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Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seen in new video for first time in five years
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
German police stumble upon huge stockpile of chemicals during routine call out
[TheLocal.DE] Police officers in the town of Preußisch Oldendorf, north of Bielefeld, stood guard outside the suspect warehouse on Monday, as investigators scratched their heads as to what the possible use of the dangerous substances could be.

A day earlier firefighters had discovered suspicious looking barrels during an operation at the address that had been triggered by a cable fire in the storage facility’s electric circuits.

Further inspection revealed that 35,000 litres of sulphuric acid, caustic soda and phosphoric acid were being illegally held in huge 1,000-litre barrels at the the 650-square metre unit. Some 50 propane bottles were also found at the site.

Experts trained in handling chemicals were set to arrive at the scene later on Monday to transport the chemicals to a secure location.

Two men were spotted fleeing the site in a large vehicle when firefighters arrived on Sunday. The warehouse’s owner has denied any connection to the crime, claiming that the legal tenant had sublet it to a third party without his knowledge.

Police have not yet given any further indication as to the suspected nature of the crime.

However, sulphuric acid and caustic soda are both used in the production of methamphetamines. The fact that the warehouse is located near the border to the Netherlands - a notorious hub in the production of chemical narcotics - is also likely to be more than just a coincidence.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/29/2019 04:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So maybe this is the reason for the multi-spectral instrumented drones.
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 4:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Dual use stuff destined for Iran...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/29/2019 8:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Might be as simple as off-books storage for tax-or-regulation evasion purposes. All of the named chemicals are ordinary, with thousands of industrial uses.
Posted by: Nguard || 04/29/2019 9:04 Comments || Top||

#4  with thousands of industrial uses.

Also quite useful in squirt bottles for random blinding face attacks. See UK Security Services are reportedly investigating #ISIS plans to carry out new attacks across the UK & Europe
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 10:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Yes. EC, explain how there's nothing to see here...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/29/2019 18:14 Comments || Top||

#6  Put all of that stuff in a pile and set it off with the gas canisters would create a pretty large blast radius and a lot of casualties.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 04/29/2019 18:15 Comments || Top||


Police: 8 shot, 1 fatally, in latest Baltimore shooting
BALTIMORE (AP) ‐ A gunman fired indiscriminately into a crowd that had gathered for Sunday afternoon cookouts along a west Baltimore street, killing a man and wounding seven other people, authorities and reports said.

Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the gunfire erupted after 5 p.m. on a block in the city’s western district of brick row homes. Harrison said a man approached a crowd on foot and began firing in what he called "a very tragic, very cowardly shooting." Speaking at the scene afterward, Harrison said the shooting appeared "extremely targeted," but he didn’t provide a possible motive.

The shooting comes roughly six weeks after Harrison’s swearing-in last month as Baltimore police commissioner, when he promised to make the city safer and lead the department through sweeping reforms required by a federal consent decree. It’s a daunting task in one of the country’s poorest major cities where there were more than 300 homicides in each of the past two years. Harrison is the city’s 14th police leader since the mid-1990s.

The commissioner said there were two cookouts taking place on opposite sides of the street Sunday, and that shell casings were found in two different locations, indicating that there may have been a second gunman, or someone firing back at the first shooter, who fled on foot. It was unclear whether the cookouts were related, Harrison said.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/29/2019 04:18 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Oxford University offers mock exams to help ‘snowflake' students overcome their anxiety about sitting real tests
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When times get tough the herd will get culled.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 04/29/2019 0:43 Comments || Top||

#2  it's time too cull a whole lot of these shitheads.how the hell they going too work a real job if they can't sit and take a test?
Posted by: chris || 04/29/2019 10:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Sheffield University warns students that exam stress may cause ‘unpleasant scenes or flashbacks from previous exams’ and ‘feelings of terror’.

So there I was, sitting in the Calculus 101 final. Explosions. Smoke. Screaming. Derivatives everywhere. Suddenly the TA yelled, "Charlie at the wire!" and I knew we were goners.
Posted by: SteveS || 04/29/2019 10:41 Comments || Top||

#4  So there I was, sitting in the Calculus 101 final.

