Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Benazir Bhutto had an emotional reunion with her husband Asif Ali Zardari in Dubai after he was freed from eight years in jail and allowed to travel abroad, officials said on Friday.
"Asif Ali! I've missed you so!"
"Me, too! Get me a drink, woman!"
Zardari flew late on Thursday to the United Arab Emirates, where his wife is in self-imposed exile to avoid graft charges in Pakistan, and was greeted by his son Bilawal and the PPP members. There were highly emotional scenes at the airport when Bilawal hugged his father, a party spokesman said. He then went to his Dubai residence where Bhutto and other family members were waiting for him. "This will be the first New Year the family will celebrate together for eight years," party spokesman Aijaz Durrani said. He will spend some time with the family and will also undergo a medical check-up before they all fly to Saudi Arabia, Durrani said.
So perhaps it's only to plot and plan and hatch nefarious schemes...
It is, of course, time for a Deep-Laid Plot ...
The Sharifs have been living in exile in Jeddah since their purchase by a Soddy prince December 2000. Zardari travelled to Dubai with the couple's youngest daughter Asifa. Their son Bilawal and elder daughter Bakhtawar had gone on ahead to Karachi after spending a few days with their father in Karachi earlier this week.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 1:41:22 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
Yemen has agreed to bolster security cooperation with neighboring Saudi Arabia. Yemeni officials said Sanaa has agreed to extradite an Al Qaida insurgent to Saudi Arabia. The officials did not identify the Al Qaida fugitive, but said he was a Saudi national regarded as a suspect in major attacks in the kingdom. A Saudi security team has been interrogating the Al Qaida operative in Sanaa, officials said. They said the team was expected to return to the kingdom with the suspect, wanted on a range of security offenses. The Yemeni Defense Ministry weekly, entitled "September 26," reported on Dec. 23 that Sanaa has already transferred the insurgent to Saudi custody. The weekly did not identify the insurgent, but said he had been under Yemeni protection.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
The Kuwaiti authorities have reinforced security measures in various parts of the country following the two attacks in booby trapped cars on Wednesday evening in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Security officials and witnesses said that forces from the national guards and units of the special forces were deployed intensively around embassies and hotels and residential areas in the western quarters and around oil establishments, while the police forces held check points on the main roads. A security official stressed that measures at this time are more intensive than those taken earlier following American warnings during the current month, noting that the security forces are following up closely most of what are called "sleeping cells". In the mid of December Washington warned against schemes of what it called terrorist groups to launch attacks against unlimited targets in Kuwait. This was expressed in a memorandum circulated by the American embassy on its citizens in this country.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
Well the sculptors name says a whole fuck of a lot. "Ivan Pinto" Mybe if old Yasser had actually accomplished one constructive thing for his people in his life time than just maybe he would rate a statue some place
#5
If the statue is really "lifelike," it will corrode and rot within a few years.
Isn't there a child molester or serial killer somewhere who deserves being immortalized more than the grandfather of modern terrorism?
An olive branch no less. Some people go well beyond a simple cognitive disconnect. Anyone willing to take bets that this piece of sh!t statue won't be vandalized in the next few months?
Only 17 of 31 attackers who seized a school in southern Russia four months ago have been identified, Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said Thursday. He said that documents had been sent to Interpol to help identify two of the attackers, "presumably coming from Middle East countries," the Interfax news agency reported. Russian officials initially said the attackers killed at the school included nine or 10 Arabs, but they never provided any proof. Shamil Basayev, a Chechen warlord who claimed responsibility for the raid, said his militants who seized the school included two Arabs. The Sept. 1-3 terrorist raid on a school in the town of Beslan ended in a hail of gunfire and explosions, killing more than 330 hostages, nearly half of them children. Shepel said that all the victims' bodies had been identified, Interfax reported. Russian officials have said 32 raiders took part in the attack and 31 of them were killed while one was captured. Media reports and even the legislator leading an investigation into the attack have suggested there may have been more attackers and some escaped.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 6:15:56 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Russia's decision to send troops into separatist Chechnya ten years ago was a mistake, the region's Moscow-backed leader was quoted as saying on Friday. Alu Alkhanov, elected president of the southern province in August, said foreign spies aiming to weaken Russia had sucked the Kremlin into the attack, which only served to strengthen anti-Moscow rebels.
Foreign Agents with a secret agenda, following orders of They Who May Not Be Named
Russian forces poured into Chechnya in early December 1994, but did not meet tough resistance until they entered the capital Grozny on New Year's Eve. Lightly armed rebels destroyed tank columns and killed dozens of soldiers. Alkhanov said Chechnya's separatist government led by Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was elected amid the Soviet collapse, had been weak but the attack united Chechens behind him. "This December military operation was a mistake. Thanks to it Dudayev once again became a uniting figure for the Chechens," he said in an interview with the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily coinciding with the war's ten-year anniversary. Although Russian forces killed Dudayev in 1996, Chechen rebels have kept fighting under successor Aslan Maskhadov -- denounced as an international terrorist by Alkhanov. Alkhanov said foreign fighters who had come to Chechnya had driven out the workers needed to rebuild the region. "Instead of oil-workers, farm directors and builders came Arab mercenaries, explosive specialists and foreign spies. And with their help, we have totally destroyed our scientific, industrial and cultural base."
And done a bang-up job of it too
These spies were to blame for the war in the first place, Alkhanov said, refusing to point the finger at Kremlin officials who analysts see as having blundered into the war without realising its consequences. "The same forces that destroyed the Soviet Union did all they could to ensure there wouldn't be sanity on Chechen soil as well ... Our opponents didn't need a strong Russia, like they didn't need a strong Soviet Union," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 6:12:58 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Reuters: Lightly armed rebels destroyed tank columns and killed dozens of soldiers.
Actually, a thousand soldiers KIA. But Reuters is either too incompetent to find out the numbers or doesn't want Uncle Sam's casualties in Iraq to look tiny compared to Russia's.
Seoul, South Korea-AP Dec. 31, 2004 - South Korea's troops are apparently staying in Iraq for another year. Lawmakers have voted to keep South Korea's 3,600 troops in Iraq until at least the end of 2005. The plan was approved just before the troops' previous mandate in Iraq expired at midnight.
South Korea is the third-largest contributor of troops after the US and Britain. But the country's contingent isn't involved in combat operations, and consists mostly of engineers and medics. South Korea completed deploying its forces to the Kurdish town of Irbil last month.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/01/2005 2:15:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But the country's contingent isn't involved in combat operations, and consists mostly of engineers and medics.
That's ok. We (US, GBrit, Poland, and those scrappy South Americans) will do the fighting, and be grateful that the South Koreans are handling some of the rebuilding. Many thanks, gentlemen!
SEOUL - North Korea said Saturday that the risk of a nuclear war was mounting on the Korean peninsula as the United States attempts to "stifle" it by force. It urged Washington to drop its "hostile" policy toward the communist state and demanded solidarity among all Koreans in order to drive out US troops stationed in South Korea, calling them the "very source of a nuclear war." The statement was made in a New Year editorial run in North Korean newspapers.
And happy new year to you, Kimmie.
"The danger of a nuclear war is growing on the Korean peninsula as the days go by owing to the US moves to stifle the DPRK (North Korea)," the editorial said, according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. "All Koreans should stage a powerful struggle for peace against war in order to drive the US troops out of South Korea, remove the very source of a nuclear war and defend the peace and security on the Korean peninsula," it said. The harangue editorial said 2004 witnessed a "dynamic struggle against the US imperialists' evermore undisguised brigandish aggression and high-handed practices on the international arena."
Clearly Juche Man is on extended holiday. Score no better than 2.0
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/01/2005 1:58:21 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Lol, Dr Steve! In the spirit of your first comment:
A recent report by a distinguished US task force says the United States should use incentives, not bludgeons, in dealing with North Korea in order to defuse the nuclear crisis and persuade Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear-weapons program permanently. The panel, however, got it wrong and put faith in the duplicitous North Korean regime. It should have been listening to the North Korean refugees who fled the "worker's paradise" before it pontificated to the United States about the wisdom of using carrots, not sticks. It's the latest case of "see no evil" when it comes to North Korea.
