With the presidential election potentially riding on Mondays foreign policy debate, the White House is denying a New York Times report that the Obama administration has for the first time agreed to one-on-one talks with Iran over its nuclear program. .
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement that the White House is open to talking one-on-one with Iran to find a diplomatic settlement to the impasse over Tehran's reported pursuit of nuclear weapons, but there's no agreement now to meet.
"It's not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections," the statement said. "We continue to work with the P-5 (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council) on a diplomatic solution and have said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally."
The Iranian nuclear threat has been a recurring theme in the presidential campaign with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney accusing President Barack Obama of being weak on Iran.
The New York Times cited Obama administration officials on Saturday as saying that the agreement "in principle" was the result of intense, secret exchanges between the two countries that date back to the beginning of President Obamas presidency.
The report is almost certain to be a topic of discussion at Monday's third and final presidential debate dealing with foreign policy in Boca Raton, Fla., according to political analysts, who tell Newsmax that the race was already likely to come down to a referendum on the president's foreign policy.
Republican strategist Bradley A. Blakeman tells Newsmax that if true, the U.S.-Iranian negotiations marks another stain on Obama's foreign policy record and runs counter to Israel's position concerning one-on-one negotiations.
"This tells me that Iran would like nothing better than to have another four years of Barack Obama," he said. By entering into negotations with the U.S., Iran would potentially gain more time to "continue through with their aim for a nuclear weapon and to continue their mischief in the region," he said.
The Times' article noted that some U.S. officials have expressed similar concerns and that Iranian officials have also sought to broaden the discussion to include the Syrian uprising and other issues.
Weve always seen the nuclear issue as independent, an unnamed administration official told the Times. Were not going to allow them to draw a linkage.
It was unclear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to the report, but in his Sept. 27 speech to the U.N., Netanyahu warned that Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb by next summer.
He called on the world to draw a clear "red line" to stop Iran and he referred to a diagram showing the progress Iran has made, adding that "Nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran."
Netanyahu has repeatedly argued that time is running out to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power and the threat of force must be seriously considered.
Vietor said Saturday that Obama has made clear that he will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and will do whatever's necessary to prevent that from happening. Vietor said Iran must come in line with its obligations or face increased pressure.
"The onus is on the Iranians to do so, otherwise they will continue to face crippling sanctions and increased pressure," Vietor's statement said.
Despite unprecedented global penalties, Iran's nuclear program is advancing. Western nations fear the Islamic republic is determined to develop nuclear weapons and fundamentally reshape the balance of power in the Middle East. That would pose a grave threat to Israel. Iran says its program is for peaceful energy and research purposes.
Obama has said he'll prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He hopes sanctions alongside negotiations can get Iran to halt uranium enrichment. But the strategy hasn't worked yet. Obama holds out the threat of military action as a last resort
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
21:07 ||
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#1
In the near-term, Iran will prolly keep one or two bombs for Nuclear TerrorOps agz Washington DC + Tel Aviv iff Benji's Boyz do attack - IMO the rest will kept in reserve for use on Iranian soil agz invading enemy ground forces at the beachhead or airhead.
The more time Iran has, the more Weapons-grade NucMats andor de facto NucBombs/Warheads it can accumulate, + the MilPol Options it will have agz the US-Israel-Allies. Its already launching indigenous satellites into orbit, so technically speaking it has the LRBM delivery sys already.
8 IIRC FREEREPUBLIC > NEW POLL = indics that ordinary Egyptians want GOOD RELATIONS WID SHIA IRAN, + also for EGYPT TO HAVE ITS OWN NUCWEAPS.
ADVANTAGE = IRAN + RADICAL ISLAM.
Iran BFF Nuke Pakistan in front of the USN in the Persian or Arabian Gulf, Nuclear Egypt in the US' rear, Hezbollah, etal. on upper flank.
Not counting Russia + China.
Besides China, IRAN has begun making DIplomatic, Econ overtures to both MYANMAR + BANGLADESH, espec vee POSSIBLE MYANMAR NUCPROG.
#2
WAFF > IRAN BRAGS ABOUT ADDING [anti-Ship/Naval] CRUISE MISSLES TO ITS FLEET OF COMBAT SPEEDBOATS | [Business Insider] IRAN JUST DROPPED A BOMBSHELL ABOUT ITS SPEEDBOAT PROGRAM: THEY'RE NOW EQUIPPED [armed] WID ANTISHIP CRUISE MISSLES, which can be fired at targets while at high speeds.
These speedboats can repor also fire Rockets + be converted into surface attack Naval Drones.
IIRC, OTHER NET ARTICS = the same can also assist in anti-SUb hunting.
* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US NAVY, ALLIES FAIL TO FIND HALF OF [practice] SEA MINES, during recent Persian Gulf NAVEX includ MINEX.
US-led Airborne invasion aside, + given Iran's clear reluctance to detonate Nukes-WMDS on its own soil AMAP despite the rants of the Mad Mullahs, methinks its safe for the USDOD + NAVCENTCOM to presume that, in any anti-NucProg US-led ground invasion of Iran, US Gator Boyz + allied will likely be met at the beachhead or else attacked in their ships while far offshore or nearshore, as soon as Iran can detect them.
"ATTACKED" also read, NUKED or OTHER WMD.
Iran's focii in this scenario would be to MINIMIZE CASUALTIES AMAP TO THEIR OWN TROOPS, CIVILIANS AS CAUSED FROM THEIR OWN COUNTER-ATTACKS, hence offshore sea attacks AFAP ALAP or at worse in beachhead.
New satellite imagery released by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) shows some changes at a military site of great interest to the UN nuclear watchdog.
The watchdog, or IAEA, suspects that Iran carried out explosives tests at the Parchin site back in the early part of the decade, tests consistent with the construction of a nuclear weapon. Iran denies that its nuclear program has a military dimension, but it will not let inspectors into Parchin.
In a satellite photo from August released by ISIS, visible is the structure where the explosives tests were believed to have been carried out, covered by a tarpaulin. In a September photograph, released today, the tarpaulin is off. The photograph is not evidence of an explosives test, but it is suspicious, given the IAEA has been asking for access to Parchin, and Iran will not let its inspectors in.
According to ISIS, the activity at Parchin has been going on for months. It is difficult to determine the scope and nature of the ongoing activity. Alterations to this site, for all intents and purposes, have to be seen as clean-up operations with the intent to degrade or eliminate the IAEAs ability to examine the site.
David Albright, head of ISIS, says that given the tests took place so long ago, the Iranians would have had plenty of time to sanitize the site, making the recent flurry of activity all the more curious.
Yesterday, speaking at Chatham House in London, Yukiya Amano, the director general of the IAEA, noted that there has been intensive activity at the site, but Parchin is not the only problem.
We have identified 12 areas that we need clarification. We cannot draw conclusions at this stage, but it is very obvious for us: We need to seek clarification from Iran, and as Iran continues to say that all the activities are of a peaceful purpose, it should be in the interest of Iran itself.
Parchin is one of those 12 areas. The others include issues about procurement of materials that could be used for a nuclear weapon, documents about warhead design, and various other experiments believed to have gone on, most of them many years back, consistent with nuclear weapons work.
Amano and his inspectors have had many discussions with their Iranian counterparts to come up with a way to get those questions answered.
They agreed on some sort of formula, but the Iranians now are refusing to go forward.
Amano was asked how long the world has to get the answers it needs. He would not be drawn, saying there were all sorts of different estimates and that it is not his job to do those sorts of calculations.
