[Tolo News] Some of the money donated by international community to Afghanistan goes to the Taliban through contracts, Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption said on Tuesday.
Speaking to TOLOnews on Tuesday, Head of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption Azizullah Ludin expressed concern stressing the need to monitor foreign contracts in Afghanistan.
After the US and Afghan governments expressed concern about the issue, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption urged the Afghan government to closely monitor contracts signed by donor countries.
Mr Ludin says all the details related to the foreign contracts signed in the country should be clear to the Afghan government.
As an example, he hints to a road construction project in Pashtun-infested Logar province for which the Taliban are also said to have received some money.
"There was a road construction project in Pashtun-infested Logar in which something seemed to have gone wrong. We investigated and put pressure on the one in charge of the project. He finally admitted that he had given some of the project money to the Taliban," Mr Ludin said.
Concerns have previously been raised in the US about the way US taxpayer money is being spent in Afghanistan.
It was also believed that $55bn of Washington's aid to Afghanistan had not been spent in the right way.
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04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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[Tolo News] Afghan forces are not yet able to take over security responsibilities, Afghan Minister of Interior said on Wednesday.
It's gonna take lots of money and time, citizens, especially money, so dig deep into yer wallets and be prepared to wait...
Afghan Minister of Interior, General Besmellah Mohammadi, addressing the House of Representatives on Wednesday said everyone agrees on the transition plan, but warned that the Afghan cops currently do not have the capacity and the ability to undertake security responsibilities on their own.
Afghan security officials including Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, Interior Minister Besmellah Mohammadi and Acting Chief of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) were called to the House of Representatives today.
"Unfortunately I have to say that neither the Afghan National Army nor the Police have the ability to undertake security responsibilities if NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... leaves now. I think the transition should start in three years," General Mohammadi said.
The Afghan Defence Minister also agreed that there are threats ahead of security transition.
"I have cautioned the international community that anti-government groups and their supporters may want to deliberately give us a false feeling of victory so that foreign forces leave the country thinking that security has approved," Mr Wardak said. "If that is the case, cut-throats will get the opportunity to start fighting again using all their strength."
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid had brought their horses under control... Acting Chief of NDS, Rahmatullah Nabil, said anti-government gangs are funded through different sources.
"Militant groups can get financial assistance through different sources including intelligence organisations of some countries, cut-thoat Islamist groups, drug trafficking and sometimes private security companies," Mr Nabil said.
Afghan and foreign forces have launched operations in the country's volatile regions to prepare the ground for a smooth transition to Afghan forces.
According to Defence Minister Wardak the number of Afghan National Army recruits will increase to 195,000 in about two years. The first phase of security transition is to begin in July 2011.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Afghan Forces Not Ready for Security Transition
Afghan Forces Not Ready To Switch From Smooth Stones To Toilet Paper
[Tolo News] The US and Britain will stop helping Afghanistan if corruption is not rooted out, the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption said on Tuesday.
Head of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption, Azizullah Ludin, expressed grave concern that the US and Britain will not be willing to continue helping Afghanistan if no serious action is taken to root out corruption.
Mr Ludin urges international community and the Afghan government to join hands in fighting against corruption.
"We have to work together to eradicate corruption and reassure the US and Britain that their aid is not wasted in Afghanistan," Mr Ludin said.
The High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption has also urged Britain to freeze all bank accounts of the former Afghan cabinet minister Sediq Chakari and extradite him to Afghanistan.
The issue has been raise with British officials who have pledged to cooperate with the Afghan government.
According to Mr Ludin, Chakri has many cases of embezzlement filed against him and in addition he has around $800,000m in his Dubai bank account.
Mr Ludin also hinted to the disappearance of 42 million dollars of donation to the Afghan National Army Hospital in Kabul.
"It is clear that 42 million dollars has been donated to the hospital and disappeared. This case should be addressed seriously," said Mr Ludin.
He believes not only Afghans but also "some others" are involved in this misappropriation.
Corruption in Afghanistan is one of the biggest concerns of donor countries.
Some of the high ranking officials have been accused of corruption, but it is believed that the Afghan government, in the last 9 years, has not been able to bring a single corrupt official to justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
We can't afford to fund corruption in Afghanistan anymore - we need the money for corruption here at home.
Just keep repeating "Humanitarian Intervention" and all will be well, at least according to Samantha Powers.
The U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, the former U.S. commander of the military mission said Thursday, describing the ongoing operation as a stalemate that is more likely to go on now that America has handed control to NATO.
But Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers that American participation in a ground force would not be ideal, since it could erode the international coalition attacking Moammar Gadhafi's forces and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya. Perhaps the French could fly in some troops from the Ivory Coast. They have recent experience...