True to form, North Korea is edging away from its pledge to participate in the fourth round of the six-party talks. The North Korean Foreign Ministry declared through the state-run Rodong Shinmun that "psychological" campaigns of misinformation perpetuated by the United States are deliberate attempts to undermine North Korea by creating the perception that the nation is in chaos. This being North Korea's raison du jour for reneging on its commitment. Perhaps more oil, cash and another glass factory built at China's expense (widely reported preconditions to North Korea's attendance at the last three meetings) will prompt Pyongyang to honor that which it already has promised so many times before. Or at least it might compel participation for the short term until another opportunity presents itself for North Korea to blackmail the region into paying still more for what the North was supposedly bound to do more than a decade ago - dismantle its nuclear program.
The North Koreans are nothing if not consistent, as they have reneged on every nuclear agreement entered into over the past 15 years, and not just with the United States. The 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed by North Korea and South Korea. Of course, we now know North Korea was violating that agreement virtually before the ink was dry...
Posted by: Michael Sheehan ||
01/01/2005 18:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The North Koreans are nothing if not consistent, as they have reneged on every nuclear agreement entered into over the past 15 years, and not just with the United States. The 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was signed by North Korea and South Korea. Of course, we now know North Korea was violating that agreement virtually before the ink was dry...
In light of such facts, how is it possible for any sane person to propose a negotiated deal with North Korea? There is NOTHING to negotiate because there is nothing the North Koreans won't lie about. This is a monumental case of diplomats fooling nobody except themselves. The only problem is that the joke's on millions of Koreans who stand to perish if North Korea's psychosis goes terminal at some point.
#2
I am constantly amazed by such stories. I try to imagine how the last 4 years of the MSM-declared "oh so skeery standoff" could have gone any better than it has. The "stew in your own juice" policy has completely befuddled Dear Leader (or whatever he's called, now, lol!) and the whole NorK joke may collapse at any moment - and without a shot being fired. After stewing for 4 years, I'd wager he's pretty tender, by now. And to think we didn't bolster him and prop him up at great cost to ourselves, just so he could continue proliferating. Sheesh, who'da thunk it? Well obviously Bush & Co thunk it and made it happen. And the little NorK Leader has nothing to show for all his bluster and bullshit for 4 solid years. Only the MSM is immune - they still don't get it, lol!
#3
The recent US task force making these recommendations included Mad-eline Halfbright and other Clintonistias.
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 3:08 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Lets make a deal with a regime that has managed to never stick to a deal once in row.
Posted by: Michael ||
01/01/2005 10:18 Comments ||
Top||
#5
...comfortable, well-fed academics and former politicians and bureaucrats sought to craft still more generous offers and inducements for the Pyongyang regime
Yeah, I kinda figured that was the makeup of the "distinguished task force".
#7
Hey there, Madeline, thats nicer n the plaque they gave me from Oz-slow, for that there No-Bell peace prize I got for negotiating that agreement with Dear Leader. I trust him, he was very gracious to me over there, just like my dear friend Chavez was when I was last down there.
The Dutch spy chief has accused politicians of ignoring intelligence warnings about rising Islamic militancy in his first newspaper interview since the murder of a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islam. "I was always surprised that politicians did not sound the alarm in reaction to our annual reports," the head of the country's main AIVD agency, Sybrand van Hulst, told the Friday edition of Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. The NRC said it was van Hulst's first newspaper interview since the November murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who angered Muslims with his blunt criticism of their religion.
A 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan has been charged with the killing that was followed by a wave of attacks on mosques, Muslim schools and churches. Van Hulst said the agency had warned that integration of immigrants was failing and that foreign powers sought to influence religious communities in the Netherlands. "In 2000 we said in our annual report that our society was facing increasing pressure. That is a very severe thing to say. But no word from the politicians. That really amazed me." "Politicians now realise that tougher laws were necessary," he said, but warned that measures against radical Muslims alone would not solve the problem. "We must make sure that Muslims feel welcome here, that they integrate, that they accept the identity of the country where they live," he said. Van Hulst said young Muslims were especially vulnerable to the appeal for radical Islam. "Nowadays young, second- or third-generation Moroccans don't see themselves as Moroccans anymore, but also not as Dutch. In the search for an identity, they decide that they are just Muslims and nothing else."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 5:42:02 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Canard Enchaîne wrote in its final December issue "An Iranian minister came from Tehran to Paris with a message from President Khatami to announce to Chirac that the two hostages will be freed by the end of 2004". Shedding new light on Iran's involvement in the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq, the weekly added, "The envoy accompanied by Sadeq Kharrazi, the Islamic Republic's Ambassador to Paris, met with the French Interior minister in mid-December. Shortly afterwards, Chirac privately met with the envoy, where he gave him the good news. Iran's Hezbollah agents in Lebanon played a significant role in this case".
Posted by: tipper ||
01/01/2005 9:14:03 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This shines a new light on the kidnappers' demand that the French repeal its prohibition against girls wearing Moslem ugly headscarves at school.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/01/2005 10:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The envoy accompanied by Sadeq Kharrazi, the Islamic Republicâs Ambassador to Paris, met with the French Interior minister in mid-December. Shortly afterwards, Chirac privately met with the envoy, where he gave him the good news
Got the Gallic kneepads out, did they?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2005 12:05 Comments ||
Top||
#3
This shines a new light on the kidnappers' demand that the French repeal its prohibition against girls wearing Moslem ugly headscarves at school.
Yes, and no. Methinks the head-scarf demand was from the rank-and-file kidnappers. Someone in the mullarchy took a longer, more strategic view of Iranian relations with France, and decided to correct the situation.
In a scathing political editorial, the Washington Post on Friday criticised President George Bush for continuing to "lionise" Gen. Pervez Musharraf while shutting his eyes to his authoritarian rule. The Post wrote that with the announcement that he would not be stepping down as chief of the Pakistan army, "President Pervez Musharraf will break yet another of the promises he has made to his country and the world since seizing power in a 1999 military coup against an elected government.' The newspaper recalled that a year ago, in exchange for parliamentary support for a package of laws increasing his powers as President, extending his rule through 2007 and curtailing elected government through the creation of a military-dominated national security council, Gen. Musharraf had pledged to resign from his post as Army chief of staff by Dec. 31.
That's all very nice, but it's not the libertarians and the secularists who're pushing for Perv to fall so much as the authoritarian religious parties — you know, the guys who say that democracy is a Jewish plot and that people should be ruled by holy men, with turbans and automatic weapons. Why do you think they have hissy fits over the idea of a secular state? So it boils down to a Devil-Deep Blue Sea sort of thing, with Perv and his oligarchs holding a bare edge of power over Qazi and his holy men, doesn't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 2:19:21 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
In other news, the WaPo and NYT continue to chastise Mr. Bush for breathing.
In a bid to both bankrupt those who finance terror and bring some sense of justice to its victims, the legal team that is suing the Saudis for $1 trillion has launched yet another massive lawsuit against prime supporters of radical Islamic jihad.
Filing in the Eastern District of New York last week on behalf of 700 survivors and family members of those killed by terrorism in Israel, legendary trial lawyer Ron Motley is seeking unspecified billions to continue his quest to change the face of counterterrorism.
Mr. Motley, who made a mint taking on the likes of tobacco companies and asbestos manufacturers, is now leading the charge against Arab Bank, which operates in every Arab country that allows private banking. Among its 400 branches and offices in 30 countries — and the reason the plaintiffs have a real shot at recovery — is a federally chartered branch in New York City.
While the case against the Saudis is considered a long shot by many legal experts (though plaintiff insiders feel the action is going quite well) the Arab Bank lawsuit seems solid.
Or maybe a better word is damning.
Though there has yet been no "discovery" (the process where the defendant is supposed to provide any number of documents and the juiciest stuff is often revealed), Mr. Motley's team already appears to have a wealth of incriminating evidence against Arab Bank.
According to the initial complaint, Arab Bank has funneled billions of dollars to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other terrorist organizations.
The bank's chairman and part owner is an outspoken advocate of Islamic jihad.
Arab Bank Chairman Abd al-Majid Shuman, whose family is believed to hold 40 percent of the institution's stock, has been quite public in his support for the Palestinian intifada, the four-year campaign of terror aimed primarily at innocent Israeli citizens. Arab-language newspaper articles excerpted in the complaint indicate that Mr. Shuman is a well-known advocate of the intifada.
