[Tolo News] Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar said in an Eid message that the coming Bonn Conference is symbolic and the Taliban will not participate in it.
Afghanistan will not be represented by genuine representatives of Afghans in Bonn Conference, Mullah Mohammad Omar said in an Eid message to Afghans.
But President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's Office said that the Bonn Conference is very important to overcome the challenges in Afghanistan.
Topics that will be discussed at Bonn conference have already been decided upon in Washington and in the Pentagon, Mullah Omar has said.
In his Eid message, Mullah Omar has expressed his opposition to the establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan, saying neighbouring countries also oppose the idea.
Karzai's Deputy Spokesperson said that the Afghan government would represent Afghans at Bonn Conference, it will discuss challenges in the past ten years and present programmes for reconstruction, peace and stability to the International Community.
"Bonn Conference could surely be effective to Afghans," Karzai's Deputy Spokesman Seyamak Herawi said.
"It is up to the people of Afghanistan to decide upon establishment of US military bases in Afghanistan," Seyamak Herawi added.
The Taliban leadership says that it is because of the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan that the country is hit by a flood of challenges.
The comments came as a bigwig in Afghan ministry of foreign affairs on Sunday said that if the Taliban is willing to participate in Bonn Conference, it should join the grinding of the peace processor.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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h/t Gates of Vienna
His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him.
Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya.
The Lockerbie bomber's family have made an astonishing appeal to Britain for medical help to prolong his life.
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi is said to be slipping in and out of a coma two years after he was released from a Scottish prison, supposedly with three months to live. Relatives claim his prostate cancer drugs were stolen by rebels after they seized control of the Libyan capital Tripoli, where the family live in a large villa.
Bummer. What a downer, man.
Megrahi, 59, is believed to have been taking a drug which costs £3,000 a month and is not licensed in Europe. With the fall of the Gaddafi regime, which funded him, his supply from the US has been interrupted so his family are asking Scotland to supply the same chemotherapy medicine he received before his release.
Come back to us and we'll discuss it.
The request will anger relatives of the 270 killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, some of whom have called for Megrahi to be extradited back to Britain to serve the rest of his sentence.
But his brother Abdul told the Daily Mail yesterday: 'He went to court, he's been tried by law. Shame on those who ask for him to go to court again. We never thought they could be so cruel. They should respect him as a human. He's a man in a coma.'
But if he is comatose he isn't suffering, right?
Abdul added: 'We asked for medicine from Scotland on Sunday, but we have not had any reply. Most of the medicines he needs are expensive and we can't find them in Tripoli. The revolutionaries stole most of it on the first day they came into Tripoli.'
Put him on the NHS waiting list like everyone else. He should get an answer in five years or so.
#1
I'd recommend the following, washed down with a chilled pint of Prestone. Best of luck with your ailment Abdel.
Haggis Ingredients:
1 sheep's stomach bag
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
250g beef Suet
150g oatmeal
salt and black pepper
a pinch of cayenne
150mls of stock/gravy
1 sheep's stomach bag
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
250g beef Suet
150g oatmeal
salt and black pepper
a pinch of cayenne
150mls of stock/gravy
You forgot the bacon drippins' (for added flavor of course)
#5
It was traditional for rugby players to have a meal together after the match where you made friend with the guy you had traded blos with (and would next time). So after a Scotland-France a French payer told the following about haggis "At the first mouthful I thought it was shit. At the second mouth I would have preferred it were"
So I second the motion except that instead of using sheep parts I suggest using pig parts.
#12
That German word meaning the pain of hitting your head on the coffee table while rolling on the floor laughing at the misfortunes of one's enemies.
I would say this calls for the digital sympathy meter. We are talking femto-scale events here.
#15
Mother of fever died in sanctioned Rhodesia from cancer without too much complaint. in '79 with no medicine. Tie this guys feet to some rope and drag him along some tarmac.
TRIPOLI - Libyas de facto government considers Algerias sheltering of members of Muammar Gaddafis family an act of aggression and will seek their extradition, a National Transitional Council spokesman said on Monday.
We have promised to provide a just trial to all those criminals and therefore we consider this an act of aggression, spokesman Mahmoud Shamman told Reuters. We are warning anybody not to shelter Gaddafi and his sons. We are going after them in any place to find them and arrest them."
Algerias Foreign Ministry said Gaddafis wife Safia, his daughter Aisha and his sons Hannibal and Mohammed had entered Algeria on Monday morning. Their arrival was reported to the United Nations and the Libyan rebel authorities, the state Algeria Press Service (APS) reported, citing the ministry.
We consider what Algeria did as an act of aggression against the ambitions of the Libyan people, Shamman said. We will take the necessary measures in light of this. We will ask for their extradition.
Algeria is the only one of Libyas north African neighbours which has yet to recognise the National Transitional Council, now Libyas de facto government, after Gaddafis compound in Tripoli was overrun by rebels last week and he went into hiding.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
We are warning anybody not to shelter Gaddafi and his sons. We are going after them in any place to find them and arrest them.
They haven't even set up camp and they're already threatening the neighbors. Damn...if that doesn't prove they deserve to sit with the Arab League - nothing will.
TRIPOLI: Police in Tripoli are overcoming fears they would not be welcomed by Libya's new masters and are slowly returning to work, taking pains to distance themselves from ousted leader Muammar Qaddafi and win the public's trust.
The district's policemen on Monday spent their first day in uniform since Qaddafi's overthrow. Senior officers had for days urged colleagues to return to work, through announcements at mosques and word of mouth.
"It's great, this is what we expected. It's better for them to return. Whoever was not involved in killings is welcome"
Abdul Razik Talib
"Today's the first day we're back in uniform because we were afraid of what the reaction would be," said Osama Al-Zawya, a 40-year-old police colonel at the Libyan capital's Sooq Al-Jumaa district police station.
"The reaction has been good. In the beginning there was some aggression because for six months people felt fear and intimidation from the security services," he added.
The National Transitional Council, Libya's new governing body, is hoping to avoid the same kind of lawlessness seen after the fall of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and want to co-opt Qaddafi-era policemen, not dismiss them.
But the police will have to tread carefully as they try to ease control of the city from thousands of zealous, gun-toting youths who now man checkpoints across Tripoli, and who are quick to turn on those they suspect as Qaddafi sympathisers.
The former Libyan leader had a formidable security apparatus that was notorious for its brutality. Zawya and other policemen insist they did not oppress the Libyan people, and were sidelined by Qaddafi's administration, which preferred to confer real power on feared military and security brigades.
Outside, policeman Abdul Hakim Al-Sayyah, dressed in a crisp blue shirt and pressed trousers, worked with some young anti-Qaddafi fighters to man a checkpoint, part of a plan for police to mix both forces until police take over completely.
