President Obama paid a total federal tax rate of 20.5 percent on a gross adjusted income $789,674, a rate that may come in below that of his secretary.
Obama has spent the past week touting the Buffett Rule, which calls on those who make $1 million just a little more than Obama made to pay at federal tax rate of at least 30 percent. The rule was inspired by Buffetts comment that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary.
The most recent information about salary regarding Obamas secretary is for his former secretary, Katie Johnson, who is listed by the White House as having made $90,000 in 2010.
According to Wikipedia, Johnson is 31 years old and now attends Harvard Law School. I dont know about her personal life or what her deductions would be, so I cant assume any children or deductions.
On a $90,000 salary, she would pay $16,578 in federal taxes, $3,780 to Social Security, and $1,305 in Medicare taxes.
That adds up to a total federal tax burden of $21,663 on $90,000 in adjusted gross income, or a tax rate of 24 percent, well above Obamas rate of 20.5 percent, even though Obamas 2011 salary was nearly nine times the 2010 salary of his secretary.
Iran is concealing the destinations of its oil sales by disabling tracking systems aboard its tanker fleet, making it difficult to assess how much crude Tehran is exporting as it seeks to counter Western sanctions aimed at cutting its oil revenues.
Most of Irans 39-strong fleet of tankers is now off-radar after Tehran ordered captains in the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) to switch off the black box transponders that are used in the shipping industry to monitor vessel movements, oil industry, trading and shipping sources said.
Iran, helped by its customers, is trying to obfuscate as much as possible, said a senior executive at a national oil company that has done business with Iran.
And Iran may have countered a reported reduction in its oil sales in March by offering big discounts in the form of free freight, finance and insurance and generous credit terms, the sources said.
Europes July 1 oil embargo, and U.S. and European financial sanctions against Irans nuclear program have seen Tehrans oil sales drop to most Western destinations and drawn promises from some Asian buyers that they will cut purchases.
But cheap, covert sales may have curbed or even reversed the reduction in shipments, the sources say.
#1
If they've 'gone dark', doesn't that make them somewhat harder to find when they experience technical difficulties (like 'expectantly' filling with water)?
Just asking.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/13/2012 11:08
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#2
Costs as much to ship the stuff. If they're getting buyers by selling below market, they're not making as much money, which is not as good as making no money, but it's got to hurt.
Ships have transponders for a reason. Without one...and if, say, pirates disable it....
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/13/2012 11:08
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#3
Watch the ports of the usual suspects with reasonably sized economies: China, Russia. And it's not going to be too hard to see how long it takes them to return.
Given the Ships' dimensions + capacities in comparison to the really Big Boyz of the Energy Industry, etc. I would surmise that Tehran wants to be as inconspicuous as possible.
At first glance, the project appears relatively harmless. A Muslim group in Germany has set as its goal the distribution of millions of free Korans, so that the holy book of Islam finds its place in "every household in Germany, Austria and Switzerland," as the project website (German language only) states.
For months -- though most noticeably during the recent Easter holidays -- followers of the Salafist imam Ibrahim Abou Nagie have been handing out copies at information stands in city centers across Germany. The group, which calls itself "The True Religion," claims that 300,000 copies have already been distributed.
Increasingly, though, skepticism of the project is mounting among leading politicians in Germany, not least because of Nagie's own radical interpretation of Islam. Indeed, last autumn Nagie was indicted for public incitement to commit criminal offenses and for disturbing the religious peace.
And on Thursday, daily Die Welt reports that a video made a brief appearance on YouTube this week apparently targeting journalists that reported critically on the Koran distribution project. "We now have detailed information on the monkeys and pigs who published false reports about the (Frankfurt Salafist group) DawaFFM and many other brothers and sisters," the video, which has since been taken down, intoned, according to Die Welt.
"We possess a lot of information, for example, we know where you live, we know what football team you root for, we have your mobile phone numbers," it continues. The video names reporters from the dailies Frankfurter Rundschau and Tagesspiegel. Die Welt reports that the producer of the video has worked for Nagie in the past.
#1
This is just another lame attempt at a set-up (Step 1) for more aggreivement by The Religion of the Perpetually Aggrieved. Step 2: The Perpetually Aggrieved will get the collective vapors when the discover "The horror...the horror..." of loose pages from said Holy Crayons fluttering down various Strasse uber alle Deutschland. Step 3: The usual mayhem from The Perpetually Aggrieved resulting only in numerous deaths -- which, judging on results, is the only end The Perpetually Aggrieved are going for.
#2
See also CHINA DAILY FORUM > FIRST WE TAKE GERMANY, THEN WE GET THE REST [of Europe].
The 300,000 was part of a much Much MUCH M-U-C-H LARGER distribution by 25.0Milyuhn Korans by German Salafists.
The scheme has led to an outcry from the German Right + Center, enough to induce Germany's major political parties to demand close monitoring + overwatch of the country's Salafists + Movement.
* Lest we fergit, COLD WAR SAYING/AXIOM > NATO, WESTERN EUROPE IS IN DEEP TROUBLE IFF ANYTHING GETS THROUGH THE [West] GERMAN ARMY.
* CDF BLOGGER = GERMAN WILL BECOME MUSLIM.
[FNS CV "CHARLES DE GAULLE" + WILY PROPELLERS here].
An Albanian who had tried to travel from New York to Pakistan to join up with the jihad and "marry with the girls in paradise" pleaded guilty Thursday to terror charges. Agron Hasbajrami, 27, who lived in Brooklyn at the time of his arrest, is now facing up to 15 years in a US prison. He has agreed to be deported after serving his time.
Hasbajrami wired more than $1,000 to terror groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and began emailing with a Pakistani terrorist militant.
Hasbajrami wrote that it was difficult to get donations from his fellow Muslims when they found out that the money was intended for jihad
Good for them.
"Pshaw. Depriving widows of needed ammunition? And you folks call yourselves 'religious'? Just you wait until we talk with the local hard boyz at the Heyan Ima Takileak."
and that he wanted to travel abroad to "marry with the girls in paradise." The Justice Department said in its statement that this was taken to mean he wanted to die as a martyr.
Nothing gets past this Justice Department.
In a statement, FBI assistant director Janice Fedarcyk said, "If not for his arrest, he would have traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad and aim to kill American soldiers. Our mission includes not only preventing acts of terrorism here but also preventing would-be terrorists from going abroad to harm Americans."
Hasbajrami was arrested in September 2011 at JFK International Airport in New York while attempting to board a flight to Turkey. His intent was to go from there to Pakistan to join a terrorist militant group. He had a one-way ticket, and was bringing a tent, boots and cold-weather gear.
After his arrest, police searching his home found a note that said, "Do not wait for invasion, the time is martyrdom time."
This should be the most important election of our lifetime. But its clear that something is seriously wrong. How can we be having such an underwhelming, uninspiring and irrelevant election campaign at such a critical juncture?
The very fact that 2012 is being carried out as if it were no different from any other election, at an extraordinary moment when profound international challenges loom, and serious national crises have gone unaddressed speaks to the ultimate disconnect between the people and their elected leaders.
#1
A great many people have come to the realization that elections don't matter, that all the same crap is going to happen regardless of who is elected, and that the elections are fraudulent just like any banana republic.
#2
..as though we've finally figured out that it is the Inner Beltway Party vs the proles Hinterland. The Outer Party bureaucracy simply follows the lead.
#3
A Ronald Reagan type did not show up for this election so we need to figure out who will do the least damage and hope they turn out far better than we fear.
And those unwilling to hold their noses should at least show up for the down ticket votes because no matter who wins the executive branch we will want to restore Congess as the power balance it was created to be.
Lufthansa German Airlines canceled the plane tickets of dozens of passengers planning to participate in the "flytilla" attempt to land en masse at Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday, #Airflotilla2 website reported Friday.
The pro-Palestinian website uploaded a scanned image of one of the canceled tickets that a passenger had received, and reported that the same notification had been sent to dozens of activists on Thursday, informing them that their reservation had been canceled "by order of Israel."
#Airflotilla2 is an online campaign supporting Welcome to Palestine 2012, the umbrella organization overseeing the initiative.
According to the campaign organizers, Lufthansa informed the passengers that "Israel produced a list of names of persons to whom this country denies entry," and that their names were on the list.
The message quoted by #Airflotilla2 stated that their tickets had been canceled and they would be refunded. According to "Welcome to Palestine 2012, some of the people whose flights were canceled are not associated with the campaign.
Turkey has resurrected the prospect of western military intervention in the Syrian crisis, threatening to invoke NATO'S self-defence mechanisms over violations of its territory by Assad regime troops.
Now there's an interesting ploy...
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, repeated calls for United Nations action against Syria, and went on to refer to Article 5 of the Nato treaty. That calls an attack on one Nato member like Turkey an attack on all members.
Invoking the treaty would allow Nato members to take military action against Syria legally without a UN security council resolution. Article 5 has only been invoked on one previous occasion -- in the action taken against Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.
"Options are plentiful," he said, referring to shooting incidents on the Turkish-Syrian border which sent bullets spraying into refugee camps on three consecutive days earlier this week and killed four Syrians. A Turkish official and interpreter were also injured.
"Nato also has duties regarding Turkey's borders, according to the fifth article," he added.
For Nato to take action after a relatively minor border incident would be unprecedented. But the threat to invoke the treaty's legal cover will alarm the Assad regime, which has so far been confident that there is little the West can do to harm it so long as China and Russia continue to exercise their veto.
Question is whether France and Germany would honor an Article 5 call: if they don't, NATO is finished, finished, finished. Expect a LOT of push-back so that Erdogan doesn't make the call in the first place.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/13/2012 10:34
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#2
Sheesh. Just because of something I read recently with no connection to this, I think about the justice of insisting the murderers of Duke Ferdinand be turned over.
So NATO does...what? This time, the Russians have an interest. And resources at hand.
"This whole thing is going to get out of hand and we'll be lucky to live through it."
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/13/2012 11:13
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#3
I'm sure NATO could file the request in line just behind it's paperwork requesting Turkey to allow the 4th Division to transit to Iraq from 2003. We'll get right on it, with all due deliberation.
#7
If I remember correctly, Turkey hemmed and hawed about moving the 4th ID across the country....before they bagged it.
Hemming and hawing and stalling is what bureaucracies do best. Nato can take a tip from the Turks.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/13/2012 20:29
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#8
Gabby. Thanks for the correction. Thing is, it isn't Connery we have to worry about. It's Putin. Not that something will blow up the first time a NATO soldier lands in Syria, or a NATO bomb hits Assad's outhouse. But the odds for inadvertent consequences multiplying each other are greater than in Libya--some Russian naval forces in the area, for example--and moving more toward the Balkans' level. Remember that Gen. Wesley Clark ordered a Brit officer to take an airfield back from the Russians who had gotten there first. The Brit declined to start WW III. Good on him.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/13/2012 21:15
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Pakistan will deport the widows and children of Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia next week after their jail sentence for illegal residency ends, according to their lawyer. Aamir Khalil said, "They are likely to be deported to Saudi Arabia on April 18, as their sentence ends on April 17."
Earlier this month a Pakistani court sentenced the women to 45 days in prison for staying in the country illegally . It ordered their deportation after the prison term which began on March 3 when they were formally arrested. The three widows and the children were among 16 people detained after the US raid. Two of the wives are Saudi nationals, and one is from Yemen.
Four men pled not guilty Friday as they went on trial in Denmarkover a suspected plot to massacre the staff of a newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
...whose previous roommates, Elias Billé Mohamed and Mohamoud Jama, were jailed for plotting suicide kaboobs in the name of al-Shabaab...
and Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, all Swedish citizens of Tunisian, Lebanese and Moroccan origin respectively, along with a Tunisian national living in Sweden, Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, face charges of "attempted terrorism."
Prosecutors say the four were plotting to "kill a large number of people" at the Jyllands-Posten daily's offices in Copenhagen when they were arrested on December 29, 2010.
Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons in 2005 of the Prophet Mohammed that triggered violent and sometimes deadly protests around the world.
A machine gun with a silencer, a revolver, 108 bullets, reams of duct tape, and $20,000 were among the items found in the men's possession when they were arrested.
Danish police, who had been collaborating with their Swedish counterparts and had been wiretapping the men, swooped in just after hearing them say they were "going to" the newspaper office.
One of the two prosecutors, Henrik Plaehn, told the Glostrup district court that a ceremony celebrating the Sporting Newcomer of the Year at the newspaper was likely the target of the suspected plot.
In addition to a number of sports celebrities, Danish Crown Prince Frederik was present at the ceremony.
After years of failure, Iran and the six world powers may finally be able to revive nuclear negotiations when they meet again Saturday, each by offering concessions the other side keenly seeks.