Don't drink and derive.
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 10:56 Comments || Top||

#5  #4, TOO funny! Thanks for a good laugh on a Monday morning!
Posted by: Tom || 04/29/2019 11:14 Comments || Top||

#6  Gooks in the area under the curve!
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 04/29/2019 12:37 Comments || Top||

#7  Hunters for variables or pursuers of asymptotes, they all had gone out on that graph, bearing the slide rule, and often the eraser, messengers of the answers within the equations, bearers of a question from the teacher's assistant. What greatness had not been bounded on the function of that river into the mystery of an unknown answer! . . . The dreams of men, the small pebbles of math, the germs of empires.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/29/2019 12:39 Comments || Top||



-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Greywolf Brigade prepares to upcoming Korea rotation
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Guaido cancels western Venezuela rally after 'dictatorship' blocks route
[TWITTER]

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Ukraine’s President-elect responds to Putin’s proposal of offering citizenship to all Ukrainians with a statement that is likely to make the Russian President very angry
[TWITTER]

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ballsy.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 04/29/2019 8:40 Comments || Top||

#2  pass on the polonium sushi
Posted by: Frank G || 04/29/2019 9:33 Comments || Top||


#Russia’s nationalist politician Zhirinovsky was presented with a birthday cake in shape of #Ukraine by #Kremlin propagandists Skabeeva
[TWITTER]

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not a very good nationalist then.

Ukraine is not Russia.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 04/29/2019 6:24 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
China's pension crisis
[American Thinker] Welcome to First-World Problems
China faces the biggest pension crisis on the planet with its social security systems running out of money by 2035 and many provincial and business retirement funds already broke.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released a study estimating that China's main state-sponsored social security fund could be exhausted by 2035, or about the same year as actuaries for the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund estimate its fund will run dry.

But the more immediate problem for China is that nearly half of China's 31 provincial regions expect to report operating shortfalls in their basic pension funds by 2022, compared to six in 2015. Despite federal subsidies, the northeastern China rust belt province of Heilongjiang was forced in to begin delaying pension payments in July 2018.

Only about 17.3 percent of Chinese were 60 years of age or older in 2017, compared to 21.8 percent in the U.S. But due to China's population of 1.4 billion versus 326 million in the U.S., China had 240 million people age 60 or older, compared to 70 million in the U.S.
"Bring on the swine flu!"
Unlike the U.S., which experienced its baby boom in the 1950s and is currently in a retirement boom, China's biggest baby boom was during the 1980s and its retirement boom is approaching. As a result, the number of Chinese 60 and older will skyrocket to 300 million in 2025; 400 million in 2033; and 490 million by 2050.

The international accounting and consulting firm KPMG issued a white paper that estimated in dollar terms that China's state social security system without "significant" reforms would see its funding gap spike from $590 billion in 2017 to $1.1 trillion in 2025.

With 80 percent of workers employed by a state agency or state-owned enterprise through 1978, Chinese workers expected the communist "iron rice bowl" would provide guaranteed lifetime pensions payments, plus free healthcare and public housing. But with the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and collapse of international communist trading networks forcing China to open up its economy to competition, the state-owned enterprise sector had shriveled to just 15 percent of employment by 2017.

Mandated pension contribution rates for Chinese employers to state-run pensions are very high, but a 2018 survey by China's social-insurance information provider 51Shebao found that more than 70 percent of Chinese firms were behind on their social insurance contributions and only 27 percent of companies made full payments.
Posted by: Frank G || 04/29/2019 09:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  No problem, we can put 'em all on Calpers Social Security...
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 04/29/2019 10:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm afraid that intergenerational warfare is coming soon to a country near you.
Posted by: Tom || 04/29/2019 11:16 Comments || Top||


Beijing’s maritime militia, the scourge of South China Sea
[ATimes] China uses hundreds of fishing trawlers, manned by military-trained sailors and modified for ramming and spying, to seize islands

The shock troops of Beijing’s maritime empire-building are far more humble than the fleet of modern warships that paraded off Qingdao on Tuesday to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.

Even as President Xi Jinping was reviewing a sail-past of his new generation of guided missile destroyers and other modern warships, his equally potent small-boat navy was at work off the Philippines.

For two years, scores and sometimes hundreds of Chinese fishing ships have been harassing, swarming and spying on Filipino construction crews upgrading infrastructure on the island of Thitu, known as Pagasa in the Philippines. This is the second largest naturally occurring island in the Spratly archipelago, and is home to about 100 Filipinos and a small military detachment.
The Thitu confrontation is part of a much larger, long-running dispute between Beijing and Manila over ownership of islands and islets in the Spratly group and other South China Sea features such as the Scarborough Shoal and Mischief Reef.
Posted by: 3dc || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Apparent outbreak of African Swine Fever in North Korea
[DAILYNK] African Swine Fever (ASF) is on the rise in China and other areas in Asia recently, and the disease has now spread to North Korea, according to multiple sources inside the country.

