RIYADH: A Pakistani man was beheaded in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after being convicted of beating a compatriot to death with a brick, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Zada Sowali was found guilty of murder and theft, the ministry said in a statement. Sowali fatally beat the victim several times over the head with a brick, the statement said. The murdered man's wallet was also found in Sowali's possession. It was unclear when the victim was killed. Sowali was executed in the northern city of Arar, bringing to at least 53 the number of beheadings in Saudi Arabia this year. Last year, 35 people were executed in the kingdom.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2005 00:00 ||
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Sowali fatally beat the victim several times over the head with a brick, the statement said. The murdered man's wallet was also found in Sowali's possession.
So? There are a gazillion things we can dump on the Saudis for, but a vicious murderer's decapitative execution is not one of them. Did the victim's family get the murderer's head to use for soccer practice?
#2
Every where I look, I seee this many Pakistanies being killed, this many being suicide bombers, that many being captured or imprisoned.
What I would like to know is how many of these Pakistani psychopaths are there?
Are they all frugged in the head?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Russian officials have rejected accusations by the top U.S. military officer that it, along with China, was trying to bully smaller Central Asian nations out of hosting U.S. troops fighting terrorism. "We have been bewildered by the comments" of Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Foreign Ministry statement posted on its official web-site said.
"As is well-known, all decisions made within the framework of the SCO (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) are consensus-based and reflect the collective opinion of all the member-countries," the ministry said.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional alliance led by China and Russia, last week called on the U.S. to set a date for withdrawing forces from bases in the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Asked by a reporter what he thought of the SCOâs statement, Myers said: "Looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries."
U.S. forces have used a base in each of the two countries since the early days of the war in Afghanistan. Both governments recently questioned the need for continued U.S. access, Associated Press points out. Uzbekistan has imposed new limits on U.S. use of its Karshi-Khanabad air base, after Washington criticized Uzbekistanâs bloody crackdown on anti-government rioting in May that killed around 200 people according to the official toll though human rights activists say up to 750 died.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it wanted to see non-regional forces pull out from Central Asia once the task of combatting the threat of terrorism in Afghanistan was completed. "As this task is carried out, this military presence should be withdrawn from the region," the ministry said. "Fat, f*ing chance", replied General Myes.
#4
So true, Pappy. With Putputz and his ex-KGB (et al) Mafia Boyz in charge, Russia has grabbed itself by the throat and extinguished its golden opportunity, while the populace gorges itself on faux freedoms and childish idol worship.
Opportunities lost. No George W was available, methinks.
#5
Hang me as a leftie, but I think Gorbochev was actually their best chance. I think gradual change, which he had started, MIGHT have been able to expand freedom without transferring power entirely to a Russian mafia.
That's in the past. Sad to say, now their best chance may actually be Putin. For the forseeable future Russia faces at least as great an Islamofascist threat as we do, and will require ruthless and pragmatic leadership. I think that does describe Putin. Don't trust him, but as they say - the enemy of my enemy is my 'friend', and I suspect pragmatic Putin recognizes Islamofascism as a greater enemy than is the US.
#6
Not by me, Glenmore - credit where due: he saw the writing on the wall and didn't just talk about what to do, he acted. The man had the stones to do something. The reasons behind why he and the future of the Russian people were both swallowed whole are manyfold. Certainly, I think, they lacked 2 crucial elements: any avenue whereby an honest leader with a new vision could emerge and enough people in power positions with any integrity. Communism doesn't reward either, so they had been thoroughly bred out of the power hierarchy long before Gorby's epiphany. I disagree about Putputz, however, he is either a puppet or yet another power whore -- or both, IMHO. "Squandered" is the word that comes to my mind looking back over the time since Gorby and the day Yeltsin stood atop the tank. Sad.
#7
.com:
'Puppet' - could one get to his former KGB status as a puppet? Of whom, or what group?
'Power whore' - yep. And like any whore, will 'work' for the highest bidder - or the strongest pimp. My guess is he will recognize he has a better chance of negotiating power and legacy with the west than with the Islamofascists.
#8
Who? If I understand you correctly, then perhaps this will suffice as an answer...