The West's strongest hand is sanctions as it comes to the table in Istanbul. Iran in turn, may dangle the prospect of halting uranium enrichment to a higher level that would shorten the path to making warhead material should Iran opt to go that route.
The U.N. sanctions squeeze has in recent months been tightened by U.S. and EU economic penalties that threaten to bite into Iran's main cash cow, oil. But not all have been enacted, and diplomats tell The Associated Press that some may be put on hold if Tehran shows readiness to compromise.
They demanded anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential negotiating strategy.
Russia will keep a permanent naval presence off Syria's coast to match the growing number of Western warships monitoring the 13-month crisis, a top defence official said Friday.
"A decision has been taken to keep Russian navy ships permanently stationed near Syria's coast," the RIA Novosti state news agency quoted a senior defence ministry official as saying.
The unnamed source said the move was taken in response to the growing number of US warships in the region as well as those from European naval powers Britain and France.
Russia at the start of the month dispatched the Smetlivy guided-missile destroyer to the coast of its Soviet-era ally.
The defence source said several Russian warships -- including those capable of landing ground forces in Syria -- were now being prepared for Mediterranean Sea missions. The next warship sent to the region "could be the destroyer escort Pytlivy or one of the big amphibious assault ships," the Russian defence official said.
Earlier reports said the Smetlivy ship Russia now has off Syria's coast had planned to dock at the Tartus naval base that Moscow leases from Damascus.
The Syrian port is the last Russia has in the Mediterranean after an era of Soviet naval dominance and Moscow is keen to preserve its rights to the site.
A Saint Vincent-flagged cargo ship operated by a Russian company that docked in Tartus in January was reportedly delivering munitions for regime forces despite a Western arms embargo on Syria.
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili ||
04/13/2012 9:00
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#2
Jury is still out on skittle farts tho...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/13/2012 10:22
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#3
In science there is generally an alternative explanation. In this case GW is just an artifact of how and where measurements are taken, adjustments, etc.
#6
The temperature went down to 27 F this morning. My fig tree and both grape vines leaves died. I hope the tree and vines weren't killed. Global Warming my ass. (And I don't mean Donkey Quixote)
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/13/2012 16:36
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#7
In other news, a report of a new species of Pig in the Capitol Building was incorrect. The person in question was released from a Virginia farm after the person's family identified them from a photo-array.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/13/2012 18:41
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h/t Gates of Vienna
Earlier this week, Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke again warned that out of control borrowing and spending will eventually destroy the country.
Said Ben to the the Budget Committee:
Sustained high rates of government borrowing would both drain funds away from private investment and increase our debt to foreigners, with adverse long-run effects on U.S. output, incomes, and standards of living. Moreover, diminishing investor confidence that deficits will be brought under control would ultimately lead to sharply rising interest rates on government debt and, potentially, to broader financial turmoil. In a vicious circle, high and rising interest rates would cause debt-service payments on the federal debt to grow even faster, resulting in further increases in the debt-to-GDP ratio and making fiscal adjustment all the more difficult.
#2
That scenario would never happen. The USA would just renege on its debts.
The USA is the least trade dependent economy in the world by a long a way. The USA reneging on its debts would result in industries repatriating and would produce a domestic boom.
#5
The guy who wrote "stop me before I kill again" at one of his murder scenes just died in prison recently. We should be so lucky as to have the same happen to the serial spenders
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/13/2012 19:27
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As spaceborne energy-harvesting schemes go, this one seems faintly possible an array of curved mirrors directing sunlight toward solar cells, their energy production microwaved down to Earth. Its so realistic, actually, that NASA is providing funding for a proof-of-concept study. Harry Stine rules!
Beats burning raw materials for synthetics industry for energy
#3
Actually they were all set to do this during the 60's to power los angeles but guess who sued them and ran the company out of money. Environmentalists. They claimed that the collector would damage the ecology of death valley.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
04/13/2012 6:27
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#4
Does anyone seriously think this will fly, once the Left/Greens figure that bit out.
IMO, watermelons' arguments only work on people who:
(i) Comfortably off.
(ii) Believe this to be a natural state of affairs, which will last for ever.
#5
"High Frontier" by o'Neill many years ago. Same idea.
Then there's Asimov who had a collection staion on Mercury, sending the energy back in a narrow beam. The robot in charge started getting whacky and we had a robot's rules of order story.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
04/13/2012 8:45
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#6
Before everyone jumps on the solar power in space bandwagon (which was the initial proposal for the ISS back in the Reagan era) consider the cost. It costs millions to put a bag of M&Ms up there let along a giant, fragile, solar array. This is just a multi-decade pipe-dream.
Now if this was made from high ground, using lunar materials and all it would be practical but we are a long way from having that sort of space presence.
#8
Try everything. Drill, frak, build nuke plants, cut red tape to encourage private solar on rooftops, mandate flexifuel on new engines, and set prizes for anyone that can make wind or tidal power or whatever work.
#9
The program would hinge on cost, engineering and dangerous side effects from the microwave power transmissions. I suspect that would create a definite "no fly" zone due to effects to passengers and equipment. I wonder if it would fry birds, bats, bees as well.
#14
I regret to say that I only have but 1.080 kilowatts of solar cells to give to my country.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/13/2012 16:13
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#15
I understand economy of scale, I also understand putting all your eggs in one basket is rarely wise. The US is a very large country, there is no reason we should only consider one option. Especially options that demand an army of union employees to run and that create targets for enemy exploitation.
....The thing about communism, at least to the uninitiated, is that it appears to be identical in all respects to a hereditary aristocracy. If one didnt know better, it would seem that the more communist a country, such as North Korea, the more it resembles a monarchy. In China, the children of the Politburo members are actually called princesses and princes, and they gad about in a style that makes the current European royalty look like a bunch of low-rent grifters.
British police arrested two teenagers after hackers targeted Scotland Yard's anti-terror hotline and posted a conversation between officials on the internet.
A group calling themselves Team Poison claimed to have carried out the cyber-attack in response to the detention of allegedly innocent people on terrorism charges and the recent ruling to deport a number of terror suspects to the US.
The group, which claims to have carried out similar assaults on other organisations including NATO, launched a two day "phone bombing" exercise against the anti-terror hotline, jamming the network and preventing callers from getting through.
It is understood Team Poison used readily available software to bombard the phone line, but routed the activity through a computer server based in Malaysia in order to hide their tracks. The hackers claimed to have exploited a "weakness" in the Scotland Yard's phone system to eavesdrop and record a conversation between officials discussing the incident. These recordings of were later posted on internet.
He said, "We done it due to the recent events where the counter terrorist command and the UK court system have allowed the extradition of Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdel Bary (sic) and a few others -- we also done it to due the new "snooping" laws where the GCHQ can 'spy' on anyone and everyone
In one recording, an alleged hacker, with an American accent, is heard goading one of the hotline operatives about the phone-bombing exercise.
The caller, claiming to be Robert West, told the official, "I got some terrorism for you here .... our philosophy is pretty simple, it's knowledge is power."
Worse for the security services is the question of how hackers managed to record a conversation between two officials within Scotland Yard discussing the incident.
One operative is heard saying that the anti-terror hotline had been inundated with hundreds of calls from the hackers. In a recording posted on the internet he is heard to say, "We have been subjected to a barrage of calls from a group called Team Poison. We have had about 700 calls over the last couple of nights. One of the conversations I had last night was leaked on YouTube. Everyone else calling was effectively shut out and could not through at all."
One member of Team Poison said, "It was very easy, they were using an old phone system which was vulnerable to a private phreaking method that we discovered.
"The guys at the Counter Terrorist Command are clowns, whilst listening in on them, all they do is socialise and joke around with other employees. But to be honest, they are the real terrorists, imprisoning innocent people without evidence and invading countries for their own benefit."
The alleged hacker claimed the attack was in response to Britain's treatment of terror suspects.
He said, "We done it due to the recent events where the counter terrorist command and the UK court system have allowed the extradition of Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdel Bary (sic) and a few others -- we also done it to due the new "snooping" laws where the GCHQ can 'spy' on anyone and everyone.
"Our members come from all over the world, we have no religion, no race, we are not affiliated with any other groups, we believe in equality for all & we're anarchists."
It is very important, now more than ever that we ensure American Citizens the blanket of security we DO provide other nationals. And many nations have fallen into other hands. We still have people there and it is always scarry.
This guy just wanted to see his Family, and Iran uses him as a political chip under sentence of death. He was not a hiker and he told them he was coming. They could have said no. That is end all be all - just wrong. They know it, does "POTUS" know it?
What shall happen when we lose more of North Africa and the Middle East?
Dozens of police arrested Mongolia's former president, raiding a house in the capital at dawn Friday after he refused investigators' requests to answer questions about corruption charges.
Anti-corruption investigators first tried to arrest Enkhbayar Nambar on Thursday night. They stopped his car but were foiled by his bodyguards who took him to a nearby compound, beginning a standoff that ended with the raid.
Now an opposition politician, Enkhbayar was a formidable figure in the robust democracy of Mongolia, a resource-rich but largely poor country between China and Russia. Serving as prime minister and then president for most of a decade until losing office in 2009, he presided over a period of robust growth but also a widening wealth gap and, critics said, runaway corruption.
The head of the Independent Agency Against Corruption, E. Ambarbat, said the corruption involved the illegal privatization of a government-owned hotel. He said, "We have been investigating the corruption case involving Enkhbayar for a year. However, he never showed up for questioning. We had asked him often to come for questioning."
While he and other authorities said the arrest was legal, Enkhbayar's supporters said it violated the former president's immunity and was politically motivated. After losing re-election as president in 2009, Enkhbayar had formed a new opposition party and was contesting a parliament seat in June elections.
Muslim-Canadian Sooraya Graham, a fine arts student at a university in British Columbia, didn't expect to find herself in the middle of a virtual hostage-taking when her project for a photography class was hung in the hallways of the university's art department. Her photo, a mural print of a woman wearing full Islamic dress and holding a bra in her hands while folding laundry, was torn off the wall by an outraged university staffer.
Graham found out last Friday after overhearing some students discussing the removal of "an offensive poster." She discovered the work in question was hers, and that the culprit had left a business card. It was a woman on faculty as an international adviser.
Graham said, "She had taken it to her office and held it hostage. She didn't want to return it unless I agreed not to hang it up again."
Graham said the dean immediately defended the work. The photo was returned and hung in a campus gallery, although it had been ripped during its removal.
Christopher Seguin, vice-president of advancement at the university said they fully stand behind the work and the incident does not reflect the views of the university. He acknowledged the photograph has provoked a heated debate among the student body and in the local Muslim community. "We listen to the concerns of all our stakeholders, but we maintain freedom of expression on our campus. There is nothing condoning hatred in this work, it is not a rude piece of art and we stand behind it."
Members of the Saudi Education Centre in Kamloops have spoken out in the media, criticizing Graham's photo mural and calling for her to post an explanation with the photo. Graham, who is Muslim but not of Saudi origin, said she doesn't believe the work needs to be explained. She said she chose the photo for the exhibit because "it humanizes the veiled woman."
Graham, who wears the niqab herself, said, "You often see the stereotype of the veiled woman being oppressed. We all wear the same undergarments, do laundry, go shopping. I was leaving it open-ended for others to interpret the photo in their own way."
Three men were gunned down as they left a mosque in Pattani province on Wednesday night, and a woman was wounded in a grenade attack at her home in Yala province on Thursday morning.
The three villagers were killed when gunmen opened fire on them as they left the mosque after prayers in Panare district. 16 spent AK-47 cartridge shells were recovered from in front of the mosque.
Police are investigating, but initially blamed Muslim terrorists militants.
A woman was injured by a grenade explosion at her house in Yalas Raman district on Thursday morning. The victim was identified as Dariyahasi Sama-air, 25. She was hit by shrapnel and taken to hospital.
Witnesses said a man riding pillion on a motorcycle tossed the grenade into the house. Police inspected the scene and found a big hole in the roof of the house and property inside was also damaged.
Five passengers were injured when a bus was attacked by gunmen on motorcycles in Pattani province on Friday morning.
The bus was traveling down the road when gunmen riding pillion on two motorcycles fired on the bus with assault rifles. The attackers then fled. The driver of the bus did not stop but drove on to ask for help from a security unit at a checkpoint. Five passengers were hit by the gunmen and were taken to the hospital.
Pakistan's Parliament approved new guidelines on relations with the U.S. in a vote that could pave the way for the reopening of North Atlantic Treaty Organization supply routes to Afghanistan.
Islamabad has blocked NATO from using Pakistan soil to provision troops in Afghanistan since November after the inadvertent killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in U.S. helicopter airstrikes. NATO and U.S. forces have had to reroute supplies through Central Asia, a more costly proceduren republics.