ASF began to spread in the Hyungjaesan District, Sungho District and other areas on the outskirts of Pyongyang from mid-February and has led to the deaths of many pigs that had been raised by families.

When ASF began to spread, North Korean authorities prohibited the distribution and sale of pork from late February and there are still prohibitions on the sale of pork at markets and raising pigs.

North Koreans, however, are still selling pork at markets despite these restrictions.

"People are selling the pigs in the markets regardless of the what the authorities say," a a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK April 23. "There are a lot of people who are buying the meat of pigs that died of the disease and butchered pigs as well."

A North Pyongan Province-based source told the Daily NK that ASF struck pigs in Kusong starting in February. "The disease isn’t as bad as it was before...but the authorities are cracking down on the sale of pork at markets where it has spread," he said.

There are rumors among North Koreans that ASF is spread through the air.

"People think that the disease is spread through the air," said a separate Pyongyang-based source, while an additional North Pyongan Province-based source told the Daily NK that "there are rumors that wild boars are also infected so people think that ASF started with the wild boars and spread through the air."

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) stated in its Early Warning Early Action Report on Food Security and Agriculture released on April 15 that North Korea is a high-risk country due to ASF.

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  BBCSource:Supplied:
AN ESTIMATED 200,000 North Koreans are working overseas under slave-like conditions in a state-sponsored system that has raised up to $3 billion to finance the lifestyles of elites and nuclear development.
Posted by: Chereting Pelosi1889 || 04/29/2019 7:28 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't think ASF is transmitted to humans by eating swine flesh.

Does anybody know differently?
Posted by: lord garth || 04/29/2019 16:19 Comments || Top||


#4 
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 16:51 Comments || Top||


The Grand Turk
Suspected UAE spy arrested in Turkey commits suicide: State media
[Aljazeera] One of two men suspected of spying for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Turkey has committed suicide in prison, state media has said.

Turkey's Haberturk news website first carried the report on Monday, with senior journalist Cetiner Cetin, who broke the story, saying the suspect hanged himself in Silivri prison on Sunday.

The suspect's death was later confirmed by the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Al Jazeera's Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said Turkish authorities would investigate how he managed to kill himself as he was being held in solitary confinement.

"According to Turkish authorities, the two men were detained in mid-April, they claim they were Palestinian nationals and admitted to working on behalf of UAE intelligence," she said.

"Authorities believed that since relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt had been strained since the military coup in Egypt in 2013, those countries had been trying to build up a new system of intelligence gathering because of the situation."
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/29/2019 04:20 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Turkeycided like Khashoggi.
Posted by: JohnQC || 04/29/2019 9:42 Comments || Top||

#2  yeah shot twice in the back of the head
Posted by: chris || 04/29/2019 9:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Couldn't take the food.
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 10:36 Comments || Top||

#4  He was probably a Gulen supporter, too.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 04/29/2019 14:46 Comments || Top||

#5  and had the Lindbergh Baby
Posted by: Frank G || 04/29/2019 14:50 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Girl kidnapped 15 months ago found killed
[DAWN] TOBA TEK SINGH: A 17-year-old girl, who was kidnapped by her relatives over her engagement some 15 months ago from her village Chak 266-GB, was murdered allegedly by her captors.

The police tossed in the calaboose
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
the accused and exhumed the body from the room of an outhouse.

A first information report (FIR) registered with the Rajana police said Tahira Bibi, daughter of Ghulam Chiragh, was kidnapped in January 2018 by her cousins, Niaz and Shahbaz, and other relatives Allah Ditta, Iqbal and Imtiaz.

Recently, the Saddar assistant superintendent of police interrogated the accused and they confessed to killing and burying her in a room of their outhouse. The police exhumed the body on Saturday and shifted it to Rajana rural health centre for an appointment with Dr. Quincy.

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Police arrest 'quack' in Karachi after death of minor girl in clinic
[DAWN] Police on Sunday locked away
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
a suspected quack after a minor girl died allegedly after receiving an injection at his clinic in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
's Gulshan-e-Iqbal area late on Saturday night.

Gulshan Superintendent of Police Shahnawaz told Dawn that the held suspect and the family both told the police that the girl had been getting treated for pneumonia by the suspect doctor at his clinic located in block 13-D of Gulshan.

The girl's family had taken her to the clinic late Saturday night, where the suspect allegedly administered an injection to her, after which her condition deteriorated, police said.

On the suspect’s advice, the family took the girl to the nearby al-Mustafa Medical Centre in Gulshan, where she was pronounced dead.
He's dead, Jim!
on arrival.

