[Shabelle] politicians and elders from the Juba regions have requested the federal government of Somalia to act on Kenyans political interference at the Juba regions.
The elders accused the Kenyan government of causing political divisions amongst the clans that live in the regions.
Mohamed Omar Gedi who held different positions in the transitional government contacted Shabelle media and warned that the Kenyan interference might result in new conflicts not only in the region but also between the two countries. He added that the Kenyan troops damaged the relationship between them and the clans who reside from the region after they recently declined a plane carrying diplomats from the region to land at the Kismayu airport in the lower Juba regio.
Ahmed Mohamed who is a front man for the elders of Sade clan (a large clan which occupies Gedo and some parts of the Juba regions) said that the federal government should clearly underline its plans for the Juba regions and break its silence. He added that the Kenyan troops should work under the laws of AMISOM troops and if they declined, they should come out clearly and underline their plans instead of hiding under the AMISOM umbrella.
Politicians, elites and elders from the regions came out loudly during the past few days and have requested the federal government to come out and defend it illusory sovereignty over its land and stop the interference from the Kenyan troops who work under the umbrella of the AMISOM troops in Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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Tunisia is taking a harder line on preaching by ultraconservative Muslim groups, a crackdown that has sparked demonstrations by rock-throwing protesters and ominous warnings of terrorist attacks to come.
As it struggles to hunt down al-Qaida linked terrorists in its frontiers, the government has also been trying to rein in salafis emboldened by the fall of the country's repressive dictatorship two years ago. The interior minister said last week that gatherings will require permission, a measure rarely enforced in the past that is an attempt to stop tent meetings springing up around the country to build support for the groups.
One of the most vocal of them threatened Monday that if the government cancels its annual conference this weekendan event attended by 40,000 last year that featured martial arts displays and sword-wielding horsemenits adherents who have experience in jihad could strike.
"You are making a foolish mistake because faith cannot be defeated by any force in the world," said Seifallah Ben Hassine, the leader of Ansar al-Shariah, in an online statement. "I remind you that our youth that proved its heroism in the defense of Islam in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq, Somalia and Syria will not hesitate to make sacrifices for the faith."
Tunisia's government, led by the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party, which won elections after the overthrow of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's secular dictatorship, had been
criticized by the opposition for its permissive attitude toward the conservative religious movements that arose with the fall of the regime.
In the freedoms of the post-revolutionary period, these groups moved aggressively to gain supporters, alarming the more secular middle class in this country of 10 million. Ennahda Party members insisted they did not want to follow the old repressive policies of the dictatorship, but their tolerance for the salafis frayed as the groups became increasingly violent, attacking art exhibits, police stations, cinemas and the U.S. embassy.
[Al Ahram] Ihab El-Islamboly, an English teacher in Alexandria, was questioned by police on Tuesday for setting a "politicised" exam question that "insulted" President Mohamed Morsi.
The question that angered some members of the Alexandria teachers' syndicate, which El-Islamboly says is dominated by the Moslem Brüderbund, included the quote, "In the animal kingdom, a sheep cannot be king."
El-Islamboly told Al-Ahram Arabic news website that he had not intended to insult the president, who hails from the Brotherhood, and the quote is part of the curriculum.
"What part of this quote has anything to do with the president or politics?" asked El-Islamboly.
Critics often accuse Moslem Brüderbund members of acting like sheep for slavishly following the orders of the group's supreme-guide.
On Saturday, the deputy education minister in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate ordered the punishment of an English teacher for including a question involving an imaginary dialogue between ousted president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... and his successor Morsi.
Early last year, a teacher in the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya was penalised for setting an exam that included a question equating protesters with criminals and another requesting an essay congratulating the Moslem Brüderbund's Freedom and Justice Party for winning a majority in Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
The Sheep Question.... something Texas A&M students have agonized for years over. There is no good answer, my friends at the University of Florida allow only that's it's easier that the Goat Question.
[GUARDIAN.CO.UK] Nigeria's president has declared a state of emergency across the country's troubled north-east, promising to send more troops to fight what he said is now an open Islamist rebellion.
Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... , speaking live on state radio and television networks, also warned that any building suspected to house Islamic bully boyz would be taken over in what he described as the "war" now facing Africa's most populous nation. However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... it's unclear what the emergency powers will do to halt the violence, as a similar past effort failed to stop the bloodshed.