Pakistan's government and military had said it wouldn't reopen the routes until its Parliament had a chance to re-evaluate the country's relations with the U.S., a process aimed at dousing growing anti-U.S. sentiment in the country. The debate appeared to end Thursday with lawmakers voting to accept guidelines that include calling on the U.S. to end drone strikes in Pakistan and formally apologize for the killing of the soldiers.
Parliament also recommended that Pakistan allow NATO to begin using the supply routes again, but charge a higher fee.
#3
Strategypage has a good article on this: The big payday
Pakistan is willing to reopen its Afghan border to NATO truck traffic if a large ($1,000-1,500 per truck) bribe is paid. Apparently the size of the bribe is calculated to be a bit below the additional cost of moving in goods via Central Asian railroads. As NATO forces depart Afghanistan in 2014, Pakistan does not want to miss out on a one-time opportunity to make some money from the heavy traffic generated by NATO forces shipping their equipment home. Pakistani officials see this as a big payday for themselves.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/13/2012 21:45
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#4
At last check, the US is still refusing to end CIA-led Drone Strikes inside Pakland, but is mulling Islmabad's request for a formal apology -the US has admitted that "LIMITED" DRONE STRIKES inside Pakistan have been highly successful + effective.
* THE DIPLOMAT > [Activist Post = long] > US ATTEMPTING TO TRIGGER COLOR REVOLUTION IN PAKISTAN. AS PAKISTAN RE-ASSERTS NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY, THE US RESPONDS BY ARMING + BACKING BALUCHI REBELS.
#1
Like in old Soviet Union, where the Black Market would infiltrate prison to garner support, followers, contact, and monies.Like a hezbollah or a latin knight or MS 13 or ....
Stuntmen usually have cash, and if he does, he is spam.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2012
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Courtney Peldon aka Ashley in "Road to Hell (2008)" aka Amber in "Freeloaders (2011)" aka Cher Falwell in "Say It Isn't So (2001)" aka Becky Emerson in "Boston Public (20032004)" aka Candy in "Skin Walker (2004)" aka Patty in "National Lampoon's Adam and Eve (2005)" aka Tina in "Mortuary (2005)" (age 31)
[Dawn] Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Wednesday favoured resumption of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... supply but said only food should be allowed to pass through Pakistain.
Speaking to Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... Press Club representatives, who called on him here, Mr Iftikhar said there should be no permission to the arms and ammunitions' movement to Afghanistan in NATO containers and that NATO supply should be restored for food items only.He said everyone would accept parliament's decision on restoration of NATO supply as it was the country's supreme institution. He said no state had the right to interfere in others' affairs and rather, all states were bound by international laws to honour each other's illusory sovereignty.
"Our national interests are supreme to us. We will never compromise them with any international power, including the US," he said.
The minister said Pakistain wanted good relationship with all countries of the world on the basis of equality and would greatly appreciate international support for development.
He urged the US to reconsider its policies, especially regarding drone attacks, saying it's badly affecting the US image in the country and the world.
Mr Iftikhar said the drone technology should be shared with Pakistain for better results against war of terror.
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[An Nahar] A ceasefire in Syria appeared to be holding on Thursday, as the Syrian government and its foes traded charges of trying to wreck U.N.-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... envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... 's peace plan.
Renewed bloodshed on Thursday killed at least 23 people, putting to the test the hard-won ceasefire plan.
The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed nine people in Homs, six in Idlib, five in 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... ' countryside and two 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... The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) said earlier on Thursday that regime forces killed three civilians and tossed in the clink dozens more in defiance of its undertaking to Annan to halt all military operations and withdraw troops from towns and cities by 6 am (0300 GMT).
The SNC said the epicenter of Thursday's bloodshed was the flashpoint central region of Hama, long a focus of dissent to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... 's regime.
Spokeswoman Basma Qoudmani called for peaceful demonstrations across Syria to test the government's readiness to accept public shows of dissent. "The real test will be if there is shooting or not when people demonstrate," she said.
State media charged that it was the opposition who were jeopardizing the long-awaited truce, accusing rebel fighters of bombing a bus ferrying troops to their base in Syria's second-largest city Aleppo.
"An armed terrorist group used an bomb to target a bus transporting officers and non-commissioned officers to their unit in Aleppo. It killed a lieutenant colonel" and maimed 24 others, state news agency SANA said.
The interior ministry urged tens of thousands of people who decamped the violence both inside and outside the country to return home and offered an amnesty to opposition gunnies without "blood on their hands."
The rebel Free Syrian Army, for its part, insisted it was "100 percent committed" to the ceasefire in a conflict which monitors say has killed more than 10,000 people since March last year.
"The regime is being elusive. We are 100 percent committed to the ceasefire, but the regime is not abiding by it," FSA front man Colonel Qassem Saadeddine told Agence La Belle France Presse by Internet.
Saadeddine denied any involvement in the attack on the bus, dismissing the report as regime propaganda "to avoid fulfilling its commitment."
Among Syria's allies, China welcomed the regime's decision to uphold a "comprehensive ceasefire" describing it as a step towards a political solution. Russia called for more time.
Hours before the deadline expired, the military unleashed a lethal offensive against protest centers, killing 25 civilians on Wednesday, including 10 in the rebel stronghold of Rastan, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... Susan Rice said Assad's regime had intensified violence since it first committed to Annan's six-point plan on April 1.
"Its commitments therefore have little, if any, credibility ... given that track record," Rice said.
Annan's plan calls for the withdrawal of forces from urban areas, a halt to fighting, a daily two-hour humanitarian truce, the release of arbitrarily jugged people, freedom of movement for journalists and the right to demonstrate.
SNC chief Burhan Ghalioun urged the international community to "monitor its implementation in full, mainly the right to demonstrate... and to provide the means to protect the people if the regime violates the plan."
"International observers should be on the ground as soon as possible," he said.
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[An Nahar] At least five people, including three civilians, were killed late Thursday when a jacket wallah struck in northern Afghanistan, police said.
The attack in Kunduz city was the latest in a wave of violence recently that has left dozens of Afghan civilians as well as Afghan and foreign security forces dead or injured.
"I confirm that three civilians and two coppers were martyred in a suicide kaboom in Kunduz city this evening," interior ministry front man Sediq Sediqqi told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding that five other civilians were also injured in the blast.
It was not immediately clear who the target of the attacker was, but a local official speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... said the head of the provincial rapid reaction force commander Abdullah Guard was among those injured in the blast.
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[Dawn] An activist of the Pakistan People's Party was gunned down in North Karachi on Wednesday night, police said.
They added that Rashid Baig, 25, was targeted by gunmen riding a motorbike near his house within the remit of the Khawaja Ajmair Nagri police station.
The victim sustained two gunshot wounds and was rushed to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where he died during treatment, the police
said.
Following the killing, tension gripped the locality.
SP Gulberg Division Tanvir Odho confirmed to Dawn that the victim was an activist of the PPP.
District Central PPP President Sohail Abidi said that Mr Baig was an active party activist like his brother, Amir Baig, who was an
active member of the PPP's wing of People's Youth in PS-98 constituency.
Mr Abidi said that the incident seemed part of the ongoing targeted killing of party activists in the city.
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CAIRO (IRIN) -- A coalition of 100 Egyptian child rights advocacy groups is intensifying its pressure on the government to take measures to counter rising child abductions across the country, threatening to resort to the UN if the government does not take action.
"The government does not attach enough importance to the problems suffered by children," Hani Helal, secretary-general of the Egyptian Coalition on Children's Rights, told IRIN. "This leads to increasing violations against the children. But if the government does not act now, we will have to take the matter to the UN."
A noticeable rise in child abductions has swept through the country, with the media reporting a new child abduction case every day - either in the capital Cairo or in the other governorates, putting parents on alert and challenging the police service.
The Interior Ministry has not given exact figures about the rise in child abductions, but independent security experts say it has increased as much as threefold since a popular uprising ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in February 2011. The political transition has been accompanied by an almost total collapse of Egypt's security system, with police absent from the streets for extended periods of time.
"The kidnapping of children has become a very worrying phenomenon," ex-policeman and security expert Maher Zakhry told IRIN. "Our country's deteriorating security conditions make this crime more possible."
Egypt's National Motherhood and Childhood Council called on the government to take action against what it described as a "rising crescendo of child abductions", warning against the serious consequences of turning a blind eye to the problem. The council has launched a new hotline service through which it can receive complaints by parents, refer them to police and better lobby the government.
The Coalition on Children's Rights says the number of calls about abductions it receives from parents has increased 300 percent -- from one or two a day before the revolution, to six or seven on some days now.
The Coalition on Children's Rights says the number of calls about abductions it receives from parents has increased 300 percent -- from one or two a day before the revolution, to six or seven on some days now. Helal says most of the people who call his coalition are poor and have no connections. They come from all governorates, but more often from Cairo and the coastal city of Alexandria. Most of the kidnappers know the families of the children they abduct, he added.
"We have major difficulties dealing with the government, which does not view children as first-rate citizens like everybody else," Helal said. "But what I want to say to the government is that its silence will encourage criminals to kidnap even more children in the future."
Advocates are calling for tougher action by the government against criminals; a larger police presence on the streets; and laws that would increase punishments for those who violate children's rights. Many Egyptians, especially activists involved in the revolution, believe the government is intentionally neglecting safety and security to increase a desire for "the good old days" under Mubarak and to justify the continued rule of the military council that took over after Mubarak left.
Motives
Anecdotal evidence appears to indicate two main motives for the abductions -- body organs and ransom money . Mahmud Al Badawi, head of local NGO Egyptian Society for the Assistance of Juveniles and Human Rights, says child abductions and organ trafficking are strongly interconnected in Egypt.
Anecdotal evidence appears to indicate two main motives for the abductions -- body organs and ransom money.
When Hayam Rabie left her one-year-old daughter, Alia, with neighbors in a vegetable shop while doing some shopping, it did not cross her mind that she would never see her again.
But when Rabie, a mother of two from the poor village of Damleeg in the agricultural governorate of Sharqia in the Nile Delta, came back one hour later, she could not find her daughter.
''As a sign of Egypt's deteriorating security conditions, child abductions have become an easy way for criminals to make money''
That was one year ago.
"Until four months ago, I had hopes that I could find my daughter," Rabie said. "But this hope turned to be a mere illusion."
Rabie discovered that one of her neighbors had kidnapped the girl, hid her inside her home for few days, and then killed her before she put her body in a sack and threw it in a village canal.
Mahmud Al Badawi, head of local NGO Egyptian Society for the Assistance of Juveniles and Human Rights, says child abductions and organ trafficking are strongly interconnected in Egypt.
When Rabie's relatives and neighbors broke into the house of her daughter's kidnapper, they found empty blood bags, syringes and tubes.
"Nobody understood why an uneducated woman would need these tools," Abdel Aleem Al Guindy, the girl's father, said.
The mother of a child kidnapped in Alexandria told private Al Nahar TV in February that her son heard children screaming and calling for help while held by his kidnappers. His parents paid a ransom to get him back.
"One of the kidnappers told my son that the children would be sold to body organ traders," the mother said.
Ransom
Security experts say most kidnappers demand a ransom from the parents of kidnapped children -- starting at 5,000 Egyptian pounds (US$833) and going up to six million pounds ($1 million), if kidnapped children's parents are wealthy enough.
A famous construction mogul had to pay two million Egyptian pounds ($333,000) in February to secure the release of his two grandchildren.
"As a sign of Egypt's deteriorating security conditions, child abductions have become an easy way for criminals to make money," ex-policeman Zakhary said.
He advises parents not pay ransoms, and instead to report the kidnappings to police. But child rights activists say the police do not have a very good track record of arresting or prosecuting kidnappers, and have only succeeded in rescuing children in a few cases.
In April 2011, police placed in long-term storage five suspects in relation to the kidnapping of the daughter of Effat Sadat, a businessman and the nephew of the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, but only after Sadat paid the kidnappers five million pounds ($833,000).
"Poorer parents, however, cannot find the money necessary for the return of their children," said Al Badawi of the juveniles' society. "This is why many of the abductions go unreported because the parents are simply not connected."
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Greece's Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on Wednesday set the stage for early elections on May 6 by submitting his resignation to the country's president after heading a five-month debt rescue.
Papademos was meeting with President Carolos Papoulias after telling the cabinet that a May 6 ballot was necessary to secure a new mandate for reforms to return Greece to growth and secure its place in the eurozone.
"These challenges constitute a national issue that the new government must handle. I recommend that a proposal be made to the president to dissolve parliament and hold elections on May 6," state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
NET quoted him as telling ministers.
A new parliament will be convened on May 17, the PM added, according to NET.