Mr. Shuman allegedly told the Jordanian newspaper al-Dustour four years ago that Jews have no right to live in Palestine. For "Palestine," read as "All the lands between the Jordan River to the east, the Mediterranean to the west, Lebanon to the north, and Egypt to the south." This will give you a truer understanding of Mr. Shuman's sentiments.
In July 2000 — during the infamous Camp David talks, where Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat walked away from the table — Mr. Shuman said he was "against a Palestinian compromise [based on] a partial return [which included] the loss of some land, and that the Jews had no right to the land of Palestine," the paper reported.
Other banks owned at least in part by the Shuman family appear to have acted openly to help realize Mr. Shuman's dream of having no Jews in Palestine. Arab Bank's chairman allegedly issued a press release stating that the primary activities of another of his family's financial institutions related to supporting Palestinian jihad.
Following is an excerpt from a May 30, 2001 article in the al-Dayan newspaper, based in the United Arab Emirates: "Abd al-Majid Shuman, chairman of the board of Al-Ta'awun in Geneva, stated in a press release that most of the institution's activities centered around supporting the Intifada and the Al-Aqsa Fund, which the institution had established at the beginning of the confrontation."
Arab Bank also appears to have openly supported the intifada. Mr. Shuman is cited in al-Dustour in October 2000 as having orchestrated Arab Bank employees to donate 5 percent of their salaries "in solidarity and in support of the Al Aqsa Intifada."
The same article also asserts that Arab Bank hosted a meeting of the Popular Committee for Support of the Intifada, where the group discussed its plans to "continue giving direct financial aid to the families of shaheeds (martyrs) and the wounded of the Al-Aqsa intifada as follows: 1000 dinars [roughly $1,400] to the family of each shaheed and 300 dinars [just over $400] to the families of the wounded." Lawyers representing Arab Bank, not surprisingly, released a boilerplate denial, stating: "The accusations being brought against the Bank, as we understand them, are entirely false."
If Arab Bank has not supported terrorism, however, then either Mr. Shuman has lied about his jihadist financing or various Arab newspapers have fabricated statements from him.
Neither potential explanation, though, would account for documents captured by the Israeli Defense Forces that show money being funneled to Hamas and other terrorist groups through Arab Bank's New York branch.
Regardless of how the case against Arab Bank turns out, terror's sponsors will not have seen the last of Mr. Motley and his crew. The maverick trial lawyer is driven to bankrupt those who support and perpetrate terrorism; the September 11 victims' families he represents operate under the name "9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism."
Both in terms of punishing terrorism supporters and stopping the future flow of blood money, the suit against Arab Bank hopefully will mark another significant step by victims in their own war against terror. This approach worked for the FBI against Al Capone, and forced the Swiss banks and various insurance companies to cough up monies belonging to Jews killed in the Holocaust, so it has a reasonable chance in this case. At any rate, it’s exciting that Mr. Ron Motley, esq. is trying.
This is good to hear...
WASHINGTON - For the two principal military hospitals treating American troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been too much of a good thing this holiday season. So many gifts for injured troops and their families have poured into Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., that they have run out of space and are asking well-wishers to give elsewhere.
Overwhelmed by thousands of items like CD and DVD players, quilts, toiletries, clothes and food — not to mention huge stacks of prepaid phone cards — Walter Reed this week urged people to wait until February or March to send items. An official at the naval hospital requested that contributions be postponed until March.
The public is instead encouraged to send money to other organizations that help injured service members and their families with needs such as transportation and living expenses. "We are running out of space to store the items we receive, that's the real crux of the problem. And we have enough" to last through February, said Staff Sgt. Joseph Lee, the noncommissioned officer in charge of Walter Reed's Medical Family Assistance Center, which looks after wounded soldiers and their families. "It's a great problem to have," he added.
In Bethesda, gifts fill an office and its back room, a classroom and a warehouse, said Marine Cpl. Adam Jensen-Withey, who works with the Marine Casualty Services Branch that handles donations and welcomes injured troops back stateside.
At Walter Reed, Lee described a 40-by-60-foot storage room nearly filled to its 12-foot ceiling with gifts from across the country. Another office is filled with letters, many of them with phone cards. Lee said space became scarce about two weeks ago as scores of phone cards arrived, many in response to a widespread e-mail soliciting them.
The naval center, which began running out of space around Thanksgiving, has "bins upon bins upon bins of phone cards," said Jensen-Withey. Awash in a surplus of free phone minutes, both facilities are urging people to stop sending the cards.
Walter Reed is steering future donors to organizations such as the Walter Reed Society, the Fisher House Foundation and the American Red Cross.
Jensen-Withey said monetary donations are better off going to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, Soldiers' Angels, the Armed Forces Foundation and the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. More information about making contributions is available through the Defense Department's www.defendamerica.mil and www.americasupportsyou.mil.
Posted by: tu3031 ||
01/01/2005 9:31:16 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Indonesia's courts delivered verdicts on 105 terrorism cases in 2004 and will go into the New Year with another 50 outstanding, the attorney general's office said Friday. Reading out a year-end report, office spokesman Suhandoyo said the remaining 50 cases were either in the process of trials or being prepared for trial. Suhandoyo said courts in Jakarta were tasked with the largest number of terrorism cases in 2004 with 39, followed by those in Bali with 37 and North Sumatra with 31. He gave no other details. Indonesia has seen a series of terrorist bomb attacks since 2000 that has left scores of people dead.The biggest attack was the October 2002 Bali bomb blasts that killed 202 people, and the September suicide car bombing at the Australian embassy in Jakarta that killed at least 11 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 2:28:10 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Can we give those afflicted people a portion of our zakah money even if they are non-Muslims? How about giving them charity?
Answer In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Thank you. The receivers of Zakah money are clearly mentioned in the Qur'an. Among them, the poor and needy people. Looking at the situation of those people who are afflicted, one can conclude that the Muslims among them fall under the category of needy people.
In this regard, those Muslims deserve to receive a portion of Zakah. As for non-Muslims, they might deserve donation or any other form of assistance but not Zakah.
Thus, Zakah should be given to poor and needy Muslims. Some non-Muslims may receive a portion of Zakah if there is hope that by giving them Zakah that might lead to their conversion into Islam. They would be then considered under the category of mu'allafati qulubuhun or those whose hearts are inclined to accept Islam.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/01/2005 9:30:03 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Some infidels non-Muslims may receive a portion of Zakah if there is hope that by giving them Zakah that might lead to their conversion into Islam.
If not, behead the infidel.
#3
So long as Islamic societies discourage and expressly forbid reciprocation of freedom of worship and charity, the rest of the world should do likewise. No Zakah for them, indeed.
How does this arrangement work for the IC Red Thingy and Red Croissant, who seem to be joined at the hip? I'm curious to know whether the Red Moon guys and gals are as keen to rush to the aid of Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists as the Red t-Shapes are to rush to the aid of Muslims. Do they pool their resources then distribute them so as to restrict their use for helping non-Muslims?
The post-September 11, 2001, era has largely been kind to Malaysia. Much of this can be traced to how Malaysia responded to allegations immediately after the terrorist attacks in New York and near Washington that Southeast Asia was a hotbed for terrorism. Whereas neighboring Indonesia and the Philippines were censured for their slow response in curbing Islamic extremist elements in their midst, Malaysia swiftly jailed suspected terrorists and closed madrassas (Islamic schools) suspected of preaching hate. Soon even Washington, which had long frowned on Malaysia for its myriad human-rights abuses, was singing its praises as a no-nonsense, unwavering success in "the war on terror". That bolstered the impression of Malaysia as a moderate and progressive Islamic nation, an image that for the most part has stuck to this day.
Except for Mahathir, and PAS, and the fact that the Bad Boyz seem to roam pretty freely there. And now there's the case of southern Thailand...
But with new allegations by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that militants involved in a separatist movement in southern Thailand were trained in the jungles of the northern Malaysian state of Kelantan, which borders Thailand, the substance of that reputation is being questioned.
Rather than investigating and doing something about the problem if one's found, they decided to tell Toxin he's nuts...
That strikes some as warranted, considering how much the Western-led "war on terror" has incited the ire of the Muslim world. But the Malaysian government won't have it. "I am shocked over such a statement," retorted Malaysian Premier Abdullah Badawi. "If Thaksin has such information, he should convey this to Malaysia through diplomatic channels. We question Thaksin's motive for making the statement."
Maybe he's cheesed that somebody's trying to take a few provinces away from him?
