#1
"The advent of blogs in the past few years, however, has reshaped the playing field.
The technology that has empowered unknown students in closed societies to speak to the world also gives readers everywhere the ability to rally together to protect free expression."
I like the fact that they have this outlet, however it would be good if they could be more discreet with their identities and not use home computers. Or are they caught some other way?
We are so very fortunate to live in the freedom of america. Don't I know it.
Posted by: Jan from work ||
12/11/2006 13:52 Comments ||
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#2
There is no such thing as Anonymous on the internet. People really need to get that through their heads.
#3
However, in the US it is an important legal defense to note that an IP number is NOT a human being.
For example, if you are sued by the RIAA for music piracy, and you use this defense, they will immediately drop their lawsuit against you, strongly wishing to avoid setting any precedent.
This is especially true if your computer is part of an unsecured WIFI network. This is why unless you have the item in question on your computer or backup media, you can usually walk.
For the government, it is even worse. For example, the two prime sources for child porn convictions are individuals who used their credit cards to order over the Internet, and individuals whose computer is brought in for maintenance, and the offending images are discovered by the repair service.
So far, for all their efforts to force the creation of online records, they generally haven't used such records in court.
Posted by: ed ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
[SERIAL TROLL]
Posted by: Rafael TROLL ||
12/11/2006 0:15 Comments ||
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#2
Saoodis becoming concerned that the Mad Mullahs may nuke them if they ever perfect a bomb ? I thought Sauds provided funding for Pakland to acquire ChiCom nukes. Why don't they smuggle a couple over ?
LONDON, Dec.9: A guide to Islam is being given to primary schools across Britain containing a headscarf, a prayer mat, a prayer cap, sacred Ihram clothing worn during the pilgrimage to Makkah, a poster of the Muslim prophets and a compass to locate the direction of Makkah.
According to Daily Express the teaching resource, provided by the Muslim Council of Britain, is intended to provide children aged seven and 11 with information about true Islamic beliefs.
The pack, described on Friday by one head teacher as a "three-foot by three-foot plastic box", also contains CDs, videos, children's books and pamphlets and model kits of a mosque and Islam's holiest site, the Ka'bah.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, of the MCB, said: "We believe education is the key to creating a vibrant and understanding society.
"We want to ensure that every schoolchild has access to high quality Islamic resources in their schools." Colin Manning, head teacher of North Reddish Junior School in Stockport, which has only four Muslim pupils, said: "The future is in the hands of young people.
The better they understand each other, the more secure that future will be." Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the MCB, added: "We found that schools were using books that were not accurate about Muslim traditions and beliefs so we put this pack together.
#1
And of course, muslim schools are keen to teach their pupils about other beliefs? Cluebat for Britain, please.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
12/11/2006 8:06 Comments ||
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#2
I put together a classroom packet on Hanukkah for the trailing daughters' elementary school before they moved up; it contained a few age-appropriate storybooks, a background sheet on the history of the holiday printed off the internet, a Channuka menorah (it has nine branches instead of the usual seven) and a box of candles, several dreidels, and a write-up of the rules of the draydle game. I figure that if any of the children want to learn more about the beliefs of the Jewish religion, they can do further research at the library.
/lots of alternate spellings when words a transliterated from a different alphabet. ;-)
#5
"A guide to Islam is being given to primary schools across Britain containing a headscarf, a prayer mat, a prayer cap, --- a compass to locate the direction of Makkah."
Why not a map of the London Underground, a oneway ticket to Kings Cross, a will kit, a copy of Aftenposten (cartoon edition), a "Europe Is Cancer - Islam Is Answer" poster to protest cartoons, a Bible to lift their legs on, and a set of forged passports.
#6
Meanwhile in UK a different Islamic organisation is attempting to get a message to young Muslims that dying while fighting for, not against, the British armed forces is an act of martyrdom.
#8
They might want to take a really hard look at the CD's, videos, pamphlets and books. Somewhere in there is an expression of "true islamic beliefs". At the very least will be the clear understanding on islamic beliefs vis a vis infidels. And doubtless a charming depiction of jooooos. There will be content that will be startling and the muslims won't see the problem.
Just another "convert or die" kit. Offered to the kiddies.
#9
# They might want to take a really hard look at the CD's, videos, pamphlets and books. Somewhere in there is an expression of "true islamic beliefs".
As with the anti-Australian video in the East Preston Islamic "College" library.
Islamic boys told of 'evil' Aussies
Cameron Stewart
December 07, 2006
STUDENTS at the Islamic school from which two boys
were expelled for desecrating the Bible were shown
videos of a banned cleric calling Australian
Christians "evil" and non-Muslim schools "sewers".
[...]
#10
I cant stand how 'hip' Islam is to the permafried elite. Being open minded is one thing... this is just plain stoopid. Its like cigarettes; they make you look real cool but then enslave you, eventually killing you.
#11
What is so comedic, bool, is that these very elites would be the first to be extermintaed once the Caliphate conquers. Observe who's assasinated in Iraq. Observe who's leaving in droves. The educated elites. They know their fate under jihadists. Yet the fools of western upper crust think they're above the fray. Such pitiful asstards. Probably don't even know how to fire a weapon in self-defense.
Britains Foreign Office is urging government officials to stop using the US term war on terror amid concerns it angers British Muslims and undermines government aims, a weekly newspaper said Sunday. The government wants to avoid reinforcing and giving succour to the terrorists narrative by using language that, taken out of context, could be counter-productive, a Foreign Office spokesman told The Observer. The Foreign Office has sent the same message to cabinet ministers as well as diplomats and other government representatives around the world, according to the report. We tend to emphasize upholding shared values as a means to counter terrorists, the spokesman was quoted as saying.
Many British officials and experts, the weekly said, suspect that Islamist extremists find it easier to recruit followers when western governments speak of a war on terror, by suggesting it is actually a war against Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
It definitely is a war on Islam. Who gives a rat's ass if they seethe ? Oh, you're worried you've let so many in that you can't control them ?
Everyone take a deep breath here. Zenster, you're getting tiresome. The regulars can prolly write your posts for you, n00bz are being underwhelmed by your wit.
We are all fully cognizant of the danger we face; irrational genocidal blabber is strictly not serving the side of Civilization.
#12
What is #11? Like a final warning before sinktrapping? A kind of Pergatory prior to entering the holy land (sinktrap)?
Posted by: BA ||
12/11/2006 15:48 Comments ||
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#13
No, that was a sinktrapping; Seafarious whacked 'im.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/11/2006 16:09 Comments ||
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#14
Thank you for the advisory. I will refrain from such strong commentary in the future. My apologies to the board. I've just had it up to here with Islam's predation upon our world.
I would like to clarify upon what I posted. My statement was NOT a call for the slaughter of all Muslims. Repeat NOT. Evidently, it was able to be interpreted that way and, therefore, I will still voluntarily retract it for that reason. Had it been a call to genocide, the world "Islam" would have been replaced with "Muslims". That was most definitely not the case.
My statement was a call to end Islam's existence as a religion. It belongs on history's scrapheap every bit as much as Calvinism, Puritanism and a host of other severe and outdated creeds.
Again, my statement was not a call to genocide and I want to make that very clear. I do not expect Rantburg to put up with such actions and neither do I promote them.
Many North Koreans are now aware of the poverty of their country and are voicing discontent after years of near-starvation, according to the fullest study yet conducted of refugees from the Stalinist dictatorship.
While the popular image of North Koreans is of a nation living in blissful ignorance of the outside world and unquestioning loyalty to the leadership of Kim Jong-il, refugees interviewed while in hiding in China reported that there were increasing signs of dissent.
Kimmie's survived coup attempts before, when he had the Chinese solidly in his corner. Wonder if they're still there, and whether he'd survive another coup attempt?
Eighty per cent of those questioned said North Koreans no longer believed official propaganda that living standards were better than in capitalist South Korea. In reality, income per head is 20 to 30 times higher in the South. Nine in 10 of the refugees agreed that inside the country "North Koreans are voicing their concerns about chronic food shortages".
"Resentment toward the North Korean leadership for the continued hardship in the country is high," they said.
If Ronald Reagan were around today he'd find a way to nudge the North Koreans and give Kimmie a push.