Under the constitution, the president will dissolve the current parliament and call for elections within 30 days.
Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president appointed as caretaker prime minister five months ago to complete a debt-saving deal for Greece, told the cabinet that the next government must draw up a new economic plan for 2013-2016.
The country must also pursue structural reforms to restore growth and keep its place in the eurozone, he said.
Papademos is expected to stay on to supervise the electoral process, along with most of his key ministers.
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[Yemen Post] French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has expressed delight that Yemen has achieved successes, stressing that La Belle France is to impose sanctions against Yemeni officials who impede the power transfer and rebel against decrees of Hadi, and freeze their assets, news reports stated on Thursday.
In a meeting with the Nobel Prize laureate Tawkol Karman on Thursday, he confirmed that La Belle France will take part in Yemen's Friend's Group, and provide food assistance for Yemen's children who suffer of malnutrition.
Hadi had issued last week a package of presidential decrees, but some of them were refused by those officials who are loyal to the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh. ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... During the meeting, Karman highly appreciated La Belle France's efforts in supporting the Yemeni revolution and the Arab spring as a whole.
"Hadi and the interim government faces challenges," she said. "Among the most challenging problems posed to Hadi is the divisions of the army and security forces."
She further stressed that the reunification of the military and security forces will maintain Yemen's security and stability.
"The stay of Saleh inside Yemen pose risks and challenges to Hadi, citing that Saleh spark turbulence and turmoil inside the state" she added.
Karman called on those countries that are witnesses of the GCC-mediated power transfer deal to stand by Hadi, indicating that the Yemeni youth were comfortable to the recent decrees issued by Hadi last week.
She urged the French government to play an effective role in supporting Yemen's economy, contribute in establishing to rehabilitate those persons who were maimed and handicapped during the revolution's events and help reliefs to the displaced persons.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A UN-backed ceasefire to end 13 months of bloodshed in Syria appeared to be holding after coming into force at daybreak today, prompting a call for fresh protests to test Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... 's peace plan.
China welcomed Syria's decision to uphold a "comprehensive ceasefire" describing it as a step towards a political solution, as Russia called for more time for the plan to work.
After breaking a commitment to pull back forces from population centres by Tuesday under the agreement brokered by former UN chief Annan, there were still no signs of a withdrawal, monitors said.
"The situation remains calm in all the regions of Syria," said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, almost six hours after the ceasefire deadline.
A "few kabooms" were heard in the town of Zabadani, just outside the capital, shortly after it came into effect, Abdel Rahman told AFP in Beirut.
"There have not been any serious withdrawals of checkpoint of military reinforcements in Idlib, Hama, Homs, the province of Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... or the northern 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... province," he said.
Activists in Damascus, Hama, and Daraa also reported that calm has prevailed since the deadline. The reports could not be verified due to the Damascus government's curbs on media.
"The test will be tomorrow, when demonstrators take to the streets" after the Mohammedan Friday prayers, a traditional high point for protests, said activist Muaz from Damascus.
Just hours before the deadline expired at 6 am, the military unleashed a lethal offensive against protest centres, killing 25 civilians on Wednesday, including 10 in the rebel stronghold of Rastan.
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#1
OTOH WAFF > PM: TURKEY MAY INVOKE NATO'S ARTICLE 5 OVER SYRIAN BORDER FIRE.
More popularly aka "An Attack agz One is an Attack agz All".
[An Nahar] 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. accused South Sudan on Thursday of "choosing the path of war," following days of intensifying festivities on their shared border.
"Our brothers in South Sudan have chosen the path of war, implementing plans dictated by foreign parties who supported them during the civil war," Bashir told news hounds, referring to decades of conflict before the South's independence last year.
"War is not in the interest of either South Sudan or Sudan but, unfortunately, our brothers in the South are thinking neither of the interests of Sudan or of South Sudan," he added.
Three days of heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... between rival armies this week, the worst since South Sudan won independence in July after one of Africa's longest civil wars, have brought the two former foes the closest to a return to outright war.
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#1
Bashir is in no position to accuse anyone of anything.
[Yemen Post] Amid amounting international and regional pressures on the former President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... to leave Yemen, he agreed to live in exile in a neighboring Gulf state, however, he stipulated that his tribal and military foes leave as well, Al-Kalij newspaper reported citing close sources from Saleh.
Saleh has set conditions for his departure including that Sadeq al-Ahmar, the powerful tribal chief of Hashed Tribal Confederation, Hamid al-Ahmar, Sadeq's younger brother and a prominent businessman, and Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division who was once his biggest ally, leave the country as well.
Sources have denied the media reports claiming that Saleh requested a written acceptance from the UAE government in order to leave Yemen, saying such reports are baseless and lack credibility.
Convinced by Soddy Arabia, and US, the UAE has accepted Saleh to live in it, but Saleh appears to be reluctant to leave Yemen as long as his opponents still in the country.
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The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has said he is considering stepping down a year early, potentially clearing the way for his successor to manage the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
Presidential elections are due in 2014, the same year western combat soldiers will complete their withdrawal. So that gives him a year's head start outta Dodge. Maybe he does remember what happened to Najibullah...
Karzai said he was weighing up concerns that managing big changes in leadership and security at the same time could be too heavy a strain on his country, after a decade with him in charge and foreign troops on the ground.
"I have been talking about this for some time now, and this is quite a good consideration, [whether] we cannot have all of that accomplished in 2014 because of the heavy agenda," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul, held with the visiting Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
"Should we allow the transition process to complete itself in 2014, but bring the presidential election one year earlier to 2013?" he said.
He also raised the possibility of bringing the security handover forward. Earlier this year he called for a speeded-up transition schedule.
Influential Afghans were last week questioning whether the election could go ahead on schedule, with talk of either delaying the vote or bringing it forward by a year.
The independent election commission said then it will not move the date, and no one else has the authority to do so, but if Karzai chose to resign it would probably precipitate a poll.
Named interim president in 2002, Karzai won five-year terms in 2004 and 2009 and so is barred by the constitution from standing again.
He has repeatedly said he will not seek another term in office, but both Afghan rivals and western diplomats in Kabul have voiced concerns he may use worries about security and stability to extend his rule. According to an influential member of the Kabul establishment, Karzai believes that if elections cannot take place in 2014, "he will hang in there for a couple more years."
Even if Karzai does step down from the presidency in 2013, he is unlikely to abandon politics entirely, one analyst and former official said.
"I don't think that he is ready to give up power in the near future, but he is thinking of a creative solution acceptable both to Afghans and the international community," said Davood Moradian, a political science professor at the American University of Afghanistan and former chief policy adviser to the Afghan foreign minister.
Moradian said some of Karzai's advisers were attracted by the "Putin model". The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, stepped down as president after two terms, as required by his country's constitution, but became a powerful prime minister and this year was re-elected as president.
[Bangla Daily Star] Persons who got jobs in Bangladesh Railway East Zone in the last one year, almost all of them had to pay bribe ranging from Tk 2.5 lakh to Tk 6 lakh to a nexus of the zone's General Manager Yusuf Ali Mridha, some other bigwigs, and some leaders of local Railway Sramik League.
The allegation was made to The Daily Star by Railway Sramik Karmachari Sangram Gay Pareehad's Chittagong Divisional Coordinator SK Bari, and a private contractor for the railway department who did not want to be named.
The nexus also used to take bribe from private contractors in exchange for work contracts, they added.
Mridha quite often used to openly brag that the railway minister was behind him, Bari said adding that the syndicate even took money from the children of railway employees who were seeking jobs in the department.
Bari and the private contractor said many job applicants, who qualified for interviews after written tests, did not get the interviews because they could not pay bribes.
They also alleged that the railway department published advertisements for recruitment to more than 3,200 posts in 38 categories in October and November 2010. Tests of the applicants in many categories were completed by April last year and the deadline for completing the recruitment was August last year, but the deadline was extended to give the jobseekers time to arrange bribe money.
Bari said on May 19 last year there was a robbery in Mridha's bungalow that he shared with some of his colleagues. Additional Chief Engineer SM Liakat Ali of the department, who used to share the bungalow with Mridha, filed a case with Kotwali Police Station after the incident. In the case statement he mentioned that about Tk 2 lakh and other valuables including a laptop and some mobile phone sets were looted.
But Assistant Commissioner of Police Mahmud of Kotwali Zone said yesterday that five robbers who had been locked away by police weeks after the robbery later confessed to looting over Tk 12 lakh from the bungalow.
More than 100 workers and employees of Bangladesh Railway East Zone held a rally yesterday morning under the banner of Railway Sramik Karmachari Sangram Gay Pareehad at the Carriage and Wagon Repair Workshop in Pahartali demanding termination of Yusuf Ali Mridha from the job.
The demonstration was arranged after Mridha along with 3 others were caught in a car in Dhaka on Monday night with Tk 70 lakh in their possession.
Later the demonstrators brought out a march in front of the Central Railway Building.
Speakers at the rally demanded proper investigation of the allegations against Mridha and his associates, and demanded their punishment if proven guilty.
Gay Pareehad's Chittagong Divisional Coordinator SK Bari, and conveners Shahabuddin Ahmad and Nizam Uddin spoke at the rally among others.
Mridha could not be reached for comments as he did not receive phone calls despite repeated attempts over the last two days.
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[An Nahar] Syria's government on Thursday offered an amnesty to opposition gunnies without "blood on their hands," urging them to surrender as a U.N.-backed ceasefire entered into force.
"The interior ministry calls on gunnies whose hands have not been stained with Syrian blood to hand themselves in, along with their weapons, at the nearest police center. They would be released and all legal procedures against them would be terminated," it said, quoted by state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Syria also urged tens of thousands of displaced people who took refuge inside or outside the country due to violence to return home.
"The interior ministry calls on brother citizens, who were forced to flee their homes, whether to areas within the country or to neighboring states, to return home, and ignore propaganda and misleading news," it said in a statement carried by state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Some 25,000 Syrians have decamped to Turkey.
In Jordan, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has registered between 5,000 to 8,000 Syrians, but the kingdom's foreign minister Nasser Judeh said more than 90,000 Syrians have sought refuge in the country.
In Leb, there are around 16,000 Syrian refugees, according to the UNHCR.
The number of internally displaced people is not available.
Calm prevailed in Syria on Thursday after 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... said it would halt military operations against rebels at daybreak, on the day set by the U.N.-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... peace envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... as a deadline to implement a ceasefire aimed at ending 13 months of bloodshed.
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, the water was up to Jack's neck and still rising... state media reported that a "terrorist" attack killed a Syrian army officer and maimed 24 other people in second-largest city Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... on Thursday, accusing rebels of seeking to "torpedo" the U.N.-backed peace plan.
"An armed terrorist group used an bomb to target a bus transporting officers and non-commissioned officers to their unit in Aleppo. It killed a lieutenant colonel and maimed 24 other people" at 8:00 am (0500 GMT), the official SANA news agency reported.
State television said the gangs were "intensifying criminal operations in an attempt to destablize Syria and torpedo the plan" of international peace envoy Kofi Annan, which went into effect at 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
The head of Aleppo military hospital, Brigadier Osama Qashqash said that three of the maimed were at death's doors, SANA reported.
The government mouthpiece posted a picture of damage to the front of a civilian bus.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Thousands of people took to streets and clashed with police to protest the ruling Communist Party's move to remove popular leader Bo Xilai from its politburo and charge his wife with murdering a British citizen in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on Wednesday.
But local officials maintained that Chongqing residents were protesting "over a different issue'' without specifying what that was.
The British government had been pushing for a thorough probe into Neil Heywood's suspicious death. Heywood was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room last November. The matter was initially closed as the local police concluded that it was a case of a normal death. But it was reopened and Bo's wife, Bogu Kailai, charged was on Tuesday after his removal as Chongqing city chief sparked rumours of dissent and power struggle within the Communist party. Experts said the murder charge has come handy for the ruling party that was trying hard to ward off its worst crisis following Bo's removal as Chongqing chief. Bo, known as a Maoist leader, had been tipped to become a member of the party's Standing Committee.
Experts said Bo's sacking marks a turning point in Chinese politics and shows that the party is unwilling to tolerate effort to revive Mao's legacy . Bo had led a campaign to revive the legacy and carried out raids against what he saw as ill-effects of economic reforms like gambling and prostitution . Bo's campaign that included replacing TV advertisements with pro-Mao songs was seen as veiled criticism of party's pro-reform activities.
