#3
Just wanted to point out that yesterday's Rantburg article ascribing a spot-on Obama-bashing editorial to the UK Daily Mail was in fact published in the Toronto Sun. The link for it is here, if you wanted to forward or post elsewhere.
#4
Thanks Bulldog. That article pretty much captures the essence of my thoughts on the election. I'm still quite puzzled as to how this enigma wrapped in riddle came to be. Like many Americans, it is very difficult for me to believe the numbers and percentages. I suppose I'm still suffering a bit of denial. I hope our beloved country survives this rediculous experiment.
#7
You do realize that both Teh One, and Abe Lincoln (Now known as the Obama prequel) are both tall, from Illinois, afflicted with annoying wives, and Republi...er.......tall
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/17/2009 10:29 Comments ||
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#8
I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks
Relieved Somalians spilled out into the streets in the war-scared capital in the thousands to celebrate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.
About 3,000 people from different districts marched through the streets on Friday waving twigs as a sign of peace chanting slogans appealing for peace and converged at the city's main football stadium, which only two days ago (till Thursday morning) was a base for Ethiopian troops.
Thousands of people were killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu alone by the Ethiopian troops who were backing the weak ruling UN-backed government.
The Council of Correction and Reconciliation, an influential group of Islamic clerics, not allied to any of the Islamic groups fighting for power in Somalia, had organized the Friday rally. Council head Sheik Bashir Ahmed Salad said that with the Ethiopians gone, Somalis should now focus on peace. "It is high time that all Somalis solved their differences through dialogue and in a peaceful manner,'' AP quoted Salad as telling the crowd.
First time for everything I suppose ...
Somali government had called in the Ethiopian troops in December 2006 to oust the Council of Islamic Courts, the umbrella Islamic group that controlled Mogadishu and southern Somalia for six months that year.
But the Somali people complained that the Ethiopian army was abusive and heavy-handed.
Sheik Abdiqadir Ali Omar, a member of the Council of Islamic Courts, called Friday for Islamic fighters to lay down their arms and help rebuild what has been destroyed. He added that the displaced people can now return home.
The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its intention to establish a UN force in Somalia, but put off a final decision for several months to assess the volatile situation and work toward strengthening the small African Union force deployed in the capital. The approved resolution renewed the mandate of the African Union force for six months and urged African nations to strengthen it from the current 2,600 to the 8,000 originally authorized.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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A notorious criminal was killed and four of his family members and an officer of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) were injured in a gun battle in South Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital early yesterday.
The deceased was identified as Abdul Quader alias Baro Miah Shahin, 30, chief of 'Baro Miah Shahin Group' in city's Shyampur and Jatrabari areas and hailed from Palashur village in Sirajdikhan upazila of Munshiganj.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of around 25 members of Rab-10 led by company commander Major Sazzad Hossain raided the house at Abdullahpur at about 3:00am to arrest Shahin.
At one stage, Shahin opened fire on Rab members prompting the elite force members to fire back. Shahin, wanted in 21 cases, including murder and extortion, was killed on the spot.
Major Sazzad received three bullets in his legs and face during the gunfight and was admitted to Combined Medical Hospital (CMH).
Shahin's one and a half years old nephew Yamin, Yamin's mother Kulsum Begum, 25, Kulsum's mother Noor Jahan, 45, and Yamin's maternal uncle Farid, 22, also sustained bullet wounds and were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) under the Rab custody.
Injured Farid told The Daily Star at DMCH that Shahin fired bullets from the house and Rab also retaliated the attack by firing bullets indiscriminately.
"All of us received bullet injuries during the gunfight. Shahin simultaneously used two firearms in two hands," said Farid.
Farid added that the family members requested Shahin to stop firing and surrender to Rab but he did not respond to their request.
Kulsum, wife of Shahin's expatriate brother, said Shahin and his wife Shahanaj came to their house two days ago to visit her. They were asleep in the veranda of the house when the Rab personnel came, she said.
Rab officials said they recovered one pistol, one revolver, 25 rounds of bullet and two knives from the scene of the battle. They also shown Shahin's wife Shahanaj who remains unhurt and Kulsum's brother Farid arrested.