"They have accepted us 100 percent. It was a warm welcome, they're brothers," Sayyah said.
Anti-Qaddafi fighters currently manning Tripoli's checkpoints -- most little more than furniture arranged in the street to slow traffic -- said they had no qualms about eventually handing in their weapons and giving police security responsibility.
"It's a good thing that the police are coming back, it's their job. Of course I'm suspicious of some of them, but not all of them," said Jumah Rashid, 30.
Members of the public also welcomed the police's return.
"It's great, this is what we expected. It's better for them to return. Whoever was not involved in killings is welcome," said Abdul Razik Talib, 36, who had just left a police checkpoint after driving over a poster of Qaddafi's face.
At nearby Furnaj police station, policemen had also just recently returned to work. They hoped Libya's new management meant an end to years on the sidelines.
"We want to be like police abroad. We were far below international standards. Hopefully with the NTC's help we'll be up to European standards," said policeman Salem Oraibi, 48.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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"They have accepted us 100 percent. It was a warm welcome, they're brothers"
Just wait until they invite you and your fellow cops to a picnic in the desert...
GENEVA: Tripoli's hospitals have put the worst behind them after an end to the fighting in Libya's capital opened the way to a flood of aid and enabled medical staff to get back to work, aid agencies said on Monday.
In a rapid return to normality, even the notorious Abu Salim hospital, where 75 bodies were found after staff fled fighting in the area, is welcoming patients once again.
"This hospital has just reopened yesterday and it's beginning to function. It was cleaned up and everything is supposed to be in place now," said Robin Waudo, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tripoli.
The effort to bring foreign aid is continuing despite the revelation last week that rebel fighters had found massive stores of food, fuel and medicine in Tripoli.
"The worst has been avoided," said Oifa Bouriachi, deputy program manager for emergencies at Medecins Sans Frontieres. "The situation is amazingly, and quickly, improving."
Waudo said the security situation was evolving and normalizing as most of the city was now free of fighting. "So what we see are more and more people coming out on to the streets. Shops are opening up and it's slowly possible for life to return to some sort of normalcy."
Although the violence in Tripoli has not completely ended, the relative peace has reassured aid agencies that they can now get into the capital, rescuing stranded foreigners and resupplying hospitals and relieving exhausted medical staff.
The World Food Program has sent a humanitarian convoy of trucks from Tunisia, with medical supplies, medicine and blood donated by the government of Tunisia. The convoy includes 23 trucks carrying 500 tons of food and five water tankers.
A World Health Organization was sending 45 tons of medical supplies as part of the same effort, a spokesman said, and supplies from MSF may add a further 10 tons in the next few days.
Although the airport is still closed, Tripoli's sea port is open, allowing aid to come in and evacuees to get out.
The effort to bring foreign aid is continuing despite the revelation last week that rebel fighters had found massive stores of food, fuel and medicine in Tripoli.
National Transitional Council chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil last week said the stockpiles had enough food to feed a city twice its size -- its population is 2 million -- and enough medicine for the entire country for a year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] A leaked document apparently detailing United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... preparations for its role in post-Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland... Libya reveals plans for the world body to deploy military observers and coppers to the North African country.
The 10-page document, apparently written by a special UN team led by Ian Martin, the former British head of Amnesia Amnesty International, was obtained and published by Inner City Press, the UN watchdog website.
The document outlines plans for UN-assisted elections in the next six to nine months.
It also calls for the deployment of 200 unarmed military observers and 190 UN coppers to serve as trainers.
But it says such a deployment would only be implemented if it was requested by Libyan authorities and authorised by the UN Security Council.
"If requested by the Libyans and authorised by the Council, the UN could contribute to confidence-building and to the implementation of agreed military tasks, through unarmed UN military observer (UNMOs).
"Such confidence-building might be necessary for the troops of the Qadaffy government which will find themselves under the control of hostile forces. The UNMOs might also act as some deterrence against ill treatment of the former enemy by rogue elements."
It also calls for the deployment of 61 civilian staff who will also be stationed in Libya in the first three months, both at a headquarters in Tripoli and at an office in Benghazi.
The UN is pushing for the creation of an interim government ahead of the polls.
"If the stablisation of Tripoli after the collapse of the Qadaffy government becomes such a major challenge that the transitional authorities seek more robust international assistance, this is a task clearly beyond the capacity of the UN," the plan states.
"In this situation, the only viable option to ensure a safe environment in Tripoli are the transitional authorities themselves, with the advice of those who are already assisting or advising them.
"The Security Council's 'protection of civilians' mandate implemented by NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... forces does not end with the fall of the Qadaffy government, and there, NATO would continue to have some responsibilities."
Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General, has called on the international community to work together to restore order in Libya and for an end to fighting in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
If requested by the Libyans
Other key phrases to include, when HELL freezes over.
I don't know, Besoeker. Now that evil dictator is gone---and the blacks who been doing all the actual "get hands dirty" work have been killed/driven away. The Libyan "People" need somebody has to pay the bills, maintain infrastructure, etc....
[Tripoli Post] Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he may also apply for an arrest warrant for Al Qadaffy's ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can screw up an entire nation... son Khamis, after Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said members of the Khamis Brigade, a force commanded by him, appeared to have carried out summary executions of detainees whose bodies were found in a warehouse in Tripoli.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
And if that doesn't stick Luis can always negotiate a plea for the infamous V1agra induced rampages.
#2
Not so fast with Khamis. New, fresh corpses should be turning up over the next few months and years. The ICC will no doubt wish to add them to the charge sheet.
Asharq Al-Awsat --With the holy Mohammedan month of Ramadan -- which represents the traditional time that Arab and Mohammedan television viewers watch religious programing -- more than half over, statistics indicate that religious programing is losing its popularity amongst Soddy Arabian viewers.
Statistics revealed that religious satellite television channels are losing their popularity amongst Soddy Arabian viewers. These religious Islamic channels had previously enjoyed a huge viewership, broadcasting a wide range of religious programming that is no longer limited to religious events and Friday sermons.
A media expert who specializes in television viewing figures, Dr. Malik al-Ahmed, told Asharq Al-Awsat that religious television channels not receiving large viewing figures this year -- particularly during the holy Islamic month -- can be interpreted by the fact that so-called "Ramadan dramas" -- big budget soap operas and drama series broadcast during Ramadan -- are receiving the lion's share of viewers.
Dr. al-Ahmed revealed that religious programming broadcast on public television channels do not make up more than 10 percent of total programming, whilst religious satellite television channels themselves account for less than 15 percent of all [Arab] television programming.
Media expert Dr. al-Ahmed, who is basing his statistics on an IPSOS report looking at viewing figures for the first week of Ramadan, revealed that MBC is the most popular television channel in the country. In second place is Saudi TV Channel 1 (KSA 1), which is a state-run television channel administered by the Ministry of Culture and Information.
