[NYPOST] A thief wearing a burqa and armed with a spray bottle made off with nearly $1 million worth of necklaces and watches from a Hudson Yards jeweler on Sunday, police sources said.
The bling bandit, a man dressed in a burqa covering most of his face, walked into the luxury Piaget jewelry store at around 3:55 p.m. and asked to look at a necklace, sources and police officials said.
As the clerk pulled out the necklace, priced at about $21,000, he noticed the man was holding onto one of the store’s watches, according to sources.
When the employee questioned the soon-to-be thief, he whipped out the spray bottle and squirted it in the clerk’s direction before running out of the store, with the necklace and two watches ‐ one priced at $64,000, and the other $715,000 ‐ in tow, police sources said.
Piaget, where some watches are so expensive that the price is not even displayed online, valued the loss at around $800,600, sources added.
The suspect could not be identified because the head covering ‐ typically worn by women in some Moslem cultures ‐ concealed most of his face, police sources said.
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02/25/2020 00:00 ||
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Hudson Yards kind of deserves this one. You have multiple five and six figure pieces of swag in the shop and no security guards? Shame on them, and I'll bet their insurance company's going to say the same thing.
[AnNahar] Mobile phone services were restored across swathes of Taliban ...Arabic for students... -contested areas of Afghanistan over the weekend as a partial truce with the faceless myrmidons held for a second day.
The Taliban, U.S. and Afghan forces are currently overseeing a week-long "reduction in violence" that kicked off on Saturday.
The commitment has seen fighting drop dramatically and is set to pave the way for an American withdrawal deal to be signed later this week.
There have been reports of small festivities in rural areas, but no major attacks that have long defined the conflict have erupted.
"In general we do see (a reduction in violence)," acting interior minister Masood Andrabi told AFP.
The lull in violence allowed telecom operators to begin restoring networks across the country that have long been hampered by fighting.
"Around 730 cell towers have restarted," said Naqeebullah Sailab, vice chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Afghanistan.
"There are towers which started operating after almost five years."
Two separate officials with knowledge of the country's telecoms industry in northern Afghanistan also confirmed that mobile networks were being restored in holy warrior-hit areas.
The Taliban have long targeted Afghanistan's private telecom firms, kidnapping engineers, destroying transmission masts and forcing regular coverage blackouts in volatile areas to avoid detection of their fighters.
Afghanistan boasts millions of mobile users in a population of 30 million, with the fast-growing industry employing around 200,000 people and earning strong revenue in an otherwise moribund economy.
Thousands of telecommunication towers, however, are in insurgency-hit areas and vulnerable to attacks.
The partial truce is expected to set the conditions for Washington and the bully boyz to sign a deal in Doha on February 29 that could, ultimately, pull U.S. troops out after more than 18 years and launch war-weary Afghanistan into an uncertain future.
A successful week would demonstrate that the Taliban have command and control of their forces, and it would also be a show of good faith before signing any deal.
The partial truce has also given a much-needed respite to civilians who have borne the brunt of the gruesome war.
The U.N.'s Afghanistan mission reported Saturday that more than 10,000 people had been killed or maimed in 2019 alone.
As fighting eased across the country, Afghans erupted into the streets to enjoy the relative calm.
In their southern stronghold of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , Taliban fighters mingled with locals, small "peace" demonstrations took place across the country, and a bicycle race was held in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Washington has been in talks with the Taliban for more than a year to secure a deal which would see it would pull about half of the 12,000-13,000 troops currently in Afghanistan out.
In return, the Taliban would give security guarantees and a promise to hold peace talks with the government in Kabul.
An Algerian prosecutor is seeking a year’s prison sentence for Fodil Boumala, a leading figure in the country’s protest movement, according to an advocacy group.https://t.co/9FwHiTAUXv
[AnNahar] The United States has urged Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... 's Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s to drop charges targeting the Baha'i community, which said that 24 believers of the faith will face a new trial session Tuesday.
Because any batch of Iranian sock puppets is likely to listen to that kind of plea from the Great Satan on behalf of a bunch of heretics.
Sam Brownback, the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, voiced concern at reports that a court in Yemen's Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa is again summoning the Baha'is who in 2018 were slapped with charges that include apostasy and espionage.
"We urge them to drop these allegations, release those arbitrarily detained, and respect religious freedom for all," he wrote on Twitter.
According to the Baha'i community, one member among the 24 to be tried Tuesday -- five of whom are already detained -- said that a prosecutor made clear that his arrest was due to his religion.
"The Baha'is that are held in Sanaa are innocent and the physical and mental torture they are experiencing is designed to force them to admit to crimes they have not committed," Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha'i International Community, said in a statement.
The Huthis are allied with Iran's Shiite holy manal regime, which restricts the rights of Baha'is despite allowing freedom of religion for Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.
Baha'is consider the Baha'u'llah, born in 1817 in Iran, to be a prophet, a sharp contrast from the orthodox Islamic view that Mohammed was God's final messenger.
Several thousand Baha'is are estimated to live in Yemen. Among them is Hamed bin Haydara, who was sentenced in 2018 to execution with appeals in his case under review.
The concern about Huthi treatment of the Baha'is comes amid widespread condemnation of the Saudi-led operation against the rebels over the heavy toll on civilians, including notoriously a 2018 air strike on a school bus.
[IsraelTimes] None of the intimidation, mostly made via identical messages, is found to be credible; source of warnings unknown. None of the emails, however, named the specific institutions in question or contained anti-Semitic language.
