[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Egyptian authorities announced that they will raise security levels to maximum alert on Sunday in preparation for Coptic Christmas festivities and possible Sinai terrorist attacks.
Following a meeting chaired by the Minister of Interior, Magdy Abdel Ghaffar, the ministry released a statement showcasing their plan to secure Christmas celebrations which begin later this month and will continue until January 7.
"Critical security confrontations with terrorist factions in North Sinai may prompt some of them to flee and try to sneak into cities, and this will require vigilance and preparation to face those attempts," said Abdel Ghaffar.
A terrorist attack on a security checkpoint in Arish earlier today prompted the decision to raise security levels to maximum alert by the minister, which is the highest level of security measures.
The ministry confirmed the importance of intensifying the presence of security forces around public areas and places of worship to be able to deal immediately and decisively with any attempt to disturb the holiday celebrations of Egypt's citizens, according to Egypt Today.
Security forces will apply 800-meter "safe areas" around churches and the government will provide explosive detection devices to counter any attempts to target places of worship, the newspaper added.
Security forces will implement security procedures for all 2,326 churches in Egypt.
During Christmas celebrations in 2016, an kaboom in the al-Botrosiya Church, near the complex of the main Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, killed 29 people and injured tens of others. The attack was orchestrated by ISIS.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[WASHINGTONPOST] Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... on Sunday phoned President Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned in St. Petersburg.
The unusual call ‐ countries share intelligence all the time, but presidents rarely publicly thank one another for it ‐ was confirmed by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Putin told Trump that the information provided by the CIA allowed Russian law enforcement agencies to track down and detain a group of suspects who were planning to bomb the centrally located Kazan Cathedral and other crowded parts of Russia’s second-largest city.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Correct me if wrong, but I believe this is the way collaborative intelligence sharing is supposed to work.
[Jpost] The German government provides €283,150 to a radical pro-Iranian regime Shi’ite umbrella organization as part of a program to counter extremism. The funds will support the activities of the umbrella organization the Shi’ite communities of Germany (IGS) until the end of 2019, according to a Friday article in Bild newspaper.
The paper wrote that money from the EU’s Internal Security Fund will be administered by Germany’s federal criminal agency for the Shi’ite umbrella organization. The aim of the grant to the pro-Iranian regime group is to promote "deradicalization" and "prevent extremism," according to Bild. Some of us haven't forgotten.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru ||
12/18/2017 04:22 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his country’s support for Palestine in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of al-Quds as Zionist entity’s capital, stating that Ankara plans to open an embassy in East Jerusalem al-Quds.
“God willing, the day is close when officially, with God’s permission, we will open our embassy there,” Erdogan said on Sunday.
The remarks came amid reports that Lebanon and Turkey are considering opening diplomatic missions in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds in response to Trump’s controversial decision to recognize the whole city as the “capital” of ‘Israel’.
In a post on his official Twitter account, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil described East Jerusalem al-Quds as “the capital of Palestine,” saying he had informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of his willingness to establish a Lebanese embassy there.
That’s all very well, but not only did Israel declare that the united Jerusalem as her eternal capital, but they are the military in power in the Old City. Calling it the Palestinian capital ahead of final negotiations is meaningless, and as for building there, that requires permission from Israel. So pontificate on, O Muslim leaders, but know precisely how powerless in this matter you are.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[NDTV] Musharraf further said that so far the two groups have not approached him, but "if they wish to enter into an alliance with my party, I have no objection." Pervez Musharraf had last month announced the formation of a grand political alliance in Pakistan after a consultative meeting between representatives of around two dozen political parties.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[NYPost] The United States has vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have required President Trump to rescind his declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The Egyptian-sponsored Security Council resolution was approved by the 14 other council members, a reflection of the depth of global opposition to Trump's action.
Arab nations knew in advance that the United States was certain to veto the resolution, but they sought the vote to demonstrate that countries everywhere and even many U.S. allies such as Britain, France and Japan are against Trump's action.
US. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the resolution "an insult" that won't be forgotten, saying the United Nations forced the U.S. to cast a veto simply because of its right to decide where to put its embassy.. I'm REALLY liking her
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/18/2017 13:34 ||
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#1
Guess what, U.N., Obama isn't in charge anymore. Get used to it.
And Frank, I too really like Nikki Haley.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/18/2017 14:18 Comments ||
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#2
Gee. Why don't we just have a vote at the UN to rescind the Nork Nook program while we're at it?
#5
Hayley for Pres in 2024? Or 2020 if The Donald retires? Shes got more foreign policy guts than just about any GOP senator (Looking at you Yellowstain McCain and your lapdog Little Lord Fauntleroy Graham)
#8
Hayley for Pres in 2024? Or 2020 if The Donald retires? Shes got more foreign policy guts than just about any GOP senator (Looking at you Yellowstain McCain and your lapdog Little Lord Fauntleroy Graham)
This open borders #metoo feminist needs to be shuffled off to the garbage heap of politics like John Kasich and Jeb Bush.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi government has revealed that the number of internally displaced citizens reached five million, 45 percent of which returned back home.