He said NATO has done an effective job in an increasingly complex combat situation. But he noted that, in a new tactic, Gadhafi's forces are making airstrikes more difficult by staging their fighters and vehicles near civilian areas such as schools and mosques.
The use of an international ground force is a possible plan to bolster the Libyan rebels, Ham said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Asked whether the U.S. would provide troops, Ham said, "I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that's probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail." Spain has an army. Italy has an army. Turkey has an army. Etceteras. Let them provide the boots on the ground. We gave in Iraq.
#1
Want to bet any troops of any nation deployed there patrol the oil loading, transport and production facilities in the rebel held areas as a primary goal?
#2
"I suspect there might be some consideration of that. My personal view at this point would be that that's probably not the ideal circumstance, again for the regional reaction that having American boots on the ground would entail."
TRANSLATION: If Gahdhafi ships in more Sub-Saharan African mercenaries, or brings in Chinese/Iranian advisors, count us OUT!
The following is the text of a letter sent to President Barack Obama on Wednesday by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The misspellings and grammatical errors are in the original letter.
RIYADH - The occurrence of consecutive attacks on school teachers has raised concerns in Soddy Arabia about the rise in violence among students and the possession of weapons on school grounds.
Within one week, three cases of attacks on teachers by students and violence among students were reported in different parts of Soddy Arabia. In the first case two students attacked their teacher with a cane in the southwestern town of Bisha and both were placed in durance vile.
Two days after, a group of students broke into a high school in the capital Riyadh and burnt their misconduct reports.
In the third case, students in a high school in the northern city of Onaiza had a fight in which they used knives and one of them even fired a gun and several students were maimed.
In the past three months, more than 17 cases of attacks on teachers with canes have been reported. One of the most shocking examples was in the city of Taif in western Soddy Arabia where seven students brutally beat their teacher until he was unconscious and was transferred to hospital. The attack, it turned out, was led by a student who wanted to take Dire Revenge on the teacher for scolding him earlier.
Several other incidents took place in Taif, which recorded the highest rate of students' attacks on teachers, a group of students attacked a teacher while he was having breakfast in a restaurant next to the university.
Reasons for violence
Violence among students increases when educational institutions focus on textbooks and overlook behavioral education and the teaching of morals, said sociological expert Dr. Mohamed al-Ateeq.
Lack of a role model, he added, is also one of the reasons.
"When teachers brutally beat students in class, students learn that violence solves problems. The same applies to parents."
Writer and head of the King Abdullah Educational Complex in Riyadh, Abdul Salam al-Thumairi, said the Ministry of Education has to review its rules in order to guarantee the protection of both students and teachers.
"Current systems do not protect teachers and this encourages students to attack them," he told AlArabiya.net. "Laws are always in favor of students and the ministry shows more interest in complaints made by students' parents."
On the other hand, a field study conducted to detect the reasons for students' violence revealed the teachers' treatment of the students is among the main reasons.
Around 80% of those surveyed said that students tend to become violent when their teachers are perceived as cruel and unfair, while 64.3% argued that too much homework is another reason. For 77%, general economic problems and stress contributed to the phenomenon.
(Xinhua) -- The Yemen-based al-Qaeda group seized control over swaths of hundreds of kilometers from Lodar city of Yemen's southern Abyan province to southeast Shabwa province's city of Rodhom, near Balhaf gas port, sources close to the group told Xinhua.
Two local tribal chieftains confirmed the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) set up checkpoints and makeshift military camps from Maeen area in Lodar city of Abyan to Ain Ba-Mabad area in Shabwa's cities of Azzan and Rodhom, where Balhaf gas port is located.
They told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that AQAP also seized the coastal road from Al-Awas in Abyan to Al-Haibala in Shabwa, off the Arab Sea.
Abyan, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa, is a key stronghold of resurgent al-Qaeda wing which have carried out frequent attacks against the Yemeni security and military personnel since 2009.
One of the sources close to the AQAP said the kaboom behind the bullets factory in Jaar on March 28 that left 150 people killed was triggered by a cigarette lit by a resident who stormed the plant.
"After AQAP Islamic fascistitook over the plant and seized a number of heavy and armored security vehicles, they moved the gunpowder from the ammunition factory to another safe place," the source told Xinhua, requesting anonymity.
"AQAP then put some of its armed members to guard the plant, but the second day (March 28) the local residents came in large numbers and insisted to go inside the plant to collect the remaining gunpowder," the source said.
"After the residents came into the plant and started to collect some old machines and remaining gunpowder, one of them lit a cigarette, which triggered a series of huge blasts," he added.
Yemen has witnessed weeks-long anti-government protests demanding an immediate end to the 33-year rule of President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... . The political crisis recently resulted in deterioration of security stability after the government pulled the police out from some towns of major provinces under the pretext of avoiding potential friction between police and protesters.
