EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian security sources warned Sunday that a crisis was looming in the Sinai Peninsula as clashes between two families escalated.
Egyptian security forces said they found a decomposed corpse buried in the desert on Sunday. The body was identified as Salam Brake, a member of the Tayaha tribe described by security officials as the "most wanted fugitive" in the Sinai Peninsula.
The victim's relatives accused the Fawakhriyya family from El-Arish of abducting Brake, and kidnapped 10 members of the family in retaliation.
Members of the Fawakhriyya family told a Ma'an correspondent that they were not involved in Brake's abduction. They blocked the main road between cities Rafah and El-Arish in protest over the abduction of their relatives.
The Fawakhriyya family then abducted Brake's brother from a hospital in El-Arish, where he was recovering from a traffic accident. They said they would hold him hostage until their family members were returned.
Egyptian security sources warned that tensions in the Sinai Peninsula were on the verge of erupting into serious clashes.
[Iran Press TV] A Justice Ministry front man says Tunisia will try ousted President-for-Life Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ...who departed by popular demand in January, 2011, precipitating the Arab Spring... and his wife Leila Trabelsi in absentia.
Kadhem Zine El Abidine said on Friday that a trial on two charges will be held "in the coming days or weeks," AFP reported.
"The investigating magistrates have completed their inquiries. They will be transferred to the criminal court in the coming days or weeks," he added.
He went on to say that the first charge relates to the discovery of weapons and drugs in the presidential palace at Carthage, while the second involves $27 million in cash discovered in Ben Ali's palace in the Tunis suburb of Sidi Bou Said in February.
A total of 88 inquiries are being conducted into the activities of the couple, their family, and the regime's former ministers and officials.
Local news agencies reported that Ben Ali's sister, Najet Ben Ali, who had been the subject of an arrest warrant, was jugged on Thursday evening in the Sousse region, around 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of the capital Tunis.
Customs officials also seized two yachts belonging to Ben Ali's family earlier on Friday.
Ben Ali's regime collapsed on January 14 after weeks of bloody protests over corruption, unemployment, and high food prices. He decamped to Soddy Arabia with his family on the same day.
An election has been called for July 24 to choose a national assembly that will rewrite the constitution.
Human rights groups say dozens of Tunisian protesters were killed in the government crackdown.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] A criminal court in Cairo has sentenced Youssef Boutros-Ghali, the former Egyptian finance minister, to 30 years in prison on corruption charges.
Boutros-Ghali was tried in absentia and sentenced on Saturday for squandering $6m in public funds and abuse of other funds that he had access to.
The former minister, who is out of the country, has also been fined $11m (around 70m Egyptian pounds).
Boutros-Ghali has been on the run since February 11, the day Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... stepped down as president, and is on Interpol's wanted list.
The court found him guilty of having used 102 cars waiting in customs - including six luxury cars for personal use - in an action which "greatly harmed the financial interests" of their owners.
He was also found guilty of having used the finance ministry's resources for his personal electoral campaign, printing materials at the expense of the ministry.
Boutros-Ghali is one of a string of Mubarak-era ministers to face justice as part of a sweeping investigation into fraud by Egypt's new military rulers.
Mubarak is to face trial on August 3, along with his two sons Alaa and Gamal, accused of ordering the shooting of anti-government protesters during the January-February uprising and for fraud.
The once feared interior minister, Habib al-Adly, has been sentenced to 12 years for corruption and is facing a second trial over the killing of protesters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2011 00:00 ||
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[Pak Daily Times] A military official says at least seven people, including a 14-year-old girl, had been killed during a mutiny by soldiers in Burkina Faso's ...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... second-largest city. Gen. Honore Nabere Traore said Saturday that six soldiers died in an exchange of gunfire Friday with troops sent to quell four days of shooting and looting by soldiers in Bobo-Dioulasso. Traore said the girl was accidentally hit by a bullet during the exchange of fire Friday. Justice Minister Jerome Traore says 25 civilians and eight soldiers were maimed during the mutiny. He said 57 soldiers have been nabbed and will go to court for "rebellion and stealing goods." Residents say the chaos has stopped and calm has returned to Bobo-Dioulasso. Burkina Faso has seen unrest by soldiers, teachers and students since February.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Were the soldiers merely bored, or was there a reason for the mutiny?
