Hi there, !
Today Fri 09/25/2020 Thu 09/24/2020 Wed 09/23/2020 Tue 09/22/2020 Mon 09/21/2020 Sun 09/20/2020 Sat 09/19/2020 Archives
Rantburg
532912 articles and 1859646 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 53 articles and 237 comments as of 22:27.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    Non-WoT    Opinion        Politix   
Twenty-Five Afghan policemen dead after attempt to break Taliban siege in Uruzgan
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 2: WoT Background
2 23:05 swksvolFF [1] 
8 23:16 swksvolFF [2] 
1 13:23 Skidmark [4] 
0 [] 
1 11:05 magpie [2] 
1 09:38 Skidmark [3] 
0 [10] 
5 15:18 DarthVader [2] 
0 [9] 
1 10:11 Procopius2k [4] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
8 22:11 DarthVader [8]
0 [2]
0 [2]
3 16:07 swksvolFF [4]
1 11:21 Abu Uluque [5]
0 [4]
0 [8]
1 13:55 Woodrow [7]
5 13:12 Skidmark [2]
3 13:13 Skidmark []
2 10:22 Bob Grorong1136 [4]
3 18:27 gorb [5]
9 15:38 Mullah Richard [3]
7 13:15 trailing wife [4]
0 [9]
0 [8]
0 [14]
Page 3: Non-WoT
10 17:26 lord garth [3]
7 16:44 Alaska Paul [7]
6 15:48 York Harding [4]
7 15:25 jpal [2]
10 15:29 jpal [2]
10 18:18 Theager Borgia1057 [1]
4 15:51 jpal [3]
8 13:33 Frank G [2]
4 16:09 jpal [1]
1 13:48 Shomotch Lumplump3327 [11]
4 08:13 Frank G [7]
Page 4: Opinion
10 22:01 Raj [3]
1 09:32 Skidmark [3]
0 [5]
3 10:37 Sluter Unaing1227 [3]
5 12:43 Tom [2]
7 17:18 jpal [7]
Page 6: Politix
13 23:22 swksvolFF [6]
4 19:26 jpal [9]
7 12:54 Theager Borgia1057 [10]
8 11:35 Iblis [5]
13 17:40 Craviting Squank1760 [3]
12 17:38 Spaviter Ulerese3466 [3]
7 19:30 jpal [3]
7 13:07 magpie []
8 19:21 jpal [6]
Africa North
Central Bank of Libya Official Warns Militias Will Refuse Oil Agreement
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood



GNA Finance Minister Discusses Issues in Ministry
[LIBYAREVIEW] Faraj Boumtari, Minister of Finance of the Government of National Accord (GNA), spoke for the first time about the ministry and its crises since he took office.

Boumtari said: “The problems that I have found since I took over the Ministry of Finance in October 2018 are plenty. The main problem is related to allocations accumulated over the years. We have employees appointed from 2014 who are owed financial dues. Either their salaries were released late or intermittently, and this will be targeted seriously.”

He pointed out that there has been continuous correspondence with the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) to request the use of surplus fees to solve these problems. “We are targeting previous settlements, the deficit of social solidarity, and struggling companies in November. We have directed the messages, and I think there will be a response to implement the MoF’s desire to pay it’s dues”, he said.

Boumtari added that “The employees of the Ministry of Health are among our priorities. Processing public releases in the ministry, and adjusting salaries related to sensitive sectors such as education and health are also main priorities.”

Boumtari explained that in the past, there were dual salaries for the same employee. The current system is under the administrative control and the Audit Bureau, and salaries are reviewed monthly.

“There are 400,000 employees who have been paid their dues from the years 2015-2018. At the same time, we have 146,000 employees with outstanding salaries, with the maximum salary owed being 20,000 LYD. This is unacceptable”, he noted. “It is also unacceptable that the salary of an employee in the MoF is 450 LYD per month. While other employees get paid more on the side,” he complained.

The Minister continued by saying: “There are neglected segments such as health, education, as well as the sovereign sectors such as finance, economy, and planning. All these categories have their salaries according to 2011 tables of a maximum of 1200 LYD. We will address this matter to reduce the large gap in salaries.”

Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood


Moscow Denies Russians are Fighting in Libya
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Pilots aren't fighting, nor cooks, mechanics or massage technicians.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/22/2020 9:38 Comments || Top||


Europe
Cypriot FM Calls for EU Sanctions on Turkey
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  I would advise the Cypriots to invest in infantry weapons, anti-ship missiles, and anti-aircraft weapons before poking the Turks.
Posted by: magpie || 09/22/2020 11:05 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
''Those who have been trying to ignore Turkey in Eastern Mediterranean are now approaching negotiating table,'' President Erdoğan says
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Sublime Porte

#1  This does not square with other reports (see Rantburg report, above) that Turkey now wants talks with Egypt and (gasp) Israel.
Posted by: b || 09/22/2020 9:01 Comments || Top||

#2  It depends on who is pushing the table and in what direction that our perception of 'approaching' is determined.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 09/22/2020 9:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, I think that's a sales pitch.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/22/2020 13:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Seen energy.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/22/2020 13:22 Comments || Top||

#5  He is starting to realize that sometimes drawing attention means drawing fire. The Greeks will oblige him, especially with Egypt and Israel backing them up, and he is leaving his flanks exposed to Russia in the north, and Iraq/Syria in the south.

Erdogan is playing with fire.
Posted by: Theager Borgia1057 || 09/22/2020 13:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Don't forget the Egypt/Jordan/Iraq alliance which was to prevent a US/Israeli drive into Syria or something.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/22/2020 14:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Those are the sharks that smell blood in the water
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/22/2020 21:53 Comments || Top||

#8  Yes and no I'd think.
Egypt has the GNA on the west, is interested in a free movement eastern Mediterranean, and had a 'spontaneous' uprising with likely MB elements.

Iraq has been calling out incursions by Turkey, and sent troops west to the border -possibly- with US advisors.

Jordan is right there, and likely not impressed by the Turks picking up ISIS free agents. At the least, a "Not interested in getting involved in a fight" by Jordan is good for an Egypt/Iraq/Greece/Cyprus work together, possibly aided by France (and Israel shhhhh).

Couple that with a Russia/Armenia/LNA alliance and the Turks find themselves surrounded.

The Israeli/Saudi Arabia/Bahrain public normalization of relations has got to cause a toothache.

Throw in western/Kobani Kurds and that is quite a knot.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/22/2020 23:16 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraq intends to buy weapons from France
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq

#1  The Iraqis are so corrupt they would buy arms from Burundi if the payoff was high enough.
Posted by: b || 09/22/2020 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  /\The French understand that bribes are just "business"...
Posted by: magpie || 09/22/2020 11:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Is there an "only dropped once" joke in there??
Posted by: AlanC || 09/22/2020 13:43 Comments || Top||

#4  ^ I shat myself
Posted by: jpal || 09/22/2020 15:08 Comments || Top||

#5  The French actually make some pretty good weapons that fall between US top line and former communist block quality. Great for 3rd world countries that have more money, but don't want to blow it all on US weapons but have something better than their neighbors.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/22/2020 15:18 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Honduras confirms intention of relocating its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


#2  Don't forget the 2009 coup and how the democrats took Zelaya's side.

*except for Secretary Hillary, who was bought and countered Obama's priorities.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 09/22/2020 23:05 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanon's Supreme Islamic Council responds to Maronite Patriarch's criticism of Shiite leadership
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Supreme Islamic Shiite Council in Leb
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
condemned what was issued by the country’s religious authority against the Shiite Islamic community, and what it described as "sectarian incitement that stirs up strife and distorts the facts and slanders a sect."

The council’s statement read: "The Supreme Islamic Shiite Council denounced what was issued by a large religious authority against the Shiite Moslem community, and for what the discourse descended into from sectarian incitement that stirs up strife and distorts the facts and slanders a sect that has provided its best youth and energies in the battle to liberate the homeland, the whole nation, and defeat the terrorists. The Zionist and the takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed...
st from his various villages and regions, sectarian and denominational, to make Lebanon a pride for the Arabs and the free people in the world..

However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
those who have pledged to foreign countries and serve suspicious interests against the interests of the homeland and its people, persist in distorting the facts and misleading the Lebanese about the issue of forming a reform rescue government that preserves the unity of Lebanon in its charter and constitution and its stability and economy, and if we demand that the Shiite community retain the Ministry of Finance, out of our keenness on national partnership in the procedural authority, what is happening between the parliamentary blocs should apply between the political components in forming the government."

The council affirmed that "the policy of exclusion, isolation and marginalization that Imam Sayyid Musa al-Sadr has long warned against does not build a nation nor produce a state, but rather contributes to striking our national fabric and destabilizing our national unity, at a time when we need to strengthen our cooperation and strengthen our unity, and we have been and are still demanding the abolition.

