having them settle in Pakistain where they will always be looking over their shoulders.
The Supreme Court and the press in Pakistain are pressuring the intelligence agencies in the missing person cases who have been accused of terrorist activities and have been secretly kept in jug by various intelligence agencies. The Supreme Court is well-placed to argue and stand for the rights of the accused, who are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
At the same time, it is also incumbent upon the higher courts and the press in Pakistain to be mindful of the fact that the accused in terrorism-related violence are most likely to be acquitted by the lower courts on technicalities. I understand and appreciate that due process matters.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... the rights of the victims of terrorism matter as well. With the odds of conviction being less than one in four, the balance is tilted in favour of the accused rather than the victims of terrorist violence in Pakistain.
CAIRO -- Egypt lifted a travel ban Wednesday on seven Americans charged with fomenting unrest by working for illegally funded pro-democracy groups, signaling an end to the worst crisis in Egypt-U.S. relations in 30 years. The clash put $1.5 billion in annual American aid to Egypt at risk and sparked intense behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two countries to find a way out.
Looks like the generals checked out the grain warehouses...
Defense lawyer Tharwat Abdel-Shaheed said the seven Americans, including the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, could only leave the country if they post bail of 2 million Egyptian pounds (about $300,000). They have also signed pledges to attend their next hearing.
Which they won't do, of course, so the bail will be forfeited, and some lucky generals will have a little vacation in Madiera...
"The ban was lifted on humanitarian grounds, but the bail is way too high," Abdel-Shaheed, who represents some of the American defendants, told the news service who can't be named.
Egyptian officials said the travel ban was lifted by the country's top prosecutor at the recommendation of the case's investigating judge. It was not immediately clear whether the charges against the Americans would be dropped.
Sure it was. Check the grain warehouses and check Egypt's foreign reserves. Then ask how Egypt feeds its people if there is no foreign aid money coming in.
But even before the ban was lifted, there were signs the case was dissolving under intense U.S. pressure. The trial of more than 40 U.S. and foreign aid workers opened on Sunday and was adjourned until late April. The court's three judges excused themselves from the case on Tuesday, citing "uneasiness."
Only the Egyptian defendants attended Sunday's hearing, and the judge gave no instructions to police to ensure the American and other foreign defendants attend the next hearing.
The Egyptian defendants are, of course, boned...
The workers were charged following a December raid by Egyptian security of offices of 10 nonprofit pro-democracy and human rights groups, confiscating documents and equipment. The groups were accused of financing protests over the past year with illegally obtained funds and failing to register with the government as required.
The groups insist their financing is transparent, and all their efforts to register have been stalled by the Egyptian government.
The seven Americans who were banned from leaving are among 16 Americans on trial in the case. The other Americans had already left the country before charges were filed against them. Twenty-seven others are on trial, including 16 Egyptians as well as German, Palestinian, Serbian and Jordanian citizens. The travel ban on the non-American foreigners in the case has also been lifted if bail is posted.
The defendants faced charges of using illegally obtained funds to incite protests against the military rulers. They worked for a variety of democracy-promoting organizations, including four U.S. groups.
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#1
Wow, who knew all it took was threatening some UN-sucking NGOs and suddenly Obama grows a spine and plays hardball. It's as if his history of bizarre foreign policy turns was deliberate.
#2
I doubt George Soros is willing to pick up the tabs for these employees. He would probably see them as being better if they are "martyred". Easy come, easy go. It's not like they were working for H. Ross Perot.
Iran's nuclear facility built into a mountain bunker at Fordow is not "impregnable" to US bunker buster munitions, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing the testimony of US military planners.
That's nice. Will they use it when Israel is ready, or will they withhold the love?
The Washington Post quoted US officials as saying that while a single blow of the Pentagon's newest bunker buster weapon - the Massive Ordance Penetrator, may not successfully destroy the underground uranium enrichment facility, a sustained attack over a number of days would likely render the plant unusable.
US military planners see the "zone of immunity" which Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke of as the point after which an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be impossible, is still years away, according to the report.
#1
a sustained attack over a number of days would likely render the plant unusable Hit every air/heat vent, exit, electric transmission line & vehicle in motion - that would probably take a number of days.
