* BHARAT RAKSHAK > ESCALATION:LINKS BETWEEN [anti-Shia] VIOLENT SECTARIAN GROUPS + PAKISTANI TALIBAN GROWING.
Taliban + pro-Sunni, MilTerr Civie fringe groups collude to persecute, hunting down, and kill many Shia elites in Pakistan.
versus
* TOPIX > [BBC News] WHY AL-QAEDA FINDS NO RECRUITS [yet] IN INDIA?
IIUC, basically the overwhelming majority of India's Muslims are peace-minded and STILL HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE despite pervasive Hindu + Govt-supported discrimination agz them.
ARTIC NUTSHELL > INDIA'S HINDUS, GOVT. = MAINSTREAM, WOULD BE WISE TO REFORM + COMPROMISE, + NOT ERODE OR DESTROY CHANCES FOR PEACE + NATIONAL UNITY.
versus
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > TERROR ATTACKS SOAR: INDIA AMONG [World's Top Five] MOST AFFECTED NATION -STUDY, as per Global Terror Index.
Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, + Yemen, in that order.
* SAME > INDIA SAYS PAKISTAN TERROR STRUCTURE [40+ border training, base camps] REMAINS INTACT.
* SAME > NYT: PAKISTAN'S HAZARA SHIITES UNDER SIEGE, by local Sunnis.
"When we finish with Assad, we will fight the U.S.!" one Nusra fighter shouted in the northeastern Syrian city of Ras al Ayn when he was told an American journalist was present.
MI6 passed up an opportunity to kill a senior leader of al-Qaeda because lawyers advised them they would be breaking the law, it can be disclosed.
The agent who came up with the plan says that he was cut off by the British security services after he took the idea to the CIA.
He was told that the British were no longer allowed to work with him because they were not allowed to get involved in assassinations.
The terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who was later killed by the Americans, was pumping out propaganda calling for attacks on the West and actively recruiting young Muslims to launch such attacks.
The revelations have been made by Morten Storm, the first British agent to go public since 9/11, who has spoken to the Daily Telegraph.
Storm, the former leader of a motorbike gang in Denmark, lived in Britain on and off for 15 years, first as an extremist using the name Murad, then as an agent using an outdoor pursuits company as cover.
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > [Wayne Ma] CHINA'S SHALE-GAS BOOM SLOW TO START.
Looks like both post-Millenial/Y2000 Perts + 1960's Guam Taotamonas may yet end up being right about Energy = Peak Oil-Gas being Rising China's "Achilles Heel"???
In reality, however, the OWG "Consensus is that there is no Consensus" + Peak Resources affects everyone + every country + agendum on Earth.
E.G. GMA NETWORK > [Ban Ki-Moon]UN CHIEF: EXTREME WEATHER IS THE NEW NORMAL, as well as a de facto threat to Human Survival.
ARTIC > KI-MOON = WORLD ACTION ON STOPPING GWCC IS OCCURRING SLOWER THAN ANTICIPATED OR DESIRED, WORLD-WIDE DROUGHT HAS DECIMATED ESSENTIAL GLOBAL CROPS.
Amsterdam is to create villages where nuisance neighbours and anti-social tenants will be exiled from the city and rehoused in caravans or containers with "minimal services" under constant police supervision.
The new camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because the plan echoes a proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."
Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan ... "This is the world turned upside down".
The Dutch capital already has a squad of municipal officials to identify the worst offenders for a compulsory six-month course on how to behave. Social housing problem families or tenants who do not show an improvement or refuse to go to the special units face eviction and homelessness
#3
Construct a culture of entitlement for people prepared to give nothing back... this is the obvious outcome. But even the scum villages will be too comfortable to cure the malaise. 'Something for nothing', AKA 'working people are forced to support you' has to stop.
#4
'Something for nothing', AKA 'working people are forced to support you' has to stop.
Bulldog,that's the kind of hateful and hurtful language that keeps bien pansants awake at night, wondering where their next "feel good" fix is going to come from.
I had a chat with me old mate Keven Marx who said if you understood how hard it is you would have more "compassion"
Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, presidency sources said.
Officers fired teargas at up to 10,000 demonstrators angered by Mursi's drive to hold a referendum on a new constitution on December 15. Some broke through police lines around his palace and protested next to the perimeter wall.
The crowds had gathered nearby in what organizers had dubbed "last warning" protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents with a November 22 decree that expanded his powers. "The people want the downfall of the regime," the demonstrators chanted.
"The president left the palace," a presidential source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. A security source at the presidency also said the president had departed.
Did he flee to an army base to rally his supporters or did he flee to Mauritania?
Riot police at the palace faced off against activists chanting "leave, leave" and holding Egyptian flags with "no to the constitution" written on them. Protesters had assembled near mosques in northern Cairo before marching towards the palace.
"Our marches are against tyranny and the void constitutional decree and we won't retract our position until our demands are met," said Hussein Abdel Ghany, a spokesman for an opposition coalition of liberal, leftist and other disparate factions.
I'm quite surprised the 'liberal' part of Egypt got this organized. They're usually outnumbered by the Copts, let alone the Islamicists.
Protesters later surrounded the palace, with some climbing on gates at the rear to look down into the gardens. At one point, people clambered onto a police armored vehicle and waved flags, while riot police huddled nearby.
When the riot police are 'huddling' instead of thumping people you've won. Put daisies in their rifles; they won't be using them any time soon.
The Health Ministry said 18 people had been injured in clashes next to the palace, according to the state news agency.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2012 15:19
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#2
Not surprising. The Islamists might have numbers, but they aren't willing to stick they're neck out. The liberal faction is the one that did against Mubarak, and doing the same thing now.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/04/2012 15:24
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#4
Seems a little early in the game to be fleeing the palace. Usually you get 2-3 good years of tyranny, oppression and theft before it's time to beat feet.
#9
It is my fervent hope that they disgrace Mursi and his backer O before the world, and achieve some semblance of representative constitutional government. About time the world sees this V2 of the same olde dicatorship fall.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/04/2012 16:04
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#10
I wouldn't cheer just yet.
The Islamists might have numbers, but they aren't willing to stick they're neck out.
For now. Remember how long the Tiananmen Square demos went on, before the Chinese government crushed them.
And I highly doubt the White House (and the various and sundry Western and international 'usual suspects') will do anything but bleat in feigned outrage when the repression happens.
#12
Mursi must be surprised as all hell -- he likely figured he had this whole pharaoh thing figured out...
Charles @#2: usually it's precisely the Islamicists (or the communists, or the fascists, etc) who stick their necks out, and it's the good people in the majority who back down.
As someone once said, if only Kerensky had shot a few people, millions might have lived. But he didn't, so the Bolsheviks took power.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2012 18:14
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#16
Steve#13: I know the Islamist's are usually the one to stick they're neck out, usually while ululating while screaming out obscenities. The point I should have clarified is that what brought about this whole "Arab Spring" illusion is the outlier of Egypt Liberals being the ones to do it. It gave the idiots in the MSM some kind of aneurism which caused a belief in Democracy springing up all over.
It was unusual, extremely so, and the Brotherhood used that cover for all it's worth. Now it's coming back to bite them in the ass. Highly entertaining if nothing else.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/04/2012 21:28
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[Jpost] French police on Tuesday arrested two suspected accomplices of gunman Mohamed Merah, who shot dead seven people in an attack outside a Jewish school in Toulouse in March, AFP reported.
Police arrested one man, who they described as a member of the traveler community, in the town of Albi, and the other in Toulouse, according to AFP.
Police suspect the pair aided Merah in carrying out the attack, AFP reported.
#3
Okay, but in this age of "Globalism" + NAU + SSSSSHHHHHH...CCCCCCCC OWG-NWO, + lest we fergit Clinton-era "Communalism/Communitarianism", what jobs are Americans - Union or non-Union - getting overseas???
BUT D *** NG IT, YA DIDN'T HEAR IT FROM ME - I WILL NOT CONFIRM OR DENY USING THE ACRONYM "OWG-NWO"!
A U.S. Navy spokesman said that no drone has been lost in the Gulf recently after Iran said on Tuesday it had captured a U.S. drone in its airspace during the last few days.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said a ScanEagle drone had been gathering information over the Gulf and had entered Iranian airspace when it was "captured".
The spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain said, "The U.S. Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles operating in the Middle East region. Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized water and air space. We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently."
#1
So the US Navy says it has not lost a drone and Iran says it has captured one: the two statements are not mutually exclusive; has the CIA lost any drones? I would not expect them to say.
#1
Rice wasnt making life-and-death decisions on Sept. 11, 2012, when the U.S. compound in the Libyan city of Benghazi came under attack
Apparently, BO wasn't either. He either voted "Present" or was a no show. The other possibility is that he was handicapped to make a decision. I would always worry when BO says: "I got your back!" Prepare for the worst.
Nato is set to approve the deployment of Patriot missile interceptors to defend Turkey's border with Syria.
A meeting of the 28-member alliance's foreign ministers in Brussels follows a request from Turkey to boost its defences along the border.
Nato officials have made clear such a move would be purely defensive.
Earlier, US President Barack Obama warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad he would face "consequences" if he uses chemical weapons against his people.
"The world is watching. The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable," said Mr Obama in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington.
"If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons there will be consequences and you will be held accountable."
A Syrian official has insisted it would "never, under any circumstances" use such weapons, "if such weapons exist".
#1
Didn't Ambassador Stevens in Libya ship Chemical gas to the "rebels" ( he never did that? Guess again.) who are part Iranian Shias and alQaeda who will kill anybody for a whole spectrum of amusement and gain?
What would stop these Shias from gassing some Sunni suburb in Damascus ( killing their own people in effect ) to get NATO to wade into Assad when the rebels blame the Regime for the gas ( and who is to know it was Ambassador Stevens gift to the "resistance ?)
Assad goes down and the Iranians who are the best organized for the aftermath inside Syria are the best prepared to scoop up the country and show NATO the ass.
