[The Peninsula] Two leading candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election each claimed yesterday to be winning the vote count easily, but said they would be ready to contest a second-round run-off if necessary.
More than seven million people defied Taliban threats of violence in Saturday's election to select a successor to 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... as US-led troops prepare to exit the country.
Unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two names will go head-to-head in another election scheduled for late May.
Campaign officials for former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani and for Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... , who came second in the 2009 election, both said that they were well ahead in unofficial counting.
"Initial assessment of the tally by our observers show that we are far in the lead," Azita Rafat, Ghani's spokeswoman said.
"We have to wait for the announcement made by the IEC, but if its decision is to go to the second round, we are fully prepared for that with confidence in our ultimate success."
Abdullah had vowed on the campaign trail to secure a first-round victory, and his team has been upbeat since the vote.
"Analysis by our database centre shows that our election ticket is in the lead, scoring 62 percent of the votes that we have counted," said Abdullah's front man Mujib Rahman Rahimi.
"The official account has to come from the IEC, and these are partial results that could change, but we are ready for a second round if needed."
Campaign officials have been collating results pinned up in the 6,400 individual polling centres.
Abdullah's campaign said it had counted two million of the estimated seven million votes, while a running tally published on Ghani's website was taken down on the request of the IEC.
Turnout was about 58 percent, but the figure is uncertain as there is no proper electoral roll.
The Election Complaints Commission (ECC) chief said yesterday that votes would be combed through to uncover cheating after fears of a repeat of the massive fraud that blighted Karzai's re-election in 2009.
"There has been fraud, there have been violations, and not in small numbers, but we are committed to clean out the fraudulent votes," ECC chief Abdul Satar Saadat said.
He said more than 3,000 complaints had been registered, mostly about shortages of ballot papers -- a problem allegedly due to poor planning, unexpectedly large turnout and possible ballot-box stuffing.
The ECC has said that the election appeared cleaner than the chaotic 2009 vote, which badly damaged ties between Karzai and the US-led international donors on which Afghanistan relies.
Some partial official results may be released in the coming days, though the final result is not due until May 14 with the run-off scheduled on May 28.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Kenya's opposition party on Thursday slammed the mass round-up and deportation of ethnic Somalis by police after a week-old counter-terrorism crackdown saw 4,000 people locked away Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
The latest sweep, conducted in Nairobi's main Somali district Eastleigh since last Friday, is aimed at weeding out sympathizers of the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab, but residents say people of Somali origin have been rounded up indiscriminately.
Government figures say several hundred have been detained after their initial arrest, and 82 deported to Somalia after being found to be in Kenya illegally.
The opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) compared the crackdown to two notorious incidents from Kenyan history: the internment of thousands of suspected Mau Mau sympathizers by the British colonial authorities in 1954, known as Operation Anvil, and the 1984 massacre of ethnic Somalis at Wagalla in northeastern Kenya.
"We wish to express strong displeasure at the swoops going on today, which resemble Operation Anvil of the Mau Mau era or the Wagalla operation of the 1980s," ODM top official Anyang' Nyong'o told a presser.
"We do not think indiscriminate picking of Somalis is the answer. We wish to remind the government that in countries where the war on crime and terror has taken ethnic, racial or religious dimension, the conflict has ended up being more complex and more protracted. We fear Kenya is taking that unfortunate route," he said.
ODM also said the government should draw up a timetable for pulling out of Somalia, where it sent troops in October 2011 to fight the Shabaab.
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04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] A military court on Thursday convicted two people of divulging military secrets for their involvement in leaking videos of former army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.
Rasd network said on its website that the court sentenced the network's social media manager, Islam El-Hommosy, to one year in jail on the charges.
Also convicted according to Rasd was military conscript Mohammed Abdel-Moneim, who was sentenced to three years in jail.
Another journalist and a co-founder of the network, Amr Salama El-Qazzaz, was acquitted, the network added.