Meanwhile, at ISIS, officials are concerned that at least the story of what happened at Parchin will never be known. The text accompanying the photographs states, It is increasingly difficult to believe that an IAEA visit will yield any significant breakthrough in the inspectors efforts to find answers to the military dimensions of Irans program.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
20:39 ||
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Obama For America took out a $15 million loan from Bank of America last month, according to the campaign's October monthly FEC report. The loan was incurred on September 4 and is due November 14, eight days after the election. OFA received an interest rate of 2.5% plus the current Libor rate.
Warren Buffett, Obama donor and namesake of the infamous "Buffett Rule," invested $5 billion in Bank of America last year in an effort to help the ailing financial institution. Last month, two weeks after OFA took out the loan, Bank of America announced a plan that would lay off 16,000 workers by the end of the year.
Obama has a complicated relationship with Bank of America. The bank contributed $20 million toward the cost of the Democrat National Convention earlier this year. Bank of America stadium, home to the Carolina Panthers, was supposed to host Obama's acceptance speech. At the last moment, the campaign switched to a significantly smaller venue. The campaign claimed that an impending storm would not allow the President to deliver his address. Many questioned whether move was made because the campaign was having trouble filling such a large stadium. Being an urban type chap, wide open spaces, even a large stadium, must make O uncomfortable.
It is unclear why the first $1 billion campaign needed an extra $15 million for the final two months of the campaign. Massive transfusion to save a hemorrhaging patient? Obama, the DNC and OFA together raised well over a billion dollars, and they're broke. I'd suggest the vendors demand cash...
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/20/2012
19:36 ||
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#1
Wonder if Treasury has shut off the tracker of funds outgoing just as the O Campaign shut off the cc tracker for incoming?
This week, MSNBC star Chris Matthews made the following statement, clearly speaking out of frustration as he watched President Obama wilt under the scrutiny of the second presidential debates where he was challenged repeatedly by Republican Mitt Romney.
I dont think he understands the Constitution of the United States Hes the president of the United States. You dont say, youll get your chance.
Chris Matthews was angry with Romney challenging the president on his record during the course of an election to unseat him.
Imagine that.
Matthews should be angry about the presidents poor performance not with Romneys tenaciousness in seeking the truth.
#1
Keep these guys making stupid statements like that and broadcasting them. It is revealing of the whole O campaign and his water carriers. That is part of their playbook. And, even for rational people, it can be a source of innocent merriment.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/20/2012 19:44
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So it is unconstitutional for Romney to practice freedom of speech. Also apparently the constitution makes the president beyond question or criticism.
Back-to-back kabooms in a crowded Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... market near a revered Shiite shrine killed at least 11 people Saturday, officials said, shattering days of relative calm in the Iraqi capital.
The bombings, which happened within about a minute of each other, appeared aimed at intimidating Iraq's Shiites, who are a frequent target of Sunni krazed killers.
The blasts struck about 500 meters (yards) from a shrine where two revered imams are buried, damaging nearby shops and buildings, according to police, who confirmed the casualty figures.
The attacks came as many shoppers were out buying new clothes in anticipation of the Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins in about a week.
"It was a busy time for shopping, so there were a lot of people around," said Ahmed Naseer, the owner of a stationary shop nearby. "When I came out, I saw burning carts and merchant stalls, and children crying and women screaming out of fear. The whole place was full of panic."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
12:33 ||
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The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation, and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya.
The circumstances of the Sept. 11 attack have become a matter of heated political debate, with President B.O. and Republican nominee Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. More to the point, he isn't President B.O... clashing in their debate Tuesday about when Obama termed the assault an act of terrorism. But the emerging picture painted by intelligence officials and witnesses differs from the assertions of both sides.
Republicans have zeroed in on possible Al Qaeda ties to the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, and have criticized the B.O. regime for not saying early on that it was an act of terrorism. But after five weeks of investigation, U.S. intelligence agencies say they have found no evidence of Al Qaeda participation.
The attack was "carried out following a minimum amount of planning," said a U.S. intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter still under investigation. "The attackers exhibited a high degree of disorganization. Some joined the attack in progress, some did not have weapons and others just seemed interested in looting."
A second U.S. official added, "There isn't any intelligence that the attackers pre-planned their assault days or weeks in advance." Most of the evidence so far suggests that "the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" earlier that day, the official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
12:31 ||
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#1
American officials now say there was no protest in Benghazi, only the attack, which began at 9:40 p.m. and continued at a second facility into the next morning.
Not Al Qaeda, boy scouts then? Who cares! Appears to have been plenty of time available for a relief force to arrive.
#2
No attribution, no documents, just a blending of what is known and surmised in a manner that makes Champs stupid deceit seem plausible. Gee what were the odds that this twaddle would appear just in time to be spread arounf by the MSM to prop up the worst, most corrupt and foolish President in the history of the Republic?
#4
Yes, and my guess, just a wild guess mind you, is Iranian Intelligence. Note the delay in FBI investigation ? Bad guys given plenty of time to scram.
#6
Yes, we've had something of a bad run with Iran and US missions abroad over the years. Glad we gave the Qods (or whomever) ample time to leave the AO. Wouldn't want to upset any.... meaningless nuclear negociations by securing prisoners, EKIA, captured documents, or DNA. [sarc off]
#7
WaPo is pushing the same
drool except the print version of the article on the front page this morning suggested Romney is a dolt for believing it was not spontaneous.
Krauthammer, however, says Mittens is ready to hammer O on the subject of Libya at the next debate.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/20/2012 14:27
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#8
I agree with Pappy .. it's hard to believe that Iranian agents did not have a link to this. And I am still skeptical about the lack of ties to AQ.
But ... suppose the USA had started hitting AQ targets in N. Africa as SOON as the embassy was destroyed. What could possibly be wrong with that response - we may as well use the incident as a trigger to get some AQ bases removed. It could only have helped. The lack of response afterwards has seriously damaged our standing on the streets of Arab countries.
#9
Gee, this doesn't mesh with the MinTruth story. "The White House now says the attack probably was carried out by an al Qaida-linked group,..". Just can't get their stories straight.
Time beyond hinting that if the Trunks win, the WH Press office will be a might smaller since there is no need for multiple Donks with Bylines to have access. Time to play the Chicago game!
#10
In ref to Raider's #8. Had selected strikes been undertaken as he mentioned, the resulting chatter would have necessitated the immediate erection of tentage and a huge expansion of dedicated 24x7 analytic support at Fort Meade. We never miss an opportunity, to miss an opportunity.
#12
"No evidence" - except for that pesky Al Qaeda flag that the attackers erected over the conquered Consulate. But - that was a pretty subtle point, so I can understand how they might overlook that ....... not.
#13
re #7: Sorry, but I fully expect Mittens to leave that meat on the tableas he has the other two debates. Could have made a meal of the stimulus and all the green energy that is titzup, the Gm bailout and how much that continues to coest, but for whatever reason, i pulls his punches. i fear the next one will be more of the same.
The crisis in Leb following the liquidation of Beirut's top police official appeared to be deepening as the prime minister, Najib Mikati, announced his cabinet would resign as soon as a caretaker national unity government could be formed.
General Wissam al-Hassan was one of 10 people killed and more than a hundred maimed on Friday after a car boomwent kaboom! in a cramped middle-class Christian neighbourhood in central Beirut. The kaboom rocked the Sassine Square area just after 3pm, leaving windows shattered and broken glass littering the streets.
The killing of Hassan has followed months of rising tension as Leb has been drawn ever deeper into the conflict in neighbouring Syria whose government has been blamed for the murder.
Hassan was a key investigator for the Special Tribunal for Leb (STL), the international investigation into the 2005 liquidation of another former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, and several other bombings that the Lebanese street has blamed on the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad.
