[An Nahar] India said Wednesday it will do all within its means to promote stability in Afghanistan after visiting President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... said he had given a military "wishlist" to the Indian government.
"We have a wishlist that we have put before the government of India," Karzai told news hounds in New Delhi, adding it was up to the Indian leadership to decide how much help it was willing to extend to Kabul.
India's foreign ministry refused to detail what the "wishlist" contained but local media reports said it included light and heavy artillery, aircraft and small arms and ammunitions.
"The leaders agreed that both countries will work together and will do all within their means to promote stability and security in Afghanistan," said Indian foreign ministry front man Syed Akbaruddin.
Karzai's comments came after his office said last week that he would ask for "all kinds of assistance from India in order to strengthen our military and security institutions" during the high-level talks in the Indian capital.
Karzai held closed-door talks late Tuesday with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after a separate meeting with his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee on his two-day trip which ended on Wednesday.
India has been training a limited number of Afghan military officers for years at its military institutions, but has provided little weapons assistance except for some vehicles.
India's support for Karzai is a reflection of its desire to ensure that the departure of the United States and other foreign forces in 2014 does not lead to the return of the radical Islamist Taliban to power in Kabul, analysts say.
In 2011, India and Afghanistan began a "strategic partnership" to deepen security and economic ties. But Indian activity in Afghanistan has sparked unease in neighboring rival Pakistain which fears losing influence in Kabul.
The former Taliban regime was allied with Pakistain and gave refuge to anti-Indian Islamist bad boys.
A statement from Karzai's office in Kabul on Wednesday sought to underline its neighborly relations with both India and Pakistain while ruling out inviting Indian troops to the country after the U.S. pullout.
"Afghanistan is a sovereign country and... has the right to choose its own friends. Pakistain is a neighbor, it is a close neighbor and the people of Pakistain have given Afghans refuge for 30 years," the statement said.
"India is a traditional friend and ally, particularly so over the last 10 years," the Afghan statement added.
[An Nahar] EU leaders agreed Wednesday to send a civilian border assistance mission to Libya which should begin operations next month.
Hey -- didn't Ambassador Stevens try something like that last September?
The mission, dubbed EUBAM Libya, will help the country re-establish effective controls at its land, sea and air borders.
"EUBAM Libya is an important mission for Libya and the entire region but also for the security of EU borders," EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton said.
"The mission responds to a direct request from our Libyan partners," Ashton said in a statement.
The mission was first suggested after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... , and aims to help the new government police land borders some 4,300 kilometers long which often cross remote and inhospitable desert regions.
The country's maritime border is nearly 2,000 kilometers long, with illegal immigration to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa a major problem.
The mission, costing some 30 million euros ($39 million), will help advise and train Libyan officials for border duties and administration.
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05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Ansar al-Sharia ...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends... front man Seifeddine Rais, enjugged Please don't kill me! in the Tunisian city of Kairouan at the weekend as police enforced a government ban on its annual congress, was released on bail on Wednesday, the Salafist group said.
"God be praised, our brother Seifeddine Rais has been sprung," the group said on its Facebook page.
Lawyer Anouar Ouled Ali told Agence La Belle France Presse his client still faces charges of spreading false information and incitement to violence during a presser earlier this month.
He has been summoned to appear in court on Friday.
On Tuesday, Ansar al-Sharia called for demonstrations in Kairouan on Friday to demand the release of Rais, raising fears of new festivities with police like those that left one person dead and 18 injured on Sunday.
The Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... , who advocate an ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam, were initially tolerated by the authorities following Tunisia's January 2011 revolution, even as a wave of violence linked to the snuffies swept the country.
The attacks have targeted art galleries, cultural festivals and Sufi shrines, and culminated last September in an assault on the U.S. embassy that left four Islamists dead.
But faced with the threat of al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups along its western border, the government has since hardened its stance towards Ansar al-Sharia, considered the most radical of the Death Eater groups to have emerged since the revolution.
[An Nahar] Bahrain on Wednesday said it has found an Iranian drone in the kingdom's north near Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and called for increased cooperation between regional security services to face "threats" from Tehran.
The unmanned aircraft "was found in the sea in north Bahrain, mainly between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, two weeks ago," government spokeswoman Samira Rajab told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"It has been proved that this is a drone used by Iran and could be linked to the Iranian spy cells discovered in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain," said Rajab.