"It would appear that there is a systematic effort by Death Eaters and forces of Evil to destabilise the Nigerian state and test our collective resolve," Jonathan said.
Jonathan said the order will be in force in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. He said the states would receive more troops, though he will not remove state politicians from their posts. Under Nigerian law, the president has the power to remove politicians from their posts and install a caretaker government in emergency circumstances.
The president's speech offered the starkest vision yet of the ongoing violence, often downplayed by security forces and government officials due to political considerations. Jonathan described the attacks as a "rebellion", at one point describing how fighters had destroyed government buildings and "had taken women and kiddies as hostages".
"Already, some northern parts of Borno state have been taken over by groups whose allegiance are to different flags than Nigeria's," Jonathan said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Thingy, Dibeh Fakhr told the press on Tuesday that not one of its staff member had been kidnapped on Monday but three. She added that all were believed to be in good health and in no immediate danger.
"Our colleagues told us that they are fine," told AFP, confirming the three employees were being held by a group in southern Yemen since Monday.
While she chose not to reveal the names and nationalities of the aid workers, the Yemeni authorities already established on Monday that one of the abductee is a Swiss national. It is believed that a Yemeni interpreter was with him at the time of the attack alongside a Kenyan national, also an aid worker for the ICRC.
The tribe is said to be trying to force the Yemeni government into freeing a fellow primitive from jail where he is serving his sentence.
Local sources confirmed that the kidnappers are all rustics from al-Marakisha tribe, a group now responsible for several kidnappings in the area.
Last week, two Egyptian nationals and two Indian nationals were attacked in similar circumstances by al Marakisha men. The tribe is said to be trying to force the Yemeni government into freeing a fellow primitive from jail where he is serving his sentence.
The trio have been taken to a mountainous area north of Jaar, a tribal source told the press on Tuesday.
Fakhr said that while the tribe had yet to make its motives known the government had already set up a committee in charge of the negotiating process.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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[Yemen Post] While the only working democratic republican system in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has often been labeled as politically unstable, its political integrity and authority plagued by tribal militias and factions.
As 2011 Revolution unfolded, bringing down former President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... 's three decades rule many groups saw in disorder an importunity to make money or expand their zone of influence.
With Yemenis more determined than ever to break away from a past plagued by corruption, residents have started to systematically denounced and challenged criminals, calling on the government to crackdown on the rend as to eradicate it.
In the provinces of Dale and Ibb (south of the Yemeni capital, Sana'a) residents revealed a gang of criminal, called "The Brigades of al-Sadiq" had been terrorizing civilians, misappropriating lands and brutalizing whoever dared oppose their will.
The gang seized Chihar district, a strategic area between Ibb and Thale provinces, where it started its tyrannic rule over the area, often using sophisticated weaponry, the kind which only government officials or the military could acquire.
According to witnesses, the men are responsible for several deaths, namely that of Ahmed Humaid, a 22-year old young man who was bumped off for trying to prevent the gang from seizing his family's lands.
Local residents filed several official complaints to the government, accusing the gang of a disturbingly list of crimes, among which: arson, physical assaults of unarmed civilians, looting, misappropriation of properties, thievery, thuggery, and the corruption of officials.
Things degenerated to such an extent that schools and hospitals had to shut down and residents remained barricaded in their homes, fearing what the gang members would do to them should they found them outside.
Having lived in fear for the past 18 months residents are now directly calling on President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi to put an end to such an intolerable situation by enforcing the authority of the state and restoring the rule of law.
Wronged residents are also asking for justice to be served and the price of blood to be paid where it is due, in accordance with the law of the land.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday called for talks with North Korea to discuss bringing South Korean products and raw materials out of the closed Kaesong Industrial Complex.
Big mistake. Samsung can't need the output that badly.
The Unification Ministry later the same day suggested to North Korea that officials from both sides meet in the border truce village of Panmumjom.
"I hope the Unification Ministry will propose talks with North Korea to bring back products and raw materials left behind at Kaesong as early as possible and reduce the damage for companies," Park said in a Cabinet meeting.
But a Cheong Wa Dae official said the real objective is to engage the North in dialogue. "This is part of her trust-building process of dealing firmly with provocations but always leaving open the door for talks," the official said.
Park recently outlined the strategy in Washington.