Tensions between the pro-Syrian government and an opposition that is openly backing the rebels in Syria's 18-month civil war have steadily risen over the past year and the death of Hassan, a Sunni, left supporters around the country calling for a national strike and retaliatory violence against the Shia beturbanned goon group Hezbollah and its allies in the government. Hezbollah denied that it was behind the blast.
Gangs of angry protesters erupted into the streets on Friday night, blocking roads, burning tyres and calling on the government to resign. As protesters demanded justice and Dire Revenge™, Hezbollah and its allies began deploying their gunnies to the streets to protect Shia neighbourhoods from Dire Revenge™ attacks by infuriated Sunnis.
Immediately after Hassan's liquidation, the ruling coalition, led by Hezbollah, announced that it would block any attempt to transfer jurisdiction over the investigation into the car booming to the STL, a move that prompted Mikati to announce that his cabinet would resign as soon as a caretaker national unity government could be formed.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
12:24 ||
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Some questions just kind of answer themselves, you know?
There are no mass demonstrations outside the Syrian embassy in London. The story is rarely on the front page or on the TV bulletins. Even when there is a shocking atrocity, such as the Daraya massacre of up to 400 people in August, it makes only a fleeting impact.
It's not as if this is par for the course, that we never get exercised by the loss of innocent life in the Middle East. We do. Nearly four years ago Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, designed to halt Hamas rocket fire from Gaza. For nearly a month that story was never off the front page, and it often led the TV news, here and around the world. There were large and loud public demonstrations. The DEC set up a fund and sought to air a televised appeal, famously refused by the BBC. Of course, if the columnist -- one of the Guardian's regular nitwits-- really wanted to make his point he would ask about how the media covered the thousands of rockets fired into Israel.
Anxious for answers, I called Lindsey German of Stop the War, who told me the organisation was not active on Syria because that "isn't Stop the War's job". Its focus is on what "Britain and the US are doing". "'Cause when Americans kill somebody, that guy is completely dead. But when Mooslims kill somebody, they're only mostly dead. See my point?"
Why, then, was it so vocal on Gaza? Because the west "was very much in support of the Israelis, so it was very different". She adds that the Palestinian question "has its own dynamic, which isn't true of any other country". The real fun is in the comments, where the Guardianistas wrestle with this vexing question. You only have to read about 20 comments down for the US to be blamed for Syria, and as for Israel...
Posted by: Matt ||
10/20/2012
11:19 ||
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#1
No one cares when its all done withing the community whether its Syria or as in Iraq or for that matter Chicago. There's no way to sell guilt to garner or leverage power over other groups/communities.
#2
For people like Lindsey German, the difference is simple: the U.S., Britain and the West (except themselves) are evil, whereas the Syrians and North Koreans are just misguided.
See the difference?
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/20/2012 13:14
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#3
Dresden.
First, better and cheaper. We invented evil.
Remember that.
#5
Perhaps we could park an entire fleet of ships at the Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain over the upcoming holidays (carriers excluded of course) and hope for the best.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is demanding answers from four senior United States military officers about whether there was advance warning of terrorist threats and the need for greater security prior to last months terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
However, an aide to the chairman, Rep. Howard Buck McKeon, (R., Calif.), said the office of secretary of defense Leon Panetta blocked the senior officers from providing the answers last night.
The chairman is disappointed that the administration wont respond to this basic request for information, the aide said.
It is nearly unprecedented that the office of the secretary of defense would prohibit a member of the uniformed military from answering direct questions posed by the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The chairmans letters are dated Thursday. They were sent to Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, which is responsible for military activities in Africa; Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command; Vice Adm. Kurt W. Tidd, director for operations at the Pentagons Joint Staff; and Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
McKeon asked the officers to provide answers to questions about security threats by the close of business Friday.
#2
Panetta needs to be on every Sunday talk show, this week and next week, trying to explain why the HASC is not entitled to question active duty military officers, without civilian interference.
#3
"Let me be clear! It was a spontaneous, yet well-planned, response to a terrorist youtube-related attack on Mohammed"
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/20/2012 11:36
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#4
Technically speaking, only someone subject to the UCMJ can prefer charges against someone else subject to the UCMJ. Panetta can't subject anyone to the UCMJ, he has to use a lack, like say CJCS. Cause any commissioned officer can submit their resignation/retirement papers and like the former DoJ attorney, appear before Congress and answer questions. Of course that takes integrity which a lot of the uniform political appointees surrender for the job titles.
#5
So the question Romney needs to ask in Monday's debate is: Mr. President, what are you hiding?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/20/2012 12:19
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#6
I believe Panetta has just issued a phueching illegal order!
In a post yesterday I asked "who have we not heard from, yes, the Department of Defense". Well, here it is, per usual....on a Friday.
Congress knows this is a presidential cock-up of the first order, and they know who would have recommended an extremis force or NAO (Non-Combatant Evacuation) mission on a poorly secured consulatte. They also know who would have failed to provide the leadership and the go ahead.
The onion continues to be peeled.
"Watergate was very bad and resulted in the resignation of a sitting president, but no one died".
Charles Krauthammer
#8
Just to add an important tidbit, while Ambassador Stevens had $4.00 per hour, unarmed Libyan Security Guards to augment a very small State Department RSO staff, in Libya, where there were repeated, active threats and acts of violence, Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Staff Advisor to the President on "assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs" has SIX full time Secret Service Agents assigned to her in a 24/7 protection detail, a mission never before offered to staff in that role. Read the article to see what the Commander-in-Chief really thinks is important. Caution, it will make you angry!
#10
If congress can call the SECDEF to testify, surely they can call up anyone under him. You may be correct Pappy, but my sensing is, it's an illegal directive or order. The flag officers mentioned, clearly have a grasp on ground truth. Panetta is simply trying to 'run the clock out'.
#13
Besoeker said: "Panetta is simply trying to 'run the clock out'. "
Insightful, my friend.
As soon as the Nov election is decided - the USA-Israel-Iran nuclear issue is going to raise its head in a major way. I don't know what the President will ultimately do. But I doubt seriously that Netanyahu will sit on his hands for very much longer. And when the next ME war erupts ... the whole Libya incident will be completely forgotten.
#14
There is some open source RUMINT that Champ's so-called "October Surprise" may be ongoing secret negociations which will result to a US/Iranian deal on nuclear weapons development. The disclosure of Iranian intelligence involvement in the Benghazi consulate attack would certainly queer the pudding.
#15
Whether or not it's a wise thing to do is another story.
Like they sez: it's the cover what gets ya.
As for RUMINT, Wretchard was floating the idea the Oct Surprise was a trade: one ambassador for the islamo-sheik Morsi wanted sprung. That's why no one got worked up about the attack/demonstration, which sadly went awry.
#17
a post-election Romney request for mass-retirement of political jackasses from the DOD, DOS, DOJ, DOE, EPA, CIA, .... is in order.
Root out these bastards
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/20/2012 16:58
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#18
I've been amazed over the years, the questioning minds and analytic scenarios that surface on this blog. One might suppose it's not the first rodeo for many here. I am quite umbled to be in such company, if only digitally. :-)
#19
I must leave you now. Time for my evening duties; Driving Ms. Besoeker to dinner someplace or other. The granite tops will not be littered this late, someone else will fix.
#20
Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Staff Advisor to the President on "assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs" has SIX full time Secret Service Agents assigned to her in a 24/7 protection detail, a mission never before offered to staff in that role.
Because, my friends, there has never been an assistant to the president who actually controlled the president. The guy she's 'assisting' is only a puppet.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/20/2012 17:21
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#21
And remember, since somewhere around Sept 17, Romney/Ryan are being "read" in on the Security Briefings... Gotta mean something....
