President Thabo Mbeki called South Africa's wave of deadly attacks on immigrants a "disgrace" on Sunday and said his government would act firmly to curb the bloodshed amid growing criticism from African nations.
Wow. And it only took two weeks.
At least 50 people have died and more than 25,000 have fled to refugee centers from the attacks, which have heightened fears for the stability of Africa's largest economy. In recent months the country has seen a wave of electricity outages, a surge in inflation and discontent over pro-business policies, to a background of uncertainty over political transition as Mbeki nears the end of his final term in 2009.
Mobs, armed with knives, stones and in some cases guns, began attacking African migrants in a Johannesburg shanty town on May 11. The xenophobic violence has spread to other areas. "We must acknowledge the events of the past two weeks as an absolute disgrace," Mbeki said in a televised address, his first of the crisis. "Everything possible will be done to bring the perpetrators to justice."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"Everything possible will be done to bring the perpetrators to justice."
He should be arresting the die-hard Marxists in the ANC then.
Since that won't happen, we'll see the usual suspects.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel the U.S. ambassador, James McGee, whom he accuses of interfering in the country's affairs. Speaking at a campaign rally in the capital, Harare Sunday, Mr. Mugabe said if McGee continues to meddle, he will kick the ambassador out of the country. McGee has accused the president's ZANU-PF party of using systematic violence to intimidate opponents ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off.
He'll kick out the Brit ambassador as well. He'll then kick out anyone else who dares to call him on the upcoming vote theft.
In an interview with the Associated Press this week, McGee also urged presidential challenger Morgan Tsvangirai to return to Zimbabwe. Mr. Tsvangirai came home Saturday after more than seven weeks abroad. Today's speech by Mr. Mugabe marked the official start of his run-off campaign.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Replace McGee with Carter, a clear two-fer.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/26/2008 20:04 Comments ||
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#2
I'll bet this is the best news McGee has had since he got that plum of a job.
A former Congolese rebel leader has been arrested for war crimes he allegedly committed in the Central African Republic. Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested Saturday in Belgium. A warrant for his arrest had been issued by the International Criminal Court, a court that deals with crimes against humanity and war crimes. According to a statement released by the court, Bemba was allegedly responsible for four counts of war crimes and two counts of crimes against humanity.
Bemba led the Movement for the Liberation of Congo, a Congolese rebel group that later became a political party. At one time he was vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ICC said Bemba's charges stem from rapes and murders allegedly carried out by his forces in the Central African Republic. Bemba's group had been invited into the country by former President Ange-Felix Patasse to help him put down a coup attempt.
Bemba lost a DRC presidential election in 2006 to President Joseph Kabila. He left the DRC for Portugal in April of 2007 after clashes between his supporters and government forces that killed more than 200 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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Police yesterday arrested retired army chief Gen Mustafizur Rahman, an accused in the MiG-29 purchase scam case, at a city hospital where he has been undergoing treatment. He, however, is still being treated at the Apollo Hospitals at Bashundhara in the city under police custody. "We have executed an arrest warrant issued against him by a court recently," Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner Naim Ahmed told The Daily Star.
Shahnaz, daughter of Mustafizur, told The Daily Star last night that a team of police has been deployed outside her father's hospital room since yesterday noon. He was admitted to the hospital on May 20 with chest pains.
A special court set up on the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban premises issued the warrant on May 20 as Mustafizur Rahman failed to appear before the court on different dates. Detained former premier Sheikh Hasina and six others including the former army chief are accused in the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Wonder how many MiG 29s the Bangladesh Air Force still operates...
Posted by: john frum ||
05/26/2008 6:36 Comments ||
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#2
Define operates.
Can taxi?
Posted by: George Smiley ||
05/26/2008 11:34 Comments ||
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The two former premiers of the country, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, will appear before separate courts on the Sangshad Bhaban premises this morning.
Though the two former premiers are accused in the same graft case and will appear before the courts at the same time today, they will not meet each other as their trial proceedings will be held in the different courtrooms.
BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia appears before the court today for the first time since her arrest on September 3 last year. She faces trial proceedings against her in the Niko graft case.
Judge Khondker Kamal Uz-Zaman will conduct the Special Judge-Court-9 on the parliament complex before which Khaleda will be produced.