NEW YORK - Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said on Wednesday that Gulf states hope to strike a deal with Yemens president to step down.
We hope that we will strike a deal, he told reporters on the sidelines of a Business and Investment in Qatar Forum in New York when asked if the Gulf Cooperation Council had reached such a pact for Yemens President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
We (the council) have been meeting for the last few days in Riyadh and were sending a proposal for him and the opposition and we hope a meeting will be held between his team and the opposition to try to find a way out of this problem, he said.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are trying to broker a deal to have Yemens president step down and hand over power, possibly to an interim council of tribal and political leaders, sources told Reuters earlier on Wednesday.
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04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Jamaat-e-Islami acting Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam said yesterday staging demonstrations holding the Koran in hands, and attacks on demonstrators are similar crimes.
And Ameer of Islami Andolan Bangladesh Rezaul Karim said on the day it is not proper to demonstrate on streets with the Koran in hands during hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
They made the remarks in response to questions at separate pressers at their party offices in the city yesterday.
They faced the questions as demonstrators with the Koran in their hands were seen during the April 4 hartal called by an Islamist group to protest the National Women's Development Policy.
Rezaul Karim also said his party is opposed to use of children for picketing during hartal.
But Azharul Islam avoided a direct reply when asked if his party supports engaging children in picketing for hartal. "If Awami League can use children in picketing, then why not others," he said.
On the women development policy, the Jamaat leader said if they (Jamaat is a component of the BNP-led four-party alliance) come to power again, they will cancel the policy,
Replying to a question, he said the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women goes totally against the tenets of the Koran as it stands for equal rights of men and women in inheritance.
Jamaat will go for countrywide demonstrations on April 9 protesting "police attacks" on its leaders and activists on Tuesday, and demanding release of its jugged leaders, Azharul Islam announced.
Rezaul Karim said some provisions of the women development policy contradict Islamic laws, and the Mohammedans of the country will not accept this policy.
The party announced its programmes to "save Islam and the country". These include a mass rally at Muktangan today in the city, day-long demonstration tomorrow, national education seminar on April 11, submitting memorandum to the president on April 12 and mass sit-in on May 2 and 3.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- The fight against organized crime needs shared responsibility of all involved countries, Mexico's Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the 28th International Conference on the Fight Against Drugs held in Mexico's state of Cancun on the Yucatan peninsula, Garcia said that in order to systematically and efficiently combat drug trafficking it is necessary to establish an agenda of collaboration to prosecute the production, trafficking and consumption of illegal drugs.
Garcia said that the drugs with the largest demand for consumption include marijuana, cocaine, opium and synthetic drugs. He added that about 248 million people worldwide are drug addicts so the challenge is to improve basic social conditions, dismantle narco mobs and paralyze their financing sources.
In a separate interview with a local television channel later, he said that if adequate efforts were carried out on all fronts, Meixco's war against criminal groups could be extended for another seven years, but in just three years, most of the soldiers could be withdrawn and the job of protecting the people could be handed over to the police.
Over 36,000 people have died in drug-related violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared a war against drugs cartels and organized crime shortly after taking power in December 2006.
#1
Ah, of course. When Columbia was deep in its fight with the cartels what was Mexico's response other than the usual business of political corruption to allow the lieutenants of the Columbia operations to make bases and expand their turf in Mexico? /rhet question
File under old adage - All depends upon whose ox is getting gored.
SEOUL, April 7 -- North Korea was to convene its rubber-stamp parliament Thursday amid keen interest on whether its ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, would promote his heir-apparent son to another top post. The session comes amid lingering tensions on the Korean Peninsula over Pyongyang's two deadly attacks on the South last year, which killed a total of 50 South Koreans, mostly soldiers.
The North's annual session is the first since Kim named his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Worker's Party and a four-star general last year for what could be another hereditary power succession.
North Korea usually holds a parliamentary session one or two times a year to assess spending and accomplishments of the previous year and to approve the current year's budget.
The session has drawn keen attention from officials and analysts in South Korea and other regional powers as they try to find any clue on whether the 69-year-old leader will appoint Jong-un as a member of the National Defense Commission in Thursday's session.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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Figures. You had to know that Kimmie was sandbagging the international relief organizations. He simply has to feed the military.
SEOUL, April 7 (Yonhap) -- A ruling party lawmaker claimed Thursday it is "true" that North Korea has stored at least 1 million tons of rice for its military, reinforcing persistent speculation that the North may divert food aid to the military despite severe food shortages for ordinary people.
"It is true that the North Korean authorities have stockpiled 1 million tons of rice for the military in case of war, including 300,000 tons for regular forces and 700,000 tons for reserve forces," Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun of the Grand National Party (GNP) said in a press release.
