A major cyber attack is currently under way aimed squarely at computer networks belonging to US natural gas pipeline companies, according to alerts issued to the industry by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Yet there are several intriguing and unusual aspects of the attacks and the US response to them not described in Friday's public notice. One is the greater level of detail in these alerts than in past alerts. Another is the unusual if not unprecedented request to leave the cyber spies alone for a little while.
Beyond indicating that multiple companies were targeted and some other systems compromised, neither the alerts nor the public notice indicate just how many companies have been infiltrated. The documents also do not indicate that any companies' pipeline operations or their vital computerized industrial control systems that run pumps have yet been affected.
But other cyber security experts familiar with the alerts warn that access to a company's corporate system can eventually allow a hacker to wind through a corporate network and into the vital industrial control processes. Those systems, if infiltrated, could allow hackers to manipulate pressure and other control system settings, potentially reaping explosions or other dangerous conditions. Remember the San Bruno explosion? That was probably bad welding, 40 years ago.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/08/2012
18:26 ||
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#1
If you're into US energy independence, this is disturbing on several levels; but not unexpected.
Six members of a gang who preyed on under-age white girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester have become the first in Britain to be convicted of sex trafficking. They and three other men used a one-time victim to recruit other girls so they could be driven to "chill" houses around the north of England for sordid sex.
Some of the teenagers had sex willingly, but others were raped by up to five men at a time.
The paedophiles who paid small sums of money for the frequently violent encounters were predominantly British Pakistanis.
Of the 11 defendants on trial at Liverpool Crown Court, 10 were Pakistani and the other an Afghan asylum seeker.
[Telegraph.uk] A US drone strike in Yemen that killed two members of al-Qaeda on Sunday was part of a larger effort to intercept the "underwear bomb," the chairman of the US House Homeland Security Committee has said.
Peter King ...U.S. Representative for New York's 3rd (central Long Island) congressional district, serving since 1993. He is of the Publican persuasion and is known for his active support for the IRA Irish republican movement. King serves as the Chairman of the House Homeland Security
told CNN, a day after news of the intercepted bomb that authorities said was intended to make its way to an plane bound for the US or the West, that the drone was "part of the same operation".
Mr King and US security officials did not say what happened to the suspected jacket wallah or if he was killed in the strike. "The person who actually had the bomb is no longer a threat," he said.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's The campaign's over, John... top counter terrorism adviser and a former CIA official, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that authorities are "confident that neither the device nor the intended user of this device pose a threat to us."
On Monday, the B.O. regime said Middle East authorities had seized an improved underwear bomb within the last 10 days that they said shows al Qaeda's determination to build bombs that can pass through airport security systems.
A day earlier, two Yemeni members of al-Qaeda were zapped by a missile strike on their car, although Washington and Yemen do not acknowledge US drone attacks on hard boyz in the country. "Why blame us? Coulda been anybody!"
US officials have said the plot was detected in its early stages and that no U.S. airliner was ever at risk.
Mr Brennan, who also spoke on NBC and CBS, said Americans boarding airplanes should feel confident that intelligence agencies are working to keep them safe and that officials are "confident that this redundant security system provides us the protection that we need."
US officials have said the latest bomb incorporated design features which were somewhat more sophisticated than a bomb used in two attempted attacks in 2009. Mr King told CNN the bomb did not have any metal parts.
Asked if the new, more sophisticated underwear bomb could have gotten through current airport security checks, Mr Brennan said it "was a threat from the standpoint of the design that we have been able to determine. Now we're trying to make sure that we take the measures that we need to to prevent any other type of IED similarly constructed from getting through."
The plot was proof of the "perverse and terrible" lengths they are willing to go, according to Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillary and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another James Baker ... .
Early indications suggest the bomb may have been the work of Ibrahim al-Asiri, al-Qaeda's "master" bomb maker
While the would-be suicide bomber had yet to select a target and there was no imminent threat of attack, the plot served as a reminder of al-Qaeda's ambitions to strike against US civilians.
Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... , the US defence secretary, confirmed the operation, saying the US must "continue to remain vigilant against those that would seek to attack this country."
Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, speaking in New Delhi, said: "It is a reminder as to why we have to remain vigilant at home and abroad in protecting our nation and in protecting friendly nations and peoples like India and others."
The FBI said it had recovered the explosive itself but it was not clear whether the terrorist had been captured or killed.
Last night, FBI technicians were analysing the device and early indications suggested it may have been the work of Ibrahim al-Asiri, al-Qaeda's "master" bomb maker.
The Saudi is believed to have made the bomb worn by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his unsuccessful attempt to destroy a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas 2009.
He is also thought to have been responsible for two bombs planted in print cartridges and put on US cargo planes in 2010. Both explosives were discovered and safely removed at East Midlands Airport in Leicestershire.
The latest bomb did not contain any metal elements and is likely to have passed unnoticed through a standard airport metal detector. However, ars longa, vita brevis... it may been picked up by newer body scanners common at American airports.
"Initial exploitation indicates that the device is very similar to improvised bombs that have been used previously by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in attempted terrorist attacks," the FBI said in a statement.
President B.O. was first informed of the latest plot in April, raising questions as to why the US government had previously said there were no "specific or credible" terror threats linked to the May 2 anniversary of the al-Qaeda leader's death.
The African nation of Niger has ousted Afghanistan as the worst place in the world to be a mother, largely due to hunger, according to an annual report out Tuesday by Save the Children.
In contrast, Norway is the best according to the group's "Best and Worst Places to Be a Mom" ranking which compares 165 countries in terms of maternal health, education, economic status and children's health and nutrition.
The report, which this year focuses on nutrition particularly from the time a woman gets pregnant until the child is two, said that malnutrition is an underlying cause of 2.6 million child deaths worldwide each year.
"Millions more children survive, but suffer lifelong physical and cognitive impairments because they did not get the nutrients they needed early in their lives when their growing bodies and minds were most vulnerable," it said.
After Niger, the next worst countries were listed as Afghanistan -- which held the lowest spot for two years -- Yemen, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Eritrea, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Of the 10 countries at the bottom of Save the Children's annual index, seven are in the midst of a food crisis," it said.
"Niger, in bottom place, is currently in the grip of a worsening hunger situation, threatening the lives of a million children."
The top countries after Norway were Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, The Netherlands and Britain.
The United States ranked 25th, up from last year's 31st place but still below most wealthy nations.
"A woman in the US is more than seven times as likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause in her lifetime than a woman in Italy or Ireland," said Carolyn Miles, president and chief executive officer of Save the Children.
Lebanese army intelligence seized a large quantity of weapons hidden inside cars aboard an Italian ship on Monday night at the port of Tripoli, in the north of Lebanon, Lebanese security sources told Al-Manar TV.
The security sources revealed the involvement of Lebanese parties in the smuggling of weapons seized in the port of Tripoli.
As Safir daily said the ship docked in the port of Tripoli coming from the Egyptian port of Alexandria en route from Germany, adding that the army moved the car to al-Qubbeh base and launched a probe. "The two Rapid cars were imported by the agent A. M," it said.
The daily reported that one of the cars contained 15 boxes of ammunition each containing 1,000 bullets used for different kinds of machineguns. It added that the ammunition was for 9 mm and 12.7 mm machine guns and Kalashnikovs bullets.
This comes just days after Lebanese Army Marines confiscated the Lutfallah II arms shipment off the Lebanese port of Batoun while it was carrying 300,000 pounds of weapons within three containers. Reports said the cargo ship, which was flying the flag of Sierra-Leone, had left Libya and was bound for Syria.
Lebanese judicial authorities were continuing their investigations with the detainees to uncover the direction of the ship, and the party behind the load of weapons that were on board. An official arrest warrant was issued against one of the suspects.
So was this for the Syrian government or the Syrian rebels? Can't be Hezbollah, the Lebs would have let those guns in...
"The capital of the United States of the Arabs will be Jerusalem," preacher tells thousands at Brotherhood rally.
Egypt's Islamists aim to install a global Islamic caliphate with its capital in Jerusalem, a radical Muslim preacher told thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in a clip released Monday.
"We can see how the dream of the Islamic caliphate is being realized, God willing, by Dr. Mohamed Mursi," Safwat Higazi told thousands of Brotherhood supporters at a Cairo soccer stadium as Mursi -- the movement's presidential candidate -- and other Brotherhood officials nodded in agreement.
God hasn't so willed since the fall of the Ottomans early in the last century...
"The capital of the caliphate -- the capital of the United States of the Arabs -- will be Jerusalem, God willing," Higazi said. "Our capital shall not be in Cairo, Mecca or Medina," he said, before leading the crowd in chants of "Millions of martyrs march toward Jerusalem."
Martyrs like every attempt since 1948. Your discarded sandles will mark the trail through the desert back toward Cairo, as they did in 1973.
Higazi is an unaffiliated Islamist who is barred from the United Kingdom for making statements endorsing terror attacks against Israelis. The clip, from Egypt's Islamist-oriented Al-Nas television station, was aired last week and uploaded to YouTube on Monday by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
#1
Higazi should rapidly become an unaffiliated body. His various parts should be distributed to the limits prescribed by the Hellfire that unaffiliates him.
A senior Israeli military officer warned that any Hizbullah retaliation to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would prompt Israel to launch a war in Lebanon.
The officer, who spoke to the British Telegraph on Sunday, said the war would be so ferocious that it would take a decade to rebuild the villages it destroys.
The warning comes after months of heightened speculation that the Israeli government is considering unilateral military action against Iran's nuclear installations.
The officer urged the Lebanese people not to be drawn into a war for which they, rather than Iran, would bear the brunt of Israel's anger.
"The situation in Lebanon after this war will be horrible," the officer told the Telegraph. "They will have to think about whether they want it or not. I hope that Iran will not push them into a war that Iran will not pay the price for but that Lebanon will."
The officer, who spoke to the Telegraph on condition of anonymity, suggested that Israel had taken too cautious an approach in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, leading to the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers.
He said that no such mistake would be made in the next conflict, especially as Hizbullah had built military sites in the center of many villages and towns in southern Lebanon.
"In these villages where Hizbullah has infrastructure I will guess that civilians will not have houses to come back to after the war," he said.
"The Lebanese government has to take this into consideration. Many of the villages in southern Lebanon will be destroyed. Unfortunate, but we will have no other solution. The day after (we attack) the village will be something that it will take 10 years to rebuild."
The officer said that the ongoing conflict in Syria has made it easier for Hizbullah to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. He added that there is concern that some of the Assad regime's stockpile of chemical weapons could end up in the group's hands.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned that sophisticated weapons could be transferred from Syria to Lebanon and to Hizbullah should Assad fall.
#2
"The officer, who spoke to the Telegraph on condition of anonymity..."
SoS hrc, a major anti-Christ Demon, sez, "I know who that officer is! Why he's...Uh-uh-uh, you'll just have to tune in to "Hillary & Huma" again tomorrow to find out who that Israeli officer really is!
#3
Sniff, sniff, HAVE TO KEEP THE MORALE UP, LIKE WHAT THAT UK-BORN, TWIRLING DANCER-IN-RED IN TOTO'S GREAT "ROSEANNA" VID DID FOR THE US DURING THE FIRST FALKLANDS WAR THINGY.
#1
He still gets %72 support. That implies serious KoolAid driven brain damage. The FDA really needs to test KoolAid.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/08/2012 11:26
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#2
Reread the brief article, Water Modem. Candidate Obama gets 72% of those who care about health care, but 61% overall, which means financial issues have become more important than social ones.
#8
We've heard this tune before. Don't buy it until after the election. These core groups (Jew, black, etc) have a way of always coming through for Dems regardless of how unhappy it makes them.
#9
Obama didn't win with all that much of a margin in 2008 in popular vote. A loss of 17 among Jewish voters, a loss of 20 points among voters under 25, a loss of 10 points among Independent voters, a loss of women voters.
#10
Turnout, honest and dishonest, is the key, as usual. The Grouchy Old Man couldn't get people to the polls in 2008, and Champ did. This time around I think turnout is different.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2012 21:20
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The headline is actually misleading. The drop in Jewish support occurred several years ago when President Obama insulted Prime Minister Netanyahu, and has held steady ever since; this suggests to me it is a real and permanent loss for the Democratic party.
#12
Obama won the same % of Jews in 2008 as Kerry did in 2004. This suggests that Obama got no bump from Jewish voters over his race and his Hope and Change message. Jewish voters are either getting more conservative or not particularly thrilled with Obama. Now that Obama's race and Hope and Change are yesterday's news, Obama may be about to plumb new lows among Jewish voters (for a Democratic presidential candidate).
#1
Trust me with the mind set of the Democrats and the cult of personality they are trying to build around Obama, Greece is the US in five years with another round of Obamanomics.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/08/2012 10:38
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This has been kind of a long vacation. Do the Greeks even remember how to work?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/08/2012 12:33
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#3
Lets see, piss off the Germans, isolate them, then push economic damage upon them from the outside. Has Europe not learned a thing from the 20th century?
#4
Let's elect a neo-Nazi Party, show the Germans how to do the Fascist salute and have the Fuhrer's flunkies ordering everyone in the room to stand up before he enters. That will help a lot.
#7
In all seriousness, a small point in defense of the Greeks (really):
Please review Greek history. From the time of Philip of Macedon to now, the Greeks have been ruled by:
Macedonian empire (Alexander, etc)
Roman republic (oligarchy)
Roman Empire (empire)
Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire (empire & satrapy)
Ottoman Empire (empire)
First Greek Republic (1 year)
Kingdom of Greece (usual idiocies)
Kingdom / military dictatorship (more idiocies)
Italians (bumbling fascists)
Germans (too-efficient nazis)
Civil War
Socialists
Military dictatorship
Socialists
Socialist coalition with bumbling technocrats
Now where, I ask you, is the preparation for a yeoman democracy in all that?
Where would the average Greek citizen learn to trust the state, participate in government, make government responsive, pay taxes for the better of the country, demand fair accounting of taxes and the use of the military, start a business, build a business, be secure in their homes, be secure on the streets, and voice dissent without being raped or killed?
Beats me.