The Russians get blamed for supporting a guy who used gas on his own people and Ambassador Stevens shipped a boatload of stuff from Libya. That's why he was stripped to his shorts and duct taped and taken down the alley to have a bullet put in his head. The gas was on the way and NATO is conned so the Iranians can eat Lunch at the Damascus statehouse and Assad never makes it to the airport. ( the resistance does have the airport now, don't they?) Go look out the window.
#4
I don't think Ambassor Stevens has seen chemical weapons or was giving them to Syria "rebels". All those plots just to get NATO on board to attack Assad? Assad doesn't need help to look bad in the eyes of NATO. He won't even speak to the west, so all this conspiracy about Assad is a nice guy who's being frame, mostly preach by the Russians, is just too obvious.
Posted by: Large Darling of the Antelope3345 ||
12/04/2012 7:44
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#6
The Turks are a bunch of sooks. A few mortars lob over their border and they run to NATO including the US. Not a word about Turkey running weapons and rebels into Syria.
When the shoe is on the other foot, and they are being targeted from the Kurdish region of Iraq, they go in with all guns blazing. Over 300 Kurds killed in the last few years from incursions but mainly from the air.
#3
Hasan will die of old age before he ever goes to trial at this rate.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/04/2012 7:52
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#4
He still has to wear diapers from the alleged bullet that struck him while he was alleged to have been shooting at, and killing, others.
Seems the facts are clear. Where's the rope?
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/04/2012 9:29
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#5
Why not let him keep his beard. We could have a line of questioning about how he was clean shaven as an officer, how he was clean shaven the day of the atrocities, how he was clean shaven appearing during arraignment (this assuming the defense allows him to testify).
If he doesn't testify, he gets to look like a terrorist during the trial.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/04/2012 9:31
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#6
Hasan is still a US Soldier in a Military Trial, NOT a Civilian in a Civilian Trial.
For a map, click here. For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of 16 individuals were murdered in ongoing drug and gang related violence in Zacatecas state since last week, according to Mexican news accounts.
According to a news item posted on El Sol de Zacatecas news daily, on Monday one unidentified armed suspect was killed and three others were detained in an exchange of gunfire with a Policia Federal road patrol Monday.
Federal agents also seized quantities of weapons including one AK-47 rifle, one .22 caliber submachine gun, an M1 rifle, 11 weapons magazines, 188 rounds of ammunition and 18 stars used to puncture car tires. Vehicles seized included one Oldsmobile sedan and one Ford Lobo (F-150) pickup truck.
El Sol de Zacatecas reported that a total of eight individuals were found executed in three municipalities in Zacatecas.
According to an article, two unidentified young men were shot by armed suspects who were travelling in Valparaiso municipality Monday. Three died at the scene. The report also hints that the two victims were caught in the crossfire of rival criminal gangs in the area.
At 1000 hrs an unidentified man was found shot dead in his residence in Guadalupe municipality Monday. Two hours later another unidentified man was found shot to death in Juan Aldama municipality. The victim was apparently fleeing the assault when he was shot.
A total of four unidentified females were found executed Saturday on the road between Jerez and Fresnillo municipalities by police. The victims were between 15 and 20 years old and had all been handcuffed. A message was left at the scene as a warning to other who help criminal groups. The report did not detail which cartel or criminal group was involved.
Seven other individuals were found murdered in Zacatecas state:
Three unidentified young men were found shot to death in Zacatecas municipality Saturday. The victims were found near the saloon La Quinta Itzel near the village of La Escondida. The victims were in their 20s and all had been shot in the head. A message was left at the scene, but its contents were not disclosed.
Two unidentified young men were found a few hours later, also in Zacatecas municipality, near the facilities of Tecnologico Superior de Zacatecas. Both victims were shot in the head.
Two men were shot to death in Fresnillo municipality Sunday. The victims were shot by armed suspects who were travelling aboard an SUV. The victims were identified as Marvin Enrique Amaya Cabrera, 34, who died at the scene and Gilberto Rios, 25 who died while receiving medical attention. The report said the shooters used AK-47s to kill the victims.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Shabelle] At least 20 alleged Al shabab inmates reportedly beat feet from Somalias Baidoa town which is largely controlled by Somali government forces together with Æthiopian troops.
Inmates walked out front door during mass prison escape in Baidoa on Sunday night. New information says the inmates went through and an understanding with the jail guards.
Sources said The escape probably couldnt have worked without the help of officials within the prison.
Abdifatah Ibrahim Gesey, the governor for Bay region, told Shabelle Media via telephone that local authorities immediately launched a manhunt after the 20 inmates fled from the city, 250 Km northwest Mogadishu.
This happened as in the last few weeks, Somali government forces have been carrying out security operations in the city that once ruled by Al shabab cut-thoats.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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In Azerbaijan, four foreign-trained Islamists were sentenced to up to 14 years in jail on Monday for planning "terrorist attacks" on the eve of this year's Eurovision song contest in Baku.
A court official said the four were sentenced to between 12 and 14 years in jail for crimes including treason, plotting terrorist attacks, arms smuggling and having links with Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Security forces killed the group's alleged leader in an operation in April and the other members of the group were arrested a month before the Eurovision contest in May.
The Security Ministry said the arrested had been trained in Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and some had fought NATO troops in Afghanistan. The court proceedings were closed to the public as is usual in Azerbaijan.
Iran and Azerbaijan became embroiled in a diplomatic dispute ahead of the Eurovision finals which were condemned by Iranian clerics and lawmakers who referred to a "gay parade".
Iran was angered by subsequent anti-Iranian protests in Baku, where demonstrators carried pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and banners that read "Azerbaijan does not need clerics-homosexuals!".
Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto last Friday presented his commander of Mexico's land and air forces, General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, replacing outgoing Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA) General Guillermo Galvan Galvan, according to Mexican news reports and official government sources.
General Cienfuegos Zepeda was elevated as head of the Mexican Army after his appointment to the post of Controller and Inspector of Mexican Air and Armed Forces last January, passing over two other top staff generals.
According to several news accounts, General Cienfuegos Zepeda has held several field commands during his career, which began January, 1964.
He is a graduate of Mexico's Heroico Colegio Militar military academy, and holds a masters degree in Military Administration for national security and defense from Colegio de Defensa Nacional. He also attended staff and command courses at Escuela Superior de Guerra.
Public accounts of General Cienfuegos Zepeda indicates an infantry commander who tended to be low key throughout his career in various infantry unit commands. Most of his experience is in military region and military zone commands in western and southern Mexico including Jalisco, Guerrero and Michoacan states.
His last regional command before taking the post as controller and inspector of the army was in Chiapas, the Mexican VII Military region, relieving General Cuauhtemoc Perez Antunez in April, 2011. He came to that post from Military Region I in Distrito Federal.
One of the hallmarks of a Mexican commander being groomed for the top job is holding posts as military and air attache at foreign embassies. General Cienfuegos Zepeda was military attache to the embassies of Japan and Korea.
Little public information is available about General Cienfuegos Zepeda's personal life. It is reported in the Mexican press that he has been friends with Pena Nieto for quite some time.
A recent tradition of allowing the incoming SEDENA to lead the Mexican Army during the Revolution Day parade was broken a second time this past Revolution Day. This writer watched the parade and not only did General Cienfuegos Zepeda not lead the parade, his name was not even mentioned by any press accounts.
The tradition dates back to the inauguration of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado in 1982, but was broken starting with the election of former president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa in 2006, when General Galvan Galvan was appointed SEDENA despite General Juan Alfredo Oropeza Garnica having lead the 2006 Revolution Day parade.
General Oropeza Garnica was a dynamic frontline commander and counterinsurgency expert who fought leftist insurgents in Guerrero state, even being wounded in 1997 while he commanding the 27th Military Zone.
General Oropeza Garnica was snubbed, however, because of his operation in El Charco in Guerrero state in 1998, where 11 insurgents were killed and another five were wounded in an early dawn ambush. Leftist and human rights groups claimed the 11 dead were unarmed, but later investigations showed the group was armed.
Every indication from press accounts in 2006 indicated the elevation of General Galvan Galvan to SEDENA was a compromise choice meant to quell opposition from Mexico's left after Calderon's razor thin win. The choice of General Galvan Galvan was notable because he was an artillery commander throughout his career, unlike his predecessors.
According to a column in El Universal dated November 1st, 2006 by journalist Raymundo Riva Palacio, General Cienfuegos Zepeda was being considered for the top spot while he was commander of IX Military Region in Guerrero, but had very little field command experience to that point.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[VOA News] Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... troops have returned to the eastern city of Goma, although rebels who occupied the city for nearly two weeks remain close by.
Rebels are threatening to retake the town if Congo's government goes back on a promise to hold negotiations with them.
M23 rebels were to withdraw 20 kilometers from the North Kivu picturesque provincial capital. But residents and officials say some of the rebels remain on the outskirts of town, only three kilometers away.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Dawn] CALL it a weapon, a tool, or gloss things over by referring to it as a menace, the fact is it changed Pakistains social fabric.
The term Kalashnikov culture appeared in the countrys popular lexicon in the 1980s. In all the literature produced in and about Pakistain in the decades since it has been decried and rejected and has yet held murderously on.
Is this culture, and the popularity of the gun, declining? A newspaper reported recently that the Kalashnikov the AK47 assault rifle has been replaced by 9mm pistols as the weapon of choice for 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... s myriad killers. In 80 per cent of the assassinations in the city, the latter are being used.
Its obvious why: 9mm pistols are easy to carry concealed, can fire more bullets with one magazine, and are cheap to lay ones hands on Rs15,000 upwards. The pistol is the official weapon of NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... troops and is reportedly smuggled in large numbers into Pakistain. The Chinese-made replica, the CF-98, is also widely available, and the pistol is being bootlegged, among other places, in Darra Adam Khel.