Yoon said North Korea has also stored 1.5 million tons of oil and 1.7 million tons of ammunitions for emergencies, adding the information was confirmed by intelligence authorities.
The press release by Yoon supported a similar claim made by GNP floor leader Kim Moo-sung last September. At that time, Kim said he had secured confirmed information that the North had a reserve of about 1 million tons of rice for the military.
There was no immediate way to independently verify the claim, but officials in Seoul and Washington have long suspected that North Korea may divert food aid to its armed forces.
North Korea's food situation has deteriorated, the U.N. World Food Program said in a recent report, adding that about a quarter of North Korea's population of 24 million is in dire need of food. Last year, Seoul delivered the first shipment of rice aid to Pyongyang in more than two years before the North shelled the South's Yeonpyeong Island last November, killing four people, including two civilians.
South Korea had sent some 400,000 tons of rice each year to the North between 2000 and 2007, but the project was stopped in 2008 with President Lee Myung-bak linking any large-scale aid to the North's efforts to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
It would be a darn shame if those military stockpiles got a tad moldy or became unusable due to the application of some nasty little bacteria.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/07/2011 9:25 Comments ||
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(Xinhua) -- Italy has agreed to grant temporary residence permits to Tunisian migrants on its soil, following an agreement signed with the North African country, the official press agency TAP reported on Wednesday.
Italy has also agreed to provide Tunisia with 10 navy patrol boats and 100 jeeps to monitor its coastline, while the North African country has taken the commitment to prevent would-be undocumented Democrats to leave the country. All the migrants who would have arrived following the signing of the agreement will be repatriated.
The decision which will be submitted to the Italian cabinet for approval at a date which has not been disclosed, will give the Tunisian migrants the right to sojourn in Italy for 6 months, however, the decision does not allow for the free circulation of the migrants in the Schengen space, TAP said.
"The fragility of the Tunisian political scene, would not have allowed a massive return of Tunisian migrants to their country," said a communique released by the Italian interior ministry.
The agreement was signed on Tuesday in Tunis during a meeting between Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni and his Tunisian counterpart, Habib Essid.
It is estimated that more than 22,000 Tunisian migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa since the toppling of the former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14.
[Tolo News] The US commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus is being seriously considered for CIA director and will quit his current position by early autumn.
General Petraeus is expected to take the job if offered according to many sources including US government officials, NPR has written.
The present CIA Chief, Leon Panetta, is being considered to replace Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
Mr Gates has reportedly said he will step down this year.
White House and Pentagon officials have declined to comment on personnel changes, according to NPR.
Adm. James Stavridis, NATO's ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... present supreme commander is expected to become the Chief of Naval Operations.
Gen. Petraeus had refused an offer to take the top NATO job in Brussels which left him few high profile military jobs, sources have told NPR.
General Martin Dempsey has already taken over as the Army Chief of Staff and the chances that Petraeus will be considered for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are said to be low.
David Petraues to expected to be replaced with the current deputy commanding office of the US Central Command Marine Lt Gen. John Allen.
However, The ever-popular However... final decisions have yet to be made.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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Current CIA Director Leon Panetta is seen as a likely replacement for Gates, NPR reports. NATO's current supreme commander, U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, is expected to become the Navy's chief of operations. Marine Gen. James "Hoss" Cartwright is expected to be nominated as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when Adm. Mike Mullen leaves the post in September.
#3
Color me skeptical that Barry will leave either the intelligence community or the military in better condition than he found them. By the way, how did his basketball picks turn out?
#3
Both the Afghans and Paks are used to war on their terms, which lasts forever, has breaks, blood feuds, and other such nonsense.
They do not grasp that when the US and the west get into a fight, they mean it. This means it continues until both sides decide it ends for good, and until they do, there are no breaks. Not for winter, not for Ramadan, never.
And you only get to lie, and say you are not going to fight anymore, once. If you go back on that, you die.
#6
They do not grasp that when the US and the west get into a fight, they mean it. This means it continues until both sides decide it ends for good, and until they do, there are no breaks. Not for winter, not for Ramadan, never.
Why should they grasp something that is not true anymore. Western troops are in Afghanistan "serve the people of Afghanistan". This was the response to an Afghan-sponsored massacre in the continental United States.
Protecting Afghan civilians (real and fake) is the highest priority. If there's a conflict between the will of the Afghan people and Western democracy military and political leaders will always side with the Afghans.
This is "Extinguishing Enduring Freedom", not "Infinite Justice".
In the 21st century, when the west gets into a fight the west will roll over.
Posted by: Caesar Sninetch3426 ||
04/07/2011 19:21 Comments ||
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(Alarabiya.net) - Iraqi member of parliaments representing Christians demand to form an autonomous area in the country's northern province of djinn-infested Mosul, al-Sumaria Iraqi Satellite TV Network reported Tuesday.
