[Dawn] A Pak confidence trickster was tossed in the clink Please don't kill me! for posing as an FBI agent and defrauding unwitting customers in Islamabad of $21,000, police said Friday.
Hayat Khan, 48, was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in a sting operation on Thursday following a number of complaints in the capital, police official Suhail Akram told AFP.
"The fake FBI agent grabbed millions of rupees. He is now under arrest," he said.
Khan, who also went by the alias Riaz Khan, claimed to have worked for the FBI and trapped his victims by offering to sell US dollars at a lower rate than on the market.
He reeled them in by offering favourable exchange rates for relatively small amounts of money, say $500 or $1,000, and then overcharging them for much larger amounts.
It was not immediately clear why he pretended to work for the FBI -- the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"We have recovered two million rupees ($21,000) from his possession and are investigating," Akram said.
Currency exchange is an attractive business in Pakistain, where the rupee has lost 4.1 per cent of its value this year and last week sank to its lowest level against the dollar.
Yaseen Anwar, the governor of Pakistain's central bank, said last week that the fiscal deficit and lack of external financing would continue to challenge Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Salafist Nour Party MP Ali Wanis has denied news reports that he was caught performing an indecent act with a teenage girl on Thursday night.
The Al-Ahram Arabic news portal, along with several other online news websites, reported that a police patrol found Wanis in a car parked on a highway near the city of Toukh in Benha -- which Wanis represents in parliament -- engaging in an indecent act with a 19-year-old college student.
According to Al-Ahram, which contacted Wanis Friday morning, his son vehemently denied the allegation on behalf of his father and said the latter had gone out to perform his Friday sermon.
Wanis issued an online statement early Friday morning denying the allegation.
He said he had earlier been involved in an altercation with a low-ranking police officer and accused the police of fabricating a scandal to get back at him.
He did not know the details of the allegation, he added.
Wanis concluded by stating that the allegation was part of a blackmail campaign aimed at smearing his reputation and the image of the Islamist political current.
News reports claimed Wanis was permitted to leave the cop shoppe due to his political immunity, as the prosecution requires parliamentary permission before they can fully investigate the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Tunisia's decision to extradite Libya's former prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi back to his home country is definitive, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali told Agence La Belle France Presse on Friday.
"The decision to hand over Mr. Mahmoudi is irrevocable," he said, without providing a date for the extradition of the former premier, a stalwart of slain Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... 's fallen regime.
Lawyers for Mahmoudi, who was placed in long-term storage Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in September, and rights groups have argued he will be executed if he returns to Libya, where a February 2011 uprising ended more than four decades of Qadaffy's dictatorship.
Libyan authorities have guaranteed that former premier will get a fair trial, meeting Tunisia's final condition for his extradition, the Tunisian president's office said last month.
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06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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[Tripoli Post] Libya's Ministry of Economy has issued a new decree allowing foreign companies to enter joint ventures and open a representative office to study the Libyan market. It is aimed at reorganising and facilitating the process of foreign-local partnership.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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The swarming desert locusts, which can eat their own weight in fresh food every day, threaten to devastate crops in a region where millions of people are already menaced by food shortages. In some stretches of northern Mali and Niger, some people have resorted to eating plant leaves, the International Committee of the Red Thingy and the World Food Program have said.
Locusts are usually managed by spraying chemicals that stop the swarms from spreading. Algeria and Libya ordinarily attack the swarms, preventing them from hitting Mali or Niger.
But in the last year, as Libya was wracked by fighting between rival militias in the aftermath of the ouster of Muammar Kadafi and Algeria suffered insecurity along its border, local teams and international experts have been blocked from stopping the swarms, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said.
The onslaught is especially alarming in Mali because the unrest has crippled its ability to fight them off. Bloomberg News reported Thursday that the equipment Mali needs to stop the swarms was destroyed during the Tuareg rebellion, quoting an interview with a locust control official broadcast on state radio.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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The argentine populace can see Cristina "Evita" Fernandez's policy aims:Gov't central economy control and nationalizing foreign-owned industry. They're cashing in their pesos (25% inflation) for dollars as fast as they can, and stashing it - $80-$120 million per day - while they still can Won't be enough to hide it from crooks like the Kirchners...
Argentine banks have seen a third of their U.S. dollar deposits withdrawn since November as savers chase greenbacks in response to stiffening foreign exchange restrictions, local banking sources said on Friday.
Depositors withdrew a total of about $100 million per day over the last month in a safe-haven bid fueled by uncertainty over policies that might be adopted as pressure grows to keep U.S. currency in the country.
The chase for dollars is motivated by fear that the government may further toughen its clamp down on access to the U.S. currency as high inflation and lack of faith in government policy erode the local peso. whoops!
"Deposits keep going down," said one foreign exchange broker who asked not to be named. "There is a disparity among banks, but in total it's about $80 million to $120 million per day."
U.S. dollar deposits of Argentine banks fell 11.2 percent in the preceding three weeks to $11.5 billion, according to central bank data released on Friday. The run on the greenback has waxed and waned since November, after President Cristina Fernandez won a second term on promises of deepening the state's role in the economy. Expect to see more saber-rattling against the Falklands - to distract - and to try and get some of that oil revenue. She can't afford war, but may get into one, because she has to - otherwise, her Gov't and economy collapses
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/09/2012 09:08 ||
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#1
They'd have to be able to land enough people on the Falklands to overwhelm the defenders, and they'd have to be able to do it without air cover, and they'd have to not get noticed at sea where they'd be sitting ducks.