#2
Technically, is still a moot point given Iran's vow of MilPol + Terror retaliation in response, as Iran's any Israeli attack as the same as a US attack.
By most accounts, short of the Mullahs giving their consent a GROUND INVASION OF IRAN is what is required to truly stop Iran's NucProgs, not merely LR Airstrikes - either that, or the US-World + Israel accept a Nuclear Iran.
#4
short of the Mullahs giving their consent a GROUND INVASION OF IRAN is what is required to truly stop Iran's NucProgs
You and whose army will invade and hold the territory? Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, don't want to go that way again.
#5
MilPol + Terror retaliation in response At least this will provide excellent motivation for miscellaneous non-Iranian organizations and countries to keep slinging, flying and dropping ordnance on the Mullahs and their slaves.
Missile defense chief tells 'Post' that Iranian advancements allow for 2,000-km. range; Defense Ministry upgrading Arrow 2, will test Arrow 3 this year.
Israel's Arrow missile defense system could intercept barrages of Iranian long-range missiles, Arieh Herzog, who recently stepped down as head of the Defense Ministry's Homa Missile Defense Agency, has told The Jerusalem Post. He spoke as there is an increasing chance that Israel is planning to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
While there "is no such thing as 100 percent defense," the Arrow was fully operational and capable of providing an adequate defense against Iran's Shahab and Sajil ballistic missiles, Herzog said, in an interview marking his retirement several weeks ago after a 12- year term that will appear in full in Friday's paper.
"The Iranians have the ability to launch barrages and that is an important part of their capabilities," he said. "But we are prepared and have the ability to intercept those barrages if they are launched."
Israel has two operational Arrow missile batteries, one deployed in the North and one in the South, and is establishing a third battery that is expected to achieve initial operational capability in the coming months.
It is also developing the Arrow 3 that will serve as the upper layer of Israel's missile defense but will only become operational in 2015. A first interception test of the Arrow 3 is expected later this year.
Early this month, the Defense Ministry held a test of the Arrow 2 missile defense system. It intends to begin supplying the Israel Air Force with an upgraded version of the software used in its operation. The test did not include the interception of a target, but a missile impersonating an Iranian missile was launched to test the Arrow's ability to detect and track it.
Tehran, Herzog said, has made great advancements in recent years in its development of ballistic missiles and today has missiles with ranges of more than 2,000 km.
In addition to the Shahab and the Sajil, the Islamic Republic is believed to be working on creating a domestic production line for the BM25 long-range missile it purchased from North Korea in 2005. The BM25 has a range of more than 3,500 km. Iran is also believed to be developing cruise missiles.
Tehran is also believed to have developed warheads that can split in flight as part of an effort to deceive the Arrow and lead it to miss the warhead. "This is a problem and we have invested a lot in being able to distinguish between the various parts in space," Herzog said.
In the event that the IDF attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the assumption within the military is that Israel will come under missile fire from Iran, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Arrow will play a critical role in protecting Israel's strategic assets and population centers from the long-range missiles. It is also suitable to defend against Syria's arsenal of Scud C and D missiles.
While Iran is believed to have just several hundred operational missiles that can strike in Israel, it has even fewer launchers.
On the other hand, it has built underground silos that can protect the missiles from attack and be used to launch without detection. This has been made possible by Iran's success in changing its propellant from liquid fuel to solid fuel, which extends the missile's shelf life and allows for storage underground without needing to fuel it before launch.
#1
HMMMM, HMMMMM, intehwesting, IRAN must attack Israel before the Arrow-3 becomes operational in 2015, rensering its barrages all but useless; while Israel must attack Iran by 2015 before it devs its own indigenous NucBomb(s).
Australia's Chief of the Army has vowed to take action over a private Facebook group of Defence Force members which contains racist, sexist and abusive material.
The site, which is used by more than 1,000 former and current members of the Royal Australian Regiment, refers to Muslims as "ragheads", suggests immigrants are unwelcome, and one post says "all women are filthy, lying whores."
Lieutenant-General David Morrison has launched an probe to find out if any of the obscene comments were posted by serving members. He says any serving members involved will be reprimanded.
Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James says, "Everyone should be horrified. I mean we had this problem in March last year with some racial postings on YouTube, and as the Defence Association said at the time, this type of things lets down your soldiers because it just provides propaganda to the enemy."
Dr Mark Drummond, a retired Navy officer and former lecturer at the Australian Defence Force Academy, says there should be no excuses for this type of activity.
He said, "The whole reason for being of the Defence Force is to uphold those values of freedom, democracy and justice and so on. It is the ultimate hypocrisy if the very institution responsible for upholding all of those values, breaches those values so blatantly."
Defence brass was alerted to the Facebook group and its contents eight months ago, when a member of the group contacted the Chief of Defence and the Department Secretary. He also took his concerns to the Defence Minister's office more than once.
The online group also serves a decent purpose, conducting fundraising for serving soldiers. Its administrators have warned members repeatedly to avoid overtly offensive material, but finding the right balance has presented a challenge.
NEW YORK - Jose Pimentel, an American Muslim convert accused of building a pipe bomb, has been formally indicted by a grand jury on terrorism charges, authorities said on Wednesday.
Pimentel, 27, will appear in a Manhattan court on March 13 to enter a plea on the charges, which include weapons and conspiracy counts. The indictment was released by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
Pimentel, a Dominican-born US citizen, was arrested in November after a police informant secretly recorded meetings with Pimentel over several months as he bought bomb-making materials and read online instructions on how to assemble them, according to court documents.
Authorities have said he planned to attack post offices, police stations and military personnel in and around New York City.
Heh. Well, not the mailboxes. We were interested in explosions, not petty vandalism. And we quickly graduated from match heads to more interesting ingredients, a educational journey that ended when our search for a better oxidizer was all too successful.
Karachi - Gunmen on Wednesday abducted two Pakistani Christians working for a South Korean-run hospital in a violent slum area of the country's largest city Karachi, police said.
Kidnappings by criminal groups for ransom are relatively common in the nuclear-armed country and victims can be sold onto Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militant groups based along the north-western Afghan border.
Four armed men stopped a car taking local staff to the Good Samaritan Hospital in the western neighbourhood of Orangi, an impoverished area that was last year hard hit by political and ethnically linked shootings.
"They asked the occupants: 'Who is Korean among you?'" said local police station chief Sabir Khan. "They replied: 'None of us.'
"However they snatched two hospital employees - a computer operator and an administration assistant. Both are members of the Pakistani Christian community, and fled in a car."
No foreigners were in the vehicle that was stopped, Khan said.
"We have sent teams to track down the kidnappers and recover the staff members," he added.
Male nurse Austin John, a 30-year-old Pakistani, said he had narrowly escaped being kidnapped along with his colleagues.
"A blue car intercepted us and four men who looked Pashtun from the northwest came out. They ordered us to get out and asked: 'Who is Korean among you?'" he said.
Their driver fled and the three hospital staff members were bundled toward the kidnappers' car, John said.
"But there wasn't enough space and they dropped me. One of them said 'shoot him in the back' but I got unexpected courage and ran for safety behind the van and shouted for help. They fled," he said.
The Good Samaritan Hospital treats mostly poor Pakistanis and has been run by a South Korean charity for more than a decade, one of its doctors said.
Five foreign aid and development workers have gone missing or been kidnapped across Pakistan since August, and the doctor said that there had been rising concerns about security at the hospital. nTwo months ago, a South Korean affiliated to a nearby church was shot and wounded, and three years ago a local employee was briefly abducted but released unharmed, she said by telephone.
"But this is the first time that our employees have been abducted in an armed hold-up like this," she said. "There were no direct threats to the hospital, but we had felt insecure over the past few months and police beefed up security."
Ten doctors work at the Good Samaritan Hospital, six of them foreigners, and the clinic treats mostly poor Pakistanis for a nominal fee.
The country director of Save the Children has said more expat aid workers are being held captive in Pakistan than in any other country in the world.
There is a tiny Christian minority in Pakistan, where only 3% of the population of 174 million are estimated to be non-Muslim and where the Vatican has said Christians are often victims of violence and discrimination.
Targeted killings in Karachi have been linked to ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party.