On the other hand, judge Amar Kumar Roy will conduct the trial proceedings against Awami League President Sheikh Hasina at the Special Judge Court-2 on the same premises to face the same case.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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A Khulna court yesterday sentenced Khulna City Corporation (KCC) Mayor Sheikh Tayebur Rahman and KCC Public Relations Officer (PRO) Sarder Abu Taher to seven years' rigorous imprisonment in an extortion case. They were also fined Tk 1 lakh each, in default of which they have to suffer six more months in prison. Khulna special tribunal judge Shirin Kabita Akhter pronounced the verdict in presence of the detained KCC mayor. The other convict Sarder Abu Taher has been absconding since filing of the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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Prison officers at one of Britains maximum-security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a report published in The Observer on Sunday.
The newspaper, citing a confidential report, wrote that an internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a serious incident is imminent as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners.
The report, written by the Prison Services Directorate of High Security, says there is an ongoing theme of fear and instability among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim.
The confidential report says, There was much talk around the establishment about the Muslims. Some staff perceived the situation at Whitemoor had resulted in Muslim prisoners becoming more of a gang than a religious group. The sheer numbers, coupled with a lack of awareness among staff, appeared to be engendering fear and handing control to the prisoners. The situation has become so acute that white prisoners are routinely warned about the Muslim gangs by staff on arrival, the Observer said.
Extremism: The report says that apprehension about Muslim prisoners has potentially damaging consequences and is in danger of leading to hostility and Islamophobia. It serves to highlight the growing concern about extremist activity in the UKs jails. The Home Office is concerned that young male prisoners are being radicalised by Muslim gangs and that the prison system is becoming a recruiting ground for Al Qaeda sympathisers.
The report says that similar problems have been experienced at Belmarsh prison in London and Frankland in Durham. A number of high-profile Al Qaeda sympathisers at Frankland have been moved as a result of increased tensions within the jail.
Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said she was alarmed at the reports findings.
The report was commissioned partly as a response to the deaths of five prisoners at the jail within 12 months. Muslim prisoner support groups have also complained that Muslims are suffering harassment from staff. Recently a number of Whitemoor staff have been suspended on unrelated corruption charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
It's a felony punishable by 5 to 7 years in a maximum-security prison [first offence] with an optional 5,000₤ fine to have Race Based Fears while in a British Government Building.
#2
The report says that apprehension about Muslim prisoners has potentially damaging consequences and is in danger of leading to hostility and Islamophobia.
Because, that's where the REAL danger lies, you know. I like the way they capitalize Islamophobia, too.
#5
Just how, and when, did the English turn into such spineless limp-wristed wimps?
A product of transnational socialism. It's a feature, not a bug of their agenda. What they fail to grasp, until their last painful remaining moments of life upon this planet, is that if they created something no one is willing to die to defend, then there is no real protection for their person, family, or property, let alone the power that intoxicates them. All they have left is submission till who ever wields the blade is tired of their presence among us.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims.
However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the former Bishop of Hulme and the newly appointed Bishop of Urban Life and Faith, said: "Both the Bishop of Rochester's reported comments and the synod private members' motion show no sensitivity to the need for good inter-faith relations.
"Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony. This demand for the evangelisation of people of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities."
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony. This demand for the evangelisation of people of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities."
A Church of England spokesman added: "We have a mission-focused Christian presence in every community, including those where there are a large number of Muslims. That engagement is based on the provisions of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion." Brave, brave unnamed CoE spokesman /s And that work of Man, the European Convention on Human Rights, takes precedence over Christ's commission to his Apostles, that they should go into all the world and preach to the whole creation (Mark 14)? Alas, it is forgotten amongst the clamor and alarums raised by gays, intransigent women priests, and apostates.
The spokesman played down the likelihood of the synod agenda being hijacked by those whose priority was a perceived ! threat from Islam: "The agenda has not yet been confirmed."
"Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge."
Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali told the Mail on Sunday that, while Church leaders had rightly shown sensitivity to British Muslims, "I think it may have gone too far." He added: "Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge."