I don't have a bunch of links at my fingertips for this, unfortunately, but we used to have a regular around the 'burg posting as "lex". He regularly commented that Putputz was a puppet. The power(s) controlling him? A vague thing, indeed, but clearly other KGB and the new "Mafia" types. lex's wife is a Russian, so I presume there was something behind his quite literate posts on Russia. I recall that Putputz wasn't that high-ranking in the KGB and a case could probably be made rather easily that he was the "face" that he and his cohorts put forward. It's not hard to imagine a bunch of KGB types, watching events unfold, realizing that they could take over if they played their cards right, and crafting a plan to do so.
If you don't buy it, okay by me. It makes as much sense as anything about Russia since the fall of the Soviet, I think. It's not like the KGB types who were left high and dry after the fall wouldn't be able to pull it off or disguise the nature and participants in the game. They were who they were and had all the means.
#9
BTW - I usually laugh at conspiracy theories because they fail one or more of the following:
1) The Bullshit Test - Does it just stink to high heaven? Is it likely from any known intelligent POV?
2) The Probability of Success Test - Could the parties involved find their own asses with both hands and an industrial strength flashlight? Are they likely capable of the acts?
3) The Follow the Money Test - Who really benefits?
A former KGB cabal passes all of the above, IMO, while most crap floated by various interests doesn't.
Is China's pit bull getting a little out of control?
A 72-year-old deputy in North Koreaâs Supreme People's Assembly in May applied for political asylum in South Korea from a third country, the Monthly Chosun reported. The magazineâs August edition published Sunday said the parliamentarian, who is using the alias Kim Il-do, is being questioned by the National Intelligence Service on his inside knowledge of the Northâs weapons development.
Kim reportedly told investigators North Korea had 4 kg of plutonium and manufactured a one-ton nuclear weapon, but added that North Korean scientists were doubtful about ability of the developed nuclear weapon. That was why, he said, the Stalinist country had been trying to make a miniaturized nuclear warhead weighing 500 kg, the magazine reported.
Kim testified he himself visited Taiwan to sell North Korean-built missiles, the monthly said. He also told investigators Pyongyang was developing small submersible boats and stealth uniforms that were difficult to detect on radar, while developing weapons for its 30,000-man Special Forces, according to the magazine.
Kim was to serve in the 11th Supreme People's Assembly from August 2003 to July 2008, working with the Maritime Industries Research Center under the Second Economic Committee, which is in charge of North Koreaâs munitions industry. The Research Center is said to be involved in the development and illegal sale of arms.
Kim, who graduated from Gyeongbuk Middle School in South Korea and defected to the North around the time of the Korean War, is said to have defected back leaving his family behind.
The NIS would not confirm the report, saying the government made it a rule never to comment on the status of defectors to protect both them and any family they leave behind in North Korea.
#1
...Well, they've had the mini-subs for years, the SKors captured one some years back, and at least a few have been sunk trying to infiltrate. The stealth uniforms...I dunno, that sounds like its right up there with the JDAM jammers the Russians sold Saddam.
But selling stuff to Taiwan? ABSOLUTELY believeable.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/17/2005 16:00 Comments ||
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#2
What kind of missile is the key question: Manpads, anti-tank missiles, RPGs, or SCUDs? I would believe nK offered to sell Taiwan knockoffs of ex-soviet tactical weapons. I'm sure they also mentioned their little sideline in SSMs, but the Taiwanese probably hastily declined...not that they probably weren't interested, but they wouldn't want to piss off the US.
#3
Why buy cheap NKor knock-offs of the original V-2 when you can buy American and get the best? Can't imagine that the Taiwanese are incapable of putting together a splendid tactical missile with a range of up to 500 km if they need it, whether they buy a turnkey system or assemble it from parts.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2005 19:31 Comments ||
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#4
"...visited Taiwan to sell North Korean-built missiles..."
Smells like disinformation. Kim Il-do, or someone else, is trying to damage North Korea's relationship with China.