KUWAIT: A female political activist and former parliamentary candidate has recommended the introduction of legislation to legalize the provision of enslaved female concubines for Muslim men in Kuwait in a bid, she says, to protect those men from committing adultery or corruption.
The activist, Salwa Al-Mutairi, suggested apparently seriously in a video broadcast online that she had been informed by some clerics that affluent Muslim men who fear being seduced or tempted into immoral behavior by the beauty of their female servants, or even of those servants 'casting spells' on them, would be better to purchase women from an 'enslaved maid' agency for sexual purposes.
She suggested that special offices could be set up to provide concubines in the same way as domestic staff recruitment agencies currently provide housemaids.
We want our youth to be protected from adultery," said Al-Mutairi, suggesting that these maids could be brought as prisoners of war in war-stricken nations like Chechnya to be sold on later to devout merchants.
This is not religiously forbidden," she added, indicating that Caliph Haroun Al-Rashid (766-809 AD) was married to one woman but possessed 200 concubines.
#1
So is she offering herself, daughters or sisters up for being sex slaves to some random sicko sheik?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
06/05/2011 23:23 Comments ||
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#2
Oh don't be silly Modem - she's offering infidel women taken in force from Russia and elsewhere to be legally raped by their 'owners' on a regular basis.
Setup a network of slavers to bring the women in from outside.
No doubt NOW and Code Pinko would fully endorse the idea - at least in private and would be silent (as would the MSM) in public.
Shells were still exploding Saturday at a Russian munitions store three days after it caught fire in Udmurtia in the Volga region. The fire came just over a week after a munitions depot in the nearby region of Bashkortostan caught fire on May 26, triggering explosions that lasted several days.
The emergency ministry is using remotely controlled robots, water-bombing planes and armoured vehicles to fight the fire, since the explosions makes it too dangerous for fire engines
On Friday, Medvedev called for heads to roll at the defence ministry at a televised meeting with defence chief Anatoly Serdyukov.
"The defence ministry is disarming by blowing sky high," Kommersant daily said in a headline Saturday, criticising the defence ministry for using conscripts to handle explosives without proper training or protection.
"What happened at the Number 102 arsenal is total lawlessness and disorganisation," a source familiar with the depot told Kommersant.
"Soldiers were being exploited. They carried around the shells and gunpowder in zinc boxes without any special equipment... There was practically no training and the soldiers were carrying the shells around even at night."
A total of 76 people required medical treatment and 35 were hospitalised, five of whom have since gone home, the Udmurtia health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
#1
"What happened at the Number 102 arsenal is total lawlessness and disorganisation," a source familiar with the depot told Kommersant.
"Soldiers were being exploited. They carried around the shells and gunpowder in zinc boxes without any special equipment... There was practically no training and the soldiers were carrying the shells around even at night."
The last major US accident on this scale was in 1944, and that was when the US military got serious about munitions safety. There have been accidents since, but never one that let go on the same scale. The Soviets Russians, however, have never lost their inshallah attitude towards ammo storage and handling, and they will continue to pay this kind of price on a regular basis until they get their heads out.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/05/2011 12:50 Comments ||
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h/t Instapundit
President Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.
#1
So it's got nothing to do with mortgage arrangements for low income Americans which started the global anus flinch back in 2008?
I suppose Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't US government sponsored enterprises either so there can be no suggestion this was in any way linked to government policy.
Please Obama; give us a little credit for our intelligence; please exercise some self-restraint, don't try to manipulate recent history for the benefit of votes.
My bet for the 2012 'alternative' Obama slogun
'don't vote for change'
I couldnt add so much as a single word. Well, said.
Posted by: de Medici ||
06/05/2011 7:31 Comments ||
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#3
Low income Americans were buying, and predictably defaulting on, $70,000 houses; those are not the bulk of the multi-trillion dollar non-performing mortgage problem. It takes 5 of those defaults to add up to one HGTV watcher/would-be house-flipper (or other middle class vacation home/McMansion buyer) who got caught when the music stopped - and there are LOTS of predictable defaults in those middle class 'investments'.
#4
a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down Oh, please, there never was one, how can it be slowing down? Pay no attention to the massive pile of bad debt and CDS's with nothing behind them, they don't count.
#6
This is why they close banks on Fridays so people won't notice the continuous drip drip drip of an economic Chinese torture. If everyone kept track of the bank closings as an indication, they'd certainly perceive there hasn't been any significant change.