Televisions remain tuned to one government channel and other sources of information are tightly censored, but news about life in neighbouring China, where living standards have fast outstripped their own, was seeping through by word of mouth.
The findings match other reports that radios are illegally altered to pick up South Korean broadcasts, and mobile phones smuggled over the border from China enable some people to speak to relatives outside.
Make sure we broadcast how the nuke program has been cutting into the food aid. Make sure in particular that the NKor Army knows it.
The 1,300 people questioned by the bipartisan US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea revealed harrowing details of the hunger, imprisonment, and torture they had suffered and witnessed. Ten per cent of respondents reported having been in prison or labour camps. Of those, nine out of 10 had witnessed someone dying of starvation, three quarters someone dying under torture, and seven per cent a case of infanticide.
Whoever pushes Kimmie out is going to be a hero. Might as well be us.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
As an XPert(s)-alleged CRIMINAL/MAFIA STATE + REGIME, the NorKors are the only Nation/State-level, Global? "Syndicate" or Mafia, etc. thats starving beyond starving.
#2
Whoever pushes Kimmie out is going to be a hero. Might as well be us.
Wasn't the same thing said about Sammy?
BTW: Where's the Human Rights Commission on this? Wheres Human Rights Watch? Where's AmNasty International? Too busy complaining about the temprature in a GITMO interrogation room I guess...
And since North Korea has no 5-star hotels (with 24 hour catering) the Vampire Vulture Elite of the UN don't give a shit either.
People will think Rwanda was a walk in the park when North Korea finally opens up and they see the truth.....
#3
The mentality seems to have 2 primary components:
1) You touch it, you own it. That implies nation-building - and I'm sure we're out of that business... at least until we have a DhimmiDonk Prez, then it'll be okie-fine.
2) Everyone waits for us to act because they're incapable of acting... which is beyond convenient when you haven't the stones in the first place which is why you haven't the capability in the second.
We are in a lose-lose position until we make it clear we are NOT the World Police and that we are permanently OUT of the Nation-Building game. We'll break what we find that's dangerous, and repeat as necessary. That's it.
#10
Crazy Fool, what do you mean? They have that giant hotel in the middle of the capital. You must have seen the pictures!
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/11/2006 14:00 Comments ||
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#11
That giant hotel was never finished, the interior of the part that was finished is decaying, and the elevators are an iffy proposition. Which means if you are above the fifth floor, sucks to be you. Oh, the water supply in the Pyongyang is questionable too - all sorts of microbal visitors come in each glassful.
#12
Seems to me that with our technology we should be able to use the NKor's own radio and TV frequencies and override their own broadcasting facilities in order to share the real news.....even if they were to shut down or attempt to jam, we would still control it.
and Kimmie thoughtfully provided all those receivers already!!!! no need to air drop or otherwise smuggle any in!
AUSTRALIA'S most watched woman, Rabiyah Hutchinson, and her eldest daughter were once at the apex of Jemaah Islamiah's first known attempt at setting up a terror cell in Australia. An investigation by The Australian has revealed that Ms Hutchinson, who married JI leader Abdul Rahim Ayub, also married off her eldest daughter to her husband's twin brother, the Afghani-trained jihadist Abdul Rahman Ayub. The Australian has been told the daughter was about 16 at the time of the marriage to her uncle, who had been sent to Australia with his brother to set up the JI cell known as Mantiqi4. When approached by The Australian last week, Abdul Rahman Ayub refused to comment on the marriage. It is understood the marriage was shortlived and that the couple had no children.
"So why'd you get a divorce, Abdul?"
"I hated her guts."
It has also been discovered that Ms Hutchinson, now 53, has been married eight times -- twice to suspected terror leaders. When she married in 1984, Abdul Rahim Ayub was her third husband.
The one before that was the guy with the hat.
After they broke up in 1996 she remarried several times. In 2000 she married an al-Qa'ida member and confidant of Osama bin Laden, the Egyptian-born Mustafa Hamid, or Abu al Walid al-Masri. At the time, Hamid was a senior member of al-Qa'ida and worked closely with bin Laden, but later split with him over ideological differences.
"Binny! Are you tryin' to get us all killed?"
"If y'don't like it, get the hell out!"
"Well, I don't like it!"
"Throw him out, boyz!"
The blonde Ms Hutchinson's marriages, her good looks and startling blue eyes have prompted some to refer to her as the Elizabeth Taylor of JI. But a member of the Islamic community in which she lived in Sydney said Ms Hutchinson was widely disliked and her views were considered archaic. "She was very anti-Western," he told The Australian. He said there was also an oft-recounted story about her days in Afghanistan in the 1980s during the war against Soviet forces. "She was considered such a troublemaker the mujaheddin wanted to kill her," he said.
"Mahmoud! Let me borrow your rocket launcher! I'm going to kill that woman!"
"But why, Ahmed?"
"I hate her guts!"
The story went that it was her brother-in-law, Abdul Rahman Ayub, who saved her. On another trip to Afghanistan at the time, Ms Hutchinson was accompanied by her then husband, Abdul Rahim Ayub. Ms Hutchinson, through her lawyer Peter Erman, has declined to comment on the revelations but she has previously denied any involvement in terrorism.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
"She does not wish to assist you in publishing more lies about her by giving you a detailed response," Mr Erman said in an email.
"I got nuttin' to say to youse! Nuttin'"
Inquiries by The Australian have revealed that Ms Hutchinson was born Robyn Mary Hutchinson in Mudgee, central-western NSW, in August 1953. The Australian has been told that her parents have died and that her siblings have spread across Australia but she is no longer in touch with them.
"They don't like her, either!"
After what friends described as an unhappy life she headed to Bali on a holiday in about 1970. She loved Bali, married a Buddhist and stayed on the island. Despite the birth of a daughter, the marriage did not last.
The Buddhists couldn't stand her, either, huh? I think we can see a pattern emerging...
She moved to Jakarta and then married another Indonesian man, named Bambang Wisudo, and they had two daughters together. The oldest, Suniyah, is living quietly on Sydney's northern beaches, but she does not attend the local mosque or mix with the Islamic community as her mother and stepfather once did.
"They remind me too much of me Mum."
Suniyah's younger sister, Rahma, was born in 1982 at Manly hospital on Sydney's northern beaches. Rahma was married in 1999 at the age of 16 to Khaled Cheikho, one of the 22 men arrested in Sydney and Melbourne last year during the counter-terrorism Operation Pendennis. Ms Hutchinson married Abdul Rahim Ayub in 1984 and she lived in the Jakarta areas of Tanah Abang and Depok. It is understood Ms Hutchinson speaks Indonesian as well as Arabic and spent much of her time in Indonesia undertaking dawa, or Islamic missionary work.
"It's her again, Bambang!"
"Close the windows! Pretend we ain't home!"
"Gawd, I hate that woman!"
Nasir Abas, a former JI member who has turned informer, said he was aware of Rabiyah but knew little about her. "It is the JI culture -- you never know the background of others' wives," he said.
"Every once in awhile, of course, you had to ask yourself: 'Where do they get these people?'"
Ms Hutchinson and Abdul Rahim Ayub had four children: Mohammed, 21, and Abdullah, 19, Mustafa, 16, and their sister, Aminah. They live together in Yemen with stepsister Rahma. Mohammed and Abdullah and their friend Marek Samulski were released from a Yemeni jail last week seven weeks after they were arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. No charges were laid against them.
"Yez got nuttin' on us, coppers! Da witnesses is all dead!"
Mohammed and Abdullah were born in Darwin after Ms Hutchinson and Ayub had returned to Australia in 1985. The family moved to Melbourne, staying in Footscray and West Sunshine until 1990. They moved to Sydney, where she met Jack Roche, the Islamic convert from Perth who became the first person jailed in Australia for terrorism-related offences. After the couple separated, Abdul Rahim Ayub moved to Perth before fleeing the country in the days after the 2002 Bali bombing. Abdul Rahman Ayub was deported to Indonesia on immigration visa offences.
"AND STAY OUT, DAMMIT!"
Ms Hutchinson then travelled extensively overseas with her children, including visits to Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Where'd the money come from? Air travel isn't free.