Probably another threat-for-pay situation. Last time it turned out to be a low functioning autistic boy living in Israel, pleased he’d found a way to earn some money.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] When ISIS took over the Nineveh plains in northern Iraq in 2014, terrorized Christian residents fled in fear of their lives.
Six years later, despite liberation from ISIS, many Christians have not returned home and are leaving Iraq altogether - prompting concern that Christianity’s 2,000 year presence in the country could be under threat.
A 1987 government census listed 1.4 million Christians in Iraq, but following the outbreak of war, ISIS, and continuing political instability in the country, Christians now number around 200,000, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.
As numbers decrease "rapidly," Iraqi Christian Maryam Binyamen said she feels hopeless.
"We are facing a total extinction, I assume. Not the church nor the government can do anything about it. No opportunities, no jobs, security issues...this is sad," Binyamen said in an interview with Al Arabiya English.
Given the over 85 percent decrease in the population since 1987, Iraqi Christian Archbishop Bashar Warda says if "nothing changes in the current trajectory" there is a "real possibility" of extinction.
"The [Catholic] Church will never abandon Iraq, but the people can only take so much. They need to be able to see a future for their children," said Warda, the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil, in an interview with Al Arabiya English.
Warda is a leader among Iraq’s Chaldeans, the country’s largest Christian sect, who recognize the authority of the pope. The community traces their roots back to the first century AD.
"My fear lies in losing our ancient church identity, our language, and our uniqueness," Matti Sogheetha, a Chaldean Christian in Iraq, told Al Arabiya English. Chaldeans and other denominations in Iraq, like Syriac Christian and Assyrian Christian, speak languages similar to Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.
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02/25/2020 00:00 ||
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The #US warns it will do everything possible “to deter the Shia militias” aligned to #Iran from attacking US interests in #Iraq, saying the Iranian regime should take these warnings “seriously” in the aftermath of the killing of #QassemSoleimani. https://t.co/L3NpVbev58
[IsraelTimes] Mahathir Mohamad, who has defended calling Jews ’hook-nosed’ and said they ’rule the world by proxy,’ steps down amid political turmoil in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, at 94 the world’s oldest leader, submitted his resignation to the king Monday after a bid by his allies to bring down the government and block the succession of leader-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim.
Mahathir’s shock resignation followed 24 hours of political drama which saw an attempt by Anwar’s rivals within his own "Pact of Hope" coalition, which stormed to a historic election victory in 2018, and opposition politicians to form a new government.
The coalition would reportedly have excluded Anwar, Mahathir’s presumptive successor, and most of the politicians from his party, which would have stopped him becoming premier any time soon.
Anwar and Mahathir have a notoriously stormy relationship but they reconciled ahead of the 2018 polls, and Mahathir has repeatedly promised to hand over power to his former foe.
The bid appeared to have fizzled out by early Monday, however ‐ before Mahathir’s office announced he had "sent a resignation letter as prime minister of Malaysia" to the king at 1:00 p.m.
What would happen next was far from clear, however.
Anwar was due to meet the king Monday afternoon. While the monarch’s role is largely ceremonial, he confirms the appointment of the country’s prime minister and Anwar could be hoping to persuade him that he has enough support from MPs to form a government, observers said.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... Mahathir’s party Bersatu also announced it was leaving the "Pact of Hope" coalition ‐ suggesting they could be making their own attempt to form a government.
Earlier, two of Anwar’s rivals from his People’s Justice Party, Mohammed Azmin Ali and Zuraida Kamaruddin ‐ seen as key figures in leading the bid to form a new government and block his ascent ‐ were sacked, the party announced.
ETHNIC TENSIONS
Anwar had teamed up with former nemesis Mahathir ahead of the 2018 elections to oust the government of Najib Razak, who had become embroiled in the massive 1MDB graft scandal.
They led an alliance to an unexpected victory against a coalition that had ruled Malaysia uninterrupted for over six decades, and Mahathir agreed to eventually hand power to Anwar.
But Mahathir, in his second stint as premier after first holding the role from 1981 to 2003, has repeatedly refused to say when he will transfer power, stoking tensions within the four-party coalition.
The alliance’s popularity had plummeted as it was accused of failing to raise living standards and protect the rights of the ethnic Malay Muslim majority, and it lost a string of local polls.
According to reports, the proposed new government aimed at blocking Anwar would have included Mahathir’s party, the United Malays National Organisation — the party of scandal-tainted ex-leader Najib — and a hardline Islamist group.
Many were angry, however, that the democratically elected government, which came to power partly on a pledge to push through much-needed reforms, could be replaced without an election.
Taiwan was trying to spin one of China's space mission on twitter the other day and the video they showed was obviously created in the KSP video game. Kerbal Space Program
Script kiddies all over the place nowadays.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2020 00:00 ||
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#France is looking at options to help #Lebanon recover from its financial crisis, including an @IMFNews program if Beirut seeks one, says Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.https://t.co/7YmwoZRaUW
The devil on my shoulder suggests that just waiting a few weeks until coronavirus ravages Lebanon and Syria... could leave positive investment options easier for France to sift through and discover.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
France could pay much of their debts, it is not much compared to the French debt.
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.
...Arabic for 
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] When ISIS took over the Nineveh plains in northern Iraq in 2014, terrorized Christian residents fled in fear of their lives.