Two cases were filed with the local police station.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Now chief of the "Dead Guy Group".
Posted by: Steven ||
01/17/2009 23:51 Comments ||
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PARIS: France's interior ministry says masked thieves who attacked a young man east of Paris to steal his car repeatedly stabbed him after noticing he was wearing a Jewish symbol.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has condemned the "revolting attack" in the suburban town of Fontenay-sous-Bois and says authorities are working to find the perpetrators.
The ministry said in a statement Friday that the attackers shouted anti-Semitic threats at the man as they stabbed him four times with a knife in the Thursday evening attack. It did not provide details on the man's condition.
Alliot-Marie has said France has experienced a clear increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks since Israel began an assault against Hamas in Gaza on Dec. 27.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Except there have been no anti-Muslim attacks except two unconfirmed ones. Read high suspicions they never happened.
Amid reports that militants had destroyed a house owned by the ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan in Madyan Chaktari area, 18 more people, including 12 militants and three security forces' personnel, were killed in different parts of the volatile Swat Valley on Friday.
A press release of the ISPR-run Swat Media Cell (SMC) claimed that 12 militants were killed and many others injured in a clash in Chamtalai area of Khwazakhela Tehsil. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Swat chapter leader Shah Dauran also claimed killing several security forces personnel in the clash. "Several troops were killed and five vehicles were destroyed in the attack," he claimed on his illegal FM radio.
The security forces later clamped a curfew in Khwazakhela and started shelling suspected hideouts of militants.
Similarly, two people were killed when unidentified gunmen started indiscriminate firing in Qambar area of Mingora Tehsil. The deceased were identified as Arsalan Khan, a retired ASI, and Shareef Khan, reportedly a relative of Shah Dauran, a TTP commander in Swat.
In another incident, unidentified gunmen dragged Ameer Zeb, a police constable, out of his house in Charbagh and shot him dead. Also, in Alamganj area of Khwazakhela Tehsil, a man identified as Dost Muhammad was killed when a mortar shell allegedly fired by the security forces hit his house.
Curfew remained enforced in Manglawar area for the third consecutive day.
Meanwhile, the militants destroyed a house owned by the ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan in Madyan Chaktari area.
The militants reportedly planted explosives in the house, completely destroying it. No loss of life was reported in the incident as the house had been abandoned by the family of Asfandyar Wali.
In another development, the building and premises of the district courts at Gulkada in Mingora were vacated after rumours of the presence of a suicide bomber there.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistan has bowed to international pressure and arrested at 124 militants suspected of involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai last November, including several of their leaders and officials.
The government on Thursday said it had closed five training camps and 20 offices belonging to banned charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the outlawed Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. It also announced it had banned their seven publications and blocked all their websites.
India holds LeT responsible for the Mumbai attacks and Jamaat-ud-Dawa is widely believed to be a LeT front organisation.
Addressing a news conference, the Pakistani prime minister's adviser on interior affairs, Rehman Malik, assured India that Pakistan would do its utmost to bring the people involved in the Mumbai attacks to justice. Unveiling details of a massive crackdown, Malik said that training camps had been closed down in Punjab and in Azad Kashmir.
Assuring India that sincere efforts were being made to bring to justice all the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, Malik urged New Delhi to provide Pakistani investigators with access to the scenes of the attacks and to jointly investigate the incident so that all those involved could be brought to justice.
He announced the formation of a special investigation team headed by an additional director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to examine, "without any prejudice", all aspects of the Mumbai attacks and the information provided by India. The team will include two officers with counter-terrorism experience.
"Information has been provided by India and we have formed an investigation team to reach the culprits," he said.
Malik said the members of the banned organisations who had been detained included their founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, LeT 'operations commander' Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Mufti Abdur Rehman, Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed and Ameer Hamza.
"We have arrested a total of 124 mid-level and top leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in response to a UN resolution - 69 from Punjab, 21 from Sindh, eight from Balochistan and 25 from the NorthWest Frontier Province," he said. "We have blocked six websites associated with the organisation and closed down its five relief camps," he added.
He said 20 offices, 87 schools, two libraries, seven seminaries and a handful of other organisations and websites linked to Jamaat-ud-Dawa had also been shut. The publications banned are Mujalatud Dawa, Zarb-i-Taiba, Voice of Islam, Nanhay Mujahid, Ghazwa and Al Rabta.