Posted by: Neutron Tom ||
07/17/2005 19:42 Comments ||
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Steve, we've avoided in the past giving the Taiwanese "offensive" weapons. When we helped them with the FC-1 fighter it was under the understanding that it was to be a defensive system, and it was designed accordingly, as a short-range low-speed interceptor. (Then the mainlanders bought Su-27's...)
They could build surface-to-surface missiles out of their patriot-clones, putting a different warhead and guidance system on the same solid rocket motor... and they _have_ started building improved cruise missiles based on a heavily-modified harpoon clone. But those are smaller in scale and seen more as anti-shipping weapons.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/17/2005 21:01 Comments ||
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#6
I remember that Chaing Ching Guo responded to Carter's China moves by making some sort of moves toward the USSR so this would not surprise me.
Actually buying more than demo qtys of anything might surprise me.
#7
...someone else, is trying to damage North Korea's relationship with China.
Karl Rove is at it again! First he destroyed the New York Times credibility, then CBS, now this!! Is there ANYTHING the man can't destroy?!?!?!
(/sarcasm)
Germany's reform communist PDS party voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining forces with a new far-left party on Sunday and agreed to change their name to The Left Party for a general election in September.
The party, which pollsters forecast could win 12 percent of the vote, has the backing of about 30 percent in the formerly communist east and has moved ahead of the Christian Democrats as the most popular party in the region.
Delegates to an extraordinary PDS party congress in Berlin on Sunday supported the measure by 74.6 percent to easily clear a two-thirds majority requirement.
Members of the WASG party, a splinter far-left party led by former Social Democrat (SPD) chairman Oskar Lafontaine and based in western Germany, agreed last week by an 82 percent majority to the name change and merger of campaign efforts.
The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), successors to Erich Honecker's SED party that built the Berlin Wall and ruled Communist East Germany until its demise in 1989, has remained a political force in Germany's five eastern states.
"This is an extremely important chance for us," said Gregor Gysi, the charismatic leader of the PDS. "Who would have thought in 1990 that we would be part of a pan-German party that is left of the SPD? I have to admit I couldn't have imagined it."
The left-wing party wants to raise taxes on the rich and expand social services for low-wage earners.
Gysi, who was economy minister in the Berlin city government before quitting politics for a year after suffering a heart attack and undergoing brain surgery, said the new left party could have a major influence on German politics.
"I didn't know in 1990 how long the PDS would last," said Gysi. "This is a great triumph for us and I just hope we don't cock the whole thing up."
A colourful mixture of die-hard Marxists, punks, unemployed and the so-called "losers of German unification", the PDS is junior coalition partners in Berlin's city government as well as in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
But the PDS had been struggling in recent years, failing to make in-roads into the populous west because of its links to the former East German communists and ending up short of the five-percent threshold needed for seats in parliament in 2002 after clearing that hurdle in 1998.
In western Germany, a group of far-left rebels in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's SPD split from the party out of frustration with its drift to the centre and formed the WASG last year.
As they were unlikely to clear the five percent hurdle on their own, WASG leader Lafontaine and Gysi agreed last month to bring their parties together -- despite some initial hesitation among party members on both sides.
"There's a change in culture and this will expand our horizons," Gysi said. "That's what we want even if we are all a little bit fearful at the same time."
NOTE: I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio, the Highwaymen, and The Weavers, Pete Seeger's group. The Weavers were great folksingers. Unfortunately, as political commentators, they really had their heads up their collective asses. And don't let the 'victim of McCarthyism' meme throw you, Mr. Seeger has has a VERY long and profitble career. EFL's, RTWT.
Mike
For people with a particular taste in music, Pete Seeger is still a cultural icon. For too many others, mentioning his name gets a blank look and a question: "Is he related to Bob?"
Well, no. Pete (he insists on being called Pete) was one of the creators of modern folk music. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Songs that he wrote, helped write or helped make famous include "If I Had a Hammer," "We Shall Overcome," "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"
Music is not Pete's only legacy, though. As he puts it, he was a lefty. Actually, he was a member of the Communist Party USA in the 1930s and early 1940s, and he sang at Communist rallies and events.
