[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad arrived in Kabul on Sunday to try to secure cooperation from Afghanistan’s president after breakthroughs in peace negotiations with Taliban ...Arabic for students... leaders in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... With Khalilzad and his boss US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well Taliban officials, hailing progress towards ending America’s longest war, he must now win over President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. - whose government the Taliban have so far kept out of the process.
Six days of talks ended in Qatar on Saturday with key parts of a draft pact mapped out, including an 18-month timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops after the completion of a deal, according to Taliban officials.
The draft also includes assurances from the hardline Islamic group that it will not allow Afghanistan to be used by al-Qaeda and ISIS to attack the US and its allies - a core US demand. Similar assurances involving other groups are given to Pakistain in the draft pact.
The Taliban also want to be part of an interim government after any ceasefire, Taliban sources said.
It was not clear whether the draft described by the Taliban sources was acceptable to both sides or when it could be completed and signed.
A fresh round of talks between Khalilzad and the Taliban is expected to take place on February 25 in Doha, two senior Taliban sources said.
While he has not been directly involved up until now, Ghani’s role is likely to grow as a full deal gets closer and diplomacy intensifies.
Without going into detail on Saturday night, Khalilzad said in tweets that nothing could be agreed without an intra-Afghan dialogue and a full ceasefire.
"He (Khalilzad) will inform Ghani and his officials about all the developments, seek their opinion before travelling back to Washington," a senior Afghan official said on conditions of anonymity.
Khalilzad is also due to brief top regional diplomats on Monday morning.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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[Libya Observer] President of the High Council of State (HCS), Khaled al-Mishri, announced his resignation and withdrawal from the Moslem Brüderbund organization.
Al-Mishri stressed that he will continue his political and partisan work, emphasizing his continued respect for the Moslem Brüderbund group and its members.
In a televised statement yesterday, al-Mishri said that his resignation came upon national, intellectual, and political requirements and for transparency and respect for the Libyan people.
He also called on the organization to implement the revisions agreed upon in 2015, including the dissolution of its own assembly, and to shift towards community work through civil society institutions.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] 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... on Sunday executed four Yemenis found guilty of murdering a security guard, the kingdom's interior ministry said.
The four men robbed and killed a Pak man who worked as a security guard at a company, said a ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
The execution took place in Mecca, the statement added.
Twenty people have been executed in the kingdom since the beginning of the year, according to the authorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
At 6 pm EST, it seems nobody is broken up over this here.
Me neither...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/28/2019 17:54 Comments ||
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[PULSE.NG] NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure.... Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... 's regular complaints about the alliance had not undermined it -- adding that his criticism on defense spending was having a positive impact.
Trump has frequently blasted members of the 29-nation western security partnership for not paying more into their national defense budgets.
Before taking office, he called NATO "obsolete" and recent media reports said he spoke to bigwigs last year about pulling out.
"President Trump has been very clear, he is committed to NATO. He stated that clearly just a few days ago and also at the NATO summit in July," Stoltenberg said on "Fox News Sunday."
"But at the same time, he has clearly stated that NATO allies need to invest more. And therefore at the summit in July last year, we agreed to do more to step up -- and now we see the results."
NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend two percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024 but around half are not on course to make that target.
Stoltenberg said, however, that by the end of 2020, NATO allies would have added $100 billion extra toward defense spending.
"So we see some real money and some real results. And we see that the clear message from President Trump is having an impact," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] Local residents and the authorities in Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, say that 80 percent of their cities were destroyed during the war with ISIS.
Homes, markets, public buildings and mosques were bombed when Iraqi troops and ISIS holy warriors fought for the control of the province.
Now two years on since liberation the central government has had no active participation in redressing some of the destruction. That’s why people in Fallujah and Ramadi have rolled up their sleeves to rebuild the province by themselves.
The project is slow, costly and risky as thousands of unwent kaboom! bombs and war remnants still liter the cities or lurk under the rubble.
[PRESSTV] In a provocative move, an Israeli minister has toured the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem al-Quds, and a group of Israeli settlers have stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque.
Miri Regev, who is a member of the Knesset for the Likud party and minister of culture and sport, toured the streets of the occupied territories with a camera crew in order to promote her political campaign for the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections, the Paleostinian Ma’an news agency reported on Sunday.
In December last year, Israeli politicians voted to dissolve the parliament in a bid to hold early elections in April.
Separately on Sunday, a group of nearly 40 Israeli settlers escorted by Israeli forces entered the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem al-Quds.
Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the al-Aqsa Mosque, said that Israeli forces also banned employees from the Islamic Endowment Department from entry into the holy compound, preventing them from carrying out their work duties.
Al-Kiswani said that such provocations by Israeli forces occur on a daily basis.
Eyewitnesses said that Israeli forces also detained and assaulted a Paleostinian youth in the area.