Hate to say it, but all foreign NGOs, particularly and especially Christian ones, should leave Pakistain, and the U.S. ought to offer protection and visas to the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities there. Settle them in the American southwest along the Mexican border, and they could help us in return for sanctuary.
Since February 23rd Mexican Army units have seized 5,164.38 kilograms of marijuana, 40 kilograms of opium gum, 30 kilograms of poppy seed, two kilograms of marijuana seeds and MP $361,299.70 (USD $28,170.86) in cash.
In Veracruz and Puebla states, army units with the VI Military Region seized a number of contraband items in five incidents February 23rd. The incidents took place in Tempoal, Chicontepec, Minatitlan and Martinez de la Torre municipalities in Veracruz state and San Martin Texmelucan municipality in Puebla state. Materiel seized included four rifles. three handguns, one weapons magazine, ammunition, MP $11,429.70 (USD $891.18) in cash, communications gear and three vehicles. Six unidentified individuals were also detained.
A detachment of the Mexican 35th Military Zone seized drugs and weapons in Guerrero state February 22rd. The unit was on patrol near the village of Otatlan the village in San Miguel Totolapan municipality when soldiers found three partially buried containers with 40 kilograms of opium gum. Also found at the scene were 30 kilograms of poppy seed, two kilograms of marijuana seeds, two handguns, one rifle, eight weapons magazines, communications gear and one vehicle.
Mexican Army units with the 29th, 26th and 19th Military Zones seized contraband in four separate incidents in Veracruz state February 24th.
In Naranjos municipality, a Mexican Army patrol came under small arms fire by an undisclosed number of armed suspects. Army return fire killed one armed suspect. Seized following the encounter were three handguns, one rifle, four grenades, 46 weapons magazines, 1,300 rounds of ammunition and four vehicles. One suspect was detained at the scene.
Near Minatitlan, Veracruz, an army patrol on the La Antigua-Minatitlan highway seized two tractors, seven tankers, 110,000 liters of gasoline and three metric tons of polyethylene granules.
In Coatzacoalcos municipality, an army unit detained one individual in a traffic stop. Soldiers found personal quantities of marijuana. The vehicle stopped has been reported stolen.
In Xalapa municipality, an army unit seized one armored vehicle, stolen armor plating and seven rounds of ammunition.
Mexican Army units with the 15th Military Zone in Jalisco state seized several contraband in four separate operations.
On February 23rd, acting on a citizen's complaint, in the village of San Miguel Cuyutlan municipality of Tlajomulco de Zuniga municipality, soldiers detained three unidentified individuals and seized 1,550 liters of fuel, two 1,000 liter containers, one tank with a capacity of 20,000 liters, five vehicles, MP $7,870.00 (USD $613.63) in cash, one suction pump and 10 meters of hose.
While on patrol near the village of Carranza in Tototlan municipality February 23rd, a Mexican Army unit seized 7,000 liters of fuel, one tank with a capacity of 31,000 liters and one vehicle.
Also on February 23rd acting on a citizen's complaint near the village of Santa Maria Transportina in Encarnacion de Diaz municipality, soldiers seized 73 packages of marijuana, 37 packages of glass methamphetamine, three handguns, 220 rounds of ammunition, five weapons magazines. Three unidentified individuals were detained at the scene.
On February 24th on the Ojuelos-San Luis Potosi road in Ojuelos municipality soldiers detained one unidentified individual and seized 155 psychotropic pills, 136 rounds of ammunition, MP $342,000.00 (USD $26,666.04) in cash and one vehicle.
On February 25th a detachment with the Mexican 10th Military Zone appeared at a safe house near San Juan del Rio in Durango state after receiving a citizen's complaint about a kidnapped individual. Three unidentified suspects were detained. One handgun was seized. One unidentified kidnapping victim was rescued
On February 26th Mexican Army units with the 26th and 29th Military Zone on patrol with Policia Federal, Mexican Naval Infantry personnel and Veracruz state police agents found a vehicle in Banderilla municipality with four rifles, 23 weapons magazines and 600 rounds of ammunition.
On February 26th in four separate incidents in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc, Jaltipan, Cosoleacaque, Coatzacoalcos, Xalapa municipalities in Veracruz state, army detachments with the Mexican 26th and 29th Military Zone seized 960 grams of marijuana, one rifle, two weapons magazines, 17 rounds of ammunition, seven vehicles and one motorcycle.