Malik did not say whether any legal proceedings had been begun against those detained in the crackdown.
However, sources told Dawn newspaper that the government was considering trying of at least three leaders of the banned groups wanted by India.
Rehman urged India to allow Pakistani investigation officials to visit the country. "India should wait for the results of the investigation. It will reveal all hidden truths. Pakistan and India need to sit together against their common enemy - terrorists," he said.
"We have to prove to the world that India and Pakistan stand together against terrorists," he said.
He reiterated that Pakistan had nothing to do with the attacks. "We condemned the incident on all platforms. Pakistan is also suffering at the hands of militants and that is worrying us."
Responding to a question, he said a joint investigation would "bring quick results".
He said India had handed over 19 pages of information which Pakistan is evaluating as evidence.
Malik ruled out handing over any Pakistani suspect to India. He said Pakistani laws allowed for prosecution of citizens who might have committed crimes elsewhere. He said results of the investigation being conducted by the FIA would be made public and nothing would be concealed.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel's security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which went into effect at 2 A.M. local time. [thats 700 pm EST 1-17-2008]
Olmert said that "if Hamas entirely ends its rocket fire on Israel, Israel will consider an IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip." If that did not occur, he said, "The IDF will continue to operate in order to protect our citizens."
Most rocket launching areas are now controlled by IDF, he said. [but Hamas is still able to launch about 20 rockets per day, some Grads]
"After three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, we are very close to reaching the goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements," Barak said during a visit to the south of the country, according to a statement from his office.
The decision means Israel has put an end to Operation Cast Lead without an agreement with Hamas, relying instead on the support of the United States and Egypt in battling arms smuggling into Gaza.
Israel said on Sunday it will be prepared to sharply increase the flow of food and medicine to Gaza if the unilateral cease-fire holds, but it ruled out fully lifting a blockade until captured Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit is freed. "If the quiet holds, there will not be any problem dramatically increasing aid like food and medicine. If this quiet holds, we will work with the international community for reconstruction," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert.
#3
Muqata:
2:19 AM Almost made it to bed, Israel breaks ceasefire as IAF hits rocket launcher about to launch from Northern Gaza. That didn't last very long at all.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/17/2009 22:18 Comments ||
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#4
Thanks for the information, Frank G.
But I continue not to be able to really trust Olmert & Co.
#7
Nineteen minutes? The ceasefire lasted for 19 minutes before HamAss tried to light one off? And I thought I suffered from poor impulse control. Wars end when one side loses the will to fight. Have at it, IDF.
Under the proportionality doctrine that we keep hearing about, the Israelis should be allowed to behead at least half of them, surely?
ISRAEL will allow Palestinians wounded during its 22-day-old war on Hamas to enter the Jewish state for treatment, according to a government statement.
"Within the framework of the humanitarian effort coordinated by the Government, an intensive care unit will be open tomorrow at the Erez crossing to treat injured Gaza residents," said a statement from the office of Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog.
"Under the agreements reached between Minister Herzog and the Red Cross, injured Gazans will be transported to hospitals in the country according to their medical condition," it said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was expected to announce a unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza war later today.
Israel again pounded Gaza yesterday, seeking to ratchet up pressure on Hamas to bow to truce efforts gathering pace in Egypt to end the deadliest assault the Jewish state has ever launched on the enclave.
Hamas's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal told an Arab meeting in Doha that it would not accept any ceasefire that did not provide for a full Israeli pullout and the opening of Gaza's borders, including the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Brave Lion of Islam™: told everyone off while in Doha ...
"I assure you: despite all the destruction in Gaza, we will not accept Israel's conditions for a ceasefire," he told an emergency Arab League summit shortly before Hamas was invited back to Cairo for a fresh round of talks.
Israeli envoy Amos Gilad returned from Cairo after further discussions of Egypt's truce plan as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni headed to the United States to sign an agreement on preventing arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.
Clamping down on the porous Gaza-Egypt border, where hundreds of underground tunnels form Hamas's main rear supply route, has been a key Israeli demand for ending the offensive that has killed more than 1,100 people in 21 days.