The Kalashnikov was designed in 1942 as the Nazi army halted at Stalingrad. The brutality of that war is well-known, with Russians sent to the front to put up resistance but actually getting shot. The losses were huge in part because guns were in extremely short supply among the Russians. Also, the Germans had machine guns (the MP44s); the Soviets, in the main, had rifles.
So a young tank sergeant of the Soviet army, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, designed an answer: the AK47, produced for the first time in 1947.
No patent for the gun was ever taken out, and the gun is pretty easy, technologically, to replicate. And so it was manufactured in hundreds and thousands across the world, becoming a staple for at least one of the sides in pretty much any armed conflict since 1947: the warlords in Mogadishu, the Vietcong in Vietnam, the child soldiers of Liberia, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and the gun-hung tough guys in Pakistain, even Bloody Karachis hit mans.
The AK47, and other arms, are manufactured in a Russian town called Izhevsk, known as the armoury of Russia, at a factory called Izhmash. For decades, the lathes and presses have thumped and clanged, forging the Kalashnikov and other deliverers of death for armies and gun-hung tough guys or irregular forces around the world.
According to a report published in the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , about 100 million Kalashnikovs have been manufactured, making that one for every 70 people on earth. And thats not counting the replicas made elsewhere.
One would think that business would be booming for Izhmash, but that is not the case. At the end of October, Mikhail Kalashnikov 92 years old, now and 16 of his colleagues wrote an open letter to 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... , calling his attention to record low levels of production at Izhmash and the catastrophic situation at what was once a manufacturing giant.
It seems that armies are no longer buying AK47s in any appreciable quality, so the factory has had to shift its focus to sales to civilians. (The civilian version does not have the fully automatic mode, which fires bursts of bullets with one pull of the trigger.)
Civilian rifles now account for 70 per cent of the factorys output, up from 50 per cent two years ago. And of the civilian versions, some 40 per cent is exported to the US, with its well-known resistance to gun control and where the import of Chinese-made handguns and rifles has in the main been banned since 1992.
Regrettably, though, the slowdown of the Izhmash production line does not mean that the Kalashnikov culture to which Pakistain is not alone in its affliction is dying. This and weapons patterned on it are used every day in conflicts around the world, but few are bought from Izhmash because used and replicated copies are so easily available. The significance of their being manufactured in Darra should not be lost on anyone.
Curiously, around the Kalashnikov, a culture has developed that can only referred to as some dark version of romance. In Pakistain, there are ads for Kalashnikov mosquito killers, and Kalashnikov deals.
The weapon features regularly in a recently published book, Poetry of the Taliban. The image has been woven into carpets and rugs, and in Turkey, a prayer mat. Ive got a feisty dance number from a Punjabi film whose lyrics translate approximately to I am a Kalashnikov, my aim is always true; When I dance, thats when the mujra really takes off.
Jeremy Clarkson of the BBCs Top Gear, in fact, argues that because of certain characteristics, this weapon is unique in that it has soul. Because it was born amid unimaginable strife and suffering so it has genuine working-class, hard-man origins. And the AK has never sold out. You never find it in the pampered hands of an American soldier, boasting about how it was brought up in a cave in Saigon. It was born to help the underdog and thats what its been doing, non-stop for nigh on 60 years.
It is, after all, one of the design classics. You could frame one and hang it on the wall, and no one would want to know why you had done such a thing. Except the police, perhaps.
Design is rarely art because design, when all is said and done, exists purely to make money. And yet the AK was never conceived to do that. In fact, Mikhail Kalashnikov lives today on nothing more than a Soviet Army pension. And thats why his most famous creation can be called an art form. And thats what gives it soul.
But things in Pakistain have moved far beyond the simplicity of a Kalashnikov, into a world where the Kalashnikov culture feels oddly almost endearingly archaic; even the gangsters of Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... now have access to uranium-tipped bullets that can pierce armoured personnel carriers. How curious that contemporary violence is so harshly inventive that the AK47 feels old-fashioned.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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#1
Hard to hide a rifle, A switch means easier to hide, Nothing more.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2012 0:16
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#2
9mm pistols are easy to carry concealed, can fire more bullets with one magazine
???? What the heck kinda 9mm's are these guys getting there?
#5
"No patent for the gun was ever taken out, and the gun is pretty easy, technologically, to replicate. And so it was manufactured in hundreds and thousands across the world, "
Yeah, it was just copycats taking advantage of lax Soviet patent law and not the USSR distributing the things everywhere hoping to destabilize and create client states.
[Dawn] A bomb, planted in a cycle of violence, was defused in Tarnab Farm area in the limits of Chamkani cop shoppe here on Sunday.
The cycle of violence was parked in front of Tarnab police checkpost located on Grand Trunk Road where law enforcers were checking vehicles.
The in-charge of the post, Sub-inspector Sher Rehman, told Dawn that someone had parked the cycle of violence apparently to target police. The coppers became suspicious when no one came to take the cycle of violence, he said.
Police cordoned off the area and called bomb disposal squad. The busy G.T. Road was closed to traffic for more than an hour. The bomb disposal squad defused the bomb that weighed eight kilograms.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... police registered FIR against an alleged jacket wallah and his handler, who were killed in a premature kaboom in Dir Colony on the suburbs of scenic provincial capital on Saturday night.
The killed persons were identified as Mohammad Iqbal, a resident of Madina Colony, and Mohammad Sadiq, a resident of Dir Colony.
They were identified by their identity cards found by police at the scene of occurrence.
The kaboom took place in an open place in the limits of Yakatoot cop shoppe. According to preliminary investigations, a bomber, accompanied by his handler, was fitting a boom jacket when it went kaboom!.
The bodies of the suicide bomber and his handler were beyond recognition, said a police official.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Times Of India] North Korea has installed the first stage of a long-range rocket it plans to launch this month on the launch pad, defying international calls to cancel the mission, a report said on Monday.
North Korea announced on Saturday that it would carry out its second long-range rocket launch this year between December 10 and 22.
The US and its key Asian allies South Korea and Japan have condemned the launch as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The first stage has been placed in position at the North's Sohae satellite launch station, a South Korean government source told Yonhap news agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Shabelle] Abdikarin Hussein Guled, Somalias interior minister has escaped unscathed from an ambush by Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... fighters during a visit to the Al-Qaeda-linked groups former stronghold of Marko, 110 Km (68 miles) south of Mogadishu, reports said.
Ahmed was making a rare trip out of Mogadishu on Monday when the convoy was attacked by Al shabab in the outskirts of Shalanbod town, the Afgoye corridor, a key road about 90km north of the capital.
Nearly 10 Somali soldiers were killed in the attack but Mr.Guled was able to continue his trip, a Somali security official said.
A roadside kaboom destroyed one of vehicles carrying the internal affairs minister sped off as soon as the face-to-face fighting began.
The minister was traveling from Marko back to Mogadishu, the Somali capital on Monday. The armoured convoy was guarded by 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... troops and Somali government soldiers, who seized Marko, the port city in southern Somalia last year without a battle with Al shabab.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[An Nahar] The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... on Monday suspended operations in Syria and starting withdrawing non-essential staff because of the growing danger from the country's civil war, the U.N. front man said.
The United Nations will "suspend its missions within the country until further notice," U.N. front man Martin Nesirky told news hounds.
Nesirky also confirmed that "the United Nations in Syria will pull out non-essential international personnel with immediate effect."
A quarter of the 100 international staff in Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... could leave this week and some staff could be moved out of the besieged northern city of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , the U.N. news agency, IRIN, reported.
The United Nations is worried about the mounting intensity of the 20-month-old conflict between Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... 's forces and opposition rebels.
It has also acted after U.N. workers were targeted in recent attacks and after the United States warned Assad earlier Monday against any bid to unleash chemical weapons on the Syrian people.
Two U.N. convoys en route to Damascus airport were hit by gunfire last week. Four Austrian military observers from a U.N. force in the Golan Heights demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel were maimed in the attacks.
U.N. sources said aid convoys have increasingly come under attack, either caught in crossfire or hijacked for the vehicles and their supplies.
The U.N. has more than 1,000 national and international staff in Syria, where activists say more than 40,000 people have died in the conflict since March last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Weekly Standard] Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming believes President Barack Obama B.O.... is "comfortable going off the [fiscal] cliff."
"I think the president is increasingly showing his hand that he is comfortable going off the cliff," Barrasso tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, in response to a question about President B.O.'s negotiation strategy. "Hes not involving Republicans in the process. He was playing golf this weekend with Bill Clinton, Ron Kirk, and ex-DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. Hes not seeming to be one to work together. He seems to be lecturing more than listening. And I just think that its increasingly clear he's comfortable going off the cliff."
The Republican senator believes Obama's posture is being reinforced by bad advice he's getting from some of his fellow Democrats. "[T]hats what hes being advised to do by a number of his fellow wardheelersHoward Dean, former chairman of the DNC said they should go off the cliff, Patty Murray ... Senator-for-life (D) from Washington state, reputedly not the sharpest intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.... , who ran the senatorial committee, said they should go off the cliff," says Barrasso in a phone interview, referring multiple times to Obamas weekend golf outing with Democratic stalwarts.
Barrasso thinks Obama should be working on getting a deal with the Republicans in Congress instead of spending his weekend on the golf course with such partisans.
Additionally, Barrasso believes Obama's willingness to go off the cliff relates to his view of achieving fairness through the tax code.
"The president is so fixated on higher taxes that hes giving up on [the prospect of] a healthy economy. Were going to see unemployment over 9 percent in this second recession, I believe, if the president doesnt work together to find a bipartisan solution," says Barrasso.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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#1
There's a cartoon showing Obama peering over the edge of a sharp cliff, How I'd LOVE to "Kick him over", end this crap, it's NOT a"Cliff" More a Democratic Molehill that Obama wants (Hard) to make a Republican one.
Nope, it's a Democratic one.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2012 0:11
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#2
Additionally, Barrasso believes Obama's willingness to go off the cliff relates to his view of achieving fairness reparations through the tax code.
