At least 29 people have died and 150 rescued after a boat carrying hundreds of refugees capsized off Egypt’s coast. State news agency MENA reported on Wednesday that the boat capsized off the coast of Kafr al-Sheikh, about 140km north of Cairo, and that search teams were looking for more survivors.
The boat was carrying Egyptian, Syrian, and African migrants, security sources told Reuters news agency. Rescue workers saved 150 people, MENA said. It was not immediately clear where the boat was headed, though some security sources said they believed it was going to Italy.
More and more people have been trying to cross to Italy from the North African coastline in recent months as the weather improves, particularly from Libya, where people-traffickers operate with relative impunity, but also from Egypt.
Some 206,400 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. More than 2,800 deaths have been recorded between January and June this year, against 1,838 during the period last year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2016 00:00 ||
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ADEN: Yemen’s premier-in-exile returned home Thursday along with seven ministers to the southern city of Aden, the temporary capital as rebels continue to rule Sanaa.
Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher flew from Riyadh to the port city where he said upon arrival that his return is “final.”
The premier’s voyage is the first since his predecessor Khaled Bahah fled Aden in October last year after surviving a bombing attack, only weeks after he had returned with a handful of ministers.
Government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition had pushed Shiite rebels and their allies out of Aden and four other southern provinces in the summer.
The coalition launched a military campaign against the rebels in March 2015 as they closed in on President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after he took refuge in Aden, forcing him into exile in Riyadh.
Hadi has not made any suggestion of returning to Yemen soon.
Bin Dagher said his return follows a decision by Hadi to withdraw the central bank from rebel-held Sanaa to Aden.
His government has 32 ministers. Some are expected to move from Riyadh to Marib, east of Sanaa, a region that is also mostly controlled by loyalists.
Houthi rebels and their allies of forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh still control vast parts of the country, including northern regions and the capital Sanaa which they overran unopposed in September 2014.
Since the coalition intervened in March 2015, more than 6,000 people have been killed in Yemen, according to the United Nations.
[Reuters] Hungary's Prime Minister said the European Union should round up and deport all illegal immigrants and assemble them in EU-supervised refugee camps beyond the bloc's borders where they can then file for asylum.
"This could be an island, it could be a coastal area in North Africa, but the security and supplies of that area must be guaranteed by the EU in its own interest," Viktor Orban told the news website Origo in an interview published on Thursday.
The firebrand premier has provoked controversy with a tough rhetoric about migrants and a razor wire fence along Hungary's southern border, as well as a referendum against mandatory resettlement quotas on Oct. 2.
"Those who came illegally must be rounded up and shipped out," Orban said.
"We must set up large refugee camps outside the EU, with armed security and financial support provided by the Union. Everyone who came illegally must return there. There they can file for asylum."
He said this was a "grave moral task" that was the only alternative to the migrants staying in Europe and being relocated around the continent, creating further problems. Resettlements were an exercise in futility as those who wanted to be in Germany would promptly return there after resettlement.
"There is only one solution that befits everyone, including us who are not yet in trouble because we defended ourselves and countries like Germany which are in trouble: Taking (migrants) out of the Union."
He reiterated that the external borders of the EU must be strengthened to prevent a repeat of the 2015 flow of migrants.
[mfs-theothernews.com] One of the officers, Georges Aeck, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF: 'We didn't want to leave them... on the side of the road to walk to the border. So we took them... in the direction they wanted to go.' Liking the concept.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
09/23/2016 00:00 ||
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#3
Every person in favor of letting in these immigrants should have to have a family of four placed with them. Kind of like when the do gooders want to open a homeless shelter or a halfway house. Its always in somebody elses neighborhood
[IsraelTimes] Nicholas Rovinski, 25, was recruited to jihadist group and planned to murder conservative activist Pamela Geller
A man charged with plotting to help the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy charges, including a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller.
Nicholas Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, admitted he conspired with two Massachusetts men to kill Geller and attempted to recruit others to carry out additional violent attacks in the United States. The plots were never carried out.
A plea agreement between Rovinski, 25, and federal prosecutors calls for a sentence of between 15 years and 22 years. Judge William Young set sentencing for March.
Rovinski, who has cerebral palsy and walks with a limp, answered softly when asked by the judge why he decided to plead guilty instead of going to trial.