North Korea has so far rejected any proposal of talks from Seoul, but Park is apparently determined to keep trying.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
The whole Kaesong thing is a dead horse. Quit whipping it. Write it off, learn, and go on.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/15/2013 16:03 Comments ||
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North Korea has told a company in China that it can send hundreds of laborers to work there. The North notified the firm in Liaoning Province near the border some time last month, when the closure of the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex appeared imminent.
According to a document the Chosun Ilbo obtained from Kim the Weasel a source, a company that arranges for North Korean workers to go abroad wrote to the Chinese business in response to an inquiry, saying "hundreds of workers" have been given the green light by Pyongyang to work in China, and that many of them are ready to leave.
As a prerequisite, the North Korean company requested dormitories so that Pyongyang can monitor the workers' whereabouts.
"Chinese businesses want North Korean workers because they are cheap and experienced," said Do Hee-yun, head of the Coalition for Human Rights in North Korea. "Labor exports have recently been an important source of hard currency revenues for North Korea."
They also don't eat much...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
They also don't eat much...
Hard to do when they probably send 80% of their food back home, too.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/15/2013 10:24 Comments ||
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#4
You know, with all of those excess-to-requirements rural peasants, I'd think that the last thing China needs is more unskilled, cheap labor. Isn't the central challenge of the CCP the problem of finding suffcient employment to absorb hundreds of millions of low-productivity agricultural workers in more high-productivity manufacturing capacity?
South Korea's a different case, they don't have the vast back-country of cheap labor that China does - not these days, anyways. Unless you count North Korea. Which was sort of the point of Kaesong.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
05/15/2013 17:00 Comments ||
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#5
Not certain Mitch, my understanding is that agricultural workers of certain prime cohorts are getting very rare, both because of the aging of the population and the migration of workers from the Hinterlands to the coast.
North Korea's hawkish military leader Gen. Kim Kyok-sik has been fired only six months after he was appointed to the post.
The official KCNA news agency on Monday introduced Jang Jong-nam as the new minister of the People's Armed Forces. Jang was among senior officials alongside leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un who watched a performance by a song-and-dance ensemble of the Internal Security Forces, KCNA said.
As recently as May 3, it was Kim Kyok-sik who accompanied Kim Jong-un.
It is unclear whether Kim Kyok-sik took the fall for the recent months of unsuccessful saber-rattling that only prompted the North's sole ally China to tighten sanctions.
"We'll have to wait and see whether it was a demotion or just a replacement," a security official in South Korea said. "If he'd made a minor mistake, Kim Kyok-sik would have kept his post but been demoted in rank, so he must have made a pretty big mistake."
He's still alive so it can't be that big a mistake...
Kim Kyok-sik was the commander of the infamous Fourth Army Corps that controls the area around the Northern Limit Line. There his troops provoked a naval skirmish near Daecheong Island in November 2009, sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March 2010 and shelled Yeonpyeong Island in November the same year. After the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, Kim was reprimanded by the Politburo for failing to respond properly to the South Korean counterstrike. But he popped back up as armed forces minister in November last year.
Nothing is known about his successor Jang except that he had been the commander of the First Army Corps, which controls the frontline area in Kangwon Province, and that he is in his 50s.
Kim's ouster means that all three top North Korean military posts, the chief of the Army's General Staff, the chief of the General Political Bureau, and the minister of the People's Armed Forces, have gone to a slightly younger generation in their 50s and 60s. Some believe new leader Kim Jong-un is purging the powerful military of superannuated hawks associated with his father's "military-first" regime.
The rest don't have a clue...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
"a song-and-dance ensemble of the Internal Security Forces..."
h/t Instapundit
A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.
Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter. Demand for oil from Middle-East oil producers is set to slow as a result. The end of Islam as a factor in World affairs---unless, of course, their man in White House manages to derail USA oil production.
#3
how about not exporting the oil.I'm sure our consumption is high enough too make a hell of a profit without selling too other countries and putting us back in the spot we have been in the last 40 years or longer.
Posted by: chris ||
05/15/2013 17:09 Comments ||
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#4
It's illegal to export oil from the US except from Alaska, which is stupid by the way.
Thing of wheat...... we need all our food too, we should keep it in the US of A... I wonder what might happen if we passed a law like that.
#6
It ain't the price of the oil per se, but where you're paying the price and where the money circulates after you pay that price.
Paying 4 dollars a gallon here may be better for our economy than paying 3.50 a gallon to a third world country where most of the money goes to the aristocracy and doesn't circulate in a productive fashion for us.