On February 26th units with the Mexican 8th Military Zone seized drugs found in the ejido of Los Cavazos in Ciudad Reynosa municipality in Tamaulipas state. In an abandoned building soldiers found 365 packages of marijuana weighing a total of 1,753.4 kilograms.
In Veracruz state an army unit with the Mexican 29th Military Zone came under small arms fire while on patrol in Melgar colony in Cosoleacaque municipality February 28th. Military personnel returned fire and ended the firefight. Two unidentified individuals were detained at the scene with three firearms, three hand grenades, 17 weapons magazines, 405 rounds of ammunition and two vehicles.
On February 29th a Mexican Army unit with the 9th Military Zone while on patrol in Culican municipality in Sinaloa state located 148 packages of marijuana weighing 1,500 kilograms hidden in nearby brush.
An army unit with the 8th Military Zone seized more than 1.5 metric tons of marijuana February 29th in Tamaulipas state. The unit was on patrol at a remote rural location in Camargo municipality when it discovered a pit covered with plywood with 321 packages of marijuana weighing 1,910 kilograms.
[An Nahar] Egypt will vote on May 23 and 24 to elect its first president since a popular uprising overthrew Hosni Mubarak a year ago, the head of the elections committee said on Wednesday.
Farouq Sultan told journalists expatriates will be allowed to vote from May 11 to May 17 and that any run-off will be held on June 16 and 17.
"The result will be announced on June 21," said Sultan.
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[An Nahar] Hundreds of students in 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... , Syria's second city largely spared anti-regime protests and the ensuing crackdown, called on Monday for the city to join the revolt, monitors and activists said.
"Hundreds of students protested Monday against the regime at the University of Aleppo," the country's economic hub, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Protesters at the science and computer science faculties called for the "execution of president" Bashir al-Assad, according to activists calling themselves "the Union of Free Students in Syria," contacted by Agence La Belle France Presse on Skype.
At the department of dentistry, a statue of former president Hafez al-Assad was demolished, they said.
"Aleppo, rise up! Shake the presidential palace," chanted students at the faculty of civil engineering, according to a video posted online whose authenticity could not be confirmed.
"Martyrs, rest in peace, we will continue the fight," students shouted in a hall of the dentistry school, in another video posted by activists.
Dozens of pro-regime gunnies, known as Shabiha, stormed the dentistry department to end a sit-in protest by hundreds of students, the Syrian Observatory said, adding that gunshots were fired and 16 students jugged.
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[Dawn] Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has said Death Eaters maintain a significant presence in several parts of Nowshera district and warned that their protectors would not be spared any longer.
Addressing a news conference here on Tuesday, the minister said Death Eaters had maintained presence in several pockets of Nowshera district, including Badrushee, Bahadur Baba, Akora Khattak and Nowshera.
"Nowshera Death Eaters have links with Darra Admakhel and this channel goes up to North Wazoo Agency," Mr Hussain said, adding that the fresh wave of terrorism in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and Nowshera had its origin in Nowshera's pockets of turbans.He said the Darra Adamkhel forces of Evil couldn't access Peshawar from the main routes and therefore, they had selected Nowshera hills to access Peshawar.
Before a kaboom at Nowshera on February 27, 2012, Peshawar saw two terrorist attacks on two consecutive days, leaving 15 people dead on February 23 and four coppers the next day.
He said his government had lost tolerance and no one from among all those who were protecting Death Eaters in Nowshera district would be spared.
"Hosting forces of Evil in hujras, religious seminaries, houses and hills for weeks and months is not lawful. The tolerance for such acts has been fading away. The time has come to put a strong hand on all those providing refuge to forces of Evil anywhere in Nowshera district," he said. He further said the government strongly appealed to all to withdraw their support to terrorists.
"If they (militants' supporters) did not desist, we would put a hand on them no matter how strong they might be," said Mr Hussain.
When asked if he was referring to Maulana Samiul Haq's Madrassa Haqania in Akora Khattak, the minister said: "I have not taken any name, whoever he might be we are ready to give a respectable passage to the turbans' protectors, requesting them to withdraw their support from them.