One very minor correction and I am in full agreement.
#3
We ARE going to go over the fiscal Cliff. Each side will blame the other and the next stop will be an economy like Greece.
When it gets bad enough you will see molotov cocktails and the national Guard in small towns will invite the local citizens to join them.
the dollar will be worth a nickel and you can't get stuff at the supermarket because they wont have it to sell. gasoline will be nine dollars a gallon. And most people will not own a gun and those that do will be ready to use them. Try to collect taxes then.
Plant a backyard garden and eat your dog. Hands behind your head.
#4
The Administration needs the crisis to come to a full, rolling boil so it can exploit it ('never let a good crisis go to waste.') Anything bad will be the unavoidable result of Republican actions, as you will be told repeatedly by all the media. Properly exloited, this could be the last crisis the Progressives need to avoid wasting.
#7
As long as all the media continue to believe their probama-ganda.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/04/2012 8:53
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#8
Obama going off the cliff reminds me of the Geico commercial for car insurance where a pig is going down a zip line (another version has the pig on a skateboard) going "Wheeeeeeee, wheeeeee, wheeee!" all the way down.
#9
I am amazed the Republicans don't get it. Going off the cliff is the point as far as obama is concerned. he gets to (a) gut the military (b) cut projects that Republicans like or that will hurt in a way he can blame Republicans.
The problem here is we have one party trying to save the country while the other is dedicated to killing the opposition party with little thought of what happens to the county in the mean-time because they will have total control to do as they please afterwards.
Republicans need to step back and get into the long game because they are losing.
#10
What's he got to lose? He's done, no more elections for him. Piss the economy down the drain? Screw the country?
The important thing? How will this affect him? Answer: Not much.
#11
Republicans need to step back and get into the long game because they are losing.
Republicans lost the long game decades ago when they conceded the education system to the collectivists. They lost before they even knew the game was on.
#12
I wouldn't saw lost the game Glenmore but agree that has put them on the ropes for a few rounds. So knowing that, how to fight back? Id go full bore on school choice. Hammer the teachers union and start pushing Question Authority again. Do it all from outside if possible, at local and regional levels. The long game continues.
Posted by: Solomon Protector of the Texans5923 ||
12/04/2012 12:54
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#14
So no one wants to be responsible for the "fiscal cliff" for the US$16.1Trilyuhn-n-climbing national debt - I'M NOT SHOCKED, I TELL YA, I'M NOT SHOCKED!
As most recently illustrated once again in ...
* YAHOO NEWS > WHY [US]CONGRESS MAY ABANDON THE DEBT CEILING?
To Infinity, and BBBBBeeeyyyooooonnnndddddd, I say!
And just because its knowingly un-Constitutional doesn't mean that Constitution thingy has to apply - D *** NG IT, ITS FOR THE LEMMINGS - OOOOPPSS, I MEAN THE CHILDREN!
[An Nahar] Ten alleged members of a group that sent tens of thousands of euros to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) went on trial in Gay Paree on Monday on charges of financing terrorism.
The suspects, mainly of Turkish origin, are alleged to have collected funds in mosques in various French cities to send to the IMU between 2003 and 2008.
They were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in a 2008 sweep that included arrests in eastern La Belle France, The Netherlands and Germany.
The central figure in the group, Turkish-Dutch citizen Irfan Demirtas, has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest.
The trial is to conclude on December 19.
Originally formed to overthrow Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov and set up an Islamic regime across Central Asia, the IMU is said to be active on the volatile border between Pakistain and Afghanistan and is listed as a terrorist group by the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Syrian foreign ministry front man Jihad al-Maqdessi has defected from Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... 's regime, a Syrian opposition leader announced on Monday.
"Maqdessi left Damascus ...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy... for Beirut and from there he headed to an unknown destination," Jamal al-Wadi, the director of the office of revolutionary movement of the Syrian National Council, told Sky News Arabia television.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Maqdessi has "resigned" and is headed for London.
"Maqdessi was pressured by people inside the presidential palace, but not the president himself, to resign. He is now on his way to London," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence La Belle France Presse, adding that he had left with his family from the Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport.
"The entourage of the president was disturbed by frequent media appearances by Maqdessi and some of the statements he made," Abdel Rahman said of the diplomat, who maintains an official Twitter account.
A native Arabic speaker and fluent in French and English, Maqdessi conducted his thesis in London while working for the Syrian embassy.
The Christian native of Damascus was called back to the Syrian capital soon after an uprising against Assad broke out in March last year to assume the post of foreign ministry front man.
He later relocated his wife and two children to Beirut, where he would visit them on the weekends.
Maqdessi had come under criticism of late by the ministry, the cabinet and by state media officials at the presidential palace, according to friends. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... he maintained his loyalty to Assad.
Earlier on Monday, the Lebanese pro-Damascus television al-Manar said "Maqdessi has been relieved of his duties for voicing stances that do not conform to Syria's official rhetoric."
Al-Mayadeen, another Beirut-based pro-Syria television, also reported that Maqdessi had defected.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker... Leb's al-Jadeed television said "Maqdessi left for London via the Beirut airport after tensions in his relation with the Syrian regime."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rwandan troops repulsed an attack by Rwandan Hutu beturbanned goons who crossed back into the country from bases in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... , Kigali's foreign minister said Sunday.
Rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) attacked a game warden's camp near the border at Kinigi, Louise Mushikiwabo said, the second such attack in recent days.
"FDLR attack on Kinigi warden camp today was repulsed" by Rwandan troops, Mushikiwabo said in a message posted on Twitter.
Border security had "been reinforced to guard against insecurity" from eastern DR Congo, she added.
The FDLR are an ethnic Hutu rebel group that fled Rwanda into DR Congo after having taken part in the 1994 genocide of mainly Tutsi Rwandans. They have been based there ever since.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Ynet] Intelligence sources tell The Atlantic Amman denied Israel's request to take out many of Syria's chemical weapons sites amid suspicious activity. 'You know the Israelis - sometimes they want to bomb right away,' official says
Following reports that Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... 's forces have been moving chemical weapons and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Tallyrand ... warning that the use of these weapons would cross a US red line, The Atlantic reported Monday that the Israeli government has twice come to the Jordanian government over the past two months with a plan to destroy many of Syria's chemical weapons sites.
The American magazine quoted Intelligence officials in two countries as saying Israel has been seeking Jordan's "permission" to bomb these sites, but the Jordanians have so far declined to grant such permission.
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that Israel can attack these sites without Jordan's approval, just as it reportedly attacked the Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, but an intelligence official told him that Israel is concerned about the possible repercussions of such an attack on Jordan.
"A number of sites are not far from the border," the official was quoted as saying: "The Jordanians have to be very careful about provoking the regime and they assume the Syrians would suspect Jordanian complicity in an Israeli attack."
The official said, "You know the Israelis - sometimes they want to bomb right away. But they were told that from the Jordanian perspective, the time was not right."
Other intelligence officials told The Atlantic that Israeli drones are patrolling the skies over the Jordan-Syria border, and that both American and Israeli drones are keeping watch over suspected Syrian chemical weapons sites.
The sources told the magazine that the Israeli requests were communicated by Mossad intermediaries dispatched by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
Clinton said Monday "I'm not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action."
[Ynet] Official tells Wired magazine Assad forces reached the point where they can 'load chemical weapons on plane and drop them.' Obama warns Assad not to make 'tragic mistake' and use WMDs
Following reports of "suspicious activity" at Syria's chemical weapons sites, an American official with knowledge of the situation told Wired magazine that Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's regime has begun combining the two chemical precursors needed to weaponize sarin gas.
"Physically, they've gotten to the point where they can load it up on a plane and drop it," the official told the magazine.
Wired explained that Sarin gas has two main chemical components - isopropanol, popularly known as rubbing alcohol, and methylphosphonyl difluoride. The Assad government has more than 500 metric tons of these precursors, which it ordinarily stores separately, in so-called "binary" form, in order to prevent an accidental release of nerve gas.
Last week, according to the official, that changed as the Syrian military began combining some of the binaries. "They didn't do it on the whole arsenal, just a modest quantity," the official was quoted by Wired as saying. "We're not sure what's the intent."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Livingstone ... said Monday that any use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against the opposition "is a red line for the United States.
"I am not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur," she said.
Later on Monday, US President Barack Obama The campaign's over, John... warned Syria that the use of chemical weapons would be "totally unacceptable" and that the country's leaders would be held accountable.
Obama said that if Assad made the "tragic mistake" of deploying chemical weapons, there would be consequences. Obama stopped short of detailing those consequences.
Obama's comments came as US officials said intelligence had detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days.
The White House said earlier Monday that it was increasingly concerned that the beleaguered regime in Syria might be considering use of chemical weapons against its own people and warned that doing so would "cross a red line."
White House press secretary Jay Carney said US officials were closely monitoring Syria's proliferation of sensitive materials and facilities, as opposition to the Syrian government grows.
Obama spoke later at a gathering on securing nuclear weapons materials.
The Atlantic reported Monday that the Israeli government has twice come to the Jordanian government over the past two months with a plan to destroy many of Syria's chemical weapons sites.
The American magazine quoted Intelligence officials in two countries as saying Israel has been seeking Jordan's "permission" to bomb these sites, but the Jordanians have so far declined to grant such permission.
#5
His best case scenario is hanging after a long trial unless he runs to Russia. Do you really think this would make a difference to them?
That's what I'm saying. Obama's been sending weapons to the rebels and backing Assad into a corner. Assad must know what will happen to him and his fellow Alawites if the rebels win. Wouldn't want to be a little Alawite girl when that happens, as if Obama cares. So what's a little gas between mortal enemies? What difference does it make whether you get killed by gas or a bomb?
#6
It's not like Obama will do anything if Assad does it. Which is the whole point, he's just wagging his finger. With Egypt going into Chaos mode I suspect we'll have a WMD attack by Christmas in Syria.