The Greeks haven't had hardly any experience in a market economy and a free, democratic state, so it's not surprising that they're having trouble implementing one today.
What the average Greek knows how to do is 1) shelter his income from taxes 2) scam the state for everything he/she can 3) work at a job they hate 4) look for ways to goof off and 5) complain morosely in private because complaining in public could you killed.
Nowhere in the past 2500 years of history is there any inspiration for Greece.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2012 15:47
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#8
Let's get real here. The Germans are using the fact that all these also-ran countries are in the Euro to keep their currency low and give them an export advantage over everyone not in the Euro.
Their economy is based on monetary union with Greece, Spain, Ireland and Italy.
If you doubt that, then imagine what would happen if Germany left the Euro and reissued the DMark. It would appreciate to double the price of the Euro and their economy would flush down the toilet, because there are not enough Germans to buy all the BMWs and other high price stuff they make.
And the more hilarious fact is that if the Germans stay in the Euro, but kick everyone else out, then the outcome will be EXACTLY the same.
The Germans either have to pay to keep these slowpokes in the Eurozone, just like Virginia pays West Virginia via Federal programs, or they face ruin.
Germans get over yourselves, or prepare to suffer the wages of your hubris.
#9
Dr. Steve, I was assured by our "Greek-who-will-not-be-named" that they had achieved the pinnacle of achievement. I wassa misinformed?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2012 20:58
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Maybe not a pinnacle of achievement so much as solving a minimization problem. Although you can argue that in both cases the derivative (finance joke!) is zero.
But Dr. Steve has an interesting point. We have a toolkit of Stuff That Works (market economy, democracy, free press, etc.) But you still need people who can play the game. It's not something you can just plug in and even here in the USA where we invented the game, we seem to be drifting off course.
Can men and women be "just friends?" A new study suggests the answer is yes but guys may be more attracted to their gal friends than vice versa.
Men report more sexual interest in their female friends than their female friends do in them, and men are also more likely than women to overestimate how romantically interested their friends are in them. In most cases, sexual attraction within a friendship is seen as more of a burden than a benefit, the study finds.
"I think men and women do want to be friends, they do want to engage in platonic friendships," said study researcher April Bleske-Rechek, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. "But the data I've been collecting suggests that attractions can get in the way."
#5
I need help on writing a proposal to get a (large) government grant on whether or not men like to look at women's breasts. I'm fairly certain they don't but we'll never know for sure until the science is done.
And it's only just begun. Unless it's the plan of the patient Judge James Pohl to allow the defendants and their team to reveal themselves in all their glory...
#1
"Islam is associated with violence, backwardness and misogyny, and the Salafists conform to this image - and they also want to conform to it," Ceylan said.
Says it all, really.
#1
So what? This isn't fraud. It's exactly what Democrat Party its office holders in Congress and the White House have set up for America over the decades.
Ditch the additional child credit, ditch the earned income tax credit, and ditch any credit for anybody who pays no net taxes. If you have zero tax liability for the year due to low income, you should not be getting a "refund" for anything beyond what the IRS confiscated from your wages.
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/08/2012 18:14
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"ditch the earned income tax credit"
Damn straight, AD.
I passed a city bus this afternoon on the way home and almost drove off the road - the ad on the side of the bus was talking about "be sure to claim your earned income tax credit - you earned it."
NO, YOU DIDN'T. I earned it and the gummint stole it from me to fork over to you. This time you sold yourself into slavery. Idiots.
Posted by: Barbara ||
05/08/2012 18:23
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#3
Alleged massive Democratic tax fraud may still mean a Bammer victory in November vee Romney ...
To wit,
* RENSE > [Libertarian Review] ROMNEY WILL BE DISQUALIFIED FROM [POTUS = November] RACE DUE TO FRAUD | GOP THREW 2012 ELECTION TO OBAMA IN 2009, MULTI-BILYUHN DOLLAR PONZI SCHEME INVOLVING ROMNEY + SON.
* Also from RENSE > [Activist Post] WORLDWIDE INCUMBENTS FACING THE WRATH OF ANGRY VOTERS.
Its what happens when "smart politics" doesn't match good or moral leadership in the eyes of the mainstream, e.g. the OWG-NWO + "Globalism" that NO AMERICAN = AMERIKAN HAS BEEN EXPLAINED TO, NOR TO VOTE ON, NOR BEEN ASKED TO, NOR WILL BE ASKED TO.
POST-MODERN "REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY > TOO MANY POLITICOS THINK THE SAME MEANS BEING ELECTED OR RE-ELECTED TO ALWAYS-N-FOREVER HIDE THINGS, AGENDAS + PROBLEMS + IDEAS, ETC. FROM THE VOTERS.
Amid a new flare up in violence in the northern provinces of Yemen, al-Houthis, a group of Shia rebel the Yemeni government has fought for years as it accused it of advocating a return to the ancestral rule of the Imam, warned that Saudi Arabia had a plot to open a new front into Yemen's Northern borders in a bid to attack the country's Shiite population through its "hirelings and mercenaries".
Saudi Arabia, which shares borders with the rebels' areas, fought the Houthis in Sa'ada in 2009 after they seized Saudi territory.
The group which has used the breakdown in security to its advantage by seizing more territories, having now three provinces under its control- Hajjah, al-Jawf and Sa'ada- is embroiled in a sectarian conflict with Salafis, puritanical Sunnis who classify the Shia rebels as "heretics".
In a statement released on Sunday by the group's media office, al-Houthi underlined that the Saudi plot was aimed at an aggression of al-Hajjah province, distancing the Yemeni people from their revolution and stirring sectarian strife in the country.
The Al Qaeda senior leader Fahd Al Qusu was buried early morning Monday in his village in Wadi Al Abyadh,Rafadh, Saeed district in Shabwah province, said the tribal leader Al Ahmar Salfoh, who attended the funeral and burial.
After the burial, the local tribal leaders decided not to make condolence ceremony in the same area of Rafadh in fear of more US drone attacks, according to Salfoh.
So, the condolence ceremony is to be held today Monday in Ataq, the capital of Shabwah, where the cousins of the slain Fahd Al Qusu are based.
The tribal leader said that Fahd Al Qusu arrived in Rafadh on Sunday at 10 am and stayed in the mosque nearby his house where he had lunch with his friend Nasser Salem Ali Al Akdam. " airplanes were flying over the area all the time since he arrived," said Salfoh.
At about 5 pm they started to walk out from the mosque in the direction of the farm of Fahd in Wadi Al Abyadh which was only 1 km away.
At about 5:30 pm and when Al Qusu and his friend Al Kdam were about to arrive the farm, two missile were fired at them killing both of them. " One of the missiles hit Fahd directly cutting his body into pieces," said Salfoh.
"But the dead body of his friend Al Akdam was found as a whole, but also completely burnt," he said.
In a dramatic turn of events that could influence a possible Israeli strike on Iran, Israeli media reports early Tuesday indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached an agreement with the Kadima opposition party for a unity government, canceling an early election.
There was no immediate comment from official sources on the decision that was reported at about 2 a.m.
The reports came as Israels parliament held debates long into the night over whether to break up ahead of early elections called for the fall. Knesset spokesman Yotam Yakir said no final vote was taken and parliament is not dispersing.
Earlier Monday, the Israeli government proposed that the election be moved up to Sept. 4.
The election had originally been set for 2013.
According to the media reports, Netanyahu forged an agreement with opposition leader Shaul Mofaz of Kadima shortly before parliament was set to vote to disperse.
The appointment of Mofaz, a former military chief and defense minister, is significant in Israels standoff with Iran as he has been a vocal critic of Israel striking Irans nuclear sites on its own.
#1
D *** NG IT, THERE WON'T BE AN ATTACK ON IRAN ANYTIME NOW!
But then again ...
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > WEST/UN WARNS IRAN IT MUST STOP NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT, after Iran makes yet another refusal to do so + while indic that it make consider/mull an option for less than 20% enrichment.
IIUC, looks like the UNO wants to make sure + verify it has all the data, public or non-public, on Iran's NucProgs???
To paraph "THE SEARCHER'S" GREAT WARD BOND = "MUST, MUST - M-U-S-S - MUST"!
The period following the Persian New Year is jokingly referred to as Black Spring by business owners and shopkeepers because it is characterized by slow business as Iranians pinch their pocketbooks after the lavish spending of the holiday. But this year, the Black Spring is expected to be even bleaker and to last longer than usual, probably through the end of June.
For decades, the Islamic Republic spent nearly $100 billion a year on subsidizing staple goods and commodities. In 2010, in an attempt to cut government spending and rejuvenate the economy,
I guess, to the LA Times, the nuke-thingie is a stimulus program.
Iran launched a plan aimed at slashing the subsidies. Since the initial reforms were introduced, food and energy costs have spiraled out of control and left millions of Iranians in financial straits.
#3
They want nuclear missiles so they can blackmail the world a la North Korea. When a country like that has nukes, they don't need oil or anything else to make a "living".
#4
One reason energy costs are higher in Iran is that enrichment of Uranium requires quite a bit of electricity; especially if the enrichment devices aren't working well.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/08/2012 13:06
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[Iran Press TV] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... says the strategic pact signed by Kabul and Washington will be at risk if US-led forces continue to kill Afghan civilians.
On Monday, Karzai summoned the commander of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... forces in Afghanistan, General John Allen, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker to warn them that civilian casualties in military operations threatened the pact, AFP reported.
On May 1, 2012, Washington and Kabul signed an agreement to extend the US military presence in Afghanistan to 2024.
Shortly after arriving in the war-torn country in an unannounced trip late at night on May 1, US President Barack Obama Why can't I just eat my waffle?... met Karzai, and both signed the deal that authorizes the presence of US troops for a period of 10 years after 2014, which was the original date agreed upon for the departure of all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan.
A statement from Karzai's office said that since Saturday, dozens of Afghan civilians, including women and kiddies, had been killed in NATO Arclight airstrikes in four provinces -- Pashtun-infested Logar and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... in the south, Kapisa in the east, and Badghis in the northwest.
The statement said that President Karzai signed the pact with the US to protect the lives of Afghans and if civilian deaths are not prevented, the pact will lose its validity.
"If the lives of Afghans are not protected, the strategic partnership will lose its meaning," the statement quoted Karzai as saying.
US-led troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001. Their initial offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity continues to rise across the country despite the presence of about 130,000 foreign forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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#1
I can think of one "civilian" I'd like to see them kill...
#5
Get out now. No long term commitments. Leave this dirtbag to the civilians he so wants protected. Let them know that if any trouble comes to us from there we won't be as nice the next time we return.
[Iran Press TV] The CIA has reportedly thwarted a plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of the late Osama bin Laden, ... who walked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and didn't make it out... the News Agency that Dare Not be Named has learned.
The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al-Qaeda developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials claim.
The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.
Reports said no target had been chosen and no plane tickets purchased by the time the alleged plot was foiled. There is no indication on the status of the would-be bomber.
It is not clear who built the device, but officials say it shares some features with the bomb sewn into the underwear of would-be jacket wallahUmar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
News of the alleged plot comes a day after Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, was killed by a U.S. drone strike.
Looking as if we did get him after all. People are talking that way...
The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way.
More courtesy than they showed Dubya...
Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot on Monday despite requests from the B.O. regime to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.
This article starring:
Fahd al-Quso
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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#1
D *** NG IT, why boom Fruit-of-the-Loom + Hanes, etc. all the time - IS THERE NO RIGHTEOUS OR DIVINE HATRED FOR CHEAP GENERICS???
[Dawn] Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Monday said that Pakistain had "no information about the presence of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... in Pakistain." They didn't have any information about Binny being in Pakistain, either. Imagine their surprise when he was waxed just 30 miles from Islamabad and within walking distance of the national military academy.
"If anybody has any information in this regard, they should share it with Pakistain," said the foreign minister during a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) here today. "That way we can plug the leak."
Khar's statement comes immediately after comments made earlier today by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Bainbridge Colby ... , who is currently on a three-day visit to neighbouring India.
"There are several significant leaders still on the run. Zawahiri, who inherited the leadership from bin Laden is somewhere, we believe, in Pakistain," Clinton told a town-hall meeting in the Indian city of Kolkata.
During Monday's meeting of the PCNS, Foreign Minister Khar reiterated the stance that US drone attacks were "counter-productive" and a "violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty".
"The US has been informed of Pakistain's concerns on drone strikes," she added.
The foreign minister said that talks were underway on the future of Pakistain's relationship with the United States in light of the parliamentary recommendations.
In an interview to an American television channel on Saturday, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... had said that drone strikes will continue on targets inside Pakistain, rejecting the stance that the attacks were a violation of Pakistain's illusory sovereignty.
"The United States is going to defend itself under any circumstances," Panetta had said.
The US has launched two drone strikes in Fata in the last six days. The latest, on Saturday, killed at least 10 people in the tribal North Wazoo agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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Well, the Pakis said the same thingy about Osama, but yet who was covertly based in one of their most secure Military Regions!?
WILL THE PAK ISI GIVE UP AYMAN TO THE US + SEAL TEAM SIX LIKE THE PAK ISI ITSELF SAYS IT GAVE UP OSAMA???
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Six Egyptian soldiers were kidnapped by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula on Saturday, before being released shortly afterward, Egyptian officials said.
The soldiers were kidnapped at gun point while on guard 5km from the Egyptian-Israeli border after masked gunnies arrived in two jeeps with unmarked number plates.
Egypt's army deployed dozens of armored tanks in the area, forcing the Bedouin gunnies to release the soldiers.
Sinai Bedouin complain of unfair treatment and government neglect and press their demands by blocking roads and occasionally taking tourists hostage, releasing them soon afterward following negotiations with the authorities.
Such incidents have become more frequent since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... last year loosened the grip of state security and deepened lawlessness in the isolated Sinai.
Eight people have been killed in festivities in the Sinai in the past month, a Ma'an correspondent said.
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian security forces made a sweep of arrests in the northern Sinai early Monday, officials said.
Forces tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! 38 suspects in the city of El-Arish near the Gazoo Strip, including a Paleostinian wanted on weapons charges, a security official told Ma'an.
Security forces also seized people suspected of drug-dealing and theft, the official said.