#7
Refineries would drive the price down, but a huge percentage of the net cost of gas is the repetitive taxes. We can be swimming in the stuff and still have high costs to pay for the vast, parasitic government we have grown inthe past 50 years.
More than a decade after going to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Canadian government has officially declared them a terrorist group.
The Taliban has been added to the so-called list of entities, along with the Haqqani network, an Islamist group believed to be behind ongoing attacks on international coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Both were added by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews earlier this month, bringing to 46 the number of groups on the terrorist list, which was set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Any person or group on that list can have their assets seized, and criminal penalties exist for assisting so-called listed entities with the aim of helping them carry out extremist activities.
Canada had effectively barred Canadian institutions from doing business with the Taliban in 1999, when it signed on to the al-Qaida Sanctions List developed by the United Nations.
The addition of the Taliban to Canada's own list makes Canada the first NATO country to use domestic law to outlaw the group, said Julie Carmichael, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.
The White House Wednesday released 100 pages of emails documenting the correspondence and revisions made to the Benghazi talking points given to Susan Rice.
The emails show that after an interagency meeting at the White House, Obama administration officials crossed out sections of the initial narrative provided by the CIA to be disseminated to public, removing any mention of terrorism and the name of an al Qaeda-linked group whose members the CIA said were involved.
Several early versions of the CIA's talking points said that a day before the attack, radicals in Cairo had called for a demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy "encouraging Jihadists to break into the Embassy."
The final version was a shadow of the original, with no language about warnings provided by the CIA up until the day before the attack.
Once the talking points were finalized, someone from the CIA asked that a copy be sent to "the Director," who at the time was David Petraeus, saying "He needs to know in advance what is going to the Hill in his name, even if it (is) going with the force of full interagency coordination."
The White House had until now declined to make the documents public and had let congressional investigators review the documents without making copies.
The documents describe how the administration developed "talking points" to describe what the administration wanted to discuss publicly immediately after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Susan Rice used the talking points Sept. 16, when she went on Sunday talk shows, denied that known terrorists were involved in the attack and blamed it on a spontaneous demonstration by people upset over an anti-Islam film. Gregory Hicks, a State Department official who were in Libya during the attack and Amb. Stevens' second in command, testified last week that no protest preceded the attack in Benghazi.
State Department officials had said the talking poins were changed to protect an FBI investigation and sensitive intelligence.
In an email sent at 9:52 p.m. Sept. 14, however, someone at CIA wrote that the talking points process has "run into major problems." The FBI approved and the White House "cleared quickly," it says. "But State has major concerns."
The talking at that point said "the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex."
While the investigation "is on-going" that version said, "there are indications that Islamic extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."
It also said the CIA had warned the U.S. embassy in Cairo Sept. 10, the day before the attack, that social media reports called for a demonstration "encouraging Jihadists to break into the Embassy."
While mention of the demonstration and protests remained in the final version, language about warnings and the involvement of known Islamic extremist did not survive editing at a so-called deputies meeting at the White House the next day.
In other news: Attorney General Eric Holder said "definitive action has been taken'' in its investigation into the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder declined to elaborate on the nature of the action, except to suggest that it could be made public soon.
A judge in New York has warned Osama bin Laden's son-in-law that there could be conflict-of-interest problems with a lawyer he hired to represent him on charges he conspired to kill Americans.
Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan issued the warning verbally Wednesday to Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (SOO'-lay-mahn AH'-boo GAYTH).
Abu Ghaith insisted he wants attorney Stanley Cohen to represent him at a trial next January, even though Cohen faces a criminal tax case of his own in Syracuse, N.Y. Cohen says he can handle both.
Abu Ghaith has been charged with conspiring to kill Americans in his role as al-Qaida's chief spokesman. He's has pleaded not guilty. He was brought to the U.S. this year to face charges that he urged the death of Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Tuesday extended former military ruler Pervez Musharrafs house arrest over the murder of Benazir Bhutto for 14 days, a prosecutor said. The court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi neighbouring Islamabad also put off hearing a bail application by Musharraf until May 20, Chaudhry Azhar told AFP.
Makes you wonder if Perv has lost a friend or two in the high military council...
He said, the court extended Musharrafs judicial remand until May 28 when it hears the case again, adding that the adjournment came after Musharrafs lawyer Salman Safdar could not attend the hearing.
This was the first hearing after the main state prosecutor handling Bhuttos 2007 murder and the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, was shot dead in Islamabad en route to court on May 3.
