Insurgents in Afghanistan planted more bombs during the spring and summer than at any time during the war, as direct attacks on coalition troops have ebbed.
At the same time the military coalition in Afghanistan has more than doubled its seizures of enemy weapons and is finding a higher number of improvised bombs, or IEDs, before they explode.
The latest Pentagon figures on IEDs show that Islamic fascistiplanted 4,472 of the bombs from May through July, a 17% increase compared with the same three months in 2010. IEDs are the single largest cause of casualties among U.S. troops.
That strategy has led to the killing and captures of hundreds of Taliban leaders in recent months and the leveling off of bully boy-initiated attacks. 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 cut of the American pants... says assaults on coalition forces dropped 20% in the first half of 2011 over 2010.
Of the IEDs planted in May-July, troops found 2,049 of them before they went kaboom!, a 40% increase, according to the Joint IED Defeat Organization. And troops also found 1,548 weapons stashes during that time, a 145% increase.
#1
So, are we getting better at finding them or are they getting worse at hiding them? If the latter, does it indicate a deterioration in skill and training level? Due to decline in motivation or killing of trainers?
On the other hand, the number of IEDs planted has gone up, so there is no damage to the manufacture and delivery system.
#2
#1 So, are we getting better at finding them or are they getting worse at hiding them?
Both actually. The technology used, Route Clearance Patrol (RCP) mine rollers, brave EOD teams, full-motion video from UAV's, and other programs have been very successful. There's a method to their madness and IED placement is oftentimes quite predictable. Suicide bombers, not so much. Finding the IED's or suicde bombers are of course a key aspect. Another aspect is identifying and taking out the emplacers and facilitators, the network... which generally terminates in the Madrassas of Quetta or Chaman Pakistan. Losses in leadership and facilitation is where the Taliban has taken some rather severe losses. Detention of suspected Taliban is maddening a sore point I won't go into. For the past few months the TB have been targeting Afghan gov't officials, Afghan Police and Military. They know we're leaving and we're generally 'hard targets' who shoot back with a vengence. Not a particularly brave bunch, they avoid the hard targets. 40lbs of Home Made Explosives (HME) will turn an Afghan Police Ford Ranger into ball of unidentifiable twisted steel and kill the occupants instantly. Their goal now is to intimidate or kill the people who will be taking over after we live. With the help of Pakistan and the usual anti-US suspects, they're doing a pretty smart job of it. Please pray for our young people in uniform. Nothing will change these twisted, tribal bastards. This is the 2nd century BC. We can't get out of this drug smuggling, dung hole fast enough.
[Al Jazeera] The world's newest nation, South Sudan, has issued its own currency - the South Sudanese pound.
But officials now have to figure out what to do with close to $1bn worth of old currency notes, used before Sudan was split into two countries.
They had hoped the Khartoum government would take back the old notes and give them the equivalent in US dollars, but when South Sudan launched its new currency in July, Sudan announced it would do the same a week later.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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But officials now have to figure out what to do with close to $1bn worth of old currency notes
[Al Jazeera] Famine has spread to a sixth area of Somalia and tens of thousands of people have died as a result of severe food shortages, the UN has said.
A statement from the UN Somalia Food Security Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) in Nairobi, Kenya, said on Monday that data gathered in August suggested the Bay Region had been hit by famine in addition to several areas already declared famine zones by the UN.
"August survey results indicate that the prevalence of acute malnutrition and the rate of crude mortality have surpassed famine thresholds in Bay Region of southern Somalia," the statement said.
"Tens of thousands of people have already died, over half of whom are children."
Famine was first declared in the southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions of southern Somalia in July.
It later spread to three further areas, including into the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and the Afgoye corridor, the world's largest camp for displaced people.
The FSNAU conducted nutrition and mortality surveys across southern Somalia during July and August and found the most extreme levels of acute malnutition in Bay, it said.