It was unclear if the aircraft had crashed or was brought down in the area.
Iran says it is developing drones to be used for surveillance as well as for attacks.
On Tuesday, Iran's rival across the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, said its authorities have placed in durance vile Please don't kill me! 10 more suspects in an alleged Iranian spy ring unveiled two months ago. Iran has denied links to the cell.
And last month, a Bahraini appeals court confirmed a 10-year jail term handed over to one of its citizens accused of spying for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
Bahrain's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Al-Khalifa, meanwhile, urged in a statement carried by the official BNA news agency on Wednesday for "further cooperation and collaboration between security services in the region and with friendly states to face these threats" by Iran.
He also criticized Iran's "interference in internal security affairs of countries in the region".
Sunni Mohammedan Arab monarchies of the Gulf have long had strained ties with Iran, a predominantly Shiite country. These deteriorated further in early 2011 after a Saudi-led military intervention crushed Shiite-led pro-democracy protests in Bahrain, also run by a Sunni dynasty.
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05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A Saudi court sentenced eight citizens to jail terms of between 10 and 25 years on Wednesday after convicting them of plotting for al-Qaeda, state news agency SPA reported.
The eight were convicted of "forming a group to eliminate coppers, among them Colonel Mubarak al-Sawat" -- killed in 2005, SPA said.
They were found guilty of "aiding al-Qaeda" by searching for addresses of Saudi officers and sending threatening messages to them.
The court convicted them of plotting to kidnap or kill security personnel, as well as of burning cars of coppers and targeting non-Musselmen foreigners, SPA said.
A wave of deadly al-Qaeda attacks rocked Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... between 2003 and 2006 prompting a massive crackdown by the authorities.
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05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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Glenn Greenwald has a brain fart and spouts the following: What definition of the term includes this horrific act of violence but excludes the acts of the US, the UK and its allies? Maybe in future we should refer to them more benignly as "hactivists"
Looks like "Dar al Islam" vs "Dar al Harb" is playing out nicely for the Muslims.
Strapping his baby into a car seat, Abu Khaled said it was unfortunate that a British soldier was hacked to death in an apparent Islamist attack a day earlier in London, but it was not the only misfortune on his mind.
A 75-year-old man was stabbed to death earlier this month on his way back from the mosque in Birmingham. You didn't hear about that, did you? said the bearded 36-year-old personal trainer, speaking near East London Mosque, one of the capital's oldest and largest.
Eleven children died in Afghanistan in a U.S. drone attack about the time of the Boston bombings. You didn't hear about that either, did you? he said.
The overwhelming reaction from Muslim communities to the brutal killing on Wednesday has been one of horror, compounded by fears of a backlash.
These men have insulted Allah (God) and dishonoured our faith ... There will no doubt be a lot of soul-searching about why these individuals do what they do, Farooq Murad, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a news conference.
Abu Khaled said it was probably Western treatment of Muslim life as collateral damage in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that triggered Wednesday's crazed attack in Woolwich, southeast London.
#1
> Western treatment of Muslim life as "collateral damage" in conflicts
Probably not helped by the MSM not telling the public that sheltering combatants removes civilian status/ forcibly hiding amongst civilians is a war crime.
"UK attack spurs Muslim whining, self pity, victim pretense, false analogies, blame avoidance and re commitment to the same ideology that led to the attack in the first place."
of course that's a bit long for a headline
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/23/2013 20:55 Comments ||
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Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'
But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll.
Gunga Din was an Indian water carrier for English soldiers in the late 19th century. Kipling describes Gunga Din though Atkins' eyes. Gunga Din is beaten and abused by Atkins and the other soldiers that he serves and treated with contempt because of his skin colour.
Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.
Atkins eventually comes to deeply respect the courage of Gunga Din. However, even Atkins' praise, by today's standards, seems insensitive:
An' for all 'is dirty 'ide,
'E was white, clear white, inside
When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!
Finally, Gunga Din brings Atkins water after Atkins has been wounded and lies bleeding. The water is given in the thick of battle. Gunga Din is then himself 'drilled' by a bullet. His last words to Atkins before he dies are:
'I 'ope you liked your drink', sez Gunga Din.