She spent several years in Afghanistan, working as a midwife, until the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. During her time there, she was a conduit for Australians arriving in Afghanistan, and she met "Jihad" Jack Thomas and his wife, Maryati. Since returning to Australia, she has been under constant surveillance by ASIO and has moved at least five times in the past few years. At one of those addresses, in Wiley Park, southwest Sydney, the tenants complained they were still receiving letters addressed to her from Centrelink two years later.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Sounds like she can qualify for "The Bitch from Hell" award.
#4
AH9418---You do NOT want to look at her, or a graven image thereof. VEDDY BAD JUJU!!! You'll turn to a pillar of salt or something. Explore the universe and all its wonders, but do not visit or gaze upon Rabiyah Hutchinson. You have been warned.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2006 11:24 Comments ||
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#5
Alaska Paul's challenge made me search and search, but no internet pics of this chick are available, at least with English subtitles. One article said she wore a full burqa, so she could be any burqa-bag lady anywhere at this moment. Her own landlord admits he's never seen her face.
Also, she did more than work as a midwife:
Hutchison's marriage to Hamid elevated her to the most trusted ranks of the al-Qa'ida network. She was so well regarded that in 2001 she was picked by bin Laden's deputy, the Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, to help run a new hospital in Kabul.
Thomas told the AFP that Zawahiri had discussed Hutchison with him when they met in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, after Thomas completed his training at Camp Faruq.
Zawahiri was planning to build a new women's hospital and wanted Hutchison to help him run it. Thomas said Zawahiri asked him for a "character reference" for Hutchison, which Thomas was happy to provide.
But the hospital plan was abandoned when the US launched its bombing raids on Afghanistan after the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001.
In the chaos that followed, Hutchison and her two sons fled Afghanistan, travelling to Iran and then home to Australia. Her travels finally came to an end when ASIO cancelled her passport, deeming her a security risk.
Unfortunately, I lost the link to the source of the above quote while researching this.
BERLIN (Reuters) - German police have uncovered a radioactive trail linked to what prosecutors believe could be a possible suspect in the murder of a former Russian spy in London last month. Police said on Monday a BMW used to pick up Dmitry Kovtun at Hamburg airport on October 28 had traces of polonium 210, the same radioactive substance used to poison Alexander Litvinenko.
Kovtun, 41, was one of two Russians who met Litvinenko at a London hotel on November 1, the day the ex-KGB agent and outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin fell ill. "Contamination was also found in a second car, a Chrysler" used by Litvinenko, a police statement said.
Leaky container or was Comrad Kovtun careless with the polonium?
The radioactive trail linked to Kovtun goes further. Kovtun's ex-wife, her current partner and their two young children all tested positive for traces of polonium 210, the statement said. Kovtun spent the night of October 28 at his ex-wife's Hamburg apartment, it said.
Perhaps Kovtun decided to off the ex-wife
It was unclear if the contamination of the four people was internal or external, police said. They were brought to a special hospital ward for people with radiation sickness.
Litvinenko died on November 23 from a lethal dose of polonium 210. In a statement released after his death, he accused Putin of killing him. Moscow has denied any involvement but Litvinenko's slow, agonising death has sparked police investigations in London, Moscow and Hamburg, scorched Russia's reputation and revived memories of Cold War revenge tales.
Kovtun is being investigated in Hamburg on suspicion of illegally handling polonium 210, a highly radioactive material that is potentially lethal when ingested, Hamburg's Chief Prosecutor Martin Koehnke told a news conference on Sunday. Koehnke said there was reason to suspect that Kovtun, who was questioned by British investigators in Moscow last week, may have been among those responsible for Litvinenko's death.
Kovtun, who has denied any part in Litvinenko's poisoning, has developed symptoms of radiation poisoning, according to Russian prosecutors, but there are conflicting reports about his exact state of health.
"He's not quite dead, Jim"
Hamburg police said on Monday an investigator from Scotland Yard had arrived to pursue the German angle in the investigation and was working out of the police headquarters. Separately on Monday, Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that Andrei Lugovoy, who was also at the November 1 meeting in London with Litvinenko and Kovtun, had been questioned by Russian and British detectives.
"I was giving testimony purely as a witness," Tass quoted Lugovoy as saying on Monday. He said that Russian detectives conducted the questioning in the presence of British police colleagues. The session lasted more than three hours.
Yeah, I'm sure the Russian detectives will conduct a full, fair independant investigation
The Interfax news agency reported that Russian detectives may fly to London by the end of the week to conduct their own investigation into Litvinenko's murder. "The exact date of their departure depends on when the work in Moscow on investigating the death of Litvinenko is finished," an unidentified source told Interfax.
"Could take awhile"
A spokeswoman for Russia's Prosecutor-General confirmed that a Russian team would go to Britain if needed but she could not say when and for what exact purpose.
To see what the British know, of course
Additional:
BERLIN, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - The ex-wife of a witness in the case of a former Russian security officer, her two children and boyfriend have been hospitalized in Germany with suspected polonium-210 poisoning, the head of the investigation team in Hamburg said Monday. He said a medical examination will show if their organisms contain a dangerous concentration of the radioactive element. Authorities did not identify them by name.
Businessman Dmitry Kovtun met with defector Alexander Litvinenko around the time of his poisoning at the beginning of November. Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's administration and a close associate of fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died in a London hospital after four days in a critical condition. His body was found to contain a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210. Kovtun is now reported to have been hospitalized with similar symptoms.
Investigators also said traces of polonium-210 have been found on Kovtun's clothes and some articles in the former wife's Hamburg apartment, as well as in other apartments in Hamburg which he visited from October 28 till November 1.
Representatives of the investigative team also said "they have almost no doubt that Dmitry Kovtun brought polonium from Moscow."
"Here, Dmitry, take this vial and spray it on the traitor Litvinenko's food. Don't worry, there is no danger to you. Trust us."
British detectives, currently in Moscow for their probe into Litvinenko's murder, earlier spoke with Kovtun through their Russian counterparts. A team of investigators from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office began questioning Andrei Lugovoi, another key witness in the Litvinenko case, December 8 in the presence of Scotland Yard experts.
After they and Andrei had been coached on what questions were to be asked by the KGB.
Lugovoi went to see the former Russian agent in London together with Kovtun.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/11/2006 13:01 ||
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#1
I figger we'll be hearing about this for at least 138.376 days. I blame Madame Curie.
#2
I have this vision thingy about the old KGB guys sitting around some Moscow strip club (which they own, of course)... it's about 11:00 am and the place is mostly deserted... they're having coffee, chewing the fat... sure, the day-today wetwork is okay, but... like that reporter being gunned down on the stairs... now they're laughing about Georgy and the ricin pellet in the umbrella thingy... snickering about Litvinenko and the Po210 vial thingy... and wondering what they can do next for Pal Putty and the KGB Kombine to top it...
What's interesting is that when I first heard about the opening of the trial on teevee, it was just after an another segment in which CGT (paleo-commies union) thugs were on trial for having torched the regional HQ of the MEDEF (corporate CEO union)... and the asked sentences were suspended 4 months, all this while 4000 CGTinistas demonstrated outside, clamoring "justice shouldn't criminalize union actions" (because torching buildings during riots, excuse me, demonstrations, is a legitimate union tool, of course).
SEVRIER, France: A court on Friday convicted three former soldiers and a soccer hooligan of fire-bombing a mosque and a Muslim prayer hall in the French Alps two years ago.
The criminal court in the town of Sevrier, a suburb of eastern Annecy, handed down sentences of up to five years in prison for the four men, who are suspected of having ties to far-right groups. The men, all in their 20s, were convicted on charges of religiously motivated attacks that seriously damaged an Annecy mosque in March 2004 as well as a makeshift prayer hall in a garage in the Annecy suburb of Seynod.
At the time, President Jacques Chirac condemned the attacks as "odious acts," and hundreds of people held a silent vigil in protest.
Michel Guegan, a 25-year-old former soldier in France's elite Alpine unit who is now homeless, was given a five-year prison sentence for his role as the alleged ringleader. Nicolas Paz, 29, a former hooligan in a Paris Saint-Germain fan club, was also sentenced to five years in jail, with one year suspended. Anthony Savino, 24, another former soldier, was given five years, with two of them suspended. The fourth man, Damien Gallaud, 25, considered a "consenting follower," received a three-year sentence with two years suspended.