#22
Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Staff Advisor to the President on "assistant to the president for public engagement and intergovernmental affairs" has SIX full time Secret Service Agents assigned to her in a 24/7 protection detail
She needs them to keep the animal control officers at bay.
Seriously Valerie is Obama's minder. She is the one who always advised against taking Bin Laden out. I wouldn't put it past her to have advised him to leave the Ambassador's ass hanging in the wind so that we have an excuse to leave that part of Libya to Al-Qaeda, further demoralizing our diplomatic corps and military.
#25
Driving Ms. Besoeker to dinner someplace or other. The granite tops will not be littered this late, someone else will fix.
Good for you B. I, on the other hand, after having been accused of guzzling the last of the Kaluha, even the stash in the RV, had to prove to Spousal Unit that that was not so. My dinner tonight consists of hot tongue and cold shoulder.
But at least the Kaluha is safe.
#26
While attention is focused on who knew, when did they know, and why were we lied to, it seems that no one cares about the egregious failure of this administration to come to the aid of Americans under mortal attack by hordes of terrorists .The attack was monitored real time both audio and video for most of the attack.We had military assets less than an hour away which could have destroyed the attackers in minutes from 10000 feet,Did no one lift a finger to repel the savages and save our fellow Americans?How disgraceful.
Get to the bottom of the lies and misdirections by all means, but keep in mind why they died. Their fellow citizens who had the knowledge and the power to save them, and whose sacred trust it was to come to their aid. did nothing to help them.
Losing the election is not sufficient justice for everyone involved, for every coward who dared not speak, who worried more about chains of command and overfly permission and their careers.For the sake of the Republic and the safety of generations to come, an example of the fruits of cowardice and political correctness should be established now.
Sincerely
John Morrissey
Edina Mn 55436
#27
A new and much more dangerous October Surprise is now being calculated and calibrated by Pharaohs 6 NOV victory crew.
Theyll be assiduously and satanically working with Iranian leadership to miraculously negotiate non-proliferation talks with the dinner jacket to temporarily suspend their nuke development projects. Hell also cajole the 12th imam to stay down in the well for a few more months as Team Zero loots our Treasury (broke) scouring for a fat RDTE seed money down-payment to restart.
SURPRISE! (Psst..never happen).
Champ's Joe, not Rantburg's Joe, though our Joe is both more entertaining and better spoken...
Down-home and laid-back, Joe Biden has been traveling the country saying what few politicians could about their opponents, for better or worse. Mitt Romney is "etch-a-sketchy," the vice president said this week.
Last month, he told a Hispanic audience: "Romney wants you to show your papers, but he won't show us his." Funny, Joe. Did you boss ever show his papers?
Biden has a long history of edgy verbal blurts -- in 2007, he described then-Sen. Barack Obama as "articulate" and "clean," a comment he later said he regretted. But in the week since his blustery debate with GOP vice-presidential nominee Ryan, Biden seems to have found a slightly different niche -- a more deliberate delivery of his sometimes-outrageous utterances. He offers these with a smile, relishing the stage, often punctuated by a "Whoa!" After 30 years in D.C., he should be well trained in theatrics.
Campaign officials have decided to let Joe be Joe. "He has an ability to connect and communicate in a clear and effective way," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in recent interview. "He, like the president, embodies an American success story." Yes, middle-class guy goes to law school, enters politics and rises to high office. What's more American than that?
Republicans say Biden has repeatedly crossed the line of decorum, and political analysts wonder whether he's gone so far as to become unpresidential.
"Today's over-the-top rhetoric by Vice President Biden is disappointing, but not all that surprising," Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck said after Biden's "bullets" remark this week. "In the absence of a vision or plan to move the country forward, the vice president is left only with ugly political attacks beneath the dignity of the office he occupies."
William A. Galston, an aide to President Bill Clinton who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he's "never seen a less presidential demeanor from a national candidate." Biden has twice run for president and has not ruled out a third attempt in 2016. When O could be his Veep.
Polls show both sides of the coin. More than three in four Democrats view Biden favorably, but among all registered voters, the vice president is much less popular than he was as a running mate in 2008. In a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey early this month, Biden was viewed favorably by 39 percent of voters and unfavorably by 51 percent. In fall 2008, more than half of voters had favorable views of him. That'd be those who voted for the Lightbringer and his Archangel.
"Joe Biden is Joe Biden, and he was elected to the Senate before the age of 30 and has been absolutely the same from the beginning of his political career to the end, if this election is the end," Galston said.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/20/2012
10:18 ||
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Joe Biden is Joe Biden, and he was elected to the Senate before the age of 30 and has been absolutely the same from the beginning of his political career to the end, if this election is the end, Galston said.
#5
I find Joe to be a delightful person to listen to, and expect he would be the life of a dinner party, would work with him in a heart beat on the PTO and expect he holds his beer well. Qualified to represent 500K people, sure, good guy. Would have made a hell of a good US Representative from Pa.
Not Senator or VP tho.
#7
Someone being able to hold their beer or fun to be around doesn't make them a leader. I don't want them to represent me, especially in congress or the executive branch of government. Being funny or fun to be around isn't so fun once you see how much money he's spent. He's never had a job. I'll bet he's never read the constitution. We're 17 trillion in debt and another 16 if you believe the federal reserve audit. We can't afford anymore politicians that are fun to be around. Just my opinion, Walt. Semper Fi!
Posted by: Walt ||
10/20/2012 14:15
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Democrats launched a fresh round of attacks on Republicans over the issue of voter fraud Friday after a man working for a firm under contract to the Republican Party of Virginia was accused of discarding state voter registration forms. Doesn't mean he was not a sleeper agent of the Donks, does it?
The documents had been filled out, placed in a folder and stuffed into a bag, store owner Rob Johnson told a Richmond area NBC affiliate. An investigation led law enforcement to Small, who was described by the sheriff's office as a "voter registration supervisor." Small was employed by Pinpoint, a company contracted by the Republican Party of Virginia to register voters.
State and national Democrats pounced on Small's arrest, seeking to link it to the Sproul case and portray it as part of a larger pattern. Brian Moran, chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called for authorities to investigate whether the incident "is part of a larger effort to limit Virginians' access to the ballot." Along with voter ID and evil stuff like that.
"Given their rhetoric about eliminating voter fraud, Republicans should welcome an investigation to prove that these disturbing incidents are isolated and not a central feature of the GOP campaign effort this year," Moran said in a statement. Just trying to level the playing field, Mr. Moran. You guys are the ones saying it hardly ever happens, right? Another difference: the Pub will get prosecuted...
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/20/2012
10:03 ||
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Investigate and prosecute if justified. No room for this crap.
I suspect there is less here than meets the eye, but still.
China is conducting naval exercises in the East China Sea, state media report, amid heightened tensions with Japan over islands both claim.
The exercises are aimed at "sharpening response to emergencies in missions to safeguard territorial sovereignty", state-run Xinhua news agency said. They involve 11 ships and eight aircraft, including vessels from marine surveillance and fisheries agencies.
The agencies' ships had been "harassed" while in disputed waters, it said.
China said the exercises would take place on Friday, but gave no details of the location in the East China Sea.
China, Japan and Taiwan all claim the islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Japan controls the islands, which lie south of Okinawa and north of Taiwan. Japan's recent acquisition of three of the islands from their private Japanese owner sparked both diplomatic and public protests in China.
It is unlikely the 11 Chinese ships will try to enter Japanese-controlled waters, but if they did it would be a major escalation of the dispute - from one involving civilian vessels to ones explicitly involving military ships and aircraft, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo.
The US has called for cooler heads to prevail in the dispute,
e.g., not Hillary and certainly not Champ...
which has rumbled on for years. US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns visited both Tokyo and Beijing this week for talks.