"The latest move shows president Hu Jintao's ...Hu has been involved in the Communist party bureaucracy for most of his adult life, meaning his viewpoint has a lot more theory than it does practice. He espouses a Harmonious Society approach, suggesting everybody should play nice or they'll be shot... regime will be replaced by a more harsh rule that will curb any sign of dissent with an iron hand," a Beijing-based diplomat said. The controversy over Bo began when Chongqing vice mayor Wang Lijun sought refuse in the US consulate and spent a night there. It now transpires that Wang was trying to protect himself from Bo's ire because he had tried to reopen Heywood's murder case involving Bogu. This had led to Bo's removal as the Chongqing city chief.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2012
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[Dawn] Two activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz were killed in retaliatory fire while they were forcing traders in the Khadda Market area of Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... to pull down shutters on a call by the JSQM for a province-wide strike, police said.
Over half a dozen persons, including three girls, were maimed in firing and at least four vehicles were destroyed in different arson attacks in certain areas. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... life in most parts of the city remained normal.
The strike call was given by the party after the family and party leaders rejected the initial findings of the doctors describing the death of Bashir Qureshi as natural.
The police said at least three persons, including two seminary students, were maimed when JSQM workers opened fire in an attempt to force shops' closure in Khadda Market. A group in the area fired at the activists in retaliation, leaving two of them maimed. Both were rushed to the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , where Ghulam Husain, 29, and his associate, Waqas aka Naqqash, 25, died during treatment.
Earlier, a passer-by maimed in firing in the area was taken to hospital for treatment.
In the Kalakot area, three girls were maimed when some gunnies opened fire in an attempt to force traders to pull down shutters.
Aitya, 8, Shaheen, 7, and Sara, 22, were passing through the area in a rickshaw when they sustained gunshot wounds. They were rushed to the Civil Hospital for treatment.
SSP-South Nasir Aftab said it was not clear if they were targeted or caught in crossfire.
Two passengers of Shiraz coach, Noor Shah and Muhammad Abdullah, were maimed when a couple of gunnies opened fire presumably to force all passengers to leave the vehicle before setting it on fire near Dua Hotel on Mauripur Road.
They also set fire to a truck parked nearby. The coach was destroyed in the blaze while the truck was partially burnt, the police said.
Earlier, a minibus of G-13 route and another of D-27 route were torched in Gulistan-e-Jauhar's Bakhtawar Goth and Safoora Chowk, respectively.
Safoora Goth and its neighbouring areas wore a deserted look with all shops remaining closed during the day.
Similarly, commercial activities in Gulshan-e-Hadeed had been suspended since late Tuesday night.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] With Mitt Romney ...whose real first name is actually, no kidding, Willard, was governor of Massachussetts and is currently the front-runner for president on the Publican ticket. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's foot is in an ideological bucket because of Romneycare, a state-level experiment that should have been a warning against Obamacare if anyone had been paying attention. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field... now all but assured of winning the Republican nomination, he embarks on one of his critical quests of the campaign: finding a running mate who can help him defeat President Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... Mr Romney took a huge step toward securing the role of flagbearer when rival Rick Santorum ...candidate for president and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a lawyer before becoming the Representative for suburban Pittsburgh in 1991. He lost his Senate seat in 2006 to Bob Casey, a Democrat machine politician and political dynast. Santorum is a social conservative whose primary attraction is seemingly that he is neither Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich... bowed out of the race Tuesday, and the chatter about who gets the nod from the former governor of Massachusetts has risen to a din.
But he quickly sought to dispel the notion that he might rush to find a partner for the ticket -- not after the controversy over Sarah Mama Grizzly Palin ... the babe libs love to hate ... , who was John Maverick McCain's ... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution... surprise running mate in their 2008 loss to Obama.
"No list yet," Mr Romney told Fox on Wednesday.
"That's a process which has not begun yet, but will probably begin pretty soon."
And so the "veepstakes" gathers steam, with Romney advisors eyeing potential Number Twos and poring over voting records and personal details in what is one of the most rigorous vetting processes endured by any politician.
Protracted strategizing over a vice presidential pick is standard, as a candidate mulls how his choice might impact the election.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/13/2012
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#1
Romney for Veep?
Well, beats Jo Jo.
(But not much)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/13/2012 0:37
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#2
Alan West, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Bolton, Rummy, and I shall not discount others.. yet. It's going to be a wartime President no matter whom. Need a good right hand.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/13/2012 7:55
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#6
"Alan West, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Bolton, Rummy"
I think we need to let Alan West, Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio season a bit. Both are a little new to politics. I think to some extent the Palin name was tarnished before its time by throwing her into the meatgrinder too quickly.
Jindal somewhat killed his national career by pushing Intelligent Design as forcefully as he did. It might not be a killer, but combined with a Mormon on the ticket I don't think its a great idea (then again it might satisfy those that really don't like a Mormon on the ticket, perhaps some polling needs to be done there).
Either Rummy or Bolton would be fine in my eyes. Hopefully there are other names as well out there we haven't even thought of yet.
#11
I think Ryan would be awesome. West and Rubio should devlier FLA. Not sure about Jindal yet. Give Palin Sec Interior or Department of Energy and let her excel and rebuild her tarnished image.
#14
I'd hate to see West or Rubio waste themselves on Romney. The trail to the Presidency via a losing VP run is very narrow. The only one that made it to my recollection was FDR who ran for VP and lost in 1924.
#15
"Let the VeepStakes begin" > D *** NG, I THOUGHT IT DID ALREADY!
Newt + Ron have said they're in it to the end - to avoid a split GOP ticket + foster Party unity, I see Romney picking one of them, IMO more likely Ron Paul than Newt due to some of Newt's past criticisms + Newt's very strong personal charisma.
But ya never know - "POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS". Would'nt surprise me at all iff Newt or Ron get a major Cabinet position.
(Sh.M.Network)- The governor of Banadir administration for Somali government Mohamud Ahmed Nur ( Tarsan) disclosed on Thursday that some TFG officials are involved the deadly suicide kaboom at the national theater in Mogadishu last week.
While chatting on the paltalk, a social networking with many Somali youths living outside the country, the governor cast suspicion related the attack on some officials in Somali government. He said: "there is a suspicion the TFG members could behind the attack."
"People are asked how the female attacker who carried out the kaboom has crossed from the security barrier of the national theater without checking or scanning by the guards. Who she is and where she was from? To answer These questions it should conduct a full investigation soon,, Said Tarsan.
Notably, the governor has not attended to event held the theater which was marking the first anniversary of Somali National Television. This created doubt.
The comments made by Mogadishu mayor followed after Al-shabab snuffies announced that the female bomber was allowed to enter the national theater and carry out the blast, according to Sheik Mohammed Abu Abdirahman, the representative of Banadir region for Al-shabab told a pro-militant local radio.
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04/13/2012
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#1
Whoa, RON ELY + MIKE HENRY are in Mogadishu - who knew???
[An Nahar] U.N.-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... envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... said Thursday that a ceasefire in Syria appears to be holding but Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... must carry out all parts of an agreed peace plan, as U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... said plans were being made to send an observer team to Syria as soon as possible.
"Syria is apparently experiencing a rare moment of calm on the ground," Annan said in a statement released as he briefed the U.N. Security Council on the 13-month-old crisis in which the U.N. says more than 9,000 people have been killed.
A ceasefire came into effect in Syria on Thursday and Annan said: "I am encouraged by reports that the situation in Syria is relatively calm and that the cessation of hostilities appears to be holding."
Annan added, however, that the Syrian government must carry out all parts of the agreed peace plan which includes a withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons from Syria's cities.
"All parties have obligations to implement fully the six-point plan. This includes both the military provisions of the plan and the commitment to move to a political process," he said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... Ban Ki-moon said that plans were being made to send observers to Syria, starting with the dispatch of a U.N. peacekeeping general as early as Friday.
"We are working to send an observer team as promptly as possible," Ban told a news conference in Geneva, saying Thursday marked a "critical moment" in the U.N.'s six-point plan for ending the violence in Syria.
Ban said he had spoken with Annan who said he would dispatch Norwegian general Robert Mood and his team "as early as tomorrow (Friday) as a way of preparing this observer mission."
Speaking about the ceasefire which came into force at 6:00 am 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... time (0300 GMT), the U.N. secretary general said: "The situation looks calmer. We are following it closely.
"The world is watching however with skeptical eyes," he added, since previous promises made by the Syrian regime "have not been kept."
"Once again I call on the government of Syria to fully implement ... the six-point plan," said Ban.
"I also call on the Syrian opposition to sustain the cessation of violence in all its forms," he said. "This is a time for a fundamental change of course. It's time to stop the killing."
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[Yemen Post] Yemeni government said on Thursday that a new sabotage attack took place targeting the supply power lines providing the Yemeni capital of Sana'a with electricity in Jaadan area in Marib province, where the main gas-operated power station is based.
"The first circuit of the electrical transmission lines Marib-Sana'a was subjected to a fresh sabotage attack today around 11.am in Marib," reported the official Saba news agency citing a high-ranking official in the General Electricity Corporation.
The saboteurs threw the lines with an iron chain connecting the power isolated lines, and thus forcing Marib Power Station to be out of service with all its capacity, the unnamed official explained.
Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... the power was blacked out again in Sana'a with residents complaining about the bad management of the power lines, which are subjected frequently to attacks since the outbreak of protests against ex President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... long rule, by the concerned authorities.
Ahmed Ali Al-Badoui told Yemen Post, "we hold the authorities responsible for the repeated attacks on power towers and lines as they are responsible for protecting them from any saboteurs."
"Since last year, we have heard of hundreds of attacks on the vital service transmission lines, but we did not hear, even for once, about the saboteurs being set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock and be severely punished for their crimes," he continued.
Last month, the electricity minister Saleh Sameih directly accused Saleh of being behind the attacks and demanded Saleh and other powerful figures pay the owed power bills.
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04/13/2012
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Idiots parading their 'goodness' instead of doing something helpful. We all saw the pictures from the article tipper posted yesterday -- Gaza is suffering from over abundance rather than otherwise.
BEIJING The mysterious death of a 41-year-old British businessman in a Chongqing hotel room late last year was thrust to the center of the biggest political scandal to hit Chinas Communist Party in a generation on Tuesday, as the authorities declared the death a murder and named the wife of one of Chinas most powerful men the leading suspect.
The death of the businessman, Neil Heywood, initially attributed to alcohol poisoning, is now considered an intentional homicide, the Xinhua news agency announced. That made the case the most sensational in a series of charges against the family of Bo Xilai, who was until March the Chongqing party chief and seen as one of the handful of rising leaders slated to run China.
On Tuesday, Mr. Bo was suspended from his post on the Politburo, the 25-member body that runs China, and from the larger Central Committee, on suspicion of serious disciplinary infractions, the government announced. His wife, Gu Kailai, who is a lawyer, was being investigated in the killing of Mr. Heywood.
Not since the purges after the crackdown on democracy protests in 1989 has the Chinese leadership been exposed to so much turmoil. Excruciatingly for top officials, who prize unity and secrecy above all, this one involves foreigners in an embarrassingly intrusive way both the death of a British citizen and also the attempt by a senior police official to seek American asylum.
That official, Wang Lijun, a onetime close aide to Mr. Bo who was himself under investigation for corruption, fled to the consulate of the United States in Chengdu in February and spent more than 30 hours there. He said Mr. Heywood had been poisoned and revealed what he knew about the death and about jockeying for power inside the countrys closed political system, several people briefed on the matter said.
Although he handed over a treasure trove of intelligence, Mr. Wang was told he could not be granted asylum. He left the consulate and was taken into custody, where he has been since.
Mr. Bo has also been under some form of confinement since mid-March, and his wife, too, has been detained. No one representing any of the three could be reached for comment.
Mr. Heywood was an elusive business consultant who married a Chinese woman and carved a lucrative career in Beijing and Chongqing while keeping other British businessmen guessing about how he made much of his money, and he hinted of deep links to the Bo family.
When his body was found in a hotel room on Nov. 15 in Chongqing, the alcohol-poisoning death certificate was issued, although friends said Mr. Heywood rarely drank. His relatives said that they had been told he died of a heart attack, and that the body was cremated with their consent, without autopsy.
The announcement of an intentional homicide appeared to surprise the British government, which had seemed anxious in recent weeks to distance itself from a major Chinese political scandal, saying that suspicions about the death they had passed to the Chinese were those of other Britons in China, not anything they could substantiate on their own.
After an urgent huddle with other British officials, William Hague, the British foreign minister, told reporters in London: Its a death that needs to be investigated, on its own terms and on its own merits, without political considerations. So I hope they will go about it in that way, and I welcome the fact that there will be an investigation.
Xinhuas statement appeared to confirm one of the swirling rumors in the case, that Mr. Heywoods death was linked to business dealings gone awry. The Chinese news agency said Ms. Gu and her son, Bo Guagua, had had close relations with Mr. Heywood but later had a conflict over economic interests. But Xinhua did not specify how Mr. Heywood died, or what business interests were involved. The only other suspect in his death, Zhang Xiaojun, was described as an orderly working in Mr. Bos home.