Iraqi politicians welcomed their demands, and said that an autonomous Christian region should be based upon "new administrative grounds that could be supported by external parties hosting Christian refugees," al-Sumaria TV's website said.
Iraqi MPs representing their Christians constituency see their demand as reasonable after the continuous marginalization of their community who were caught between Shiite-Sunni cross-fire ever since the U.S. 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Yazidis object
Other minorities' representatives mainly by the Yazidis rejected their demands, saying that the Christian component is a minority in these regions and therefore not eligible to form an autonomous presence.
Yazidis are Kurdish-speaking people whose religion trace back to the ancient Indo-Iranian roots with a mixture from the Islamic Sufi doctrine.
Violence against Christians reached its zenith on October 31, 2010, when al-Qaeda-linked Sunni cut-thoat group, Islamic State of Iraq, grabbed credit of an attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Syriac Catholic cathedral of Storied Baghdad. The attack left at least 58 people dead, after more than 100 had been taken hostage.
Since the church attack, some 1,000 families have decamped to the north of Iraq, the United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... High Commissioner for Refugees said, and more Christians started fleeing abroad.
Christian Iraqis constitute more than a third of their 53,700 country nationals resettled in the United States since 2007, according to State Department statistics.
Estimate round up the Christian to be 400,000 to 600,000 in Iraq's 29 million population, down from a prewar level which was as high as 1.4 million by some estimates.
Observers fear that minorities' call to preserve their rights could escalate into new rows in Iraq.
#1
Not just in Iraq, but around the world, Christian minority communities should seek laws permitting foreign Christians to assist them with "specifically non-religious development aid", so that they "will not be an economic burden" to their home country.
While indeed there would be some of this, what would not be said is that part of this aid will be in improving security for the Christian areas, to make it much harder for Muslims to persecute them.
Send in a platoon of MacGuyver types with some very ordinary looking construction supplies, like anti-blast wall paint, cans of "plastique patch putty", "additives for mud brick", and a bunch of other mundane stuff, and they could make a Christian area pretty impervious to small arms or mobs.
#3
tw: It works both ways. Someone once noted that at the border of Poland and Russia, on the Polish side the Jewish homes were made of brick, but on the Russian side, they were made of wood.
It was explained to him that by law, the Russians required the homes of their Jews to be made of wood, so that when pogroms were ordered, their houses could be burned. Tearing down brick houses was too much trouble.
Then he made the simple observation that there was no real border, so why would any sane person live on the Russian side? "Tradition."
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/07/2011 14:38 Comments ||
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#3
The Jerusalem Post is on top of the story. Check their Breaking News page for the latest.
Key bit from one of the stories:
Forty-five rockets and mortar shells on Thursday afternoon were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip in the span of three hours. Palestinian terror groups claimed that they had fired two longer-range rockets into Israel following the IDF strikes. Shortly after, the IDF's Iron Dome anti-rocket system was successfully activated for the first time, intercepting a Grad rocket fired towards Ashkelon.
Mortars and Kassam rockets continued to fall in the Eshkol, Sha'ar Hanegev and Hof Ashkelon Regional Councils through Thursday night.
Then there's
Hamas' armed wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades took responsibility for firing an anti-tank missile at a school bus in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council on Thursday, which left a 16-year-old in critical condition.
A Hamas statement said that the attack was "the first response to the continuing crimes of the occupation."
Palestinian terrorist factions in the Gaza Strip announced Thursday night that they reached a decision to halt fire from the Strip into Israel in an effort to reign in growing escalations.
Sources quoted by Palestinian news sources in the Strip said that the cease fire would take effect at 11 p.m. Thursday.
The report said that the decision was reached after intensive contacts between the Palestinians and international parties with the aim of "stopping the aggression against Gaza."
Bounce the rubble until there's only dust left, Bibi. Drive the fucking bastards across the far side into Egypt, and may the Egyptians understand what it means to let Gaza be the tip of their spear.
#5
Yes, I remember the obama administration actively back el baradei as a quick leader insert, the el baradei who if I remember correctly said that if leader he would attack Israel if Israel attacked gonzo.
MK Danny Danon initiates lawsuit which will be submitted to US District Court in NY: The distorted picture of the State of Israel that Goldstone generated harmed, harms and will continue to harm Israel." The Faithful thought it's a good idea to initiatelawfare with the Yehud?
#1
Goldstone erroneously accused Israel of targeting civilians in Gaza? Suing is a good way to handle that. It also sends a warning to all the other hate mongers is the islamic world who do the same thing everyday.
#2
It won't go anywhere; the US courts will refuse jurisdiction.