Several other areas are at severe risk of tipping over into famine conditions, it added.
"The response to date has not been sufficient," Tony Burns, of SAACID, told Al Jizz.
"The international monetary crisis weighs heavily in the western and international community, and we're just not getting the funds to make a systemic difference they need to dig deeper unless they want to see three, 400,000 people dead in the next quarter."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
sorry, we already gave
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/06/2011 19:11 Comments ||
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[Al Jazeera] A senior police witness in the trial of Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... , the former Egyptian president, has insisted he was not aware of any orders to use automatic weapons against protesters.
General Hussein Saeed Mursi, in his testimony on Monday, said that police had been given clear instructions, however, to use live ammunition to protect the interior ministry from attack during the uprising which eventually overthrew Mubarak.
He said the order was given by Ahmed Ramzi, a senior officer who is one of the defendants in the trial.
Mursi said he had heard police generals on January 28, the fourth day of the uprising, saying that automatic weapons had been used.
Police officials also discussed the use of ambulances to carry "weapons and ammunition because police vehicles were being attacked" by protesters, the police official said.
Mursi, head of communication in the state security service, was in the police operations room during the uprising.
He was one of four police witnesses to be heard about the crackdown on protesters that left hundreds of people dead.
"In my 30 years of experience with state security, I have not heard of any incident where an order was given to use live ammunition against protesters," he told the court.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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[Tripoli Post] China has denied reports published in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that Beijing offered huge stockpiles of weapons to deposed Libyan leader Muammar Al Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years... during the final months of his regime and held secret talks on shipping them through Algeria and South Africa.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told journalists that there was no truth in the reports. Yu said Chinese companies "have not provided Libya with any military products in any direct or indirect form." "Lies! All lies!"
The Canadian daily said, citing secret documents it had obtained, that despite UN sanctions state-controlled Chinese arms companies were ready to sell weapons and ammunition worth at least $200m to Al Qadaffy in late July. The documents, published on the paper's website, do not confirm whether any military assistance was delivered.
They showed that Al Qadaffy's top security aides made a trip to Beijing in mid-July, where they met officials from China North Industries Corp. (Norinco); the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corp. (CPMIC); and China XinXing Import & Export Corp.
The Globe and Mail had reported that the Chinese companies offered the entire contents of their stockpiles for sale, and promised to manufacture more supplies if necessary. Cash and carry, I presume...
The Toronto newspaper said that the documents were discovered in a pile of trash sitting at the curb in a neighbourhood known as Bab Akkarah, where several of Colonel of Al Qadaffy's most loyal supporters had homes. It also recalled that Algeria, China and South Africa, had been reluctant to endorse NATO's ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... actions in Libya.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
the documents were discovered in a pile of trash
#2
This really isn't newsworthy. When the US sells arms to anyone it's further evidence of the hegemonic power of the military-industrial complex that even Ike warned us about. When China sells arms it's some po' folks trying to make a yuan.
Posted by: Matt ||
09/06/2011 11:36 Comments ||
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"It wasn't to Libya---it was to Qadaffy personally."
(AFP) -- The Egyptian authorities are erecting a wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo as relations between the two neighbors who signed a peace treaty in 1979 are at a delicate phase.
The wall, about two meters high, consists of prefabricated cement slabs that are being installed around the building that houses the Israeli embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo. Part of the wall has been painted with Egypt's national colors: black, white and red.
Outraged Egyptians last month staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the border deaths of Egyptian policemen killed as Israel hunted militants.
During one of the anti-Israeli protests, an Egyptian man scaled the building housing the mission, removed Israel's Star of David flag and replaced it with Egypt's colors, as the crowds cheered him on.
Egyptian officials quoted by the local media have meanwhile stressed that the wall being erected around the embassy was aimed at protecting residents of nearby buildings. Ali Abdel Rahman, the governor of Giza district where the embassy is located, told Al-Gumhuriyya newspaper the wall "has nothing to do with the protection of the Israeli embassy" but is for the protection of private citizens.