So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone --
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
British Muslims disown the Woolwich murderers, and such extremists should be totally demolished in UK society but in order to do that, the UK must change its illegal foreign policy, imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation Dr. Taj Hargey told RT.
The beheading of a UK soldier near the Woolwich army barracks in southeast London on Wednesday has shocked the country, and was condemned as horrific and sickening by UK officials. Strong indications the murder was connected to terrorism and Islamic extremism were also noted by UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
But the Muslim community in the UK had never known such brutal terrorist attacks until the UKs previous government drew Britain into overseas conflicts in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and started slavishly following US policies, Dr. Hargey explained.
RT: Do you agree with the allegations that the attackers actions were inspired by radical Islam?
Dr. Taj Hargey: We need firstly to condemn this murder in the strongest possible terms, and to send condolences to the victims family and the loved ones. Yes, I think there is an element of that But its not just Islamic fundamentalism, there is also a linkage, I believe, between what Tony Blair did with his illegal war in Iraq and subsequent slavish following of US policy. I mean, there was no Muslim terrorism in the United Kingdom until Blair went illegally into Iraq. And I think we need to admit and to acknowledge that fact not just to blame it on Islamic fundamentalism.
RT: One witness report is saying one of the meat cleaver killers was seen in the local community days before preaching hatred. From what you see and hear around you how widespread are radical sentiments among Muslims in Britain?
TH: I think, they are most probably recent, or new Muslim converts, they are fundamentalists, this brand of Islam is attractive to them. I dont think they were born Muslims, these two people, I would be very surprised if they were. But what is important to remember is that they are being breast-fed on this Islamic extremism and radicalism that the only way to deal with the situation is by violence. All integrated British Muslims know that, although we are against British foreign policy, we can protest legitimately and through democratic means you do not have to slaughter someone in the streets of London.
RT: When it comes to the Muslim community in the United Kingdom, some refer to an outspoken minority but a silent majority. Isnt there a responsibility for the majority to step up and do something about this?
Posted by: Paul D ||
05/23/2013 13:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
'There was no Muslim terrorism in the UK until Iraq'
Well, if you can't forget the Crusades, to take back Christian territory, then there's no reason to forget the Islamic terror slave raids a mere couple hundred years back that hit Southern England, Ireland, and Iceland.
#5
There was no Muslim terrorism in the Uk until the UK population was totally unarmed and cowed by the law from even defending themselves. Radical Islam wouldn't have dared try this sort of thing in the past.
#6
Not just Lockerbie but I do believe terrorists took over the Iranian Embassy in London and had to be evicted by the SAS.
The beauty of radical islam is they can just say that was political and not religious based when the orders came from the Ayatollah (may he rot in hell).
but in order to do that, the UK must change its "illegal" foreign policy
"Do what we say and we call off the dogs."
Sounds like an admission of guilt, to me. You don't say you can stop something unless you have some influence.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/23/2013 16:37 Comments ||
Top||
#8
When animals are taken to the slaughterhouse to be killed the "humane" way is to stun them first before killing them. The West has been so stunned into submission through "hate laws" and multiculturalism that they now willingly offer their throats to the Islamists in the name o community harmony.
The soldier killed in an attack on a London street has been named as Drummer Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
Drummer Rigby, 25, from Manchester, leaves behind a two-year-old son.
Two men are under arrest in hospital after police shot them near Woolwich Barracks on Wednesday afternoon, in the aftermath of the attack.
The suspects, believed to include Michael Adebolajo, were known to security services, sources have said.
The Ministry of Defence announced the name of the victim pending formal police identification.
Shortly after the killing a man, thought to be 28-year-old Mr Adebolajo, was filmed by a passer-by, saying he carried out the attack because British soldiers killed Muslims every day.
Sources said reports the men had featured in "several investigations" in recent years - but were not deemed to be planning an attack - "were not inaccurate".
They confirmed one of the suspects was intercepted by police last year while leaving the country.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: "We are not going to be cowed by this kind of terrorist action."
"Everyone in defence is shocked and saddened by the events of yesterday," Mr Hammond said more than 24 hours after the killing.
"This was a senseless murder of a soldier who has served the Army faithfully in a variety of roles including operational tours in Afghanistan. Our thoughts today are with his family and loved ones who are trying to come to terms with this terrible loss."