The IPSOS study also revealed that the Arabic television channels with the largest viewership include the two news channels Al-Arabiya TV and Al-Jazeera, as well three entertainment channels, namely MBC, al-Khalijiya TV, and Funoon TV.
Dr. al-Ahmed also revealed that film channels MBC2, MBC Action, and Rotana Cinema also enjoyed significant popularity in Soddy Arabia.
The list of the 50 most popular television channels amongst Saudi viewers is made up of 13 "drama" television channels, 7 Islamic religious television channels, 5 television channels dedicated to sports, 3 news channels, and 3 "specialist" television channels, amongst others.
Commenting on these figures, media expert Dr. Malik al-Ahmed said that television channels dedicated to broadcasting drama and soap operas continue to enjoy tremendous popularity, enjoying no less than 45 percent of viewership figures. He also revealed that the 20 most popular television channels enjoy, in total, 94 percent of the viewership figures.
Al-Ahmed also revealed that viewership figures revealed that a number of channels have witnessed a steep decline in popularity in recent years, with the religious television channel Iqraa TV coming in 48th place this year, whilst it was ranked 22nd most popular television channel in Soddy Arabia last year.
He said "viewers have stronger ties to television programs than to the channels showing them, despite the fact that some channels have continued to sit atop the rankings for a number of years due to the strength and diversity of their programming."
He added "Ramadan has become -- as it has been called -- the month of drama, and this is the direction that all [television] producers focused their efforts in.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
But of course, the two most popular shows remain "C.S.I: Crime Scene Inshallah", and "Law & Allah."
In yet another stunning reversal for a new national security law, a Mexican Chamber of Deputies leader said Monday the National Security Law, which has been held up in legislative process since last spring would be "expedited", according to Mexican news sources.
Jorge Carlos Ramirez Marin, president of the Board of the Chamber of Deputies said that in the wake of the Casino Royale massacre in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon last Thursday, he would expedite passage of the controversial new law. To read the Rantburg story on the Casino Royale massacre, click here
Referring to Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa's call last Friday for a "unity of institutions", Ramirez Marin said, "We are going to take this call as a shared call of unity. We are going to have a National Security Law."
The statement by a senior member of the PRI caucus in the Chamber of Deputies will likely be seen by both peace advocates and independent Mexican left as a betrayal. The National Security Law, which has been working its way through the Mexican legislative process, has been held up from its final approval by the Mexican senate which considered the law even as the new Movement for Peace and Dignity was making such a strong showing with its demonstrations last spring and this summer.
The nascent movement, headed by leftist writer and poet Javier Sicilia, has staged three large marches since the spring. Sicilia lost a son to a drug related abduction and murder, which began his involvement in a protest movement to end cartel violence in Mexico.
His high profile demands, many of them so loopy that the Mexican press has not dared repeat them, has gained him a seat of sorts at the negotiating table with Mexican national legislators as talks began earlier this month. One series of talks was abruptly ended by Sicilia when a Chamber of Deputies panel recommended the law with "locks", or passages open to amendment be considered in the next regular session, which begins next Thursday, September 1st. To read the Rantburg report on the Sicilia decision to cancel talks with Mexican legislators, click here
The vote was made even as the Mexican senate refused to take up consideration of the law in a special session. The vote also caused Sicilia to end his talks with legislators, calling the procedural vote a betrayal. Since that time three weeks ago, Sicilia has made good on his threat to refuse to talk to legislators until his demands to permanently table the law were met.
Apparently the Casino Royale massacre has changed the politics, and has changed the security environment as well.
The city of Monterrey has been under a curfew being maintained by the functional equivalent of two brigades of armed effectives including Mexican Army soldiers, Mexican marines and Mexican Federal agents. Also nationwide a crackdown on casinos has begun with news published over the weekend that the Los Zetas criminal gang uses casinos for money laundering. Casinos have been shut down in states such as Nuevo Leon and in Jalisco, and the campaign is apparently far from over.
The controversial national security law is such because it seeks to give the Mexican president expanded powers of emergency without prior approval from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and the president's cabinet, which is required for a nationwide state of emergency as currently written in the Mexican constitution.
The new law permits the president to declare states of emergency in specific regions such as municipalities and for limited times without prior approval, but still requires endorsement after military actions are already under way. The new law also gives local commanders a large amount of autonomy in dealing with suspects and evidence. Currently Mexican law requires military commanders to turn over all suspects and evidence to local legal authorities and to request prior permission to pursue information collected at the scene of a crime.
The new law as written allows local commanders to cut power, communications and to cancel events without prior warning to local politicians. As matters stand now Mexican governors have next to no say in how federal forces are deployed, except that Calderon and the ministry of the interior have been sensitive to those concerns, and do not deploy forces at least without prior warning.
The mainstream Mexican left in the form of the Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) are leery of the new law. Many of its members have been abused by Mexican national security forces in the past during the Dirty War of the 1960s to the 1980s. Even so, Maria de Dolores Padierna Luna, General Secretary of the PRD has expressed an endorsement of the new law if restraints on presidential powers are in place in the new law.
The new law does not change the relationship of the Mexican military with the civilian legal systems. As matters are now, any crime committed by Mexican military would be investigated and prosecuted by the military.
A Mexican Supreme Court decision July 12th requiring courts not to turn over cases to the military authorities changes the relationship of the military to civilian court system, but the new security law would affect that decision since states of emergencies are martial law by definition.
Calderon has sought to make the law more acceptable to human rights concerns by separating crimes such as rape and forced disappearances as crimes to be prosecuted civilian legal authorities. Calderon's proposal left the crime of murder as one to be prosecuted by military prosecutors.
Two men arrested in Berlin last June after a tipoff from Czech police have been deported to the Czech Republic where, along with six others, they face charges of assisting the terrorist organization Jamaat Shariat, also known as the Dagestan Front. The eight arrested in April include Dagestanis, Moldovans, Bulgarians and a Chechen.
Six suspects were arrested on April 6 this year in Prague and oficially charged in May when the police first announced the arrests. Two Bulgarians from the group have been charged with counterfeiting documents including passports, while the five Dagestanis and Moldovans have been charged with assisting or intending to assist a terrorist attack. The Chechen national has been charged with illegal ssession of weapons and forging money as well.
The two Bulgarians are thought not to have known the intended use of the documents, including passports, which they forged and therefore have not been charged with assisting or attempting to assist a terrorist attack. The five Dagestani and Moldovan suspects allegedly received orders for the forged documents and sent money from their sale to Jamaat Shariat in the North Caucasus.
According to the Czech investigators, the forgeries produced by the Bulgarians were high quality and nearly impossible to tell apart from originals during standard checks.