The shock of the Chinese announcement claiming that a member of the ruling elite was linked through his wife to a possible murder, and that the killing grew out of private business interests of the kind that have made many Chinese officials rich had far-reaching implications for the way that China is governed. The impact was amplified since China is facing a once-in-a-decade shift in power this fall to a new generation of leaders. Mr. Bo, 62, had become a contender for a seat in the inner sanctum of power, the nine-member standing committee of the Communist Partys Politburo.
A charismatic figure, Mr. Bo tried to build his political stature by taking a page from the political playbook of Mao Zedong, presenting himself as a populist attuned to the interests of ordinary people and stirring up nostalgia for the hugely destructive Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, waged in the name of ordinary people against the Communist Party elite.
At the same time, Mr. Bo presided over a state-led economic boom in Chongqing, a provincial-level metropolitan region in southwestern China, and, detractors said, perverted the law enforcement process in what was billed as a campaign against organized crime. As the son of the legendary revolutionary leader Bo Yibo, he built a following among others with ties to Mao, as well as those unhappy with the get-rich-quick culture of recent decades among them, top generals and unreformed leftists in the Communist elite.
With Mr. Bos disgrace, top power holders in Beijing seem to have quashed his bid for power.
China is a socialist country ruled by law, and the sanctity and authority of law shall not be trampled, Xinhua said in its announcement of his ouster on Tuesday, attributing the remarks to unnamed senior officials. Whoever has broken the law will be handled in accordance with law and will not be tolerated, no matter who is involved.
According to one person who said he was briefly shown a copy of confidential information for party officials that was circulated on Tuesday, Mr. Bo was faulted for failing to oversee underlings, a reference to Mr. Wang, and mismanaging his family, a reference to the Heywood case, and flouting party procedures in those and other cases.
Significantly, the party document did not suggest Mr. Bo was a murder suspect, but rather implied he could have had a role in trying to cover up the killing by obstructing attempts to report the case and stripping Mr. Wangs police powers without party authorization.
The murder investigation appears to be based on information provided by Mr. Wang, who as the top police official in Chongqing was one of Mr. Bos closest aides until he sought refuge at the American consulate. Mr. Wang is now being investigated for treason for that, according to Chinese sources familiar with the case, but is being credited with having come forward with evidence in Mr. Heywoods death.
Before Mr. Heywoods death, Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang were already under scrutiny by central disciplinary authorities over corruption and other allegations, according to these sources, and to others with ties to senior party figures. If so, the evidence of a murder would have come as an opportune development in the inner-party struggle over the new leadership lineup.
During more than 30 hours spent at the consulate, Mr. Wang told officials that Ms. Gu had plotted to poison Mr. Heywood, and turned over a police file with highly technical documents, according to people knowledgeable about the case. But Mr. Wang, these people said, also apparently revealed far more: an unprecedented trove of knowledge on the leadership struggle.
A man answering the door on Tuesday at the London home of Mr. Heywoods mother, Ann Margaret Heywood, said she was not available for comment. But 10 days earlier, she rejected any suggestion that her son might have been murdered, insisting that he had a heart attack, like his father at age 63. I dont know where it comes from, this stuff about his being poisoned and so on, she said. This is not about Neil, this is about Chinese politics, and peoples desire to write about Chinese politics. It is absolutely horrid to be caught up in this side of things.
Friends of Mr. Heywood in Britain and China have said that his habit of giving little away about his business dealings left them with few clues as to what may have gone wrong in his dealings with Mr. Bos wife, Ms. Gu.
A maverick who chain-smoked, drove a Jaguar and loved sailing with his wife and two children, Mr. Heywood told friends he met Mr. Bo in the northeastern city of Dalian, where Mr. Bo served as mayor and in other posts from 1993 to 2004. He told a friend, a British journalist named Tom Reed, that he sent out letters of self-introduction to a flock of officials and that Mr. Bo answered.
There also Mr. Heywood met Wang Lu, whom he married. Later on, Mr. Heywood told friends, he was instrumental in getting the Bos son Guagua into his alma mater, Harrow, and in making the contacts that eased the sons way to Oxford.
Ms. Gu, who wrote a book about how she won a case in the United States, is listed as a partner in a Beijing law firm, but a spokesman there said she had not practiced at the firm for 10 years.
Mr. Reed said in an interview that the exact nature of Mr. Heywoods relations with the Bos was always unclear. I didnt get the impression it was anything commercial, Mr. Reed said. I got the impression it was much more informal. He said that three nights before Mr. Heywoods death, they met for dinner in suburban Beijing. Mr. Heywood said he had not seen Mr. Bo for about a year because of a falling out, and that back then someone in Bos inner circle was talking against him because of fears of his influence over Bo.
Mr. Heywood acknowledged that at one point he had been concerned, and even considered leaving China with his family, Mr. Reed said. But, Mr. Reed said: I got the impression that Bo had moved on, and Neil had moved on. He couldnt have seemed less worried.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/13/2012
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#1
Although he handed over a treasure trove of intelligence, Mr. Wang was told he could not be granted asylum. He left the consulate and was taken into custody, where he has been since.
#3
Typical NY Times bullshit. Bo didn't go the US consulate to try and defect, he went there to hole up until his buddies from the central government could get there with the cavalry to save his sorry ass. The locals had the consulate surrounded and the central government had to fight its way through to rescue him.
The British guy was a dumbass, never get involved in politics. Some foreigners seem to just forget they're foreigners. Typical Chinese murder, alcohol poisoning but the man was a teetotaler, and body cremated immediately afterwards without consent from the family.
#5
Can't blame MADAME CHIANG [Kai-Shek] on this one.
Or can they???
["DRAGNET" THEME here].
* ION CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > MARTIN JACQUES: BEIJING'S POWER STRUGGLES BIGGER THAN AMERICA'S.
I must agree - one of the historical promises of the CCCC now CCP/CPC has been to return China to its former glory. As OWG-NWO is IMO akin to PROTO SPACE GOVT-ORDER, China could easily end up becom a GIANT VERSION OF NORTH KOREA, LOST IN THE CONFUSION OF A WORLDWIDE = GLOBAL REORGZ FOR SPACE TRAVEL + COLONIZATION.
[Yemen Post] Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi instructed Defense Ministry to send the Counterterrorism Units in the Central Security Forces, the Elite Republican Guards and the Special Guard to the trouble-torn restive southern province of Abyan, trusted media sources reported on Thursday.
Counterterrorism units are equipped and trained by USA and UK and other countries involved in the war against terrorism such as La Belle France, with the aim of fighting the increasingly dangerous al-Qaeda branch in the country.
However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... the Counterterrorism Units (CTU) have not been involved so far for such purposes.
Hadi wants the well-trained forces to carry out unprecedented cleansing operations in Abyan, in which al-Qaeda has taken control of two towns and laying siege on the third, and Shabwa and Lahj provinces, according to the sources quoted by Marib Press.
The gulf Al-Kalij newspaper reported on Thursday citing familiar sources that CTU forces will be sent within the coming two days to areas controlled by Ansar al-Sharia ...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends... , al-Qaeda offshoot in the country, and will be involved in streets shootouts with the terrorists.
Hadi has further ordered the commanders of the Eastern and Southern Military Regions to provide the CTU forces with all required assistance, according to Al-Kalij.
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[Yemen Post] Violent festivities have become more violent between Al-Qaeda and the newly-formed tribal committees backed by the Infantry 111 Brigade in Lawdar district of Abyan governorate, local sources affirmed.
The Defense Ministry stated on Wednesday that dozens of Al-Qaeda gun-hung tough guys were killed during the escalation of confrontations, pointing out that Al-Qaeda leaders were killed on Wednesday , pointing Saudi, Pak and Somalis nationals were among the killed.
Local sources cited that the chief of the local council of Lawdar, Mohammad Juabol Sheikh, was killed on Wednesday as a result of shells fired by Al-Qaeda gun-hung tough guys against Lawdar.
They reitrated that Al-Qaeda targeted the electricty station on Thursday and completely destroyed it, leaving two rustics who were inside the station killed.
The sources affirmed that the public committees managed to detain Ahmed Darawish, a big shot of Al-Qaeda in Abyan.
Meanwihle, military sources said Yemen President Abud Rabo Mansour Hadi ordered to send military reinforcements to engage in street war with Al-Qaeda gun-hung tough guys in governorates of Abyan, Shabwah and Abyan, military sources said on Wednesday.
Security sources had revealed that Al-Qaeda has plans to capture some areas, as well as carrying out some armed operations against vital government facilities, particularly in southern governorates.
Al-Qaeda gun-hung tough guys could capture some Yemeni towns in the South following the popular protests that hit most Yemeni governorates in 2011.
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[An Nahar] China has closed 42 websites and deleted more than 210,000 posts since mid-March in a crackdown on online "rumors", state media said Thursday, as a major political scandal rocked the country.
The announcement on the official Xinhua news agency came as Chinese authorities ramped up efforts to control online speculation about the purge of a top leader whose wife is suspected in the murder of a British businessman.
It did not refer to this week's dramatic developments surrounding the high-profile and populist former leader Bo Xilai, who was sacked as Chongqing party secretary last month.
But China's weibos -- microblogs similar to Twitter that have taken the country by storm -- have buzzed with speculation about Bo's suspension from the powerful 25-member Politburo and the investigation of his wife for murder.
"Actions of creating and spreading rumors via the Internet disrupt public order and undermine social stability, and will never be tolerated," the report quoted Liu Zhengrong, an official with the State Internet Information Office, which controls the web, as saying.
Bo had been tipped to join an elite group of leaders who effectively run China later this year, and his downfall is the biggest drama to hit the Communist Party in years.
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#1
There are many things about Bo. He has widespread presence internet and popular appeal, besides having his opponents tortured and imprisoned and now in exile. The ability of BO to be tenacious in his attention to "new media" gave him an edge over many others.
Old core is not only uncomfortable about this, they do not want to confront it right now. He is one that oversaw evil in his term in sight. but in China, he may be one you would want to keep around. As far as districts go, he spurred economy and is quite popular.
CAIRO (IRIN) -- Rising poverty, overcrowded public transport, and sprawling slums threaten to reverse the gains made in eradicating tuberculosis in Egypt, experts say.
In recent days, the government has released new figures showing a significant decrease in mortality caused by TB.
But medical experts warn the government will never be able to stamp out the disease through a narrow medical approach. Rather, it must tackle the socio-economic problems at the disease's root if it is to avoid a dramatic increase in infections.
"Our slums, our transport, and the poor economic conditions of millions of Egyptians make many people prone to the disease," Mahmud Amr, a chest disease expert from Cairo University, told IRIN. "TB will continue to shatter the lives of thousands of people as long as no progress is made in these areas."
The political instability that followed the overthrow of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 sent Egypt's economy into a downward spiral.
In 2011, 25.2 percent of Egyptians became poor, up from 21.6 percent in 2009, according to the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. More than half of these poor people lived in Upper Egypt, it added.
"Although most tuberculosis patients are poor, poverty itself is not the problem," said Ahmed Attia, head of local NGO Egyptian Society for Fighting Tuberculosis. "The problem lies with the living conditions this poverty brings to people."
In 2007, 12.2 million people lived in 870 slums across this country, according to CAPMAS. With whole families living in narrow rooms and sharing toilets and sewage-filled alleyways, these slums, experts like Amr say, offer fertile soil for the spread of serious diseases like TB.
TB is the third greatest killer in Egypt, after Hepatitis C and Bilharzias, according to Amir Bassam, deputy chairman of parliament's Health Committee.
Naeema Al-Gasseer, the World Health Organization representative in Egypt, says Egypt is one of nine countries out of 23 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (which stretches as far as Pakistan), where 95 percent of the region's TB patients live.
In a recent interview with private TV station CBC, Al-Gasseer linked TB to poverty and malnutrition, which also appears to be rising in Egypt, saying "malnutrition is a big problem for both children and adults."
Progress
Despite the challenges, Egypt has managed to make remarkable progress in TB control, according to the Health Ministry.
Health Minister Fouad Al Nawawy outlined in recent statements to the media huge drops in the effects of TB from 1990 to 2011: TB incidence, the number of new cases every year, fell from 34 per 100,000 to 18 cases per 100,000.
TB prevalence, the total number of infections in any given year, fell from 79 per 100,000 to 24 per 100,000; and the mortality rate, the number of people who die from TB every year, fell from 4 per 100,000 to 1.1 per 100,000, he said.
Egypt offers free medical treatment to TB patients in around 32 chest hospitals and the Health Ministry hopes to eradicate the disease altogether by 2019.