Separately, families in the Egyptian border city Rafah turned in to the authorities two men suspected of planning a kaboom on the central security headquarters in the city.
Security officials said the pair are affiliated to Jihadi groups in the city and have been transferred to Cairo for questioning.
On Saturday, six Egyptian soldiers were kidnapped by armed Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula, before being released shortly afterward, officials said.
Egyptian security are battling for control of the peninsula since the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... last year loosened the grip of state security in the isolated Sinai.
Military officials also warned that Jihadi groups want to oust state forces and have launched a number of deadly attacks on security officers.
With less than seven weeks remaining in the campaign for Mexican president of the republic, the race amongst the three top candidate has slightly tightened, according to data supplied by the Milenio news daily.
Not counting undecided voters, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto still maintains a commanding lead over his nearest rival Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota with 46.9 percent of voters against 27 percent for Vazquez Mota.
Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also raised his position, tightening the margin between himself and Vazquez Mota with 24.3 percent.
When taking into account undecided voters, Vazquez Mota is less than 15 percentage points away from Pena Nieto with 35.8 percent to 20.7 percent. Lopez Obrador trails slightly at 18.5 percent.
Frontrunner Pena Nieto has to be worried at this point. The second largest block of voters are still undecided voters with 23.6 percent, slightly smaller than a week ago, but still indicative that voters may not make their final decision until they are queued up to vote July 1st.
Even so, Vazquez Mota protested last week that PAN polls show her within ten percentage points of Pena Nieto. Recent history has shown that PAN polling is more accurate than public polls, the most relevant example being the Michoacan gubernatorial race last November where PRI's margin of victory was much thinner than predicted.
The tightening of the race between Pena Nieto and Vazquez Mota may well be the result of a lessening of enthusiasm for the PRI candidate and the combined efforts of PAN's star line up, which includes PAN president Gustavo Madero and former finance minister Ernesto Cordero. Both were featured in different campaign events last week, trying to draw distinctions between the two parties and laying out the case for a third term for PAN politicians.
The case for management of the Mexican economy with a PAN leader at the helm is compelling, given that PRI governors, including Pena Nieto have demonstrated a dreadfully poor sense of public resource stewardship, especially in the light of the recent Coahuila debt scandal. That scandal has resulted in several convictions and several former Coahuila state employees becoming fugitives from justice.
Oddly, the one politician not included among those regarded as complicit in the scandal was former Coauila governor and PRI president Humberto Moreira Valdes, who is currently in Texas, it is said, working to get a master's degree.
As this writer has quipped in the past, a master's in public finance for Moreira can be ruled out.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Tolo News] At least six beturbanned goons were killed in NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -led Arclight airstrike as they attacked an official's compound in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province on Sunday afternoon, local officials said Monday.
The incident took place around 2:45pm in the Hesarak district of Nangarhar province while the beturbanned goons were firing heavy arms at the district governor's compound, provincial front man Ahamad Zia Abdulzai told TOLOnews.
The Afghan and NATO security forces launched a military counter-attack in which a NATO helicopter targeted the thugs, killing 6 thugs.
The clash ended after the NATO helicopter fired on the thugs, he said.
There were no Afghan or NATO security forces, or civilian, casualties during the clash, he added.
Violence has increased in the province with at least six schools forced to close in the Khogyani district of the province after threats from local thugs.
The Taliban threatened harm against the schools occupants in retaliation for the arrest of a fellow thug, local officials said.
The circumstances of the arrest of a local school teacher by security forces are not clear; however, his release is being demanded by the Taliban beturbanned goons in the area, an official said.
Nangarhar provincial front man Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said that the teacher was tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... based on evidence but a delegation has been sent to Khogyani district to investigate further.
The district has around 55 schools, officials said.
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05/08/2012
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The circumstances of the arrest of a local school teacher by security forces are not clear; however, his release is being demanded
While the circumstances may not be clear, they must be correct, or the Taliban would not be worked up over it - mostly they seem to want to close schools and put teachers out of work. Maybe he was arrested because the class he was teaching was 'Panty-bombs 101?'
KOLKATA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaned harder on India on Monday to deepen cuts of Iranian oil imports, saying Washington may not make a decision on whether to exempt New Delhi from financial sanctions for another two months.
Clinton, on a three-day visit to India, said the United States was encouraged by the steps its ally had taken so far to reduce its reliance on Iranian oil but that "even more" action was needed.
The oil issue has become an irritant in ties between India and the United States. India is unwilling to be seen to be bowing to US pressure and is reluctant to become too reliant on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs, which officials say privately would be strategically unwise.
The sanctions threaten to shut out Iranian
They mean 'Indian'...
oil importers from the US financial system unless they make significant and continuing cuts to their crude purchases by an end-June deadline.
India is Iran's second-biggest crude customer, so it is crucial to the US strategy of choking off the Iranian economy to force Tehran's leaders to curb their nuclear program.
"We do not believe Iran will peacefully resolve this unless the pressure continues. We need India to be part of the international effort," Clinton told a townhall-style meeting in the eastern city of Kolkata.
Publicly, India has rejected Western sanctions but privately it has pushed local refiners to start cutting imports. India's refiners signed new yearly contracts with Iran running from April 1 and Reuters calculations suggest imports could plunge about 25 percent in 2012/2013.
Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in April that India had already substantially cut Iranian oil imports. But Clinton's comments on Monday suggested that Washington expected more action before it would grant the sanctions waiver.
The United States in March granted exemptions to Japan and 10 European Union nations. India and China, Iran's biggest crude importer, remain at risk.
Champ is a busy beaver with all those exemptions, isn't he...
Clinton held up Japan as an example, saying it had cut imports despite having suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami that crippled its Fukushima nuclear reactor. Japan's cuts of between 15 and 22 percent were enough to get a waiver.
Washington has not stated specifically what cuts it expects from each country, only that they must be substantial.
"We think India, as a country that understands the importance of trying to use diplomacy to try to resolve these difficult threats, is certainly working toward lowering their purchase of Iranian oil," Clinton said.
"We commend the steps that they have taken thus far. We hope they will do even more," said Clinton, who was due to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi later on Monday.
Clinton noted that Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other oil-producing nations were supplying more crude to the markets to offset any loss of supply from Iran.
"If there were not the ability for India to go into the market and meet its needs we would understand that. But we believe there is adequate supply and that there are ways for India to continue to meet their energy requirements," she said.
She added that the United States would make a decision on whether to exempt India from the US sanctions on Iran in "about two months from now. An Indian official privy to the Indian talks with Iran and the United States had earlier expressed hope that Clinton might announce a waiver during her visit. The official said the government had done enough to secure the exemption.
A senior US official said on Sunday that Carlos Pascual, the US special envoy who has been negotiating with Iranian oil importers to cut their imports, would visit India in mid-May to discuss the issue.
Clinton said at the town-hall event that Iran posed a grave threat to the region and that Indians should not view it as a "far-off threat. Iran had dispatched "terrorist agents" to target Israelis and others in India, she said.
Clinton's trip coincides with a visit by a large Iranian trade delegation, which is in Delhi to discuss how the two countries can trade via a rupee mechanism set up to skirt sanctions. US officials played down the importance of the Iranian visit.
Trade disputes and frequent US complaints that it is difficult for American companies to do business in India have also strained ties. Ambiguously worded Indian proposals to crack down on tax evasion and tax indirect investments have also alarmed Washington and sown confusion among foreign investors. Finance Minister Mukherjee announced in parliament on Monday that he would delay by one year, until fiscal 2013/2014, the introduction of the tax evasion measures.
In her meeting with Singh, Clinton was expected to push for the government to open up India's retail sector to foreign supermarkets such as Walmart - a major economic reform that has stalled and become emblematic of the policy paralysis gripping Singh's government.
Clinton held talks earlier with Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand chief minister of West Bengal and Singh's key ally in government, who has blocked the retail reform. Clinton said before meeting Banerjee that she planned to raise the issue but the chief minister said afterwards that it was not discussed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2012
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#1
"You want an exemption? How about a donation to OFA? Don't worry, we disabled the security check, just like in 2008"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2012 8:23
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17 year-old Paleostinian was placed in durance vile You have the right to remain silent... Sunday near the Tapuah Junction in possession of three pipe bombs. Border Guard forces spotted, stopped and neutralized him from the bombs. He was transferred into the custody of security forces for questioning.
This is the third time in a week that Paleostinians carrying explosives were caught in the area.
[Iran Press TV] Russia's newly sworn-in President Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... has submitted a bill to the State Duma, nominating Dmitry Medvedev as the new prime minister under a job swap agreement announced last year.
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[Yemen Post] Sheikhs of Bani Matar district, an outskirt of the Capital Sana'a, have demanded to take out all camps and checkpoints of the Republican Guard positioned in their district.
These demands came after commanders of the Republican Guard rejected an appointment decree of Abdul-Rahman Al-Halili who is originally from their area.
The command of the 3rd Republican Guard Brigade was handed over to Al-Ahlili last Thursday with the presence of the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar who put pressures on the pervious commander, Tariq Mohmmad Abdullah Saleh.
However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... after the departure of Benomar, Al-Halili was prevented by officers loyal to Saleh from entering the brigade, military sources affirmed.
Local sources told Yemen Post that the sheiks and parliamentarians of Bani Matar held a meeting on Sudnay to discuss the rebellion of the officers.
Local sources reiterated that the sheikhs formed a committee with the aim of demanding President Hadi to remove the brigades of the Republican Guard from their area.
The Military Committee formed under the GCC-crafted power transfer discussed the rebellion, describing it as critical, a Yemeni newspaper, Akhbar Alyawam reported.
Media sources said that a number of officers from Sanhan, a hometown of Saleh, led a rebellion against Hadi's decree.
Benomar is set to present a report to the UN Security Council on Yemen's situation and updates on May 17, one of his assistants told media outlets.
Benomar had persuaded Saleh's half-brother Mohmmad Saleh Al-Ahmar who led Yemen's air forces to step down after three weeks of rejection and put pressures on Tariq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh that at last accepted a decree of President Abdu Rabo Hadi after a month of rebellion.
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The terror suspect accused of building bombs used in the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks has apologized for the first time to victims.
Umar Patek, a leading member of the al-Qaeda-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah, said he was against the bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists, from the start.
A drone missile strike in Shabwa, Yemen, on Sunday killed a man named Fahd Mohammad Ahmed Al-Quso, the Yemeni government said in a statement. Al-Quso, 37, from Yemen, was best known in the United States for heading terrorist operations in the USS Cole bombing, which killed 17 American sailors in 2000. More recently, Al-Quso had replaced Anwar al Awlaki as head of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
But this part is new...
He was continuing the terrorist group's plans to take down an international airliner with an explosive -- one foiled in recent days, government officials say.
A previous attempt, with a bomb made by AQAP bomb-maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, had failed on Christmas Day 2009, when the bomber, Umar Faruq Abdulmuttalab, failed to detonate the device that had been hidden in his underwear.
Although he did manage to catch it on fire, with predictable results...for him.
U.S. government sources tell ABC News that Al-Quso and Asiri continued to plan for a similar terrorist attack, using a small IED that could be hidden on a person, with the same goal of bringing down an international airline.
In April, their plot, based in Yemen, was detected by intelligence sources. American and other intelligence agencies were, sources said, on top of the plot from the beginning and closely monitoring it. Early last month White House counterterrorism czar John Brennan told President Obama about the plot.
I'd forgotten we had a counterterrorism czar. What is it that he does, exactly?
Senior administration officials say their understanding is that this was not a plot tied to the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, that this was just a coincidence of timing. U.S. intelligence sources assess the threat from AQAP is growing "due to the territorial gains the group made during the political standoff in Yemen that lasted from early 2011 until this past February, a government official says. "Those territorial gains have allowed the group to establish additional training camps."
Which is why, remember, we had to wipe them out of Afghanistan. We may have to play whack-a-mole and go heavier into Yemen, though with Champ in charge it's unlikely. If we do, I certainly hope we've learned our lesson and don't try to do any 'nation-building'...
"We were aware of the plot throughout its development," a senior administration source tells ABC News. "So we never thought Americans were at risk. They never got to the point where they were close to putting it on a plane."
"The device has the hallmarks of previous AQAP bombs that the group used in the failed assassination attempt on Saudi security official Mohammed Bin Nayif and that it used in the failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing," the government official said. "The device, like those earlier devices, is non-metallic."
And no doubt why there have been so many stories of mortifying Depends inspections recently.
A preliminary review indicates that it has some significant differences from Abdulmuttalab's device, the third official said.
"It is clear that AQAP is revamping its bomb techniques to try to avoid the causes of the failure of the 2009 device," that official said. "We are confident that the study of the device will yield valuable insights that will aid us in adapting security practices and counterterrorism operations here and abroad."
The IED is in the hands of top experts the FBI and is, according to sources, being thoroughly examined.
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[Tolo News] Several bully boyz ambushed a security checkpoint in North Wazoo near the Afghan border, killing nine Pak soldiers on Sunday, officials said.
The attack took place yesterday in Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... town in North Waziristan, the Pak Army said in a statement.
The army statement says that bully boyz had been firing on the checkpoint for the past few days before they ambushed it.
North Waziristan is considered a haven for bad turbans. It is also believed to be a key command and control center for bully boyz fighting US troops in neighboring Afghanistan.
The US forces have used Arclight airstrikes from drones to curb the threat but the Pak parliament has called for an end to the strikes, viewing them as an unacceptable violation of illusory sovereignty.
There have been significantly fewer strikes this year.
But the US is unwilling to stop completely because the use of drones has weakened Al Qaeda and associated groups in Pakistain's tribal regions, parts of which are not under the control of the Pak state.
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[Dawn] A strong and targeted action against criminals and gangsters will be taken in 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.... and there will be no dialogue with such elements.
This was decided at a meeting presided over by Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at the Chief Minister's House on Sunday.
"There can be no dialogue with criminals," Mr Malik said while speaking to the media after the meeting and added that members of the banned People's Aman Committee would be dealt with according to the law.
At the meeting a consensus was reached on carrying out a strong action against criminal elements, he said.