(AFP) -- The Egyptian authorities are erecting a wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo as relations between the two neighbors who signed a peace treaty in 1979 are at a delicate phase.
The wall, about two meters high, consists of prefabricated cement slabs that are being installed around the building that houses the Israeli embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo. Part of the wall has been painted with Egypt's national colors: black, white and red.
Outraged Egyptians last month staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the border deaths of Egyptian coppers killed as Israel hunted krazed killers.
During one of the anti-Israeli protests, an Egyptian man scaled the building housing the mission, removed Israel's Star of David flag and replaced it with Egypt's colors, as the crowds cheered him on.
Egyptian officials quoted by the local media have meanwhile stressed that the wall being erected around the embassy was aimed at protecting residents of nearby buildings. Ali Abdel Rahman, the governor of Giza district where the embassy is located, told Al-Gumhuriyya newspaper the wall "has nothing to do with the protection of the Israeli embassy" but is for the protection of private citizens.
#2
I believe the embassy is in an apartment building, Skidmark, the rest of which is inhabited by local Egyptians. Not my first choice, but I suspect nobody would sell a nice, freestanding house to a bunch of uppity Juices who actually thought they'd won the wars.
[An Nahar] The Scotland Yard accused an Algerian man with the murder of Lebanese imam Sheikh Maymun Zarzur who was killed on Saturday after leading early morning Mohammedan (Fajr) prayers at the Mohammedan Welfare House in London.
That was fast.
The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Monday that the Algerian national, Ziani Issa, 24, will be tried north London.
Police told the newspaper that they had received a phone call saying that a man was maimed at Mohammedan Welfare House in Seven Sisters Road, north London.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said on Saturday they had placed in durance vile a man at the scene on suspicion of murder.
"This is not believed to be a race/faith hate crime," Scotland Yard said.
Islamist in London told the newspaper that the suspect is "possessed and known among the community of suffering from psychological illness."
Witnesses said that the man screamed at the scene: "I am Jesus Christ and I have killed the Fake Christ," noting that he confessed to his murder when he was placed in durance vile.
Sources told the daily that the Sheikh tried to help the Algerian man by reading Koran to him, however the suspect beat him up and smashed his head.
According to a Moslem Brüderbund official in Leb, Zarzur is Lebanese and from the southern Iqleem al-Kharoub region. He was in his 40s.
Zarzur had been the imam of the Mohammedan Welfare House in north London since 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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North Korea, like Iran, may have dealt with black market suppliers to set up a uranium enrichment plant, a report from the UN nuclear agency claims.
According to the confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency made available to AP, the layout of equipment for the plant in Yongbyon is "broadly consistent" with designs sold by a "clandestine supply network" led by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The observation was made by American scientist Siegfried Hecker, who was invited to inspect the facility last year.
Gosh, how very unexpected, to be sure.
The report said the purchases were likely made before the Khan network was dismantled in 2003
As opposed to afterward. No time machines there, quite obviously.
and added it has information suggesting that the North bought other enrichment-related technology from the same black market network.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Forty Israeli passengers on a Turkish flight to Istanbul were held for an hour and a half upon arrival and questioned before being released, the Israeli foreign ministry said on Monday.
The incident came as tensions between the former allies reached new heights over a deadly May 2010 Israeli raid on a flotilla of ships that left nine Turkish citizens dead.
The Israeli foreign ministry said it had received an "unusual" complaint from one of the passengers involved, saying the Israeli passengers on the Turkish Airlines flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul had been singled out for questioning.
"It was a Turkish Airlines flight that landed in Istanbul, about 40 passengers were jugged," deputy foreign ministry front man Ilana Stein told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"They were taken to separate rooms to be questioned. Their passports were taken. After about an hour and a half of waiting, they were questioned one by one and after that they got their passports back and then they were free to go."