In a speech during a ceremony held by the Migration and Displacement Ministry celebrating victory over 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.... , Minister Jassem al-Jaff said "the ministry and the supreme committee for the relief of the displaced will resume its support so refugees return back to their regions."
"Number of the displaced reached up to five million displaced. Almost half of them returned back home," he added.
"The coming year will be for the return of the displaced," Jaff said. "The government and politicians visions to hold elections on scheduled time will not take place without the swift return of the displaced."
Thousands of families left their homes after IS controlled large areas of the country in 2014. The displacement rate increased as military operations were launched to retake the cities occupies by the holy warrior group.
In late November, Ministry under-secretary, Jassem al-Attiya, denied reports that it has forced refugees to return to their home areas in regions recaptured from IS. He indicated committment to the federal government’s decision which prevents the forced repatriation of refugees.
This came after the U.S. embassy in Iraq and the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights had warned the Iraqi government against forcing refugees to return home in Anbar and other regions.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
12/18/2017 00:23 ||
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[Jpost] Outlining a broad new foreign policy doctrine in a speech on Monday afternoon, US President Donald Trump will assert that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not at the core of the region's problems, administration officials say.
The policy statement is not new, either from Trump or from his predecessors, all of whom have said that peace between Israelis and Palestinians would benefit the wider Middle East whilst separating out the effects of their conflict from the problems of terrorism and extremism ailing the Arab world.
Trump will note that instead of being a primary irritant in the region, Israel has proven itself an asset to moderate Arab governments seeking prosperity and reform.
Over the summer and throughout the fall, several senior administration officials described the president's prioritization of Israeli-Palestinian peace as a lofty goal with "many positive benefits" for the region as a whole. The administration hopes to link a Palestinian peace deal with a broader regional agreement, understanding that the former must follow the latter.
Presidents of both parties have cast the conflict as an agitant. It is not the fault of the Juice?
[IsraelTimes] Images from before the attack show assailant, who was wearing a fake suicide bomb belt, standing amid group of news hounds, photographers
Police on Sunday said that a Paleostinian man who stabbed a Border Police officer near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday had been pretending to be a journalist in the moments before the attack, which allowed him to get closer to Israeli troops unnoticed.
"The terrorist used the media as a cover to prepare for the attack and ran toward the officers from where the press was gathered," a police spokesperson said.
In the attack, Mohammed Aqal, 29, who was wearing what appeared to be a suicide bomb belt, stabbed the border guard twice in the upper body, moderately wounding him.
Aqal then tried to flee, but was shot three times by officers on the scene after they noticed his apparent suicide bomb belt, fearing he would detonated it, police said. The belt was made up of several objects covered in tape, connected with wires. It was later found to not contain actual explosives.
After he was shot, Aqal was taken from the scene by Paleostinian medics, while still wearing the apparent suicide bomb vest. He was later pronounced dead.
In a statement, police warned that gunnies pretending to be members of the press represented a threat to real journalists, but said that there will be no immediate changes to press access to West Bank protests.
"The Israel Police and Border Police will continue to operate in all areas and at the same time will continue to let the foreign media cover events, despite the threat caused by Paleostinian terrorists," the police said.
The police statement noted that this was not the first time that an assailant has pretended to be a journalist in order to carry out an attack.
In October 2015, a Paleostinian man wearing a yellow vest and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word "PRESS" stabbed an IDF soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron, moderately wounding him.
Friday’s stabbing took place in the midst of a violent protest against US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last Wednesday.
Following noon-time prayers, riots were reported in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilya and Nablus. Demonstrators burned tires and threw rocks at Israeli troops, who fired back at them with tear gas and rubber bullets.
According to the Israeli army, some 2,500 Paleostinians took part in protests in the West Bank over the weekend, while another 3,500 rioted along the security fence surrounding the Gazoo Strip, which is controlled by the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terrorist group.
Update from The Times of Israel at 11:30a.m, ET: The Foreign Press Association rejects the claim in the strongest possible terms short of outright insult. I wonder if the Israelis have photos...
#2
A possible bomb belt? Boy, that could take a long time to make sure it wasn't real, which would virtually guarantee the idiot would bleed out. So sad.
It looks like the intifada has petered out, so they have to get attention in other ways.
In wake of US administration's Jerusalem stance, Abbas aide says, PA adamant in boycotting entire Trump team; PA also says Greenblatt, due this week, hasn't sought Ramallah meet
Why should the American ambassador bother?
The Paleostinians will not meet with any United States officials regarding the grinding of the peace processor in the future, in response to US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a senior diplomatic adviser to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... told The Times of Israel on Sunday.