But Japanese media reports say Japan and the US are planning a joint military exercise in coming weeks that will include retaking a remote island.
Our Marines certainly have an institutional memory of doing such things...
Speaking in London, Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said his government's decision to purchase the islands was pragmatic, because a plan by Tokyo's right-wing governor, Shintaro Ishihara, to buy them had been much more provocative.
"The owner of the islands had already made it clear that he has decided to sell the islands to someone," he said. "Under such circumstance, the Tokyo metropolitan government could have bought them. The situation could have been much worse, if the government didn't buy the islands, I believe that Mr Ishihara would have landed on the islands by now."
While Mr Gemba emphasised Japan's sovereignty over the islands, he said it was crucial for both countries to prevent further escalation of the situation.
"For Japan, China is the largest trading partner. Japan also has the largest number of businesses investing in China. On the issue of sovereignty, Japan cannot concede where it cannot concede. But our economies are interdependent and we want to cherish the mutually beneficial relationship," he said.
"To achieve the goal, Japan and China should maintain and reinforce communications. We also have to respond to the situation in a controlled, restrained and calm manner."
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/20/2012
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TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > JAPAN'S RIGHT [Wing]- GOING NUKE?
"Post-US", "Mahanist" Rising China wants protection for its desired future PLA Milbases on TAIWAN, + unfettered, unchallenged access into WESTPAC, ETC. PACOAS = MAJOR TRADE ROUTES vee the OKINAWA-TAIWAN-PHIL straits.
It behooves China, then to reunify ASAP wid Taiwan, or in the alternate to "control" Taiwan in place of the US, before installation of US-led GMD-TMD is complete + before Japan regains the right to Nuclear Weapons.
Again, at this point in time China = East Asia [NEAsia + SCS] may be more dangerous that Risng Iran.
FYI BEIJING > is denying alleged Reports from CHINESE MEDIAS of Party-Govt collapse or near-collapse in Xinjiang + other West China provinces.
IFF TRUE, ADVANTAGE = RADICAL ISLAM = MILITANT-TERROR GROUPS.
Beijing may become more nervous or twitchy than it already is vee islands dispute wid Japan + ASEAN.
#3
CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > JAPAN AND US TO CANCEL ISLAND-TAKING DRILL. THEY'RE BRINK [blinking?] AND BACKING DOWN, LOL | [Google News] REPORT: JAPAN, US TO CANCEL ISLAND DRILL.
h/t Gates of Vienna
The political tension which has shaken Tunisia in the past few months had a tragic epilogue yesterday in Tataouine, a southern city badly hit by the economic crisis, where the regional coordinator of Nidaa Tounis, a new party which staunchly opposes Ennahdha, died after being beat up. The colleagues of the victim, Lofti Naguedh, called his death a 'political assassination' by members of the ruling religious party.
Naguedh died at a local hospital. An interior ministry spokesperson said he died of heart failure but pictures taken of him after the incident show a badly bruised body. According to sources at the Tataouine hospital quoted by the website Tunisie Numerique, Lofti Naguedh died from internal bleeding.
Regardless of the actual cause of death, Nagued was savagely beaten up: his face appears swollen and badly bruised all over in the pictures. His neck also shows signs of strangulation.
The attack occurred yesterday morning during a demonstration in Tatauoine. The event was one of many organized by Ennahdha in the country in support of its government and for the ousting of former regime members. According to interior minister spokesman Khaled Tarrouch many members of society took part in the demonstration although eye witnesses said most participants were Ennahdha activists together with, for the first time, supporters of Ettakatol and Congress for the Republic, the other two parties in the 'troika ' government.
When the demonstrators arrived in front of the regional farmers and fishermen union of which Naguedh was secretary, a brawl ensued in which fire bombs were used. Police reportedly only intervened after Naguedh had already been badly beaten up after he had attempted to flee. The high official of Nidaa Tounis died shortly after being taken to hospital by car.
MUSLIM women in Britain are being forced to "live in fear" because of the spread of unofficial and unregulated sharia courts enforcing Islamic rules, the House of Lords was told. Rulings by informal religious "councils" and tribunals are sometimes no more "consensual" than rape, peers were told.
The warnings came in the first ever full Parliamentary debate on the subject in the UK.
Baroness Cox, the independent peer and Third World campaigner, last year tabled a private member's bill in the Lords setting out plans to rein in a network of unofficial self-styled "courts" which apply Islamic principles.
One study estimated that there are around 85 Sharia bodies operating in Britain, although there is no official estimate. They include legally recognised arbitration tribunals, set up primarily to resolve financial disputes using Islamic legal principles but which have taken on a wider range of cases.
There is also a network of informal Sharia "councils", often operating out of mosques, dealing with religious divorces and even child custody matters in line with Islamic teaching.
The bill, which had its first full debate yesterday, would make it a criminal offence for such bodies to style themselves as courts or those chairing them to pose as judges. It would also limit the activities of arbitration tribunals and explicitly require them to uphold equality laws including women's rights
The Israeli navy has intercepted a boat of pro-Palestinian activists trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The Finnish-flagged Estelle left Naples on 7 October with some 20 people of eight different nationalities aboard.
Israel imposed the blockade after the Islamist group Hamas seized control of the coastal sliver in 2007.
An IDF spokesperson confirmed the navy had boarded the ship and that no-one had been injured, but provided few further details. The boat was boarded 30 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza, activists said, and was then being taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
The Estelle, which is reportedly carrying a cargo including cement and medical supplies, is the latest vessel to try and break the Gaza blockade.
It comes two years after nine Turkish activists were killed in an Israeli navy raid on the Mavi Marmara, one of a flotilla of ships attempting to break the blockade.
Palestinians say Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip amounts to collective punishment to residents of the densely populated strip of land along the Mediterranean coast. Israel says the blockade aims to stop the supply of arms or other items for military use, and to put pressure on the Hamas administration.
SIX Afghan policemen have been shot dead after being poisoned by colleagues in southern Afghanistan.
The shooting, which is the latest in a series by Afghan security personnel targeting their local and foreign colleagues, occurred in the Gereshk district of volatile Helmand province on Thursday.
"A cook and a policeman first food-poisoned their colleagues in their post, and after they fell unconscious they were shot dead," provincial spokesman Ahmad Zeerak said.
He said the policeman involved in the shooting had been arrested but the cook was still at large.
Farid Ahmad Farhang, a provincial police spokesman, confirmed the incident.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, according to purported spokesman Yousif Ahmadi, who said eight policemen were killed and their weapons seized.
The political tension which has shaken Tunisia in the past few months had a tragic epilogue yesterday in Tataouine, a southern city badly hit by the economic crisis, where the regional coordinator of Nidaa Tounis, a new party which staunchly opposes Ennahdha, died after being beat up.
...The attack occurred yesterday morning during a demonstration in Tatauoine. The event was one of many organized by Ennahdha in the country in support of its government and for the ousting of former regime members.
...When the demonstrators arrived in front of the regional farmers and fishermen union of which Naguedh was secretary, a brawl ensued in which fire bombs were used. Police reportedly only intervened after Naguedh had already been badly beaten up after he had attempted to flee. The high official of Nidaa Tounis died shortly after being taken to hospital by car.
#4
And Thor's Hammer wasn't one of them... not too inclusive... nor Odin's noose nor any of the druid stuff....
Posted by: Water Modem ||
10/20/2012 19:43
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Sometimes I wish blogs would really do their own research and not just copy things over and over again.
