[Australian] WHISTLEBLOWING website WikiLeaks is to publish more than 1.7 million US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s, founder Julian Assange says.
[Al Ahram] A number of Appeal Court judges on Sunday lodged a request with the heads of Egypt's of Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and Court of Cassation for an investigation into charges that former Moslem Brüderbund supreme guide Mahdi Akef had "insulted" judicial figures. "When mustache cursing is illegal only outlaws will have mustaches!"
The judges asked for an impartial investigation into statements made by Akef in a recent interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper in which, the judges claim, Akef insulted certain judicial personages.
"[Egyptian] Judges are corrupt," Akef said in the interview. "They're the ones who dissolved [Egypt's] last parliament [last summer]...because they were afraid of the laws it would adopt."
"This is because the first law that the dissolved parliament was going to approve was one to retire some 3,500 judges above 60 years old," Akef said.
He added: "In order to achieve Egypt's national revival, you must seek out those who support the notion of renaissance. Then you find the court and the judges working to together to dissolve parliament. Corrupt judges don't want Egypt's revival."
"When the president appoints a new prosecutor-general, which is his right under the new constitution, then all of the judges object," Akef asserted.
The telephone interview with the former Brotherhood leader was broadcast in Egypt on Friday by prominent Egyptian television presenters Mahmoud Saad and Mona El-Shazly.
Earlier on Sunday, a number of leading judges called for the resignation of Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdullah, appointed by President Mohamed Morsi last November.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2013 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Tunisian police on Sunday used tear gas to disperse supporters of the Islamist-led ruling coalition who protested against a meeting by a secular opposition party, an AFP journalist said.
"Get out, you bastards!" chanted protesters, referring to post-revolution premier Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the opposition movement Nidaa Tounes and a fierce opponent of the Ennahda party that heads the government.
Essebsi's party, which Ennahda accuses of harbouring remnants of the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was ousted in 2011, is often the target of attacks by pro-government activists without police intervening, the opposition says.
At the end of December, hundreds of Ennahda activists and members of the pro-government League for the Protection of the Revolution militia attacked a hotel in Djerba in the south where a Nidaa Tounes meeting was being held.
For months the opposition has demanded the disbanding of the League for the Protection of the Revolution, accusing it of brutal acts of violence, but Ennahda has steadfastly refused to disband the militia.
League members were accused of lynching a Nidaa Tounes activist in autumn last year and also of attacking the headquarters of the UGTT, the country's largest trade union, in December.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2013 00:00 ||
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Baroness Thatcher, Britain's greatest post-war prime minister, has died at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke, her family has announced. Her son, Sir Mark, and daughter Carol confirmed that she died this morning.
Lord Bell, her spokesman, said: "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning.A further statement will be made later."
Known as the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher governed Britain from 1979 to 1990.
She will go down in history not only as Britain's first female prime minister, but as the woman who transformed Britain's economy in addition to being a formidable rival on the international stage.
Lady Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply.
#3
FT obit She changed us all. We went from being a people who saw ourselves as eternally on the downward slide to a nation that was proud to be British again. On the world stage too, she made Britain count once more. She was a startling presence who brought a strong and controversial style to our diplomacy after years of Foreign Office blandness.
The words are those of Charles Powell, one of the closest aides of the iron lady during her time in power. Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87, not only revolutionised the social order in her own country but did much to reshape world politics amid the crumbling of the Soviet empire.
The developed worlds first woman prime minister transformed a sclerotic UK economy, all but neutered the trade unions and endeavoured to roll back the frontiers of the state with a policy of offloading the great nationalised industries and selling council houses to their occupants. Abroad, she was the indomitable leader who won victory over Argentina in the Falklands war, who decided that Mikhail Gorbachev was a Soviet leader she could do business with and who inspired a respect for Thatcherism as a political philosophy that was never quite matched on the domestic front.
#7
Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and John Paul II -- thank goodness they were there where and when we needed them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/08/2013 12:03 Comments ||
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#8
The empty suit in the oval office would be better served if he would put down Saul Alinsky and read a little Margaret Thatcher.
WE would be better served if he did.
Too bad we can't seem to find a leader like her or Ron right now, we really need one.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/08/2013 12:19 Comments ||
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#9
see who Champ sends to the funeral to see his true feelings for the Brits. The only reason he might go is of there is a really good photo op and fundraising gig.
#16
"When will the US have its first Female POTUS - IT CAN'T, BECAUSE MAGGIE THATCHER IS BRITISH"!?