The open-ended boycott includes Trump’s top peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, who is due here this week, as well as the US leader’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"No one from the American administration will be met to discuss peace between the Paleostinians and the Israelis, because the [PA] president was very clear on that," said Majdi al-Khalidi, referring to Abbas’s speech at the Organization of Islamic Countries on Wednesday in Istanbul.
Khalidi added that Greenblatt, who is expected to arrive in the region amid violent protests over Trump’s announcement, did not request a meeting with the Paleostinians, with whom he has met on numerous occasions in the past, Khalidi said.
The White House said Greenblatt would come to Israel this week and stay throughout the upcoming visit of US Vice President Mike Pence.
Abbas’s foreign affairs adviser Nabil Shaath told The Times of Israel last week that the PA would continue to communicate with the United States on affairs not connected to the grinding of the peace processor.
The US is a central source of aid for the Paleostinian Authority. In 2016, the US provided $712 million to the Paleostinians, and is the world’s largest supplier of such aid.
Just over half of that funding is given to the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Relief and Works Agency for Paleostine Refugees (UNWRA).
In Israel, Greenblatt will meet with European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... representative to the so-called Middle East "Quartet," Fernando Gentilini, the White House official said.
"The president remains as committed to peace as ever," the official added.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Iranian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
broadcast on Sunday what it described as the confessions of an Iranian academic with Swedish residency who it said had provided information to Israel to help it assassinate several senior nuclear scientists.
His wife, speaking by telephone from Stockholm, said he had been forced by his interogators to read the confession.
Iran’s Supreme Court upheld last week a death sentence against Ahmadreza Djalali, a doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute, a Stockholm medical university.
Djalali was locked away You have the right to remain silent... in Iran in April 2016 and later convicted of espionage. He denied the charges.
In the television report, Djalali was linked to the liquidation of four Iranian scientists between 2010 and 2012 that Tehran said was an Israeli attempt to sabotage its nuclear energy program.
Djalali said in the report that he had given the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad information about key nuclear scientists.
"They were showing me pictures of some people or satellite photos of nuclear facilities and were asking me to give them information about that," Djalali said in the television report.
Vida Mehrannia, Djalali’s wife, said her husband had been forced to read a pre-agreed confession in front of the camera.
"After three months in solitary confinement, his interrogators told him that he would be released only if he reads from a text in front of the camera," she told Rooters by telephone from Stockholm.
"My husband told me that they shouted at him each time he was saying something different from the text and stopped the filming," Mehrannia added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] A senior Iranian official has dismissed as "baseless and ridiculous" the recent US claim about Iran providing missiles to Yemen's Houthi ...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 Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. 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 ... Ansarullah movement, saying even international experts have mocked the accusation.
"The Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran has never given missiles to Yemen," Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Fearless Leader of the Islamic Revolution ...Iran's doddering head theocrat... Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ...the successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the actual dictator of Iran... on international affairs, said on Sunday.
He added that the US diplomat lacks the least information required to comment on international issues, adding, "She is similar to her boss (US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ) who makes unfounded remarks based on absurd information."
US Ambassador to the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Nikki Haley ...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... went on live television Thursday to display debris purportedly from a ballistic missile that had been fired from 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. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... at an airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
On November 4, a missile fired from Yemen targeted King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
OK, suppose it's false. Then can we at least agree that anyone who would do such a thing would be a scumbag?
[FOXNEWS] A diplomat working at the British Embassy in Leb was found dead Saturday by the side of a road, reportedly strangled.
Rebecca Dykes’ body was found Saturday on the side of a highway east of Beirut, Leb’s capital, the BBC reported Sunday. Dykes, believed to be 30, was strangled, senior police sources told the news site. Local media Al Jadeed TV said Dykes was raped, though authorities said they are investigating whether she was sexually assaulted.
A forensic official also told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that Dykes was strangled with a rope.
Dykes reportedly met friends and colleagues at a bar in central Beirut the night before she was killed, the Telegraph reported. She left the bar just after midnight.
Dykes had been living in Beirut since January while working as the Department for International Development’s program and police manager, according to the BBC.
Friends said she was flying home for Christmas Saturday.
"We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened. We request that the media respect our privacy," Dykes’ family said in a statement.
A front man for U.K.’s Department for International Development said an investigation into the death is being conducted.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/18/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm sure she was warned, repeatedly, not to use local taxis alone - Arabs have poor impulse control.
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.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his country’s support for Palestine in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s recognition of al-Quds as Zionist entity’s capital, stating that Ankara plans to open an embassy in East Jerusalem al-Quds.
[NDTV] Musharraf further said that so far the two groups have not approached him, but "if they wish to enter into an alliance with my party, I have no objection." Pervez Musharraf had last month announced the formation of a grand political alliance in Pakistan after a consultative meeting between representatives of around two dozen political parties.
[NYPost] The United States has vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have required President Trump to rescind his declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
[IsraelTimes] Images from before the attack show assailant, who was wearing a fake suicide bomb belt, standing amid group of 
...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
[FOXNEWS] A diplomat working at the British Embassy in 