"The persons who were operating in the Czech Republic allegedly secured false personal documents, financial means, and weapons and explosives for so-called new fighters," said the head of the police's anti-organized crime unit, Robert lachta.
Shortly after the first arrests were announced by the Czech police, reports emerged in the Russian media alleging the suspects were linked to al-Qaeda and had received assistance from a Czech NGO which had been active in Chechnya.
According to the Russian sources, Jamaat Shariat was formed in 2002 during the Second Chechen war by Rasul Makasharipov, who was sent to Dagestan from Chechnya by Rappani Khalilov to organize attacks on police and security services in order to create instability in Chechnya's neighboring republic to the east. Makasharipov was killed in a gun battle with Russian troops in 2005.
The Russian intelligence agency FSB deduced that former Jamaat Shariat leader Magomedali Vagarov, who was killed resisting arrest in August 2010, was the mastermind behind the double suicide bombings in the Moscow metro in March 2010. Mariam Sharipova, Vagarov's wife and widow of former Jamaat Shariat leader Umalat Magomed (killed by special forces in December 2009), was one of the suicide bombers in the Moscow attacks.
#1
The two Bulgarians are thought not to have known the intended use of the documents, including passports, which they forged and therefore have not been charged with assisting or attempting to assist a terrorist attack.
Umm, OK name a legitimate reason to forge these documents, NONE?
Hmm.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/30/2011 16:18 Comments ||
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Infiltration of the federal government by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood is worse than some have warned recently, says a former FBI special agent in Washington.
The agent confirmed that at least three operatives of the Egypt-based Brotherhood whose credo is "Jihad is our way and death in the cause of Allah is our dream" have penetrated the Obama administration.
The shocking charge was first leveled by Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah during a recent speech in Toronto.
#4
"at least three operatives of the Egypt-based Brotherhood . . . have penetrated the Obama administration"
Only three?
And whaddaya mean "penetrated"? That implies an unneeded sneakiness and stealth. I'm sure they're welcomed with open arms by Bambi et al. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/30/2011 23:00 Comments ||
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#5
So, was her mother?
Yes, she is. Weinergate 2: Huma mom tied to boomin' bombers The mother of Huma Abedin, Hillary's Clinton's chief of staff, has represented a Saudi-funded Muslim charity accused of terrorism financing and ties to al-Qaida.
ANKARA: The Turkish government said it would return hundreds of properties that had been confiscated from religious minorities by the state or other parties since 1936 and would pay compensation for properties seized and later sold.
Present value or sales price the last time it was acquired before the government seized it -- which for some of the religious buildings was probably during Byzantine times...
Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made the announcement to representatives of more than 150 Christian and Jewish trusts at a dinner he hosted in Istanbul on Sunday to break the day's Ramadan fast.
Hush! The Sultan speaks! Draw nigh, all ye petitioners of His Beneficence, and pay heed!
The government decree to return the properties, bypassing nationalist opposition in Parliament, was issued late on Saturday.
The European Union, which Turkey has applied to join, has pressed the country to ease or eliminate laws and policies that discriminate against non-Muslim religious groups, including restrictions on land ownership. Many of the properties, including schools and hospitals, were seized after 1936 when trusts were called to list their assets and, in 1974, a separate ruling banned the groups from buying any new real estate.
Gosh, just like Egypt doesn't allow the Copts to repair their Byzantine-era churches or use new places to worship. Will the Turkish Jews and Christians be able to buy new properties with all their new compensation money?
Turkish and European courts have heard disputes over the properties for decades. The European Court for Human Rights has ordered Turkey to pay compensation in several cases related to religious minority rights.
In contrast with its staunchly secular predecessors, the Islam-inspired government of Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, has been more sympathetic to Turkey's non-Muslims.
The decree issued on Saturday removed legal impediments that had continued to block the return of the properties even after amendments were enacted in recent years to allow it.
Less than 1 per cent of Turkey's 74 million people belong to religious minorities. There are about 120,000 Christians I and about 25,000 Jews.
#2
It was noted that what he was offering was less than 1% of the total, and that he was only doing it because it looks like Turkey is going to lose big in European court fights over that property.
So, bottom line, he is offering pocket change instead of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.
#5
Note also that His Beneficence is also only returning properties confiscated by the Ataturks and whoever "other parties" might be, not by the Ottomans. The Hagia Sophia is therefore not in play.
Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson has been reassigned to a lesser post in the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney for Arizona was also pushed out Tuesday as fallout from Operation Fast and Furious reached new heights.
Melson's step down from his role as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the position of senior adviser on forensic science in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Programs is effective by close of business Tuesday, administration officials announced. U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota B. Todd Jones will replace Melson.
U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke, one of the officials closely tied to Fast and Furious, is also a casualty in a shakeup tied to the botched gun-running program. Burke was on the hot seat last week with congressional investigators and, according to several sources, got physically sick during questioning and could not finish his session.
The purge of those responsible for the firearms trafficking scandal continued as new documents reveal a deeper involvement of federal agencies beyond ATF.
In Phoenix, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, who oversaw Fast and Furious on a day-to-day basis, was reassigned from the criminal to civil division. Also in Phoenix, three out of the four whistleblowers involved in the case have been reassigned to new positions outside Arizona. Two are headed to Florida, one to South Carolina.
Rumor: One source speaking on condition of confidentiality informed this reporter that Melson was called to Attorney General Eric Holder's office on Friday and that his office was cleared out over the weekend.
#6
One source atttributed the following to Ken: " The office of the Attorney General must be protected at all costs." in other words, Holder greyhounded ya, ya schmuck.
It is now official: Somali pirates are being trained in Pakistan to carry out a proxy war against India.
Though Indian security agencies had been hinting at a Pakistani link to Somali pirates for long, material evidence to support this assertion has been recently recovered. The evidence was obtained from nine foreign nationals caught from a hijacked Iranian vessel - MV Nafis-1, by the Indian Navy 170 nautical miles off Mumbai on August 14.
The vessel was brought to Porbandar on August 15 and those arrested - five Yemenis, two Tanzanians, one Kenyan and one Somali national - were handed over to Porbandar police for interrogation. Gujarat customs officials had seized a large quantity of food items from the vessel and also found that rice packets and juice pouches bore names of Pakistani companies with addresses written in Urdu.
Gujarat customs officials also recovered two AK-47s, a pistol and a cache of foreign currency including $ 86,000 and 1,500 Saudi Riyals. Officials seized bags full of tea leaves, which customs officials believe, were chewed by the pirates to stay awake.
"On several occasions we seized weapons and magazines from pirates or hijacked ships in Indian waters. These weapons bore the stamp of Pakistani ordnance factories. In this case, the guns have no label but the food items are packed and manufactured in Pakistan. Smugglers are not generally found carrying such a large amount of foreign currency," said a senior customs official.
