[Al Arabiya Latest] A 16-year-old south Sudanese girl was lashed 50 times after a judge ruled her knee-length skirt was indecent, her lawyer and family said in the latest case to push Sudan's Islamic law into the spotlight.
The mother of teenager Silva Kashif said on Friday she was planning to sue the police who made the arrest and the judge who imposed the sentence, as her daughter was underage and a Christian.
The case will add fuel to a debate already raging over Sudan's decency laws after this year's high-profile conviction of Sudanese U.N. official Lubna Hussein, who was briefly jailed for wearing trousers in public.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
#1
Where's the UN Human Rights Commission when you really need them? Oh, I forgot...they are trying to figure out how next to chastise Israel.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Sudan may be unable to hold credible elections in coming months because the ruling party and opposition cannot agree on ground rules for the polls, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.
At the end of a trip to Sudan by President Barack Obama's special envoy Scott Gration, the State Department said it saw little movement on issues such as voter registration and border delineation between Khartoum and the semi-autonomous South -- endangering plans for national elections in April 2010 and a referendum on southern succession in 2011.
"Without immediate resolution of these disputes, we are concerned about the chances for conducting credible elections and referenda," it said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the parties have not yet demonstrated the political will necessary to achieve resolution on these difficult and sensitive issues."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
[Maghrebia]
Mauritania's measures to bring peace to its restive Adrar region, where terrorists beheaded 11 soldiers last year, are earning positive reviews in the local press and appreciation from the general public.
The army "has recently started to deploy troops to the strongholds of Salafist groups deep inside the desert in order to crack down on them", journalist Lemrabet Ould Mohammed said on November 22nd, adding that the operation seemed to have helped subdue the terrorists.
Mauritanian security forces on November 13th took reporters on their first-ever counter-terrorism operations tour of Adrar, which centred on the Majabat al-Koubra ("Great Crossings") region. Journalists and analysts came away from the tour saying the army appeared to be in control of the region for the first time in four years.
Experts say Adrar, an area known for tourist attractions, has been a key infiltration point for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorists from Mali. It is also a hotspot for trafficking of people and drugs. Army efforts to deal with such problems have included recruiting Adrar's young people for special anti-terrorism units that scour the region for illegal activity.
"Since the deployment of the anti-terrorism units to the area, AQIM-linked gunmen have stopped their attempts to ... cross onto Mauritanian soil," Major Sayyid Ahmed Ould Amhimed told the touring journalists in Atar.
Mohammed Ould Alb, a relative of a soldier killed by terrorists in in Lemgiti in 2005, said President Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz is living up to his campaign promises "to be candid with the people [about] developments in hot issues" including terrorism and corruption. Alb called the army's tour for journalists in the northern and largely lawless desert areas an effective manifestation of these promises.
Security expert Baba Ould Mohamed also voiced approval for the counter-terrorism efforts.
"Remember how...General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz blasted the security policy [of his predecessors]?" asked the analyst. "The first steps taken by his government were to equip a number of army units who were given the task of securing the borders."
Journalist Mohammed Al Moukhtar Ould Mohammed praised efforts to keep reporters and the public apprised of developments in Adrar.
"As journalists, we needed to know the details of what's going on in the Mauritanian desert," he said, adding that previously, the army alone gave accounts of events in the region.
"It seems that the national army has understood the importance of involving the press in the battle they are waging in the heart of the desert, something that will add a new dimension to the so-called 'War on Terror'," Mohammed added.
In connection with the counter-terrorism efforts in the Adrar region, Mauritania is also deeply troubled by the loss of the Paris-Dakar Rally, which was relocated in 2008 after four French tourists were slain in the desert. Eight of the rally's 15 stages previously took place in Mauritania, and the event brought enormous economic rewards.
In response to the tourist deaths, organisers cancelled the 2008 rally a day before it was scheduled to begin. South America hosted the 2009 rally and is expected to be the site of the 2010 race.