#2
BP, you're assuming the Brit force on the Falklands would react. I would hope that they would, but they might be under orders to get permission from Whitehall before doing so, which means the Argies will walk up and arrest all the British personnel on the islands...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/09/2012 11:14 Comments ||
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#3
...unless, someone in the chain of commands decides to act first, then request permission after. The question in that mind is whether the pols will simply ratify the act rather than to admit to cowardice.
Lacking two pieces of brain matter, the pols can't extrapolate that if you allow the Argies to do that, what would really stop a Cromwell from marching in and doing the same to Parliament.
#4
And Obama sure as hell won't help the Brits. He might even provide air cover for the Argies.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/09/2012 11:58 Comments ||
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#5
He'll wait a month first before checking the polling numbers to order that Rambler.
Posted by: Charles ||
06/09/2012 12:40 Comments ||
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#6
And Obama sure as hell won't help the Brits. He might even provide air cover for the Argies.
I dunno, Rambler. I could just as easily imagine such an order from Ogabe as the last straw that finally makes our military's flag/general officer leadership collectively grow a pair. Not to the point of an actual military coup (don't want to jeopardize that nice post-retirement gig at General Dynamics, after all), but to the point of publicly refusing to obey such an order on the basis of gross illegality. Possibly accompanied with discreet but pointed suggestions to Congressional leadership that Teh Won has finally crossed the line into "impeachable act" territory.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
06/09/2012 13:27 Comments ||
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Where will the money come from?
Spain is to get up to 100bn euros ($125bn; £80bn) in loans from eurozone funds to try to help shore up its struggling banks.
The move was agreed during emergency talks with eurozone finance ministers.
Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said his country would shortly make a formal request for assistance. He emphasised that the help would be for the financial system, not the economy as a whole. "This is not a rescue," he said.
"This is a loan which is given in very favourable conditions, which will be determined in the next few days. But they are very favourable - much more favourable than the market ones," Mr de Guindos told a news conference.
The Spanish government had been reluctant to ask for a bailout like the one given to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, as these rescue packages came with demands for spending cuts and stringent spending cuts.
#3
Where did the money come from?
As far as can be made out by the best experts, it appears the Tooth Fairy is the culprit.
No one else would be stupid enough to toss their hard earned money into a bottomless pit, never to be seen again.
[Dawn] At least 16 people were killed on Friday in a clash between two tribes in the Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's Chaghi area, DawnNews reported.
The two rival tribes, in Zardakan area of Chaghi, clashed with each other on Friday morning, Levis sources said.
To control the situation, administration has deployed additional Levis troops in the area.
Several people were maimed by the intense firing from both sides but the exact number of the maimed was unknown, sources said.
The tension still prevailed in the area as hundreds of armed rustics held positions against each other.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... government's fact-finding mission on Thursday visited Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... and secured an assurance from a local jirga (council of elders) about the safety of five girls, who are at the centre of a controversy.
The mission led by information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain attended the jirga and visited the village of two of the five girls alleged to have been killed in an honour-related crime.
"We took a promise from the jirga that it is its responsibility to provide protection to the girls, their families and houses," Mr Hussain told a news conference here on return from Kohistan.
He said a fact-finding mission of the provincial government and four female representatives of women rights groups on Thursday flew in helicopters to Beech Bela, a village in district Kohistan, to ascertain the status of the girls.
All five girls, he added, had been found to be alive and the reports about a holy man having issued a fatwa (religious decree) for their murder in the name of honour had been found to be false and misleading.
Mr Hussain also took to task media for 'blowing out of proportion' the controversy.
The controversy, he added, started making rounds after an 'engineered video' surfaced showing Kohistani girls cheering and two youth dancing in a supposedly private gathering.
The minister said the four civil society members, including Dr Farzan Bari, Dr Fozia Saeed, Shabeena Ayaz, and Riffat Butt, met two of the five girls, Shereen and Robina, in their mud houses and made their video with the consent of their families.
"Both the girls were found to be alive and in good mood. They informed the civil society members that the three other girls, including Baazgha, Aamna and Begum Jan, were also alive. However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... they have already moved away along with their families," said the minister.
Mr Iftikhar said the population at that remote area kept moving on seasonal basis so it was understandable when people said the other three girls had moved out to some other place. He added that the civil society members couldn't have been reached on Thursday because they had moved to a far-off place.
He said the fact-finding mission collected evidence from four local witnesses, including Safeer Salaar Khan, Qadam Khan, Zabeeh Hayat and Sajeeda Khan.
"Witnesses told the jirga under oath that all five girls are alive and no harm has been caused to them after the surfacing of the video and the controversy it brewed," said the minister.
He said Maulvi Jawed, a central character of the controversy, told the jirga that he neither issued fatwa calling for the girls' killing nor did he attend any jirga alleged to have taken place where girls were ordered to be killed.
Mr Iftikhar said the controversy took serious turn after the media blew it out of proportion, showing a lack of responsibility.
He said the government's repeated clarifications and explanations rejecting the murder of the girls were not heeded by the electronic media,
which kept airing debates and talk shows without verifying information.
The minister said Afzal Khan, brother of the two youth shown dancing in the video, befooled all and created confusion by spreading false information.
"The media didn't believe in our words and kept causing humiliation to the country in general and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in particular. No one asked Afzal Khan to provide evidence of the girls' killing," he said.
Mr Iftikhar thanked the Supreme Court for taking a suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... notice of the incident and removing doubts about the girls' status. "It's the Supreme Court's responsibility to fix the responsibility and punish those who lied," said the minister, adding that the provincial government would also act against those spreading misleading information.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2012 00:00 ||
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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.
[Dawn] A Pak confidence trickster was 
Salafist Nour Party MP Ali Wanis has denied news reports that he was caught performing an indecent act with a teenage girl on Thursday night.
At least 16 people were killed on Friday in a clash between two tribes in the 