Stayed true even thru Bush 41 + POTUS Billary first-term.
Thus began America's own search for its own Femme Pol equivalent - 1960's = 1980's MTV MADONNA AKA "MADGE" NOTWITHSTANDING.
I suspect the very strong character of the Femme US SecState taken hostage by rogue Korean terrorists in "OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN" is a [pro-Hillary?] composite which includes but isn't limited to the persona of Madge/Maggie Thatcher???
#17
FYI late 1950's + early 1960's teen heartthrob ANNETTE FUNICELLO, from Walt Disney's "Mickey Mouse Club" + "Beach" Movies" + "Frankie [Avalon]-n-Annette" fame, has also passed on, from MS.
[An Nahar] Venezuela's acting president Nicolas Maduro has accused former U.S. officials Roger Noriega and Otto Reich of plotting to kill him to prevent his victory in next week's presidential elections.
Speaking at a televised campaign event on Saturday, Maduro said the plot also involved "right-wing forces" from El Salvador, which had already dispatched paid assassins to Venezuela to implement the plan.
"Their goal is to kill me," said Maduro, who had been designated by the late Venezuelan supremo Hugo Chavez as his heir apparent. "They want to kill me because they know they cannot win free and fair elections."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
he also placed a curse on voters who didn't vote for him. He's lost/losing his mind
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/08/2013 8:22 Comments ||
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#3
Poor hydraulic engineering, bad water management, over-irrigation, some desertification - people have this idea that centralized control by a command economy is somehow effective at controlling these sorts of external costs management failures, but all the worst collapses have been under the most rigid of elitist command controls. And Zhang Fei could correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe this sort of thing is still very much a Party function in China.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/08/2013 11:25 Comments ||
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#4
The ancient Roman aqueducts were marvels of engineering all too often overcome by people siphoning off a little bit here, a little bit there, till only a little bit arrived at its intended destination. Seems the inspectors hired to insure this stuff didn't happen were all too often bribable. Human nature, who'd thunk?
#5
Did a major paper for my BA on environmentalism in the USSR (circa 1972). Much of this kind of problem is really a function of communist/socialist/fascist economics/accounting. It's amazing what seems to be a good idea depending on how you account for the real costs and effects.
#6
At last check, Beijing is planning a post-Three Gorges follow-on dam project that is so huge it may slow down the rotation of the earth.
Plus, IIRC only 13% of China's land is arable for agriculture - IFF CHINA'S SCHEMAS FAIL, INSTEAD OF BEING A TECH-SAAVY "GIANT JAPAN" THEY COULD END UP BEING A STARVING, THRISTY "GIANT NORTH KOREA".
Wid few or no domestic Babes for their young men to marry, + exclusive of any negative or detrimental effects as per "Peak Oil/Resources" + Sun-focused GWCC.
A Pakistani-born migrant who made the top ranks of environmental engineering is set to become the first Muslim woman elected to an Australian parliament, after the NSW Greens chose Mehreen Faruqi to fill a state upper house vacancy. The Greens said yesterday that Dr Faruqi had been preselected by a mail ballot of all NSW members of the party, from a field of seven in a contest in which only women could run.
Islamic Friendship Association spokesman Keysar Trad yesterday hailed the move as a major advance in demonstrating opportunity for Muslim women in Australia, but warned Dr Faruqi could have difficulty reconciling the teachings of Islam with Green policies, such as the party's support for gay marriage.
Dr Faruqi indicated she will fully take on board the leftist agenda, saying she would be "fighting for gender equality and equal marriage" and taking up "the campaign against coal-seam gas mining".
Dr Faruqi called herself a practising Muslim, but said she came from a modern stream of Islam in Pakistan and did not, for example, wear a niqab.
She steered around whether she, like former Greens NSW leader and now senator Lee Rhiannon, supported the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, saying she supported the Green policy of promoting human rights for Palestinians and Israelis.
Mr Trad said the elevation of Dr Faruqi would encourage Muslim women to enter politics. But he said Islamic leaders remained absolutely opposed to homosexuality and gay marriage, creating a dilemma for Dr Faruqi. He said, "It will be something that is likely to test her . . . we will be watching to see whether she will allow her beliefs as a Muslim to succumb to the party policy."
The Greens, often criticized as the party of trendy inner-city elitists, claimed Dr Faruqi as another triumph -- she will become the first Greens MP in NSW from a migrant background, which she plans to use to help the party build links with migrant communities in west Sydney.