Britain's only Asian bishop, he was tipped to become Archbishop of Canterbury before Dr Rowan Williams's appointment in 2002. Since he was passed over, he has felt able to speak more freely about his inter-faith views and has become a talisman for hard-line evangelicals who see Islam as a threat to culture and religion. In January, he drew criticism for declaring that some parts of Britain were "no-go areas" for non-Muslims.
#1
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony
The only way that other religions can live in harmony with Islam is to convert, submit or die. Muslims never respect any one else's religion. On the other hand, they are always ready to complain about an offense against Islam, or the prophet, or anything else they decide to be offended about.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
05/26/2008 4:51 Comments ||
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Opponents of President Hugo Chavez are marching to demand the return of an opposition-sided television station that was booted off public airwaves this week last year.
Many are still upset by Chavez's decision not to renew the broadcast license of Radio Caracas Television, or RCTV, which had been critical of his government. Chavez replaced the network with a state-run channel that regularly transmits pro-government propaganda. RCTV now only airs on cable.
Several thousand people marched through Venezuela's capital Sunday, shouting anti-Chavez slogans and demanding that RCTV's broadcast license be returned. Chavez had repeatedly accused RCTV of violating broadcasting laws and inciting a failed coup in 2002. RCTV executives have denied any wrongdoing
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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DUTCH scientists say they have mapped the full genetic sequence of a woman for the first time.
"It's the first woman in the world and the first European whose DNA sequence will be made public," the researchers at Leiden University Medical Centre in the western Netherlands said.
"The DNA sequence and its analyses will be published soon, except for some private details," it said.
"The sequencing of a woman allows a better understanding of the X-chromosome," the gene thread associated with female characteristics, said Gert-Jan van Ommen, head of the team that carried out the study.
Four other genomes had been mapped previously, all of them men.
The genome refers to all of the genes that characterise the human species, determining individual traits including a person's proneness to certain diseases.
#2
DUTCH scientists say they have mapped the full genetic sequence of a woman for the first time.
Bah! Any man who's been around women for any length of time knows that everything changes at whim: attitude, emotions, your standing as a man (lol), and likely including DNA. They are real shape-shifters. The only men who wouldn't know this are scientists, who prolly have rarely dated, much less married, a woman.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/26/2008 19:51 Comments ||
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#8
Any man who tells you he understands women is a liar. Period. At least half the time they don't even understand themselves, primarily because they have a really problematic habit of overthinking things men would consider as simple.
he's collecting all the good support: Hamas weighed in last week. No word from Kimmie yet
Obama "without doubt is, from the social and human point, the most advanced candidate" running for the U.S. presidency, Castro said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/26/2008 13:30 ||
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of fanning a controversy over her describing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy late in the 1968 Democratic primary as one reason she is continuing to run for the presidency. "The Obama campaign ... tried to take these words out of context," Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on "Fox News Sunday." "She was making a point merely about the time line."
The issue is particularly sensitive given longstanding concerns about Obama's safety as a presidential candidate. (He first received Secret Service protection last May.) The Obama campaign called Clinton's words unfortunate and circulated a TV commentary criticizing them, although Obama himself said Saturday that he took Clinton at her word that she meant no harm.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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Billary is trying to provoke and overreaction from Obewan. Could work.
Why are half-whites designated "black?" Orientals universally refer to Caucasian-Orientals as: Euro-Asians.
Former US President Jimmy Carter said Sunday that Hillary Clinton should abandon her battle for Democratic presidential nomination by early June.
Carter told Sky News television that most Democratic party leaders known as superdelegates will have announced whether they support Clinton or her Democratic opponent Barack Obama soon after the last round of primaries finishes early next month.
Like about 200 or so other superdelegates, Carter is officially uncommitted. But he suggested the outcome of the race was a foregone conclusion.
"I'm a superdelegate, having been president before, and I think that a lot of us superdelegates will make a decision ... quite rapidly, after the final primary on June 3," Carter told Sky News. "I think at that point it will be time for her to give it up."
Clinton and Obama need 2,026 delegates to secure their party's presidential nomination.
Obama has a total of 1,974 delegates, giving him an almost insurmountable lead over Clinton, who has 1,779. But Clinton has so far refused to bow out of the race.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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Obama could prove himself to be a great and wise leader if he would select jimmuh to be the next ambassador to Zimbobwe.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/26/2008 1:52 Comments ||
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#2
"I'm a superdelegate, having been president before,
Jimmeh, STFU. The fact that you are a superdelegate proves how useless the concept of a superdelegate is.