#9
Glenmore,
You are correct but incomplete. Most of the trouble, according to my RE specialist son, was a result of the $70,000 rules being applied to McMansion type "speculators". The big problems, at least in the Boston area, are the fancy mortgage instruments designed (on the face of it) to help the folks buying $70,000 shacks were applied to young folk with no money or established credit history in the market for big places on highly contrived variable rate / balloon style contracts.
When their humanities degrees didn't get them jobs making $100,000 a year the $#!^ hit the fan when those rates started changing. Same for the speculators cause their market disappeared.
#18
"Barbara, he skipped Germany on his last visit to Europe."
Lucky Germany.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/05/2011 19:39 Comments ||
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#19
He is still mad at Merkel because she denied him his stage at the Brandenburg Gate when he was a campaigning senator.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/05/2011 20:02 Comments ||
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#20
Good for Merkel, EC.
I y'all are lucky, he'll stay mad at her.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/05/2011 20:40 Comments ||
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#21
Guess we'll survive the remaining 18 months of his lacking attention.
The GOP better get ready for a viable candidate though
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/05/2011 21:04 Comments ||
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#22
Thus far only declared POTUS Candidate NEWT GINGRICH appears to have the stuff to take on Osama in 2012, ergo Newt is being harshly attacked in the MSM early on for his marital state of affairs + ultra-Right image.
IIRC POTUS BAMMER = want to be arrested + tried before INTERNAT SHARIA COURT FOR "CRIMES AGZ MUSLIMS"???
#23
US Politicos know full well that capitalist free markets rise + fall in cycles, + that temporary Govt. intervention may prove necessary when the economy is bad, thus of course they spent what $$$ protective hedge = reserves the US could have used in contingency regardless of whether the econ was good or bad.
NOW THAT THE US PER SE NEEDS IT, THE $$$ BULWARK IS NOT THERE BECUZ IT TWAS SPENT ALREADY ON VARIOUS POLITICAL WHIMS.
I think they mean the new ones that both countries would like to build but can't afford. The Brits can't afford new carriers because they're putting all their money into the NHS; the French can't afford them because they're putting their money into hotel maids and legal defense funds.
#1
The British tax payer will spend £7.8bn on foreigners this year, enough to pay for both Queen Elizabeth class carriers outright (at the original quote of £3.9 bn per carrier).
The British have a "conservative" government making aid for foreigners a priority over the Royal Navy and the defense of the realm. String them up.
#2
"Both countries would like to build but can't afford" > $$$ LEASEOUT OF USN NIMITZ-CLASS, CVN21, GATOR = AMPHIB CARRIERS???
Oer time, these CV's will evol towards asymmetric "humanitarian" missions + UNO = OWG-NWO "police actions" NOT high-intensive, lineal or "great power(s)" conventional, nuclear?warfighting.
[Al Jazeera] Portugal goes to the polls on Sunday in an early general election to decide who will implement a 78 billion euro bailout deal, with the centre-right opposition conservatives are expected to oust caretaker Prime Minister Jose Socrates' Socialists.
Final opinion polls gave the Social Democrats (PSD) around 37 per cent of the vote against 31 per cent for Prime Minister Jose Socrates' Socialists, in power since 2005.
I can see social democrats being to the right of socialists, but unless the names mean something different in Portugal, I would have thought them left and lefter...
This would leave the PSD short of an absolute majority in the 230-seat parliament, but the party could govern in coalition with the third-placed conservative CDS-PP, as it has done in the past.
Saturday had been declared a "day of reflection", and campaigning and the publication of polls were banned.
Portugal's three main parties have agreed to the conditions attached to a bailout deal struck in May with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.
These include deep cuts in public spending on health, education, pensions and jobless benefits at a time when the unemployment rate hit a record 12.6 per cent in April -- one of the highest levels in the eurozone.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2011 00:00 ||
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We'll go through the key statements in the order in which she said them, which allows us to begin and end with some absolute whoppers.
"We don't have the $2 billion [to give to Egypt]. Where are we going to get it? From China? We are going to borrow from foreign countries to give to foreign countries. ... We want to know where those dollars are going because we don't have the money to be providing foreign countries, not in this day and age when we are going broke."
Palin managed to get almost everything wrong in this comment. Except the 'going broke' part, which was the point.