#6
Iff the INDIAN NAVY is all focused on deterring or countering China in the West Indian Ocean, what will India have to counter the Pirates and their steadily-getting-closer-to-Indjuh arc of pirate activities???
CURRENT + ANTICIPATED RISE IN MALAY-INDONESIAN = SE ASIAN PIRACY NOTWITHSTANDING.
As perhaps best illustrated by ....
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > INDIA DEVELOPS COLD FEET IN [naval]TALKS WID JAPAN, US, espec as per Vietnam + ASEAN + South China Sea disputes wid China.
* SAME > INDIA MAY DISAPPOINT VIETNAM IN SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE.
ARTIC(S) = INDIA = argued that it is UNREALISTIC to expect it to act like a MAJOR/GLOBAL NAVAL POWER GIVEN ITS PRESENT ECON + FINANCIAL CONDITION.
IOW, INDIA AT PRESENT IS WILLING TO BASE[Vietnam] + SEND ITS ARMED WARSHIPS INTO THE SOUTH CHINA SEA JUST A LONG AS IT ACTUALLY DOES N-O-T HAVE TO MIL CONFRONT CHINA + PLAN.
D *** NG IT, NOT, NOT - spelled K-N-U-T/ G-N-O-T - NOT!
That sound you hear is Rising China + PLA, PLAN laughing; + China-fighting VIETNAM not knowing whether to laugh like Beijing or cry for ally Indjuh being a naval wuss - THE FORCE = CURRY IS NOT STRONG WID INDIA???
Moreso given wannabe India's ....
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > TO COUNTER CHINA, INDIA NEEDS TO DO [serious = regional, geopol] NAVAL DIPLOMACY, ostensibly from the West Indian Ocean to the many small Islands = Island Nations of the SOUTH PACIFIC [SOPAC, SWPAC].
* VARIOUS > INDIA TO HAVE BALLISTIC MISSLE DEFENSE IN 2014.
* INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > INDIA PM [Mahoman Singh]: INDIA CAN HAVE THIRD-LARGEST [global] GDP BY 2025, at present growth rates.
GLOBAL-SUPERPOWER WANNABE "RISING INDIA" = RISING CHINA = ITS NOT GOING TO MEAN A DAMN THING IFF IT CANNOT PROJECT MILPOL, ECON POWER ANDOR DEFEND ITS INTERESTS.
MAHA-RUSHIAN HISTOIRE' = NO ORGANIZED NATION-STATE OR CIVILIZATION HAS EVER BECOME A "GREAT POWER" BY BEING REGIONALLY, TRANS-, OR GLOBALLY ISOLATIONIST.
[Dawn] THE deteriorating law and order situation in Bloody Karachi has forced many people of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... to leave behind their properties, jobs and business and say goodbye to the port city.
They have started seeking alternative sources of income in the province to shift their families to their hometowns for their protection.
"Millions of Pakhtuns, most of them very poor, are crying for help as they cannot move to workplaces, but no one is there to given them a helping hand in the existing dreadful situation," said Dr Wilayat, who vacated his residence in Bloody Karachi and moved to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Dr Wilayat, who belongs to Dir district and works at a government hospital in Bloody Karachi, told Dawn by telephone that two years ago he had shifted to his newly built house at Raja Tanveer Colony in Orangi Town but his family was unsafe there and he again returned to Banaras Colony.
"A group of unidentified youths thrice tried to kidnap me when I was on way from office to home but they failed to do so. In such a situation earning money has no importance and the only option left for me was to vacate my house," he said.
He said that he was seeking job in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar to shift his family from Bloody Karachi permanently.
Abdul Wajid, a worker of a private firm of the same area, said that he was living at Banaras Colony but could not go to his workplace and had to purchase everything on debt. "It was not possible for me to live there any longer as my children also could not go to schools," he added.
He said that he decided to say goodbye to Bloody Karachi and shift his family to Peshawar for its protection. He added that two youths in his neighbourhood -- one belonged to Swat and the other to Buner -- were rubbed out when they were on way to home for Iftari but police did not arrest the killers.
"Those, who wear shalwar qamees are rubbed out at sight," he alleged. He said most of the people wanted to return to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but they had no source of income in their villages.
Awami National Party Sindh president Shahi Syed, when contacted, also expressed grave concern over the situation. He said that maximum of the Pakhtuns, who suffered, belonged to Balochistan as they had hotels, restaurants, hardware shops, tea stalls in the localities of the Urdu speaking people.
"People are kidnapped and their drilled bodies stuffed in bags are dumped in open plots or in drains but law enforcement agencies are yet to arrest the killers," he lamented.
The only demand of people, he said, was restoration of peace, arrest of killers and destruction torture cells wherever they located. He stressed the need for effective and across the board operation and recovery of weapons. In the month of July, he said, over 100 Pakhtuns had been killed.
Many of the cases of killings and injuries had not been registered with police. "About 4,000 Pakhtuns living in localities of Urdu speaking people because of their businesses or jobs have been forced to flee," Mr Syed added.
He appealed to Pakhtun leaders of different political and religious parties to come forward, sit together and take unified stand for safety of Pakhtuns as all those suffering were not ANP workers Feeling insecure, Pakhtuns start leaving Bloody Karachi
but they belonged to different groups.
The ANP leader said that Pakhtuns were auctioning their costly houses and leaving Bloody Karachi. It was duty of the government to protect lives and properties of the people, he added.
Jamaat-i-Islami deputy chief Sirajul Haq said that it was not the problem of Pakhtuns only as every community had suffered owing to murders and the entire responsibility rested with the coalition partners in the government. He said that ANP, MQM and PPP were equally responsible for bloodshed in Bloody Karachi.
"Every ruling party has formed its own armed wing for illegal occupation of plots, buildings, collection of extortion and police are not allowed to arrest them," he said.
He added that police knew about everyone, every torture cell and dumps of weapons in all localities but government was least interested to stop the bloodshed.
He said that army should take action against criminals irrespective of their political affiliations. He said that gangs had been established just for blackmailing of each others.
Veteran politician Afzal Khan Lala suggested that all the political parties should come together and devise a combined policy to save Bloody Karachi. He said that it was duty of all secular and religious parties to realise their responsibilities, feel agonies of each other and take unified stand on the issues of national interests.
He said that Pakhtuns were suffering everywhere but their leaders were divided in groups. He said that Bloody Karachi was mini-Pakistain and Pakhtuns had played and were still playing vital role in development of the metropolis and nobody had the right to expel them unlawfully.
Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party provincial general secretary Arbab Mujeebur Rehman, National Party provincial president Mukhtar Bacha and Pakhtuns Awareness Movement president Shahab Khattak also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over the bloodshed in Bloody Karachi.
They suggested that an all parties' conference should take decisions and government should implement the same. They said that Pakhtuns should be given due representation in different departments and their localities should be developed.