Malaysian authorities have accused Thaksin of trying to divert attention from his administration's brutal methods in fighting the southern insurgency that his government blames on Muslim separatists. The latest outrage came in October, when 87 Muslim protesters in Tak Bai suffocated to death after they were stuffed into military trucks for six hours. More than 500 people have died in the south since fighting began last January.
Yeah, but how many were riding around on Motorcycles of Doom™, waving guns or tossing explosives?
Others doubt that Thaksin would make such allegations if not true; being disproved would undermine his credibility and run the risk of irrevocably damaging relations with Malaysia. "It's very possible terrorists have been trained in Malaysia," said Singapore-based terrorist analyst Rohan Gunaratna. To what extent remains unclear, "but there's been training in the Philippines and Indonesia" - why should the jungles of Malaysia be considered immune? "You can train without the knowledge of governments."
The Commies did it 40 years ago. What's changed since?
Thaksin says he has photographs of militant training grounds in Kelantan, though the photos have yet to be released. In the meantime, perhaps the most pressing question is how much sympathy Islamic extremism has in Malaysia, home to a slim Muslim majority. "If you look at the historical context of Malaysia," said an official with the country's Foreign Affairs Ministry, "we [the government] have worked hard to win the hearts and minds of the people." He said has been achieved mainly through economic development. "By bringing prosperity we have taken away the social causes of terrorism." Others are not so sure. Kelantan, they point out, is controlled by the atavistic Islamic opposition party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS); furthermore, they warn, economic progress in Malaysia has instilled a self-congratulatory complacency among the ruling elite. "Indonesia, the Philippines, even Thailand have admitted their countries aren't all peachy, that terrorists have tried to operate there," said a businessman who has worked and traveled in the region for the past eight years. "In Malaysia, the attitude is much more defensive, maybe because of the economic success and the illusions that come with it, but you never hear someone in the government saying, 'We may have missed something.'"
Thailand is also something of an economic success story, so why's the Islamic insurgency popping up now, when things are getting better? Where was it in 1972, when the country was largely agricultural and unelectrified?
Understanding that tendency is vital to any discussion that considers whether the Malaysian government is doing enough to curb terrorist sympathies from taking root here.
It could be that the Malaysian government has no involvement with terrorism, but that PAS is sympathetic to them and also controls Kelantan. Despite its losses in the last election, the government is still scared of PAS...
Over the past two decades, Malaysia has arguably fought to protect its national reputation more fiercely than any nation in the region. It has ambitiously promoted a robust image of itself though megaprojects and incessant propagandizing. The country's information minister was quoted as saying in October, "We have not only made Malaysia peaceful, successful and prosperous, but we have also in a very strong way become an inspiration to the whole world."
"At least until Mahathir opens his mouth. Then people go back to admiring Singapore and we're the usual chopped liver, only with turbans...
Such whitewashing, standard front-page fare here, has contributed to a culture that is worrisomely averse to criticism and introspection; thoughts of unflattering developments are rarely entertained by either the government or the rakyat (citizens). All this is not to suggest that Malaysia has become a training ground for terrorists, only that the reality may be more troubling than the government or the rakyat are willing to admit. Many suspected terrorists, from radical Muslim preacher Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, to elderly cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged leader of extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), have spent time in Malaysia. An alleged bomb maker for the JI is Malaysian. And the author of the book The Liberation of Pattani, which urges Malay-Muslims to rebel against the Thai government, calling it their religious duty, lived for a while in Kelantan. Malay-Muslims live on both sides of the Thai-Malaysian border. This is not to mention the spread of literature here espousing Saudi Arabia's puritanical interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, or the fact that Islam here is particularly race-based. Almost all Muslims are Malay. Malays are born into Islam. Some fear this may be heightening acuteness to differences and exacerbating the us-versus-them mindset and under-siege mentality gripping much of the Muslim world.
I'd also add that much of the economic development's due to the ethnic Chinese, who aren't Muslim, for the most part. Kelantan's not the economic engine of Malaysia.
But Dr Joseph Liow Chin Yong of the Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore warns against drawing too many conclusions from these developments. He says Abdullah's style is quieter than that of his predecessor Mahathir Mohamad, who retired last year after 22 years in power, but this does not mean Abdullah has been less than vigilant in weeding out terrorist elements. Madrassas are carefully monitored, he said, and while Wahhabi literature is still available, "the issue is not with Wahhabism, but with the way people interpret Wahhabi ideology in the socio-political context they are in. For example, Wahhabism will never be popular in Malaysia and Singapore as a political ideology because the conditions, ie alienation and marginalization by Western forces, do not exist." Others argue that US President George W Bush's "war on terror" is acting as fodder for extremists and their ideologies, undermining government vigilance and challenging past assumptions about Muslim thinking. A prominent Muslim scholar here recently told Asia Times Online there is a serious and growing problem of sympathy for Islamic extremism, "even among rational and intelligent Muslims". There is debate as to whether the many battles in which Muslims around the world now find themselves embroiled are garnering terrorist sympathy in the region or simply sympathy for Muslim brethren. But for the sake of Malaysia, the Malaysian government would be wise not to jump to conclusions.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 11:21:05 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Step number one: keep the relief money out of the hands of the jihadis...I know, it's easier said than done!
#2
One of the aspects of this incredible natural disaster which is possibly worrisome is that, under the guise of relief aid, money transfers that would have been conspicuous before may go unnoticed now. Some very rotten people are very smart.
This town is no stranger to carnage, always bouncing back from the damages suffered during its periodic turns on the front lines of Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war. A government assault drove out ethnic Tamil rebels in 1990. After six years of siege, the guerrillas took it back in a ferocious, one-day battle that wiped out the army garrison of 1,200 and killed 800 rebels. The Tamils rebuilt, and the rebels' secretive chief, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, even made the town his home. But Mullaitivu met its match in Asia's tsunami catastrophe. Sitting on Sri Lanka's northeast coast, the town took the full force of Sunday's mammoth waves _ devastation in full evidence Friday when Associated Press journalists got one of the first glimpses by outsiders of the damage inside the rebel-controlled part of this island nation off the southern tip of India. Row upon row of houses were flattened, walls ripped from their foundations. At the Roman Catholic Church, only one wall with its icons and the bell tower still stand. Worrying about the spread of disease, Tamil soldiers shot dogs scrabbling through the debris and around rotting bodies.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 1:28:22 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Well we know who'll be first in line for "aid"...
Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi sent a letter to the President Bashar al-Assad on Friday, urging him to handover Saddam's loyalists, saying that they are disrupting security in Iraq.
In his message, the Iraqi PM said that it was 'disgraceful' that loyalists of the toppled Iraqi president were abusing the hospitality accorded to them in Syria.
However, Allawi stressed that he does not mean that those officials were working with the approval of the Syrian government.
Yet he urged the Syrian government to hand over those, he says are harming Iraq.
Allawi claimed that he has evidence that former Iraqi officials are living in Syria and carrying out what he called 'terrorist acts'. "There are elements that abuse hospitality accorded to them, whether in Syria or elsewhere. They seek to harm Iraq and the Iraqi people. I wrote letters, including one to [Syrian] President Assad, in which I explained the issue to him," Al-Arabiya Arabic TV station quoted Allawi as saying.
Meanwhile, hardline Islamists vowed to target Iraq's elections, just weeks away, as Allawi declared that Iraq's future lay with democracy.
In the dawn of 2005, the opposing visions of Iraq offered by Allawi, a vocal advocate of next month's polls, and fundamentalist hardliners revealed the high stakes in the war-torn country.
Allawi delivered his thoughts on state-owned Al-Iraqiya television, in a light blue shirt and a brick red tie in front of a row of books and an Iraqi flag.
"The new year will be decisive in the history of our nation and its future," he said.
"I wish my good nation a happy New Year and I hope it brings to Iraqis and the whole world happiness, prosperity and stability God willing," he said.
His speech was laced with images of Baghdad and ordinary people strolling in busy markets to mellow music. "There will be no true economic growth if we do not rid ourselves of the old ways," said Allawi. "Economic and political progress require a democratic environment."
The three-minute message seemed like it was taped in Allawi's office in the fortified Green Zone, home to the interim government and the U.S. embassy.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 6:06:40 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Nice try, oh how Saddam loyalists are abusing the hospitality....next time saying it with targeted bombing, much more impact.