"I am not blaming anyone, Death Eaters have established a network from Waziristan to Darra Admakhel to Nowshera that we need to eliminate."
He said it had become clear that Death Eaters had pockets in Nowshera to carry out activities in the district.
On the occasion, Mr Iftikhar announced on behalf of his government a compensation package, including Rs300,000 for each of the four persons killed in Nowshera's bombing and Rs100,000 each for the injured. He said the district administration had also been directed to employ to vacant posts one person from the families of each dead.
He said terror victims were workers of Awami National Party, including Mohammad Israr, Sabz Ali, Tariq and Hussain.
The minister said Death Eaters had said they carried out the attack to target ANP and by coming up with that reason, they wanted to divide the society into political and sectarian groups to achieve nefarious designs.
"Before ANP's Nowshera public meeting, Death Eaters had carried out attacks against Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... of Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... , 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... , Pakistain People's Party, mosques, imambargahs, bus stands, schools and other places in fulfillment of their 'grand strategy' to break up the society into many segments.
We appeal to all political parties and people belonging to different ideologies to lend their support to it for fighting Death Eaters out," he said.
Mr Hussain said ANP firmly believed that Pakistain, Afghanistan and the US were not left with much time and that they needed to act cohesively to take on terrorists.
"They are losing time and are left with no option but to adopt a common strategy and agenda for negotiations with terrorists.
Stakeholders to Pakistain-Afghanistan regional peace, including terrorist (Taliban) should announce their respective agenda and negotiators for future," he said.
He said if Death Eaters didn't cooperate, then the governments of the three countries should jointly crush them.
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[Dawn] Former spy chief of Pakistain General Hamid Gul The nutty former head of Pakistain's ISI, now Godfather to Mullah Omar's Talibs and good buddy and consultant to al-Qaeda's high command... was reportedly a member of the US intelligence firm Stratfor, it emerged on Wednesday.
A report published in the Indian daily Times of India says that approximately five million emails of the Texas-based think tank were revealed by WikiLeaks.
"Whereas seemingly large numbers of Stratfor's subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave complimentary membership to General Hamid Gul, the controversial former head of Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006," the report said.
The former ISI chief, who served from 1987 to 1989, remains a controversial figure in the local and international media.
According to TOI, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accused Stratfor of running a network of paid informants, monitoring activist groups on behalf of major multinationals and making investments based on its secret intelligence.
Stratfor, meanwhile, rejected claims that there was anything improper in the way it handled its informants.
WikiLeaks alleges that Stratfor fronts as an intelligence publisher, but is in fact a private intelligence agency. Its clients reportedly include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and United States government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Marines and the Defence Intelligence Agency.
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#1
ION MABUHAY, CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > MANILA DISPUTES BEIJING'S SOUTH CHINA SEAS CLAIM, asserting its right to ask or invite foreign companies to search for Oil-Gas, etc. in SCS areas extending from the PHIL's West Coasts to Phil-claimed island groups.
versus
* WORLD MIL FORUM > CHINESE EXPERTS: PHILIPPINES' INTERNAL OR DOMESTIC PROBLEMS IS LEADING IT TO PICK ON CHINA IN SOUTH CHINA SEAS DISPUTES. PHILIPPINES HAS MASSIVE CORRUPTION, COMMUNIST, ETHNIC + MUSLIM GUERILLAS IN ARMED STRUGGLES FOR RIGHTS AND SOVEREIGNTY. NEW EX-US "HAMILTON" CLASS COASTAL WARSHIPS IS NOT ENOUGH TO STOP CHINA FROM ASSERTING ITS RIGHTS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA OR HUMILIATING THE PHILIPPINES IN WAR.
* Also from WMF > CHINA DEMANDS JAPAN IMMEDIATELY CEASE UNILATERAL SURVEY IN EAST CHINA SEA. REJECTION BY JAPAN OF LINES OF DEMARCATION + PROPOSED JOINT SINO-JAPANESE DEVELOPMENT OF EAST CHINA SEA.