We're about to see what would have happened in a second Carter term, at home and abroad. It's going to get messy.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/04/2012 15:21
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As hundreds of schools in Pattani province opened after a 10-day suspension following the November 22 killing of Nanthana Kaewchan, the director of a school in Nong Chik district, a group of armed men early yesterday morning set fire to a two-story school building in Panare district. The Southern Teachers Federation had closed schools in the province to pressure authorities into providing more security for teachers following Nanthana's death.
At around 1:30 a.m., 15 men in black claimed to be state officials wanting to check out the school before the resumption of classes, but then tied up three village defense volunteers on the football field and set fire to the building before fleeing. A teachers' room and much office equipment were damaged while the infirmary and library were partly destroyed.
This arson attack followed the burning of a school building in Panare district at 1:30 a.m. on November 29. Three Buddhist teachers at Tha Kham Cham School, who feared for their safety were transferred, leaving only four teachers to take care of 110 students.
In the neighboring Yala province, the Army beefed up security for teachers around the clock. National Police chief Adul Saengsingkaew said security would be provided to teachers and that officials would watch out for terrorists' insurgents' moves during the New Year period. The terrorists separatists were losing sympathisers, he added.
A 32-year-old female teacher was gunned down by suspected terrorists militants in Narathiwat province on Monday despite a enhanced security for teachers in the deep South. Schoolteacher Chatsuda Nilsuwan was shot four times by a motorcycle pillion rider while she was on her way from the school to her house in the evening.
Witnesses said that the teacher was traveling alone on her motorcycle without military protection because she had finished work later than usual.
Chatsuda was the 155th teacher killed since the southern insurgency flared up in 2004.
[An Nahar] Britannia's interior ministry said on Monday that it has applied for permission to appeal against a decision by judges to block the extradition of terror suspect Abu Qatada to Jordan.
"We confirm that we have submitted our grounds for appeal," a Home Office front man told Agence La Belle France Presse.
A judge will consider the bid to challenge last month's move by Britannia's Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) blocking the extradition over fears that evidence obtained through torture could be used in Abu Qatada's trial.
The radical Islamist holy man -- dubbed the late Osama bin Laden ... who has left the building... 's right-hand man in Europe -- was released on bail following the SIAC ruling, in a severe blow to the British government.
British authorities have kept him in jug for most of the last decade and repeatedly tried to send him to Jordan to face trial.
Abu Qatada was convicted in absentia in Jordan in 1998 for involvement in terror attacks, but both British and European judges have accepted his argument that evidence obtained by torture might be used against him in a retrial.
Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... said last month that he was "completely fed up with the fact that this man is still on the lam in our country".
Abu Qatada, a Jordanian of Paleostinian origin in his early 50s, is currently under curfew 16 hours a day and is wearing an electronic tag, but he is free to leave his home in northwest London between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Syria has begun mixing chemicals that can be used to make deadly sarin gas, a U.S. official told AFP Monday, amid fears that Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... 's forces could attack rebels with chemical weapons.
"We've picked up several indications which lead us to believe that they're combining chemical precursors," the official said, on condition of anonymity, adding that the operation was apparently aimed at making sarin.
Earlier, CNN said that Washington believed that Assad's regime was considering the feasibility of putting sarin into artillery shells for use in a limited chemical strike against opposition soldiers, the report said.
U.S. officials stressed to the news channel that they did not believe that Assad had made a final decision on mounting such a strike.
Sarin, used in two terror attacks in Japan in the 1990s, is a man-made nerve agent which can cause convulsions, respiratory failure and death.
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12/04/2012
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#1
first off, it appears that the ME has dodged a bullet twice when to comes to the release of nuclear or chemical toxins. first with the shutdown at the Bushehr Reactor, and now with the chemical weapons under Assad (although that's not over yet). the world is coming closer to seeing a major disaster than it has for a long time.
but the question you have to ask is this ... how much bribery does it take for Al Qaeda to get its hands on sarin now? if binary components have already been mixed, what more do they need to do? Offer $1 million and a plane ticket to anywhere in the world. $5 mil ... #10 mil?? Everyone has their price.
#2
Well, if he uses the Sarin, Hillary has said it will be a red line. So, the US will ask the UN to issue a VERY strongly worded resolution of disapproval.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/04/2012 7:55
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#3
Don't you mean US sec. state will come & kiss his glutei maximi, RiV?
#5
Anyone have any questions where Iraq's nerve gas supplies went all those years ago? Trucks into the Bekka valley before the attack, and thanks to the asshole Turks, the 3rd Infantry wasn't there to shut the door on the escape route and capture/destroy those transports.
You can also thank the State Department, who not only leaked details of negotiations, but made it appear that other, unrelated aid was tied to letting the 3rd through Turkey.
[An Nahar] Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region said on Friday that talks on reducing tensions with the federal government have stalled over the contentious issue of a newly-established northern military command.
Talks between federal and Kurdish security officials reached an impasse over Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... 's refusal to scrap the Tigris Operations Command, which was "the basic requirement emphasized by the leadership of Kurdistan for normalizing the situation," a statement on the Kurdistan government's website said.
The establishment of the federal Tigris Operations Command, which covers disputed territory in north Iraq, has drawn an angry response from Kurdish leaders who want to incorporate much of the area into their region.
Federal and Kurdish security officials held talks this week on reducing high tensions between the two sides in the country's north, which has seen military reinforcements sent to disputed areas.
An Iraqi military front man said in a statement on Monday that the two sides agreed to continue with talks and on activating coordinating committees between their forces, and to work to calm the situation and look for mechanisms to withdraw military units mobilized during the increased tensions.
The front man, Colonel Dhia al-Wakil, then said on Tuesday that a draft accord was to be finalized on Wednesday and presented to a committee for approval.
But the two sides ultimately disagreed on the details, according to top Kurdish security official Jabbar Yawar, who said the federal government originally approved 12 out of 14 of Kurdistan's demands, but later only agreed to three.
Fuad Hussein, Kurdistan president Massud Barzani's chief of staff, said in the statement on Friday that the best option for the region is now intensifying contacts on the crisis with the National Alliance, a grouping of mainly-Shiite Iraqi parties.
The dispute over territory in north Iraq is the biggest threat to the country's long-term stability, diplomats and officials say. Ties between the two sides are also marred by disputes over oil and power-sharing.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... 's regime is in danger of collapse "anytime" as the opposition gains ground on the military and political fronts, Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... chief Nabil al-Arabi said on Monday.
"That could happen anytime," the secretary general said in an interview with Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Now they are fighting in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... ," and after 20 months of violence, "I think there will be something soon," he said.
"Facts on the ground indicate very clearly now that the Syrian opposition is gaining, politically and militarily. Every day they are gaining something," Arabi said.
He said a new coalition of Syrian opposition groups now based in Cairo was "moving ahead."
The Arab League, which is also based in the Egyptian capital, last month recognized Syria's National Coalition as the "legitimate" representative of the Syrian opposition.
"We are in touch with them and they come here all the time," Arabi said.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the conflict which broke out in March 2011 has cost more than 41,000 lives.
There have also been fears of a spillover of the violence into neighboring countries.
"The possibility is there, you cannot exclude the possibility," Arabi acknowledged.
He also deplored Russia's support of Damascus, which along with China has blocked the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... Security Council from adopting sanctions against Damascus.
"The Russians insist Assad should be there until the end of the (transition) process, while others say once the transition period starts with a government with full executive powers, Assad is needless," Arabi said.
But he said China, which is also a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, appeared to be "more flexible" than Russia on the Syria file.
Arabi's assessment was that Iran, considered Assad's firmest ally in the international community, is in fact "not a big actor."
"I keep reading in the papers Iran is providing money, Iran is providing weapons ... They deny everything but they say they are helping" Damascus, Arabi said.
"I don't expect Iran to change its views. They are dogmatic but they are not so influential," he said.
The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council has recognized the National Coalition formed last month as "the Syrian people's legitimate representative", although the 22-member Arab League stopped short of granting it full recognition.
Spain on November 29 also decided to recognize the National Coalition, following the example of La Belle France, Britannia and Turkey as well as the GCC.
The 27-nation EU has formally recognized the National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people, while La Belle France has suggested arming opposition fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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The arrival of Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto as President of Mexico opens new prospects for development in a society divided ideologically, overwhelmed by poverty, social inequality and lack of opportunity for new generations; a society wounded by a demented, apocalyptic violence unleashed by organized crime, and powerless before an inefficient and corrupt judicial system, allowing the most outrageous of impunity; and a political class in which many seek only to live in their interests and irresponsible wasting of public resources, a society with a deplorable education system; and petty trade unionism that promotes community development and has built a culture of corruption that eats like black hole, the resources of which should be channelled to social development.
Mexicans owe no good bet to failure of the new government because it would be to the detriment of all citizens. And although the described reality is bleak, we must hold fast the hope that can transform our nation and forge a better society. It should leave the personal meanness to put on ourselves to build a country that can not lose the opportunities they have to be sensitive about the many problems that afflict us, and to aspire together to progress and development, which should be pillars of justice and peace.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has before him a number of challenges that are postponed to address, namely:
Promotion of an authentic humanism that puts the person and dignity in the service center of the political agenda, above party interests or particular political institutions or associations, and their ideologies.
Education, understood not only as a transmission of knowledge, but as a comprehensive education that promotes the values of the peace, respect, brotherhood and civic responsibility in building the nation.
Similarly, the scientific and technological progress, the arts and sport.
Promoting and strengthening the family, considering marriage as the basis of society, promoting education of the new generations in the moral and civic values for integration into the social development.
Combating social injustice, dramatically present in the abysmal social inequalities and suffering of poverty, through the creation of well-paying jobs, and the implementation of social programs.
Free paternalism and political patronage to promote a culture of work, solidarity, community engagement and savings.
The fight against entrenched corruption to be from a clean record of public officials, vigilant at all times with the understanding that the enemy is also home.
