[DAWN] The International Committee of the Red Thingy said Thursday it had suspended work in Afghanistan after the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... announced a "ban" against the humanitarian group and the World Health Organization.
According to a Taliban statement, the ICRC had not "acted upon its agreements" with the Taliban.
The Death Eaters, who control or influence about half of Afghanistan, also accused the WHO of "suspicious movements" during a vaccination campaign.
As a result, the Taliban have "decided to ban the operation of these two organizations across the country until further notice," the Death Eaters said, noting they would not guarantee health workers' safety.
ICRC front man Robin Waudo said the organization had put its activities on hold in war-torn Afghanistan, where many in rural areas have scant access to health care and where polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... rates are rising.
"We acknowledge this announcement and have suspended our activities in the country due to the withdrawal of security guarantees," Waudo told AFP.
"Therefore, we are now in the process of contacting the (Taliban) to initiate a bilateral and confidential dialogue in view of the statement." Jin Ni, a WHO spokeswoman in Afghanistan told AFP that officials "acknowledge the reports and are working on better understanding the situation."
The Taliban last August cancelled a "security agreement" with the ICRC, which suspended activities as a result.
According to the Taliban, the ICRC resumed its activities in October following talks.
The number of polio cases worldwide has fallen by more than 99 percent since 1988, but the WHO still considers Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistain to be polio-endemic.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
The contrary argument being that the reason those dictators took over is because otherwise there would have been chaos until someone took charge. See the examples of post-dictator Egypt and Libya.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
#1
...And yet somehow, it's still all our fault.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/12/2019 7:32 Comments ||
Top||
#2
All giving former colonialism a rehabilitated image (except the Congo, but that was the personal medieval fiefdom of the Belgium king).
#3
The Congo was fifty years from being ready for independence when the sniveling mob forced Belgium to cut them loose. I agree that King Leopold was a thug and tyrant of the first magnitude in the way the Belgian Congo was governed.
The demon spawn of that premature independence is the genesis of most of the horrific violence in Equatorial Africa
[Haaretz] Egypt has pulled out of the U.S. effort to forge an "Arab NATO" with key Arab allies, according to four sources familiar with the decision, in a blow to the Trump administration's strategy to contain Iranian power.
Egypt conveyed its decision to the United States and other participants in the proposed Middle East Security Alliance, or MESA, ahead of a meeting held Sunday in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, one source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
[IsraelTimes] Advocacy group says Trump administration ’arbitrarily’ silencing Paleostinians over political activities; Strategic Affairs Ministry denies Israel involved in travel ban.
The US government this week denied entry to Omar Barghouti,
...one of a long list of members of the Barghouti clan who have prosecuted the war against Israel for over a generation, both politically and as terrorists for both Fatah and Hamas. This one organizes academic boycotts of Israel as well as BDS...
the leader of the Paleostinian-led boycott movement against Israel,
...formally the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC). Given its membership includes representatives from the major Paleostinian political factions including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine, groups that are listed as terrorist organizations by the US, why are they surprised?
according to a Washington-based advocacy group who claimed the travel ban was retribution for his political activities.
Continued on Page 49
[DAWN] The Lahore High Court on Thursday withdrew an amnesty it had earlier been willing to grant Khadim Hussain Rizvi, saying the time to provide a written guarantee ‐ promising that Rizvi will not disrupt law and order if provided bail ‐ has now 'passed'.
Rizvi was taken into "protective custody" by police in Lahore on November 23, 2018, after law enforcement agencies launched a massive crackdown against workers of TLP and Tehrik-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYRA).
The crackdown came following Rizvi's call to party members to observe 'martyr's day' on November 25, the anniversary of the Faizabad sit-in.
Rizvi had asked workers and supporters to gather at the Faizabad Interchange in Islamabad ‐ the same venue where his party had staged a weeks-long sit-in in November 2017 virtually paralysing the federal capital and leading to several people losing their lives.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan
[IsraelTimes] After full day of rechecking, Likud gains a seat to outscore Gantz’s Blue and White 36-35, United Torah Judaism loses a seat; Netanyahu’s path to majority coalition confirmed.
On the other side of the spectrum, Arab party Hadash-Ta’al won six seats, the Labor party crashed to a record low of six, Meretz won four seats, and the second Arab party, Ra’am-Balad, also won four.
So much for the Labour Zionists (socialists) who, after dominating the country from before its founding, have been fading for years.