* SAME > TOKYO'S ISHIHARA: JAPAN MAY BECOME A "SIXTH STAR" IN CHINA'S NATIONAL FLAG. JAPAN IN TIME TO BECOME A COLONY EITHER OF THE US OR CHINA UNLESS IT TAKES STEPS TO MILPOL PROTECT ITSELF. MAINSTREAM JAPANESE TORN BETWEEN UNHAPPINESS OVER ON-GOING, POST-WW2 US-JAPAN SECURITY TREATY, WHILE ALSO NOT WANTING TO CHANGE TREATY BUT DESIRING FOR THE WORLD TO SEE POST-COLD WAR JAPAN AS A LEGITIMATE MAJOR/GREAT POWER.
ME > Ishihara is once again trying hard to infer that JAPAN NEEDS NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
Can't really blame ole' Ishi given ...
* RUSSIAN MILBLOGGERS/POSTERS = opine that RUSSIA SHOULD RE-OCCUPY HOKKAIDO VEE TERMS OF JAPAN'S SURRENDER TREATY, iff Nippon keeps bothering or foolishly dares to go to war wid Russia oer the South Kuriles; or iff CHINA REGAINS RIGHTS TO OKINAWA = FORMER RYUKYU VASSAL KINGDOM, i.e. when it is clear that Japan can't or won't any longer defend Japanese territory and its ally the US didn't stop it.
-------
FYI GUAMPDN FORUMS > JAPAN NEVER RECOVERED FROM [Tohoku/Fukushima]EARTHQUAKE.
[An Nahar] Syrian forces on Wednesday killed 23 people across the country and launched a ground assault on a rebel-held district of Homs after shelling it for 26 straight days, as world pressure grew for humanitarian access to besieged protest cities.
A security source told Agence La Belle France Presse in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... that Baba Amr "is under control," after activists had earlier said that elite troops of the Fourth Armored Division had taken up position around the holdout neighborhood of Syria's third-largest city.
"The army has started combing the area building by building and house by house. Now the troops are searching every basement and tunnel for arms and terrorists," the security source said.
"There remain only few pockets" of resistance.
A human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... watchdog and an activist in the central city however denied that troops had moved into Baba Amr, insisting that festivities were taking place only on the outskirts of the flashpoint neighborhood.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights insisted that rebel forces were "preventing an attempt to storm" Baba Amr and that gunfire could be heard in several districts of Homs.
Homs-based activist Hadi Abdullah reported festivities and heavy shelling of Baba Amr but insisted that ground troops had not entered the neighborhood.
"Regime forces did not enter Baba Amr until this moment. They are surrounding the district, while festivities are concentrated in the neighborhoods of Inshaat and Malaab," he told AFP by telephone.
Abdullah said activists were "evacuating families because shelling has been targeting places that were considered safe in the past."
The arrival of the Fourth Armored Division, which is under the command of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... 's brother Maher, was a likely prelude to a final assault, he added.
Rebel commanders said access to Homs was now completely blocked after regular troops blew up an underground aqueduct that had been the last viable route for smuggling of desperately needed supplies.
Abdullah added that power had been cut to most of the city, a measure he said was another sign of possible looming attack.
Efforts to bring out Le Figaro journalist Edith Bouvier, who is trapped inside Baba Amr with multiple fractures, intensified after her British colleague Paul Conroy was successfully smuggled out to Leb on Monday night.
"We expect the government in Damascus to put all the conditions in place for a safe and rapid evacuation, in particular an immediate ceasefire in Baba Amr," said French foreign ministry front man Bernard Valero.
Thirteen Syrian activists were killed trying to help Bouvier and Conroy and to bring in aid to Baba Amr, international activist group Avaaz said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... security forces killed 11 civilians in the province of Homs, the Local Coordination Committees said.
Elsewhere, three people were killed in Damascus' countryside, three in the southern province of Daraa, two in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, three in the northwestern province of Idlib, one in the central province of Hama and another in the coastal city of Latakia, the LCC said.
The Observatory said eight members of the security forces also died on Wednesday in festivities with rebel fighters and attacks in the 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... region in the north and Daraa in the south.
At the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... , diplomats said Washington had begun work on a new draft Security Council resolution demanding humanitarian access to besieged protest cities, such as Homs.