A tangible commitment by the government to combat and repudiate dishonesty, and proposals that severely punish this practice, because today is cancer that consumed the country and corrupt the younger generation who see this evil something natural or necessary.
Promoting economic development initiatives, going through a series of constitutional reforms, which historically has been postponed by the mixed policy that unfairly and irresponsibly slows development of future generations.
The fight against organized crime, which is an obligation on the State, with full respect for human rights and the preservation of the public peace, not only with the legitimate use o force, but through education for peace, and civic and moral values Remake the social fabric and lead us to a national reconciliation. care, protection, promotion and social integration of the people most vulnerable, the elderly, indigenous people, children and the disabled, fighting discrimination, abuse and marginalization.
Finally, the care and the preservation of ecological and natural resourcs and the nation, raising awareness in their care, fighting exploitation and pollution, and educating new generations in the responsibility for the goods of the earth that are entrusted to us by God.
#1
...a society divided ideologically, overwhelmed by poverty, social inequality and lack of opportunity for new generations...
Hey, the ruling class has been working hard for generations on that by dumping millions of those mestizos y indios on their neighbor. They can lead them to the border, but they can't make them cross.
[Dawn] A large number of members of the Hindu minority community staged a demonstration on Sunday in protest over a demolition operation in a Garden locality, claiming that during the operation a Hindu temple had been damaged and religious objects desecrated..
They added that their houses had been destroyed, and called for stern action against those responsible for it.
Speaking at the demonstration organised by the Hindu Panchayat of Doly Khata at the Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Press Club, community elders said they had been living at the place for over 100 years and it was for the past some time that officials and private individuals had been harassing them to vacate a plot, and the issue was in court. However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... on Saturday morning some people accompanied by the police and Rangers arrived there and started the demolition operation, they said, adding that they had not been informed and the operation was started all of a sudden.
They claimed that the people accompanying the police took away their religious objects, gold jewellery and other valuables and then started to damage the temple.
They said that some people, including Sohen Bhai, Ashok and Sanjay (a boy), Lachhman, who were trying to protect the temple and bring back the snatched religious objects were maimed during the process.
Pakistain Hindu Council chief Ramesh Vankwani said the action was uncalled for and the way the demolition was carried out showed a mala fide intention.
He said that the court was moved and a stay order had been granted and the next hearing would be held on Dec 7.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Fox News] Syrian warplanes on Monday bombed a security building that had been taken over by rebels along the Turkish border, killing at least one person, wounding 20 more and sending dozens of civilians fleeing across the frontier, a Turkish official said.
The conflict also spilled into Syria's eastern neighbor, Leb, after Lebanese troops exchanged fire with rebels across the border late Sunday. Violence from Syria's 20-month-old uprising has on several occasions touched neighboring countries, fueling concerns that the Arab Spring's longest and deadliest revolt could touch off a regional war.
The violence came as Russian 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... , a close ally of Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... , headed to Turkey for talks likely to be overshadowed by the two countries' differences over Syria. Ankara is expected to press Putin to stop backing Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's regime. Moscow has shown no inclination to relinquish its support for its last Middle East ally, whom it has shielded from international sanctions and continued to provide with weapons amid the escalating civil war.
An official from the mayor's office in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar said a Syrian jet targeted a security building that had been overrun by rebels, dropping two bombs on an area some 300 meters (yards) from the Turkish border.
Turkish ambulances ferried at least 21 maimed Syrians from the border to Ceylanpinar's hospital, the official said on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish government policy. One of the maimed later died in the hospital, the official said, adding that witnesses in Ras al-Ayn told him more than a dozen people were killed in the bombing.
Television footage from Turkey's Anadolu agency showed a large plume of smoke rising over the town, and dozens of Syrian civilians were also seen fleeing into Turkey after crossing through a barbed wire fence at the border.
Leb's state-run National News Agency said that Lebanese soldiers stationed near the village of Qaa in the Bekaa Valley returned fire into Syria after "gunnies" shot at them from across the frontier late Sunday. The agency quoted a statement from the Lebanese army that said there were no casualties.
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12/04/2012
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Are there any 'good guys' in this fight? I doubt it. The cynic in me says do like in the Iran-Iraq War - arm whomever is losing and load the popcorn machine.
The challenges of being a dinosaur when the killer asteroid hits atmosphere.
[Newsbusters.Org] Now that former NBC News president Jeff Zucker is set to take over as president of CNN, the fate of the cable news network is an open question. In a Sunday discussion about the transition, CNN media critic Howard Kurtz and his guests passed over the network's left-of-center reporting, implying instead that CNN is somehow devoid of bias compared to its primary competitors, MSNBC and Fox News.
During a segment on "Reliable Sources," panelist David Zurawik -- media critic for the Baltimore Sun newspaper -- asserted that the news organization is "the nation's last bastion of television journalism."
The former reporter for the Washington Post stated that Zucker, the former president and chief executive officer of NBC Universal, "will be up against the cautious culture of an Atlanta-based network that for years and years has stuck to a traditional news format."
Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs and another guest on Sunday's program, said that he cares about CNN "partly because of what it means to news and journalism" and what it means to the nation.
"This country needs this information through a broadcaster talking nationally and globally," he added.
The future of the network is important to the broadcast news industry, which is critical to the political health of the nation.
After noting that the network needs to make money since cable news is also a business, Kurtz asserted that "as a hard news network," CNN "does not attract loyal viewers when there is no breaking news in the way its cable news competitors can."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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#1
SO, is the bottom line that the Public doesn't buy their stuff anymore? Or in other words, their news has little sense to common ordinary people and they don't listen or pay good money for what CNN has to sell?
Traditional Leave it to Beaver news just doesn't have much appeal?
Well there you go.
Maybe they should hand out pictures of Obama gazing at the Moon or Coupons for Obama's next book...about Obama.
That might work.
#3
The panelists seem to be the only ones worrying about CNN's fate. A novel idea might be to report the news and scrap the ideology that currently goes with CNN reporting and other MSM cable networks that aren't doing well. The big wigs should try to be honest and ask themselves: "Why aren't we doing well?"
#4
CNN has the ability to be the only real news agency. If the panel is worried about them and concider FOX and MSNBC real news, then I see this as a good sign. CNN got slammed in the early 80's for being 24 hours a day. Now they are too traditional? If CNN pulls of being news without the wild bias I will become a fan.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/04/2012 11:45
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[Bangla Daily Star] Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami ... a Pakistani catspaw remaining active in Bangla politix, loosely affiliated with the Pak religious party of the same name and closely affiliated with most of the terror organizations in Bangla. A member of the BNP's four party governing coalition.... -sponsored countrywide daylong hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... started Tuesday morning.
Obstructed to hold rallies on Monday, Jamaat called the hartal in a desperate bid to fight the government on the street.
Hours after the announcement, the main opposition BNP late last night extended moral support to its main ally's hartal.
The hartal announcement came around 12:10pm through a blurb signed by Jamaat's acting secretary general Shafiqur Rahman. In the statement, all units of Jamaat had been called upon to enforce the strike.
We are left with no other choice since we were denied permission for today's [Monday's] rally, said Shafiqur Rahman.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie was cracking himself up, but nobody else seemed to be getting the non-stop jokes... in a pre-hartal showdown, Jamaat men set fire to a vehicle and vandalised four more in the capital's Jatrabari area. Jamaat activists also clashed with police in Dinajpur. The clash left one Jamaat man dead.
The party was supposed to hold rallies in the capital and in some other districts Monday afternoon to press the government to release the top Jamaat leaders facing trials on charges of crimes against humanity.
Although being a key component of the BNP-led opposition alliance, Jamaat has alone been taking to the streets to press their core demands -- cancellation of, what they had termed, farcical war crimes trial and release of their party high-ups.
In their statement, Jamaat, however, cited restoration of the caretaker government system, price hike of essentials, deterioration of law and order, misrule of the government and attack on the values of Islam as the issues for the hartal.
Jamaat is also agitating along with the opposition alliance that had already declared a series of agitation programmes for December, including a nationwide road blockade on the 9th.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] Gunmen on Monday desecrated graves of Ahmadis in Lahore, members of the minority community said, in the latest act of intimidation and religious hatred against the beleaguered group.
More than a dozen masked men broke into an Ahmadi graveyard in the Model Town area of Lahore before dawn and after tying up the security guard and caretaker vandalised graves, community front man Salimud Din said.
The attackers shattered the tomb stones of about 120 graves and left, he said.
Din said police took no action after similar incidents a few months ago in the eastern city of Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... and the central town of Lodhran.
The government has failed to protect our human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and Ahmadis life and property is not safe in Pakistain, Din said.
Shahid Ataullah, a local Ahmadi elder, said the attackers came around 2:00am (2100 GMT) and threatened the guard and caretaker with dire consequences and said that they were annoyed because Islamic verses were engraved on the tombstones.
Ataullah told AFP that the attackers told the guards they were from cut-thoat groups Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... and the Taliban, though there was no claim of responsibility.
Members of the community were discussing whether or not to lodge a formal complaint with police, he said.
We are under lots of pressure and the objective seems to be to harass us,Ataullah said.
Police said that they were not aware of the incident.
There is no such thing in our knowledge. We will take action when someone files a report about the incident, local cop shoppe chief Idrees Qureshi told AFP.
In May 2010, nearly 100 people were killed in Lahore after Death Eaters stormed two Ahmadi places of worship launching gun and grenade attacks.
Gunmen later raided the hospital where victims were being treated, killing four people in a shoot out.
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[Bangla Daily Star] An activist of pro-Jamaat student organization Islami Chhatra Shibir ... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh... , who sustained injuries in a clash with police in Chirirbandar of Dinajpur, died last night.
Mojaheed departed this vale of tears around 9:00pm on his way to Rangpur Medical College Hospital. He received rubber bullets during the clash, Matiur Rahman, secretary general of Jamaat's Dinajpur town unit, told The Daily Star.
