MOGADISHU, Somalia -- The body of a Somali pirate who drowned just after receiving a huge ransom washed onshore with $153,000 in cash, a resident said Sunday."One of them was discovered and they are still looking for the other ones. He had $153,000 in a plastic bag in his pocket".
Five pirates drowned Friday when their small boat capsized after they received a reported $3 million ransom for releasing a Saudi oil tanker. Local resident Omar Abdi Hassan said one of the bodies had been found on a beach near the coastal town of Haradhere and relatives were searching for the other four. Three other pirates survived but also lost their share of the ransom. HA-ha... We really need a schadenfreude pic ...
When the luxury French yacht Le Ponant was hijacked by pirates, an estimated $1.2 million were delivered to secure the ship's release, according to sources close to the pirates. Yet the freeing of Le Ponant illustrated the risks incurred at the time of the transaction by the pirates, whose organizational structure remains very rudimentary and heavily reliant on trust.
According to several businessmen in northern Somalia who refused to be named, part of the cash the French paid was counterfeit and virtually impossible to use. "I wanted to make a business deal with one of the pirates and I saw that the notes were counterfeit. In one bundle, all the notes had the same serial number," one businessman told Agence France-Presse.
French special forces even recovered part of the ransom during a military raid in which they netted six suspected pirates.
Since that incident, which took place in April, the pirates started taking more precautions and the group holding the Sirius Star had a counting machine and a counterfeit money detector.
Some pirates were already very specific on the notes that should be used for the ransom, demanding only $100 and $50 bills and refusing certain years of issue. "They won't take any $100 bills from 1996 and they also try to avoid the very recent bills, out of fear they can be traced more easily," said one Somali source who was involved in several negotiations.
#4
Local resident Omar Abdi Hassan said one of the bodies had been found on a beach near the coastal town of Haradhere and relatives were searching for the other four.
I just bet they were. I'd have been doing some beach combing myself.
#5
"no funny stuff, copper. No consecutive-numbered bills, and no $50's or $100's!"
"OK, how about if they're $30's and all have the same number?"
"Hokay"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/12/2009 15:07 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Somebody should set up a refreshment stand to cater to the Haradhere beach searcher crowd as they search for their "beloved family members". They'd make a killing...
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday categorically warned her cabinet colleagues that she will not hesitate to remove them from offices if they fail to fulfil her party's election pledges to the people, or if allegations of corruption are brought against them.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
A group of some 300 young Russians and Turks brawled in Fรผrth after leaving a disco early on Sunday morning, Bavarian police reported on Monday. Just after midnight an altercation between the two sides escalated into a massive fight involving teenagers and young adults near the club. Police estimated there between 250 and 300 young people involved.
"As the first patrol cars arrived the young people scattered in all directions," a police statement said.
But police were able to detain some well known violent offenders at the scene. A short while later more fights were reported and police questioned some 50 rowdies nearby. The rumble resulted in at least three dangerous injuries, police said. Other people suffered knife wounds and broken noses.
Authorities took five underage ruffians between the ages of 16 and 19 into custody and returned them to their parents. All of those arrested were under the influence of alcohol, police reported.
Fรผrth police inspectors are investigating the event using video surveillance of the area. "Commissioner, who's on Fรผrth?"
#5
"Halt! This is not a police authorized riot. Until the appropriate Riot Bureau paperwork has been authorized in triplicate, any further riot will be designated as unlawful."
A Turkish court formally arrested 14 more people Sunday for ties to an alleged secularist plot by ultranationalists to bring down the Islamic-rooted government, bringing the total of people involved in the case to more than 100.
The prime minister said the crackdown will shed light on a network of renegade agents within the state and make Turkey transparent. Critics say it is designed to silence the government's opponents.
The case highlights a difficult question about who holds the levers of power in a nation where tensions between secularists and Islamists, and liberals and rightists, have created deep fault lines in the country.
The problem is aggravated by key demands from the European Union _ which Turkey hopes to join _ to reduce the military's influence in politics, make security officials accountable for torture and grant more rights to the country's Kurds.
Over the weekend, an Istanbul anti-terror court formally arrested and jailed 18 coup plot suspects, including a former police chief and four active duty military officers. Fourteen of the 18 were arrested Sunday.
Police detained another 33 suspects in the case Sunday and displayed confiscated weapons. Prosecutors say the plot aimed to destabilize Turkey through a series of attacks and trigger a coup in 2009.
There are already 86 suspects on trial in the case and they include a top author, a political party leader, journalists, a former university dean and a lawyer along with 16 retired military officers. All were outspoken opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Turkey Coup? That's like a big chicken coup. right?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/12/2009 10:16 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Sounds to me like a slow motion Islamo-fascist coup is underway with an end point toward the Iranian.
Jail all the secularists and the Islamonauts take total control. Think that's what the EU has in mind?
US President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday he was not ruling out possible prosecution for abuses committed under the George W. Bush administration, saying no one "is above the law." "We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth," Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week" program when asked about alleged abuses under Bush.
"Obviously we're going to be looking at past practices and I don't believe that anybody is above the law," Obama said.
But Obama, who takes office on January 20, added he wanted his administration to focus on tackling problems moving forward, rather than reviewing policies under his predecessor. "My instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing," he said. "That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward."
The nutroots are going to be so-o-o-o disappointed ...
Human-rights and civil-liberties groups have called for senior Bush administration officials to be prosecuted for a series of alleged abuses, from mishandling the conflict in Iraq to the illegal detention and torture of terrorist suspects and domestic spying.