A fifth man, 23-year-old former soldier Bruno Abello, received an eight-month suspended sentence for helping to cover up the crime.
Before the ruling, the four main suspects expressed their regrets to the Muslim community. The sentences were lighter than that sought by Prosecutor Herve Lhomme, who had asked the court to send a "strong signal toward all havens of intolerance" with prison sentences of up to nine years. Btw, torched mosque was NOT a "real" mosque, it was a technical local of some sort, and was... under salafist control.
#1
Why not send this Guegan fellow, and maybe Savino too, to Afghanistan to serve out a reduced term of sentence 'Dirty Dozen style? He seems to know who the enemy is, and is not a coward, which does set him apart from the greater EU community. If he can just better focus his efforts we all benefit.
#2
What is wrong in France ? These fellows ahould have been awarded a Service medallion for good works to the state. I see nothing but dhimmitude across France, Belgium and now Britain. Very odious. What will it take to effect a change ? Total servitude ?
#5
The MEDEF (ex CNPF, it was renamed in... 1993? 1995? to include entrepreneurship in its name, a tribute to "anglo-saxon"-type business) is the union of the "bosses of the bosses", IE representing mostly the french corporate world and its symbiosis with the statist frame of post-WWII France, not individual entrepreneurs (entrepreneur being a french word, by the way) and independent workers.
It pursue the big business' interests, and is also involved in the gestion of the social system along with other "representative" syndicates (IE the one allowed by law to be the only interlocutors with the gvt, even if representating only 7% of french workers).
Posted by: Jan from work ||
12/11/2006 14:01 Comments ||
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#8
On the one hand, Hamas is a lying bunch of crapweasels who make stuff up all the time and couldn't be trusted if they told you the sky was blue, and none of the Dem bigwigs has been to Europe lately AFAIK.
On the other hand, the left side of the Dem party is full of crapweasels who would look at Hamas as an ally, and probably would want to work with them ("the enemy of my enemy is someone I can do business with").
On the other other hand, this is WND reporting what Hamas said.
On the other other other hand . . . oh, hell, life's too short. Until someone puts forth names and dates, especially names, we'll never know.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/11/2006 14:56 Comments ||
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#2
The stench emanating from this shitpile is growing daily. I did not realize what a muzzie outpost was located in Tucson?Phoenix. Jackal, are locals aware of this in your midst ? Are there any calls for ousting these scumbags. Definitely fifth column. I hope FBI has these fools under surveillance 24/7.
#3
"Omar Shahin, the imams spokesman and also president of the North American Imams Federation? He is a native of Jordan, who says he became a U.S. citizen in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, Shahin served as president of Islamic Center of Tucson (ICT), that citys largest mosque."
How does this happen, after 9-11? At the same time they kick put the WTC widow (and her American-born daughter) because her residency permit expired with her husband.
#4
The mosque should not be held accountable for former members who may have engaged in terrorism after they left Arizona, he told the Post in 2002. Al-Qaida nests in America? All of these, they make it up, he told the Arizona Republic shortly after 9/11.
No need to "make it up" about these terrorist allies. Their modus operendi on the plane absolutely confirms all of the lingering suspicions about them. This bucnh of asssholes have more in-depth connections to some of the very worst terrorist operatives that there is no way their acts weren't another probing of our security precautions.
Every single one of these shits had better be under the microscope from now on. That any of them has been granted American citizenship is reason enough for some firings at the State Department. There needs to be a permanent ban on any immigration, even for purposes of asylum, from all Muslim majority countries.
#5
Our local papers are somewhat to the left of the Washington Post. They printed the Imam's tale, but have buried the facts. After all the moskkks here are full of unicorns moderate progressive moslems.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The Pentagon will not try to use emergency powers to build a compound to hold war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay, according to a member of a Senate panel that oversees funding for military construction projects.
The U.S. Defense Department notified Sen. Dianne Feinstein that it canceled a contract solicitation to build the new courthouse complex at the isolated base in southeast Cuba because of concerns about the location and funds for the facility, according to a statement from her office. ``I thank the department for postponing plans to build a permanent courthouse at Guantanamo Bay,'' Feinstein, a California Democrat, said in the statement late Friday. ``It's important this courthouse proceed through regular order, with public hearings, so that there is full knowledge of what is intended.''
The Defense Department recently sent a letter to Congress announcing its intention to fast-track the Guantanamo complex by reallocating $102 million of its authorized funds by invoking its emergency powers to bypass congressional approval, Feinstein said.
A Pentagon spokesman gave no specific details about the cancellation, which was first reported by The Miami Herald on Sunday, but said that due to the scope and complexity of the trials for terror suspects, additional infrastructure and personnel remains a much-needed addition at Guantanamo. ``We will continue working with the Congress to ensure that unlawful enemy combatants at Guantanamo can be brought to justice as expeditiously as possible,'' Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon said in an e-mail Sunday. ``We do not want a lack of facilities to be a reason for delaying the process of bringing these dangerous enemy combatants to justice.''
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
``We do not want a lack of facilities to be a reason for delaying the process of bringing these dangerous enemy combatants to justice.''
Right. A courthouse is certainly not necessary. Just need an old cargo plane with rear ramp that can get to 16-18000 feet. Just a short ride northeast, dump, return for next load.
Posted by: Dan Cooper (ret.) ||
12/11/2006 8:10 Comments ||
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#3
WTF are we doing spending $102 million on a courthouse, no less some super-swank megaplex that will be nicer than any post courtroom where we court-martial our own soldiers?
I'm sure a lot of the cost is for security measures. But they've been doing status determination hearings for quite some time now with no problem. If you have three desks and a set of leg irons, you have a courtroom. Whatever happened to improvise, adapt, and overcome?
Oh, right. This is the master race we're dealing with here. The little princesses might feel the pea under the mattress.
Finally, he added, Shiite Muslim cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army numbers in the tens of thousands, will be captured, beheaded and buried with 72 virgin hogs at a pig farm in Israel. The video will be posted at YouTube.com.
"Go Pershing" on the bastards. Gotta love it!
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
12/11/2006 23:38 Comments ||
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Iraq may already be in a civil war or just on the brink of one. But whatever it is, the focus is Baghdad, where all aspects of life are ever more disrupted by sectarian violence and its people ever more weary and afraid.
Drive around this city of 7 million in daylight and the signs are clear -- rows of shuttered shops, barricaded roads, empty homes, bustle that is brief and subdued. At night, under curfew, gunmen take command. Talk to the people of Baghdad and one hears the voice of a fractured, terrified community. "We're afraid, depressed, frustrated," said one woman for whom this month should have been among the happiest of her life.
Lina -- who like most in the city on the banks of the Tigris River is too frightened to use her full name -- is about to be married but the 33-year-old said: "I feel such a burden when I think of what might happen on our wedding day."
This year, weekly death tolls in the capital have risen from the dozens to the hundreds, notably since February's destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra touched off a wave of reprisals.
Two weeks ago, bombs that killed over 200 people in the capital in the worst attack of the conflict caused another quantum leap in the fear factor, driving the mildest of men to take up Kalashnikovs and roam the streets to defend their homes.
#2
Couldn't be written better by a Baathist stringer. I'm sure times are tougher for Sunnis now that they are experiencing what Saddam's henchmen and secret police practiced daily upon Shiites and Kurds. When its visited upon others you don't have a tendency to notice it during the 'golden years' do you?
#3
Surely, if there's a weapons shortage in Iraq, eventually that will percolate down to the shop floors in Peshawar, despite the muscularity of the indigenous weapons manufacturing sector. Is the weapons market is fungible, like oil and other commodities?
#4
The left, having won a US election, no longer sees the need to continue to support the terrorists in Iraq and are now diverting their money to the US.
#5
Surely, if there's a weapons shortage in Iraq, eventually that will percolate down to the shop floors in Peshawar, despite the muscularity of the indigenous weapons manufacturing sector. Is the weapons market is fungible, like oil and other commodities?
This peshawar thing was an inside joke, be it for true old-timers, or for encroaching parazites like me.