"I feel that in the interest of myself and the people of the United States I should pay for the crimes that I have committed," he said.
Prosecutors said Rovinski plotted with David Wright, of Everett, and Wright’s uncle Usaamah Rahim, of Boston, to kill Geller, who angered Moslems when she organized a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, in May 2015. The contest ended in gunfire, with two Moslemgunnies shot to death by police.
Assistant US Attorney Stephanie Siegmann said Rovinski told authorities after his arrest that he, Wright and Rahim had agreed to kill Geller, who’s from New York. Siegmann said Rahim later told Wright he wanted to go after "those boys in blue," a reference to police.
Rahim, who had been under surveillance, was shot and killed by authorities on June 2, 2015, after he lunged at them with a knife when they approached him in Boston, prosecutors said. Wright has pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." and is awaiting trial.
Siegmann said that after Rovinski’s arrest in June 2015 he sent two letters to Wright in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, talked about beheading people and told Wright he had recruited a fellow inmate to help "take down" the East Coast and the US government.
"Can’t wait for them juicy necks," Rovinski wrote, a reference to beheadings, Siegmann said.
Geller called Rovinski a "murderous thug" and said he was right to plead guilty.
"He still deserves the maximum sentence -- until he proves he is not a danger to human beings who don’t accept his beliefs," she said.
Rovinski’s lawyer, William Fick, said Rovinski was a "vulnerable young man" who was "seduced by bully boy ideology."
"He has unequivocally renounced violence and renounced terrorism," Fick said after the court hearing.
Siegmann said Islamic State recruiter Junaid Hussain communicated instructions about the plot to kill Geller directly to Rahim from overseas in May 2015. Hussain was killed in a US drone strike in Syria in August 2015.
Rovinski pleaded guilty to two federal charges: conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
09/23/2016 00:00 ||
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[Jpost] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained Russia's possible interests in cooperating with Israel on Thursday during a discussion organized by a New York-based think tank.
"I think Russia has variegated interests. The first interest is to make sure militant Islam does not penetrate and destabilize Russia."
..."There are many many millions of Muslims in Russia, including in greater Moscow, I think it's up to two million. And the concern that Russia has, which many countries have is that these populations would be radicalized... First thing is, block militant islam at its source, especially the Daesh [Islamic State] phenomenon. For that they make strange alliances," he added.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has hosted the Israeli leader three times in the last year, during which the two leaders agreed they want to avoid a clash with each other, Netanyahu said.
"I said (to Putin), we can actually have our forces shoot down each other's planes... or we can avoid it. So periodically we have to sort of tighten the bolts, because not everything that is said at the top necessarily reaches the bottom levels, field levels. They do on the Israeli side, but they don't necessarily always do so on the other side. So the second thing is we want to avoid a clash. What is Mr. Putin's interest? He definitely doesn't want that to happen." We have common enemies: Sunni Muslims. And, if Hillary is elected...
[CBS] On a rainy day in September 2014, President Obama paid a visit to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida for a briefing from General Lloyd Austin.
Among the topics was the training and equipping of fragile Iraqi security forces to stop the explosive growth of ISIS. The cost of the program was to be $1.2 billion.
After the hour-long briefing, the president addressed the troops. "I just received a briefing from General Austin and met with your commanders, met with representatives from more than 40 nations," he said. "It is a true team effort here at MacDill."
But at the time, CENTCOM’s intelligence operation was anything but unified.
Critical assessments of the Iraqi security forces were regularly being altered by top intelligence brass. Words like "slow," "stalled," and "retreat" were changed to "deliberate" and "relocated." This had the effect of painting a rosier picture in final reports delivered to General Austin and his staff.
But it didn’t stop there. In one instance, CENTCOM’s director of intelligence, Major General Steven R. Grove, blocked a negative assessment of Iraq’s military from the President’s Daily Brief, a top secret intelligence summary viewed only by the president and his closest advisers.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
09/23/2016 12:19 ||
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#1
Guardian US dated 11 September 2015.
"James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is said to talk nearly every day with the head of US Central Command’s intelligence wing, Army Major General Steven Grove – “which is highly, highly unusual”, according to a former intelligence official.