Melcer said he rejected the last-minute appeal by the New Right and United Torah Judaism parties to hold off on publishing the results, in part because they are not fully official until they are presented to the president and thus in principle subject to change.
He noted that 4,335,320 Israelis voted, from among 6,335,387 who were eligible (68.4 percent), and that 30,756 votes were disqualified.
[IsraetlTimes] Islam Alushachaya indicted for attempted murder for stabbing two guards, one in the neck, sparking March 24 prison riot.
Prosecutors filed attempted murder charges Thursday against a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, security prisoner who stabbed two guards last month at Ketziot prison in the Negev, sparking a riot.
"Islam Alushachaya, a security prisoner in Ketziot Prison, is charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault of prison guards on nationalistic grounds," the State Prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The indictment alleges Alushachaya, 36, tried to kill prison guards in retaliation for attempts by Israeli authorities to stop prisoners from using contraband cellphones in the prison, where convicted snuffies are serving sentences. The ongoing effort to restrict cellphone usage by the prisoners has included the installation of jamming systems.
Some 150 Paleostinian security prisoners held in Rimon and Ketziot prisons launched a hunger strike on Monday over the action, as well as Israel’s refusal to allow family visits from Hamas-ruled Gazoo.
Alushachaya is serving a 19-year sentence for terror attacks including the attempted murder of Israeli civilians by escorting a jacket wallah to Hadera.
The indictment says the prisoner prepared two shivs from pieces of metal he cut from food trays in the prison and hid them under his mattress.
On March 24 while prisoners were being transferred to a different prison wing for a search of their belongings, Alushachaya took one of the shivs out of his pocket and charged a prison guard, stabbing him in the neck while shouting "Allahu Akbar," the prosecution statement said. "Allan Snackbar!"
A second officer rushed over and managed to restrain Alushachaya, who stabbed him in the shoulder.
Both guards were hospitalized, with Sagi Silwan, who had been stabbed in the neck, at death's door. Both have since been released.
"At first I was worried that I had been hit in the artery," Silwan said. "At the hospital they managed to stop the bleeding and it turned out to be very close to the artery. By a miracle it is okay."
Insh’allah. Clearly Allah did nit want his believer to succeed in murdering a Jew, or Mr. Alushachaya would have succeeded. Mr. Alushachaya would be wise to take better care of his soul than he has done until now.
[IsraelTimes] Unit 504, which employs agents beyond Israel’s borders, is said to have ’established a significant and dominant capability’ that prevented attacks
Israeli Military Intelligence’s Unit 504, which employs agents beyond Israel’s borders, received official commendation this week for its activities in the "northern arena" over the past five years, which the army said "prevented terror attacks and neutralized threats that endangered the State of Israel."
The specific activities of the highly secretive unit in the northern arena ‐ the army’s term for Leb and Syria ‐ that earned it the citation were not released.
There are four levels of military citations. Unit 504 received the second highest, one presented by a major general, in this case the head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Tamir Hyman.
The soldiers and officers who make up Unit 504 operate agents in foreign countries and within the West Bank and Gazoo Strip, who provide intelligence that is analyzed within the Military Intelligence Directorate.
"From 2013 to 2018, the unit received the mission of foiling terrorism and interfering with the entrenchment of terrorist figures in the northern arena. With determination and by spotting intelligence and operational opportunities, the unit established a significant and dominant capability," the army said.
"This led to exceptional achievements in the area of operation... which contributed to the superiority of the Israel Defense Forces and to the security of the State of Israel," the military added.
In his speech, Hyman praised the human intelligence unit for gathering "sources who could shed light on the situation taking place in the region and describe the complicated reality."
Col. "Resh" ‐ for security reasons he can only be identified by his rank and first Hebrew letter of his name ‐ thanked Hyman for the award and vowed to continue Unit 504’s work.
"It is clear to me and to the other commanders of this unit that the command inherent in this citation is the continuation of our high-quality, creative and tricky intelligence efforts at the highest level in order to support the IDF and Military Intelligence complete its missions," Resh said.
In recent years, Israel has been fighting a larger quiet war against Iran and its proxies in Syria in order to prevent them from establishing a permanent military base on Israel’s northern border.
Since late last year, the IDF has indicated that its efforts have been reasonably successful in driving back the pro-Iranian forces from the Syrian border.
In Leb, the Israeli military has also been working to counter the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group. In December, Israel launched "Operation Northern Shield," an effort to locate and destroy attack tunnels dug by the group from southern Leb into Israeli territory. The IDF acknowledged destroying six of these underground passages before declaring the operation successfully completed.