Meaning = "you're strafing off topic, keep focused on the nuts and bolts of the GWOT", often reduced to the single "peshawar" word, usually by Liberal Hawk .
#6
I know, a5089 dear, but you very cleverly raised a legitimate point -- if weapons have, due to the number of pre-invasion caches destroyed in place by Coalition and Iraqi forces (I assume it isn't just the US guys who get to have the fun of making massive explosions), become so much more rare as to drive the price up locally, what effect will that have elsewhere? I s'pose I should have added an appreciation to your reference, because I was smiling as I typed. I do apologize.
Posted by: Jan from work ||
12/11/2006 13:55 Comments ||
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#8
Absolutely bizarre. Weapons prices are going up and the leftards at the IHT blame it on US mismanagement essentially increasing the supply! Are they really that stupid?
#10
You expect actual thought from the International Herald Tribune, now that it's become a reporter-free, next day, shrunken New York Times? That just isn't fair, Atomic Conspiracy!
Woohoo! Let the Looting (Phase II or II, hard to tell) begin!
BAGHDAD: Iraq is failing to spend billions of dollars of its own oil revenues that have been set aside to rebuild its damaged and looted infrastructure, even as American financial support dwindles and this nation prepares to ask the international community to help pay for a sweeping new phase of reconstruction.
Iraqi ministries are spending as little as 15 percent of the 2006 capital budgets they received to do that rebuilding with some of the weakest spending taking place at the Oil Ministry, which relies on damaged and decrepit pipelines, wells, refineries and pumping stations to move the oil that provides nearly all of the country's revenues.
In essence, the money is available but the Iraqi system has not been able to absorb enough of it to generate reconstruction projects.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.
The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the U.S. military presence.
The new alliance would be led by senior Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who met with President Bush last week. Al-Hakim, however, was not expected to be the next prime minister because he prefers the role of powerbroker, staying above the grinding day-to-day running of the country.
Continued on Page 49
#3
What Iraq needs most at this point is their own version of Abraham Lincoln. Or Al Capone. I'm still undecided.
One thing is for certain, this guy aint either one of 'em.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/11/2006 9:24 Comments ||
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#4
I'm guessing that we'll witness a new Saddam installed sooner than we'd like. Seems as though the democracy thingy just isn't going to work. That society requires an iron fist to keep order.
Posted by: ET ||
12/11/2006 12:17 Comments ||
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#5
Seems as though the democracy thingy just isn't going to work. That society requires an iron fist to keep order.
A belief in the rule of law is required to keep order--Islam obliterates any belief in the rule of law in that it puts the true believer into the position of deciding which laws are "holy" enough to merit his observance.
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi prison chief and his deputy were under arrest on Sunday after Saddam Husseins nephew, accused of funding the Sunni insurgency, escaped jail a day earlier, sparking a huge manhunt by police.
Ayman Al Sabawi, the son of Saddams half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Al Tikriti, escaped Badoush prison near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday after the jails night watch commander told colleagues he was transferring him to another prison.
Interior Ministry officials said they believed the commander had been bribed to help Sabawi escape. The night watch captain, whose family has also disappeared, convinced guards to free Sabawi after showing them a forged transfer form, they said. Gee, an inside job. Whoda thunk it?
The interior minister has ordered that a committee be formed to investigate (the escape) and the arrest of the head of the prison and his deputy, ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told state television. Mosul police said the two officials had been detained late on Saturday night and were being questioned on Sunday.
Khalaf said officials thwarted a previous attempt by Sabawi to escape about a month ago. He said that plot had been engineered by a group of Saddamist sympathisers calling themselves Aawda (the Return Group).
Sabawi, who was captured in a village near Mosul in 2004, had been serving a six-year sentence for funding the insurgency but was also wanted in connection with other crimes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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Iraq's president Jalal Talabani, a key ally of the US, yesterday delivered a thunderous rejection of the bipartisan US Iraq Study Group, describing its findings as "dangerous" and saying that its recommendations were "dead in the water".
At his heavily fortified residence on the banks of the Tigris, Mr Talabani told the Guardian that the key suggestions of the long-awaited report by James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton were "the wrong medicine for the wrong diagnosis" and called them an unwarranted interference in Iraq's internal affairs that undermined the war-torn country's sovereignty at a crucial time. "As far as I am concerned it is dead in the water," he said.
Mr Talabani added that calls for US sanctions against the Iraqi government if it failed to meet a timeline for a series of milestones were "an insult".
Mr Talabani added that calls for US sanctions against the Iraqi government if it failed to meet a timeline for a series of milestones were "an insult".
Launched last week amid much fanfare in the United States, the bipartisan report on the next step for the US in Iraq outlined among other things the "grave and deteriorating situation" in the country. It expressed deep concern over the weakness of the national unity government, advocating strong centralised rule.
Mr Talabani's strident response followed another weekend of sectarian-inspired violence in Baghdad and a surprise farewell visit to US troops in Iraq by the outgoing US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the chief architects of the US-led invasion.
The findings of the Iraq Study Group have already met considerable vocal opposition in Iraq, but Mr Talabani's comments are the loudest so far. The head of the Kurdistan Alliance, Mr Talabani is one of the country's most influential figures, a broker among the feuding factions in Baghdad. His vehement opposition to the report could be decisive.
"To hear such comments from anti-US figures like Moqtada al-Sadr is one thing, but to hear it from President Talabani is something else."
A western diplomat in Baghdad said: "To hear such comments from anti-US figures like Moqtada al-Sadr is one thing, but to hear it from President Talabani is something else."
The Iraqi president said he would send a letter to President George Bush outlining the government's thinking about "the main issues" contained in the Baker-Hamilton document.
We have many former Iraqi army officers, good patriotic professional army men who were against Saddam Hussein. Why can't we bring those people to the army, to help train and develop and lead?"
The former Kurdish guerrilla leader said he was particularly alarmed by the recommendations for Iraq's security structures, including the fledgling Iraqi army and the police. The ISG suggested withdrawing US troops from a frontline combat role by 2008, and increasing the number of US soldiers embedded with the Iraqi army from 3,000-4,000 currently to 10,000-20,000.
But a clearly agitated Mr Talabani said: "They want to embed thousands more US army officers in Iraqi army units from small squadrons to whole divisions. If our army became a tool in the hands of foreign officers, what would that say about Iraqi sovereignty? We have many former Iraqi army officers, good patriotic professional army men who were against Saddam Hussein. Why can't we bring those people to the army, to help train and develop and lead?"
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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SECRET talks in which senior US officials came face to face with some of their most bitter enemies in the Iraqi insurgency broke down after two months of meetings, rebel commanders have disclosed. The meetings, hosted by Iyad Allawi, Iraq's former prime minister, brought the country's insurgent commanders and the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, together for the first time.
After months of delicate negotiations Dr Allawi, a former Baathist and a secular Shi'ite, persuaded three rebel leaders to travel to his villa in Amman, the Jordanian capital, to meet Mr Khalilzad for talks in January. "The meetings came about after persistent requests from the Americans. It wasn't because they loved us but because they didn't have a choice," said a rebel leader who took part in the talks.
The revelations came as a US Defence Department spokesman confirmed Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew to Iraq over the weekend in a surprise trip to thank troops for their service just days before he steps down from his post. Mr Rumsfeld resigned in November, the day after President George W. Bush's Republicans lost control of the US Congress with voter frustration over the Iraq war dominating the election.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Secret? They were reported. Negotiations with terrorists - especially where they are driven by religion - can't work.
#4
.Com, while you may not think it important, you just passed a major Moderating Hurdle with me. No acknowledgement necessary, that would be ridiculous. Appreciation, yes.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh Sunday, and addressed the attempt to ignore the Palestinian issue over the past 60 years. He promised that "through a struggle, the Palestinians can retrieve all their territories, each and every part, and can establish a Palestinian government on them. No doubt It will happen."
IRNA news agency, the official Iranian news agency, reported Khamenei's words. The Iranian leader said that "the Palestinian nation is taking a step forward each day and I am sure that the day will come when that land is run by Palestinians."
Khamenei expressed Iran's support for the Palestinian government following statements made by Haniyeh over the weekend, including saying that his government will not recognize Israel, or any agreements signed by Israel.