The fact that you were once president is an unfortunate fact that cannot be erased from our history. But it should be.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
05/26/2008 4:44 Comments ||
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#3
Jimmy needs BO to get elected so there somebody in the WH even more inept than he was
A presidential spokesman on Sunday rejected as fabricated and baseless the reports appearing in a section of the press that there was any move afoot to replace the chief of army staff (COAS). The spokesman said that such reports were designed to weaken relations between the Presidency and armed forces. The selection of a COAS is made on merit, the spokesman said, adding that President Pervez Musharraf firmly believed that the three-year tenure of the COAS office should never be violated.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
For a wild second there after I saw the headline I thought this was Obama kicking off his demilitarization of America campaign.
The officials who bowed to President Pervez Musharrafs declaration of emergency rule and ouster of judges last year will be punished, sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Sunday.
He was addressing a convention in Faisalabad, where thousands of lawyers and other activists gathered to whip up support for a new round of protests aimed at pressuring the coalition government into restoring the sacked judiciary.
Chaudhry told lawyers in Faisalabad that the Supreme Court had passed an order aimed at countering the presidents actions on November 3, the same day the emergency was declared. Chaudhry promised that anyone who violated the order will be punished no matter how big he is and whatever position he is attaining.
The state-run APP news agency quoted him as saying that the judges who had taken oath under Musharrafs Provisional Constitution Order had violated the Constitution and would be held accountable. He did not specify what he meant by punishment.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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The chief justice of Pakistan (CJP)s tenure is being fixed at five years under the constitutional reforms package, PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari told PML-N leader Ishaq Dar in a meeting on Sunday. Dar, who resigned as finance minister from the current cabinet, told reporters that it was a routine meeting at Zardari House. He said that Zardari rejected the impression that the PPP was reducing the chief justices tenure to three years. Dar denied that Zardari had given him a copy of the draft of the constitutional package, and said his party would express its reaction after getting a copy of the 62-point draft.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 00:00 ||
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The massacre of Jewish people during the Holocaust was "scientifically impossible," according to an article published by an Iranian satellite channel on its Web site. The article was written by Nicholas Kollerstrom, an academic specializing in astrology and crop circles, who had his fellowship terminated by University College London last month after he said there were never any gas chambers at Auschwitz.
"The views expressed by Dr. Kollerstrom are diametrically opposed to the aims, objectives and ethos of UCL, such that we wish to have absolutely no association with them or with their originator," the University College said in a statement. "We therefore have no choice but to terminate Dr. Kollerstrom's honorary research fellowship with immediate effect."
Press TV, an Iranian English-language 24-hour news channel, was set up last year, by the Iranian government, to offer "unbiased" reporting and "in-depth and complete analyses of current affairs," according to its Web site. It posted Kollerstrom's article on Sunday, and despite protest from a Jewish community organization, the article is still on the site.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/26/2008 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.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has threatened to expel the U.S. ambassador, James McGee, whom he accuses of interfering in the country's affairs. Speaking at a campaign rally in the capital, Harare Sunday, Mr. Mugabe said if McGee continues to meddle, he will kick the ambassador out of the country. McGee has accused the president's ZANU-PF party of using systematic violence to intimidate opponents ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off.
A former Congolese rebel leader has been arrested for war crimes he allegedly committed in the Central African Republic. Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested Saturday in Belgium. A warrant for his arrest had been issued by the International Criminal Court, a court that deals with crimes against humanity and war crimes. According to a statement released by the court, Bemba was allegedly responsible for four counts of war crimes and two counts of crimes against humanity.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims.
Opponents of President Hugo Chavez are marching to demand the return of an opposition-sided television station that was booted off public airwaves this week last year. 
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign accused Sen. Barack Obama's campaign of fanning a controversy over her describing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy late in the 1968 Democratic primary as one reason she is continuing to run for the presidency. "The Obama campaign ... tried to take these words out of context," Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on "Fox News Sunday." "She was making a point merely about the time line."
The officials who bowed to President Pervez Musharrafs declaration of emergency rule and ouster of judges last year will be punished, sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Sunday.