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 19:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Between Allawi and Armitage, it appears that the Syrians are running out of time to clean house.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/01/2005 19:46 Comments ||
Top||
Iraq's Defence Minister, Hazem Shaalan, accused Iran today of attempting to "create a Safavian-style Shiite Crescent stretching from Iran all the way to Syria and Lebanon, engulfing Iraq and bringing about corruption in the country".
In comments made to the Jordanian daily, Al-Qadr (Tomorrow), the defence chief also promised to release in the next two days footage of "taped-confessions from agents who, acting on foreign orders, were disrupting Iraq's security".
Mirroring previous comments Shaalan also called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's strongman in Iraq and Iraq's most wanted man, an "Iranian puppet, whose goal is to destabilise security and welfare in Iraq".
He sharply criticised Iran for "its efforts at destabilising Iraq" and said that "its objectives were known to everybody".
The purpose of the January 6th conference in Amman, on Iraq's security, is "to put pressure on Iran and Syria to stop supporting insurgents" who are entering the country through their borders, Shaalan said.
Over the past year, a string of Iraqi officials, including Iraq's interim-Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, and the interim-Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq. In a December 7 interview with the Washington Post, Yawar accused Iran of pouring "huge amounts of money" into fundamentalist Shiite parties hoping to create an Iraqi Islamic Republic.
Shaalan's comments on a Iranian-style Shiite Crescent dominating Iraq echoed comments in December by the Jordanian King Abdullah, who said a new "crescent" of dominant Shiite movements or governments stretching from Iran into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon could emerge if pro-Iran parties dominated the new Iraqi government.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 6:08:21 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It would appear that Hazem Shaalan is attempting to make a point. He appears to say that Iran and Syria are working together to overtake the ME region. To any clear thinking person, this is obviously the fault of President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. If it hadn't been for their invasion of Iraq, the Syrians and Iranians would still be planting flowers, blowing kisses, raising cute little puppies, and serving on the UN Commission for Human Rights.
Posted by: Jacques Chirac ||
01/01/2005 22:22 Comments ||
Top||
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi made an unusually strong warning to Iraq's neighbors to crack down on insurgents infiltrating from their territory, saying Friday that Iraq's patience was wearing thin. Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for a bold attack on U.S. troops.
Iraqi officials have repeatedly accused Syria and Iran of supporting the insurgents waging a campaign of violence against U.S. forces and Allawi's U.S.-backed government. Both countries have denied helping militants or allowing them to cross their borders into Iraq.
But Allawi's comments to Baghdad's Al-Iraqiya television were among his toughest yet. ``Some countries are hosting people who are involved in harming the Iraqi people,'' he said, without naming any nations. ``Harming Iraq and its people is not allowed.''
He said his government had contacted the countries and was waiting for their reply. ``According to the answers we will decide what the next step will be,'' he said.
``Iraq is not a weak country. Iraq is passing through a difficult period but Iraq can respond in a strong way if needed,'' he said. ``Patience has limits and it is beginning to run out.''
In new violence, a U.S. Marine assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action Friday during security operations in the Al Anbar Province, the Marines said in a release, which did not provide any other details.
Meanwhile, the U.S. first Infantry Division detained 49 suspects guerrillas during a midnight raid in the town of Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, the military said Friday. The sweep appeared to be the latest in a series of anti-insurgency campaigns in the so-called Sunni Triangle in central Iraq.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the country's most wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for a well-coordinated attack Wednesday on a U.S. post in the northern city of Mosul. The U.S. military said one U.S. soldier and 25 insurgents were killed in the battle.
The militants, however, claimed they had suffered no casualties.
``We, al-Qaeda in Iraq, claim responsibility for the battles of Mosul, may God cleanse it from the impurities of the infidels,'' said a statement posted on a Web site that often carries militant claims.
Wednesday's attack began with a massive truck bomb exploding just outside a U.S. checkpoint, followed by attacks by squads of 10-12 insurgents.
A Stryker vehicle reinforcing the Americans was hit by a roadside bomb and a second car bomb. U.S. forces then called in airstrikes by F-18 and F-16 fighter jets, which launched three Maverick missiles and conducted several strafing runs.
In other violence, a car bomb exploded next to a taxi carrying Iraqi national guardsmen in the town of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad. A passenger car, which happened to be passing by at that moment, absorbed the brunt of the blast, killing its two occupants while five guardsmen were wounded, said Maj. Neil O'Brien.
In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. troops came under mortar attack Friday. They opened fire, killing an Iraqi and wounding two, local hospital sources said.
North of Fallujah, a body of an Iraqi national guardsman was found with a handwritten note pinned to it saying: ``This is the fate of anyone who collaborates with the occupation forces.''
Allawi, who earlier this month accused Syria of harboring officials from the ousted Saddam Hussein's regime, described a spate of guerrilla attacks in December that have killed hundreds of people - mainly members of the security forces - as ``a catastrophe.'' Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan accused Iran and Syria of supporting ``terrorism in Iraq.''
During Friday's prayers in a Baghdad mosque, Sheik Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour Al-Samarie of the Association of Muslim Scholars - an influential Sunni group- demanded that the U.S. troops pull out of Iraq.
``We have to realize that God is mightier than America and more powerful than the occupation forces,'' he said.
``America, which conducted crimes everywhere and supported Israel against Muslims, should take the lesson of the torrent and surge of the ocean in Asia,'' Al-Samarie said, adding the United States could be destroyed in a similar manner.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 6:04:55 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Jewish students charge that three professors in the university's Middle East & Jewish Studies department have ridiculed and intimidated them for making pro-Israel remarks, violating their rights as students to express opinions contrary to those of their professors.
The allegations reflect the growing scrutiny that Middle East studies departments across the country are facing from pro-Israel groups that claim Arab or Islamic professors are slanting their courses to favor the Palestinian side, sometimes to the point of challenging Israel's right to exist. Ahhh... the plot Sickens! Its all a JEWISH plot! Brahahahahaha.....
But nowhere is that scrutiny more public--or more heated--than on the one-block-wide quadrangle of Columbia's main campus.
The university's Middle East & Jewish Studies department was the subject of a highly critical documentary this fall by a Boston-based pro-Israel group, and university President Lee Bollinger named a committee of Columbia academics in December to investigate the students' charges and decide whether the three professors should be disciplined.
Far from being treated as colleagues, some students of professor Joseph Massad, one of the faculty members under scrutiny, say he berates and humiliates those who challenge him.
A female student who asked him whether Israeli authorities warned Palestinians before destroying the residences of suspected terrorists said he cut her off and told her that he would not allow her to deny Israeli "atrocities" in his class.
Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics, reportedly asked another student who identified himself as a former Israeli soldier how many Palestinians he had killed.
Another faculty member at the center of the controversy is professor George Saliba, a specialist in the history of Arabic and Islamic science, who reportedly told a student that her opinion about Israel was not valid because she had green eyes and was not a "true Semite."
And professor Hamid Dabashi, the former chairman of Columbia's Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department, reportedly has said that Israel is a "ghastly state of racism and apartheid" that "must be dismantled." As opposed to certain Islamic states which are the sole model of tolerance...
These accounts of the three professors' actions and beliefs are included in "Columbia Unbecoming," a 20-minute documentary produced by the David Project, a Boston-based group that says its mission is to make sure the Israeli position is fairly represented in college classes.
"I have been maliciously slandered," Dabashi said in an e-mail message, adding that his relationship with his students has always been "one of mutual respect, irrespective of their gender, nationality, or religious identity." I'm sure the Nazi's also had this sort of relationship with all their citizens....
As for his comments about dismantling Israel, Dabashi said the quotes were taken out of context and that he opposes "any sort of religious state," including a "Christian empire," Islamic republic or Jewish state. So he also rallies against Saudi Arabia and Iran right? No? I'm SHOCKED!
Saliba wrote a rebuttal in the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, in which he said he did not remember making a remark about the student's eye color disqualifying her from having a valid opinion about Israel.
"The aim of the David Project propaganda film is to undermine our academic freedom, our freedom of speech, and Columbia's tradition of openness and pluralism," he says on the Web site. This single statement PROVES their case. He is basically saying that any film which does not agree with him is 'propaganda'....
Since the campus screenings of "Columbia Unbecoming," more students have come forward with allegations that the professors made intimidating remarks, according to Beery, the Columbia student, who is president of the student body of one of Columbia's undergraduate colleges.