Haniyeh chose his words carefully, both in the political aspect and the religious one. Haniyeh told Khamenei that he would "continue in the path of Imam Khumaini, you have always supported the Palestinian people and I hope to meet you at al-Aqsa mosque in the near future." Haniyeh continued to say that "the generation that is fighting the Zionists today and that started the first and second intifadas is a young, highly motivated generation. This is the generation that will free Palestine."
The Palestinian PM emphasized that the current Palestinian government would never recognize the Zionist regime. According to Haniyeh, the armed struggle against Israel is part of Hamas and the Palestinian people's strategy: "The resistance is the only way to free Palestine. All the Palestinians chose this way as serious, and not tactical."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"It will happen" > To liberate "PALESTINE" = also to "Liberate" TAIWAN + JAPAN, etal. as well.
As said before this summer, just becuz many in LEBANON + SYRIA dislike = hate ISRAEL doesn't mean Lebanon-Syria will win agz Radical Iran. Radical Iran may hate Israel, but it is NOT for Lebanon andor Syria, etal. escaping per se Iranian control + regional "satrapy".
Yossi Baidatz, head of the Research Division at the Military Intelligence Branch, told the cabinet Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad was working on two different fronts simultaneously the diplomatic and the military one. "On the one hand, he (Assad) doesn't rule out the possibility of a diplomatic settlement with Israel, but on the other hand he is preparing his forces for a military confrontation, by enhancing the production of long-range missiles and moving antitank missiles close to the Golan Heights border. From his point of view, the two do not contradict each other," Baidatz explained.
During his briefing, Baidatz said that Damascus was still involved in developments in Lebanon , and that the country was concerned regarding the international tribunal on former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's murder. Baidatz stated that the Syrian President has been conducting intensive diplomatic negotiations in the last two weeks, in hope of capitalizing on what he believes is an international opening for talks. The senior official has also referred to the Palestinian and the Lebanese arena and the Iranian issue. Speaking of Iran, Baidatz said that Tehran was preparing for December 25, at which time the UN Security Council is set to decide whether to impose sanctions on Iran .
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
It is scandalous to find that countries - especially enemy states - are stronger now than were they on 9-11.
We never ask ourselves, what did we do to let this happen?
#4
Actually, not also invading Iran and Syria played into Iran and Syria's hands.
From the little I remember reading here after the ousting of sammy, the MM and bashir boy when crapping their pants.
But, since then :
- their meddling in iraq affairs has not been punished (starting with the WMD issue and syria, or iranian shiite powerplays),
- their quasi-open "proxy" warfare with the USA has not been punished,
- their terror enabling has not been punished, their arm race (including the nuke issue) has not been punished,
- iran's increasingly aggressive and warmongering rethoric has not been punished,
- iran's bullying and misleading of the West and forging of anti-western alliances have not been punished, not even diplomatically.
As a result, they really feel they are WINNING, being emboldened by all these perceived victories, and the weakness of their foes. Even Israel looks ripe for plucking, after the disastrous perception of the summer war, whatever might have been the actual consequences for the hizbollah.
Add the MM's eschatological worldview to this perception of being on the verge of chasing the USA out of the ME and building their regional empire, of blackmailing and intimidating EUrope into submission (with the growing tumor muslim community as a lever, and with nukes too), and of finally destroying Israel (thus taking control of the now Supreme oummah), and things can go out of control really fast.
#5
Right on 5089---There are clearly no consequences for the actions of the MMs and Syria, so they are on a roll. And the Baker led ISG Report wants negotiation with these terror enablers. The authors are either crazy, delusional, or in the pocket of outfits like the Saudis. I take all the above, with an emphasis on No. 3.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/11/2006 11:35 Comments ||
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#6
The authors are either crazy, delusional, or in the pocket of outfits like the Saudis. I take all the above, with an emphasis on No. 3.
From an email forwarded to me (no source, so keep critical, I guess)... :
The Baker-Saudi Arabia Connection
* In the past few years, Baker Botts--which employs about 700 lawyers, has had annual revenues of about $365 million and operates offices in Austin, Baku, Dallas, London, Moscow, New York, Riyadh and Washington, DC.
* In 2005, the firm expanded its presence in the region by opening an office in Dubai to complement the existing office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
* As Secretary of State in the first Bush Administration, Baker was a regular visitor to the House of Saud.
* George H.W. Bush and Baker helped convince their pal and hunting buddy Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States to invest in their companies.
* When two of the most powerful members of the House of Saud--the Saudi defense minister, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, and his brother, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, the governor of Riyadh--needed lawyers to defend them against a lawsuit brought against them and other Saudis by survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Sultan and Salman hired Baker Botts.
* The Baker Botts legal team has openly acknowledged in their brief that Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud has for the past 16 years approved regular payments of about $266,000 a year to the International Islamic Relief Organization- a large Saudi charity whose U.S. offices were last year raided by federal agents.
* George H.W. Bush met James Baker on the tennis courts at the Houston Country Club in the 1950s.
* On June 6, 1962, when he was 15 years old George W. Bush went to work in the mailroom of Houston's oldest and most prestigious law firm, Baker Botts.
Mohammed Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the Fatah faction, has received an offer to resume his former post of Palestinian Authority national security adviser. If Dahlan chooses to accept the national security adviser post, he will have to relinquish his seat in the PA parliament. To date, the position of national security adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been filled by Abu Hisham.
Dahlan will most likely coordinate the various Palestinian security organizations and will be responsible for liaising with Israeli security forces. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that while Dahlan had not yet officially accepted the appointment, he was already receiving security-related authority and dealing with security issues.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- A senior leader of the governing Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) called on Sunday on Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, accusing him of being responsible for talk failure on national unity government. Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas block chief in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), made the call while talking with reporters, after the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)executive committee recommended to Abbas to call for early presidential and legislative elections to end the growing crisis and the embargo imposed on the Palestinians.
Abbas "is held responsible for the failure of the talks on forming the national unity government" and he should leave his post. Abbas wants "to drag the Palestinian people to his program."
Al-Hayya told the reporters that President Abbas "is held responsible for the failure of the talks on forming the national unity government" and he should leave his post. Abbas wants "to drag the Palestinian people to his program", said al-Hayya, ruling out the possibility that holding early elections would help in ending the governmental crisis. "It is really impossible that every time the president disagrees with the government, he calls for early elections. It's better to quit the proposal because it is a waste of time and a waste of money," said the Hamas leader.
In a reaction to al-Hayya's call for Abbas' resignation, Nabil Amer, a top aid to Abbas, told reporters that "going for early elections or a referendum is the ideal solution to get out of the crisis that the Palestinians are facing." "Saying that the ballot is a coup d'etat on democracy is totally wrong, because all nations on earth go for early elections as soon as they reach to a deadlock and huge crisis," said Amer.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya said on Sunday that holding early elections, as proposed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), will lead to chaos, the official IRNA news agency reported. This is as opposed to the current situation, which can best be described as... ummm... something else.
"The recommendation of PLO executive committee runs counter to the legal rights of the Palestinian government," Haneya told reporters before wrapping up his four-day visit to Iran. The PLO's recommendation is considered as the "beginning of chaos in Palestine," Haneya was quoted as saying. "While safeguarding integrity and solidarity is important to us, we oppose any political despotism. Ever since the Hamas government took office, we feel that some individuals are unjustly stabbing us from behind."
After a series of meetings, the PLO executive committee on Saturday recommended Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to hold early parliamentary and presidential elections. It is still not clear whether Abbas would adopt the PLO's recommendations to call early elections.
Haneya, who arrived in Tehran on Thursday to pay a four-day visit, is on his first tour abroad since he took office in March in a bid to rally support for the Palestinian cause and break up siege imposed by the West and Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#4
"God is sitting this one out" - oh Gawd no. MEL GIBSON > SIGNS movie = "Maybe there are NO COINCIDENCES?". Iff MADONNA, OSAMA + WHITNEY, and OLIVER STONE, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,@etal. can be envisioned since the 1960's, so also is this WOT.