[IsraelTimes] April 1948. As thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled Haifa, embedded within that group were a few undercover Jewish men. These Arabic-speaking Jews, born in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, were members of the Haganah’s fledgling spy unit, the Arab Section. Sent to gather information from within the Arab world, they assumed the identities of Palestinian refugees and set up new lives in Beirut.
They were dispatched with few instructions, and even fewer means, into a world in which conjugating a verb wrong could get them killed, said writer Matti Friedman in an onstage interview on Wednesday in Jerusalem. The lucky ones survived through bluffing and disguise; half were killed.
All that was missing was a Hollywood soundtrack as Friedman depicted snippets from the spies’ adventures, vividly painted scenes of life and death spun on a thread. The real-life anecdotes made hit modern-day spy thriller “Fauda” seem contrived.
[IsraelTimes] While American millennials have a liberal reputation, young Israeli Jews, who have never known a real peace process, identify as right-wing at much higher levels than their parents.
[Rudaw] Syrian Kurds on Thursday announced a deal with Baghdad for 31,000 displaced Iraqis, mostly women and kiddies, to return from camps in northeastern Syria to Iraq.
Tens of thousands of people live in the camps, which swelled during the months-long battle by a Kurdish-led force against the last vestige of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group's "caliphate."
"A delegation from the Iraqi cabinet visited the autonomous administration to discuss the return to Iraq of displaced Iraqis, estimated to number 31,000, and an agreement was reached," Kurdish official Mahmud Kero told AFP.
"So far 4,000 people have signed up and we are waiting for the Iraqi government to open up the Iraqi border" to begin the returns, he said.
Kero said many of the displaced, including children born on Syrian soil, did not have Iraqi identity papers.
"We have asked the Iraqi government to find a solution," he said.
Those expected to return do not include suspected ISIS fighters who surrendered or were caught fleeing the jihadists' last redoubt and are now held at Kurdish-run jails.
"We have asked for the return of all Iraqis including those accused of belonging to ISIS," Kero said.
He said they had called for "the trial of those accused of belonging to ISIS on Iraqi soil."
An Iraqi official said on Tuesday that Baghdad had made preparations for the return of tens of thousands of citizens, most of them "women and kiddies."
They were mostly displaced from Nineveh and Saladin, two Sunni-majority provinces north of Baghdad that were once ISIS bastions, said Ali Abbas, an official at the ministry of displacement and migration.
- 'ISIS FAMILIES' -
The returnees would be housed in a camp near northwestern Iraq's Shingal region, to be completed within two months, he said.
The Iraqi authorities are preparing security checks to sift through the new arrivals as "there are signs that some could be ISIS families," he said.
"We can't just let them melt back into society."
He said they would follow "cultural and religious courses" to rehabilitate them after they were "brain-washed" by ISIS.
Iraq has offered to try hundreds of foreign suspected jihadists in Baghdad in exchange for millions of dollars, three Iraqi officials have told AFP.
Iraq has already put on trial several hundred ISIS foreign jihadists and handed down death sentences to around 100. None of those sentences has yet been carried out.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iraq
.@USTreasury and @DEAHQ expose another narco-terrorism money laundering network working for Hizballah. We will continue to impose maximum economic pressure on Iran, its terrorist arm, the IRGC, and its proxies and criminal affiliates around the world. https://t.co/yA6YzqmKKD
From the Treasury Department press release linked in the tweets:
Chams moves money to and from Australia, Colombia, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, France, Brazil, and the United States as part of his narcotics money laundering activities. The Chams Money Laundering organization moves tens of millions of dollars a month for designated narcotics traffickers, such as the Colombian criminal group La Oficina De Envigado and Lebanese drug money launderer Ayman Said Joumaa.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/12/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[13 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
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.
[Haaretz] Egypt has pulled out of the U.S. effort to forge an "Arab NATO" with key Arab allies, according to four sources familiar with the decision, in a blow to the Trump administration's strategy to contain Iranian power.
[IsraelTimes] Advocacy group says Trump administration ’arbitrarily’ silencing Paleostinians over political activities; Strategic Affairs Ministry denies Israel involved in travel ban.
[IsraelTimes] Unit 504, which employs agents beyond Israel’s borders, is said to have ’established a significant and dominant capability’ that prevented attacks
[Rudaw] Syrian Kurds on Thursday announced a deal with Baghdad for 31,000 displaced Iraqis, mostly 