"Mauritania must encourage the return of the Paris-Dakar Rally, whose economic benefits for the country are enormous, and wipe away the bad publicity resulting from its listing as a non-recommended destination by France in 2008," said political analyst Harouna Ould Youssouf
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
[Iran Press TV Latest] The United Arab Emirates (UAE) says it will not extradite a former Syrian spy accused of misleading a UN probe into the murder of late Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri.
"There is no case for extraditing Mohammed Zuheir al-Siddiq as he is not wanted by the court in Syria," Gulf News quoted an official source as saying.
Siddiq was initially considered as a leading witness in the UN inquiry into the 2005 assassination of the Lebanese leader, but was later discredited and charged with perjury.
In October, a state security court in Abu Dhabi sentenced him to six months in prison and called for deportation upon release for entering the country on a forged Czech passport.
At the time his defense attorney, Fahd al-Sabhan, said that Siddiq would be credited with time served but was not sure whether or not he would be deported.
However, the official source on Friday said Siddiq remains in prison pending the decision on his possible deportation, AFP reported.
Siddiq, a one-time member of Syria's intelligence services, had accused Lebanon's former president Emile Lahoud and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of ordering Hariri's assassination -- a claim he later withdrew.
Lebanese and Syrian judicial authorities accused the former agent of obstructing the truth.
Subsequently, the prosecutor at the UN Hariri tribunal disqualified Siddiq in May, saying he was no longer a credible witness and was of no interest to the inquiry.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
ION BHARAT RAKSHAK > DUBAI DEFAULT COULD HIT AIRBUS, BOEING; + BoA-MERRILL LYCH SAYS:UAE DEBT COULD REACH US$184.BILYUHN???
A recent operation offers a peek inside the 'underground railroad,' a network of safe houses and secret border crossings that assists in the escape of North Korean refugees.
Long piece at the LA Times. Interesting look into the underground railroad in North Korea.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under:
Another defector report from North Korea. We all understand that a Nork invasion of the South would get as far as the first big box grocery store. But the Nork army is likely still very capable of suppressing the citizens and preventing a coup.
Newsnight has spoken to two North Korean defectors about life inside the secretive Stalinist state, one of whom says that he was an anti-tank battalion commander in North Korea's army before fleeing.
Unsurprisingly, voices from inside the country are rare - dissenting voices rarer still - but the BBC's Newsnight programme has spoken to two defectors who paint a grim picture of life inside North Korea. One of them is Joo-il Kim, who says he was an anti-tank battalion commander in North Korea's army for seven years until he fled the country in 2005.
The North has a vast conventional military, which correspondents say is the glue that holds the country together, but it is undermined by ageing conventional weaponry. According to Mr Kim, Pyongyang's lack of access to enough new conventional weaponry is what drives its controversial nuclear programme.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
800 ballistic missiles, including long-range missiles.
Sans WMD nothing but 800 one-way light attack sorties.
As far as vast man-power.. maybe. Ifn I was the Sorks I'd be looking for the wall being breached by semi-armed, hungry relatives from the north, looking for the big-box stores.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/28/2009 7:12 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Sans WMD nothing but 800 one-way light attack sorties.
Aimed at Seoul, even with a 5% success rate, that's 40 opportunities to panic a city.
#3
True, but I expect artillery could do that job as easily and far more cheaply.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/28/2009 15:29 Comments ||
Top||
#4
But then again, who knows how many tubes North Korea has with the range to hit Seoul? Agit-Prop was big on hundreds if not thousands, opening up from their mountain fastness in a new version of the 1st morning of the Somme offensive.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/28/2009 15:33 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Conscripts have to serve 10 years? That would cause crippling resentment. Many would likely drop weapons in a march to the south.
Posted by: Slath Prince of the Poles1925 ||
11/28/2009 15:47 Comments ||
Top||
#6
True, but I expect artillery could do that job as easily and far more cheaply.