Stein said the incident had been reported by a passenger and the details confirmed by the ministry. She said it would be investigated further before a decision was taken on whether to protest the treatment of the passengers.
Foreign travellers passing through Israel's Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv routinely face lengthy questioning and invasive searches by the Israeli security forces, prompting a steady stream of complaints.
Israel claims the searches are routine and a necessary procedure to ensure security.
The incident came as ties between Israel and Turkey frayed further over the deadly 2010 raid.
On Friday, Ankara said it was expelling Israel's ambassador to Turkey and suspending military agreements with the Jewish state in the wake of a U.N. report on the flotilla incident.
The report found Israel used excessive force in acting to stop the flotilla from breaching its naval blockade on Gazoo, but ruled that the naval blockade itself was legal, angering Turkey and the Paleostinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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Registration so here's the entire article: Grenades Case Hits Justice Blunders After U.S. Arrest of Suspected Supplier Had a Part in High-Level Ousters
Federal authorities are probing why the U.S. in 2010 let go an Arizona man accused of supplying grenades to a Mexican drug cartel, a case that played a role in the ouster last week of the nation's top firearms regulator and the U.S. attorney in Phoenix.
U.S. officials said missteps in the case, which hasn't been previously disclosed, are being investigated by the Justice Department and Congress. Federal agents in 2009-10 at the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led the case against the suspect, who they believed was dealing grenades to cartels in Mexico. The case was overseen by prosecutors in the Arizona U.S. attorney's office, the U.S. officials said.
The Arizona U.S. attorney's office and the Phoenix ATF office are the Justice Department units behind another botched operation, called Fast and Furious, which has been the subject of intense congressional interest this year. The Fast and Furious program allowed suspected smugglers to buy about 2,000 firearms, some of which later turned up at drug-related crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S.
Jean Baptiste Kingery, the suspect in the grenades case, was arrested Aug. 31 in Mexico and has been charged with violating that nation's organized-crime laws, according to U.S. officials.
Mexican police raided his home in Mazatlan and other locations nearby where they reported finding materials that could be used to construct 500 grenades, the officials said. A confidential informant told U.S. investigators last month he had provided Mr. Kingery with components for 2,000 grenades, they said. Mexican authorities, who haven't made the arrest public, didn't respond to repeated requests for comment. An attorney for Mr. Kingery couldn't be located.
U.S. prosecutors say they continue to pursue possible charges against Mr. Kingery.
Like Fast and Furious, the grenades case has exposed severe discord between federal agents and prosecutors in Arizona over how to pursue the trafficking of drugs, weapons, people and cash between the U.S. and Mexico.
The weapons trade is bustling along the border because of a ready market in Mexico, where legal private firearms ownership is severely restricted, and easy supplies on the U.S. side. U.S. authorities say cases are hard to prove because they must guard against infringing on legal gun-owner rights. In the case of inert grenades, the parts are legal to possess and an infraction occurs only when someone tries to export them without a license.
This account is based on interviews with three U.S. officials and others familiar with the case as well as documents describing it.
ATF agents arrested Mr. Kingery in Arizona in June 2010 after months of surveillance and seized 116 grenade hulls and parts in his possession, the officials said.
The suspect told investigators he helped operate a mill in Mexico manufacturing improvised explosive devices made from the U.S.-sourced grenade components, they said. Mr. Kingery allegedly said he supplied the weapons to a cartel called La Familia Michoacana and also helped the cartel convert semiautomatic rifles into military-style machine guns.
Nonetheless, he walked free without being charged after just hours in custody, officials said.
That decision is at the crux of a bitter fight between ATF agents and prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix. The lead ATF agent on the grenades case, Peter Forcelli, "was horrified with the thought of releasing this individual" and "practically begged" senior prosecutor Emory Hurley "for permission to arrest the suspect on a criminal complaint," according to an Aug. 31 letter sent to a congressional committee on Mr. Forcelli's behalf by an attorney with the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, a group that provides legal assistance to law enforcement officers.