This is not a EU poster. This is (one of many) graphics an obscure lefty pressure group put out in a publication that has nothing to do with the "official" EU. This poster certainly can't be seen in the EU Commission as claimed by the Telegraph.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/20/2012 21:13
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...but is it posted upon the walls of Brussels? Read carefully Yet here it sits on a poster in the European Commission. They may not have 'commissioned' it, but it appears they have no problem posting it.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Mitt Romney charged Friday that Democrats have resorted to "silly word games" to try to win the election after President Obama on Friday accused him of "Romnesia" in changing his earlier stances.
At a huge rally here on the beach in Florida amid Biketoberfest, a bike rally that draws tens of thousands of motorcycle owners, Mr. Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, pleaded with Florida to deliver its critical votes on Nov. 6.
'Pleaded'? There's a difference between asking and begging...
It takes a brave man to go toe to toe with the Hell's Angels when they're celebrating. Not that there were necessarily tens of thousands of biker gangs there, but still.
And Mr. Romney continued to make his post-debate case that Mr. Obama has abandoned a positive vision for the country and is instead running on a message of attacking the GOP.
How do you 'abandon' what you never had?
"They've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games," he said. "Just watch it. The Obama campaign has become the incredible shrinking campaign."
For the last five months the campaign has lurched regularly from deep policy differences to name-calling and back to policy, and right now it appears the name-calling is back in vogue. Indeed, Mr. Obama has delivered a string of catch-phrase attacks this week, beginning in Tuesday's debate when he said Mr. Romney's tax plan is a "sketchy deal."
On Friday, campaigning in northern Virginia, Mr. Obama accused Mr. Romney of altering his positions to win election, and deployed his latest zinger.
"I mean, he's changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping -- we've got to name this condition that he's going through. I think it's called 'Romnesia,'" Mr. Obama said. "That's what it's called. I think that's what he's going through."
He does get inordinate pleasure out of his little verbal aggressions. I imagine he was thought quite the card back in the choom gang.
Mr. Romney has done his own mocking, saying on Wednesday that the president is so devoid of an agenda that he's "running on fumes."
On Friday he met up with Mr. Ryan and they campaigned together in front of a crowd the campaign said numbered 8,500. Mr. Romney takes the rest of the weekend off to prepare for Monday night's final debate.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
02:26 ||
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Mr. Romney has done his own mocking, saying on Wednesday that the president is so devoid of an agenda that he's "running on fumes"......
#2
Iff the Bammer's campaign is "shrinking", Mittens' campaign is seemingly failing to break out from the statistical MOE.
Although the race "isn't over until its over", as things stand wid 17 days left, it STILL appears that the Bammer will win re-election albeit in a close race???
"BENGHAZI-GATE" is NOT, I repeat NOT - spelled K-N-U-T - the "October Surprise" that should've.
Stand aside, Wesley Crusher: there's a new tractor beam on deck that pulls objects using nothing more than laser light. The device has already grabbed NASA's attention as it could one day prove useful on space missions.
It is well known that light can push on objects this is the basis for using solar sails to propel a spacecraft. But getting light to pull on something is a bit trickier.
Previous laser-based tractor beams could act like tweezers to move particles, picking up the sample and putting it down a short distance away. A more recent version actually pulls on particles, but relies on temperature variations in the beam, which means it cannot function in space.
In 2011, researchers in China calculated that a type of laser called a Bessel beam, which puts out light in concentric rings, could be designed to make a particle inside the beam emit photons on the side facing away from the beam source. These photons should allow the particle to recoil towards the source. But nobody has so far managed to put the idea into practice.
David Ruffner and David Grier of New York University instead projected two Bessel beams side by side and used a lens to angle them so that they overlapped, creating a pattern of alternating bright and dark regions. Fine-tuning the beam caused photons in the bright regions to scatter toward the beam source, pushing a particle in the beam to the next bright region. The beam thus acts like a conveyer belt, constantly drawing the particle toward the source.
Micrometre moves
Ruffner and Grier used this set-up to move microscopic silica spheres suspended in water over distances of around 30 micrometres. This suggests that such beams could be used to move cells around in lab-on-a-chip devices that perform medical tests. The set-up can also work in air or in the vacuum of space.
This tractor beam set-up has stronger interactions with a wider range of microscopic objects than other versions, adds David McGloin of the University of Dundee, UK, who was not part of the team. "A lot of other tractor-beam technologies are often quite particle-specific," he says.
The new tractor beam might be useful for collecting small dust or atmosphere samples from other worlds and delivering the particles to a robot for analysis.
"NASA contacted us," says Ruffner. "They were wondering, can we put this on a space probe and get dust from a comet?" It is possible, he says, but not any time soon. "This is still very much in its infancy."
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
02:09 ||
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There are solar sail designs that work on light and big magnetic field assemblies that would work with the solar wind and various combinations of the two.
Lee Iacocca, the man credited with saving Chrysler, has thrown his support to Mitt Romney in the Republican's effort to unseat Barack Obama and take the reins of the country after the November election.
Iacocca, a lifelong Democrat who has been a war horse for numerous Democratic candidates in the past and who once turned down an appointment to the US. Senate, announced his decision to back Romney in an Op-Ed in Friday's Detroit News.
He praised Romney and said the country needs a president who can turnaround the economy with more than just words and promises.
"Mitt Romney has successfully led both public and private sector turnarounds," Iacocca wrote. "He is a bright and successful man; he is a good man, a caring man, a man of integrity, family and faith. Importantly, he recognizes we are in a tough situation. With dozens of years of real world experience in the public and private sectors, he knows what he's talking about. His policies will enable a stronger America, one in which all Americans can share. He was groomed and trained for this moment."
Iacocca is now retired and living in California but his support is expected to help Romney in two key states: Michigan, where Iacocca spent most of his career, first at Ford and later at Chrysler, and Pennsylvnia. He was born and raised in Allentown. In 1991 Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey asked Iacocca to take over the Senate seat of H. John Heinz III who had died in office. Iacocca declined the offer.
He rose to national prominence in 1979 when, after taking over the ailing Detroit car manufacturer, he received a bailout from Congress and rebuilt Chrysler. He later co-wrote a best-selling book, "Iacocca, An Autobiography".
In 2000 he backed George W. Bush in 2000, but switched to John Kerry in 2004.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
02:00 ||
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Seven out of the 10 presidential toss-up states have lost jobs since President Obama took office, and the unemployment rate is higher today in six of those states than in January 2009, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What's more, six of those states listed as toss-ups by Real Clear Politics have seen their labor force shrink since January 2009, which masks the true size of their unemployment problem.
The state data underscore the fact that, despite the recent drop in the national unemployment rate to 7.8%, the nation's jobs picture remains bleak, particularly in states that Obama and Mitt Romney are fighting over.
The BLS report notes that in September, 41 states saw unemployment drop compared with August, and 35 states gained payroll jobs.
So in six states, the unemployed retired, moved, or took up keeping house because there were no jobs to be found. A useful datum.
But the data also show that, since Obama took office, fully 32 states have seen a net decline in the number of jobs, and the unemployment rate is still higher in 27 states than it was in January 2009.
In addition, 24 states saw their labor force shrink since Obama took office. That can make the unemployment rate appear lower in those states, since people who've left the labor force don't count as unemployed.
And several swing states have seen significant declines in their labor force under Obama, which means their employment picture is far worse than advertised.
Ohio's official unemployment rate for example, is 7%, down from 8.6% when Obama took office. But that decline was entirely due to 193,362 people dropping out of the labor force under Obama -- either they quit looking or moved to another state. Had that drop not occurred, Ohio's unemployment rate would be a staggering 10%.
Michigan has suffered the same fate. Its official unemployment rate is down to 9.3% from 11.3% when Obama took office. But the state's jobless rate would be 13.8% if the state's labor force hadn't shrunk by almost a quarter million since January 2009.