Musharraf is accused of conspiracy to murder two-time prime minister Bhutto, whose Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was elected into power in February 2008 on a wave of sympathy over her death. Musharrafs government blamed the killing on Pakistani Taleban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.
And as such is conveniently unable to deny his clear involvement personally...
Musharraf returned from exile in March to stand in the May 11 general election, vowing to save the country from militancy and economic collapse but he was barred from running over charges dating back to his 1999-2008 rule. The retired general also faces legal cases over the sacking of judges when he imposed emergency rule in 2007, and the 2006 death of a Baluch rebel leader.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Pakistain Musselmen League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief and prime minister-in-waiting, Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... on Tuesday evening met his political foe at the hospital to soften up pre-election bitterness.
Sharif presented a flower bouquet to Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) chief Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital in Lahore.
The cricket legend-turned politician had sustained injuries on his head and back when he fell off the lifter during a public rally in Lahore last week.
Speaking to media representatives after the meeting, Nawaz Sharif said the meeting took place in "good environment."
"Hopefully he will resume his work soon. Thanks to God he is safe and well, and I'm happy he is recovering," he said.
"We both emphasized on forgetting all bitterness that existed among our ranks......I congratulated Mr Khan on bagging many seats in the elections," said the PML-N chief.
There should be a friendly cricket match between us now, said the joyful Nawaz. He said that he will meet the PTI chief again once he recovers fully from his injuries.
"We all want progress and prosperity of Pakistain."
On a query regarding JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... 's reservations on poll results, he said, "We respect mandate of all political parties and they should do the same."
Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz had issued sympathetic statements to their competitor in Punjab immediately following the incident. They prayed for swift recovery of Khan.
The PML-N chief, in rare goodwill gesture, had also asked his party workers to immediately halt the media advertisements against Imran Khan. Sharif's party had suspended its electioneering for a day as well.
Despite bagging enough national and Punjab seats to form governments on his own, the PML-N chief had announced to accommodate all political forces including PTI and MQM for the larger interest of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Canada will boycott meetings of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament when Iran takes over the body this month, an official announced Tuesday, saying it makes a "mockery of disarmament issues."
Tehran will assume the presidency of the disarmament conference from May 27 until June 23 under an alphabetical rotation among the 65 member states.
"This makes a mockery of disarmament issues, and the world's sincere desire to make progress," said Rick Roth, front man for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
"In Iraq, Syria, Leb and elsewhere, the regime is working directly against global disarmament goals and subverting the fundamental principles of this committee," he added.
The conference is struggling to craft a deal on nuclear disarmament, preventing arms from spreading to outer space and halting the development of other weapons of mass destruction.
Iran meanwhile faces four rounds of U.N. sanctions over its disputed nuclear program.
On Monday, a U.S. spokeswoman said American ambassadors will boycott meetings of the conference -- launched in 1979 to try to stem the Cold War arms race -- when Iran takes the helm.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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A sharp rise in attacks on Sunni holy sites in Iraq is feeding fears that the country could spiral into a new round of sectarian violence similar to the bloodletting that brought Iraq to its knees in 2006 and 2007.
Majority Shiites control the levers of power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as Al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.
That may now have changed.
If it turns out that Iranian-backed Shiite militias are responsible for the recent attacks on Sunnis, it could signal a turn toward cyclical retaliatory violence.
At least 29 Sunni mosques were attacked between mid-April and early May, according to Mahmoud al-Sumaidaie, the deputy head of Iraq's Sunni Endowment, which oversees the sect's holy sites. At least 65 Sunni worshippers were killed, according to a tally compiled from police reports.
By contrast, two Shiite mosques were hit in bombings that killed one person over the same period, police and hospital officials said. Dozens of Shiites were killed in attacks by Sunni extremists at places other than holy sites during this time.
In all of 2012, there were only 10 recorded attacks on Sunni holy sites, Sumaidaie said.
[An Nahar] The Iraqi government said on Tuesday that it rejects the entry of Kurdish fighters from Turkey into its territory as a "flagrant violation" of its illusory sovereignty that damages relations with Ankara.
"The Iraqi government confirms its rejection of the withdrawal and the presence of gunnies of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) inside Iraqi territory, which is a flagrant violation of Iraq's illusory sovereignty and independence," a statement from the cabinet said.
The first group out of the roughly 2,000 PKK fighters who are departing Turkey as part of a peace drive aimed at ending the 29-year conflict with Ankara arrived in north Iraq on Tuesday.