Sources said Sindh IG Mushtaq Shah, home secretary Khawaja Siddique Akbar, additional chief secretary (home) Sohail Akbar and Sindh chief minister's principal secretary Agha Jan Akhtar also attended the meeting.
The meeting focused on measures to be taken to maintain law and order in the province, particularly in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... The interior minister vowed to take action against the banned People's Amn Committee operating in Lyari and other parts of the city.
He said a targeted operation would be carried out in Lyari, which he claimed, was the hub of gang warfare elements.
"The Rangers and police are in Lyari only to protect the people not to harm them. No one will be allowed to take the people of Lyari hostage. The criminals cannot take the cover of political parties," he said.
"The action will be according to the law and not an extrajudicial one," he added.
He said President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... , who had ordered the operation, was worried over the Lyari situation, adding that the government would compensate the people affected by the operation for their losses.
"I assure you that the people of Lyari will be compensated. The president and the prime minister have also directed the authorities concerned to release funds for development in Lyari," Mr Malik told the media.
He vowed that the criminals who had been captured would be presented before the media, adding that names of Lyari gang warfare suspects had been put on the exit control list.
Replying to a question about the Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz's offer to People's Aman Committee chief Uzair Jan Baloch to join the PML-N, Mr Malik said: "I don't think they will accept him. But if they do, it will be an illegal act."
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[Tolo News] At least six schools have been forced to close in Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province's Khogyani district after local Taliban threatened harm in retaliation for the arrest of a fellow Death Eater, local officials said.
The circumstances of the arrest of a local school teacher by security forces are not clear; however, his release is being demanded by the Taliban faceless myrmidons in the area, an official said.
Which suggests they have more than a casual interest in his fate...
Nangarhar provincial front man Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said that the teacher was locked away I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! based on evidence but a delegation has been sent to Khogyani district to investigate further.
"The teacher was captured based on some proof. A delegation has been sent to investigate about the issue. The residents should not act before full clarification," Abdulzai told TOLOnews.
Provincial council members called upon the Taliban not to use schools for political or thug aims.
"Schools are for learning, they're not a political organ. We ask the forces of Evil not to close schools," Nangarhar council member Zabiullah Zmrai said.
"Closing schools is a national treason and should not be used for personal benefit," he added.
A front man for the provincial Education Department Asef Shinwari said six schools were closed by unknown thugs.
"Six schools were closed by unknown armed forces of Evil in the Khogyani district after several people including a school teacher were locked away I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! in a joint operation," Shinwari said.
"Militants have warned to keep the schools shut if he [the school teacher] is not released."
Khogyani is a remote district of eastern Nangarhar province with an active insurgency in the recent years.
The district has around 55 schools, officials said.
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[Dawn] A man was killed and four others were maimed when explosives went off at a workshop in Lower Dir district on Sunday.
Police said that Shahid Khan, a mechanic, was repairing engine of a passenger coach at his workshop when kaboom lying there suddenly went kaboom! with a big bang.
They said that Shahid, a resident of Doog Darra, was killed while Ibadullah of Kaladaag Maidan, Mohammad Faraz of Kamar Kotkay, Mohammad Shahid of Kaladaag and Adnan of Timergara received injuries in the blast. Tahir Shah, in-charge of the Bomb Disposal Squad, told journalists that about one kilogram explosives were used in the blast.
A source said that a man had brought a machine, used in mining, for repairing to the workshop. He said that the explosives meant for mining went kaboom! that harmed the people present there.
In Darra Admakhel, helicopter gunships pounded the hideouts of Death Eaters in Akhorwal area on Sunday.
Sources said that helicopters targeted the Death Eaters roaming on the link road between Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency. "The Death Eaters target private vehicles and security forces from Akhorwal area," they added.
According to unconfirmed reports, Death Eaters managed to escape towards Khyber Agency, however, their several temporary hideouts were destroyed in the shelling.
The security forces, guarding Indus Highway and Kohat tunnel for the last five years, had tightened security and checking of vehicles.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... Death Eaters bombed two schools in Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... and South Wazoo agencies on Saturday night.
Locals said that Death Eaters planted explosives in government middle school for boys in Haleemzai area of Mohmand Agency that went kaboom! in the night. The school was situated near the village of Malik Shamal.
The kaboom caused damage to the building of the school. Officials said that 94 schools both for boys and girls had been targeted in Mohmand Agency. Local authorities have made makeshift arrangements with the help of donor agencies for
students to attend classes in tents.
Another middle school for girls was targeted in Karikot area near Wana in South Waziristan Agency. Reports said that two kabooms occurred in the school.
The kabooms damaged the main gate and also caused cracks in the building. No group has grabbed credit for the attacks. Several schools have been closed in the volatile area owing to security reasons.
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[Yemen Post] Al-Qaeda in Yemen said on Monday no agreement has been reached to release the Saudi consul who was kidnapped in Aden on March 28, Almasdar Online reported.
The statement by the Ansar Al-Sharia came as a reply to the statement of Deputy Interior Minister, Muhammad Al-Qawsi, which said on Sunday communication was continuing with the myrmidon group in the south to release, Abdullah Al-Khalidi, the Saudi consul, in 48 hours.
"What has been said over agreement to release the consul was untrue," the website quoted a statement by the myrmidon group.
On Sunday, Al-Qawsi also said the Swiss female teacher, who was kidnapped in March in Hodeida, would be released along with the Saudi consul in 48 hours.
Al-Qaeda, which seized several towns in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... and Shabwa provinces last year, also kidnapped last month a Frenchie. The three foreigners were said to have been taken to Shabwa.
Separately, the Defense Ministry confirmed the killing of 22 soldiers in raids by Al-Qaeda snuffies in Abyan early on Monday. It reported on its website the casualties occurred during the raids on military posts in the Doufas and Al-Koud areas in Zinjibar.
In this regard, Al-Qaeda said it also captured 28 more soldiers and seized military equipment during the raids, which came as a reply to the threats of President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi two days ago.
In his first speech since he was elected in February, Hadi vowed to continue the war on militancy in southern and southeastern regions until they were cleared from all areas.
Exploiting the unrest in 2011, Al-Qaeda seized some towns in Abyan and Shabwa and has been trying to expand its presence.
But the forces, with direct support from the US and popular fighters, have faced many attacks in Abyan killing and injuring hundreds of snuffies in the past few weeks.
Also, many snuffies have been killed by US drone strikes in the two provinces including Fahd Al-Quso, who was targeted in Shabwa on Sunday.
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[Tolo News] Afghan cops have cooled for a few years You have the right to remain silent... two people for attempting to assassinate Takhar provincial council members, Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) said Sunday.
The pair had placed explosives in a computer hard drive at the provincial council offices and were planning to detonate it during a council meeting, NDS media centre chief Shafiqullah Taheri said.
"Amir Shah, a resident of Taluqan the capital city of Takhar and a computer operator at the provincial council office, and Shahpoor, a resident of Yangi Qala [district] and a student at the faculty of agriculture at Takhar University, who placed bombs in a computer system and planned to explode it in Takhar's provincial council meeting, have been tossed in the slammer," Book 'im, Mahmoud! Taheri said in a presser.
In a separate incident, a person who planned to attack Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. 's airport was also cooled for a few years You have the right to remain silent... by NDS officials, Taheri said.
The person trained in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and was sent to Jalalabad to launch a suicide kaboom on the airport, according to the NDS.
"He was trained by Mawlawi Nik Mohammad in Peshawar and was sent to launch a suicide attack on Jalalabad airport," Taheri said, without providing more details.
Taheri said at the conference that the Taliban are trying to create opportunities during the spring and target government officials to appear to escalate their attacks.
"Taliban are trying to take full advantage of the spring season and assassinate high-ranking government officials, but the NDS officials well not let them do so," he said.
The Taliban released a statement last week saying they would launch their "spring offensive" on May 3, suggesting that their attacks would become bigger or more frequent compared to their attacks during the winter.
On May 3, the NDS cooled for a few years You have the right to remain silent... a Pak national who was driving a truck laden with explosives in Kabul.
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[Dawn] Allah Rakhi is getting used to breathing through her nose and wearing her new look.
For 32 years, she has been breathing through her mouth. From the age of 19 when her husband cut her nose with a shaving razor, Allah Rakhi wore a two-by-two-inch bandage around it, just like a pirate who wears a patch around his damaged eye.
"I never imagined something so heinous could ever happen to me. I never thought he would ever hurt me so badly," said Allah Rakhi, who now looks everyone in the eyes as she passes by people in the streets and no longer covers her face with a shawl.
Feeling her ribcage on the right, the 51-year old simpleton explained how her surgeon took a tiny piece of her rib and some skin from her forehead to make her a new nose -- that is almost as good as if she had never lost it. She does, however, need one or two more surgeries so that doctors can refine it.
"It's a miracle," said Allah Rakhi, her eyes filling up with tears. Married off as young as 13 in 1974 and with a little boy and a girl six years later, her husband used to beat her black and blue, she said bowing to show a scar in the centre of her head where he had given her 18 stitches.
He needed a reason -- it could be anything -- and he would reach for whatever he could grab to hit me with," said Allah Rakhi adding how he would also threaten to turn her out. "As I left him one afternoon in 1980 for my parents' home, he stopped me in the street, held me down to the ground, cut my nose and slashed my right ankle that he almost severed.
"For six years I could not walk without a stick," she said explaining how in the beginning she used to hide her face from her own son who was then only knee high.
Even then she wanted to return home because the thought of being away from her children hurt her more. Her husband was out of the jail after six months. A year after when he knew he was off the hook, Allah Rakhi was divorced. A bus driver married her with whom she lived for many happy years and saw her two children married off. She lost him to a road accident eight years ago.
Three years ago, Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) that usually helps burn victims took her in as special case. Incharge of nursing care and rehabilitation unit, Balqees Shehzad has been by her side since then. But later some top plastic surgeons of the country declined to operate her because they were either unwilling to do charity work or feared contracting Hepatitis C that she had.
"But then she met Dr Hamid Hassan who is a Burn and Reconstructive Surgeon at the Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... Hospital Rawalpindi. He put Allah Rakhi on top of his patients' waiting list and went on with operating her. After two surgeries (one in March and the other in April this year), the second one lasting seven hours, Allah Rakhi could look in the mirror without feeling bad," said Balqees Shehzad.
"This was not the first time such a case had come to us. But she certainly was one of the worst victims with cut noses. There was nothing in place of her nose and she was also a Hepatitis C patient.
"We will refine the nose further as soon as she is ready for the next operation," said Dr Hamid Hassan who has been affiliated with the ASF since 2007 and has conducted (with his team) 340 surgeries on burn victims besides arranging camps for such patients every year -- all without charging a single penny.
Allah Rakhi is one of the innumerable victims of this centuries-old brutal practice against the women of lower socio-economic strata in the region.
Allah Rakhi's son, now in his mid 30s with children of his own, took her back home in Gujranwala where she takes joy to see her grandchildren run around.
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Pretty much the entire week was the lead in for Sunday's presidential debate among the four candidates as the campaign visits stopped and candidates prepared.
Three of the four candidates have trailed Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) frontrunner Enrique Pena Nieto by double digits since last week, according to polling data supplied by Milenio news daily.
But not all was going swimmingly for Pena Nieto. There are signs that enthusiasm for his candidacy is starting to wane. A news article by El Imparcial news daily showed a photo of a Day of the Child rally April 30th in Distrito Federal where empty seats could be seen were inside the tent holding the campaign event. This is an area where enthusiasm for Pena Nieto should be the highest.
The caveat is that Sonora state, home of El Imparcial, is a Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) state with PAN governor Guillermo Padres Elias presiding, and is likely to accentuate travails by PRI politicians. Even so, the empty events with all the undecided voters should be a worrying trend for Pena Nieto.
PAN presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota ran into some difficulty as well during Day of the Child celebrations, when she tried to visit a children's hospital in Distrito Federal. A story in El Diario de Coahuila news daily related the complaints of a retired electrician where security concerns for Vazquez Mota's visit disrupted the hospital's normal functioning.
To the daily's credit, the retiree was identified as a member of the pro Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas (SME) or electrician's union. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition is headed up by the PRD.
A 12 minute scuffle broke out at Mexico City's Hotel Hilton Alameda where Lopez Obrador appeared at a campaign event on behalf of Miguel Angel Mancera, PRD candidate for president of Distrito Federal. Lopez Orbador was to give a talk about his redorm proposals concerning PEMEX, the Mexican government-owned oil company.
A man identifying himself as a reporter for a San Antonio,Texas media outlet, Rodolfo Macias, began screaming at Lopez Obrador, complaining about former PRI president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
The reference to Salinas de Gortari is significant because he was elected president of the republic in 1988, the same year that then-PRI president of Tabasco state Lopez Orbador resigned to start the PRD.
Apparently the shouting match last 12 minutes as Lopez Obrador supporters tried to move Macias out of the event, when Lopez Obrador's bodyguards finally appeared.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday Vazquez Mota announced that according to internal polling she was within 10 percentage points of Pena Nieto, not 20 points as most polls were showing.
Vazquez Mota has a point. During the Michoacan gubernatorial elections, PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz continued to tell media outlets that the polls were much, much closer than were actually reported, and as it turned out, while PAN failed to capture Michoacan, the margin of victory for PRI candidate Fausto Vallejo was about 42,000 votes, well below what PRI and its media allies had said at the time would be razor thin.
PAN politician and former finance minister under Mexican president Felipe Calderon, Ernesto Cordero gave a presentation last Wednesday that was tweeted by AnimalPolitico.com in which he put forth the case for PAN candidate Vazquez Mota and a return to Los Pinos for PAN.
Cordero's case rested primarily on economics. He told the audience of journalists that PRI's portrayal of PAN economic policies as hurting average Mexicans was not true.
For example, he told the gathering that the percentage of Mexicans in dire poverty went from 15 percent to five percent under PAN government. He also said that accumulated inflation in the 1980s under successive PRI administrations was 15,000 percent, while under PAN it was 55 percent. And as for reforms, he complained that PRI's strategy in the last two years has been to obstruct reforms in the PRI-controlled Chamber of Deputies for baldly political reasons, allowing PRI to claim lack of progress that they themselves were causing.