They suggested that Pakhtuns Qaumi Jirga having representation of all parties and groups should be convened to find a permanent solution to the problem.
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[Dawn] The British High Commissioner Adam Thomson said Monday that MQM chief Altaf Hussain is a free citizen and no restrictions have been made on his movement, DawnNews reported.
"Reports of Altaf Hussain's arrest are false whereas Imran Farooq's murder investigation will be completed soon," said Thomson.
Thomson said that the Scotland Yard is proactively investigating Imran Farooq's murder case and will soon reach a final conclusion.
When inquired about the letter sent to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair by the MQM chief he replied "you should ask Altaf Hussain about it" whereas he said he cannot comment on MQM member Nasreen Jalil's letter.
"We wish to see Pakistain developing and stable at every step and Britannia should not be dragged into Pakistain's internal affairs but it's true that the political situation in Pakistain is interesting," said Thomson.
Separately, the Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. while speaking to the media said that MQM chief Altaf Hussain is not anti-Pakistain.
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#1
ION ALTAF, PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > ALTAF HUSSAIN OF MQM [aka MQM-Altaf or MQM-A] WANTS A KARACHI "INDEPENDENT STATE".
versus
* SAME > [PUNJAB Chief Minister] SHAHBAZ SHARIF: PRESIDENT ZARDARI OUT TO ANNIHILATE [destroy] PAKISTAN.
versus
* TOPIX > THE [Islam-led = post-Osama]BALKANIZATION OF PAKISTAN.
ARTIC = Death of Osama Bin Laden at Abbottabad at the hands of US Navy SEALS + consequent national controversy oer Pak Govt's role in his death has fomented popular Muslim distrust in Islamabad Govt, strengthening or empowering Ethno-Religious led separatism from Islamabad in key provinces.
IOW, THE MUSLIM TRIBES DON'T TRUST ISLAMABAD + MUSLIM POLITICOS ANYMORE.
Can't blame the Israelis or the Crusader Zionist US-NATO on this one.
More than two decades after the end of the Cold War, NATO is an obsolete and harmful anachronism. It has morphed into a vehicle for the attainment of misguided American strategic objectives on a global scale. Its mutation from a defensive alliance into a supranational force based on the nebulous doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" started with the air war against Serbia in 1999 and was completed with the Libyan intervention in the spring and summer of 2011. NATO in its mature form is beyond redemption or reform. It should be disbanded.
...The threat to Europe's security does not come from Russia or from a fresh bout of instability in the Balkans. The threat to Europe's security and to her survival comes from the deluge of inassimilable aliens within the gates and from collapsing birthrates. These problems are due to the moral and cultural decay, not to any shortage of soldiers and weaponry.
...NATO is devoid of a coherent mission and strategic purpose. Between 1949 and 1991 it was successful in providing security against the threat of a hostile totalitarian power. Today, it is detrimental to the security in Europe and irrelevant to the security of its members. It should not be reformed; it should be abolished.
#1
Funny how the piece bashes America a bit for using NATO but then says this trend began with Seebia and ended with Libya two actions the Europeans dragged the US into somewhat unwillingly. Both of which actually could be considered legitimate regarding Suropean security.
We dragged them into Iraq and Afghanistan, they dragged the US into Balkins and Libya. We should call it even and disband NATO.
If Russia keeps acting up we can form a new organization in Central/East Europe. The threat alone should get the Russians to be less erratic and North Koreaish with some of their statements.
The Israeli Navy (INF) has decided to boost its presence and patrols near Israel's maritime border with Egypt due to a viable terror threat in the area.
Israeli security sources told the Associated Press on Monday that two additional warships have been dispatched to Israel's Red Sea border with Egypt. Another source stressed that the operation was routine, telling Reuters that "two naval craft have been sent to the Red Sea. This is not unusual."
The area adjacent to the border has become the scene of military deployment described by one security source as "unprecedented." The IDF has also deployed advanced technology in the area in order to thwart terror attacks. Still, No changes in security alignments were observed on the Egyptian side of the border.
Military intelligence suggests that an Islamic Jihad terror cell has left the Gaza Strip and intends to infiltrate Israel through Sinai. According to a report in Egypt's al-Masri al-Youm newspaper, Minister for Home Front Defense Matan Vilnai said that the cell may number as many as 10 terrorists.
Meanwhile, Iran's Press TV reported Monday that Tehran has decided to dispatch the 15th fleet to the Red Sea once more.
Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told the state-run agency that the Islamic Republic is planning to send its 15th fleet to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, adding that the fleet's main operational objective will be to patrol the high seas and thwart pirate raids.
The Islamic Republic's 15th fleet is comprised of a submarine and a several warships.
The presence of Iran's army in the high seas will convey the message of peace and friendship to all countries."
#2
Anybody taking book on whether the Iranians are stupid enough to attack the Israeli warships? It would be an almost irresistible opportunity, at least for their sub to throw a torpedo.
Jordan asked Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reconsider heading to the UN for state recognition, fearing that it will cost Palestinian refugees any chance of returning to Israel, Saudi newspaper Al-Medina reported Tuesday.
Which means they'll all stay in Jordan...
According to the report, Jordan has tried to advance the message through a number of different "Arab channels," but said that the Palestinian Authority is still determined to the seek international state recognition on September 20.
Home front defense minister says cell wants to attack Israel on border with Egypt during Id al-Fitr, and adds that the defense establishment has "concrete evidence."
A cell of more than 10 terrorists is currently in the Sinai with plans to carry out an attack against Israel along its border with Egypt, Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vinai said on Tuesday.
Islamic Jihad is trying for a long time to perpetrate the attacks from the Sinai and the of Id al-Fitr is a good time for attacks, Vilnai said during a visit to an Elbit Systems factory in Sderot in reference to the Muslim holiday which begins on Tuesday. The defense establishment has concrete intelligence regarding plans by a terror cell from the Sinai consisting of more than 10 people.
Vilnai said that the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) were working in close cooperation to thwart the attack and that Israel was also coordinating with Egypt.
On Monday, the IDF went on high alert along Israels southern border with Egypt on Monday and significantly bolstered its forces there amid concrete intelligence that Islamic Jihad terrorists were planning to infiltrate into Israel and carry out a similar attack to the one near Eilat 10 days ago.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz made the decision to beef up forces along the border late Sunday night and instructed OC Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel to update the Egyptian military of the decision.
IDF sources said that intelligence indicated that the Islamic Jihad cell had crossed into the Sinai Peninsula from the Gaza Strip and was planning to carry out an attack along one of the roads that runs alongside the border in the coming days. As a result, both Roads 12 and 10 remained closed on Tuesday.
A senior defense official said on Tuesday that Israel was restraining itself and not taking action against the Islamic Jihad in order to not undermine the Egyptian regime.