He is the son of Khansama upazila 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... Secretary General Ataur Rahman, added Matiur.
The clash ensued when police intercepted a procession brought out by Jamaat-Shibir supporters at Ranirbandar Bazar near Dinajpur-Dhaka highway around 6:15pm.
The law enforcers fired at least 15 tear gas canisters and 10 rounds of rubber bullets to disperse the activists, police said. The clash left at least 15 people injured including Mojaheed.
In response, the activists pelted brickbats at the police, said Md Tariqul Islam, officer-in-charge of Chirirbandar Police Station.
Due to the clash, traffic movement between Dinajpur and other districts halted for around three hours until 9:00pm.
Police tossed in the slammer ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... 10 Jamaat-Shibir supporters from the spot, but later released them, said the OC.
Border Guard Bangladesh personnel have been deployed in the area following Mojaheed's death.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
#1
The Pak Moslems are not your friends.
The Pak Muslims are not even their own friends, especially when they think they are being clever, poor things.
Thank you for all of that, Threater Flusoper9823 , and for your service.
More "Hail Obama!" stupidity. Why are we supposed to care what an actor thinks about, again?
[Weekly Standard] "Michelle is Superwoman. What can't she do?" the Hollywood star and Democratic donor says in an interview with Newsweek. "That's why people love her. She can be on the Supreme Court and anywhere else she wants. She can be the president. She's history and she'll stay history because she is so amazingly smart and together."
Congressman James Clyburn, from South Carolina, also sees much promise in Michelle Obama.
"I'd love to see her get more into politics because it would be a breath of fresh air in D.C.," Clyburn tells Newsweek. "She's honest and straightforward, which is not what you see in Washington much. She is exactly what we need around here."
But a White House official tells the publication that the first lady doesn't have the "temperament" for the top spot in the land.
"Michelle Obama doesn't have the temperament for the constant b.s. that goes on in D.C.," an anonymous aide tells Newsweek. "She watched her husband fight fights that he shouldn't have to. She's seen the ugly side of Washington up close and personal and has no interest in dealing with that firsthand. I think she knows there are other ways to impact the system from the outside in. She'll find those, but it won't be through public office. That's not who she is."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Having through the years, gone to movies made by these Hollywood dingbats, for their acting skills, to bring a story alive, for my entertainment, I willing paid money to so. Just can't do it anymore.
Samuel L Jackson is one of those... heck, he loved being in Star Wars.....
Not such in the last 3-4 years.... can't do it... haven't done it... and this comment just drives the nail deeper.
#6
Really? Germany is part of the West. France is part of the West.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/04/2012 10:12
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#7
Talented, I can debate that. He has no range. Zero. Sammy Jackson has one character; he gets outside of that character, such as in Unbreakable, he stinks. In the jedi1-2-3, in what should have been an easy layup to stand out as a bright spot, he stunk. Think of a great quote from, well, what was his movie name? Damn near ruined Jackie Brown, and in fact Tarantino's success was Jackson's success. In fact, Bruce Willis' success (Die Hard 3) was SLJs success.
He gets loud and cusses unabashingly. Without the script and the director to capture that just right, you get snakes on a plane.
#10
OK. Put Moochelle in the same category as Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton. Egotistical women with warped, socialist ideas who think they're just as good as any man but never would have gotten anywhere without their husbands. None too good looking either.
Jackson is a weak man who gets all starry eyed whenever he meets a woman who has a little bit of power, whether she got it on her own or not. How pathetic.
[Shabelle] A police officer in Mogadishu says they have secured all roadblocks in the capital complying with the recent order from President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
While giving an interview to Shabelle Media, Ali Mohamed Elmi, the deputy police boss of Benadir province announced that police embarked on major security operations to rid the Mogadishu roads off illegal road blocks which unlawful charges used to be collected from public service vehicles working in major Mogadishu roads.
The comments followed after Somali president has met at the state house in the capital with army generals and district commissioners and discussed ways to eliminate the illegal road blocks.
However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... Mohamud Ahmed Nur Tarsan, the governor of Benadir region opposed an order issued by Somali president that orders to stop the all taxes collected from the state.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[Reuters] The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law.
The 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, meant to help pay for healthcare, goes into effect in 2013. It is the first surtax to be applied to capital gains and dividend income.
The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.
The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The earnings were taxed prior to their investment in stocks and bonds. The earnings from stocks and bonds was taxed once again as capital gains. These gains is now being hit a third time with a 3.8 percent surtax. When we go "off the cliff" (and we surely will) the capital gains tax portion will be doubled as well.
The Champ is devouring the host before our very eyes.
#5
for those who might not catch the tone, that was supposed to be sarcasm in the first line of my post. This is going to cause further capital flight. Not to mention the effects of US inflation once they have to inflate away all the debt Obama and Reid and Pelosi locked us into
[Tolo News] Minister of Energy and Water Mohammad Ismail Khan will retain his position in the government after the majority of parliamentarians voted for him to remain despite recent calls for his dismissal.
The push for Ismail Khan's impeachment was driven by his plan to form a private army of former mujahedeen fighters and his seeming inaction in matters related to his portfolio.
Ismail Khan was asked to explain his work in the energy sector in an appearance before parliament on Monday.
Lawmakers accused him of allowing his ministry to spend only 30 percent of its allocated budget in seven years when so much work in the energy and water sector were needed, as well as a lack of transparency in the projects.
"During the last seven years, less than thirty percent of Ministry of Energy and Water budget was spent. Low capacity in the ministry has caused the basic and infrastructures projects to not be done. We could have built several power plants in these past years," Kabul MP Shukria Barekzai said.
"The provincial budgets were not spent while the people were suffering from lack of electricity and water. None of the power plants were built in the past several years," MP Noor Akbari said.
"We have lots of river water in the provinces, but unfortunately there is no electricity. If the Kajaki power plant was reconstructed in the past years, the people of most of the eastern provinces would have had electricity," MP Mohammad Naim Lalai said, adding that more than 80 percent of the projects have been awarded to Iranian contractors.
Ismail Khan rejected the accusations.
"It's impossible to use all the river water in eight years, it will need billions of dollars which the finance ministry can't afford. Currently, 547 power plants have been studied but due to a lack of budget, the construction of only five of these plants is underway," Ismail Khan said.
After a public voting process, 141 politicians raised their green cards to re-elect him as the Energy and Water Minister while 32 others raised red cards to oppose him.
Last week, the Administrative Office said it had received signed letters from 55 politicians asking for him to be dismissed, citing the plans for a private militia as well as his work record as energy minister.
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[An Nahar] Two kabooms Monday rocked two different Nigerian cities repeatedly hit by attacks blamed on Islamist jihad boy 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... , wounding at least four people, police and residents said.
The kabooms occurred in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, and Maiduguri, the northeastern city at the heart of Boko Haram's insurgency.
A blast outside a mosque near Kano's main textile market went off around 8:30 am in an area where traffic police were stationed, residents said. The area was later cordoned off by troops and coppers, Agence La Belle France Presse reported.
Police said the blast was caused by a "time-bomb" and left three traffic police and a passerby maimed.
"There was an kaboom around the Kantin Kwari market targeting some traffic personnel," police front man Magaji Majia said.
"Four people were maimed. They included a federal road safety personnel, a Hisbah personnel and a state traffic warden as well as a passerby."
The Hisbah are the local sharia police.
Residents of Maiduguri reported a huge kaboom but did not yet know details.
"There was a very heavy kaboom this morning that shook the entire city," a resident said.
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[An Nahar] The public prosecution in Tunisia has appealed against last week's court ruling to drop a case of possible indecency against a young woman allegedly raped by two coppers, her lawyer said on Monday.
"We just found out this morning that the prosecution has lodged an appeal," Bochra Belhaj Hmida told Agence La Belle France Presse. "It's their right, legally, there's nothing that can be said about that. But on the moral front..."
A Tunis judge last Thursday dropped the case against the woman, whose identity has been kept secret, while two accused officers are to face rape charges and a third for extortion.
The 27-year-old rape victim faced possible indecency charges with her fiance based on the testimony of the alleged rapists, coppers who say they took the couple by surprise in an "immoral position" just before the alleged attack.
A judicial source has previously said that the police had taken the couple by surprise as they were having sex in their car.
Two of them then took the woman to a police car, where they raped her in turn, while a third restrained and tried to extort money from her fiance at a bank cashpoint, the source added.
Last month a magistrate had questioned the woman, alleged raped on September 3, to decide whether she was to be charged with indecency, which could carry a six-month prison sentence.
The case sparked a storm of protest in Tunisia, with NGOs, media and opposition figures saying the proceedings had transformed the victim into the accused and reflected the Islamist-led government's policy towards women.
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[CNS News] Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... , likened Obamas values and ability to see a clear road where everybody just sees fog to President Abraham Lincoln as depicted in the 2012 Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln.
Speaking at Northwestern University on Friday, Emanuel said, And I think the presidents experience as somebody who was a community organizer on the South Side, dealing with the steel workers who had lost their jobs and lost any possibility of having a job in their industry mid-life, how they were going to retrain, how they were going to get themselves back on their feet and how they were going to value themselves, was a guiding principle for him.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Nope, NOT everyone, he's an "Uncle Tom" if anything.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2012 0:13
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#2
I'm coming to the opinion, that these people just like to find some pretty words, string them together, and do believe, "Repeat these words long enough, they will be believe." Or something like that..........
#6
Now that you mention it, back in the Memory Hole(tm) you'll find pics from the old Left in which Lincoln was among the pantheon of idols, right next to Lenin.
This isn't These aren't the Lincoln droids you're looking for.
#7
Lincoln? Well, maybe if you consider that Lincoln's policies resulted in the deaths of 600,000+ American citizens, he invaded the South, he destroyed the South for years to come as a result of the war, and he suspended basic citizen's civil rights.