He also criticized PRI for its failure to deal effectively with criticism, stating that PAN deals with it as helpful advice to improving society, but PRI does not.
One reporter helpfully asked Cordero if he knew the prices of common items such as the costs of a ride on the Mexico City subway and of a kilogram of tortillas. Unlike the other three main candidate, he said he knew but would not tell the reporter.
That exchange impelled this writer to tweet Animal Politico if they had treated the PRI the same as Cordero and PAN. I did not get a reply.
Lastly, the time just prior to the debates, PAN received the news that spot ads linking PRI to disgraced former PRI president Humberto Moreria Valdes and his Coahuila state former tax collector and federal fugitive, Javier Villarreal Hernendez would not be permitted by the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE).
Instead, PAN politicians in Coahuila held at least one "mega-debt" rally to bring focus on the issue of massive debt contracted by states run by PRI governors, including Pena Nieto's home state of Mexico.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com.
[Dawn] SINCE parliament completed its review of US-Pakistain bilateral relations, there have been two drone strikes in North Wazoo. The strikes have occurred despite repeated US assurances that it respects Pak illusory sovereignty.
It is because we respect illusory Pak sovereignty that we send in the drones. Did we not, it would have been a battalion of Marines.
As such, the strikes undermine Pakistain's one-track demand that the US take Pak illusory sovereignty more seriously. One can imagine that engagements in late April with US special envoy Marc Grossman entailed a lot of fist-thumping, flying spittle and demands for illusory sovereignty. Discussions on televised political talk shows and in drawing rooms across the country certainly have. Given how frequently the issue of illusory sovereignty has reared its head in recent months, it is high time Islamabad sought to clearly define the concept in a Pak context.
Contrary to popular opinion, which has flatly misinterpreted illusory sovereignty to mean obstinacy, the concept requires interpretation. Each nation defines its illusory sovereignty differently and Pakistain has yet to make the effort to articulate a definition. Since Islamabad has seized the notion of illusory sovereignty in recent years, specifically in the context of US-Pakistain relations and Pakistain's role in the war against terrorism, it has defined its illusory sovereignty with regard to what the US can get away with on Pak soil.
For Pakistain, illusory sovereignty means no drone strikes, no CIA contractors sneaking about, no US boots on the ground, no US planes in our airbases. Unfortunately, a definition crafted as a reaction to events and external policies, rather than as an articulation of a national vision, is necessarily lacking.
Endless column inches have already highlighted that lack. The point has repeatedly been made that Pakistain decries US transgressions as a violation of its illusory sovereignty, but has far less to say on the matter of Islamic fascisti-- described by the government as 'non-state actors' -- operating on its territory. Liberals have termed Al Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden's ... he's rotten though not quite forgotten... extended stay in Pakistain a violation of illusory sovereignty. Others have argued that foreigners who travel to Pakistain from the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe seeking bad turban training and sanctuary in the country's northwest are also violating its illusory sovereignty.
These contentions are the initial flickerings of debate on how Pakistain plans to define illusory sovereignty. To get a sense of how animated the discussion is likely to become, should Pakistain choose to pursue it, it's worth glancing across the border at India.
Earlier this year, the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi released Non-Alignment 2.0, a policy document by leading public intellectuals that aimed to update Indian notions of illusory sovereignty. The document argued that "strategic autonomy" has long been the defining value of Indian foreign policy and reiterated the importance of New Delhi being able to shift its allegiances in accordance with evolving circumstances: "We must seek to achieve a situation where no other state is in a position to exercise undue influence on us -- or make us act against our better judgment and will."
The report generated a lot of debate in the Indian public sphere, with many critiquing the concept of non-alignment as dated and anachronistic. In an article for The Caravan magazine, Shashank Joshi questions the viability of non-alignment as a reigning foreign policy.
He argues that India's weapons purchases from the US and Russia necessitated alliances as New Delhi was compelled to entrust Indian security to nations that could supply spare parts for its defence systems: "The paradox is that India has sought autonomy through alignment -- diversifying defence suppliers is seen as a way of insulating oneself from the whims of any one power. It's not clear where non-alignment stops and alignment begins.... What is certain is that India is already aligned -- with various powers, in various ways, and certainly to an increasing degree with the United States."
Joshi goes on to argue that alignment and illusory sovereignty are not mutually exclusive, and that India could still define foreign policy on a case-by-case basis while preserving the broad contours of bilateral understandings, such as US-India agreements about creating a counterweight to an ascendant China.
Others dismissed public posturing about Indian non-alignment as a form of knee-jerk anti-Americanism, much like Pakistain's cries for greater illusory sovereignty. In an article for Foreign Policy, Sadanand Dhume argues that recent Indian foreign policy choices -- for example, the decision to stick with Colonel Qadaffy by opposing a no-fly zone over Libya and supporting Iran through its sanctions stand-off with the US -- are aimed at thwarting the US.
It's up for debate whether Indian policy decisions were shaped in opposition to US strategy, or whether, as Dhume himself suggests, they were a throwback to an old-fashioned belief that state illusory sovereignty matters more than individual rights.
Clearly, India is still stumbling its way to its own definition of national illusory sovereignty. But it has instigated the debate and chosen to front-end Indian national interests and the abstract conception of non-alignment. That's the step that Pakistain has skipped over.
For the moment, Pak illusory sovereignty is defined (by accident, rather than design) on a case-by-case basis and is firmly rooted in pragmatic here-and-now considerations such as how much money can be extracted from Washington in exchange for reopening NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... supply routes. Going forward, Pakistain must link its demands for its illusory sovereignty to be respected with a coherent national vision and complementary -- and hopefully consistent -- foreign policy goals. After all, unless they cohere into a bigger picture, little details cease to have any meaning and are easy to overlook.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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#1
But will Pakistan take strong action agz the MilTerrs widout the US having to assert pressure on them to do so - IMO Radical Islam must doubt Islamabad's veracity or gumption to do so otherwise they wouldn't even bother to engage in anti-Jihad, electoral Govt/Power-sharing negotiations wid Islamabad + US-NATO.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US WARNS PAKISTAN OF "MULTIPLE REPERCUSSIONS", iff NATO supply routes [overland] thru Pakistan into Afghanistan stay closed during the next 6 months.
versus
* SAME > [Author-Expert Ismail Salami] SAUDI-BACKED WAHABIS BEHIND MASSACRE OF SHIAS IN PAKISTAN [Punjab].
ARTIC > SALAMI = SHIA-KILLING/TARGETING "SEPAH SABANEH" TERRORISTS ARE SUNNI/ARAB-BACKED, espec by Saudi Arabia + Bahrain, The TTP is an offshoot of same.
versus
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > IRAN OPENS UP CHABAHAR PORT FOR NATO SUPPLY | ... TO AFGHAN TRADERS.
IIUC ARTIC, iff true then the Afghans may seemingly be put in direct charge of receiving, storing, moving + delivering any + all US-NATO cargoes to-n-from Afghanistan to Chabahar???
#2
It is because we respect illusory Pak sovereignty that we send in the drones. Did we not, it would have been a battalion of Marines.
I think a good, old fashioned arclight might be better because it's so much less discriminatory. Take out a few madrassas and the ISI headquarters while we're at it. Show these people the true meaning of harboring terrorists.
#3
#2 I think a good, old fashioned arclight might be better because it's so much less discriminatory.
And if they have forgotten how to do it, we have a few Rantburg regulars who will be more than happy to do it at Cost. H*ll, I'll pay for the first two hotel nights.
[Yemen Post] Yemeni military, political and tribal leaders from Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... governorate met with President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi ...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... on Monday and urged him to reinforce troops in Abyan to wipe out Al-Qaeda from their areas.
This meeting came hours after Al-Qaeda killed and captured dozens of Yemeni troops in Zinjibar of Abyan on Monday in surprise raids against military positions.
The leaders expressed, during the meeting with Hadi, their willingness to form local committees to fight beside the army with the aim of defeating al-Qaeda and enabling the displaced persons to return homes.
Among leaders who meet with Hadi Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Al-Shadadi, the politician Ali Ashaal, the Culture Minister Abdullah Awbal, and assistant of the Interior Minister Hussein Haitham.
The leaders conveyed a memo from the locals of Abyan to President Hadi in which they directly accused 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... of assisting Al-Qaeda in taking control in Zinjibar and displacing thousands of people.
This fierce attack of Al-Qaeda against the Yemen army came after a US drone killed an Al-Qaeda leader, Fahad Al-Qasa'a on Sunday.
Al-Qasa'a who was killed in Al-Saeed district, 60 kilometers east of Shabwa's capital, Ataq was designated as number three on America's most-wanted list.
Hadi vowed in a meeting with military leaders on Saturday to defeat Al-Qaeda and reorganize Yemen's divided military.
Yemen's military made progress in fighting Al-Qaeda during the past two months as dozens of Al-Qaeda operatives were killed by the military who was backed by local rustics.
Gerald Feierstein, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen had hailed progress made by the Yemeni army against Al-Qaeda attributing that progress to changes made by President Abdurabu Mansur Hadi in the military's leadership.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Yemen Post] At least 30 soldiers were killed and many others captured when al-Qaeda bully boyz raided military posts in Yemen's southern Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province on Monday in retaliation for the killing of a senior al-Qaeda leader the prior day in Shabwa, Almasdar Online reported.
Fahd al-Quso, one of the beturbanned goons suspected in the bombing of the USS Cole Destroyer in Aden more than a decade ago, was killed an Arclight airstrike by a US drone in Shabwa on Sunday, security officials said.
"A drone strike targeted the car in which al-Quso and another al-Qaeda bad turban were in Shabwa," the sources said. "The two were killed and the car completely destroyed," they said. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death of al-Quso in a dronezap.
In retaliation, the bully boyz raided early Monday military posts in the Doufas and al-Koud areas in Abyan killing, injuring and arresting scores of soldiers, the website said. There were officers among the locked away Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! and the number of the bully boyz who were killed in the battles was unclear, it added.
The bully boyz also seized military equipment, the website said.
In March, bully boyz raided military posts in Abyan killing, injuring and capturing scores of soldiers and seizing military equipment.
With direct support from the US, the Yemeni army has been fighting AQAP for the past few years.
Exploiting the unrest in 2011, AQAP seized some towns in south Yemen, raising fears of the West in one of the poorest countries in the world.
More recently, the army in association with popular fighters has waged fierce battles against the bully boyz in southern and southeastern regions including Abyan and Shabwa.
Hundreds of bully boyz have been killed and injured and the forces have cleared bully boyz from many areas including the capital of Abyan, Zinjibar.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Talibs beheaded two Pak soldiers and hung their heads from wooden poles in a town in the country's northwest on Monday, a day after they killed nine soldiers in an ambush there, officials said.
The killings in Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... , the main town in the North Wazoo tribal area, highlight the dilemma facing the Pak military in dealing with the most important turban sanctuary in the country.
North Waziristan is a key base for the Pak Taliban, which have waged a bloody battle against the government and its security forces over the past several years. But it is also a refuge for Afghan and Pak Orcs and similar vermin battling U.S.-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan who are believed to be close to the government in Islamabad.
The U.S. has repeatedly demanded that Pakistain launch an offensive against the Orcs and similar vermin conducting cross-border attacks from North Waziristan, especially the Haqqani network. Pakistain has refused, claiming its forces are stretched too thin fighting the Pak Taliban in other parts of the tribal region.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... many analysts believe Pakistain is reluctant to target Orcs and similar vermin in North Waziristan with whom it has strong historical ties and who could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.
But those Orcs and similar vermin are also closely allied with the Pak Taliban, the country's fiercest enemy.
On Sunday, the Taliban ambushed a security checkpoint in Miranshah, killing nine Pak soldiers, the army said. Militants had been firing on the checkpoint for the past few days before they ambushed it, the army added.
The army retaliated with helicopter gunships, which pounded suspected turban hideouts and also hit three houses and a mosque in the town, said intelligence officials. Three non-combatants were killed and 20 were maimed in the helizaps, they said. It's unclear how many Orcs and similar vermin were killed.
A Taliban capo said the military raided two houses in Miranshah on Sunday night, killing a turban commander and several of his colleagues. The Orcs and similar vermin seized two soldiers during the raids, beheaded them and hung their heads in different parts of Miranshah, said the commander.
The intelligence officials did not specify how the soldiers were seized, but confirmed that their heads were hanging from poles in Miranshah.
The army has retrieved some of the bodies of the soldiers who were killed, and authorities are working with local tribal elders to try to get the Orcs and similar vermin to return the rest, said the officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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#1
DAILY TIMES.PK says the Taliban beheaded up to 13 Soldiers in North Waziristan.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2012 8:14
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Top||
#3
Not to say this isn't gruesome and horrible, but I gave a big sigh of relief after reading it was Pakistani soldiers.
Posted by: Charles ||
05/08/2012 9:29
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#4
Is the world going nuts over the "head on a stick" issue? Americans photographed with dead bodies has that effect - why not here? Mounting heads is preferable to urinating on bodies - is that it?
ARTIC = denotes possible PAK ISI support for the Pak Taliban killing sprees agz pro-peace AFghan factions despite the Pak ISI seemingly losing its control oer the TTP = Pak Taliban???
[Yemen Post] Public committees formed from rustics in the southern city of Lahj killed on Monday Bassam Al-Sayed, the most dangerous Al-Qaeda operative in Radfan of Lahj governorate.
Al-Said is pursued by Yemen's security on charges of committing murders and abductions.
Eyewitness said festivities erupted between Al-Said and his followers, and rustics of the public committees on Monday, pointing out that Al-Said was killed and his followers managed to escape.
Yemen's authorities set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock You have the right to remain silent... Al-Said in February 2010, but he could escape the prison in uncertain conditions.
Local sources said Al-Sayed engaged with Al-Qaeda and continuously moved between Radafan and Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... after his escape, pointing out that his moves were constrained after the public committees set up checkpoints on main roads.