Officials from the U.S. attorney's office dispute that Mr. Hurley, who oversaw both Fast and Furious and the Kingery cases, declined to prosecute, according to officials familiar with the accounts provided to investigators. These officials said prosecutors wanted to continue following the case and possibly bring charges at a later date.
Officials from the U.S. attorney's office also have told investigators that the ATF agents freed Mr. Kingery because the agents wanted to make him an informant. Mr. Kingery maintained contact with agents for several weeks, then disappeared, the U.S. officials familiar with the case said.
The prosecutors involved also accuse the ATF agents of a misstep at an earlier stage. In January and February 2010, U.S. and Mexican agents devised a sting that allowed Mr. Kingery to take delivery of hundreds of grenade parts in the U.S. and cross the border into Mexico, officials said. U.S. agents lost Mr. Kingery on the highway to the border and Mexican authorities failed to stop him at the crossing, they said.
The Kingery case is now under scrutiny by investigators from the Justice Department inspector general's office. Lawyers from the office of Deputy Attorney General James Cole in recent weeks gathered information on the case. The findings helped decide the fates of Kenneth Melson, acting director of the ATF, and Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, who were ousted from their posts last week, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Hurley, who didn't respond to requests for comment, was reassigned.
Mr. Burke said in a statement released to employees last week that he resigned to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Melson said in a statement that he was taking a new post in another division of the Justice Department.
Messrs Burke and Melson didn't respond to requests for comment on the Kingery matter.
Investigators from the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), and the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), are also probing the Kingery case as an extension of their Fast and Furious probe. "Information suggesting that a prosecutor, who exercised dubious judgment in Operation Fast and Furious, also made similar decisions in a separate case is certainly disconcerting," a committee spokesman said.
Mr. Forcelli is among ATF agents who provided testimony earlier this year about missteps in the Fast and Furious operation. The officers association's letter alleges that he is the victim of "whistleblower retaliation" because of that testimony.
A key point of contention is whether Mr. Forcelli and his team got proper clearance for the operation that led to the botched sting in February 2010. In October 2009, a prosecutor in the Kingery case told ATF agents that "We cannot approve [allowing] the illegal export to be accomplished," according to an email read to The Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors and Justice Department officials have cited the email to investigators to contend that the ATF agents failed to get clearance.
But the ATF agents disagree and cite a January 2010 email exchange that appears to show high-level approval. The latter email described the operation in detail, including a plan to let Mexican authorities track the suspect in hopes of finding a grenade-manufacturing facility in Mexico.
Mr. Burke, then the U.S. attorney in Arizona, is among the officials in the email exchange and responds to the summary of tactics: "Agree [with] the course of action as the variables play out." The email exchange was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Forcelli said in a statement, "I am very proud of the work the ATF did in this case and I can assure you that at no point did we ever endanger the safety of the public with our actions." The statement said he described aspects of the case in a deposition with congressional staffers and the Justice Department inspector general's office.
#1
A 1,000 years ago, or so, I did some active duty, as a reservist, at Ft. Hood with an Ordnance Company. At 6am one day, they discovered a case of grenades was "missing". At 7am, all officers in the chain of command were in Bldg No. 1, facing general No. 1, who was George Patton (Generals run in his family). He beat on his desk, expressing himself about the dangers to the public and getting them back; NOW. Everyone near Bldg No.1 heard him. It was considered a near death experience to those in the room.
Patton did not say "I am very proud of the work..."
He was blunt, vulgar, and right on the mark. Two weeks later they got the guy and the grenades back (except for 2 "demonstration" grenades;he was trying to sell the case). Of course, do not take my word for it, just ask around Leavenworth; the guy has not even gotten a good start on his sentence yet.