Grove is said to be implicated in a Pentagon inquiry into manipulated war intelligence.
In communications, Clapper, who is far more senior than Grove, is said to tell Grove how the war looks from his vantage point, and question Grove about Central Command’s assessments. Such a situation could place inherent pressure on a subordinate, sources said."
Colonel Grove promoted to Brigadier May 2011; promoted to Major General June 2014.
#3
Used to be that senior officers were war-fighters. Now many are just place keepers more considerate of their next pay grade than national security. The next guy will handle it, right?
The House passed a bill requiring the Department of Treasury to disclose the assets of Iran’s top political and military leaders in a 282-143 vote Wednesday.
The Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act, spearheaded by Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine, would force the agency to provide a report to Congress assets under control, how they were acquired and how they are being spent.
Proponents of the measure said it ensures businesses and financial institutions don’t inadvertently fund terrorism or become involved in money laundering.
Republicans have repeatedly expressed concerns over the Iran nuclear agreement, arguing it will further destabilize the region and finance acts of terror.
Despite the bill passing in a bipartisan manner, a number of Democrats and the White House slammed the measure for its attempt to undermine the Iran deal.
The president threatened to veto the legislation, noting the administration will oppose any legislation that could interfere with the Iran deal.
#4
the White House slammed the measure for its attempt
Careful about opening this can of worms.
Set the precedent(examine, track and audit all) and you'll catch some very popular fish in some very unpopular waters.
Turkey and Russia have been discussing the creation of a protocol to coordinate the flights of their warplanes over Syrian airspace in a bid to prevent unwanted incidents like the downing of a Russian jet by Turkish Air Forces on Nov. 24, 2015, a senior Turkish military source has said.
While drafting the protocol, the two sides also agreed on a “gentleman’s agreement” to prevent the two sides’ warplanes from entering into areas where the other side is conducting military operations.
The decision to work to coordinate military flights over Syria was taken during a meeting of the respective Russian and Turkish chiefs of General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov and Gen. Hulusi Akar, on Sept. 15 in Ankara. The two top soldiers approved the establishment of a hotline between the two air forces in a bid to prevent accidents or unwanted incidents.
“Work to accomplish the protocol continues at the highest level,” the senior military source told daily Hürriyet on the condition of anonymity on Sept. 22. If signed, the protocol will mark an important step in developing the military-to-military relationship and coordination between Turkey and Russia in the Syrian theater.
The need to make a protocol to coordinate flights in Syria with Russia became urgent after the Turkish army launched a massive cross-border operation into its southern neighbor on Aug. 24 in a bid to remove the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from its border.
“We have carried out 97 sorties against ISIL positions as part of the Operation Euphrates Shield,” the source said.
According to the military source, while talks continue for an official protocol, the two sides have agreed verbally on what the source called a “gentleman’s agreement.” Accordingly, the Turkish military has provided the Russian side the coordinates of the areas in which it operates and its warplanes fly over. In return, Russian warplanes will work to steer clear of these areas.
“As Turkey, we know which areas we will conduct air operations over. Our warplanes scramble when there is a need to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA) on the ground,” the source said. “Our communication with Russia functions perfectly.”
According to the same source, the Russian side is also acting very carefully to avoid violating Turkish airspace and regularly providing information about its flights near Turkey, particularly Hatay province. The closest flight of Russian warplanes to Turkish airspace was four kilometers around Hatay province, the source said, adding that the Turkish military had already been informed about the incident.
Turkish warplanes downed a Russian warplane on Nov. 24, 2015, due to an alleged airspace violation which caused a severe diplomatic crisis between the two countries. A normalization process was started after Turkey expressed regret over the incident.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/23/2016 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.
At least 29 people have died and 150 rescued after a boat carrying hundreds of refugees capsized off Egypt’s coast. State news agency MENA reported on Wednesday that the boat capsized off the coast of Kafr al-Sheikh, about 140km north of Cairo, and that search teams were looking for more survivors.
[mfs-theothernews.com] One of the officers, Georges Aeck, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF: 'We didn't want to leave them... on the side of the road to walk to the border. So we took them... in the direction they wanted to go.'
Colonel Grove promoted to Brigadier May 2011; promoted to Major General June 2014.