Obama also criticized Vice President Dick Cheney for his public defense of "extraordinary" interrogation methods used against top terrorism suspects, including simulated drowning known as waterboarding. "Vice President Cheney, I think, continues to defend what he calls extraordinary measures or procedures when it comes to interrogations and from my view waterboarding is torture," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I do not think that the Big O will push this, as Fitz probably has quite a file and phone transcripts of the Big O w/r/t Blago. Let the sleeping dawgs lie.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/12/2009 1:18 Comments ||
Top||
#2
IF O decided to prosecute any Bush people it would have to be initiated at the gitgo. He cant wait until later in his admin. Its either go or blow.
His startup doesnt need have a big political morass opened right at the beginning of his 100 days. It aint gonna fly. Bush and Cheney are out and O is gonna posture and do nothing.
It wont help O in the polls anyway. And the precedent of the incoming doing revenge on the outgoing works both ways. You go in there and you someday find you are in there too.
O aint that stupid enough. He can talk and then walk. The moonbats are going to get the old "trust me." Big O is gonna be Presidential and give us all a profile and look solemn.
And Bush is gonna go back to Texas and Cheney is going to shake hands with Scrooge McDuck.
#3
Let's not forget the precedent this sets, of course, being smarmy and stupid is no way to go thru life, son! not punishable in the courts by themselves. So, OBambissiah, shouldn't want this to happen, lest he starts looking over his shoulder. Jus' sayin'.
#4
I have to agree with Alaska Paul. My exact sentiments. Why set a precedent? No one thought about Reagan having hearings and criminal proceedings against Carter for being stupid and incompetent and scamming the American people into voting for him.
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
01/12/2009 10:53 Comments ||
Top||
#6
A lotta noise. If he goes after them for using methods that have probably prevented us from being hit since 9/11, and we get hit again, he will be well burnt toast.
The Small Wars Journal is highlighting an Inside the Navy article (subscription only) by Zachary M. Peterson called Marines Make Case for Return to "From the Sea" Ops, Hybrid Warfare. It is an interesting article, and outlines the USMC vision for how the Corps is looking to return to action after Iraq.
In my opinion, this debate is so much bigger than the USMC, and I get the impression that with a targeted information dump like what this article appears to be from Col. Steven Zotti, the Navy is being sent a broadside over the bow. Make no mistake, this will be the discussion of 2009 in the Navy, and it is going to be an interesting discussion. This debate is centric to how maritime forces will operate for the next decade, and how maritime forces will be shaped for much longer. The budget crunch coming to the Navy is too big for the Navy to simply build ships to sail the ocean blue, ships will either have a specific purpose that Congress can justify with spending, or the ship won't get built. Easy as that.
#1
I have been thinking for some time after 9/11 that we should rethink the whole idea of separate branches of service and the so-called unified military doctrine. I don't know the exact form of organization but it would be something like a matrix and vertically integrated for the type of action, region and enemy profile.
Posted by: Jack is Back ||
01/12/2009 10:56 Comments ||
Top||
#3
GUAM PDN > seems the curr DON = DEPT OF THE NAVY may be renamed to a "DEPT OF THE NAVY AND MARINE CORPS", among other, iff certain polilicos succeed.
HMMMMMM, HMMMMMMMMMM, my nose is telling me theres a DESIRED? "REVOLT OF THE ADMIRALS/GENERALS" in there somewhere, as per another ANTi-OWG = ANTI-OWG, PRO-SOCIALIST = ANTI-SOCIALIST, etc. pressure for the BAM-MAN + his new POTUS ADMIN???
* OTOH, Matthew Broderick's "WAR GAMES" 1980's flick = "SPACE GAMES/BATTLESPACE". WOPR = SPACE OPERATIONS PLANNED RESPONSE, ALLY SHEEDY = ROBO-BABE/ MR. GIRLFRIEND???
DETROIT, Jan 11 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said the struggling automaker had enough funding to last through March but could still seek additional U.S. government loans beyond the $13.4 billion it has already been pledged. Wagoner, speaking to reporters at the Detroit auto show, also said GM was still seeking a potential buyer for its Saab brand. "We're still looking," he said.
GM had warned that it was at risk of running out of cash before the Bush Administration cleared its request for emergency funding just before the end of the year. In recent weeks, some reports have said GM executives believed the $13.4-billion in U.S. government loans would allow the automaker to survive even under its most dire forecasts for the U.S. market in 2009.
But Wagoner indicated GM could still opt to seek additional funding after a March review with U.S. officials intended to assess its progress in restructuring.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Now THERE's a shock.
Who could have ever seen THAT coming?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
01/12/2009 7:34 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Does anyone actually think the UAW will negotiate in good faith knowing that the Dems they have bought and paid for are coming to power? If the UAW won't get in line with non-union labor, I will NEVER buy a UNION made vehicle again. My next car will be a Toyota.
#6
The American taxpayer is now considered a tax serf to include his/her children and grandchildren literally bonded to the rolls [and Treasury Bills] so that the extended family of special interest groups who own and operate one political party can be kept in the manner they've become accustomed to. We are watching the future being sold out to preserve the past.
#7
Nobody bailed out Studebaker or US made Schwinn bicycles. I've bought GM and Ford all my life. We've done our part already. If they can't make a profit, phuech'em. NEXT!
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.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday categorically warned her cabinet colleagues that she will not hesitate to remove them from offices if they fail to fulfil her party's election pledges to the people, or if allegations of corruption are brought against them.
A Turkish court formally arrested 14 more people Sunday for ties to an alleged secularist plot by ultranationalists to bring down the Islamic-rooted government, bringing the total of people involved in the case to more than 100.
DETROIT, Jan 11 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said the struggling automaker had enough funding to last through March but could still seek additional U.S. government loans beyond the $13.4 billion it has already been pledged. Wagoner, speaking to reporters at the Detroit auto show, also said GM was still seeking a potential buyer for its Saab brand. "We're still looking," he said.