In my view, ATF needs adult supervision. ATF needs a table beating, loud, and vulgar explanation of its "very proud" work, and a discussion of the ancestry of some of its leaders, and told to go get the guns and grenades back.
#3
The REASON the ATF's operation was discovered was it's own people saw it as an unlawful activity. Now, for the sake of argument, let's say Bill Gates decided to start his own war against the Mexican cartels and with his millions, he initiated Operation F&F. Where would private citizen Bill Gates be today? That's right, he'd be behind bars.
#4
You sure B? I'd bet that he'd be winging it to Paris like a former IMF director. Good money buys a lot. Unlike the grunts at ATF, he could drop a nice load of reelection money for a pardon.
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Colonel Mark Tillman, who piloted Air Force One on that fateful day, is revealing shocking details about threats against the president and his aircraft.
As he was flying President Bush from Sarasota, Florida, Tillman was warned that an unidentified aircraft was bearing down on the plane.
Tillman said, As we got over Gainesville, Florida, we got the word from Jacksonville Center. They said Air Force One, you have traffic behind you, and basically above you, descending into you. We are not in contact with them and theyve shut their transponder off.
In addition, an unidentified man near the runway forced Air Force One to take off in the opposite direction.
Given that officials had no idea what the capabilities of the terrorists were, Tillman didnt want to take chances and asked for support from fighter jets.
Air Force One and President Bush landed safely, but the attack forced Tillman to scrutinize the security of the aircraft. He said, We had to make sure that every little hole, chink in our armor, had to be filled so we could protect the president.
#1
...COL Tillman paints a word picture a little bit later in the story that will bring a catch to your throat: the sight of USAF fighters rolling in on Air Force One, the pilots saluting as they take up their escort positions.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/06/2011 17:22 Comments ||
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#2
HMMMMM, HMMMMMM, well, iff the group of suicide operatives that carried out the 9-11 airliner attacks had seeming PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF AIR FORCE ONE = POTUS DUBYA'S FLIGHT ROUTE, why didn't they take out Dubya + Staff on the ground, or wid a MANPAD(S) AS THE PLANE WAS TAKING OFF OR LANDING.
Given the chaos in post-Soviet/USSR/Cold War Russia + its soon-to-be-ex-SSRS + WARSAW PACT BLOC [East Euros], I also have to wonder why the above same just didn't buy a black market light AAM(S) or MP Rockets, etc. that could also had easily taken down Dubya's plane???
Taken collectively, this Artic + above once again tells me that there were BIGGER STAKES AT PLAY THAN JUST DESTROYING THE WTC + OTHER TARGETS.
#3
That reminds me of my personal memories of 9/11, from here in Burbank, CA. After waking up and watching it all unfold on TV in horror and disbelief, the whole San Fernando Valley became eerily quiet. Suddenly there was no air traffic overhead, and the freeway traffic slowed down. I admit to feeling scared, wondering what was going on. How far was this going to go? An hour or so later, there was a sudden roar overhead, and I jumped up in fear. I ran outside and saw a pair of ANG F-16's side by side, circling the whole valley. I had tears running down my face. At that moment, it was such a relief to know that those guys were up there watching over us. I'll never forget that.
Posted by: Bruce ||
09/06/2011 19:43 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Anti-U.S. Shiite holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... said on Monday he is giving the Iraqi government a "last chance" to implement reforms, or popular demonstrations would be called.
"This is the last chance before setting a date for open, peaceful, popular demonstrations," Sadr said in a statement released by his office in the holy city of Najaf, without specifying how much time he was giving the government. That his office in Najaf released the statement doesn't mean that His Corpulenceness is there; he might be hiding in Qom.
Sadr called on the government to give all Iraqis a share of the country's oil wealth, create jobs for 500,000 unemployed people nationwide, and provide free fuel for private generators, until Iraq's destitute electricity sector is improved.
"If these demands are achieved without delay ... the open demonstration will be postponed indefinitely," Sadr said.
