[DAWN] Algeria’s powerful military chief Gen Ahmed Gaid Salah, who was instrumental in pushing out the gas-rich country’s long-serving president amid pro-democracy protests earlier this year, died unexpectedly on Monday at age 79.
Gaid Salah’s death thrusts Algeria into new political uncertainty as a tumultuous year comes to a close. Algeria’s military plays a central role in decision-making in this country, a key ally to Western powers in fighting Islamic extremism.
Born on Jan 13, 1940, Gaid Salah was a product of the old guard that won Algeria’s independence from La Belle France in 1962 after a brutal seven-year war. He died on Monday morning in the military hospital of Algiers after a heart attack, according to government statements.
Gaid Salah was seen as the main power player in Algeria after protesters with his backing pushed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ...10th president-for-life of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and served on his third or four terms. When he announced for the fifth, or maybe it was the sixth, visibly doddering, a grateful nation rose up in its wrath and threw him out... out of office in April after 20 years in power.
The military chief then championed an unprecedented push against corruption including by people in Bouteflika’s inner circle and pushed for new presidential elections earlier this month.
The winner, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, was widely seen as close to the military chief, and the two were seen warmly embracing at Tebboune’s inauguration just four days ago. Gaid Salah had suffered heart problems in the past, according to Algerian media reports, but his death came a shock to most Algerians.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2019 00:40 ||
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A bomb blows a passenger plane from the sky above Scotland
270 people are killed
There was a bomb in the forward hold. It was hidden inside a radio cassette recorder which was in a suitcase.
Twelve years after Pan Am 103 fell on Lockerbie, Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of mass murder.
He was sentenced in 2001 to 27 years in a Scottish prison but was released on compassionate grounds eight years later after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer.
He died in 2012. But the story did not die with him
[JPost] - Several European governments donated funds to organizations specifically for the purpose of fighting Israel in international legal forums, including the International Criminal Court, which announced last week that it will investigate of alleged war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinians.
Among the governments funding lawfare against Israel via Palestinians and Israeli organizations are Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France and the EU, the think tank NGO Monitor found. Mossad helps Denmark bust 20 terrorists
[DW] Two German parties are at loggerheads over how to deal with overcrowded migrant camps in Greece. The Greens are urging the government to come to the aid of 4,000 children, while the CDU said it is "not a solution."
Just last week Greece said it expects a further influx of asylum seekers in 2020, predicting up to 100,000 may arrive on its islands from Turkey in the coming year.
#4
If they can sign up CDU voters to personally adopt refugees and are obligated to pay all of their expenses then ... maybe. Forcing Other people to pay for Your charitable impulses is theft.
[DW] The Ottoman Turkish president has described a new humanitarian crisis as thousands of Syrians flee renewed bombing in Idlib. But he warned that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... "will not carry such a migrant burden on its own."
Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... on Sunday said his country could not handle a new wave of refugees as tens of thousands flee a fresh Russian offensive in the Syrian province of Idlib.
"If the violence towards the people of Idlib does not stop, this number will increase even more," Erdogan said during an award ceremony late Sunday. "In that case, Turkey will not carry such a migrant burden on its own."
Turkey currently hosts nearly 3.7 million registered Syrian refugees and has previously warned Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... that it could no longer bear the brunt of the conflict.
The Humanitarian Relief Foundation, a Ottoman Turkish aid group, on Monday reported that the number of people fleeing the violence and heading to Turkey had reached 120,000.
"The negative impact of the pressure we will be subjected to will be something that all European nations, especially Greece, will also feel," Erdogan said.
DEFIANT TURKEY
Currently, Turkey has actively prevented Syrian refugees from attempting the perilous journey to Greece in exchange for billions of euros from the EU. Erdogan has accused Brussels of failing to deliver on the deal, saying Turkey still expects the promised €6 billion ($6.6 billion).
The EU, along with the US, has been critical of Turkey's incursion into northern Syria, saying the military offensive against Kurdish militias has further destabilized the situation in Syria. Turkey, however, has remained defiant.
"We call on European countries to use their energy to stop the massacre in Idlib, rather than trying to corner Turkey for the legitimate steps it took in Syria," Erdogan said.