I would, however, be a big fan of publishing everything produced in the interrogatories and discovery, assuming it ever gets that far.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2011 9:14 Comments ||
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#3
Court transcripts might get published as public record. I have not seen interrogatories and discovery published other than in criminal cases. I would be a fan also of what you say Steve.
He claims it was an error, but he admitted in his Washington Post opinion piece that he knowingly issued the report with incomplete evidence. It's really Israel v. the United Nations, so if New York City isn't the right venue, what is?
Channel 10 reporter Ofer Shelah, said he wanted to tell a little story.
He then went on to say that in a Channel 2/YouTube interview last week, the prime minister, when asked by someone named Noa what book he was reading, answered that he was reading one called Security of the State by a British agent.
Shelah said that he went to the Internet to search for a book by that name.
There is no book with that name, or a similar name, he said. I didnt find a book by a British agent.had implied book by British intelligence agent that Netanyahu said he was reading didn't exist.
...It just so happens, however, that about a week before that interview, Netanyahu flew down to see work on the new security barrier on the Egyptian border, and took some journalists including this reporter with him on the helicopter.
On that helicopter ride he was reading a book called Securing the State, by David Omand, formerly the UKs security and intelligence co-coordinator responsible for controlling the overall direction for the British prime minister of the countrys counter-terrorism strategy. Not just in America---our Leftards can't even Google
#1
Right. There's no way a reporter could make a mistake, so the prime minister must be lying! A sinister plot, for sure! Why, it's so sinister, even I - {soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize winner} - can't figure it out!
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/07/2011 6:01 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask Germanys leader to drop her support for a proposal endorsing a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem when he meets with her this week, Israeli officials said Wednesday.
Germany, along with Britain and France, is leading the proposal, which would call for an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Netanyahu objects to such a widespread pullout, and says endorsing the Palestinian position on borders would take away a key incentive for them to restart long-stalled negotiations.
Officials close to Netanyahu said he would raise the matter with Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting scheduled Thursday in Berlin.
Israel fears the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers the European Union, United Nations, Russia and United States will endorse the European initiative when it meets in Germany later this month.
Britains foreign secretary, William Hague, confirmed this week that the U.K. and its European allies would push for negotiations to proceed based on the 1967 borders, with small adjustments based on mutually agreed-upon land swaps.
What the U.K., France and Germany are putting to the Quartet is that the basis of negotiations set out by the Quartet, including the United States, should include 1967 borders, with land swaps, a just settlement for refugees and Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, Hague told lawmakers. We are advocating that as an established basis for negotiations.
The Israelis will never accept the 'right of return', and the Paleos will never accept a deal that lacks it. The Israelis will never give up East Jerusalem, and the Paleos will never accept a deal that doesn't include it. What's to talk about?
It remains unclear whether the full Quartet especially the U.S. supports the proposal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Depending how Germany responds, we'll know if they really are the friend to Israel that they loudly claim. Clarification is useful, if not always pleasant.
#2
And regardless how Prime Minister Merkel may respond, the newsies will shape German thinking thusly
Israeli tank fire kills Palestinian after bus attack
Deutsche Presse Agentur - - A Palestinian civilian was killed Wednesday when Israeli tanks fired eight shells into eastern Gaza City, Gazan emergency services said, shortly after militants in the enclave fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, severely injuring a teenager.
[Arab News] Paleostinian Authority Prime Minster Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... said on Tuesday he is confident his government will have the institutional framework in place by the end of the summer necessary to win global support for an independent Paleostinian state.
"It is our goal and our expectation that as a result of what we are doing -- getting ready for statehood, developing institutions that delivery services competently and (developing) core values -- that our state of Paleostine will be founded," Fayyad said. "I am very happy to tell you that in many areas of governance we are already there."
Fayyad, the Paleostinian Authority's No. 2, has been cracking down on corruption and inefficiency as part of a two-year-old campaign to gain recognition for a Paleostinians state from the United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... General Assembly, probably in September. Israel is opposed to the plan, saying a state should be achieved through negotiations, even though they have been deadlocked for months.
Fayyad said the PA's economic bodies, including the Paleostine Monetary Authority and Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), were already up to the standards he had set. He cited the Paleostinian CBS for special praise, saying it was close to meeting the International Monetary Fund's IIMF's) highest benchmarks.
While he jokingly conceded that improvements at the statistics bureau didn't excite his fellow politicians, Fayyad said it served as a barometer for how well other branches of the government were functioning because it was able to gather information from them in an accurate and timely manner.
"The fact that we have in this areas such high and exacting standards means that other institutions in the PA have matured enough to commit to those standards," Fayyad said.