It's likely that they'd still be used. Not much beats missiles for psychological effect, tho.
[Ma'an] The US State Department has authorized a reward of up to five million US dollars for information leading to the arrest of a Palestinian accused of attacks on Americans.
According to a statement from the US ministry, Husayn Muhammed Al-Umari, also known as Abu Ibrahim, is wanted for his alleged involvement in the 1982 bombing of Pan-Am Flight 830, which resulted in the death of a teenage passenger.
US authorities allege Al-Umari is a bomb-making expert and former leader of the 15 May organization. He is alleged to have designed and built the explosive device which detonated while the plane was en route from Narita, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii on 11 August 1982.
Al-Umari, an elderly man born in Jaffa, Palestine in 1936, was among three indicted over the bombing. He has been indicted by the Government of France for his alleged role in the 1985 bombing of the Marks and Spencer Department store in Paris and the Leumi Bank.
"He reportedly travels at all times with a firearm and should be considered armed and dangerous," the State Department said.
The FBI has also placed Al-Umari on its "Most Wanted Terrorists" list, the statement added. Efforts were stepped up recently as the FBI's original 200,000-dollar reward was not enough to get someone to turn on him, according to The Associated Press.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
US State Department has authorized a reward of up to five million US dollars for information leading to the arrest of a Palestinian accused of attacks on Americans
#5
ATSC promotional material claims that its Advanced Detecting Equipment can find anything from explosives to human remains, including narcotics, ivory and truffles, at distances of up to 1km.
Now if they could tie it into measuring carbon emissions and global warming patterns....
The Zionist Freedom Alliance of California has been circulating a video on the internet this past week exposing former Member of Knesset Azmi Bishara denying the existence of a Palestinian nation. The video was recorded years prior to Bishara entering Israel's parliament in 1996 as head of the Arab Balad party. Video at the link
#1
It was only recently that local arab speaking regimes operated in the area that was once Roman Palestine. There were no speakers of Arabic - arab culture centered in Yemen until the Meccan bandits arose - West of what is the Jordan River. Although Romans did occupy some parts of Negd and Hijaz, in what is now Saudi Arabia. If anything, local Jews and Christians are the true Palestinians.
Posted by: Slath Prince of the Poles1925 ||
11/28/2009 15:53 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The warring gangs of South Los Angeles are as much a nation as the Palestinians.
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
-Frank Zappa
#8
Not all nations are build along ethnic lines. Israel, like Canada and the United States is comprised of immigrants. Saying that they are Russians, Americans, Morrocans is silly.
There were no Palestinian Arabs until the concept became useful in destroying Israel.
The UN gave the unoccupied land to the Jewish people so that they could have a homeland where they could be safe. These Jewish people named it Israel. People moved to and live in Israel, and therefore call themselves Israelis.
They didn't make $hit up so they could carve a country out of the middle of a law abiding one.
Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog has warned that an IAEA resolution passed against the country's nuclear work will only introduce tension to the "spirit of cooperation."
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday passed a new resolution against Iran over the construction of its Fordo enrichment plant, located outside Tehran.
The resolution, which was drafted by the P5+1 and passed in a 25-3 vote with six abstentions, calls on Iran to immediately halt construction of its second enrichment facility.
Opposed by Malaysia, Venezuela and Cuba, the resolution also urges Iran to clarify what it calls the purpose and the chronology of the plant's construction. It also wants Iran to confirm it has no more hidden nuclear plants and no intentions whatsoever to build one.
Iran's IAEA ambassador Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh rejected the resolution as a "hasty and undue" move, which he said would "jeopardize the spirit of cooperation" needed for talks.
"We expect the agency to play its essential role and facilitate technical cooperation ... this environment of the agency should be depoliticized for we have to make sure that the agency will only focus on technical matters."