#1
12 years after 9/11/2011 and since that time Rome bombings, London attacks, Ft Hood attacks, Boston marathon attacks... dumb*sses that dumb dumb*sses are still electing to office:
"is shocked" that such "events" would happen. Debased stupidity and ignorance of the elected running around with heads up their *sses.
A British government official said both suspects were part of previous security services investigations for possible terror links.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation, said he could not provide other details because the suspects may face trial. Investigations by Britains domestic security service, MI5, can include undercover surveillance, phone tapping and communications intercepts.
Police in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England said a property was being searched in connection to the attack in Woolwich. Police said a search warrant had been obtained but would not provide details about the search. Police were also scouring the attack site for further clues.
There was also a police raid on a public housing complex in east Greenwich just outside of London thought to be related to the attack investigation.
[FOXNEWS] After months of ignoring Chinese warnings to give up nuclear weapons, North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... sent a high-level confidant to Beijing on Wednesday, in a possible effort to mend strained ties with his country's most important ally and a sign that he may be giving diplomacy a chance.
The trip by Vice Marshal Choe Ryong Hae, a senior Workers' Party official and the military's top political officer, is taking place as tensions ease somewhat on the Korean Peninsula after near-daily vows from Pyongyang to attack Washington and Seoul in March and April.
The United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia have been busy discussing how best to engage with the North Koreans. Japan sent an envoy to North Korea last week to discuss decades-old abductions of its citizens, a move that has drawn concern among allies of Tokyo who want denuclearization to be the focus of talks.
Choe's visit is the first this year by a top North Korean official to China, which is under pressure from the U.S. and others to rein in its belligerent neighbor. It's also the first since a change of leadership in Beijing, whose new leaders have demonstrated a willingness to work with Washington to harry Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programs even as stability in North Korea remains the Chinese government's priority.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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A man accused of plotting to derail a train in Canada with support from al-Qaida is asking to be represented by a defense attorney willing to use the "holy book" as a reference in his case.
During a hearing Thursday Chiheb Esseghaier requested a court-appointed lawyer who will use the "holy book" as a reference. The Tunisian-born Muslim was apparently referring to the Quran.
At a previous hearing, Esseghaier declined court-appointed legal representation. He said he did not recognize the court's authority, saying Canada's criminal code is "not a holy book."
The 30-year-old was arrested last month along with suspected accomplice Raed Jaser on charges of conspiring to carry out an attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group.
[Ynet] Attorney General Eric Inaction Jackson Holder ... aka Mister Fast and Furious... said on Wednesday that the United States has killed four Americans in counterterrorism operations, three of whom were not targets of the strikes involving drones in Yemen and elsewhere.
Holder named the four dead US citizens in a letter to members of Congress one day before President Barack Obama If you have a small business, you didn't build that... is scheduled to deliver an address on the use of drones. The letter defends the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, zapped in Yemen, al-Awlaki was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He was an Islamic holy man who was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , the one dead American who was an intended target of a drone strike, the letter said.
An American citizen killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in 2011 was arrested by Pakistani authorities three years earlier but escaped after being released on bail, officials said Thursday.
The Obama administration revealed Wednesday that Jude Kenan Mohammad died in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region, making him the fourth American citizen killed by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan and Yemen. The confirmation came as President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a speech in Washington on Thursday that will focus in large part on the administration's expanded use of drones to kill hundreds of people in those two countries and other places where terrorists have taken refuge.
U.S. officials didn't provide details, but Pakistani security officials said Mohammad was killed in late 2011 in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area.
Mohammad was part of an eight-member group based in North Carolina accused of planning terrorist attacks. He was indicted by federal authorities in 2009 as part of an alleged plot to attack the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. The other seven members were arrested, but authorities said Mohammad fled the U.S. to join Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal region.
[Dawn] Ahead of President B.O.'s long-awaited address on drones at Washington's National Defence University on Thursday, the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... said that drone strikes in Pakistain have fallen sharply since their peak in 2010, perhaps in response to increasing scrutiny of the programme by Congress and the American public.
President B.O. embraced drone strikes in his first term, and the assassination of suspected snuffies has come to define his presidency.