The sources reradiated that the public committees set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock You have the right to remain silent... in late March eight Al-Qaeda suspects after receiving threats of a surprise attack by Al-Qaeda faceless myrmidons against Lahj, pointing out that Syrian and Saudi were among the arrestees. They affirmed that rustics handed over the faceless myrmidons to security services of Lahj that in turn transferred them to Al-Anad military camp. Ansar Al-Shariah repeatedly threatened to storm Yafa'a, a distrct of Lahj, and take control on the town, local sources said.The Yemeni army made progress against Ansar Al-Shariah in Abyan and could reach to the heart of Zinjibar after air-fighters launched strikes on the town.According to Yemen's Defense Ministry, most veteran leaders of Al-Qaeda including Fahad Al-Qasa were killed and some others could escape outside the governorate of Abyan.However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... Al-Qaeda killed and captured dozens of Yemeni soldiers on Monday two days after Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi vowed to defeat Al-Qaeda in Abyan, his birthplace province.
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05/08/2012
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[An Nahar] Syrians voted Monday in the first "multiparty" parliamentary election in five decades, against a backdrop of violence and dismissed as a sham by the opposition and bordering on the "ludicrous" by the U.S.
Voters cast their ballots in the capital and other regions, while in opposition strongholds residents boycotted the poll, instead staging protests and a general strike.
The election went ahead despite the unrest that has swept Syria since March 2011 when Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... resorted to force in a bid to quash a revolt against his autocratic regime.
The United States said holding an election while violence is still raging "borders on ludicrous."
"It's not really possible to hold credible elections in a climate where basic human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... are being denied to the citizens and the government is continuing to carry out daily assaults... on its own citizens," the State Department said.
U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... joined the criticism.
"Only a comprehensive and inclusive political dialogue can lead to a genuine democratic future in Syria," Ban said through his front man Martin Nesirky. "These elections are not taking place within that framework.
"Moreover, a democratic process cannot be successful while violence is still ongoing," he added.
The vote, initially scheduled for last September, was postponed to May 7 after Assad announced the launch of a reform process backed by a referendum.
A total of 7,195 candidates registered to stand for the 250 seats, state news agency SANA said.
The 12,000 polling stations closed at 10:00 pm (19H00 GMT), state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported. There was no immediate indication of turnout or when the results may be expected.
Pro-regime parties led by Assad's Baath were represented under a coalition called the National Progressive Front.
The opposition dismissed the vote as a sham and a ploy by the regime to buy time and dupe the international community into believing it is serious about reforms.
"Whoever drowns Syria in blood, displaces... Syrians and shoots at the Syrian people does not have the legitimacy to draw up a constitution, an electoral law, or to run elections," the exiled opposition Syrian National Council said.
Several towns and villages across the country, including some neighborhoods of Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... , held demonstrations, boycotted the vote and organized a general strike amid reports of continued violence.
Regime forces killed at least 14 civilians nationwide on Monday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which also reported three military fatalities.
Clashes between soldiers and rebels were reported in several areas of Hama province as well as other regions, the Britannia-based Observatory said.
"There are no signs of a national election in or the surrounding areas," activist Nureddin al-Abdo told Agence La Belle France Presse via Skype.
"The regime is trying to delude itself that it still holds power by organizing these fake elections, but it is only capable of ruling with tanks."
Shops were closed and streets empty in several areas of Hama, Idlib, 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... , Daraa in the south and Damascus itself, activists said.
State television reported high turnout in several of the same regions.
"In Aleppo, only the main polling stations were full, and that was because the authorities brought its loyalists in to vote," Aleppo-based activist Mohammad al-Halabi said.
"But the rest of the polling stations, where there was no media presence, were empty."
In Yabrud village, Damascus province, children led an anti-regime demonstration, waving independence-era flags, according to amateur video posted on YouTube.
Another video showed an unidentified man in Midaq village of Hama province accusing paramilitary regime forces of having burnt down shops after their owners joined the strike.
International media freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), meanwhile, condemned the killing by Syrian regime forces of citizen journalists.
Regime forces have killed six such journalists this year, according to RSF, which named the latest as Abdul Ghani Kaakeh, 19, killed in Aleppo while filming a demonstration.
According to the Observatory, more than 11,100 people have died in violence, most of them civilians, since the anti-regime uprising broke out in March last year.
Monday's election was the first time Syria has held a vote since the adoption in February of a new constitution allowing for multi-party polls. Nine parties have been created, and seven had candidates vying for a parliamentary seat.
Political analysts do not expect the election to lead to significant change in Syria, where a tenuous U.N.-backed ceasefire that came into effect on April 12 has failed to take hold.
More than 600 people have died since the truce began, according to the Observatory.
U.N. observers deployed in the country to monitor the truce have reported violations by both regime and rebel forces.
Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Monday that his government was "facilitating" the work of the observers.
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Paleostinian Christians often deflect Moslem anger away from themselves by directing it at the Jews.
With his recent segment for 60 Minutes, CBS News news hound Bob Simon has once again stoked the perennial debate over why so many native Paleostinian Christians have been leaving the Holy Land in recent decades. Sadly, he addressed this important issue with a very superficial brand of journalism.
The report relied mainly on one local Paleostinian holy man -- notorious Israel-basher Rev. Mitri Raheb -- to single out the "Israeli occupation" as the scapegoat for this Christian flight. There was no need to dig deeper, since Simon knew the report was sure to be a sensation from the moment Israeli ambassador Dr. Michael Oren caught wind of the production and intervened with his bosses at CBS News.
If Bob Simon had truly wanted to know why Arab Christians have been fleeing in droves from Paleostinian areas, he should have asked those émigrés now living in Toronto, Sydney and Santiago. Because that is where the majority of Paleostinian Christians now reside -- in dispersed communities in Canada, Chile, Australia, Germany, the United States and elsewhere.
The disturbing truth is that more than 60 percent of the Arab Christians born in Paleostinian areas over the past several generations now live abroad. Yet the same holds true for Lebanese Christians, as a similar 60% of their beleaguered community now live in foreign lands.
Indeed, there has been a widening Christian exodus from all the surrounding Arab countries, with Iraq's ancient Assyrian Christian community collapsing from 1.5 million to as few as 250,000 since the Second Gulf War commenced in 2003. The Coptic Church in Egypt is also losing tens of thousands of parishioners in the wake of the Arab Spring.
So it is indisputable that Arab Christians are fleeing all across the Middle East, and surely the Israeli occupation is not to blame. Rather, this flight has been primarily due to local conflicts and the rise of Islamic militancy, as noted by Ambassador Oren, and the Paleostinian Christians are no exception to this trend. The lone exception, in fact, happens to be the State of Israel, the only place in the entire region where the community of Arab Christians is growing and where Arab Christians are afforded their democratic rights.
Still, some Paleostinian holy mans insist that Moslems and Christians would co-exist in perfect harmony if not for the Jews and their settlements. That, sadly, is a living portrait of a people in denial. How else to explain that Paleostinian Christian flight from the Holy Land predates the "occupation" by decades?
For instance, the last British census in 1948 recorded 29,000 Arab Christians living in Jerusalem, while the first Israeli census in eastern Jerusalem in 1967 found only 11,000. That means two-thirds of the Arab Christian population had decamped during the 19 years of the Jordanian occupation of east Jerusalem.
The real root of the current exodus actually lies in the historic interplay between Christians, Jews and Moslems in the Middle East ever since the Islamic conquests began in the seventh century. The region's Christians and Jews became dhimmis -- suppressed minorities living under Moslem dominance. They could keep their faith but had to accept second-class status. To survive, both communities adopted a code of silence which dictated that they never challenge the system or say anything bad about Islam in public.
This system of dhimmitude basically held until modern times. The Crusades may have brought temporary relief for some Christians, but only terror for the Jews.
When Ottoman rule over the Middle East began to wane, the dynamic finally began to change. The Great Powers of Europe moved into the region, each concluding deals with the Sultanate in Istanbul to provide protection to various imperiled Christian denominations. Western missionaries also brought with them schools, hospitals and other modern institutions.
With their better education and job skills, Arab Christians became more mobile and many began to migrate to the West to escape the prison of Islam. Thus the modern-day Christian exodus began.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... the Zionist movement arose with a dream of restoring Jewish illusory sovereignty back in their ancient homeland. Israel's emergence in 1948 challenged the system of Moslem dominance over Christians and Jews, an achievement the Arab world has never truly accepted.
For many Christians in the Middle East, the rebirth of Israel actually stands as a light and model of freedom from Moslem tyranny. But for Paleostinian Christians, the conflict that seeks to destroy the Jewish state has been too close for comfort. They are powerless to end it and struggling to survive.
Thus many Paleostinian Christian leaders have taken to patriotically waving the flag of Paleostinian nationalism higher than even their Moslem neighbors, in the hope such loyalty to the cause will safeguard their flocks. They rail against the Israeli occupation and the settlements as the reason for their dwindling presence. The checkpoints and security barrier may create hardships for them, but they are not the core reason why proud Christian families who have weathered many turbulent centuries here are now pulling up roots.
We must all understand that they are employing an ancient survival mechanism ingrained through centuries of Moslem oppression. Unable to name the real culprit, Paleostinian Christians often deflect Moslem anger away from themselves by directing it at the Jews. Meantime, Ambassador Oren is giving voice to the things they cannot say.
The writer is media director for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.
#1
When Tom Clancy started his "Executive Order" with a 747 smacking the capital building during a state of the union speech, it was crazy talk.
But you have to clear the board some way or another.
See the "Military Order" novels. Sort of an underground Templars today.
See Youtube and enter Templars. Lots of folks wanting to listen the the chant or the march or....
But that's crazy talk.
As Insty says, incentives work, even perverse ones.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/08/2012 7:31
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#2
See DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [NY Post = Ralph Peters] THE "EURABIA MYTH":MUSLIM TAKEOVER OF EUROPE? SORRY, THERE'S NO CHANCE.
When pacifist = ignorance-is-bliss Euros do finally get riled, they will not only react but they will [excessively] OVER-REACT, MIGHTILY + QUICKLY + BLOODILY + GENOCIDALLLY, for Europe is the "happy-go-lucky place" which gave the World the Holocaust + Sebrenica, among many other thingys.
and
* WAFF > MYTH OF DECLINE: THE US IS STRONGER + FASTER THAN ANYWHERE [or Anyone] ELSE.
* TOPIX > APPROXIMATELY 60% OF RUSSIANS TRUST THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH.
The Ortho is strong + absolutely in control in Mama Russia despite the growing percentiles widin the nation's Muslim population.
* SAME > RUSSIA FAVORS GREEK-ISRAELI-TURKISH NEXUS FOR CYPRUS, espec as per Oil-Energy Development.
IMO read, ANTI-VATICAN = ANTI-US-NATO/EU.
Sub-read, PRO-SLAVIC + BLACK ORTHODOX.
D *** NG IT, WHOM SAYS THE GWOT IS A STRUGGLE OR COMPETITION BETWEEN MUSLIMS, OR MUSLIM-VS-NON-MUSLIM!
The Western Church had sex wid the Eastern Church + begat the Kardashian Babes.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Algeria's parties prepared their final rallies ahead of the May 10 legislative polls Sunday, after the Arab Spring sweeping the region failed to bring new faces to the campaign and spark the electorate.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him... camp defended a package of cautious reforms initiated to contain revolutionary contagion, while the main Islamist alliance hoped to benefit from their counterparts' gains in the region.
As the three-week campaign wrapped up, the North African country's 21.6 million voters seemed underwhelmed by the choice of 44 parties.
Except for billboards plastered with ripped campaign posters, there were few signs in the streets of Algiers of the imminence of a vote Bouteflika has billed as "the dawn of a new era".
The country's top-selling daily Echorouk carried a front-page picture of a deserted street corner littered with campaign leaflets and this headline: "Everyone was there... except the citizens."
Algeria's leading French-language newspaper El Watan splashed a huge picture and headline on its front page, but it was on the French election, relegating the Algerian polls to page 5.
In the daily Liberte, Algeria's top cartoonist Dilem depicted one man asking another as they walked past the campaign posters for the May 10 vote: "So, who do you support, Sarko or Hollande?"
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Ten-year old Tunisian chess player refuses to compete against Israeli in worldwide chess tournament. Boycotter wins immediate fame from Arab countries, Paleostinians for 'show of bravery'
A sports boycott of Israel is not an unusual occurrence, but it appears the age of the boycotters is continuously dropping -- A ten-year old Tunisian boy by the name of Muhammad Hamida, who took part in the World School Chess Championship, refused to compete against an Israeli opponent. Hamida's actions have turned him into a media hero in Tunisia and other Arab countries.
The media has interpreted Hamida's actions as taking an unequivocal stance regarding the normalization (of relations) with Israel and showing his support of the Paleostinian cause.
Some 640 participants from across the globe competed in the eighth World School Chess Championship which was held in Romania. As part of the competition, Hamida was to compete against an Israeli rival, but he chose to withdraw from the competition instead.
A response from Arab countries and Paleostinian supporters was soon to come. Director of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Gazoo, Ahmed Machisan, expressed his gratitude for Hamida's "show of bravery" during the tournament.
He further spoke of the Tunisian "nobility" regarding the Paleostinian issue.
A wide disagreement exists among the people of Tunisia regarding the normalization of relations with Israel. The Tunisian minister of youth and sports has said that Tunisia would be willing to receive humanitarian aid from Israel. However, it was a brave man who first ate an oyster... opposition sources called his statement "provocative and disloyal," and some parliament members even asked him to apologize for his words.
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa spent the day shopping for new underwear. Tonight was going to be a special occasion... the Israeli Counter Terrorism Bureau (CTB) has recently published a travel advisory to Tunisia, in light of suspected intentions to carry out terror attacks in the country against Israeli and Jewish targets.
Islamic countries boycotting matches with Israeli athletes is not a new phenomenon. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, Iranian World Judo Champion Arash Miresmaeili, refused to compete against the Israeli judoka Ehud Vaks. Also in November 2011, an Egyptian competitor refused to shake hands with Israeli judoka Arik Ze'evi.
#5
he may have been afraid of what would have happened if he did lose the match.
Posted by: chris ||
05/08/2012 10:24
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#6
Rather heavy racist overtones there
Nothing racist about noticing the differences between cultures. Biologically, people are people. But only a blind idiot will deny there are differences between cultures.