The holy man in February gave the government six months to improve services, threatening to call protests otherwise.
Sadr's bloc holds six cabinet posts and has 40 seats in parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Time for Mookie to be taken out of service.
He has outlived his usefulness.
Besides the local dental school needs someone to test out a new set of dentures.
#6
While it'd be fun to put him and crow's cage and laugh at him, far better message for him to be found somewhere, with several neat little holes in his head.
Course, there's always the Vlad the Impaler option.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
09/06/2011 12:01 Comments ||
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#7
Delete my comment and poor spelling of region. I think I prefer Silent Brick's "Vlad option."
One inmate killed and two others injured after a prison riot in Pattani on Monday. The clash between Buddhist and Muslims inmates appears to have been over 'minor' regulations, a lack of halal food and overcrowding.
The riot started after Muslim inmates accused a Buddhist inmate, appointed to assist prison guards, of treating them unfairly and not complying with halal regulations in the prison kitchen.
Small fights broke out and continued sporadically before the death was reported and two other inmates were wounded. There are no details about who attacked the three men.
[An Nahar] Iran is ready to give the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency "full supervision" of its nuclear program for five years if U.N. sanctions are lifted, its nuclear chief said in remarks published Monday.
"We have proposed that the agency keep Iran's activities and nuclear program under full supervision for five years, providing the sanctions are lifted," the nuclear chief, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency.
Iran is targeted by four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment amid fears in the West that it seeks to build a nuclear bomb -- a charge it vehemently denies.
Abbasi Davani neither said when the offer was made to the IAEA, nor what he meant by "full supervision."
Much of Iran's nuclear activities are already under the control of the IAEA, including uranium enrichment -- a process which can both produce the fuel for a nuclear reactor and the fissile material for an atomic warhead.
The IAEA said in a confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by Agence La Belle France Presse on Friday, that it is "increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations."
These included "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile", according to the report, which is due to be discussed by the IAEA's 35-member board of governors at a September 12-16 meeting.
But Abbasi Davani said such allegations are "baseless and fabricated" Tut tut! Made up out of whole cloth, I assure you, including the pictures!
The agency has for years criticized Tehran for refusing to answer a number of questions about its nuclear program, and for denying access to certain sites, including the heavy water reactor Iran is building in the central city of Arak.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Guess those sanctions that Iran sneers at and claims aren't working, are really working.
[An Nahar] Tehran reiterated its hope Monday that the crisis in Syria, its main ally in the region, could be resolved "through dialogue and not violence."
Iran "is certain that the Syrian people and the government have the capacity to gain national development through dialogue and refraining from any violence," Hassan Ghashghavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of consular affairs, was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
The U.N. says the anti-Syrian regime protest which started around mid-March has left at least 2,200 dead, most of them civilians.
Iran is concerned about the possible collapse of its principal ally in the Middle East and has never condemned the violence of the regime in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... in suppressing mass protests.
It accuses its traditional foes of Israel and the United States of stirring up trouble in Syria.
"We condemn any kind of foreign provocation and intervention especially designed by the Zionists and the Americans which has no aim but to weaken the resistance front," Ghashghavi said.
He also renewed criticism of the military intervention of Soddy Arabia and United Arab Emirates in Bahrain to help the Bahraini Sunni monarchy suppress a Shiite-led protest.
"Some regional nations by sending around 12,000 troops have practically violated this nation's independence and illusory sovereignty... we believe that one Bahraini, one vote will prevail against foreign intervention... this is the best way to preserve Bahrain's national illusory sovereignty," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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.
(AFP) -- The Egyptian authorities are erecting a wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo as relations between the two neighbors who signed a peace treaty in 1979 are at a delicate phase.
[An Nahar] The Scotland Yard accused an Algerian man with the murder of Lebanese imam Sheikh Maymun Zarzur who was killed on Saturday after leading early morning 
Moqtada 