The move "causes severe damage to neighborly relations between the two countries and their common interests," the statement said.
Iraq plans to present a complaint to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council, so the body will "take the necessary decision to prevent the violation of Iraq's illusory sovereignty," it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Entry of construction advisors and commuting religious students from the neighbor to the east are okay, though.
This warning to Assad was confirmed after the New York Times quoted an unnamed Israeli official as contacting the paper to warn: Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hizballah and is considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants. Their transfer to Hizballah will destabilize and endanger the entire region. If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies, he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate, the NYT quotes an Israeli official as saying.
[An Nahar] Syria's opposition National Coalition demanded Leb on Tuesday to control the border and secure the withdrawal of Hizbullah fighters from the neighboring country, warning that 30,000 civilians in the rebel-held town of Qusayr faced an "extremely dangerous situation."
"We ask the (U.N.) Security Council to issue a decision forcing Leb to control its borders, and thus guarantee the withdrawal of Hizbullah members from Syrian territory," the coalition said in a released statement.
Hizbullah, an Assad ally, has dispatched its fighters to battle alongside regime troops in the Qusayr region, near the border with Leb.
The statement said Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... has "mobilized military forces in the direction of the city of Qusayr, in the province of Homs," describing reports of dozens of tanks and large groups of soldiers on the outskirts of the town.
"The Syrian Coalition stresses that this is an extremely dangerous situation. We warn civil society of these new crimes that Assad may soon commit against the residents of Qusayr."
The statement called on NGOs to head to Qusayr and for quick international action "to help save 30,000 civilians facing imminent danger."
The regime has made recapturing the town and the area in central Homs province a key objective, and fierce fighting has raged in the vicinity for months.
In recent weeks, regime forces backed by Hizbullah and members of the National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, have advanced in the region, taking a string of villages and reportedly surrounding the town of Qusayr on three sides.
A military source last week said leaflets had been dropped on the town, urging civilians to leave via a safe passage, but activists in Qusayr said no leaflets were dropped and there was no safe way out.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has also expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about what might follow a regime advance into the town of Qusayr, a rebel bastion which has resisted the army for the past year.
The head of the Britannia-based monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, told Agence La Belle France Presse that he feared a "massacre" in the town.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
See also FNA > [Palestinian] ACTIVIST: LIBERATING GOLAN HEIHTS TO HERALD [future = final] FREEDOM OF OCCUPIED PALESTINE.
FMP Leader Yasser Qashlang.
I interprete this Artic to mean the Paleos = PA are willing to forgo any claims of sovereignty over Egyptian-claimed Gaza, + Jordan-claimed West Bank.
* SAME > SYRIA [Baby Assad] DEMANDS FOREIGN FIGHTERS LEAVE OR GET KILLED.
* SAME > IRGC QUDS FORCE CHIEF: ANTI-ISRAELI FORCES TO HIT TARGEST 400-KMS IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES SOON.
The FAJIR family of rockets, espec the FAJIR-V, are good, but better, more powerful, + longer-ranged are coming for use agz Israel.
Also from FNA ...
> [Arutz Sheva] ISRAEL MULLING TO ASSASSINATE ASSAD.
> REPORT: TERRORIST GROUPS IN SYRIA RECRUIT AZERI NATIONALS, whom are able to covertly enter Syria vee wily dastardly Turkey.
> BASIJ COMMANDER: US FEARFUL OF WAR WID IRAN, because the US knows it will lose.
[An Nahar] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday firmly rejected a Syrian proposal to hold a joint probe over a twin car kaboom that killed 51 people.
"The administration in power in Damascus is illegal ... how can we recognize a structure that isn't even recognized by its own citizens," Erdogan told news hounds before leaving for a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... in Washington on Thursday.
Syria said earlier that it is willing to carry out a joint investigation with Turkey into Reyhanli's deadly attacks that Ankara has accused Damascus of criminal masterminding, a Syrian minister said on Tuesday.
"If the government of Erdogan calls for a joint, transparent investigation by the two countries, we have no objection, in order to find the truth," Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said.
"The truth must be announced to the Syrian and Turkish people," official media quoted him as saying.
The twin boom-mobileings that rocked the town of Reyhanli in southern Turkey on Saturday killed 51 people and maimed dozens more.