Back on topic, what ever happened to the grand tradition of crushing your enemies on the field of sport? Like Jesse Owens vs Adolf Hitler in the 100 meters at the '36 Olympics. Refusing to compete against someone because they are yucky makes you (and your culture) look like a prissy little girl.
(Sh.M.Network) --Uganda has deployed an additional 1,700 troops in volatile Somalia, bringing the total number of Ugandan peacekeepers in the Horn of African country to 8,000, a military front man said here on Monday.
Col. Felix Kulayigye, front man of the Uganda People's Defense Forces, told Xinhua by telephone that the troops will stay in the Somali capital Mogadishu as their colleagues advance deep into hostile territory.
"The troops have already arrived inSomalia. The troops will take charge of the security in Mogadishu as the rest of the troops will move out of the capital to clean up the rest of Somalia," he said.
"Everything is going on well. We hope to seize more positions from the Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... and take charge," he added.
The deployment of the troops which are operating under the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... Mission in Somalia was concluded over the weekend, according to the military.
This increase in the number of troops follows a February UN Security Council resolution that approved the increase in the number of African Union peacekeepers in Somalia from 12,000 to 17, 731.
Uganda and Burundi provide the bulk of the AU peacekeeping troops in the war torn country but also Kenya and Djibouti have troops deployed.
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[An Nahar] Gunmen in northern Nigeria's Kaduna state on Monday rubbed out a Lebanese man and his Nigerian driver and kidnapped another Lebanese national, the state police front man said.
"The gunnies attacked the construction bus in which they were traveling, rubbed out a Lebanese and the Nigerian driver and kidnapped another Lebanese," Aminu Lawan told Agence La Belle France Presse on telephone from Kaduna city.
OTV identified the slain Lebanese man as Fadi Ibrahim. It visited the victim's house in the Zghorta District town of Irba and interviewed his family.
The TV network also identified the kidnapped Lebanese national as Amin Durraq, saying he hails from the Koura District town of Anfeh.
The Nigerian official said the attack took place at a location near Zaria, a large university town.
"We are on the lookout for the criminals and we are searching also for the kidnapped Lebanese," Lawan stated.
A large Lebanese community lives in Nigeria, as in many other African countries.
The attack has added to the feeling of insecurity in Africa's most populous nation battling to curb a deadly Islamist insurgency, especially in northern part of the country.
Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... has carried out scores of attacks in the region but criminal groups have also committed violence under the guise of the group.
The sect has regularly widened its targets in its insurgency which has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.
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ISTANBUL - Former Turkish armed forces commander General Ilker Basbug failed to appear among defendants in a mass trial over suspected coup conspiracies, witnesses said, in an apparent protest at the merging of his case with other coup investigations.
The court held the first hearing on Monday combining a series of trials into suspected members of an alleged arch-nationalist network called Ergenekon.
Police say the Ergenekon network, uncovered in 2007, was trying to destabilize, discredit and ultimately overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party government.
A total of 16 indictments have been prepared against the defendants and they have now all been combined in a single case being heard at a court in Silivri, west of Istanbul, where many suspects have been held in an adjoining high security jail.
(Sh.M.Network)-Kenya's top cop now says a deadly attack on a church in Nairobi appears the be the work of al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere Friday released a photo of the main suspect, known only by the alias Amar. Police officials said Amar is a native Kenyan but trained with al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... , a Somali Death Eater group with links to al-Qaeda.
Iteere also said an al-Shabaab leader named Sheik Ismael Ali grabbed credit for the church attack while preaching to followers in Somalia and vowed to send jacket wallahs toKenya.
Last month's grenade attack on God's House of Miracles International Church killed one person and maimed 16 others. Police officials initially said they thought the attack was the result of strife within the church itself.
A report by a panel of United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... experts issued last year warned al-Shabaab was trying to recruit new members from outside Somalia, and was focusing on other East African countries.
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named said Iteere warns Amar is just one of a number of Kenyans who are returning home after training with al-Shabaab. He says many of them appear to come from a slum inNairobi, the border region near Somalia and areas along the coast.
This article starring:
Sheik Ismael Ali
al-Shabaab
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#2
He had not yet determined when he planned to do it or bought a plane ticket. They got him before that and are finding the source of the explosive now.
#4
This just in, NYT: The would-be suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually a double agent who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the suicide mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday. In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the agent left Yemen, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his air attack and critical information on the groups leaders to the C.I.A., Saudi and other foreign intelligence agencies.
[Dawn] Indiscreet firing at a restaurant in Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood killed two people and injured another in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , DawnNews reported on Monday.
How does that compare to discreet firing at restaurants?
Unidentified myrmidons attacked the restaurant in block 13-D of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, injuring three people.
The injured were taken to a nearby hospital where two gave up the ghost during treatment.
The incident spread chaos in the locality and owners were forced to shut their shops and small businesses.
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#1
How does that compare to discreet firing at restaurants?
Not discreet at all. Utilized 'Insh'allah Aiming Method'.
No wonder the Pakistainers moved their capital from 'Krotchy' to Islamisbad.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/08/2012 14:20
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[Dawn] The White House said Monday that it would not negotiate with al Qaeda over the fate of an elderly US aid worker seized in Pakistain, after he made an emotional video plea to President Barack Obama. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody... "We cannot and will not negotiate with al Qaeda," White House front man Jay Carney said, adding that officials were greatly concerned for the safety of the aid worker Warren Weinstein, and were working to find him.
Earlier, the elderly Weinstein appeared in an al Qaeda video for the first time since he was kidnapped in Pakistain just days before he meant to return home last August.
The two minute, 40 second video was posted on jihadist forums by al Qaeda's media arm as-Sahab on Sunday, according to the US monitoring service SITE.
Dressed in a traditional Pak tunic and speaking impassively in English, he urged US President Barack Obama to respond to his kidnappers' demands.
"If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die," he told Obama in the video.
Weinstein, 70, suffers from asthma, heart problems and high blood pressure.
Ayman al-Zawahiri ... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is... has demanded that Washington end air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistain, Somalia and Yemen, and release the 1993 World Trade Centre bombers along with relatives of the late Osama bin Laden ... who had a brief but splitting headache... .
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The Æthiopian government has warned Mohammedans after a religious dispute caused a massive anti-government protest in Addis Ababa.
The government's warning comes after four people including a Mohammedanholy man was killed and 11 injured in a violent clash in Oromiya region Arsi-Assasa a week ago.
On Friday, thousands of Mohammedans gathered in the Grand Anewar mosque in Addis Ababa and demonstrated their opposition against prime minister Meles Zenawi's government.
Following the protest, the government tightened security in Addis Ababa schools and mosques and a big number of armed security personnel movement was seen in the capital city.
For three months now after Friday prayers, Mohammedans have been protesting in various locations, urging the government to allow a new Islamic ideology Ahebash (moderate Islam mainly known in Leb).
Ahebash is a foreign Islamic sect to both Æthiopian moderate Mohammedans and growing Sufi sect followers. Mohammedans have demand religious freedom and urged the government to stop interfering in their faith.
The negotiations were underway between representatives of Mohammedans and government but Mohammedan representatives said the election of the new religious leaders (Mejliis) was hijacked by government.
The Government on its part, accused Mohammedans of hosting politically motivated elements, who are plotting to against the government.
Æthiopia's Ministry Federal Affairs, an office responsible for religious organizations said in the statement the government had responded to all questions from the Mohammedans.
The government said outlawed political opposition and foreign Mohammedangun-hung tough guys were behind the ongoing protests.
Three armed opposition groups, Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Ginbot-7, US based opposition, were designated as 'terrorist' organizations by a de-facto one party Æthiopian parliament.
The Ministry said social media such as Facebook are used by "terrorist" organizations and gun-hung tough guys to disseminate anti-government information to the Mohammedan population.
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05/08/2012
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[An Nahar] Unknown individuals on Monday kidnapped the pastor of Baalbek's Our Lady of Good Help Church, Father Walid Gharious, aka Father Elias Maroun Gharious, on the Baalbek road near the intersection leading to the town of al-Ansar, state-run National News Agency reported.
The priest was driving his Toyota Avanza when the abductors who were in two silver- and black-colored Grand Cherokee SUVs intercepted him, NNA said.
The abductors whisked Gharious away to an unknown destination and left his car behind, the agency added.
"Security forces are pursuing the kidnappers after unveiling threads related to the kidnap operation," said NNA.
Citing preliminary information, the agency said the priest was kidnapped for "baptizing a Mohammedan girl who had decamped her family home."
Later on Monday, NNA reported that the priest was released, without elaborating.
For its part, LBC television said Gharious was handed over to Hizbullah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek following his release.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths... Archbishop of Baalbek-Deir al-Ahmar Semaan Atallah issued a statement confirming that the priest had been kidnapped, noting that he and Gharious were not aware of the girl's whereabouts.
"The girl had said she was physically and psychologically tortured by her father for converting to Christianity three years ago, although she is a 24-year-old adult," said Atallah in his statement.
"I have received an unconfirmed report that she had recently decamped to an unknown destination after her father forced her to marry someone," the archbishop added.
"Last Wednesday, unknown assailants fired gunshots at the house of a priest from the Kairouz family in the town of Nabha, and the a similar incident occurred on Sunday before the start of the municipal elections when shots were fired at the Our Lady Church in Nabha, and we have conducted intensive contacts with the relevant parties in the area in order to settle the situations," Atallah said in the statement.
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#1
IMO, this is part of the WoT (although a victory for the Terrorists.)
The fact that Hizballah is involved should really clinch it.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/08/2012 13:08
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Israeli, Jewish students fighting back as hostility grows on leading campuses in America
It happened at the end of a Sabbath eve supper of a group of Jewish students. Amir Lev, Jewish Agency emissary at UC San Diego, went out for a smoke. He saw two cars wrapped with Paleostinian flags. "I took a few steps in the direction of the cars and they left," Lev recalls. "Two days later an Israeli student came over to his car and discovered that they spray painted the words 'Zionist terrorist.'"
"This does not happen every day, but there is definitely an escalation in the anti-Israel atmosphere in this university. And this is happening because for the first time Israeli students are responding," he says. "There is an approach which says it is preferable not to respond, because if we make noise we only give the other side more public relations. But we cannot continue giving them the stage. Some 90% of the students don't understand what this is about at all. We need to fight in order to bring them to our side. Now they see us; we are active."
This is exactly what is happening in the last two years in universities throughout the US and in particular in southern Caliphornia -- anti Israeli movements are no longer playing on an empty field. There are Israeli and Jewish American students who are fighting back against the heart of the intellectual elite in the US.
Caliphornia, one of the most liberal and left-wing states in the US poses a particularly difficult challenge: Most of the universities here are anti-Israel among both professors and students. On the other hand, Los Angeles alone is the largest Israeli population center outside of Israel, and all the universities have a relatively high percentage of Jewish students. So there is a big vacuum.
The emissary program of the Jewish Agency entered this vacuum, and it includes at this stage 50 young people in their 20s, who come on service for a year to three years in the largest universities in the US. The objective is to impose order on Israeli public relations efforts on the campuses. The financing comes jointly from the Jewish Agency, Hillel and private donors. In the case of Caliphornia the main donor is the Israel Leadership Council (ILC,) a five year old Israeli organization that became a significant player in advancing Israel's interests in southern Caliphornia.
Under the wings of Adam Milstein, a real estate tycoon who is one of the wealthiest men in the Israeli community, the organization also finances the Ambassador project, which trains local students to serve as a public relations force for Israel on campuses under the supervision of Israeli monitors. These are young people who are already located at the universities, usually US natives or some who came at a young age, and in fact most of them love the US and do not consider immigrating to Israel -- but one visit to Israel is all that they need to form a deep emotional bond.
"Everything most of these university students know about Israel is so distorted and baseless they are positive we are Nazis," says Sagi Balasha, director of ILC. "But when they see our representatives, they see human beings -- young people, educated, civilized. Very few people work on campuses with tens of thousands of students. It is a full-time job facing people some of whom are Jews who oppose Israel. These are Israel's reserve soldiers on the campuses.
Representatives of this "reserve unit" gathered in the beautiful living room of the home of Adam and Gila Milstein one cold evening. All impressive, strictly polite, perfect speaking fluency, tremendous desire, and impressively level-headed. Defining them isn't important, salt of the earth or Silicon Valley, these representatives give Israel an appearance that is 180 degrees different than what the average American absorbs from television. Most of them, by the way, hold left-wing political opinions.
"In the period of Operation Defensive Shield I served at the IDF Spokesman's Office and worked with foreign journalists", says Neri Johnson, the emissary to UCLA. "It was almost impossible to talk to them. The pictures that came from the field were difficult and it was impossible to say something in their defense, but no one even tried to understand the context. Everything was black and white. I couldn't forget it even after the army, so I came here."
"The other side is much better than we in relaying its messages, and this is frustrating," says Lian Kimia, who came to the US with her parents at age 7, studied in UCLA, and now at age 25 is immigrating to Israel.
"They have Apartheid Week, which takes place in almost every American... the entire week is overflowing with effective gimmicks. Once they set up a roadblock in the middle of the campus, so one of us got dressed like a Paleostinian, went there and told the students gathered there: 'Imagine that I was a terrorist, this place would have blown up already.' But we generally don't behave like that but try to create a dialogue. The question is always whether to go down to their level, because this propaganda is so strong."
This is also the week in which pro-Paleostinian organizations try to pass a resolution supporting the BDS movement, which was founded in 2005 for the purpose of reviving the economic boycott against Israel. A significant part of its activities is held on campus, with Paleostinian students and supporters seeking to cancel deals with Israel.
"This boycott proposal passed only once until today, at Berkeley," says Ido Adulami, the USC emissary. "It passed unanimously, but the university president cast a veto. They tried to remove Sabra hummus from the cafeteria, claiming that the owners, Strauss, contribute to the IDF. It gets down to the level of boycotting hummus."
IN UC San Diego there is a relatively new phenomenon -- in recent years there has been a pronounced rush against Israel that reached the point where Israeli students preferred not to wander the main paths of the campus during Apartheid Week.