Fifty years ago this summer, on Aug. 25, 1955, he became a target for the House Un-American Activities Committee, a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that was a creature of the Red Scare. HUAC called dozens of entertainers, politicians and businesspeople and grilled them about any contacts with communism.
Pete is 86. He's still a lefty, viewing with alarm the war in Iraq, dehumanizing technology and the power of oligarchies. He still lives on a mountaintop near Beacon, N.Y., that he and his wife, Toshi, bought 60 years ago. His singing voice is almost gone, but he's still performing.
And he's still happy to find an audience, whether it's a school full of kids or one inquisitive reporter who dropped in on Pete in Beacon, the day before his annual Strawberry Shortcake Festival.
Question: How did you learn that you had been called to testify?
Answer: I was standing out there in the parking lot of this little house and barn. A man parked and got out and said, "Are you Pete Seeger?" Handed me an envelope. Well, I opened the envelope and called out, "Toshi, they finally got around to me." I was just a little-known folkie.
Question: Why not simply answer the committee's questions?
Answer: This is what [my] lawyer told me. He said, if you answer about your own past politics you're going to have to answer the question, "Did you know so-and-so, who was a Communist?" and so on. And in effect I said, "I'll tell you anything you want to know about myself, but I'm not going to testify about anybody else."
Question: How did you become a communist?
Answer: I joined the Young Communist league in 1937 in college -- because Hitler was helping Franco take over Spain. And [Maxim] Litvinov stood up in the League of Nations â he was the Soviet representative in the League of Nations â and said all aggressors should be quarantined, that is, boycotted. He was talking about Japan in Manchuria, Italy in Ethiopia and Hitler and Franco and so on. Well, they just laughed.
Question: But didn't Stalin turn out to be one of the worst despots of the 20th century?
Answer: Well, when it comes to big ones. But there's bad ones all over. And, you know, for 50 years, the United States has helped control the politics of Latin America. And they have the School of the Americas, they call it, in Fort Benning, Ga. Training military â Latin American military men â how to torture, how to massacre, how to assassinate.
Question: But the U.S.S.R. really was an enemy of the U.S.A., yes?
Answer: Not necessarily. The communists claimed, I won't say they all believed it, that they would encourage revolutions all around the world. But the people of each country had to make their own revolution. It wasn't Soviet soldiers helping Mao Zedong take over China. They could applaud them and perhaps even help them. But they didn't likewise in Vietnam or Cuba.
Question: You refused to answer questions about Communist Party events that you had played at. What if the investigators today wanted to question someone they thought had performed at an al-Qaeda fund raiser?
Answer: That's an interesting thing. It's almost laughable. Anything is possible, though. I'd say, "If you are accusing me of that, I demand a trial with my right to question witnesses."
Question: As was true in the 1950s, these are fearful times. Are we living in more or less dangerous times than 50 years ago?
Answer: In some ways the danger is more now â the danger of misinformation being spread across the country in seconds. There's so much money behind the present administration, they can literally do anything they want. They can break up any one organization or any one person. What are they going to do about millions, though? Millions of good organizations. Millions of good little things.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/17/2005 15:00 ||
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Answer: I joined the Young Communist league in 1937 in college -- because Hitler was helping Franco take over Spain. And [Maxim] Litvinov stood up in the League of Nations â he was the Soviet representative in the League of Nations â and said all aggressors should be quarantined, that is, boycotted. He was talking about Japan in Manchuria, Italy in Ethiopia and Hitler and Franco and so on. Well, they just laughed.