Rasd network is known for its sympathetic coverage of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... and his Moslem Brüderbund group.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] On Monday, a court rejected the appeals of prominent activists Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel and Ahmed Doma, and confirmed their three-year jail sentences for breaking the protest law and other charges
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[An Nahar] The Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to send 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers to Central African Republic, where violence between Christians and Moslems has triggered fears of genocide.
The resolution, submitted by La Belle France, will deploy up to 10,000 military personnel and 1,800 police to the former French colony, where sectarian violence has killed thousands in the last year.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission is scheduled to take over on September 15 from 2,000 French and 6,000 African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... soldiers already in place.
The resolution was adopted by the 15-member Council by a show of hands in a vote called by Nigeria, which holds the body's rotating presidency.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... , Samantha Power and British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant both welcomed the vote in personal messages on Twitter.
The resolution authorizes French soldiers to "use all necessary means" to provide support to the U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA).
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[The Peninsula] Kim Jong-Un was "re-elected" as 's leader, state media said, as parliament met in a session closely watched for power shifts in the secretive regime following the shock execution of his once-powerful uncle.
The new parliament is expected to endorse personnel changes that observers say are likely to affect a number of officials linked to his "traitor" uncle Jang Song-Thaek, once the North's unofficial number two and Kim's political mentor.
Kim was reaffirmed as First Chairman of the powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) by the new parliament, in a show of "absolute support and trust of all service personnel and people in him," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The rubber-stamp assembly -- the first under the leadership of Kim who took over from his father in December 2011 -- gathered after North Koreans last month cast ballots in pre-determined elections where all candidates were unopposed.
Upon his re-election, "all the deputies and participants in the session broke into stormy cheers of 'hurrah!', extending the highest glory and warmest congratulations to him," KCNA said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Although many people here had doubts, I thought that Kim could get the numbers.
[The Peninsula] Pakistain's former ruler General (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... might be celebrating his small victory of bringing the Pakistain Army face to face with the democratic government but the politicians stand united in asking the army not to side with the head of a political party and let him face trial.
They say if the army had any issue regarding Musharraf, this could have been discussed with the elected representatives instead of making a public statement, which may have many repercussions.
General Raheel Sharif's statement of preserving the dignity and institutional pride of the army sent shivers across the country.
The PML-N took it as a welcome statement saying that every institution has dignity and pride, which must be preserved.
Senior PPP leader Senator Raza Rabbani said that Musharraf's issue was separate from the Pakistain Army as Musharraf was a retired general and instead of leading a retired life, he has opted to become a politician; therefore, he will be subjected to criticism which does not mean that the institution of the Pakistain Army is being criticized.
"Musharraf does not represent the Pakistain Army, he represents the APML," said Rabbani adding: "He cannot have his cake and eat it too." Rabbani said had the former ruler of Pakistain been living a retired life, he would not have faced criticism.
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[DAWN] Hours after the banned United Baloch Army accepted the responsibility for the terror attack in the busy fruit and vegetable market of the federal capital, the interior ministry surprised many by rejecting the claim.
An interior ministry front man said the initial probe suggested that the UBA had nothing to do with the blast. "Accepting responsibility for the attack by this organization is not just surprising, but also ridiculous."
He said an investigation by intelligence and security agencies had indicated that the blast had roots somewhere else. "Those responsible for it will be chased after completion of the investigation," he said.
Analysts wondered what warranted the ministry to come up with the statement without waiting for completion of the investigation. They believed that a faction of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain might be responsible for the attack because there appeared to be a clear division among pro- and anti-talks groups of the Taliban.
The TTP condemned the blasts in the fruit and vegetable market in Islamabad and at Sibbi railway station and declared that such attacks were 'haram'. TTP front man Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement that attacks targeting innocent civilians were un-Islamic and illegal.
He said the oppressed people of Sindh and Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... were 'brethren' and termed state oppression against them a black chapter in the country's history. He said targeting civilians in retaliation was also oppression.