But independent experts say the incidence of TB is far higher than the official numbers of 18,000 new patients every year. In a sign of the skepticism that exists in some camps, one lawmaker asked the Health Ministry to give a full breakdown of TB figures in all governorates.
"The public has the right to know all the facts," said Basel Adel during a session of parliament on 9 April. "The Health Minister has to tell us what preventive measures his ministry has taken to prevent the spread of these diseases," he said in reference to TB and meningitis.
"There must be immediate action to control these diseases or the present government will be repeating the same mistakes of the governments of the former regime."
The number of patients in the country's chest hospitals, for instance, seems to belie claims that the disease is on the decrease.
"We have 50 beds at the TB section," said Mahmud Abdel Aziz, the head of the Abassiya Chest Hospital. "These beds are always full. When a patient is treated, he/she gets out for other people on the waiting list to take their place."
Challenges
Experts say Egypt's ability to make progress in TB control hinges on its success in improving the living conditions of slum dwellers; making its public transport less crowded; and reducing poverty.
"Patients - most of them are poor people from the slums - use public transport, which is always busy, and pass the infection on to others very easily," the Health Committee's Bassam said. "The nation's prisons are also hotbeds for infection."
Described in numerous human rights reports as being dirty, unfit for human use, and suffering an extreme lack of health care, Egypt's prisons, according to people like Bassam, send out to society a large number of TB patients.
This is why Health Ministry specialists pay regular visits to the prisons to make sure they do not turn into centres for TB infection, according to Essam el-Moghazi, head of the Tuberculosis Section at the Health Ministry.
"We must take firm action to eradicate this disease," el-Moghazi said. "This is why we need everybody to contribute to this action, or this disease can spread like wildfire," he told IRIN.
#1
Islam, rising poverty, overcrowded public transport, and sprawling slums threaten to reverse the gains made in eradicating tuberculosis in Egypt, experts say.
#2
Let's see...what do they have going for them...they have the pyramids and the sphynx but now the tourists are afraid to go there...so what's left? Cotton and the Suez Canal. Anything else?
Oh, when those cotton balls are rotten
you can't pick very much cotton...
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] South Sudan President Salva Kiir has said his troops will not withdraw from the contested oil-rich border town of Heglig, which they took days ago in fresh festivities with the Sudan Armed Forces.
Mr Kiir's remark comes amidst UN calls for immediate withdrawal.
He said Khartoum took it as a military weakness when he ordered the troops to withdraw after overrunning Heglig last month.
"It was not. But we always believe that everything can be resolved by peaceful means," Mr Kiir stressed.
"This time, I said that I will not order the forces to withdraw," Mr Kiir said, attracting applause from the packed house.
He said the decision is "not because we are interested in war but we want to resolve this problem once and for all."
UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon in a phone call on Wednesday urged President Kiir to order his forces to withdraw immediately.
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#1
S Sudan seems to have figured that playing ball with the UN gets you absolutely nowhere.
[Yemen Post] Former President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh's ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... media advisor, Ahmed al-Sufi, said on Wednesday that President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi's decrees, which were issued last Friday, are unjust and hasty.
He pointed out that the decrees were unexpected as they favored one side over the other, saying it was obvious that more military commanders loyal to the ex-President that were dismissed than those defected against him.
The decrees did not take into consideration the principle of reconciliation that was adopted in the GCC-brokered power transfer deal and they expanded the areas-controlled by Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division who defected against Saleh in May last year, in the capital Sana'a, according to al-Sufi.
The only beneficiary of the decrees was the Islamic party of Islah, the main party in the Joint Meeting Parties bloc, added al-Sufi, wandering "does President Hadi wants us to hand over the power to Islah which represents the Moslem Brüderbund in Yemen?"
Hadi has become the President of Yemen in February after he overwhelmingly won the one-candidate election, which was part of the GCC-initiated, US and west backed accord.
Hadi issued republican degrees sacking dozens of Salah's loyalists including his half brother, Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, and nephew, Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, from the Air Force, and Presidential Guard command respectively. The decrees drew the ire of the former ruling General People Congress party.
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A US man was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison Thursday for conspiring to help al-Qaeda, in a case his defense had argued was a free speech issue.
...a young gentleman of Egyptian descent who received a doctorate in 2008 from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, then taught math and religion at a Muslim school in Worcester. But before that he and a friend or two roamed the jihadi world failing to be accepted as apprentices in the craft in Yemen and Pakistan...
who grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb, was found guilty in December of traveling to Yemen to seek training in a terrorist camp with the intention of going on to Iraq to fight US soldiers there. Prosecutors said that when that plan failed, Mehanna returned to the United States and began translating and disseminating materials online promoting violent jihad.
[An Nahar] Guinea-Bissau troops staged a coup attempt late Thursday, attacking the prime minister's residence and taking over ruling party headquarters and the national radio station.
Gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades were fired in the darkened streets of the capital of the putsch-prone former Portuguese colony, which is in the middle of a bitterly disputed two-round presidential election.
Soldiers attacked the residence of the winner of the first round, outgoing Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior.
"It was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and we were forced to retreat," said a police officer who had guarded the building. He said Gomes had been there earlier but could not confirm his current whereabouts.
Ambulance sirens were heard across the city, which was plunged into darkness as electricity was cut off.
The military earlier took control of the ruling party headquarters and national radio station, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent said.
Guinea-Bissau's opposition -- led by second-placed Kumba Yala, who claims the first-round vote was rigged -- have called a boycott of the April 29 run-off vote and warned against campaigning.
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(Sh.M.Network)- Sheik Sharif sheik Ahmed, The president of Somalia's Transitional Federal government (TFG), said on Thursday that his government is ready to help Puntland administration based in northern Somalia for assuring its security.
"We are committed as Somali government and Puntland Administration to clean Al-shabab Islamic fascistitied with Al Qaeda out of every position they are in the country. There is a military plan set up to launch offensive Islamic fascistiwho are regrouping in Galgala mountains range in north east Puntland. God willing we will defeat them, Somali president told news hounds in Mogadishu.
Somali president also noted that residents in rebel-held Elasha-Biyaha area, out of Mogadishu will be freed from Al-shabab control by TFG and AMISOM forces as soon as possible.
Somali PM Abdiweli Mohammed Ali told Agency La Belle France Press (AFP) after Al-shabab fighters were driven out of Mogadishu and some other regions in south-central Somalia have begun infiltrating moving to Galgala Mountains in Puntland to wage again guerrilla-style warfare against TFG and semi-autonomous states in the country.
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(Sh.M.Network)- Mohamud Ahmed Nur Tarsan, the mayor ofMogadishufor Somali government has threatened to wipe out all journalists working for the Independently owned radio and television of Shabelle Media Network station based in the capital,Mogadishu.
"I'm committed to clean Shabelle journalists out of the world. You will see in the coming next few days this station eradicated fromSomalia, said Tarsan in an angry voice during a chat on the patltak with Somali youth Diaspora. He added that Shabelle Media has failed instead of his Banadir administration.
"Somali andEthiopiafought long time ago. We killed each other, but now the hostility has ended and Somali andEthiopiaare friends, he added.
The governor is said to have burnt Somali national flag in Gudhaa village in south while he was with Al-shabab beturbanned goons. He also destroyed by fire Ethiopian flag as he was inBritannia.
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An anticipated missile launch by North Korea failed today when the country fired a long-range test rocket in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and an agreement with the United States.
The 90-ton rocket launched at 6:39 p.m. EDT, but 81 seconds into the launch, the U.S. detected a substantially larger than expected flare and by ten minutes after launch, the rocket was no longer on several radar screens, U.S. officials said.
According to a statement from U.S. Northern Command and NORAD, the missile was tracked on a southerly launch over the Yellow Sea.
"Initial indications are that the first stage of the missile fell into the sea 165 km west of Seoul, South Korea," the statement said. "The remaining stages were assessed to have failed and no debris fell on land. At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat."
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement that despite the failed launch, "North Korea's provocative action threatens regional security, violates international law and contravenes its own recent commitments."
Carney added "any missile activity by North Korea is of concern to the international community. The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations, and is fully committed to the security our allies in the region."
The rocket was launched from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in the northern part of the country, near North Korea's border with China. Had the launch been successful, the rocket's third stage was expected to burn up in the atmosphere about ten minutes after launch, with debris falling north of Australia.
After the launch, South Korea's president Lee Myung Bak called an emergency cabinet meeting of his government.
Japanese officials, meanwhile, rushed to hold an emergency security meeting just after the launch. Japanese Defense minister Naoki Tanaka said no PAC3 missile batteries were used in the launch and the rocket was, "No threat to Japan."
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04/13/2012
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#1
Haw haw haw haw. (points and giggles)
So Solly Rocket go splashy.
Honorable Missile fails, so bad,so solly.
no thurt honerable face, no failt srarving worker fail o bolt sub assembry on,Yes.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/13/2012 0:33
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#2
And with the big Party party tomorrow, as well.
P.S. Jim, Koreans don't substitute L for R. It's the Japanese language that lacks that sound. Japan and Korea are as different as Arkansas and Alabama.
#3
The ball is now in the Bammer's court - by launching the rocket, the DPRK seemingly put its food aid at risk whether the rocker succeeded or not. Iff the Bammer = USA stops the food aid as threatened, then IMO its going to be a very tensive Summer 2012, vee Iran + DPRK.
PAR FOR THE COURSE/SUMMER? AS THE GOP POTUS RACE COULD STIL END UP BEING A SPLIT TICKET - iff it is a split or brokered ticket, this will be one for the Popcorn.
#4
Does anyone who knows anything about anti-missile technology tell us whether the point at which it 'disintegrated' could result from a missile fired from an Aegis or similar system?
#5
The point at which it fell apart leads to three possible causes:
Mechanical failure when it reached maximum Q (maximum mechanical stress on the spacecraft due to dynamic pressure from flying through the atmosphere), a failed stage 2 ignition resulting in a controlled destruction, a catastrophic engine failure in either stage 1 or stage 2.
Indications are that the first stage impacted separately from the rest of the spacecraft but that isn't enough to say if stage 1 separation occurred normally or if it just broke apart.
If stage 1 separation was normal, there could have been a problem with stage 2 ignition or it might not have ignited at all resulting in a controlled destruction.
My guess is that someone might be getting a very closeup view of a nuclear test in the next few days.
#6
The failure of the UNHA-III has important Tech ramfications for several countries.
> RUSSIA was repor helping the DPRK dev its Space Rockets + LR Missles.
> The DPRK was repor helping + sharing techs wid both IRAN + PAKISTAN. Pakistan also was helping Iran on its own.
> The DPRK was hoping to use a successful Rocket design for export revenues vee other Third World countries.
IMO THE FAILED UNHA-II HAS ONCE AGAIN [indirectly]PROVEN NEWT GINGRICH CORRECT IN THAT THE US SHOULD RETURN + BUILD A MOON BASE.
Not to argue that Iran, Pakistan's + even Russia's, etc. Ballistic Missles + Space Rockets will absolutely fail but the danger is indeed there.
* FYI DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Defector]KIM JONG-IL WARNED NORTH KOREA TO STAY AWAY FROM CHINA IN HIS WILL, as China may prove to be the country North Korea most needs to watch + carefully monitor in coming time.
#9
Does anyone who knows anything about anti-missile technology tell us whether the point at which it 'disintegrated' could result from a missile fired from an Aegis or similar system?
#10
I don't know anything about anti-missile technology, phil b, but I do know a a bit about communist dictatorships: math and the laws of physics are always sacrificed to ideology.
#11
Exploration: either technological, or geographical; always pays off. It's what made your country superpower.
Just ask world-striding Portugal, who was devoured by its empire rather than vice-versa.
I saw someone call the moon landings "the greatest accomplishment of world Communism", that is, if it weren't for the pressure of the Cold War, the moon shot would never have happened. Big-ticket "exploration" is, like most of the Edwardian empires (especially the German one) a sort of assertion of existing power, rather than the source of new power.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/13/2012 8:18
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#12
How hard can this be? It's not like it's rocket sci... oh, wait, yes it is.
#17
"Exploration: either technological, or geographical; always pays off. It's what made your country superpower."
1. I agree but we have some much bigger fish to fry right now. Current budget deficits are 10x what they were in 2007, lets get that under control first.
2. Exploration should have some sort of goal. A moon base COULD have a useful purpose. It could serve as a place for astronauts in 0 G for a long time to get used to gravity before returning to Earth. It could also be used as a manufacturing location that works better than 0 G. You can set a tool on a table on the moon and it will stay there. It would make for the ultimate semiconductor fab clean room, too. Great location for doing large scale vacuum deposition type work, etc.