Ultra-Orthodox Israeli politicians and murderous Moslem settlers regularly storm the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied city.
Most of the Knesset members are right-wing bully boyz who support the demolition of the Islamic site in order to build a Jewish temple instead on what is known among settlers as the Temple Mount.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: PLO
#2
PressTV is indeed a tool of the Iranian government, which is no doubt why they report an event that does not show up in any of the Israeli news sites I looked at today.
[DAWN] A predominantly Moslem area of the southern Philippines has returned a resounding "Yes" in this week’s referendum on greater autonomy, boosting hopes for peace in one of Asia’s most conflict-torn regions.
The plan to create a self-administered area for the Moslem-dominated parts of Mindanao was backed by 85 per cent of voters, the election commission said late on Friday, paving the way for a three-year transition towards elections for a legislature that will choose an executive.
Monday’s referendum was the culmination of a tumultuous grinding of the peace processor between separatists and successive governments that aimed to settle decades of conflict, which have hampered development and kept these parts of Mindanao among Asia’s poorest regions.
The endorsement by some 1.74 million voters comes as no surprise, and the new region to be called Bangsamoro (nation of Moros) will have greater powers to generate and invest more money in infrastructure, schools, healthcare and social welfare for its estimated five million inhabitants.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Now for the civilised parts of Indonesia to do the same.
[PRESSTV] Hezbollah is capable of inflicting a major blow to Israel in a possible conflict, says a political analyst, commenting on the Saturday night speech by the head of the Lebanese resistance movement.
Speaking to al-Mayadin television, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said Israel was deeply wrong to think that its discovery of four tunnels would save it from future attacks by Hezbollah.
Nasrallah "emphasized that Hezbollah has the capabilities to inflict major damage on Israel," Paul Larudee of the Free Paleostine Movement told Press TV on Sunday.
"The Israelis learned the hard way in 2006 that Hezbollah can deliver a very strong blow, a devastating blow, to Israel and that Israel will be unable to hold on to any Lebanese land," Larudee said.
"Basically, what he (Nasrallah) is saying and it seems absolutely true is that Israel really can’t afford to start this war," he added, referring to recent Israeli threats to attack Leb over Hezbollah's precision missiles.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] Iran’s chief military commander says the country may adopt offensive military tactics in order to protect its interests while continuing to adhere to its broad doctrine of defense.
Major General Mohammad Baqeri, the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said on Sunday that the Iranian military would adopt offensive tactics as and when they were deemed necessary.
"There is, among the country’s broad strategies, a defensive strategy ‐ we defend the independence and territorial integrity and national interests of the country," Maj. Gen. Baqeri said. "This, however, does not mean that we would be acting exclusively defensively and passively in our operational-level and tactical approaches."
He said Iran did not have any intention of seizing foreign territory or harming foreign interests, yet, "to protect our national achievements and interests, we may adopt an offensive approach."
"If someone sought to violate our country, if signs and evidence [of such aggression] were detected, the Islamic Theocratic Republic would not be sitting idly by so that the nation’s interests and the country’s calm are endangered," Baqeri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
An upgrade from merely disgusting military tactics?
[DAWN] The Syrian government on Saturday condemned The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s military presence in northern Syria as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries.
Turkey’s President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey... has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighbouring country.
Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies control part of northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border.
On Saturday, the foreign ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria’s eight-year war. "Since 2011, the Ottoman Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement," a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA.
The source accused Turkey of "supporting terrorists", using the regime’s usual term for both jihadists and rebels.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Now, PencilBoy, get your master, Putin, to lean on the Turks to teach them a lesson.
[JewishPress] The head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, Chief clownHeshmatollah Falahat-Pisheh, expressed "anger" towards Russia for not activating the S-300 air-defense system deployed in Syria during an Israeli retaliation this week near Damascus.
"The Israelis claim their actions are against Iran, while they are attacking Syrian infrastructure, security and defense installations," he said on Thursday. Why such indignation over Syrian infrastructure? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
In response to Iranian fighter jets firing a surface-to-surface missile at the Golan Heights the previous day, Israeli warplanes launched a massive attack on numerous Iranian targets in Syria on Monday.
Among the locations hit were a site at the Damascus International Airport, munition storage facilities, an Iranian military training camp, and an Iranian intelligence site, according to the Israel Defense Forces. These reprisals killed an estimated 11 pro-regime soldiers.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, the sites belonged to the Iranian Quds Force, which conducts Iranian Revolutionary Guards operations abroad.
Editor’s note: Israeli officials met with their Russian counterparts before the Israeli strike. The Russians waited until Wednesday before making any statement. The Russians are not planning on activating the S-300 before March. From all appearances, the Russians are fine with Israel attacking Iranian targets in Syria, for the moment.
Posted by: Tyranysaurus McGurque5763 ||
01/28/2019 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...
[JewishPress] The head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, 