More than 300,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced by the Syria conflict, now in its ninth year. While the Syrian regime has managed to consolidate vast swathes of territory across the country, the Idlib province remains home to hard-line Death Eater groups and a Ottoman Turkish security presence.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/24/2019 00:00 ||
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In NATO relations, a flare-up
As Erdogan, boot in the stirrup,
Mounts up with a heave
And announces, "I'll leave
If you don't stop these migrants from Europe!"
[JPost] - A German exchange student said on Tuesday that Indian authorities had ordered him to leave the country after he took part in protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new citizenship law.
Jakob Lindenthal, a 24-year-old pursuing a master's degree in physics, said he took part in two rallies in the southern city of Chennai against the law, which critics say discriminates against India's minority Muslims.
A photo circulated on Twitter shows Lindenthal holding a sign that reads: "1933-1945 We have been there," a reference to Nazi Germany.
Two officials were suspended after the incident, and inquiries were launched by the Punjab health department and the district administration.https://t.co/4PNZgtHRzF
Prominent lawyer and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Babar Awan on Monday claimed that the government was examining the option of challenging the conviction of former president Pervez Musharraf.https://t.co/8H2jqKiAhz
[Ynet] Israel is expected to expand the area permitted for fishing off the coast of Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... back to 15 nautical miles on Tuesday.
It was restricted to 10 miles following rocket fire from the Strip at nearby Israeli communities.
h/t Instapundit
[PJ] - Earlier this month, House Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, urging sanctions relief for Iran. Among other things, they criticized "the designation of Iran's Central Bank under terror authorities," arguing that "the efficacy of sanctions is questionable." An organization long described as a front group for the Iran regime sponsored the letter and has embedded staffers with many of the letter's supporters in Congress, including Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Is Iran’s regime quietly infiltrating Congress?" M. Hanif Jazayeri, news editor at Free Iran, asked on Twitter. He pointed out that many of these congresswomen hired current or former staffers with the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), an organization with many links to Iran's regime and which Iran state-media has described as "Iran's lobby" in the U.S.
[AnNahar] U.S. Diplomat David Hale reportedly told officials in Leb that his country is to withhold aid to the economic-stricken country if Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... gets ministerial seats or indirectly controls the new government, Nidaa al-Watan daily reported on Monday.
Informed political sources said Hale told officials he met in Beirut that the US intends to deny aid to a Lebanese government in which Hizbullah is represented, and that Washington does not intend to give a "password" for the Gulf countries to provide assistance to Leb, said the daily.
The sources said Hale has relayed a "firm" message to officials regarding the position of Leb in the region, warning that "any bias" in this area would be "strictly" unacceptable.
Haled reiterated persistence of US sanctions against Hizbullah and Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and that the Lebanese state must distance itself from the party.
During his two-day visit to Beirut last week, the US diplomat said Washington is ready to help Leb "but can do so only when Leb's leaders undertake a credible, visible and demonstrable commitment to reform."
Hale had met with the president, parliament speaker and caretaker prime minister Hariri.
He did not directly comment on the appointment of the new PM, Hassan Diab saying only that the United States "has no role in saying who should lead" a Cabinet in Leb or anywhere else.
Early in December, the Trump administration quietly released $105 million in Foreign Military Financing funds for the Lebanese Armed Force after months of unexplained delay.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Ottoman Turkish-backed "Syrian National Army" (SNA) issued a general mobilization call to all available forces to help drive back the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the Idlib Governorate.
In a new statement released on their Twitter account, the SNA calls on available forces to help drive back the "Russian, Iranians, and Baathist criminals" in the Idlib Governorate.
This latest mobilization call comes after their forces and their allied jihadist groups suffered several setbacks in the Idlib Governorate.
Among these setbacks suffered by the jihadist and Ottoman Turkish-backed forces was the loss of the strategic town of Jarjanaz, which is one of the last major points before Ma’arat al-Nu’man.
[ALMASDARNEWS] The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) used Lebanese airspace to fire missiles towards the Syrian capital city of Damascus last night, a source in Damascus told al-Masdar News.