The TTP front man said the involvement of a hidden hand, which wanted to punish the people of Pakistain for their love for Islam, could not be ruled out. "After their failure to overcome myrmidon organizations, they resorted to such barbaric attacks to defame them," he remarked.
He claimed that the blasts had been carried out by 'secret powers' in different cities, including Lahore and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , in the past in the name of TTP.
He said implementation of a ceasefire declared by the TTP had been acknowledged by the media. "The sane people of Pakistain know who was behind these attacks at public places."
Saleem Shahid adds from Quetta: Mureed Baloch, a front man for the UBA, told newsmen in Quetta by telephone that his organization was behind the kaboom in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad fruit and vegetable market.
"Our organization has carried out the kaboom in fruit and vegetable market in the twin city in reaction to operations conducted by security forces in Kalat, Turbat, Panjgur, Mastung and other parts of Balochistan," he said.
The UBA also grabbed credit for the Jaffar Express kaboom in Sibbi on Tuesday that killed 17 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[DAWN] SARGODHA: An anti-terrorism court judge has been threatened through an anonymous letter with 'dire consequences' if he failed to pay Rs5 million to the unidentified people.
Following the threat, the security of ATC Sargodha region Judge Mr Peer Muhammad Adil has been enhanced.
The internal security division of the federal interior ministry has sought a report from intelligence agencies and district police office on the issue within 24 hours. Accordingly, inquiries have been launched into the matter by police as well as the intelligence agencies.
According to sources, the Police have tossed in the slammer Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a suspect from Chak 115-SB in connection with the threat and shifted him to some unknown place for investigation.
The ATC judge was hearing some cases of sectarian nature, sources said.
Police have 'beefed up' the judges' security, which is more about their protocol than the safety of the court premises.
The security arrangements on the court premises remain poor in spite of 'full-dressed rehearsals' aimed at countering any terrorist attack.
There were no proper arrangements on the court premises for frisking women litigants, a lawyer said.
He pointed out that there were no tight security arrangements on court premises in the night. He apprehended that bully boyz could easily dump weapons there in the night and could use them in an Islamabad-like attack in the morning.
He said the ongoing construction work on court premises had also made the place vulnerable to any act of sabotage.
He warned that lighting arrangements around the court building were also poor and could result in any untoward incident.
District Bar Association president Mian Arif Nazeer suggested that the entire court premises, especially the judicial lock-up, should be checked by police for any explosives every morning before allowing the litigants and lawyers to enter.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#2
Indyk... who has a history of planting negative stories about Israel in order to undermine the Netanyahu government and bolster his hand in the talks.
Methinks that with the Obama administration, it's more a matter of the former (in hopes of getting a leftist government) and less of the latter.
#3
There's a long tradition of Democratic White Houses that have sought to undermine whatever Israeli government that is in power in the hope of having a more pliable government installed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/11/2014 11:42 Comments ||
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#4
What's this about PassOver I hear, is it really that bad?
[DAWN] Israeli and Paleostinian negotiators held a fresh round of US-mediated talks Thursday to try to revive crisis-hit peace talks, officials said. How many prisoners do they need to release this time?
"The gaps are narrowing, but any speculations about an agreement are premature at this time," said US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Washington remains in "intensive negotiations" with both sides, Psaki told news hounds, but stressed that reports of a deal were "inaccurate" as Israel announced it was going to sanction the Paleostinians by freezing taxes it collects on their behalf.
"We're working, as you know, to determine what the path forward is for these negotiations, and that is up to the parties."
The talks hit a new impasse last week after Israel refused to release a final batch of Paleostinian prisoners and the Paleostinians retaliated by seeking accession to several international treaties.
US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... blamed Israel this week for the deadlock as Washington mulled how much more time and effort to put into the faltering negotiations.
American envoy Martin Indyk presided over Thursday's meeting in Jerusalem between Israel's chief negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and her Paleostinian counterpart, Saeb Erakat, a Paleostinian source close to the talks said.
Also present were Yitzhak Molcho, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Paleostinian intelligence chief Majed Farah.