Political sectarianism and the adoption of citizenship as a criterion in political action within a just state that is based on equality in rights and duties, free from sectarian privileges, because we want a fair state governed by law and institutions that embraces all its people so that Lebanon is the final homeland for all its citizens."

The Council expressed its regret for "imposing a corrupt political class, from which those who bet on crushing the resistance and extending the war against it have left their conditions, and we consider this group responsible for the economic collapse the country has reached, and it is trying once again to impose its conditions on forming the government, while it caused the collapse as a result of the quota policy, the passage of deals, the waste of public money and the violation of the constitution, and today it is trying to impose itself as the savior of the country."

The council released this statement in response to the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi’s criticism of the country’s Shitte leaders.

Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under: Hezbollah


Trump signs order to sanction entities, persons who assist Iran’s weapons trade
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


War between Syrian gov't and opposition is over: Russia
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, considered that the military confrontation between the Syrian government and the opposition in the country has ended, noting that there are only two hotspots in Syria, namely Idlib and the areas east of the Euphrates.

Lavrov said, in an interview with al-Arabiya TV, whose text was published on the official website of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday: "I recently returned from Damascus, where I visited with the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Borisov, who held talks on prospects of economic cooperation, while I discussed with colleagues political situations. "

He continued, "I do not think that those who have spoken with the Syrian President, Bashir al-Assad, and other state officials, can say that the government of the Syrian Arab Republic is only counting on a military solution to the conflict. This is not true. The military confrontation between the country’s government and the opposition is over."

He explained, "Idlib’s lands are under the control of the Headquarters for the Liberation of al-Sham (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
), but this area is being narrowed. Our Ottoman Turkish colleagues, based on the Russian-Ottoman Turkish memorandum, continue to fight Lions of Islam and separate the moderate opposition from them."

He continued, "The second hotspot is the eastern side of the Euphrates River, where the American military personnel operating in the area illegally united with the separatist forces, and are playing with the Kurds in an irresponsible manner."

Lavrov stressed that the U.S. military "brought American oil companies to the region and started pumping oil for their own purposes without respecting Syria’s illusory sovereignty and territorial integrity, as stipulated in Resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council.”
Posted by: Fred || 09/22/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Assad is still in power. Obama is not (not that he isn't trying to undermine his successor).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/22/2020 10:11 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
20[untagged]
7Commies
5Sublime Porte
3Muslim Brotherhood
3Islamic State
3Antifa/BLM
2Boko Haram (ISIS)
2Govt of Iran
1Taliban
1al-Qaeda
1Arab Spring
1Govt of Iraq
1Govt of Syria
1Hezbollah
1Moslem Colonists
1Palestinian Authority

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2020-09-22
  Twenty-Five Afghan policemen dead after attempt to break Taliban siege in Uruzgan
Mon 2020-09-21
  Justice Dept. brands NYC an ‘anarchist jurisdiction,'
targets federal funds
Sun 2020-09-20
  Concentrated, Deadly Ricin Sent to White House, Addressed to President Trump
Sat 2020-09-19
  Notorious RBG dead at 87
Fri 2020-09-18
  RBG Kicks The Bucket
Thu 2020-09-17
  Minnesota man charged with providing material support to Islamic State
Wed 2020-09-16
  Bloomberg: Libya’s PM Al-Sarraj will Resign
Tue 2020-09-15
  Airstrikes kill “Huras_al_Din” commander in Idlib city
Mon 2020-09-14
  Police Shooting of Suspect Charging Officer Armed with A Knife Sets Off Rioting In Lancaster Pennsylvania.
Sun 2020-09-13
  Erdogan: My entire nation is an army and we're not afraid to sacrifice martyrs
Sat 2020-09-12
  Antifa have called off their planned Friday night direct action (DA) riot in Portland
Fri 2020-09-11
  Nineteen Years. Never Forget.
Thu 2020-09-10
  Donald Trump nominated for 2021 Nobel Peace Prize
Wed 2020-09-09
  Centcom: ‘The US has decided to reduce our troop presence in Iraq from about 5,200 to 3,000 troops during this month’
Tue 2020-09-08
  Turkish lira has hit a record low against the dollar


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.
18.119.132.223
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Operations (17)    Non-WoT (11)    Opinion (6)    (0)    Politix (9)