Israels ties with the interim military-controlled regime in Egypt has been tenuous since the attacks near Eilat on August 18 and amid growing calls within Egypt to review the peace treaty between the countries. As a result, Israel decided not to launch a larger offensive against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.
Jordan asked Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... to reconsider heading to the UN for state recognition, fearing that it will cost Paleostinian refugees any chance of returning to Israel, Saudi newspaper Al-Medina reported Tuesday.
Which means they'll all stay in Jordan...
According to the report, Jordan has tried to advance the message through a number of different "Arab channels," but said that the Paleostinian Authority is still determined to the seek international state recognition on September 20.
Home front defense minister says cell wants to attack Israel on border with Egypt during Id al-Fitr, and adds that the defense establishment has "concrete evidence."
A cell of more than 10 terrorists is currently in the Sinai with plans to carry out an attack against Israel along its border with Egypt, Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vinai said on Tuesday.
Islamic Jihad is trying for a long time to perpetrate the attacks from the Sinai and the of Id al-Fitr is a good time for attacks, Vilnai said during a visit to an Elbit Systems factory in Sderot in reference to the Muslim holiday which begins on Tuesday. The defense establishment has concrete intelligence regarding plans by a terror cell from the Sinai consisting of more than 10 people.
Vilnai said that the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) were working in close cooperation to thwart the attack and that Israel was also coordinating with Egypt.
On Monday, the IDF went on high alert along Israels southern border with Egypt on Monday and significantly bolstered its forces there amid concrete intelligence that Islamic Jihad terrorists were planning to infiltrate into Israel and carry out a similar attack to the one near Eilat 10 days ago.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz made the decision to beef up forces along the border late Sunday night and instructed OC Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel to update the Egyptian military of the decision.
IDF sources said that intelligence indicated that the Islamic Jihad cell had crossed into the Sinai Peninsula from the Gaza Strip and was planning to carry out an attack along one of the roads that runs alongside the border in the coming days. As a result, both Roads 12 and 10 remained closed on Tuesday.
A senior defense official said on Tuesday that Israel was restraining itself and not taking action against the Islamic Jihad in order to not undermine the Egyptian regime.
Israels ties with the interim military-controlled regime in Egypt has been tenuous since the attacks near Eilat on August 18 and amid growing calls within Egypt to review the peace treaty between the countries. As a result, Israel decided not to launch a larger offensive against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.
Home front defense minister says cell wants to attack Israel on border with Egypt during Id al-Fitr, and adds that the defense establishment has "concrete evidence."
A cell of more than 10 snuffies is currently in the Sinai with plans to carry out an attack against Israel along its border with Egypt, Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vinai said on Tuesday.
"Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... is trying for a long time to perpetrate the attacks from the Sinai and the of Id al-Fitr is a good time for attacks," Vilnai said during a visit to an Elbit Systems factory in Sderot in reference to the Mohammedan holiday which begins on Tuesday. "The defense establishment has concrete intelligence regarding plans by a terror cell from the Sinai consisting of more than 10 people."
Vilnai said that the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) were working in close cooperation to thwart the attack and that Israel was also coordinating with Egypt.
On Monday, the IDF went on high alert along Israel's southern border with Egypt on Monday and significantly bolstered its forces there amid concrete intelligence that Islamic Jihad snuffies were planning to infiltrate into Israel and carry out a similar attack to the one near Eilat 10 days ago.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz made the decision to beef up forces along the border late Sunday night and instructed OC Planning Directorate Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel to update the Egyptian military of the decision.
IDF sources said that intelligence indicated that the Islamic Jihad cell had crossed into the Sinai Peninsula from the Gazoo Strip and was planning to carry out an attack along one of the roads that runs alongside the border in the coming days. As a result, both Roads 12 and 10 remained closed on Tuesday.
A senior defense official said on Tuesday that Israel was restraining itself and not taking action against the Islamic Jihad in order to not undermine the Egyptian regime.
Israel's ties with the interim military-controlled regime in Egypt has been tenuous since the attacks near Eilat on August 18 and amid growing calls within Egypt to review the peace treaty between the countries. As a result, Israel decided not to launch a larger offensive against terrorist organizations in the Gazoo Strip.
The Paleostinian Authority Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqi' was quoted Sunday as saying Israel is the "major harvesting and trading center" of body organs in the world. His comments come even as the Defense Ministry is recommending to the government the release of a few hundred Paleostinian prisoners to PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... in September to try and create a better atmosphere in the West Bank.
The prisoner release is part of a number of steps being discussed, including the return of the bodies of bully boyz buried in Israel, whose goal is to improve the overall attitude on the Paleostinian streets in advance of September.
Saudi-based Arab News.com reported Sunday that Qaraqi', "during the national day of Paleostinian campaign to retrieve deaders' bodies," accused Israel of harvesting parts from "the bodies of dead Paleostinian deaders without the consent of their families." According to the website, Qaraqi' said Israel was holding on to the remains of "Paleostinian deaders to conceal the crimes it committed against the deaders' bodies and to punish their families."
Claiming that Israel was "holding the remains of 338 Arab and Paleostinian fighters" in secret cemeteries, he said the "holding of the deaders' remains for many years casts doubts and accusations that Israel assassinated them after detention, or harvested their organs."
In contrast to Palestinian blood libels, Egypt really does have a problem
But experts are skeptical about a new law banning the practice of paying for human organs, as poverty, ignorance ensure a supply of donors.
A new law that aims to stop Egypts poor from selling their kidneys and other organs faces an uphill battle as the countrys deteriorating economy pushes more and more people into making desperate and dangerous decisions to raise money.
The new law, which went into effect this month after years of debate, bans the practice of paying money for human organs and restricts donations from live donors to family members of the fourth degree. That, in effect, bans foreigners from receiving transplants. Removing organs without government authorization will be treated as first-degree murder. Transplant procedures for the poor will be financed by the State.
Egypt is one of the last countries of the Arab world to implement organ-transplant legislation. As lawmakers dawdled and religious scholars debated the definition of death, the country became a hub for regional trafficking in organs, according to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
After the revolution people are talking much more about human dignity and ending poverty. There is much more awareness that selling an organ isnt the equivalent of donating blood, Sherine Hamdy, whose book Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt will be published next January, told The Media Line, On the other hand, the economic situation is pretty severe Thats a problem to be addressed.
For many, a couple of thousand dollars for a kidney even if the amount ultimately paid was typically less than promised meant debts could be paid off or enough money accumulated to start a business in an economy were unemployment is in the double digits and growing.
A woman identified as Aisha recalls her bitter experience selling her kidney. My financial circumstances became very difficult and I didnt know what to do. Some people told me to donate my kidney and get money. I went to a lab and they told me I would get money for donating my kidney and that nothing would happen to me physically, she recalled in a filmed interview for Coalition for Organ-Failure Solutions, an organization combating the trafficking of humans for organs.