"We hope we're heading toward the end," government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP. "There is a lot of diplomatic activity and at the same time the military pressure on Hamas continues."
Visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon said that a deal on a truce appeared "very close" and that he hoped it could be sealed within a couple of days.
Calling Israel's offensive an "unprecedented catastrophe," Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad appealed for an immediate halt to the fighting. "Each passing hour means more people die," he said.
But a senior Israeli official told AFP that the government did not intend to lessen its military strikes in the impoverished territory. "The prime minister believes that the army should continue pressing Hamas in order to consolidate the gains made so far and guarantee that any ceasefire reached will be long-lasting," he said.
A day after Israeli raids set landmark buildings ablaze in Gaza's main city, the military hammered the territory with some 40 airstrikes against fighters, tunnels and a mosque suspected of being used as a weapons store, the army said.
Israeli tanks meanwhile withdrew at dawn from the Gaza City neighbourhood of Tal Al-Hawa, where heavy fighting the previous day levelled parts of the residential area and set a hospital ablaze. At least 23 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal Al-Hawa and elsewhere after medics rushed to the neighbourhood, the site of furious clashes that sent hundreds of terrified civilians fleeing for safety.
Israel says its offensive is intended to stop the rockets but Gaza militants have continued the fire on southern Israel, launching more than 700 rockets and mortar rounds during the assault.
This article starring:
Khaled Meshaal
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
That agreement with the US is toilet paper if they agree to open the border with Egypt and its all for nothing if they agree to a ceasefire before Hamas stops launching rockets at Israel. That will be seen as a loss.
I doubt Israel wants to be seen as losing 2 in a row, but I could be dead wrong about that. If they're as close to a ceasefire as this article makes it seem, then the Israeli leadership has already decided that they can accomplish what needs to be accomplished without being seen as winning.
But they could be dead wrong about that.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/17/2009 0:52 Comments ||
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#2
But they could be dead wrong about that.
Did you notice that amazing thing that Hizbullah did in the night?
#9
well, it's not like they have jobs or anything.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/17/2009 11:17 Comments ||
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#10
Hamass seems to think they're winning, and can dictate terms. Israel should NEVER give in. Conditions MUST be forced on Hamass, or there can be no peace - just another hudna. As for civilians - the "civilians" in Gaza gave power to Hamass - that makes them co-conspirators, and they should also be forced to plead for the right to continue to live. Israel should quit trying to be "nice", and go mongol on Gaza. They may be hated afterwards, but they're hated now, so what's the difference? At least if they pound Gaza into sand, the gazans will fear them and their wrath, and won't be quite so ready to try for round two. It's nice to be respected and loved. Some people, however, are incapable of that. In that case, it's better to be feared than treated with hatred and contempt.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/17/2009 13:41 Comments ||
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#11
Bertie - does your mommie know what you're doing with her computer down in her basement?
Better question: Did your mommie have any children who lived?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/17/2009 14:33 Comments ||
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#12
that explains the coathanger embedded in Bertie's head, huh? Mom was a failure too
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/17/2009 14:53 Comments ||
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#13
"Needs to be evaporated for good"
I think Bertie meant to say vaporized for good. Evaporated has multiple definitions i.e. remove moisture and leave a dry solid, which is what Israel is currently doing. Vaporized only has one meaning.
Ahhhh...too bad. In years past, the Yale scholarship used to be pretty credible.
Fresh Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have left 13 more civilians, including eight children, killed as the Palestinian death toll hits 1,170.
Tank shells killed a mother and her children in the central Gaza Strip refugee camp of Al Burej a Press TV correspondent reported.
In the meantime, Israeli helicopters fired two rockets into the Jablaia refugee camp in northern Gaza killing three children and their father.
Three Gazans were also killed in Israeli artillery fire in the Shejaeya neighborhood in eastern Gaza.
The Israeli army keeps pounding scores of targets in the Gaza Strip, despite street rallies in protest at Tel Aviv's attacks on civilians and condemnation of the war by a variety of different international organizations.
Israeli forces launched the attack on the Palestinian camp after they failed to break armed resistance in Gaza City and were forced to retreat earlier in the day.