However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... writing about the declining drone strikes, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Brookings Institution scholar, said in Foreign Policy magazine there were many reasons for the declining number of strikes in Pakistain.
"But a growing awareness of the cost of drone strikes in US-Pakistain relations is probably at the top of the list," Mr. Riedel said. "They are deadly to any hope of reversing the downward slide in ties with the fastest growing nuclear weapons state in the world."
But the Times pointed out lost in the contentious debate over the legality, morality and effectiveness of a novel weapon is the fact that the number of strikes has actually been in decline.
An administration official told NYT Mr Obama would also "review our detention policy and efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; and he will frame the future of our efforts against Al Qaeda, its affiliates and adherents." Some supporters of Obama have urged him to use the occasion to announce that part of a 6,000-page Senate study of the CIA's former interrogation programme will be declassified and made public.
Mr Obama, who insisted early in his presidency on a personal role in many strike decisions, may also shed light on the declining use of drone strikes. Current and former officials say the reasons include a shrinking list of important Al Qaeda targets, a result of the success of past strikes and transient factors ranging from bad weather to diplomatic strains. But more broadly, the decline may reflect a changing calculation of the long-term costs and benefits of assassinations.
B.O. regime officials have sometimes contrasted the drone programme's relative precision, economy and safety for Americans with the huge costs in lives and money of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Over time, however, the costs of the drone strikes themselves have become more evident.
Reports of innocent civilians killed by drones -- whether real or, as American officials often assert, exaggerated -- have shaken the claims of precise targeting. The strikes have become a staple of Al Qaeda propaganda, cited to support the notion that the United States is at war with Islam.
They have been described by convicted snuffies as a motivation for their crimes, including the failed attack on a bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit ... ruled by Democrats since 1962... -bound airliner in 2009 and the attempted boom-mobileing of Times Square in 2010.
[Ennahar] A senior Paleostinian official said,that rival Paleostinian factions Fatah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, agreed at a meeting in Qatar today on purpose to shape a unified Paleostinian government for the West Bank and Gazoo headed by Paleostinian President and Fatah chief the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... Abbas and Khaled Meshaal,head of the Islamist Hamas,said they were serious about implementing the accord almost a year after the two sides signed a reconciliation deal that languished for months and was reaffirmed only in November.
"It's serious,both Fatah and Hamas,in healing the wounds and ending the chapter of division and reinforcing and accomplishing reconciliation,"Meshaal said.
The Fatah-led Paleostinian Authority encourages the peace negotiation peace with Israel that leads to an independent Paleostine in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gazoo, co-existing with the Jewish state. Hamas is officially sworn to the destruction of Israel but is open to an indefinite ceasefire.
A senior leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Wednesday welcomed the victory of administration candidates running for office in Mindanao, saying this would help the ongoing peace talks with the government.
Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF chief negotiator, was referring to the near sweep of the candidates endorsed by President Benigno Aquino in the May 13 midterm election, particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Iqbal said, While we remained neutral during the election, we see the election of President Aquinos party mates as something good for the peace talks. We are glad the residents candidates were elected.
While remaining neutral, Iqbal contended that the MILF allowed its soldiers and supporters to use their free will when voting for candidates in the just-concludeed election.
In his campaign speeches in Mindanao, Aquino also stressed the election of his candidates would help hasten ongoing peace talks brokered by Malaysia.
Posted by: ryuge ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Syria's opposition urged the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... and the Lebanese government on Wednesday to prevent the continued influx of Hizbullah fighters into Syria.
"We call on the vaporous Arab League and its secretary general to take a stance befitting these events," said Acting National Coalition opposition chief George Sabra.
He warned that Hizbullah's involvement in the Syrian war would ignite a "sectarian fire."
"Hizbullah's weapons have become militia weapons and its guns have become sectarian weapons for hire that kill women, children and the elderly," the National Council leader charged.
"We call on the Lebanese state and its political, defense and security institutions to work for the respect of the illusory sovereignty of the Syrian state," he added.
Sabra urged fighters across Syria to "rush to the rescue" of rebel stronghold Qusayr and appealed to the international community to set up a humanitarian corridor to the embattled town.