But after she completed the operation, her health never quite recovered and she could no longer work. Her husband abandoned the family, taking the proceeds. I lost my kidney, my money, everything, she said.
Hamdy, who is an anthropologist at Brown University, said that because transplants have lived in a legal twilight zone, people who were victimized couldnt turn to the law.
A lot of times you have people coming to police claiming their organs were stolen, she said. Often what happened was that people were promised larger sums of money than they were delivered or that the operation was much less risky than it (ultimately) was. Not wanting to incriminate themselves as having sold their organ, they would claim their organs were stolen. But prosecutors hadnt yet been able to do anything because of the absence of a law.
If anything, however, the economic pressures that helped create the problem have been magnified by the collapse of the Egyptian economy by the protests and strikes that brought down President Hosni Mubarak in February and continue to this day. The government has promised big increases in subsidies and other welfare spending, but it doesnt have the means to pay for it.
A survey by the US-based International Republic Institute in April found that 41% of those polled said they have trouble covering their basic needs and feeding their families.
Susanne Lundin, a professor of ethnology at Swedens Lund University who studies the global organ trade, told The Media Line that the new law is unlikely to deter either demand for or supply of organs, and instead will drive the market underground as has happened in other countries that passed similar legislation.
Egypt is one of a handful countries identified by the World Health Organization as organ-trafficking hot spots. Others like China, Pakistan and the Philippines have outlawed organ sales and barred foreigners from undergoing transplants to stop transplant tourism. Even before the law went into effect, Cairo was cracking down on the phenomenon, but even that effort stalled amid the chaos surrounding Mubaraks fall from power.
The Philippines passed its law in 2007 but just four years later finds itself debating how to revise it.
It didnt work at all. The illegal trade grew much more after that. So now the Philippines are trying to revaluate it and legalize people coming to buy organs. There is a big fight underway, Lundin said. When it was legal or half legal for foreigners to come, they could do it openly. When they were excluded they had no choice but to do it on the black market.
In 2008, a secret State Department cable warned of a growing chemical weapons threat from a Middle Eastern country whose autocratic leader had a long history of stirring up trouble in the region. The leader, noted for his support for terrorist organizations, was attempting to buy technology from other countries to upgrade an already fearsome stockpile of deadly poisons, the department warned.
The Middle Eastern state with the dangerous chemicals was not Libya, whose modest stockpile was thrust into the spotlight last week because of fighting there. It was Syria, another violence-torn Arab state whose advanced weapons are drawing new concern as the country drifts toward an uncertain future.
A sudden collapse of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could mean a breakdown in controls over the countrys weapons, U.S. officials and weapons experts said in interviews. But while Libyas chemical arsenal consists of unwieldy canisters filled mostly with mustard gas, the World War I-era blistering agent, Syria possesses some of the deadliest chemicals ever to be weaponized, dispersed in thousands of artillery shells and warheads that are easy to transport.
[An Nahar] Former prime minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. on Monday extended his greetings to the Syrian people on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, expressing his "full solidarity" with the Syrians in the face of their regime's violent crackdown on the protest movement.
Hariri also extended Eid al-Fitr greetings to "the Lebanese people in general and the Mohammedans in particular."
"On this special occasion, he (Hariri) pays tribute to the Syrian people, and expresses once again his full solidarity with them in the face of the difficult ordeal they are enduring, hoping that before the next Eid the Arab peoples and the Syrian people in particular would manage to overcome the difficult circumstances they are going through," Hariri's press office said in a statement.
Hariri also hoped the Syrians and Arabs will "achieve their aspirations for regimes that meet their ambitions."
"He also wishes the Lebanese many happy returns, and to see their State-building project prevail and bring security and stability to Leb, and strengthen the bonds of national unity and solidarity among all Lebanese, in their quest to uncover the truth and achieve justice, as a guarantee for security for Leb and all the Lebanese," Hariri's press office added.
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[An Nahar] Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... leader MP Michel Aoun ...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... slammed on Monday campaigns against the Lebanese army, saying that attacking it is an assault against the country.
He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: "Parliament should assume its responsibilities because one of its members crossed his limits when he targeted the army."
He made his statements in reference to MP Khaled al-Daher who last week accused some members of the security forces of adopting the same repressive approach as the Syrian security forces in their crackdown against anti-regime protestors.
Aoun added: "Such a matter harms the nation. He crossed his limits by attacking the army and we demand legal measures be taken against him."
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[An Nahar] A senior Russian envoy said after talks in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... on Monday that there was no change in Russian policy on Syria which has been opposed to Western calls for sanctions, Syrian state media said.
"Russia's position on Syria is unchanged," the official SANA news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying.
"The envoy affirmed his country's support for the reforms launched by Syria in the political and economic fields and expressed hope that its security and stability would be maintained," the agency added.
The Russian envoy, who held talks with both President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, underlined the "importance of continued coordination between the two countries in all fields."
For his part, Assad expressed his appreciation for Russia's "balanced approach to developments in Syria," SANA added.
The Kremlin confirmed in a statement that President Dmitry Medvedev had sent a message to Assad but did not reveal its contents.
Russia's U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin had said last week that Moscow would send an envoy to Damascus, as the U.N. Security Council remained divided over new sanctions on Syria over its crackdown on dissent.
Moscow staunchly opposes bids by the United States and European powers to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution targeting Assad, and has offered a counter-resolution.
The Russian text, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, urges Syria to expedite reforms.
Britannia, La Belle France, Germany, Portugal and the United States drew up their sanctions resolution last week, but Russia and China have refused to attend informal talks on the document.
Russia has hinted that it could veto any sanctions resolution put to a vote.
Moscow's rival resolution "calls upon the Syrian government to expedite the implementation of reforms in order to effectively address the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syria's people."
But it also "urges the Syrian opposition to engage in political dialogue" with the Assad government on reforms.
Churkin has said the proposed Russian resolution already had "strong support" from some nations on the 15-member council.
According to U.N. estimates, more than 2,200 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters since mid-March.
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#1
I've noticed that the two "great pigs", Russia and China, who amorally support every dictator out there, never get threatened by those who oppose the dictators.
That is, telling R&C that "either you stop supporting these thugs, or when we get in power, we are going to cut you off. As in, no business or even diplomatic relations with you, and we recognize Taiwan."
Instead, they quietly fume. Like the eastern Europeans, they are usually silent when it comes to Russia. But in practice, they will not give Russia the time of day, and are rather gleeful when Russia get one in the shorts.
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.
The Lockerbie bomber's family have made an astonishing appeal to Britain for medical help to prolong his life.
A leaked document apparently detailing 
THE deteriorating law and order situation in 
Michel Aoun
President-for-Life Bashir 