Tel Aviv attacked the Gaza Strip on December 27, with the motto of 'self-defense' in response Palestinian fighters' rocket attacks on the southern Israeli town. The aggression has so far left more than 5,200 Gazans wounded.
Palestinian fighters in the costal sliver say they launch rockets in retaliation to Israel's blockade on the region which has been in place since June 2007 when the government of Hamas took charge of the strip.
The objective of Operation Cast Lead was formerly announced to be halting the rocket attacks but later, Israeli officials admitted that the main goal of the onslaught was to topple the democratically-elected government of Hamas.
However, after 21 days of non-stop bombardment of the Gaza Strip with conventional and unconventional weapons, Tel Aviv has yet to meet either of the objectives.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
The objective of Operation Cast Lead was formerly announced to be halting the rocket attacks but later, Israeli officials admitted that the main goal of the onslaught was to topple the democratically-elected government of Hamas.
#3
...the democratically-elected government of Hamas.
Technically, the German government in power 1936-45 gained power democratically too. Elections and parliamentary coalitions and the like. Eventually, there were more than a few other countries involved in toppling it. Most of whom sit around the UN Security Council today as permanent members.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was the target of a bomb plot on his first official visit to the country's troubled deep south Saturday, days after saying he would review controversial emergency laws permitting extended detention without trial.
Police said they defused a two-kilogram roadside bomb placed in Yala province apparently designed to be detonated as the prime minister and his party passed by. Villagers had earlier warned police about an unexplained iron box by the road which turned out to contain the bomb, reported the Bangkok Post.
Aphisit's Democrat Party controls most of Thailand's entire southern panhandle, including the majority Muslim Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces where separatist guerilla attacks are now a daily occurrence. Bangkok pundits have suggested the new government might be able bring the level of violence down to the low levels that existed in the late 1990s when the Democrats were last in power.
The prime minister admitted this week that the bloody jihad insurgency is a major headache for his new government. The war has been almost entirely confined to the deep south, but might yet spread north with alarming political and economic consequences, observers say.
Abhisit, accompanied by ministers responsible for development in the south and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, is to be briefed by officials and visit a 'task force for peace' and an experimental farm.
Abhisit told foreign reporters on Wednesday he would review emergency laws in operation since October 2005 that allow the security authorities to hold suspects without charge and give immunity to security personnel carrying out 'hard' policing. The law must be approved by parliament every three months. Human rights groups have criticized the laws as permitting brutal security operations that ultimately exacerbate a nasty civil war. Amnesty International last week accused previous Thai governments of turning a blind eye to routine torture. With nearly 45 per cent of Thailand's armed forces based in the three provinces there is a perception that the military have added to the problem, especially as they enjoy immunity under the emergency decree.
'My basic assumption is that you will never have reconciliation unless there is justice,' Abhisit said last week. 'The same principle applies to the South.'
(AKI/Jakarta Post) - A grenade exploded in front of a hotel in Peunayong in the Aceh capital of Muslim-devout Banda Aceh on Friday at approximately 6 00 am local time. The blast burnt out one car and damaged two others but noone was injured.
Banda Aceh Police chief Sr. Comr. Samsul Bachri said whoever threw the weapon has not been identified. "We have yet to determine the type of grenade. The North Sumatra forensics team is on its way here," he said, quoted by Antara news agency.
Bachri said one of the parked cars bore the logo of the Aceh Party, a local political party whose members are mostly ex-fighters from the former separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). "We are still investigating the motive for the blast," Bachri said.
Uppity Lutherans?
In September last year, a grenade was set off in front of that party's headquarters in the city. The police have yet to bring to justice the perpetrators of that incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/17/2009 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.
Relieved Somalians spilled out into the streets in the war-scared capital in the thousands to celebrate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. 
A notorious criminal was killed and four of his family members and an officer of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) were injured in a gun battle in South Keraniganj on the outskirts of the capital early yesterday.
Amid reports that militants had destroyed a house owned by the ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan in Madyan Chaktari area, 18 more people, including 12 militants and three security forces' personnel, were killed in different parts of the volatile Swat Valley on Friday.
(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistan has bowed to international pressure and arrested at 124 militants suspected of involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai last November, including several of their leaders and officials.