"They have been degrading and dehumanizing and disrespecting and completely overstepping the modes of behavior that they should stick to when they have such incredibly important positions of responsibility," said Beery, an Israeli who is studying economics and political science.
Others have rallied to support the professors. More than 700 scholars from around the world signed a petition backing Massad. I'm sure they all have first-hand knowledge of his classes right? How many of the 700 are from Islamic Universities?
And a newly formed student group at Columbia, the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Academic Freedom, disputes many of the charges of intimidation.
Jacobs, the David Project head, sees the Columbia dispute as one example among many nationwide. His group is planning to make similar films about other, unnamed universities.
For Columbia, however, the controversy goes to the heart of the university ethos--the balance between a professor's right to express unpopular views and a student's right to challenge those views.
"Academic freedom is something that is basic to free inquiry, but it's not an unlimited principle," said university spokeswoman Susan Brown. "So the question is: When does a professor cross the line?" How about when he stops doing WHAT HE IS DAMN WELL BEING PAID TO DO. When he is simply spouting out his own political agenda and not the 'facts'?
Egyptian police have arrested 80 people and imposed a curfew in a town in upper Egypt following clashes between Muslims and Christians during which one Muslim youth died. A nighttime curfew was imposed in the town of Damshau Hashem in Minya province, 250 kilometres (156 miles) south of Cairo, after violence erupted because young Muslims suspected that Coptic Christians there wanted to demolish a home in the area and build a church in its place.
The Muslims claimed the Christians were backtracking on a pledge last year not to proceed with the project and continue to use a church nearly two kilometres away. They argued that Christians did not need a church in the town, as there were only 500 of them compared to 20,000 Muslims. Police on Thursday said they had made several arrests after the two sides went at each other with rocks and sticks. Gunfire was also heard. The house of a young Copt was burnt down on Thursday after the Muslim man was killed a day earlier. Under a 19th century law introduced by Egypt's then Ottoman rulers, Christians can build churches only under certain conditions. These include there being a majority in the area and there being no mosque nearby. Christians complained that they had to go through layers of bureaucracy in order to obtain a permit to build a church, and that by the time they got one, demographic and other conditions would have changed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/01/2005 5:54:26 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, secretary general of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), is likely to visit Dubai in the next week to meet former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to discuss the political situation in Pakistan after the announcement by President General Pervez Musahrraf to keep both civilian and military offices, sources told Daily Times. These sources said that Fazl would discuss closer cooperation between the MMA and Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, with Ms Bhutto. Sources said that during a recent telephone conversation with Asif Ali Zardari it was agreed that modalities for cooperation would be finalised in Ms Bhutto's presence. "The objective of the meeting is to a unified protest campaign against President General Pervez Musharraf," sources said. They added that Fazl would emphasise that the ARD should not keep MMA's rejection of the 17th amendment a condition for cooperation between the two alliances.
Know what I like about Fazl? He makes me look really slender.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 2:06:28 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Know what I like about Fazl? He makes me look really slender.
Mighty big of him.
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 22:02 Comments ||
Top||
Police raided Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) offices and the houses of its leaders on late Friday and rounded up dozens of workers in Gujrat. The MMA had planned to take out a protest rally on the arrival of Mr Musharraf who is scheduled to address a public meeting in Gujrat today (Saturday). Daily Times said that though police failed to target the MMA's top leaders in Gujrat they did however manage to nail a majority of workers. The MMA is marking a "black day" today against Mr Musharraf`s dual office role.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 2:01:01 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
Central leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Sahibzada Maulana Ans Shah Noorani has claimed days of the army rulers are numbered, as the countrywide ongoing campaign of the alliance will soon throw them out of power.
"Arrr! They be toast!"
He was speaking at a protest demonstration organised by the MMA against declaration by President Musharraf to continue as Chief of the Army Staff, outside Karachi Press Club on Friday.
That way the photographers don't have to walk too far...
When the guy's named "Mujahid," you can pretty well guess that he doesn't favor a secular state.
Carrying banners and placards, protesters raised slogans against army rulers and " American intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan." Maulana Ans Norrani appealed to ulema to play their due role in guiding the people and said the army-led government was bent on making Pakistan a secular state. "Not only do the rulers want to eliminate ulema and seminaries and remove religion column from passport, but they are also ridiculing veil, beard and tenets of Islam. They are doing all this at the behest of the US government," he added.
The veil, beard, and tenets of Islam do lend themselves readily to ridicule, don't they?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 1:47:42 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
like the instruction card on the noggin of the guy in front: "this end down while praying"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2005 14:02 Comments ||
Top||
#2
How about, "Aim here and send me to my beloved virgins!"
The usual response when you intend to do nothing...
The government will set up committees to monitor the projects and policies on women's' rights, said Nilofar Bukhtiar, the Women Development advisor to the prime minister. After a meeting presided by Ashfa Riaz Fityana, the provincial minister for Women Development, at the Punjab Social Welfare and Women Development Department secretariat, Bukhtiar told journalists that the committee would be authorised to take action and working reports would be prepared soon. The meeting also reviewed the progress of Women Compliant Cells, Crises Centres for Women and District Resource Centres for Women, which aim to empower women and end gender discrimination, she said. "Most projects have been initiated and the rest will be started soon," she said. A number of department officials and non-government organisation representatives participated in the meeting.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 1:46:10 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
An Iraqi lawyer said Friday that one of Saddam Hussein's former top scientists, known as "Mrs. Anthrax," has cancer and is dying in U.S. custody where she has been held for more than a year. A U.S. military spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq refused to comment on the report that Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash has cancer.
My heartstrings are suitably tugged...
"I am not able to discuss the health condition of our detainees," said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson. "Certainly we have medical care available to take care of any detainee." Other U.S. officials said they were aware Ammash had been treated previously for cancer and she is routinely checked to ensure there is no recurrence. They said there was no immediate concern for her health. Ammash, a top Baath party official and biotech researcher who got her nickname for her alleged role in trying to develop bio-weapons for Saddam, is one of two women incarcerated by the U.S. military at an undisclosed location along with other top members of Saddam's regime. The other female detainee is Rihab Rashid Taha, a scientist who became known as "Dr. Germ" for helping Iraq make weapons out of anthrax.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 1:21:47 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wonder what "Dr.Germ" and "Mrs. Anthrax" talk about? Quilting? Their grandchildren? Slow death?
#2
At this charitable time of year, I'm wondering to what address to post her cigarettes?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/01/2005 13:47 Comments ||
Top||
#3
..I've watched two close relatives and more friends than I care to remember die of cancer. It is an awful, horrifying way to die.
And I hope she spends every minute of it terrified of what's coming after she closes her eyes that last time.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/01/2005 14:33 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Waitwaitwait, people, was she milked of ALL the info first ...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
01/01/2005 16:58 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The real question is why do they want her out so bad? If she really had Cancer her lawyer would be looking if humanitarian dispensation of some type.
Knowing she has regular and good quality medical care he can't swing this and resorts to propaganda. So what is really up? Why do the Bathists want her sprung?
President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday said the army will resume all-out war on rebels in northern Uganda, charging that the insurgents rejected a cease-fire deal that had been expected to open the way for political talks on ending the 18-year civil war. The government, however, will continue negotiating with the rebels in an effort to find a political solution to the conflict in which thousands have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes, Museveni said during New Year's celebrations.
The Lord's Resistance Army rebels have waged a campaign of murder, rape and abductions in northern Uganda. Led by the elusive Joseph Kony, they replenish their ranks by abducting children and forcing them to become fighters, porters or concubines. Ugandan military "operations will not cease ever again until the Kony group irreversibly commit themselves to come out of the bush," Museveni said a day after a 47-day truce expired. Museveni had declared the unilateral cease-fire in a part of northern Uganda to allow rebel commanders to discuss plans to open peace talks with the government. On Friday, government and rebel negotiators failed to agree on the terms of a negotiated truce. Museveni blamed the rebels for the collapse.
That's certainly not very PC of him. He's supposed to say "I blame myself!"
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 12:56:59 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Dammit! Why you doin this to me? I'm a lover not a fighter! At least I was when I wasn't dead.