Some 25,000 people staged a demonstration Sunday against plans to introduce street signs written in the Cyrillic alphabet for the minority ethnic Serbs of Vukovar, a Croatian town devastated by Serb rebels in the 1990s.
The protestors, many of them veterans of Croatia's 1991-95 war wearing their wartime uniforms, demanded that Vukovar be exempted from a law requiring the use of Cyrillic where Serbs make up one-third of an urban population.
The organizers' spokesman, Dragutin Glasnovic, said, "There's no way that we accept Cyrillic. Vukovar should be treated differently due to a special respect for its victims on which Croatia was founded."
Rebel Serbs opposed to Croatia's independence bid captured Vukovar after a bloody three-month siege, marking the start of the war, which claimed some 20,000 lives.
The protestors arrived from all across Croatia. Many wore T-shirts with the inscription "For a Croatian Vukovar - No to Cyrillic" and chanted the town's name. A giant banner reading "Vukovar will never be Vukovar (in Cyrillic)" was raised in Zagreb's main square.
The government has repeatedly said it would proceed with its plans to begin using Cyrillic on signs in Vukovar, but veterans have threatened to remove them by force.
Making friends and influencing people in the inimitable Islamist way. I wonder what percent of the younger generation is desperate to leave Gaza nowadays?
[IsraelTimes] Police in Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-ruled Gazoo have started grabbing young men with long or gel-styled spiky hair off the streets, bundling them into jeeps, mocking them and shaving their heads, two of those targeted and a rights group said Sunday.
It is the latest sign that the Islamic Death Eaters are imposing their strict practices on the population.
Hamas has been slowly forcing its fundamentalist interpretation of the religion on already conservative Gazoo since it overran the territory in 2007, but the new crackdown on long hair and tight or low-waist pants -- in several cases accompanied by beatings -- appears to be one of the most aggressive phases of the campaign so far.
The crackdown began last week, and two of those targeted told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named said they were rounded up in separate sweeps in Gazoo City that included more than two dozen young men.
[INDEPENDENT.IE] Pope Francis has been formally installed as Bishop of Rome in a ceremony characterised by more simplicity than the usual rituals and pomp enjoyed by papal predecessors taking up their pastoral duties.
In yet another sign that Francis sees his mission as pontiff as one of humble service, he used his arrival at St John in Lateran Basilica to honour a past pope who remains wildly popular in Rome.
Francis arrived 30 minutes early to bless a plaque renaming a corner of the piazza outside the church after Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005.
Francis applauded, then gave his blessing after Rome's mayor unveiled the simple white stone plaque marking Giovanni Paolo II Square in a section of the vast piazza, which often hosts free rock concerts and political and union rallies.
The pope, who has stressed the importance of simplicity, arrived for the unveiling wearing a plain white cassock, a more modest wardrobe choice than that of the Italian cardinal who welcomed him wearing a red cape.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
About tcomment in the Good Morning section I think it is more like becoming pope automatically carries becoming Bishiop of Rome. A bit like the {King,Queen} of England becoming head of the Anglican church and Heads of State in some country automatically becoming head of the highest decoration in the Country (Victoria Cross, Légion d'Honneur). Despite automatic nomination there still are separate offices.
[Al Ahram] Tehran prevents a Saudi diplomat, who had a car accident, from leaving the country as 'several bottles of alcoholic drinks' were found in his vehicle
Posted by: Fred ||
04/08/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
He must have just confiscated the booze from some infidel, since consumption of alcohol is forbidden to practitioners of the RoP, especially officials from the KSA, the keepers of the rock.
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.
[Al Ahram] Tunisian police on Sunday used tear gas to disperse supporters of the Islamist-led ruling coalition who protested against a meeting by a secular opposition party, an AFP journalist said.
[An Nahar] Venezuela's acting president Nicolas Maduro has accused former U.S. officials Roger Noriega and Otto Reich of plotting to kill him to prevent his victory in next week's presidential elections.
A Pakistani-born migrant who made the top ranks of environmental engineering is set to become the first Muslim woman elected to an Australian parliament, after the NSW Greens chose Mehreen Faruqi to fill a state upper house vacancy. The Greens said yesterday that Dr Faruqi had been preselected by a mail ballot of all NSW members of the party, from a field of seven in a contest in which only women could run.
[INDEPENDENT.IE] Pope Francis has been formally installed as Bishop of Rome in a ceremony characterised by more simplicity than the usual rituals and pomp enjoyed by papal predecessors taking up their pastoral duties. 