Erdogan told parliament on Tuesday that 13 people have been held by police in connection with the attacks, the deadliest to hit Turkey since the beginning of the uprising in neighboring Syria in March 2011.
Turkey has blamed a radical Marxist group affiliated with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... 's regime for the attack. Damascus has denied any involvement.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Turkey's prime minister will push President Barack Obama for more assertive action on Syria during a visit to Washington this week Good idea. Send them another ambassador.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Expecting assertiveness from Obama is about the same as expecting integrity, honesty or hard work from Obama. IOW don't hold your breath.
[WORLD.TIME] News sites around the world have shown Khalid al Hamad sink his teeth into what appears to be the lung of a dead Syrian government soldier. His fellow rebels have called for him to be enjugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! or killed for the act. Human rights groups have condemned him. But Al Hamad has no regrets.
In an interview conducted via Skype in the early hours of May 14 al Hamad explained to TIME what caused him to cut out the soldier's organs: "We opened his cell phone and I found a clip of a woman and her two daughters fully naked and he was humiliating them, and sticking a stick here and there."
The video, a 27-second clip in which al Hamad brandishes organs that appear to be the lungs and hearts of the Syrian soldier who lies dead at al Hamad's feet, was first seen by two TIME news hounds in April. A few weeks later TIME obtained a copy. Though we had been told by witnesses to the filming that the video was legitimate, we set about authenticating its content, aware of the potential that it could have been faked for propaganda purposes. Al Hamad has now confirmed that the video is real, and that he did indeed take a bite of the soldier's lung. (At the time of the filming, al Hamad believed that he was biting into the liver. A surgeon who has seen the video confirms that the organ in question was a lung, which somewhat resembles the liver). On May 12, a copy of the video appeared on a pro-regime website, sparking a flood of Facebook "shares" and YouTube views.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
See also DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > [Guardian.UK] SYRIAN MUTILATION FOOTAGE SPARKS DOUBTS [renewed] OVER WISDOM OF BACKING REBELS.
The US + other are essens unconditionally backing pro-Sharia, pro-Islamist, anti-Democractic anti-Assad Syrian Rebs whom persecute + attack non-Muslims when they are not attacking Baby Assad.
#3
No shake and bake or slaw and corn bread WTF?!?
Posted by: Marilyn Lover of the Hatfields1778 ||
05/15/2013 18:35 Comments ||
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#4
This sort of reflects how back in the day, the Brits and the French were watching the American Civil war in the 1860's. King(whichever) did not really want to pick sides, hoping the Yankees would kill each other off and therefore the resources would be there for the Royal plucking.
[VOA News] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... says he expects Syria's government and the main opposition coalition to attend a peace conference in early June, with the goal of ending their two-year conflict. Did Lavrov tell him it was okay to say that?
Speaking on a visit to Stockholm, Kerry said Tuesday that the Syrian government has given the names of potential negotiators to Russia, a longtime ally of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes...
Russia and the United States agreed last week to try to arrange the peace talks despite their sharp disagreements about whether Mr. Assad should have a role in Syria's future. Washington has long insisted that Mr. Assad should step down for leading a deadly crackdown on dissent.
Kerry said diplomacy is under way to try to stage the conference, whose location has not been confirmed. Jordanian officials said Western and Arab nations opposing Mr. Assad will hold a "Friends of Syria" meeting in Amman next week to discuss the process.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/15/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Total waste of Jet-A. Maybe the sandwiches are worth it though.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/15/2013 16:04 Comments ||
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#2
Hey, as long as he and his friends are busy with Syria, they stay off our backs.
#3
Don't worry, Jawwny. I doubt they'll last long enough to keep you off the boat for 4th of July weekend.
Especially, if you have anything to do with them...
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.
Goodluck Jonathan
North Korea's hawkish military leader Gen. Kim Kyok-sik has been fired only six months after he was appointed to the post.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Tuesday extended former military ruler Pervez Musharrafs house arrest over the murder of Benazir Bhutto for 14 days, a prosecutor said. The court in the garrison town of Rawalpindi neighbouring Islamabad also put off hearing a bail application by Musharraf until May 20, Chaudhry Azhar told AFP.
Nawaz Sharif
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
[JPOST] Fatah Central Council welcomes US efforts to revive peace process; announcement is seen as boost to PA president Abbas.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Syria said earlier that it is willing to carry out a joint investigation with Turkey into Reyhanli's deadly attacks that Ankara has accused Damascus of 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