Posted by: Rick James ||
01/01/2005 13:26 Comments ||
Top||
Dozens of gunmen gave a warm welcome to interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, hoisting him on their shoulders and pledging loyalty to his campaign for the Palestinian presidency. The gunmen were among tens of thousands of people to greet Abbas in Rafah, a teeming camp in southern Gaza that has seen some of the heaviest fighting during the past four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The camp was decorated with large posters of Abbas, and the crowd was in such a frenzy that Abbas was forced to leave an indoor campaign rally through the window of the building. "Rafah suffers from oppression and occupation, but it will not be defeated and humiliated and will not back down except after victory and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas told the cheering crowd. Abbas, the front-runner in the Jan. 9 presidential election, has been courting armed groups in recent days, even though he has spoken out against violence and called for a negotiated settlement with Israel. The campaigning has prompted questions about whether Abbas is playing campaign politics or identifying with violent groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 12:46:53 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Gee, sure glad we have in Abbas someone the Israelis can negotiate with.....
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 13:23 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Over here, candidates have people who hold campaign signs at intersections during rush hour. Over there, candidates have people who blow up the intersection during rush hour.
#3
Being carried around on the shoulders of violent gun-toting terrorists will certainly up Abbas' credibility with the Israelis.
I see zero promise for any significant change. If support from the terrorist factions is important to Abbas, it means he is unable to force their hand. All that signifies is how the terrorists are still in control. Until that changes, nothing else will.
It's time for Israel to begin absorbing a specific amount of territory (never to be given back) for each year that goes by without peaceful resolution. Perhaps 1,000 acres or something like that. This is the reward for Israel's patience and punishment for the Palestinians not coming to the table sooner.
#4
Abbas,...has been courting armed groups in recent days, even though he has spoken out against violence and called for a negotiated settlement with Israel... whether Abbas is playing campaign politics or identifying with violent groups.
Hundreds of opposition supporters protested across Pakistan on Saturday, denouncing President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's decision to retain the powerful post of army chief. Holding black flags, about 1,500 protesters marched on a main city road in the southern city of Karachi, while nearly 600 people gathered in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Hundreds also marched in the cities of Multan and Lahore, with smaller rallies in the capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere. But the demonstrations did not attract the thousands of protesters that organizers had hoped for, and none of the country's top opposition leaders attended.
Liaquat Baloch, a provincial leader of a six-party opposition coalition called Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Forum, said the rallies were successful nonetheless in marking a "black day." The rallies came two days after Musharraf went on national television to explain why he was keeping the army chief post, saying it would be "extremely dangerous" for Pakistan to change track as it fights terrorism. The opposition rejected his claim, saying the army general had not honored his promise to become a civilian president after Dec. 31, 2004.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 12:36:27 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
From The New York Times
Sometime after Mohamed al-Kahtani was imprisoned at Guantänamo around the beginning of 2003, military officials believed they had a prize on their hands - someone who was perhaps intended to have been a hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot. But his interrogation was not yielding much, so they decided in the middle of 2003 to try a new tactic. Mr. Kahtani, a Saudi, was given a tranquilizer, put in sensory deprivation garb with blackened goggles, and hustled aboard a plane that was supposedly taking him to the Middle East. After hours in the air, the plane landed back at the United States naval base at Guantänamo Bay, Cuba, where he was not returned to the regular prison compound but put in an isolation cell in the base's brig. There, he was subjected to harsh interrogation procedures that he was encouraged to believe were being conducted by Egyptian national security operatives. ...
Interviews with former intelligence officers and interrogators provided new details and confirmed earlier accounts of inmates being shackled for hours and left to soil themselves while exposed to blaring music or the insistent meowing of a cat-food commercial. In addition, some may have been forcibly given enemas as punishment. While all the detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to those procedures, one former interrogator estimated. The interrogator said that when new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base. ....
The information from the various sources frequently matched, providing corroboration of the use of specific procedures, which included prolonged sleep deprivation and shackling prisoners in uncomfortable positions for many hours. One F.B.I. agent wrote his superiors that he saw such restraining techniques several times. In the most gruesome of the bureau memorandums, he recounted observing a detainee who had been shackled overnight in a hot cell, soiled himself and pulled out tufts of hair in misery.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/01/2005 10:49:15 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sujected to loops of the Meow Mix commerical???
Oh! The humanity! LOL!
Posted by: Sheik Abu Bin Ali Al-Yahood ||
01/01/2005 11:46 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I wonder how many of these "intelligence officials" are CIA DI. lion food currently stareing down the barrel of a RIF?
Posted by: N Guard ||
01/01/2005 11:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I'm totally tired of this. I hope all the MSM harping results in our taking less prisoners in the future. More bullets, less bullshit.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/01/2005 11:57 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Liberals love dead Americans as much as they love live terrorists. They never met a terrorist they didn;t jump through their ass to protect nor an American they couldn't endanger more through feckless restraints on our conduct of the war.
If they can save the life of one terrorist and kill or further endanger one American life, then, to them, it is worth it.
#5
Unlike the NY Slimes, most rational people realize WE ARE AT WAR against global terrorists who fall OUTSIDE the Geneva Conventions.
Virtually of the terrorists held by the United States find their conditions better than they have ever encountered before.
This is not beanbag.
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 13:17 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Gotta love the Ghost Jet! "Meow meow meow meow...Meow meow meow meow..." in Dolby surround sound cranked up to 11 for about 10 hours? Screw anal sedatives!
Jordanian police yesterday banned relatives of US servicemen killed in Iraq and members of anti-war groups from holding a candlelit vigil outside UN headquarters, an AFP correspondent reported. A police officer at the scene in western Amman told reporters the protest was banned because the activists failed to get a permit from the authorities three days ago in line with the law and urged everyone to leave the area. "The police banned us and asked us to leave for security reasons," said Medea Benjamin, the founding director of human rights group Global Exchange which is opposed to the US-led war in Iraq. "We are all very upset because we had done similar protests all over the world. We're very shocked," she said. As the protesters walked away they sang a refrain from one of John Lennon's classic songs "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." I'm sure they were quite moved....maybe they should have sung "Imagine" instead.
Posted by: Lilly ||
01/01/2005 9:12:37 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
These folks have had a bit too much Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/01/2005 12:01 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Medea Benjamin's a real peach. Fuckwit
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2005 12:13 Comments ||
Top||
#4
What did they think they were in a liberal demoracy like the UK or US? Time to grow up, the rest of the world isn't so liberal or democratic. They are lucky they didn't get beat senseless and hauled off to jail to die of their injuries.
#5
Laurie Berenson thought she could play these little games in Peru. Laurie was wrong.
Rachel Corrie thought she could play these little games with the Israeli's. Rachel was also wrong.
Don't play games with people that don't play games, Medea...
#9
You got it, #1 Shipman - and they want the same results, too.
After all, it was only brown people who were killed by the millions when we left SE Asia - it's not like it was white leftists or anyone who really matters.
/leftist moonbat thinking
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2005 17:34 Comments ||
Top||
#10
..All we are saying, is give moonbats a chance...
Posted by: Capt America ||
01/01/2005 19:37 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Who was that dingbat who shot John Lennon? My main grievance with him is his timing.
My beef with him is the fact Yoko Ono was standing right there and he didn't use the rest of his ammo.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/01/2005 19:45 Comments ||
Top||
The Iraqi Defence Minister announced yesterday that he has fresh information on Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq. "I have important information regarding the interference into Iraq by these two countries", Hazem Shaalan said. Speaking on Al-Arabia satellite TV channel, Shaalan stated, "The Iraqi people will soon see footage of the confessions of one of the perpetrators who has information about the meddling of these two countries in Iraq". As an apparent reference to the accusations that Shaalan was harsher towards its neighbours than other Iraqi ministers, he said, "I have no personal animosity towards Iran, or Syria, or any other country and I when I make comments, I make them as the Defence Minister of Iraq, and I say if these countries act as the enemies of the Iraqi people, I will be their enemy".
Shaalan had said previously, "Iran is the most dangerous enemy of Iraq and all Arab nations." He recently stood by his remarks in an interview with the Saudi daily Al-Watan. In that interview the defence chief said that Iraq would soon air foreign satellite footage of 50 suicide vehicles entering the country from Iran, before Iraq's upcoming elections, as soon as Iraq's interim-Prime Minster, Ayad Allawi, gave the final approval. At present terrorists in Iraq are coordinated, funded, and trained by Iranian intelligence, he added. Over the past year, a string of Iraqi officials, including Iraq's interim-Prime Minister and the interim-Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq. In a December 7 interview with the Washington Post, Yawar accused Iran of pouring "huge amounts of money" into fundamentalist Shiite parties hoping to create an Iraqi Islamic Republic.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/01/2005 9:10:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Caption for the above pic: "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive..."