The Paleostinians were pushing for the release of a final batch of prisoners, a commitment Israel reneged on in a move that sparked the crisis.
An Israeli official told AFP that "Israel wants to return to talks and overcome the current crisis."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
They want prisoners released? Pull a Castro and release actual criminals.
[Ynet] Refrencing disputed group of Israeli-Arab prisoners, Bennett says he will leave coalition if government passes reported proposal to save talks by freeing Paleostinian prisoners in exchange for Pollard, continued talks.
[Al Ahram] Israel has frozen the transfer of taxes it collects on behalf of the Paleostinians in retaliation for their seeking accession to several international treaties, an official said Thursday.
"It has been decided to freeze the transfer to the Paleostinian Authority of the taxes collected by Israel on its behalf," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
At the same time, he said, Israel was suspending its participation with the Paleostinians in developing a gas field off the Gazoo Strip and putting a cap on Paleostinian deposits in its banks.
[ANINEWS.IN] Russian intelligence sources have claimed the passengers on missing Malaysian Airlines jet MH370 are alive after the flight landed in Afghanistan. Unless they were sucked into a black hole...
A source in Russian's FSB secret service said the plane was hijacked and flown close to the Pakistain border. ... or kidnapped by space aliens...
According to the Daily Star, the source said al the passengers were, they have been divided into seven groups and are living in mud huts with almost no food. My guess is that somebody's shoe exploded.
The report added that 20 passengers who were Asian 'specialists' have been smuggled into a bunker in Pakistain, the report added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
China is pushing this way to much, to be a victim for political and expansionist reasons.
#2
Last I heard, they went down in the sea, sounds from the "Black Box" (Which isn't black at all, but Red)Have been heard, but the batterws are near exausted. (30 days worth)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/11/2014 8:11 Comments ||
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#3
Afghanistan? Where the US military is operating?
Um, no.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
04/11/2014 10:57 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Israel has asked the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... to take action against Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... after the party's secretary-general, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , said that his group was behind a blast that targeted Israeli troops last month.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... and the Security Council that Nasrallah's admission is further evidence that Hizbullah continues to operate south of the Litani River in violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between the two sides.
"Yes, the kaboom in the Shebaa Farms that Hizbullah has not claimed until now was the work of the resistance, which means the work of Hizbullah," Nasrallah told As Safir daily earlier this week.
The kaboom on March 14 came around a month after Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes in the Lebanese-Syrian border area of Janta that were believed to have targeted its positions.
"This was not the reply, but this was part of the reply," Nasrallah said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/11/2014 00:00 ||
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[Jihad Watch] News about this new report is circulating as an exoneration of the FBI, as it is referred to explicitly in the last paragraph of this New York Times report. However, it is not really an exoneration at all. It is an attempt to displace blame for the FBI's dropping the ball on watching Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon jihad bombing from the FBI to the Russians. The problem with this attempt, however, is that while the report says that the Russians refused to give the FBI further information, it acknowledges that they told the feds that Tamerlan Tsarnaev "was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer" and that he "had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground groups."
The FBI clearly failed in this case and bears some responsibility for the Boston bombing, but ultimately the responsibility lies with Barack Obama and John Brennan, who made sure that agents would be abysmally ignorant of Islam and jihad when they scrubbed all mention of both from counterterror training -- so how could the FBI properly evaluate what the Russians told them? "Abysmally ignorant of Islam"....hardly. They were only following orders. Obama and Brennan complicit in failure? Absolutely.
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.
[Al Ahram] A military court on Thursday convicted two people of divulging military secrets for their involvement in leaking videos of former army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. 
[The Peninsula] Kim Jong-Un was "re-elected" as 's leader, state media said, as parliament met in a session closely watched for power shifts in the secretive regime following the shock execution of his once-powerful uncle.
Pervez 
Top diplomats planted anti-Israel reports in lead up to peace talk collapse
[ANINEWS.IN] Russian intelligence sources have claimed the passengers on missing Malaysian Airlines jet MH370 are alive after the flight landed in Afghanistan.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