He issued the call for rebel reinforcements as Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters battled for control of Qusayr, which lies near the Lebanese border on land corridor linking the capital Damascus with the Mediterranean coast.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that 31 Hizbullah fighters have been killed in Qusayr since the fighting began on Sunday.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] 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... on Wednesday accused Hizbullah of dragging Leb into war, noting that thousands of the party's members are fighting in Syria.
Gone off to get themselves killed so that they don't have to face Israeli bombers, have they? A wise decision.
In a joint presser with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Amman, Kerry also voiced concern that chaos might spill over from Syria into Leb, condemning the intervention of Hizbullah and Iran in the Syrian crisis.
Fierce festivities have been ongoing since Sunday in and around the Syrian town of Qusayr after the Syrian army managed to storm the rebel stronghold with the help of Hizbullah fighters.
Hizbullah had declared that it was offering assistance to Lebanese residents of Syrian border towns near Qusayr and helping them defend themselves against rebel attacks.
Hizbullah Secretary-General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... later stressed that the Syrian regime's "friends" will not allow its downfall, admitting that his party's fighters were taking part in combat alongside regime troops in Qusayr and near the Sayyeda Zainab holy shrine in Damascus.
[An Nahar] Iran is making significant progress in expanding its nuclear program, including in opening up a potential second route to developing the bomb, a new U.N. atomic agency report showed Wednesday.
The ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency's latest quarterly update said that Tehran has accelerated the installation of advanced uranium enrichment equipment at its central Natanz plant.
It also outlined further progress at a reactor under construction at Arak, also in central Iran, which Western countries fear could provide Iran with plutonium if the fuel is reprocessed.
One Western diplomat told Agence La Belle France Presse the report "will only increase the concerns about Iran."
Highly enriched uranium and plutonium can both be used in a nuclear weapon. North Korea used plutonium in two tests in 2006 and 2009, while uranium was used in the "Little Boy" atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.
The new IAEA report, seen by AFP, said Iran has installed at Natanz almost 700 IR-2m centrifuges and/or empty centrifuge casings, compared with just 180 in February. None was operating, however.
The U.S. State Department stated that the latest U.N. report on Iran's nuclear program marks the "unfortunate milestone" of a decade of Iranian defiance of the body.
The ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency's director general issued the report Sunday, ten years after the IAEA's first on the Iranian program in June 2003.
"And in the past 10 years, Iran has brazenly ignored multiple Board of Governors' resolutions while advancing its enrichment program in blatant violation of its international obligations," State Department front man Patrick Ventrell said.
"As the international community stated previously in Board of Governors resolutions and statements on Iran, we're going to continue to hold Iran accountable for its international nuclear obligations," Ventrell said.
Ventrell said the United States looks forward to a meeting in June of the IAEA board, saying: "We're going to discuss the report and look how to best respond to with other members of the board."
Iran has said it intends to install around 3,000 of the new centrifuges at Natanz -- where around 13,500 of the older models are in place -- enabling it to speed up the enrichment of uranium.
The U.N. Security Council has passed numerous resolutions calling on Iran to suspend all enrichment and heavy water activities -- of the kind under development at Arak -- and has imposed four rounds of sanctions.
Last year additional unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports and its financial system began to cause real problems for the Persian Gulf country's economy.
Israel, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, has refused to rule out military action against Iran, as has U.S. President Barack Obama Because I won... . Iran says that its atomic activities are peaceful.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the impasse, most recently in six-power talks with Iran in Kazakhstan in April, have failed to make concrete progress.
Despite developments at Natanz, the IAEA report noted that Iran has not started operating any new equipment at its Fordo facility, built under a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
Fordo is of more concern to the international community, since it is used to enrich uranium to fissile purities of 20 percent and Natanz mostly to five percent, technically much closer to the 90-percent level needed for a bomb.
The IAEA report showed that Iran has produced so far 324 kilos (714 pounds) of 20-percent enriched uranium, 44 kilos more than three months ago, but that 140.8 kilos have been diverted to fuel production, up from 111 kilos.
Experts say that around 250 kilos are needed for one bomb.
At the research reactor under construction at Arak, meanwhile, which Iran says will start operating in the third quarter of 2014, the IAEA said that the plant's large reactor vessel "has been received but ... yet to be installed".
But the agency also "observed that a number of other major components had yet to be installed, including the control room equipment, the refueling machine and reactor cooling pumps."