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/01/2005 14:36 Comments ||
Top||
JERUSALEM — A planned rail line between Tel Aviv and occupied Jerusalem will traverse the West Bank in two areas, an Israeli official said yesterday, raising questions about Israel's intentions for the disputed territory.
I don't think there's any question at all.
Israel conquered the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War, and its final status awaits peace talks with the Palestinians, who unrealistically claim it all for a future failed state.
A spokesman for Transport Minister Meir Sheetrit said Sheetrit had received a green light from the attorney general to route the line through small portions of the West Bank near the Latrun and Mevasseret Zion areas. The attorney general, Meni Mazuz, had held up planning on the line to study the legal implications of its crossing West Bank territory, but had now decided it could move forward, Transport Ministry spokesman Jonathan Beker said. "The minister has been informed that there is not a problem that should stop the progress of the rail line," Beker said.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erakat condemned the Israeli move. "Any Israeli building in the territories occupied in 1967 is illegal according to his incorrect interpretation of international law," he said. "This rail route is part of an Israeli policy of creating facts on the ground and this policy will undermine any possibilities of reaching a peace agreement."
Israel Railways, a public corporation, says the planned Tel Aviv-Jerusalem rail line is a permanent part of its infrastructure. Beker said construction of the line would start after the ministry arranges financing and hires contractors. He did not provide a target date for completion of the project.
Shouldn't take long, it's not far from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/01/2005 2:01:56 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Lol! There will never be a workable or woring "peace" - and everybody knows it. There are some pluperfect fools in the world, but even they, deep down in their toes, know it will never happen.
Israel should do what is best for Israel, no matter what the fallout. Period. No one else will. And in the end, what's anyone going to do? Hate them harder?
Only the twitters with the nukes and the bright white light of sheer stupidity in their eyes are a danger.
Turkey has tightened security measures along the border with Iraq. Officials said the measures were introduced this week in wake of the killing of five Turkish police officers in the Iraqi city of Mosul. They said Turkish authorities have imposed the regulations at the Habur border gate. Under the new regulations, Turkey would employ military aircraft rather than ground transportation for travel to Iraq. Officials said commercial flights would be employed to Baghdad via Jordan in case military aircraft was unavailable. Officials said the government has sought to obtain aircraft for travel to Iraq. They said Ankara has been coordinating with the United States on the issue.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The U.S. military has concluded that the Sunni insurgency has significantly improved over the last few months. Officials and analysts assert that Saddam Hussein loyalists have succeeded in forming a command and control structure and improved their combat skills in the insurgency war against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. They said both Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents have also penetrated Iraq's military and security forces. "The enemy is effective," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The enemy's got a brain. The enemy alters its tactics. As things happen on the ground, they see what we do to respond to it. They then change their tactic." The latest U.S. assessment was voiced in wake of the killing of at least 22 people in a U.S. military base in Mosul on Dec. 22. Officials said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who wore an Iraq Army uniform and might have fought the U.S. military in Faluja in November.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Article: "The enemy is effective," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The enemyâs got a brain. The enemy alters its tactics. As things happen on the ground, they see what we do to respond to it. They then change their tactic."
This is what Rumsfeld has consistently stated in press conference after press conference, right from the beginning. But the press is seizing on this statement as a change in Rumsfeld's position. You gotta love the reality distortion field of the media. I just wish they'd stop editorializing and opining and start reporting straight news for a change.
#2
I think ME News might be US friendly, so maybe you're being too sensitive to the Rumsfeld quote.
Middle East Newsline is directed by Steve Rodan.
Steve Rodan, President of Middle East Newsline, is a veteran journalist currently based in Israel. He was a newspaper reporter in New York City before moving to the Middle East where he served as a special correspondent and editor for the Jerusalem Post.
#3
Here's the crucial issue: They said both Sunni and Shiâite insurgents have also penetrated Iraqâs military and security forces
If this is true, then it means that Allawi is at best ineffectual and at worst has tilted toward his former comrades. Which means we need to re-think our attitudes toward federalism, ie a de facto Shi'a-Kurdish ascendancy, as the only means left to avoid a triumph of ba'athist-driven chaos and government collapse.
#4
Sunnis are 20% of the population. If they continue to cause so much trouble, they will become an increasingly smaller percentage of the population. The Shias and Kurds are going to run the country because they have the numbers and the skills. The Sunnis just have a backlog of crimes against humanity and a longing for the good old days when they could kill Kurds and Shias for fun.
The Egyptian Middle East news Agency said on Thursday that Egypt has succeeded in convincing each of Saudi Arabia and Libya to stop reciprocated media attacks in an attempt to contain relations of tension between the two states. The agency said that the reciprocated media attacks will be stopped as from Thursday m stressing that the Egyptian mediation succeeded actually in containing this situation.
Worthy mentioning that the crisis erupted between the two countries after Riyadh last week withdrew its ambassador from Tripoli and the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador accusing Libya of what it described the conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi crown prince Abdullah. The New York Times reported several months ago that the Libyan intelligence led in 2003 an assassination attempt that targeted the Saudi crown prince and the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qathafi was involved. The paper mentioned the names of two men that participated in the attempt. They are the American of Eritrean origin Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi and the officer in the Libyan intelligence Muhammad Ismael, who is still held in Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2005 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Did Q-man pattern himself after the late 1980s Michael Jackson "History" tour, or v-v?
#3
Apologies in advance, I am really wrecked after a New Years bash with some good mates (06:26 am here - I must go to sleep now...), but that is a wicked comment lex!!
gigl...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
01/01/2005 1:24 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Someone remind me to go to UK for New Years...I am bored silly every year here in the States.
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.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) 
Only 17 of 31 attackers who seized a school in southern Russia four months ago have been identified, Deputy Prosecutor General 
In a scathing 
Maulana 
Police raided 
Central leader of the 
An Iraqi lawyer said Friday that one of Saddam Hussein's former top scientists, known as "Mrs. Anthrax," has cancer and is dying in U.S. custody where she has been held for more than a year. A U.S. military spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq refused to comment on the report that 
President 
Dozens of gunmen gave a warm welcome to interim Palestinian leader 
Jordanian police yesterday banned relatives of US servicemen killed in Iraq and members of anti-war groups from holding a candlelit vigil outside UN headquarters, an AFP correspondent reported. A police officer at the scene in western Amman told reporters the protest was banned because the activists failed to get a permit from the authorities three days ago in line with the law and urged everyone to leave the area. "The police banned us and asked us to leave for security reasons," said 
The Iraqi Defence Minister announced yesterday that he has fresh information on Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq. "I have important information regarding the interference into Iraq by these two countries", Hazem Shaalan said. Speaking on Al-Arabia satellite TV channel, Shaalan stated, "The Iraqi people will soon see footage of the confessions of one of the perpetrators who has information about the meddling of these two countries in Iraq". As an apparent reference to the accusations that Shaalan was harsher towards its neighbours than other Iraqi ministers, he said, "I have no personal animosity towards Iran, or Syria, or any other country and I when I make comments, I make them as the Defence Minister of Iraq, and I say if these countries act as the enemies of the Iraqi people, I will be their enemy".
The U.S. military has concluded that the Sunni insurgency has significantly improved over the last few months. Officials and analysts assert that Saddam Hussein loyalists have succeeded in forming a command and control structure and improved their combat skills in the insurgency war against the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. They said both Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents have also penetrated Iraq's military and security forces. "The enemy is effective," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "The enemy's got a brain. The enemy alters its tactics. As things happen on the ground, they see what we do to respond to it. They then change their tactic." The latest U.S. assessment was voiced in wake of the killing of at least 22 people in a U.S. military base in Mosul on Dec. 22. Officials said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who wore an Iraq Army uniform and might have fought the U.S. military in Faluja in November.
The Egyptian Middle East news Agency said on Thursday that Egypt has succeeded in convincing each of Saudi Arabia and Libya to stop reciprocated media attacks in an attempt to contain relations of tension between the two states. The agency said that the reciprocated media attacks will be stopped as from Thursday m stressing that the Egyptian mediation succeeded actually in containing this situation.