She clearly was not listening too closely to President Obama's speech on the Middle East, because otherwise she would have realized that he was not talking about spending more taxpayer dollars. Right. Not more. Same as before. $2 billion. If not taxpayer dollars, where did they come from?
Obama proposed to forgive up to $1 billion of Egypt's $3.6 billion debt (money that was spent buying American farm products). The forgiveness, which would take several years, would take the form of a "debt swap," in which the money saved will be invested in designated programs in Egypt. So we give up a billion, but that's not the same as handing them a billion, so Palin gets a 'Pinocchio'. See how it works? And besides, it was a billion in products, not a billion in cash, so Palin is wrong again!
The other $1 billion would consist of loan guarantees by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which are structured at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer. So none of this would involve new debt issued by the Treasury. Until we give up that billion, which our grandchildren will have to pay.
Palin appears to assume that the United States simply hands out dollars with little idea about what happens to the money. This is a common misconception. Actually, there are often strings attached. So it's not really money, Mr. Pinocchio-awarder?
Under the terms of the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, the United States gives about $2 billion in direct aid to Egypt every year, making it one of the largest foreign-aid recipients. But most of this aid -- about $1.3 billion a year -- is financing to buy U.S. military hardware and services. So we really don't give away money, see? Silly Sarah!
Egypt, for instance, has used the U.S.-supplied funds to replace aging Soviet-supplied equipment with at least 220 F-16 aircraft, 880 M1A1 tanks and 36 Apache helicopters. So Egypt ends up with weapons -- but the money actually goes to U.S. firms and helps create U.S. jobs. So even if it is giving away real money, which they said it's not, it still creates jobs - in all 57 states.
Palin is also wrong to assume that every dollar of foreign aid would be borrowed. The budget deficit is high, but the U.S. government still takes in substantial revenues. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office forecast, about 40 percent of the federal budget is financed through new debt -- and that percentage is projected to drop significantly as the economy improves. Silly Sarah! We don't really borrow that $2 billion, it's some other $2 billion we'll have to borrow. Boy, did we ever outsmart you!
Finally, while China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, foreign countries actually hold only about 28 percent of the $14 trillion debt. So Sarah get a Pinocchio for that? For asking, rhetorically, if the largest holder of debt would take on another measly $2 billion?
The latest Treasury bulletin shows that the biggest holder is the U.S. government itself (i.e., Social Security and Medicare), while U.S. pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies and state and local governments hold almost as much as foreign investors. So she didn't list all the options for buying up the debt that the clever WaPo reporter did. Ms. Palin, however, did convey a point in far fewer words than the reporter took to "refute" her. We need to be smarter about where we spend our hard-earned tax dollars. Do I get a Pinocchio for that - disagreeing with your Demolish-the-Evil-Palin theme?
There are three other "refutations" at the link, which sums up with this whopper:
This is a sizable collection of misstatements and bloopers for a 30-minute interview. You could say it is almost Newt-sized. Clever to the last.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/05/2011 07:38 ||
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#1
What a waste of time to read. Can't believe you have this much time to devote to a no news subject.
#2
"Can't believe you have this much time to devote to a no news subject."
Apparently you have the time to devote to it too, Brown, since you read it (or said you did).
Pot, Kettle.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/05/2011 15:41 Comments ||
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#3
The news, Brownasaur, is not what Palin said, in fact, it's not about Palin at all. It's not even about what I said.
It's about a well-known newspaper devoting a whole page to smear a politician they hate, not by dealing with facts, but by creating and then demolishing straw men.
They dishonestly hide behind the name of the column - suggesting as the "Fact Checker" that they - and only they - are dealing in facts. Go see how many times the 'Fact Checker' column had anything negative to say about the President - this president. Mostly, they "check facts" on his opponents.
You, my friend, thought reading more about the person you fear was a waste of your time. You missed the boat.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/05/2011 16:16 Comments ||
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#4
Overall, the MSM meme for the upcoming campaign is Obama does everything right, and his opponents are always wrong and ridiculous. This WaPo Pinocchio column is a prime example.
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.
The Battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942.
A Justice Ministry 
A criminal court in Cairo has sentenced Youssef Boutros-Ghali, the former Egyptian finance minister, to 30 years in prison on corruption charges.
A military official says at least seven people, including a 14-year-old girl, had been killed during a mutiny by soldiers in 
We'll go through the key statements in the order in which she said them, which allows us to begin and end with some absolute whoppers.