Posted by: Fred || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Science & Technology
Henry's New Side Gate Lever Action Rifle
[Henry] In the past, we have always taken inspiration from the original 1860s-era Henry rifle by opting to design our firearms with a removable tube magazine. We’re no sticks in the mud though, and when loyal Henry customers ask, loyal Henry customers receive. Our Side Gate Lever Action offers up the best of both worlds with our standard removable tube magazine for safe and easy unloading and a side loading gate to keep the magazine topped off.

True to Henry form, the Side Gate Lever Action features exquisite attention to detail and a level of craftsmanship rarely seen in other modern firearms. The hardened brass receiver is as reliable as it is handsome with the same yield and tensile strength as steel. The brass accents continue through the rifle with the buttplate and barrel band. The American walnut furniture is set off by intricate, deep checkering that will ensure a firm purchase on the stocks. A semi-buckhorn rear and ivory bead front sight accompanies a 20″ round blued steel barrel to deliver the accuracy you’ve come to expect from a Henry.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/29/2019 04:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's right purdy!
Posted by: SteveS || 04/29/2019 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Nice! Couple rolls of quarters, but nice.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/29/2019 12:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Heathens, next thing will be powder which doesn't smoke.
Posted by: Bob Flolung5178 || 04/29/2019 15:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
MUST-SEE: Special snowflake screams in agony as cop pushes balloon out of her hand
10 seconds of Zen.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 04/29/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope you know it is not agony but a power strategy
Posted by: Spanky Whuter1088 || 04/29/2019 1:16 Comments || Top||

#2  OMG! That clip is from 2-3 years ago and still does not get old.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 04/29/2019 8:38 Comments || Top||

#3  I hope you know it is not agony but a power strategy

Good point, but what a pathetic strategy it is.
Posted by: Raj || 04/29/2019 8:58 Comments || Top||

#4  The clip is old. The cop is slick. Look again in his right hand. He pepper sprays her as he wipes across her face to the baloon. You will have to look closely. The cop is my hero!
Posted by: 49 Pan || 04/29/2019 9:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Left hand.
Good eye, Pan.
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/29/2019 10:54 Comments || Top||

#6  Snowflake meets an actual practitioner of controlled violence that escalated based on disrespectful behavior. In my day it was the nightstick sucker punch to the solar plexus. The innocent smirk of the cops face is priceless.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 04/29/2019 11:59 Comments || Top||

#7  he did spray her, good eye. right in the eyes :)
Posted by: 746 || 04/29/2019 12:15 Comments || Top||

#8  i just wonder if she learned anything that day
Posted by: chris || 04/29/2019 14:59 Comments || Top||

#9  She at least learned that pepper spray burns eyes.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 04/29/2019 15:15 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
23[untagged]
8Islamic State
4Commies
3Govt of Iran
3Taliban
2Arab Spring
2Abu Sayyaf (ISIS)
1Thai Insurgency
1TTP
1Govt of Pakistan
1Govt of Saudi Arabia
1Govt of Sudan
1Hamas
1Houthis
1Palestinian Authority

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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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2019-04-29
  Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi seen in new video for first time in five years
Sun 2019-04-28
  Father, brothers of alleged Sri Lanka bombing mastermind killed
Sat 2019-04-27
  Sri Lanka - Inside help?
Fri 2019-04-26
  Jihadists 'blow themselves up' as soldiers raid suicide vest factory in Sri Lanka
Thu 2019-04-25
  Trump says sending ‘armed soldiers’ to US-Mexico border
Wed 2019-04-24
  Saudi Arabia beheads 37 for terrorism crimes, most of them minority Shiites
Tue 2019-04-23
  IS claims Sri Lanka blasts
Mon 2019-04-22
  Sri Lanka explosions, 24 arrested, 290+ dead, 8 kabooms
Sun 2019-04-21
  3 churches bombed at Easter services in Sri Lanka 262 Dead
Sat 2019-04-20
  Woman killed after shots fired during violent riots in Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Fri 2019-04-19
  Islamic State Declared A New Wilaya In Africa
Thu 2019-04-18
  German Police Arrest Man Suspected Of Recruiting ISIS Members To Syria
Wed 2019-04-17
  Houthis in Yemen introduced a new airburst ballistic missile that spreads 14,000 pieces of shrapnel over a large area
Tue 2019-04-16
  Violence and dozens of arson attacks in Copenhagen after anti-Islam politician throws Koran in migrant neighbourhood
Mon 2019-04-15
  Notre Dame Cathedral is burning

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