And the unemployment rate in Iowa -- which officially dropped from 6.1% to 5.2% -- would be 8.4% now were it not for the fact that the state lost 55,955 workers.
Other big labor force losers under Obama were Arizona (down 127,657), New York (down 115,447), Indiana (down 110,205), Missouri (down 107,091), and Wisconsin (down 57,147).
The biggest gainer by far was Texas, which saw its labor force explode by almost 804,000, even as its unemployment rate remained below 7%.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
01:49 ||
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"Are you feeling better today than you were 4 weeks ago"?
Our local hospital is cutting also. 4-6 million. They have a team come into each hospital that tells them what they must do to keep their doors open. So each hospital knows the score now. The doctors who work in the hospital system believe they will weather this best.
Matt Barber praises Americans willing to correct their mistake of 2008.
Did you vote for Barack Obama in 2008? A lot of people did -- obviously.
What a time. There's still room for improvement, but what a testimony to just how far we as a nation have come in terms of racial harmony, tolerance and diversity.
Only decades earlier a man like Barack Obama -- a black man -- couldn't even drink from the same water fountain as a white man, let alone become president of the United States. A hundred years prior to that, and he may well have been counted another man's property.
On Nov. 4, 2008, millions gathered at the ballot box to prove, once and for all, that, in large measure, we as a nation have healed from our disgraceful, self-inflicted wounds of racial abuse, bias and division.
That we could elect an African-American to lead the free world is indeed a very good thing.
We just happened to elect the wrong African-American.
In life, we sometimes find that the idea of a thing is far better than the thing itself. As a boy, I once ordered, from a comic book, a pair of X-ray glasses that promised to allow me to see the bones beneath my hand (my motives were a bit more ignoble). The two weeks it took for the glasses to arrive seemed like an eternity.
Once they did arrive, I ripped into the package and put them on, darting my head to-and-fro. It's difficult to express my level of disappointment. As I quickly discovered, the glasses merely formed a halo effect around objects, creating the illusion of transparency. I felt embarrassed. I got took.
Barack Obama's presidency has been a halo effect. Like I did so many years ago, in 2008 America fell victim to false advertising. As the past four years have demonstrated beyond any serious debate, the idea of President Obama was far better than the reality of President Obama. We were promised the world. We were promised transparency; but we were sold an illusion. We got took.
Indeed, during the 2008 campaign, a then-Sen. Barack Obama promised us that, if elected, we would look back upon the moment he took office and "tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth."
That was the idea of President Obama. That was what many good, well-meaning people voted for. That was the hope offered and the change promised.
That was not what we got.
Though it's certainly not a comprehensive analysis, during the second presidential debate, Mitt Romney, in response to Mr. Obama's attempts to gloss over his mounting leadership failures, summarized a few of the big ones. While addressing an audience member who, perhaps like you, voted for Obama in 2008, Romney observed, in part, the following:
I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years haven't been so good as the president just described and that you don't feel like you're confident that the next four years are going to be much better either. ...
He said that, by now, we'd have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work. ...
He said he would have, by now, put forward a plan to reform Medicare and Social Security, because he pointed out they're on the road to bankruptcy. He would reform them. He'd get that done. He hasn't even made a proposal on either one.
He said in his first year he'd put out an immigration plan that would deal with our immigration challenges. Didn't even file it.
This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he'd do. He said that he'd cut in half the deficit. He hasn't done that either. In fact, he doubled it.
He said that by now middle-income families would have a reduction in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It's gone up by $2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is ... implemented fully, it'll be another $2,500. ...
The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. ... [T]he number of people who are still looking for work is still 23 million Americans.
There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.
How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about the growth of the economy? It's growing more slowly this year than last year -- and more slowly last year than the year before. ...
The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked.
Recently, my wife and I attended an outdoor festival in central Virginia. Although the event was not political, there were people from both the Obama and Romney camps handing out campaign stickers and other items. I suspect that if a poll were taken, liberals out-numbered conservatives by about two-to-one.
That's why I was so taken aback. Although we saw dozens of people wearing Romney stickers, we only saw one man wearing an Obama sticker.
We walked up to a fellow with a gray pony tail, John Lennon glasses and Birkenstocks. He was wearing a Romney sticker.
"Mind if I ask why you're voting for Mitt Romney?" I asked. "I assume you are."
His reply -- and these were his words, not mine -- was short and to the point: "Because I refuse to be that stupid twice."
Changing one's mind doesn't always reveal a tendency toward indecision. Sometimes, changing one's mind reveals a tendency toward wisdom.
Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
10/20/2012
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Only decades earlier a man like Barack Obama -- a black man -- couldn't even drink from the same water fountain as a white man,
Yes, that still is in living memory, but it's also well over a half a century in time. It's only been a country for about 224 years since the ratification of the constitution. It's over two generations ago. How about giving up the white guilt. We did something very few cultures and civilization have ever done in an historically amazingly short period of time. Time to congratulate yourselves and quit allowing other to get power over you by beating you over the head with it.
#3
when a lying racist jackhole like John Lewis, living off past good, can lie about being spit on during their march to the capitol with Pelosi, despite all video and witness evidence to the contrary, and Breitbart's bounty on proof, it still is a hammer to be used.
F*ck them
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/20/2012 10:34
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That we could elect an African-American to lead the free world is indeed a very good thing.
"O's" leadership is lacking. As a result, the free world is more rather than less dangerous.
#6
On Nov. 4, 2008, millions gathered at the ballot box to prove, once and for all, that, in large measure, we as a nation have healed from our disgraceful, self-inflicted wounds of racial abuse, bias and division.
-and further proved that voting based on emotion and mis-placed guilt vice rational thought is dangerous in a representative democracy...I voted for the un-vetted, un-tried, smooth talking African-American slickster over the other guy but at least that proves I'm not a racist (puke).
Briton Saad al-Hilli, one of five killed on September 5 in a remove forest car park near Lake Annecy, was outside his BMW when the attacker struck, The Daily Telegraph can also confirm for the first time.
Until now, it was assumed that the Hilli family was the prime target in the horrific murder. Mr Hilli, 50, his dentist wife Iqbal, 47, and his 74-year-old Swedish mother-in-law, Suhaila Al-Allaf, were all found dead in the family car that day. All four adults died in blaze of automatic gunfire which also left Mr Hilli's eldest daughter, Zainab, seven, with horrific head and shoulder injuries. Her four-year-old sister, Zeena, survived, apparently by hiding under her mother's corpse on the floor of their car.
It was previously believed French cyclist Sylvain Mollier, 45, who worked at factory that supplies equipment to nuclear power plants, had stumbled on the murder scene. Police, who have analysed different ballistic angles are now working under the assumption that Mr Mollier was shot first, according to Le Parisien. The 45-year-old French father-of-three was hit by at least five bullets. They believe the attacker then surprised Mr Hilli who was outside the vehicle with his oldest daughter when the first shots were fired.
Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud on Friday vehemently denied that investigators had any idea of the order the victims were shot, calling it a "web of lies and pure invention". However, he confirmed that it was suspected that Mr Hilli was outside the car when he was shot. He told The Daily Telegraph that close examination of shoe prints in the mud reportedly confirmed this.
Following the provisional scenario cited by Le Parisien, Mr Hilli then desperately rushed back into his car and tried to reverse, but got stuck in the mud at the entrance to the forest. It has been established that a British witness first on the scene found the motor still running and the doors locked. With the Hilli family powerless to move, the gunman opened fire then approached the vehicle and opened fire.
Only once he had executed the Britons did the assailant then turn his attentions back to Mr Mollier to finish him off, according to the reported provisional scenario, as he received a second series of shots at a different angle. They are reportedly certain that the assailant then dragged the French cyclist's body round in an arc towards the car, lying him out beside the vehicle with his arms by his sides.