SECULARISM/SECUL ATHEISM-INTELLECTUALISM says
Nature = Natural Universal forces is NOT Sentient = NOT capable of Rational = Irrational, Moral = Immmoral, Emotional = Un/Non-Emotional, Linear = Un/Non-Linear, Singular = Multi-Dimensional, etc. thought + existence. NOSTRADAMUS > refers to a SOUL-SPIRIT that moves from Lifetime to Lifetime, where each Lifetime is a TEACHER'S LESSON/WORK-IN-PROGRESS TOWARDS THE PERFECTION THAT IS GOD = GOD HEAD/TRINITY. ONLY GOD CREATED HIM, AND ONLY GOD CAN DESTROY HIM, NOT MORTAL MAN. HE SEES THE PAST AND PARALLEL AS EASILY AS HE DOES THE FUTURE = MULTI-FUTURES. God wants MADONNA'S + SIBLINGS' DADDY to rule = lead = advise the world AGAIN as he did many times before, the ALPHA = OMEGA, but Daddy keeps arguing wid God WHY SHOULD HE???
#5
Thats where Madonna's GREAT MOM/MOTHER" comes in -Mom's job is to pull Daddy by the ears and drag him kicking and screaming to the next higher level(s) of MORTAL-BASED/ONLY Universal Development.
Sheikh Mohammed Hajj Hassan, who heads the anti-Iranian Free Shiite Movement, has held Hizbullah responsible for any assassination attempt that might target any of the group's leaders. He accused Hizbullah and other factions of forcing members of his clan to sign a "petition disavowing from us."
"We fear that this is the beginning of assassination attempts that could physically target us and we hold Hizbullah fully responsible for any harm that could happen to any of the movement's leaders," Hajj Hassan told reporters on Sunday. "Also responsible will be those who signed the petition," Hassan said after a meeting with Druze leader Walid Jumblat in Moukhtara.
He slammed Hizbullah's "hegemony" over the Shiites, saying "what we see in Beirut streets is a dangerous indicator and exposes national unity and peace."
"This is what (Syrian President) Bashar Assad has promised to do, and unfortunately destruction has begun on the hands of the Lebanese," Hassan added.
He declared opposition to what he dubbed "Farsi project" Iran is allegedly seeking to impose on Lebanon with the backing of the Syrian regime.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/11/2006 12:46 ||
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If Assad ever stumbles, the Syrian Sunni will slaughter his Alawite Shiite sect with particular ferocity. And, all things considered, they deserve it.
GOLAN HEIGHTS If Israel does not vacate the Golan Heights within months, a guerrilla organization allegedly formed in Syria will soon launch "resistance operations" against Israeli positions and Jewish communities in the Golan, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Baath party told WND in an exclusive interview.
"If in the coming months an agreement is not forged between Israel and Syria [for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan], the Committees will begin attacks," said the official, who spoke on condition his name be withheld during an in-person interview with WND and with the G. Gordon Liddy national radio show.
The official was referring to the Committees for the Liberation of the Golan Heights, a Hezbollah-like guerrilla organization Baath party sources claim was formed in Syria to attack Israeli positions in the Golan.
The Baath official told WND Syria learned from Hezbollah's military campaign against Israel that "fighting" is more effective than peace negotiations with regard to gaining territory.
First David Duke and now this, it's turning into quite a social event, a veritable who's who of leading edge Jew-hate.
Australian Holocaust-denier Fredrick Toben and controversial socialite Michele Renouf are reportedly among guests at an Iranian conference questioning the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is expected to meet delegates to the conference Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision which begins in Tehran on Monday. The ne plus ultra of target rich environments.
Dr Toben, who has faced court in Australia and been jailed in Germany for his comments on Jews and the Holocaust, is the founder of the Adelaide Institute and says he is looking forward to meeting the Iranian president.
"I would be disappointed if I was not to meet him, although I can't tell you any more than that," Dr Toben told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "It's like meeting the Queen of England, I wouldn't comment on it beforehand." The Queen would have you dragged to the Tower and beheaded if it weren't for the lamentable softening of British justice, you fool.
Dr Toben said Gold-digging hooker Lady (Michele) Renouf was expected to be among those attending. Lady Renouf, a former beauty queen who received her title from a brief marriage to New Zealand tycoon Sir Frank Renouf, attracted headlines when she supported historian David Irving at his trials for denying the Holocaust. Attracted rich Muslim johns suitors as well, I'll wager.
Dr Irving was sentenced to three years' jail in Austria. "I understand she (Lady Renouf) is on a flight already. It will be her first visit to Tehran," Dr Toben said. I would say "F*** you" to Renouf, but she might try to take me up on it.
I don't know what is on the menu for the glittering banquet that will undoubtedly accompany the conference but it should definitely include that wonderful new Russian dish we've heard so much about, asparagus a la polonium. I hear it is just to die for.
#1
"Never in your life with you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Twenty years ago, I could not have imagined that I would someday call for lethal; indeed, diabolical; weapons to be used against an international conference of academics, authors, and media figures, but so I have.
The more the better.
#2
Regarding frenchies, I wonder if
- dieudonné (black stand up comedian, leftist "antizionist" turned FN's supporter, in a nice anti-US & anti "establishment" convergence),
- alain soral (commie antifeminist pamphlet writer, turned adviser and speech writer to Jean-Marie Le Pen and the FN, and now rather big among certain nationalist circles, if only for his "antizionism" and anti-americanism),
- and their pal thierry meyssan (bona fide subversive, originator of the "no plane on the Pentagon - 9/11 inside job by a "neoconservative cabal", wink wink, islamist tool and owner of the rumor-mill "réseau voltaire" news-agency) are going to show up?
I'm a bit confused here, I think they already went to an iran-backed conference (meyssan is a big friend of the MM, dieudonné and soral went to lebanon to hail the Great Victory of the hezbollah, first sign of the coming defeat of the Empire), but I may be mistaken. Anyway, it really wouldn't surprize me if they went there for this one.
Calling the Iran Block's bluff. Check the box. Move on to the next step.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.S. and its closest Western allies may soon call a vote on U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran, even at the risk that Russia and China may abstain or veto the measures, officials said Sunday.
"They're talking about a vote as soon as possible," a U.S. official said of plans by the Americans, French and British. He and other diplomats and representatives of Western governments spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge Western strategies on Iran.
The decision to risk a Russian and Chinese veto would reflect recognition by the five permanent Security Council members that they cannot agree on a common approach to dealing with concerns that Iran might be seeking to develop nuclear arms. Risk? What risk? How does their veto compare to the issue of allowing them to stonewall the issue any longer? So give the fantasy up and move on.
#2
"Ayatollah recklessness"- Dead on, SNEAZE. PC goes both ways, and iff Russia-China won't go for sanctions all Dubya has to do is let Moud do his thing. RUSSIA's own nukeperts say Moud = Radical Iran will be self-sufficient, however roughly, in peaceful = weapons-making nuke materials next Spring 2007. Iranian "self-sufficiency" will undoubtedly motivate smaller Muslim nations, + minority groups within Russia-China, to exert their preceived rights as backed up by nuke tech. ALL DUBYA HAS TO IS SIT BACK, AND BLAME RUSSIA-CHINA, ANTI-US EUROS, + AMER POLS FOR BOTH NOT SUPPORTING HIM, RUMMY, + BOLTON AT UNO PLUS EMPOWERING ANTI-US/DEMOCRATIC GLOBAL NUKE PROLIFERATION. Dubya > iff these guys want POLITIX = PC so much, and forever,lets be political, and technical, and legalist like they are. ONCE MUSLIMS START HAVING NUKE ARMS, HONEYMOON = LOVE AFFAIR OF CONVENIENCE IS OVER BETWEEN SECULAR SOCIALISTS + GOD-BASED SOCIALISTS.
*SNIFF, SNIFF, first CONDI + LAVROV, now MOUD + RUSSIA-CHINA, FRANCE, etc. > BAD DAY FOR A WEDDING [Billy Idol]. HOW CAN LOVE SAVE THE WORLD???
Tehran, Iran, Dec. 10 Irans annual revenue from oil and gas sales has reached 120 billion dollars, state television reported on Saturday. The report, which quoted the head of the Majlis (Parliament) Energy Committee, said that $45 billion from the income was being allocated for government subsidising of goods, in particular gas.