Iran had not provided the IAEA with updated design information for the IR-40 reactor at Arak since 2006, the IAEA added, saying this was "urgently required".
The IAEA is meanwhile also trying to press Iran to provide access to documents, sites and scientists involved in what it suspects were research activities, mostly in the past but possibly ongoing, towards developing the bomb.
At one of these sites, the Parchin military base near Tehran, the new IAEA report said that in addition to months of activity leveling the area that the agency wants to inspect, Iran has now covering a "significant proportion" with asphalt.
"I don't think they are doing themselves any favors," one bigwig familiar with the probe said, adding that some rubble from the site had been dumped in lakes.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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None of the details matter, since after a good deal of talking and foolish drama, it will all be decided on the ground anyway. If you want to know more, click on the article headline.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A top U.N. envoy said Wednesday there are "mounting reports" of the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war and called on the Damascus government to let in U.N. Sherlocks.
The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... has been alerted to new chemical weapons since the start of April, according to diplomats.
U.N. leader the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... "remains gravely concerned about the allegations of the use of chemical weapons" in the 26-month-old conflict, U.N. special envoy on the Middle East grinding of the peace processor Robert Serry said.
"Amid mounting reports on the use of chemical weapons, we once again urge the government of Syria to allow the investigation to proceed without further delay," Serry told the U.N. Security Council.
Serry did not give detail of the new reports. But Western nations have passed on details of new allegations, diplomats said.
"We continue to get information about new incidents and we will continue to pass those to the secretary general," said one Western diplomat.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also gave no detail, but said the alleged attacks had occurred "since the beginning of April."
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... 's government called for a U.N. investigation but has blocked U.N. experts who have called for access to all parts of the country so that they can look into opposition claims as well.
Syria has insisted that any investigation be limited to government claims that opposition rebels fired chemical weapon shells at Khan al-Assal, near Aleppo, on March 23 when more than 30 people reportedly died.
Following official requests by Britannia and La Belle France, Ban has demanded that the experts also investigate the alleged use of the weapons at Homs in December.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 10 that Syrians showing signs of chemical attacks had been brought to hospitals in Turkey, and that "remainders of missiles" that he believes were used in such attacks have been found.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu added that authorities were conducting blood tests on maimed Syrian refugees to assess whether their injuries had been caused by chemical weapons.
Turkish authorities have not said, however, when the suspected attacks were staged.
The U.S. administration said on May 15 that it believed small amounts of chemical weapons had been used at least twice in Syria but that it was awaiting full confirmation.
A team of U.N. experts led by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom is already studying evidence brought out of Syria. Serry said the team was continuing its work.
[EURONEWS] Iran's most senior holy manal authorities have ruled out the one candidate who might have been elected president who could have led reformists: Hashemi Rafsanjani ... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was seriously injured. He has been described as a centrist and a pragmatic conservative without all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012... . Not everyone was surprised, but some of the electorate are furious.
The election is three weeks away.
The powerful Guardian Council of the Constitution have shortlisted eight figures who will be allowed to run for office in the presidential elections. Most are loyal to the conservative Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Only two of them are pro-reform figures.
[These are the former top nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani and former first vice president Mohammad Reza Aref. The non-reformists are Saeed Jalili, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Mohsen Rezaei, Mohammad Gharazi, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Ali Akbar Velayati.]
The line-up risks alienating voters already disillusioned by the violent aftermath of the 2009 poll. Rafsanjani, now 78, earned hardliners' wrath at the time for criticising authorities' treatment of protesters.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/23/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Hey, ditch elections, no more headaches.
How long till it becomes clear that our regime will try the same thing?
#2
Seems his only reference to Islam is to defend it. Moreover, we must recognize that these threats dont arise in a vacuum. Most, though not all, of the terrorism we face is fueled by a common ideology a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam; and this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist acts.
Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam
Which is effing ridiculous, because Islam was at war with us before we were founded. Hell, before Europeans knew about this continent -- and, yes, I'm including Leif Erikson!
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/23/2013 16:36 Comments ||
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#5
Heck, Islam has been at war along *all* of it's borders since the Prophet Mohammed got his ass kicked out of Mecca and had to move to Medina.
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.
[FOXNEWS] After months of ignoring Chinese warnings to give up nuclear weapons, 
North Korea
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