That's not the whole story about Mr. Seeger's anti-fascist credentials. From Wikipedia:
As a member of the Old Left, Seeger is known for his communist political beliefs, formed before Nikita Khrushchev exposed the crimes of Stalin. Political opponents called him by pejorative names such as "Stalin's Songbird". His supporters called him "America's Tuning Fork" and "A Living Saint". (Zollo 2005) An example of Seeger's pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin attitude can be seen during the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the short-lived alliance between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. His anti-war record Songs for John Doe, released in 1941, where he called President Franklin D. Roosevelt a warmonger who worked for J.P. Morgan, expressed his displeasure about FDR's increasingly confrontational attitude with Nazi Germany. Like most members of the CPUSA, Seeger was opposed to any action against Hitler from the time of the signing of the non-aggression pact until it was broken by Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. After the breaking of the pact, Seeger along with the rest of the Almanacs, ordered all copies of "Songs for John Doe" be recalled and destroyed. Only a few copies exist to this day. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, Seeger returned to his earlier stance as a strong proponent of military action against Germany; he was drafted into the Army, where he served honorably in the Pacific...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
07/17/2005 21:31 Comments ||
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The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said Friday that peacekeeping troops had destroyed without using force six Rwandan rebel camps in the eastern province of Sud-Kivu on Thursday.
The UN peacekeepers, known as MONUC, said they issued an ultimatum to around 200 rebels in the camps, located in the bushy areas of Nindja. Rebels fled before UN peacekeepers came and set fire to their grass-thatched huts.
In Miranda, MONUC also urged another group of rebels to abandon their camps before Monday.
MONUC said the purpose of destroying the camps was to cut off the rebels' supplies and force them to join the UN-arranged plan to return to Rwandan.
BISSAU - Armed men early on Saturday tried, unsuccessfully, to attack the presidential palace and interior ministry in Guinea-Bissau, leaving one policeman dead and two injured, police said.
A coup attempt in subsaharan Africa. How unusual.
Has anyone seen Mark Thatcher lately?
The attackers, whose number and motives were unknown, were armed with Kalachnikov assault rifles, inspector general of police Bitchofla Na Fafe told AFP. They tried to enter the presidential palace and ministry of internal administration at about 5:00 am local time (0500 GMT), located about several dozen metres apart, but were met by police, he added. One policeman was killed in the exchange of shots, while two others have been seriously injured and taken to hospital, he said. Four attackers were arrested and are being held for questioning at the ministry of internal administration, he added. The four belong to a regiment of parachute commandos but no further information is available, the police official said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/17/2005 00:00 ||
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A court convicted a Nigerian woman of helping defraud a Brazilian bank of $242 million in the West African country's biggest international fraud case. Amaka Anajemba was convicted Friday, sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and ordered to give up $25.5 million in cash and assets â including houses in Nigeria, the United States, Britain and Switzerland â to help repay the bank.
"Off to Cell 419 with you! Hope you enjoy your first meal...Green eggs and Spam!"
According to court papers, Anajemba helped her late husband in a fraud ring that tricked a top employee of the Brazilian bank into siphoning millions to overseas accounts on the promise of $13.4 million kickback from a bogus Nigerian airport contract. In all, Banco Noroeste of Sao Paolo, Brazil, was reportedly fleeced of some $242 million over seven years until 2001. Four men have pleaded innocent in the case. Nigeria has earned global notoriety as a base for criminals arranging "advance fee" or "419" scams, named after the section of Nigeria's criminal code that prohibits the schemes. The Brazilian bank case is the biggest ever publicly disclosed in Nigeria. Among the best-known scams are e-mails proposing to share portions of dead African dictators' ill-gotten estates in exchange for an advance payment to help move the money overseas. Scammers keep the fees while victims, who are often reluctant to reveal their role in the scam, receive nothing.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2005 00:00 ||
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whoa wayte! thisn meen ima not haff my muney comin? :(
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.
RIYADH: A Pakistani man was beheaded in Saudi Arabia on Saturday after being convicted of beating a compatriot to death with a brick, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Zada Sowali was found guilty of murder and theft, the ministry said in a statement. Sowali fatally beat the victim several times over the head with a brick, the statement said. The murdered man's wallet was also found in Sowali's possession. It was unclear when the victim was killed. Sowali was executed in the northern city of Arar, bringing to at least 53 the number of beheadings in Saudi Arabia this year. Last year, 35 people were executed in the kingdom.
A court convicted a Nigerian woman of helping defraud a Brazilian bank of $242 million in the West African country's biggest international fraud case. Amaka Anajemba was convicted Friday, sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and ordered to give up $25.5 million in cash and assets â including houses in Nigeria, the United States, Britain and Switzerland â to help repay the bank.