"Two months ago we heard that the demand to impose a boycott will come up this week," says Amir Lev. "From the moment that we discovered this we charged at members of the student government of the university with aggressive lobbying. This is a political effort in every way. Now it is clear to everyone that we are here."
"We got there at 5:30 pm and left at 2:00 am. We sat in a small room with 250-300 students who were divided clearly into two sides... some 90% of the people in the room were never in Israel, don't know anything about the conflict, it is doubtful if they can even identify Israel on a map. They conduct a debate full of fire and shouts as if they have any idea of what they are talking about. This is a university with more than 30,000 students, and all the lists that take part in the next elections to student government are running on one platform only -- whether they are for or against a boycott against Israel. So what if most of the students don't know what this is even about?" he says.
"The proposal lost by a 20-13 majority. If we had not been there, the resolution no doubt would have been passed. They were in shock. They wept as if we prevented the establishment of their state at that moment."
The force of anti-Israel feeling is something that changes from campus to campus and sometimes also at the campus itself from year to year. Everything depends on the students who study there at any particular moment. In Berkeley it was always hot -- in the past year students built models of West Bank roadblocks in the middle of campus, but this year it is relatively quiet there.
Irvine College in Orange County was considered until a few years ago as one of the most hostile campuses to Israel in America. Two years ago pro-Paleostinian students disrupted a lecture by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, and as a result of this the number of Jews studying at Irvine reached a new low for the last 15 years.
"They come to the lectures we organized, sit in the first row, and at the moment the lecture starts they get up and leave," says Eren Hoch, the Jewish Agency emissary to the university. "Once we brought a lecturer, a former IDF officer who said plainly that he is in favor of two states, and they got up and left anyway."
When asked whether the pro-Israel activists interact with the other side, Amir Lev responds: "Definitely. We manage to keep it respectable. This is America. Everything is terribly politically correct and you must keep it polite. This is not about persuading them. When I sit with one of them in a café, I do not speak to them but to the people sitting around and listening. There are people who don't agree even to speak with me because I served in the army, I am an oppressor. But we try to prompt others not to see us one-dimensionally."
"They are clever," adds Ido Adulami. "They are careful to say they are not anti-Jewish, but rather, anti-Zionist. They also use the word Zionism all the time. They made it a word of contempt and this is propaganda that also influences us. But the innovation we bring is focusing on things that are not tied to politics.
"We try to place a human face on what they know about Israel. For example, we have a group that deals with Israel only from the high-tech business angle. It is most important to cause people to understand the gap between what they see on television and reality. At least they will know what they are talking about. In a world in which your life is summed up by your status on Facebook this is a big challenge," he says.
Lev concludes: "It is only 5% of the students, but these are the activists; they make the noise. And what is most important is that they are also the next generation of American leaders. Our objective is to expose the extremism of the other side and we feel we are succeeding, because suddenly now for the first time the organization of black students is trying to make contact with us and people feel at ease walking on campus."
Continued on Page 49
[Iran Press TV] A Venezuelan journalist says His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez has been forced to use a wheelchair due to severe pain caused by a fracture in his femur and his spreading cancer.
The pro-opposition Venezuelan columnist and radio talk-show host, Nelson Bocaranda, reported this week that Chavez got a fracture in his femur during his radiotherapy in Cuba.
Bone metastasis. That weakened the bone. Weaker still with radiation. It happens. Hurts like hell...
Spending most of the last six weeks in the Cuban capital of Havana for radiotherapy treatment, Chavez has only been seen live in public once since mid-April.
"Everyone around him knows that tough times are coming," said Bocaranda.
US-based Venezuelan Doctor Jose Marquina, who reportedly has access to Chavez's medical records, has also claimed that Chavez's "incurable disease is a very aggressive cancer that is progressing very quickly."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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Top|| File under: Commies
#1
I would say he is likely done for at this point. If it is metastatic then they are fighting a losing battle. It will go where the blood supply is greatest as in bone marrow, liver, lungs, brain.
Once it gets to the brain, dementia is not uncommon.
#5
Why does this start to sound like some plot from a Steven King novel where an injured party curses their tormentor with a long, slow, painful debilitating curse that comes true?
#11
Femur. Strongest bone in the body. Fracturing that is only due to severe trauma, but most likely metastasic cancer or else radiation and chemo. At this point, its probably pallitave care only. God help Hugo to convert his heart and repent, because he will be standing before Him soon.
#12
Despite being an arrogant, self-important, ignorant, drug-addled thug, he may really have thought he was doing stuff to help people.
That is the problem with socialism. While it is true that taking $1000 from one person and giving $200 to five creates more happy people than sad ones today -- tomorrow there will not be anyone around with $1000 to be taken.
Anyway, in advance, RIP Mr. Chavez. Hopefully, your country will mourn for you only a short time as their lives improve.
#13
On an x-ray, cancer metastasized to the bone looks like a fungus working its way out of a dead tree branch. Radiate the tumor, and the bone collapses. I would not wish this kind of pain on anybody, period.
#14
y'all are being too kind to this POS who helped fund FARC, funnel drugs, cavorted with Iranians and China and helped push "Bolivarian" (read: charismatic populist communism) nationalization of private enterprise. I hope it's painful, slow, debilitating, and just as fun for him as his victims....perhaps then, he'll learn humility and God's grace. If not? Burn in hell, pendejo
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2012 20:56
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#15
Ditto, Frank. Too bad these pendejos can't figure it out at a time when it would help the living.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] About a hundred fighters from across North Africa have joined the ranks of an Al-Qaeda offshoot which now dominates northern Mali, a Malian defence ministry official said on Sunday.
"According to our figures, about 100 north Africans, essentially from Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, have joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," a Malian defence ministry official told AFP.
"AQIM is also looking to recruit Moroccans and Egyptians en masse, but has not succeeded," the official added.
Islamic beturbanned goons and tribal Tuareg groups took advantage of a March 22 military coup in Bamako to push government forces out of northern Mali, an area the size of La Belle France and Belgium, including the cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
In Timbuktu on Saturday, local residents said members of AQIM, supported by the armed Islamist group Ansar Dine, destroyed the tomb of a Mohammedan saint.
Mali's transitional government expressed outrage over the desecration, calling it "an unspeakable act", in a statement read out on national television.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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[Yemen Post] Senior officials in Yemen's Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, Presidential office, and Prime Ministerial office deny having any information on a suspected underwear jacket wallah that was bound to the United States from Yemen.
The officials did not completely deny the American authorities claims but said that they are not aware on any such information.
The Yemen Post could not get any senior Yemeni official to confirm that they were aware. This comes after the News Agency that Dare Not be Named released information saying that it learned the CIA thwarted a plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... .
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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Jordanian news site Ahbar Baladna reports that western spy satellites have recently spotted movements of Syrian heavy missile launchers northward and southward, toward Syria's borders with Turkey and Israel. The site says hundreds of high-caliber launchers are being moved, and that these could only be long range Scud missile launchers.
Syria has threatened in the past that in the event of foreign military intervention on its soil, it will not hesitate to fire missiles at Israel and Turkey in order to ignite a large scale regional war.
[Dawn] Though in contact with both the Pakistain Mohammedan League (Nawaz) and Tehrik-e-insaf, the Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... finds the PTI more suitable for an electoral alliance.
Speaking at a convention of his party candidates here at Mansoora on Sunday, JI Ameer (head) Syed Munawar Hassan ... The funny-looking Amir of the Pak Jamaat-e-Islami. He joined the National Students Federation (NSF), a lefty student body, and was elected its President in 1959. He came into contact with the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) Pakistan and studied the writings of Mawlana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, The Great Apostasizer. As a result, he joined IJT in 1960 and soon he was elected as President of its University of Karachi Unit and member of the Central Executive Council. He was Assistant Secretary General of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistain in 1992-93, and became Secretary General in 1993. After years of holding Qazi's camel he was named Amir when the old man stepped down in 2009... said his party workers did not have a good opinion about the PML-N, given the party's track record.
"The JI workers are very sensitive to the present political situation of the country, as they are observing the on-going developments keenly. Keeping in view their (workers') feedback the JI leadership is of the view that as the previous record of the PML-N with reference to certain political commitments is not so good, the electoral alliance with the PTI will be better," Mr Hasan said.
He, however, said that though the JI was in contact with the PTI through various meetings the parties were holding, a final decision on entering into an electoral alliance with the party was yet to be taken.
The JI head, admitting that both the PML-N and PTI enjoyed considerable influence in Punjab, regretted that the former's leadership was behaving unwisely.
"With reference to Punjab, the PML-N and the PTI are very important parties. But we have certain reservations about the past behaviour of the PML-N. And even now the PML-N leadership's behaviour seems to be childish, as Mian Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... who is a national leader is not fulfilling his commitments he has been making with the nation on various national issues in his public rallies and press statements. Recently, he (Mian Sahib) said the PML-N would soon call an 'All Parties Conference' on the issue of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . But, he didn't do anything in this regard."
Similarly, Mr Hasan also criticised Nawaz Sharif for not taking on board other parties with regard to launching an anti-government movement or so-called 'long march'.
"He (Nawaz Sharif) had said that he would invite all opposition parties to jointly initiate a long march against the government.
But, again he didn't contact any party in this regard," Munawar Hasan added.
He said the JI leadership believed it should be very careful if it decided joining hands with the PML-N in future.
But, there was a consensus among the JI circles that the PTI would be a better option than the PML-N for forging an electoral alliance, he added.
On revival of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Mr Hasan said his party had strong reservations about JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... who, he said, had a 'soft corner' for the PPP-led government.
"We are very astonished that on one hand Maulana Sahib talks about MMA's revival, while on the other he was not ready to leave chairmanship of Kashmire Committee. Besides, the JUI-F is also enjoying membership of the Islamic Ideological Council, another official body," he deplored.
He said the Maulana wanted that MMA should be revived without going deep into the reasons behind its collapse in the past. Mr Fazl also didn't want to discuss electoral seat adjustment prior to MMA's revival.
"So we want Maulana to immediately announce his party's disassociation with the government and resolve all issues with us (JI) if he is serious in reviving MMA. We want to ensure these things to avoid another collapse of MMA (if revived) in future," the JI chief said.
He, however, said in the present scenario the chances of MMA's revival were becoming bleaker due to JUI-F chief's behaviour.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Somalia's last president before the country erupted into decades of war made an ominous warning: force him from power, and he would leave Mogadishu as he found it, with only one road. The rest he would destroy.
The threat came true: President Siad Barre was ousted in a 1991 coup, and the once elegant, Italian colonial-era seaside town was reduced to a wasteland of ruined buildings in years of bloody battles between rival militias.
Now, 21-years later and eight months after Al-Qaeda-allied cut-throats abandoned much of the city following pressure from the African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... and government forces, the capital is showing signs of life, with reconstruction underway and land prices soaring.
"Security is still not reliable, but people decided they wanted to return life to normal," trader Ahmed Sheikh Gure said.
"People are rebuilding their destroyed buildings," he added, waving at a newly repaired shop and a busy construction site.
Though Somalia's war is far from over, a regional offensive did force Islamist Shebab cut-throats from many strongholds and they abandoned the city in August.
The scars of war remain clear, with hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in and around Mogadishu, many in basic rag-and-plastic shelters, some in the crumbling ruins of roofless houses.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] The United States said Monday Syria's parliamentary election "borders on ludicrous" as the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... continues its violent crackdown on its people.
"It's not really possible to hold credible elections in a climate where basic human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... are being denied to the citizens and the government is continuing to carry out daily assaults ...on its own citizens," State Department deputy front man Mark Toner said.
"To hold a parliamentary election in that kind of atmosphere borders on ludicrous," Toner told news hounds.
Syrians were voting on Monday in the country's first "multiparty" parliamentary election in five decades, being held against a backdrop of violence and dismissed as a sham by the opposition.
Young and old cast their ballots in neighborhoods of the capital and various other regions, while in opposition strongholds residents boycotted the vote, instead holding protests and a general strike.
The election was being held despite unrest that has swept the country since March 2011 when Assad resorted to force in a bid to quash a revolt against his autocratic regime.
The vote, initially scheduled for last September, was postponed to May 7 after Assad announced the launch of a reform process backed by a referendum.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/08/2012
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#1
Sort of like Minnesota's election of Al Franken?
Or New Jersey's election of Lautenburg?
Or the Philadelphia NBPP 'poll workers?'
Key regional developments in the Arab world including strained relations between the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Iran will top the agenda of the consultative meeting of the GCC heads of state in the Saudi capital on May 14, GCC officials said after wide-ranging talks between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and GCC Secretary-General Abdullateef Al-Zayani here yesterday.
King Abdullah said: The Gulf states were committed to bolstering efforts through concerted action for peace and security. A more homogenous GCC economic bloc is the need of the hour.
"The talks between King Abdullah and GCC chief came in the context of a regional trip undertaken by the GCC chief to brief the heads of Gulf governments about the GCC's preparations for the consultative meeting," said GCC spokesman Saleem S. A. Al-Alwi.
The meeting is also expected to shed light on the security situation in the region and terrorism at large, said another GCC spokesman, without divulging more details.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2012
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#1
The "Japan/Egypt" Model means OWG Caliphate-n-Persianist happy Shia Iran will in contingency be able to quickly produce NucBombs [NucProgs] + LRBMS [SpaceProgs] which the Sunnis don't have.
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.
[Telegraph.uk] A US drone strike in Yemen that killed two members of al-Qaeda on Sunday was part of a larger effort to intercept the "underwear bomb," the chairman of the US House Homeland Security Committee has said.
Hillary Clinton
A senior Israeli military officer warned that any Hizbullah retaliation to an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would prompt Israel to launch a war in Lebanon.
The Al Qaeda senior leader 
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a 
[Iran Press TV] The CIA has reportedly thwarted a plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of 
Zawahiri
...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile...
Wazoo
[Dawn] A strong and targeted action against criminals and gangsters will be taken in 
Asif Ali 
[Tolo News] 
Allah Rakhi is getting used to breathing through her nose and wearing her new look.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Bouteflika's
His Excellency President-for-Life, Caudillo of the Bolivarians Hugo Chavez
Syed Munawar Hassan
Nawaz Sharif
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