"This resolution will concentrate on humanitarian access to the cities, but it will indicate that the government is the cause of the crisis," one Security Council diplomat said.
Western nations hope that focusing on the humanitarian crisis will persuade Russia and China not to use their veto powers as permanent members of the 15-member council as they did against previous Western-drafted resolutions last October and again in early February.
The French foreign ministry front man said the new text calls for a halt to violence and "immediate, unhindered access for humanitarian aid to the most threatened sites and the most vulnerable populations."
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said: "I solemnly appeal to Russia and China that they do not block this new resolution at the Security Council."
Work on the new draft started after Arab and Western governments met for an inaugural Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis last week, diplomats said.
"We really hope that by concentrating on an appeal for an end to the violence and getting humanitarian access we can get the support of everyone, including Russia and China," said one Western envoy.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi has told 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... chief Nabil al-Arabi that international humanitarian aid should be allowed into Syria, Chinese state media said.
"The international community should create favorable conditions in this regard and provide humanitarian aid to Syria," state news agency Xinhua quoted Yang as saying.
On Tuesday, Russia had urged Syria to cooperate with the Red Thingy to allow the relief agency to deliver aid.
"It is important that the Syrian government cooperates with the International Committee of the Red Thingy," said Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov.
U.N. political chief B Lynn Pascoe told the Security Council "well over 7,500" people have been killed Syria since protests against Assad's regime erupted in March last year.
Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem asked U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... to clarify the precise objective of the mission entrusted to Kofi Annan, his predecessor who has been appointed as U.N. and Arab League envoy, according to ministry front man, Jihad Makdissi.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Nearly every fourth non-German Muslim rejects integration, questions western values and tends to accept violence, according to a study commissioned by the German Interior Ministry and released late Thursday morning.
NYT
Never underestimate the brilliance of our federal bureaucracy.
The United States must assure Israel that if it delays any military moves against Iran's nuclear program, Washington will use its own might to stop Tehran from weaponizing its nuclear program, former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin wrote Thursday.
Two people, one believed to be an Afghan National Army service member and the other in civilian clothing, turned their weapons indiscriminately against International Security Assistance Force and Afghan National Security Force service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two ISAF service members.
[Dawn] Unidentified 
Wazoo
[Dawn] Two women and a child were killed on Wednesday when a bomb 
Mahmoud 
The Iranian and Pak crew of a hijacked 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
India's home minister said Wednesday that police had foiled an attack by suspected 
Hillary Clinton
[Dawn] IN the 2008 general elections, according to Election Commission data, over 560 female polling stations -- nearly 480 of them in 
JERUSALEM -- Russia has upgraded a surveillance station it maintains in Syrian territory in order to provide Iran early warning of an Israeli attack, according to the Israeli security-related blog Debkafile.
On Tuesday, an Egyptian court dismissed lawsuit brought by an 
Addressing a joint 
Asif Ali 
North Korea
Kim 
Hillary Clinton
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
The bloodbath of Shia 
It appears that the courts fail to appreciate the fact that perpetrators of terrorist violence are not immediately known to the victims or to the police. Their identities are ascertained much later as the case is investigated. Just because the accused have not been singled out in the first information report, which is filed immediately after the incident either by the victims or by the state, the courts should not necessarily acquit the accused, especially when other compelling circumstantial/forensic evidence is available to consider.
Lastly, missteps during prosecution have also resulted in acquittal of the accused. Most problems arise with witnesses who often change their testimony, fail to show up during the trial, offer contradictory testimony or settle with the accused. Most of the time the witnesses feel intimated by the accused and out of fear for their lives or that of their families, they refuse to bear witness. This suggests that there is an urgent need for a witness protection program in Pakistain to offer necessary safety to the witnesses in terrorism cases. In fact, the witness protection program may work only if the witnesses are settled abroad afterwards rather than having them settle in Pakistain where they will always be looking over their shoulders.
Missile defense chief tells 'Post' that Iranian advancements allow for 2,000-km. range; Defense Ministry upgrading Arrow 2, will test Arrow 3 this year.
Australia's Chief of the Army has vowed to take action over a private Facebook group of Defence Force members which contains racist, sexist and abusive material.
NEW YORK - 
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Hamid Gul
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