Soltaniyeh reiterated that the resolution will not stop Iran from going on with its enrichment activities but asserted that Iran was "determined" to continue cooperation with the IAEA. He also called on the West to lean towards cooperation rather than confrontation.
"In fact, over 200 hospitals whose patients are struggling with cancer are in need of radioisotopes. If they continue not to cooperate and supply the fuel, then the [Tehran] government has to look for other options," he said in a exclusive interview with Press TV.
Soltaniyeh added that as a response to the resolution, Iran would scale back its cooperation with the agency to "the legal boundaries" of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comprehensive safeguards and will stop taking "voluntary steps."
The latest IAEA report confirmed the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran's first nuclear plant in Natanz. It also said that Iran had allowed the agency to carry out a full inspection of its under-construction uranium enrichment facility.
IAEA inspectors have twice inspected the Fordo enrichment facility, with IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei confirming that the inspectors found "nothing to worry about."
The resolution also reflected dismay over Iran' unwillingness to accept an IAEA-backed draft deal, which envisages Iran shipping out most of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) for further refinement and then returned to the country for use in Tehran's medical research reactor.
The Tehran Research Reactor produces radioisotopes used in cancer treatment by over 200 hospitals in Iran.
Although the US and its allies have been pressuring Iran into accepting the draft deal, Tehran maintains that it will not ship out bulk of its LEU months before receiving the 20 percent-enriched uranium it needs.
Iran wants a simultaneous swap carried out inside the country, saying the West cannot be trusted. Tehran says "concrete" guarantees for returning the enriched fuel is one of its major concerns.
Tehran has complained over a pattern by nuclear powers of not delivering on their commitments and obligations in dealing with Iran, especially in the field of nuclear energy.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Russia has ensured that it will honor a deal providing Iran with the S-300 sophisticated anti-aircraft system, Tehran's envoy to Moscow says.
Mohammad-Reza Sajjadi on Friday rejected reports that Russia had pulled out of the deal due to a delay in the delivery of the system to Iran.
"We had heard reports that Russia would not deliver these systems to Iran, but we asked the Russian side and they denied it," he told reporters in Moscow.
"The delivery deadline has already passed, but the Russian side has cited technical problems which it said it was working on to fix," Sajjadi added. "We feel that this question will be resolved within one to two months."
He said neither Iran nor Russia planed to "go back" on the contract, which he said was "profitable" for both sides.
Russia's procrastination over the delivery of the advanced system to Iran has drawn harsh criticism from officials in Tehran.
Earlier this month, Chief of Staff of Iran's Joint Armed Forces Hassan Firouzabadi questioned Moscow's motivation for the delay. He said under a contract signed between the two countries, the Russian government was expected to supply Iran with the system aimed at boosting the country's defensive capabilities.
"The delivery is more than six months overdue," the top official said, urging Russia to expedite the process of delivery.
Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi also said that Russia had a "contractual obligation" to provide Iran with the system.
"We have made a deal with the Kremlin to buy S-300 defense missiles," he said, referring to a contract signed between Tehran and Moscow in 2007.
"We don't think Russian officials would want to be seen in the world as contract violators," he added.
Iran has been trying to obtain the sophisticated defense system to improve its deterrence power in reaction to Israeli war rhetoric.
According to Western experts, the S-300 missile defense system would shield Iranian nuclear sites against any Israeli airstrike.
The S-300 system, which can track targets and fire at aircraft 120 km (75 miles) away, features high jamming immunity and is able to simultaneously engage up to 100 targets.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/28/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Mivtza Opera-II redux coming soon. 2 months to MUCH higher gasoline prices and world condemnation of Israel.
#2
The new Russian regime is much more attuned to market forces and PR. The S-300 is much too important to risk a bad review. It'll ship after the raid.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
11/28/2009 7:06 Comments ||
Top||
#3
And what about Ms. Clinton's "reset button"?...maybe it's now Israel's launch button if this missile sale nears fruition.
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.