All kidding aside, if you look at all the available lists of best and worst Presidents, most of the those considered the worst Presidents have many traits that are more admirable than those of Barack Obama. Of course Rahm Emanuel would say this as he is vested in Obama's legacy.
#8
I was about to say more or less what JohnQC said. Lincoln was a great President because he put an end to Slavery but imagine if you did the same exact type of devisive actions on behalf of creating indentured servitude? That would be Obama.
[Tolo News] Parliament's first deputy speaker Abdul Zahir Qadir on Saturday apologised to the policeman who was beaten by Qadir's guards at the scene of a suicide kaboom last month.
A police officer from Kabul's District 10 force was struck by the guards apparently after he stopped the men from getting close to the area of a suicide attack in Wazir Akbar Khan on Wednesday Nov 21.
The incident was photographed and the image of the scene went viral on social networks along with demands for justice.
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) subsequently investigated and tossed in the clink Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! the guards involved.
Qadir visited the District 10 police headquarter on Friday along with some other politicians and apologised for the bad behavior of his guards, the MOI said in a statement.
His guards were then released with Qadir promising such an incident will not happen again.
Posted by: Fred ||
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More of the vicious nonsense we've come to expect from the people who thought Barack Obama was a good idea -- twice.
[Weekly Standard] MSNBC host Chuck Todd reported that a "very smart White House aide" told him that "with this Republican, with the way politics of Washington are today, there'd still be slavery." Watch here:
"You're going to like this," MSNBC host Chuck Todd said this morning on TV. "So, I threw the Lincoln analogy at a close aide to the president last week, and he said, 'You know, with this Republican, with the way politics of Washington are today, there'd still be slavery. Lincoln wouldn't have been able to navigate the polarization between the media between this--' It was an interesting and depressing observation from this very smart White House aide."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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#1
Time to quit nice. It's gotten everyone else no where. It's a knife fight. Start acting like it. Start calling them what they are - Socialist. They are not liberals. Never were for over a generation.
#3
Staticrats...or, call them Tories (the 1780's pejorative not 2012 UK MEP) in ref to their pro-tax and anti-liberty stance on just about everything -- and watch their heads explode.
#6
"Socialism" as taught in today's schools is a good thing.
Again because we've played nice. Socialism=Slavery. You exist to serve the state/plantation. The owners and overseers are the ones who profit not the laborers except that small group of favored who get to work up in the plantation house. Some animals are more equal than others. Meanwhile the real workers in the fields who produce anything of value to the plantation only work has hard to avoid punishment.
#8
Time to replace evil socialism with the good old fashioned Ten Commandments, in all the class rooms, in all the public squares:
You shall have no other gods before me." Not even worship a man who thinks there are 57 states.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
Or even the earth. Abolish the EPA.
"You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God,visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me."
Stop bowing and apologizing to tyrants and dictators who also hate America.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain."
Dump reverand Wright and his is "God damn America!!" BS Speeches
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."
Ban all the liberal Sunday morning talk shows preaching socialism, go to church instead.
Honor your father and your mother"
Stop teaching condomn navigation to the children of others.
You shall not murder."
That includes sitting back and watching the murder of Navy Seals and Border Patrol agents and doing nothing about it.
You shall not commit adultery."
Bill Clinton, top Obama advisor.
You shall not steal."
Raising taxes to take money away from hard working people.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Calling good people slave owners and calling the best economic system in the history of mankind evil.
You shall not covet your neighbor's house ... or anything that is your neighbor's.
See commandment number 8.
[An Nahar] At least five people, including two women, were killed when a bomb targeting an army vehicle went kaboom! in southern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said.
The remote-controlled bomb was placed on a cycle of violence and hit an Afghan army patrol truck as it was passing in Trin Kot the capital of Uruzgan province.
"Two Afghan army soldiers and three non-combatants were killed in the blast," provincial police front man Farid Ayal told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The Uruzgan governor's front man, Abdullah Hemat, said two women were among those killed.
The blast also maimed eight others, including two soldiers, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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#3
Very talented. I believe she started singing at twelve on stage. They wanted her for Opera but she was not interested.YouTube has several videos of her.
[Dawn] Two faceless myrmidons were killed by their own bomb near a checkpost in Pandiali tehsil of Mohmand tribal region on Sunday morning, officials said.
They said that security forces found four legs and other parts of bodies at the blast site. They said that the bomb killed the two men when they were planting it near the checkpost.
The local authorities started the paperwork but haven't done much else and started investigation.
In Charsadda, a constable was injured in a remote controlled kaboom in Saro Kallay area on Sunday.
Officials said that the bomb was planted in a garbage dump along the road that went kaboom! when a police party was present there.
Constable Bakhtawar Shah was injured seriously in the blast. He was shifted to hospital.
Police launched a search operation in the area soon after the blast and started raids for arrest of the culprits.
In Khyber Agency, unidentified armed persons on Sunday kidnapped four relatives of the recently reinstated khasadar ...a rural policeman in Pakistain or India... s.
Officials said that gunnieskidnapped Madakhel, Habib, Zulfiqar and Noor Mat from different localities of Sipah area in Bara. They said that all the kidnapped men were relatives of the khasadars, who were reinstated recently by political administration after remaining suspended for three years.
The political administration on November 17 reinstated 600 khasadars, who had resigned en bloc only a week after the start of a military operation in Bara in September 2009. The khasadars tendered their resignations after they were issued death warnings by Bara-based banned ...the word banned seems to have a different meaning in Pakistain than it does in most other places. Or maybe it simply lacks any meaning at all...
organization Lashkar-e-Islam.
The administration in return suspended all the 600 khasadars. A week ago, Lashkar-e-Islam again warned residents of the area against cooperating with the government-backed peace committees.
Meanwhile, ...back at the sandwich shop, Caroline was experimenting with ingredients of increasing volatility... unidentified gunniesrubbed out a resident of Shalobar in Bara and injured two others.
Sources said that a group of gunnies entered the house of Sher Qader on the night between Saturday and Sunday and opened indiscriminate firing on the inmates. They said that Sher Qader was killed on the spot while two of his guests including an Afghan national received injuries. Motive behind the attack could not be ascertained.
In Landi Kotal, elders and activists of political parties have criticised arrest of residents of Sheikhwal and Neekkhel by security forces during a search operation conducted in the areas after two roadside kabooms on Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[LA Times] Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council agreed Monday to oversee a national referendum on the country's draft constitution, a move that suggested at least a temporary easing of the crisis between the courts and President Mohamed Morsi.
The decision by the council, which last month condemned a power grab by Morsi as an "unprecedented attack" on the courts, indicates the influential judicial organization is looking to contain Egypt's political unrest. But it also highlights disagreements within the judiciary because many judges have gone on strike and vowed to boycott the Dec. 15 referendum.
The decision by the Supreme Judicial Council came a day before Tuesday's planned march on the presidential palace by political opposition forces to pressure Morsi to rescind a decree that gave him immunity from judicial oversight. The march has been dubbed "The Final Warning" and is to be led by leading dissidents, including Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei Egyptian law scholar and Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. After stepping down from his IAEA position ElBaradei attempted to horn in on the 2011 Egyptian protests which culminated in the collapse of the Mubarak regime. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization's Executive Committee. The Moslem Brüderbund, with which Morsi is affiliated, quickly endorsed the move by the judicial council.
"The party appreciates the position of the Supreme Judicial Council, who will follow through with their national duty to oversee the referendum," Saad Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, said in a statement. "We hope that this will be the beginning of the detente in the current crisis."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now... President Blaise Compaore, west Africa's chief mediator for the crisis in Mali, will hold his first joint meeting Tuesday with delegations from the Malian government and gangs Ansar Dine and the MNLA, his office said.
"The president will receive all the delegations together tomorrow at 4:00 pm (1600 GMT)," the presidency said Monday, after Compaore met representatives from Mali's transitional government.
Delegations from Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith), one of the Islamist groups that have seized Mali's north, and the MNLA (Azawad National Liberation Movement), a Tuareg rebel movement, are also in the Burkinabe capital for talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, presidency sources said.
[Jpost] French police on Tuesday arrested two suspected accomplices of gunman 
[Shabelle] At least 20 alleged Al shabab inmates reportedly 
[VOA News] 
...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...
[Dawn] A bomb, planted in a 
North Korea
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Weekly Standard] Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming believes President 
[An Nahar] Syrian foreign ministry 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rwandan troops repulsed an attack by Rwandan Hutu 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
As hundreds of schools in Pattani province opened after a 10-day suspension following the November 22 killing of Nanthana Kaewchan, the director of a school in Nong Chik district, a group of armed men early yesterday morning set fire to a two-story school building in Panare district. The Southern Teachers Federation had closed schools in the province to pressure authorities into providing more security for teachers following Nanthana's death.
David Cameron
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] Syrian 
[Dawn] A large number of members of the Hindu minority community staged a demonstration on Sunday in protest over a demolition operation in a Garden locality, claiming that during the operation a Hindu temple had been damaged and religious objects desecrated..
[Fox News] Syrian warplanes on Monday bombed a security building that had been taken over by rebels along the Turkish border, killing at least one person, wounding 20 more and sending dozens of civilians fleeing across the frontier, a Turkish official said.
[Newsbusters.Org] Now that former NBC News president Jeff Zucker is set to take over as president of CNN, the fate of the cable news network is an open question. In a Sunday discussion about the transition, CNN media critic Howard Kurtz and his guests passed over the network's left-of-center reporting, implying instead that CNN is somehow devoid of bias compared to its primary competitors, MSNBC and Fox News.
[Bangla Daily Star] 
[Reuters] The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law.
[Tolo News] Minister of Energy and Water Mohammad Ismail Khan will retain his position in the government after the majority of parliamentarians voted for him to remain despite recent calls for his dismissal.
[CNS News] Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President 
[Dawn] Two 
[LA Times] Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council agreed Monday to oversee a national referendum on the country's draft constitution, a move that suggested at least a temporary easing of the crisis between the courts and President Mohamed Morsi.