There's both the problem and the opportunity, which regular readers know well. $120 billion is a lot of cash for financing terror, nuclear weapons development and military purchases. It also buys off a fair part of the populace, and gasoline subsidies are a part of that. Make it difficult for the Iranians to import gas and you start creating problems for the Mad Mullahs.
Irans hard-line cabinet has faced strong criticism by many economists who say the sharp rise in government spending, financed by the countrys burgeoning oil revenues, is fuelling inflation; thus, leading to more poverty.
Despite Irans huge oil revenues, poverty and homelessness are ubiquitous features of the Iranian metropolis, with thousands of homeless persons spending the night in the bitter cold without any shelter. Irans state-run media call the homeless kartonkhabha, literally meaning those who sleep on cardboards.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Does it pay for the drug habits of the huge numbers of addicts in Iran?
#5
The answers to the problem are clear. Is there a point at which citizen's militia will have to charter a boat, tool up and take out Kharg Island independently?
Lebanon's feuding pro- and anti-Syrian factions looked set for a compromise after an opposition rally drew protestors on to the streets of Beirut in numbers the army said were "unprecedented." An Arab League envoy was due in Beirut Monday after announcing he had received a positive response from the pro-Syrian opposition to proposals to end a political crisis which has paralysed the government and raised fears of a return to civil strife. The envoy, Mustafa Ismail of Sudan, told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television that he had received the "agreement in principle" of Shiite militant group Hizbullah, which has been spearheading the 10-day-old opposition protests, and was returning to Beirut for further talks.
The opposition has been demanding that the Western-backed cabinet of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora make way for a government of national unity. Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah confirmed that the movement's leader Hassan Nasrallah had given a positive response to the Arab envoy. "Nasrallah has informed Mustafa Ismail that Hizbullah sees positively any initiative that includes the formation of a government of national unity which secures a blocking minority," Fadlallah said. "But in the end our position will be decided after being discussed among opposition leaders," he added.
The opposition accuses the government of weakness and corruption, and says it no longer represents the people after the six pro-Damascus ministers submitted their resignations last month.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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A solution to the political crisis in Lebanon appeared close Sunday after the opposition and coalition majority announced their willingness to discuss a compromise proposed by the Arab League. Mustafa Ismail, envoy to the Arab League secretary general and foreign affairs adviser to the Sudanese president, is expected to arrive in Lebanon on Monday to promote the plan. In an interview Sunday night to Al-Arabiyah television, Ismail said that both sides had expressed their willingness to discuss the proposal.
Under the proposal, the number of Lebanese cabinet ministers would increase to 30. Of these, 19 would represent the parliamentary majority and 10 would come from opposition parties. The remaining minister would be proposed by the opposition and be subject to majority approval. In addition, the new cabinet would approve the creation of an international court to deal with the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The Arab League proposal does not entail replacing President Emile Lahoud, who does not have majority parliamentary support.
Ismail said Sunday that Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was expected to summon the parties to discuss the terms of the proposal. The Arab League envoy said all parties were willing to stop their street protests. "Hassan Nasrallah informed me that he is not interested in a revolution or in changing the current regime," Ismail said. He added that the Hezbollah leader would be willing to accept Prime Minister Fouad Siniora as the head of a unity government. The Arab League proposal does not contradict a Lebanese Christian initiative according to which the Christians would decide Lahoud's fate.
Sunday's surprising development came on the heels of a huge opposition rally in the center of Beirut, during which speakers predicted Siniora's imminent resignation and threatened to establish a shadow government if he was prevented from stepping down. Christian leader General Michel Aoun declared Sunday that if a solution satisfactory to the opposition was not found, it would declare the creation of an alternate government that would take action toward holding new elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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And if we aren't impressed with this latest threat / tantrum?
(Xinhua) -- Iran on Sunday warned the UN Security Council against adoption of any resolution that would impose sanctions on the Islamic republic, threatening to drop out cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "If the UN Security Council adopts a resolution against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran will revise its policies on the level of its cooperation with the IAEA," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini told his weekly press briefing.
He also criticized Britain, France and Germany for choosing a "very wrong course" in dealing with Iran on its nuclear issue. "The three European countries have taken up a very wrong course and we hope that they revise their policies and return to the talks," Hosseini said.
Britain, France and Germany circulated on Friday afternoon to UN Security Council members a revised draft resolution which imposed sanctions on Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. "The present draft is more in line with the U.S. interfering policies," Hosseini said.
According to a copy of the draft resolution obtained by Xinhua, it urges Iran to suspend all enrichment activities as well as all heavy water related projects. It bars Iran from importing or exporting key materials and technology related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Meanwhile, the text, drafted by the three European countries, also imposes financial and travel restriction on persons and agencies involved.
However, the new text is still far from Russia's expectation, a UN diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "Without further revision, it is really hard for Russia to endorse it," he added.
The six major powers -- the United States, Russia, China and the three EU countries -- are set to resume talks on the text on the table Monday morning, according to the diplomat, who disclosed that the West is pushing hard for the adoption of the draft resolution before the Christmas.
Enough DiploDink dithering.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Lebanon on Sunday witnessed two conflicting mass rallies: one in downtown Beirut demanding ouster of current government and another in the northern city of Tripoli pledging support for it. People worry that the two contradicting rallies might widen the sharp split among the rival politicians and their supporters.
The anti-government rally began at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT). The protestors gathered in the Squares of Riyadh al-Solha and Martyr in downtown Beirut, waving Lebanese white-and-red national flags and chanting anti-government slogans. "Change is coming," read banners carried by the demonstrators.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television said the protest promised to be larger than the rally on Dec. 1 that kicked off the opposition campaign. "This is a sea of demonstrators unprecedented in the history of Lebanon," an army spokesman was quoted as saying, estimating that "hundreds of thousands" had gathered in the heart of Beirut and on access roads to the city center. While addressing the protestors, Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem called on Prime Minister Fouad Seniora to "resign to preserve your dignity and honor, and Lebanon's honor..."
He also vowed that the protest, launched on Dec. 1, would continue for as long as 10 months until the anti-government factions achieve veto-powered partnership in the cabinet. Shortly before the anti-government protest was launched at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT), Beirut looked more like an army barracks with military vehicles manning crossroads.
In Tripoli, 80 kilometers north of Beirut, hundreds of thousands of government sympathizers cheered as parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri stressed through a telephone connection that "the government would not fall. (President Emile) Lahoud will collapse."
Saad Hariri, the son of ex-premier Rafik Hariri who was assassinated by a huge blast targeting his motorcade in Beirut in February 2005, reminded sympathizers that Lahoud's mandate in office was extended for three years by an illegal constitutional amendment under Syrian pressure in 2004.
Observers here see no end to the conflicting mass rallies in the near future, worrying more violence, or even a civil war will be if the political crisis deepens.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/11/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The customary Cursing of the Mustaches before the shoes start to fly...
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.
BERLIN (Reuters) - German police have uncovered a radioactive trail linked to what prosecutors believe could be a possible suspect in the murder of a former Russian spy in London last month. Police said on Monday a BMW used to pick up Dmitry Kovtun at Hamburg airport on October 28 had traces of polonium 210, the same radioactive substance used to poison Alexander Litvinenko.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - The Pentagon will not try to use emergency powers to build a compound to hold war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay, according to a member of a Senate panel that oversees funding for military construction projects.
Iraq may already be in a civil war or just on the brink of one. But whatever it is, the focus is Baghdad, where all aspects of life are ever more disrupted by sectarian violence and its people ever more weary and afraid. 
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved.
BAGHDAD - An Iraqi prison chief and his deputy were under arrest on Sunday after Saddam Husseins nephew, accused of funding the Sunni insurgency, escaped jail a day earlier, sparking a huge manhunt by police.
Iraq's president 
Mohammed Dahlan, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the Fatah faction, has received an offer to resume his former post of Palestinian Authority national security adviser. If Dahlan chooses to accept the national security adviser post, he will have to relinquish his seat in the PA parliament. To date, the position of national security adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been filled by Abu Hisham. 
(Xinhua) -- A senior leader of the governing Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) called on Sunday on Palestinian National Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, accusing him of being responsible for talk failure on national unity government. 