In contrast to most Paleostinian leaders, Fayyad spent much of his adult life in the West, getting a doctorate in economics from the University of Texas and enjoying a career at the World Bank and IMF. Since taking over a barely functioning administration four years ago, Fayyad has deployed a Western-trained security force to restore law and order and spent billions of dollars in foreign aid to build infrastructure and boost the economy.
Paleostinian statehood has been recognized by Brazil, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries. La Belle France, Norway, Spain, and Portugal have upgraded local Paleostinian representations. But Fayyad said that creating corruption-free institutions is as important as winning international support for a Paleostinian state regarded as worthy of joining the community of nations.
Speaking at a venture capital conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Fayyad said he was anxious to wean the PA off foreign assistance both as part of the statehood drive and to encourage foreign investment. As well as good government and functioning legal system that can enforce contracts, investors want to government to show sustainable budgets, he said.
The PA has budgeted for $970 million in donor aid for 2011, down from $1.8 billion in 2008. He predicted that by 2013, the PA would have "graduated" from the need for any more assistance.
The prime minster said improving fiscal situation came hand in hand with the gradual recovery of the Paleostinian economy from the years of the second Intifada in 2000-2005 when the economy contracted. The Paleostinian Central Bureau of Statistics said March 23 that gross domestic product grew a preliminary 9.3 percent in 2010.
But the growth isn't enough to create jobs for the 45,000 Paleostinians who enter the labor market every year, he said. In the West Bank, the unemployment rate is probably above 15 percent and in the Gazoo Strip it is more than twice that. Fayyad said attracting private sector investment was the only solution, especially as the fiscal stimulus of foreign assistance declines.
Fayyad said the next challenges facing the PA toward creating as full-fledged state and thriving economy were to bring an end to the Israeli occupation and to reunite the West Bank with the Gazoo Strip, which was seized by the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, movement in 2007. Hamas refuses to recognize the government of Fayyad and President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... and talks to re-form a brief national unity government between the two have failed.
"We have to get our country reunited. It is absolutely essential for us to do so," Fayyad said.
While the Israeli occupation, in particular the network of roadblocks that impede the movement of people and goods around the West Bank, continue to weigh on the economy and investment, the prime minister said high technology and telecommunications were an important growth driver for the Paleostinians that was less sensitive to roadblocks than other industries.
The $29 million Sadara Ventures/Middle East Venture Capital Fund launched on Tuesday will invest in Paleostinian internet and mobile start-ups. While Paleostinian IT companies have combined sales of about $300 million, it is mostly geared to information technology services. Sadara's partners said they hoped to break new ground by fostering the growth of new companies developing their own technology for global markets.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Is this the same Fayyad from "Dune"? I thought he was slain at the end of the movie. Sounds like this one has the same thougth process as the other one.
[Ma'an] President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has urged the Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... to issue a clear statement over Israeli settlements when it meets this month, a senior aide told AFP.
Speaking by telephone from Amman, Nabil Abu Rudeina said Abbas had urged the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to publish a statement which calls for an end to settlement activity in the occupied territories and which clearly outlines the terms of reference for peace talks with Israel.
"President Abbas asked the US administration and the Quartet to make a clear statement about ending settlement activity and determining the terms of reference for negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital," he said on Tuesday.
Abbas' demands were laid out at a meeting with David Hale, senior assistant to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Following the collapse of direct peace talks with Israel late last year, the Paleostinians, with backing from Britain, La Belle France and Germany, are pushing for the Quartet to lay down clearer parameters for any new peace negotiations.
The parameters would include a reference to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, and the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of both states.
The Paleostinians also want the Quartet to issue a condemnation of continuing Israeli settlement expansion.
Shortly after Abbas' meeting, Paleostinian negotiators Saeb Erakat and Mohammed Shtayeh also held talks with Hale and Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Abu Rudeina said.
On April 15, key representatives of the Quartet -- which groups the European Union, Russia, the United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... and the United States -- are to meet in Berlin for top-level talks on the deadlock in the peace negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- An Iranian politician said Wednesday Iran's Majlis (Parliament) will set up a committee to investigate the delay in the launch of the country's first nuclear power plant, Mehr news agency reported.
Nuclear expert Mohammad Hassan Ghafourifard will chair the special committee, Hamid Reza Katouzian, a member of the Majlis Energy Committee, was quoted as saying.
The special committee will investigate the technical problems and financial issues related to the contract signed with Russia before it submits a report to the Majlis speaker and the energy committee, said Mehr.
The investigation will be finished in two months, according to the report.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said early January that the Bushehr nuclear power plant was to join the national power grid around mid-February, but it later announced to postpone the launch to early April while insisting "everything with Bushehr nuclear power plant is progressing well."
Iran's envoy to the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on February 26 that the fuel placed inside the reactor of Bushehr nuclear power plant would be temporarily removed to run a number of tests, and some analysts said the plant's computer system was infected by a virus called Stuxnet, which Iran denied.