3. Would make a good launch facility for deep space. You get an extra "fling" from the Moons orbit around Earth and you don't have to worry about launch through an atmosphere. A lot of titanium on the moon could mean some manufacturing of the craft could be done there.
#18
Gee, what could be invisible on radar, have pinpoint accuracy, be aircraft based, and cause a second stage malfunction through a high energy hole burned in the missle? Klingon disrupter maybe?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/13/2012 16:08
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#21
#17 You're not going to close the deficit by living more frugally. You're not going to save your way of life by printing more money. You're not going to take manufacturing (in it's current format) back from the Chinese. Your only hope is ushering in Third Industrial Revolution.
#22
I don't disagree with gr(r)omgoru's premises. But Jeremy Rifkin is an alarmist kook whose books have so far all turned out to be wrong. He is also "an adviser to several European Union heads of state," if that says anything about the value of his advice.
#23
Taking back manufacturing is a political act requiring a reindustrialization capitol inventment plan to incentivize the marketplace and escalating tariffs which gradually make currency amipulation and hidden subsidy advantages for china slowly fail. What they own is our debt, policy can control how we pay it to those whose aim is not to earn honest profit, here. To capitulate to not being industrial again is mere foolishness. This hemisphere and out own nation is far more resourced for self sufficiency than anywhere else in the world. Only a post industrial mindset in Washington and on the left hancuffs American reindustrialization.
#25
CHINA refuses to give NOKOR any more Food Aid than as current, + also doesn't want to care for any NOKOR Defectors or Refugees fleeing oer the Yalu to escape their country's hunger + povery - that leaves Pyongyang wid no choice but to bully or intimidate the US-West, etal. into giving them unilateral Food Aid AMAP ASAP ALAP.
Not unlike the former USSR = Soviet Union now Russia vee its Cold War East Eoropean allies [Warsaw Pact], COMMIE CHINA'S BIGGEST FEAR IS NOT NOKOR FIRING AN INDIGENOUS NUKE(S) ACROSS THE DMZ TOWARDS SOKOR + US + JAPAN, OR EVEN RUSSIA, BUT FIRING IT NORTHWARD ACROSS THE YALU AGZ BEIJING + MAJOR CHINESE CITIES + CCCC/CCP.
CHINA = USSR = MUST CONTROL MOST OR ALL OF THEIR ALLY'S OR ALLIES' ARMED FORCES + ADVANCED STRATEGIC, TACTICAL MILTECHS, ESPEC NUCLEAR FORCES [Nukes-WMDS].
CHINA = USSR = may all NOKOR some freedoms or local autonomy, but not + never to the point where they will be able to threaten or destroy China. IT WAS + REMAINS THE "COMMIE WAY".
Iff China thought that Pyongyang had dev a WORKING, RELIABLE, ACCURATE LR NUCLEAR MISSLE
SYS ON ITS OWN, THE FIRST THING CHINA WOULD DO IS FORMALLY TAKE OVER NORTH KOREA, A SCENARIO WHICH NEITHER PYONGYANG OR SEOUL, ETC. WANT.
As said or inferred times before, NOKOR cannot be seen as "too successful" in China's eye as per any dev of potent indigenous military tehcnologies.
HENCELY WE HAVE THE THREAT FROM THE ALLEGED NOKOR "THIRD NUCLEAR TEST", which in all likelihood will be used by NOKOR to demand no cut-off in Food Aid by the Bammer = US-Allies, or more Food Aid, Other from same.
#28
Pharaoh say, aerospace technological advancement "spin-off" products? "Say Wha...?" We don't do it that way in Chicago/Chi-town/ "The Hawk"...
We reject all Cracker innovation, and My Administration will crush it (gently) whenever " The Man" tries to take charge.
[Yemen Post] 50 officers and soldiers of the Republican Guard have been tossed in the clink inside military jails in Sana'a due to their support to the Yemeni public revolution, military sources have said.
The Republican Guard commanded by Ahmed Ali, a son of the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... who forced in February to resign after the escalation of the revolution. Ahmed Ali had ordered to arrest a number of officers and soldiers when protests broke out inside some camps of the Republican Guard.
The Yemeni Government, the Interior Ministry and the Military Committee had ordered to free all detainees who were held due to the revolution and returned those who were dismissed to their jobs.
A Yemeni human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... organization, Hood, revealed last month that hundreds of Yemenis are held in underground jails, demanded President Abdu Rabo Mansour Hadi to swiftly release them.
Hood called Hadi to form a commission of judges, the Interior Ministry, the Human Rights Ministry and civil society organizations to release the prisoners, shut down the jails and bring those officials responsible for such violations to justice.
It further said that hundreds of protesters who took to streets against the fromer president Ali Abdullah Saleh are languishing in prisons run by the Republican Guard, the Central Security and the intelligence services.
It pointed out that it sent Hadi a letter including a list of 190 names of prisoners who their fate are still uncertain.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... the Sana'a-based Himaia Organization for Human Rights disclosed that 192 soldiers are held inside the main camp of the Central Security in Sana'a.
The group said that a specialized court documented their cases as it visited the military last week after it was ordered by the Attorney-General.
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A CONVICTED terrorist serving 14 years for his part in amassing stockpiles of bomb-making chemicals has argued he should not serve a further lengthy jail term for other crimes - because the Goulburn Supermax library is not up to scratch.
Bradley Umar Sariff Baladjam, a bit-part actor who once appeared in Home & Away, told his psychologist he was "suffering at the hands of this regime" at Supermax, where he is classified "AA" high security.
In Downing Centre District Court yesterday, Baladjam complained there were not enough books about maths and Islamic art in the library, and that its opening hours were limited.
Has he considered asking his friends and relations to buy him the desired volumes? Surely they love him enough to spend £60 every two weeks...or perhaps they can find second hand volumes cheap on amazon.com.
He said he liked to study mathematical patterns known as "fractals"in Islamic art but was having to rely on a Year 9 textbook.
Ooooh. He likes to look at the pretty pictures. They needn't buy him expensive textbooks for that -- just do a quick Google search and print out the results. It,s a good mental exercise for him to figure out the mathematics for himself.
His barrister Peter Lange said the Goulburn prison library was not adequate to "exercise the adult mind" of a prisoner left alone for hours and suffering "sensory deprivation".
Baladjam was found guilty in 2008 of four terror offences between July and November, 2005.
He was in court yesterday to be sentenced on gun charges arising from his arrest at Green Valley on November 8, 2005, when he shot at two police officers, grazing one on the hand.
Egyptian parliament passes legislation banning Mubarak-era officials from becoming president, possibly nixing former VP Omar Suleiman's ... Now former Vice president of Egypt. From 1993 until his appointment to that office in 2011 he was Minister without Portfolio and Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID)... candidacy
The measure however would need to be approved by Egypt's ruling military and in a signal of the military council's likely response, a minister in the army-appointed cabinet called the new law "a deviation" that targeted one or two people.
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[Dawn] About 10 people were maimed and some three dozen placed in durance vile, when police restored to baton charge to disperse a rally of Pakistain Paramedical Staff Association (PPSA) here on Thursday.
As per details, the rally was on its way to Chief Minister House when police intercepted it on M A Jinnah Road near Services Hospital.
Police used tear gas and baton charge. Protest leaders claimed that 10 protestors were maimed and about 50 were placed in durance vile.
The PPSA and Sindh Doctors Tahreek (SDT) have announced boycotting hospitals in the province to condemn the police action on Friday.
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Western-backed PA says it has poured $7 billion to Gazoo since Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, seized control in 2007, blames Hamas for stymieing efforts to balance books
(Ma'an) -- Israel's navy has recently strengthened its cooperation with the Lebanese Navy in the Mediterranean, as it prepares for possible flotillas to Gazoo on Nakba Day, Israeli media reported Wednesday.
According to the report in Israel's Haaretz daily, Israeli navy officials have been cooperating unofficially with Leb's forces recently.
Israel has also been aided by the Lebanese Navy in driving out foreign fishing boats that have been nearing Israeli waters, the report said. As a result, a significantly fewer number of foreign ships approach Israel's maritime border now, Haaretz reported.
[An Nahar] Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... leader Samir Geagea ... Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005 ... said Thursday that the rival domestic and regional camp "has an interest" in eliminating him from the political scene, noting that his "attempt to put the Christians at the heart of the Arab Spring is an additional factor in the liquidation attempt" he escaped last week.
"I changed my lifestyle after the liquidation attempt to prevent the perpetrators from making another bid," Geagea said in an interview on Al-Arabiya.
He accused a "professional and major political side" of perpetrating the attack, stressing that it was not the work of "individuals."
"At least six people are estimated to have taken part in the operation, which means that it was well-organized," he noted.
Last week, Geagea announced that he had been shot at twice by "snipers" as he was walking with bodyguards outside his fortified residence in Maarab.
"I heard two shots, so I dropped to the ground," he said, adding that the bullets made two holes in the wall of his house.
Lebanese security services who later arrived at the scene confirmed the incident, which they said they were investigating.
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(Sh.M.Network)- The Islamist Orcs and similar vermin of Al shabab inSomaliahave banned Thursday chewing and trading the popular narcotic green leaves of Khat from many of their stronghold regions in southern war-torn horn ofAfricacountry, locals said. Oh, that's gonna win 'em points...
Twitchy, short-tempered jihadis facing twitchy, short-tempered natives, all of them armed? That overpopulation problem is going to fix itself toot sweet.
According to a resident who spoke anonymously, fearing repercussion, Orcs and similar vermin loyal to Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... ordered days ago people in some districts in Gedo, Bay and Bakol region of south and westernSomaliato refrain from the use sale and consumption Khat.
The Islamic fascistihad employed Thursday in vehicles carrying loudspeakers to propagate the message, instructing the public to abstain from the use of khat, ordering consumers of Khat to leave from the areas under Al-shabab fighters inSomalia.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Railway Minister Suranjit Sengupta has defended himself against his alleged links to Monday's cash haul and dismissed it as a conspiracy to ruin his political image.
Some people were after him as he has been trying to revive the long-not-cared-for railway sector, he said in a press briefing at Rail Bhaban yesterday.
The seizure of money from his assistant personal secretary and the railway general manager on Monday may be part of a conspiracy against him, the minister said. Those, who take advantage of the underdeveloped railway sector for their own benefits, do not want to see it flourish, according to Suranjit.
He, however, clearly said he would resign if his involvement in the incident could be proved. "Accepting a post or leaving it has been a very simple matter in my long career in politics. I will not stay for a moment if any such situation arises."
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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.
What has happened to the 2012 campaign?
British police arrested two teenagers after hackers targeted Scotland Yard's anti-terror hotline and posted a conversation between officials on the internet. 
Dozens of police arrested Mongolia's former president, raiding a house in the capital at dawn Friday after he refused investigators' requests to answer questions about corruption charges.
Muslim-Canadian Sooraya Graham, a fine arts student at a university in British Columbia, didn't expect to find herself in the middle of a virtual hostage-taking when her project for a photography class was hung in the hallways of the university's art department. Her photo, a mural print of a woman wearing full Islamic dress and holding a bra in her hands while folding laundry, was torn off the wall by an outraged university staffer.
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
[An Nahar] At least five people, including three civilians, were killed late Thursday when a 
An activist of the Pakistan People's Party was gunned down in North Karachi on Wednesday night, police said.
Greece's Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on Wednesday set the stage for early elections on May 6 by submitting his resignation to the country's president after heading a five-month debt rescue.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has expressed delight that Yemen has achieved successes, stressing that 
Amid amounting international and regional pressures on the former President 
Presidential elections are due in 2014, the same year western combat soldiers will complete their withdrawal.
Thousands of people took to streets and clashed with police to protest the ruling Communist Party's move to remove popular leader Bo Xilai from its politburo and charge his wife with murdering a British citizen in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on Wednesday.
Two activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz were killed in retaliatory fire while they were forcing traders in the Khadda Market area of 
Sarah 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[Yemen Post] Yemeni government said on Thursday that a new sabotage attack took place targeting the supply power lines providing the Yemeni capital of Sana'a with electricity in Jaadan area in Marib province, where the main gas-operated power station is based.
[Yemen Post] Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi instructed Defense Ministry to send the Counterterrorism Units in the Central Security Forces, the 
[Yemen Post] Violent 
Former President 
(Sh.M.Network)- Mohamud Ahmed Nur Tarsan, the mayor ofMogadishufor Somali government has threatened to wipe out all journalists working for the Independently owned radio and television of Shabelle Media Network station based in the capital,Mogadishu.
[Yemen Post] 50 officers and soldiers of the Republican Guard have been 
About 10 people 
Samir Geagea
Railway Minister Suranjit Sengupta has defended himself against his alleged links to Monday's cash haul and dismissed it as a conspiracy to ruin his political image.