According to the source, the Syrian military tracked missiles from both the occupied Golan Heights, which is under Israeli control, and the Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh) region.
The source said that some of the Israeli missiles were intercepted by the Syrian air defenses; however, at least three of the projectiles did hit their intended targets, as explosions were heard inside the capital.
Among the sites hit was the Aqraba suburb, which was a previous target for the Israeli Defense Forces because of Hezbollah’s presence in the area.
While the total number of casualties is unknown and very difficult to verify, the damage itself from the Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s is still being assessed by the Syrian military.
In regards to the Israeli missiles being fired from Lebanese airspace, there is not much Leb can do in this situation because their armed forces do not possess an air defense system that is capable to foiling these constant territorial violations.
The only group inside of Leb that has air defense capabilities is Hezbollah; they previously utilized their anti-aircraft weapons to down an Israeli drone over southern Leb.
A war monitor said Monday that air raids in Syria the previous night, blamed on Israel, killed at least three foreign pro-regime fighters south of the war-torn country's capital.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday night's attack hit Syrian regime and Iranian positions south of Damascus.
It said three non-Syrian loyalist fighters were killed by a rocket blast between the suburb of Aqraba and the nearby Sayyida Zeinab neighbourhood, home to a shrine revered by Shiite Muslims.
It did not specify their nationality but said they were likely Iranian.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/24/2019 00:58 ||
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h/t Instapundit
[Algemeiner] - An alumna of Columbia University in New York submitted a complaint to the US Education Department on Tuesday alleging a hostile environment for Jewish students ‐ the second of its kind recently filed.
Jamie Kreitman said she received a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Columbia in 1980, but was deterred from pursuing a doctorate ‐ despite being "recommended for further studies by a sympathetic professor" ‐ due to a climate of antisemitism, specifically among faculty in the area of Middle East studies.
She lodged her complaint against Columbia’s Middle East Institute (MEI) with the Office for Civil Rights, which last week also received a separate complaint alleging discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students and faculty at Columbia. The complaint is not based on her personal experience at the school, "but as a Jewish alumna with the concern that the hostile environment toward Jewish students has intensified exponentially," she wrote.
[IsraelTimes] Lawfare Project legal aid group says Jewish students ’have endured systematic discrimination from tenured professors and anti-Israel groups’.
A federal complaint has been filed against Columbia University accusing the school of anti-Semitic discrimination.
It is the first case filed since US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... ’s executive order on combating anti-Semitism, which grants Jewish students the same protections as other minority groups.
The complaint requests a formal investigation by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights into alleged anti-Semitic discrimination at Columbia. It was filed by the Lawfare Project on behalf of a Jewish Israeli-American undergraduate who says he has been a victim of anti-Semitic discrimination over the past year.
Jonathan Karten told The Jerusalem Post that he decided to go forward with the complaint after he learned that a well-known professor in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia had endorsed Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, "with impunity." Karten’s uncle Sharon Edri was kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell in Israel in 1996.
According to the Lawfare Project, Jewish students at Columbia "have endured systematic discrimination from tenured professors and anti-Israel groups," including Students for Justice for Paleostine and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Columbia students and faculty also host Israel Apartheid Week, which has included bringing virulently anti-Semitic speakers to campus.
A university spokesperson said in an email that Columbia had no comment on the complaint.
Typo? If not, doesn't the statute of limitations apply? Also, Edward Said was riding high, spreading his vitriolic crap back then, but has long since passed from the scene. IIRC The other snake (Rashidi?) has been largely discredited by credible sex abuse charges.
I could be wrong but I believe Columbia is generally a good actor on issues of intellectual integrity, resisting Woke madness and free speech generally.
Wrong target. Yale is the worst, followed closely by Wesleyan, Amherst, Middlebury, and a dozen other New England liberal arts colleges along with Cornell, Northwestern and Michigan.
An alumna — more as a friend fo the court brief, it looks like. I had the first complaint queued up for tomorrow, but pasted it above just now instead.
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.
...10th president-for-life of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and served on his third or four terms. When he announced for the fifth, or maybe it was the sixth, visibly doddering, a grateful nation rose up in its wrath and threw him out...
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
...
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