The Bushehr project has been delayed for several times. Its construction was started in the 1970s by a German company, but was shelved shortly after the Islamic theocracy in Iran in 1979 as the German side pulled out of the deal.
Russia signed an agreement worth 1 billion U.S. dollars with Iran in 1995 to take over the project. Its completion, initially scheduled in 1999, was postponed several times by mounting technological and financial challenges and interruptions under pressures from the United States.
[Iran Press TV] The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says the Bushehr nuclear power plant is quakeproof and the Fukushima-like crisis will not occur there.
AEOI Deputy Director Nasser Rastkhah explained that the safety systems used in the Fukushima site belonged to the 1960s and the 1970s and added that the safety systems used in Bushehr meet the latest international standards.
The Iranian official dismissed foreign media reports about potential vulnerability of the Bushehr plant to natural disasters such as earthquakes.
"The Russians have taken the existence of tectonic plates into consideration in designing the Bushehr nuclear plant, "IRNA quoted Rastkhah as saying on Wednesday.
On March 11, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, off the northeast coast of Japan's main island, unleashed a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks.
The earthquake set off a nuclear crisis by knocking out power to the cooling systems at the Fukushima plant. Since then, most of the plant's six reactor units have been damaged by fires, kabooms or partial meltdowns.
The destruction has also been followed by a radiation leak, raising fears of a nuclear fallout.
"What happened in Fukushima is bad, it is a crisis and the current situation is not good but there has been no nuclear catastrophe," Rastkhah concluded.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
They found out we made the Fukushima earthquake and that was just a test that went a little wrong. We've adjusted, and are ready to generate a Magnitude 10, anywhere in the world - and we don't even need an existing fault zone. We'll take you up on that dare, Iran.
#2
Start with 1970's German plumbing, 1990's Russian engineering and 2000's inshallah Iranian construction (see Bam). Mix with equal amounts of Afro-Asian plate tectonics and wrath of God. Watch (from far away) as hilarity and isotopes ensue.
#8
FOX NEWS AM > an Iranian opposition group this AM is claiming that Iran had covertly built a new sub-facility for the production + testing of advanced centrifuges, + is which a boon for any Iran efforts to de facto dev NUCWEAPONS IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
All while the US-World was pre-occupied wid the events in Libyuh + rest of the ME.
The Syrian parliament is preparing to adopt major reforms in May, including an end to emergency rule, a politician close to the regime said Wednesday.
"There will be an extraordinary session from May 2 to 6 in which social and political laws will be adopted in line with the reforms desired by the head of state," the politician told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Among them is new legislation that will replace the current emergency law," he said, adding that the proposed bill will be presented to the head of state before the end of the week, well ahead of an April 25 deadline.
According to the same source, Syrian hereditary President Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. Also head of Syria's Baath Party, an old-fashioned fascist operation that's seldom described as one in the press... "intends to ask members of civil society for their input and then the government will adopt the draft law to present it to parliament early May".
The lifting of emergency rule, in place since 1962, has been a central demand of anti-government protestors who have been calling for political reform and more freedoms since mid-March.
The politician did not specify whether laws governing the formation of political parties and media would be reviewed in this extraordinary session but MP Ahmad Munir confirmed that the session will take place.
"In general, they (sessions) last only one day but since this time we have been called in for five days, it is an indicator there will be draft laws to study and adopt," he said, adding the reforms would be published by state media.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday revealed that then Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had rejected a transfer of 500 and 300 million dollars to Leb aimed at rebuilding the country after the July 2006 war.
The WikiLeaks cable spoke of a meeting between Saniora and then U.S. Ambassador to Leb Jeffrey Feltman on August 18, 2006, during which the former explained that he rejected the aid money from Soddy Arabia and Kuwait "because he didn't want the money to go to Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri's Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... pocket."
Regarding the war, the premier said that the Israeli attacks are only strengthening Hizbullah and not weakening it.
Furthermore, he rejected accusations that the Lebanese government was ignoring United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... Security Council resolution 1701, asking Feltman: "Doesn't your government understand that the deployment of the Lebanese army in the South is an historic achievement?"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2011 00:00 ||
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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.
[Tolo News] Some of the money donated by international community to Afghanistan goes to the Taliban through contracts, Afghanistan's High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption said on Tuesday.
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
SEOUL, April 7 -- North Korea was to convene its rubber-stamp parliament Thursday amid keen interest on whether its ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, would promote his heir-apparent son to another top post. The session comes amid lingering tensions on the Korean Peninsula over Pyongyang's two deadly attacks on the South last year, which killed a total of 50 South Koreans, mostly soldiers.
Quartet
hereditary President Bashir 