Gendarmes are said to be convinced that there was only one gunman. According to Le Parisien, they believe he displayed highly "disorderly behaviour" on the crime scene, "going from one victim to the other and going back to another one by one to finish them off". This behaviour, one gendarme was quoted as saying, was "not consistent with the profile of a professional killer".
Mr Maillaud last night furiously denied that police were aware of the order in which the victims were killed but he would not deny that Mr Mollier's body had been moved. He also said that police were looking for a motorbike that British RAF veteran William Brett Martin had crossed before he stumbled on the crime scene. It was seen in the vicinity of the crime scene at around 4pm -- within half an hour of the killings. A local farmer said he saw the rider looking "unsure of the route", and struggling to manoeuvre his bike over potholed roads.
Mr Maillaud last week revealed how the girls posed for three pictures with their parents just 33 minutes before the atrocity was first reported. The prosecutor said that there was particular interest in a bank account in the nearby Swiss city of Geneva in Mr Hilli's name. Believed to contain around three-quarters-of-a-million pounds, it is thought to be linked to the will the Hillis were arguing about. Which suggest Al Hilli lured the Frenchman there, and the assassin then tidied up the Al Hillis because they knew who did the killing and why.
#3
French Nuke worker, British Muslim visiting Geneva where a large Bank account was located, meeting at a parking lot in near Lake Annecy, something transferred. then gunshots and sloppy killings. Ayybody else see an information transfer and Jihadi connection somwhere in the mists?
#4
Difficult for me to believe Al Hilli would have attended a clandestine personal meet and take along family and friends. He's a smart guy, a dentist. Why put the family at risk ?
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The wife of Ghana's ex-leader Jerry Rawlings ... former lieutenant in the Ghanian air force, then military dictator for 11 years. He thought he was elected President-for-Life of Ghana in 1993, but was forced to step down his at the end of his term-limited second term when his proxy was defeated ... , Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, was on Thursday disqualified from running in presidential polls over problems with her nomination forms, an official said.
Candidates had until Thursday to submit nomination papers, but Ghana's electoral commission said Rawlings' forms were not properly completed.
"Portions of the nomination forms were not properly filled by the National Democratic Party and the electoral commission's deadline for filling nominations has passed today," Sylvia Annor, electoral commission spokeswoman, told AFP.
"There were major errors on their forms and they could not meet the deadline to rectify them hence the disqualification."
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Pak Daily Times] KARACHI: Three activists of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and two Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H) workers among 10 people were killed in the city violence on Friday.
Three seminary students, affiliated with ASWJ, were killed at Abul Hassan Ispahani Road, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, within the precincts of Mobina Town cop shoppe. Police said that two pillion riders shot and killed 26-year-old Azizur Rahman, son of Abdul Ghaffar, 27-year-old Qari Moavia and 23-year-old Muhammad Shahzad. Their bodies were moved to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medico-legal formalities.
A police official said that victims were students of Darul Khair Madrassa situated in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. They were on their way to seminary after participating in the protest held by ASWJ at Scouts Colony against frequent murder of ASWJ men. Deceased were residents of Pehlwan Goth, Gulistan-e-Jauhar and hailed from Ali Pur, Muzzaffargarh, Punjab.
Following the incident, a heavy contingent of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) reached the scene to avoid any further untoward incident. ASWJ front man Taj Hanfi condemned the killing and demanded early arrest of the culprits.
Later faceless myrmidons opened intense aerial fire and pelted passing vehicles with stones and got commercial activities shutdown forcibly in the vicinity.
A man belonging to Qadiyani community, was bumped off, while three others were maimed at Madina Colony, Baldia Town within the limits of Baldia cop shoppe. According to police, four faceless myrmidons opened targeted firing at a vehicle AUU-695, resultantly four men, Farooq 56, son of Manzoor, Saad 26 son of Farooq, Hammad 24, son of Farooq and Nusrat 53, received multiple bullets wounds. They were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH) for treatment, where Saad departed this vale of tears. A police official said that all victims were relatives and were returning to their homes on a car.
Deceased Saad was the electrical engineer and he got marriage a couple of days ago, while his father runs a generator business.
Two activists of Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H) were killed at sector 6, Korangi within the limits of Awami Colony cop shoppe. A police official said that victims, 27-year-old Furqan son Qasim and 26-year-old Ahmed Ali son of Zafar Ahmed were going somewhere, when unidentified gunnies shot them dead and escaped. Their bodies were brought to JPMC for his appointment with Doctor Quincy. MQM-H spokesperson Khalid Hameed condemned the killing of their party workers and demanded early arrest of the culprits. Two more people were bumped off at sector 3, Baldia Town within the jurisdiction of Saeedabad cop shoppe. A police official said that one of the victims was 30-year-old Shahzad son of Farooq, while his lover companion was yet to be identified. He said that both were on their way on a cycle of violence. As they reached near NADRA office, armed pillion riders opened fire on them, resultantly both received fatal bullet and was struck down in his prime. Their bodies were brought to ASH for autopsies. Deceased Shahzad lived in the same area. He further said that political or sectarian affiliations of victims were not yet cleared.
A man was killed at Nasir Jump within the limits of Korangi cop shoppe. A police official said that two pillion riders rubbed out Yousuf, 25, son of Hussain, and bravely ran away. His body was shifted to JPMC for medico-legal formalities. The dear departed was the resident of Zia Colony.
A man was stabbed to death at Manghopir area within the limits of Manghopir cop shoppe. Police said that Shah Murad 30, son of Saleh Muhammad, was stabbed to death by unidentified man. His body was shifted to ASH for medico-legal formalities. Police suspected that the incident occurred over a personal enmity.
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#1
Unfortunately, based on those segments I'd seen per the televised Debates, it strongly appears that the POTUS Admins of either will have foreign policy as their focii, notsomuch the ailing economy.
Lotsa nice, emotional talk about fixing the economy, but little or nothing serious about really doing so.
#3
We worked hard together, her and I. I looked forward to future and to a comfortable life of modest ease. We weathered many ups and downs but continued to stick it out in good markets and in bad. But now our government betters tell me others more deserving need her more than I.
I'm now in the last and final stages of denial and preparing to say goodbye to my ailing 401k plan.
#5
But now our government betters tell me others, many of whom have not worked an honest day in their entire life or contributed an iota to society, are much more deserving need her more than I.
#6
My cynical view. If Romney wins... then ... in the short time from Election Day +1 until Jan 20th when Romney is sworn in... the USA will be totally looted by Obama's team.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
10/20/2012 19:54
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(Sh.M.Network)--Kenyan military jets bombed on Friday on Al shabab controlled village located on the outskirts of Dhobley, a town located near Kenyan border, reports said.
Local residents said the Kenyan fighter jets have carried out an air strike on military targets belonging to the al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... Islamic thug group in a hideout area, 15 Km away from Dhobley city, causing unconfirmed casualties.
"The air raid happened as the Al shabab fighters were mobilizing the suburbs between Dhobley and Afmadow, and the jets dropped more than five bombs on the armory and camps," a witness said on condition of anonymity.
It was immediately unclear where there has been any casualty in the aerial attack.
Al-Shabaab and Kenyan army officials were unavailable to reach for comments on the air strikes so far.
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The $831,000,000,000 economic stimulus that President Obama spearheaded and signed into law requires his administration to release quarterly reports on its effects. But the most transparent administration in the history of our country is now four reports behind schedule and has so far not released any reports whatsoever in 2012. Its most recent quarterly report is for the quarter than ended on June 30, 2011
One wonders how the administration would treat a private citizen who acted like such a scofflaw in response to one of Obamas principal legislative initiatives. It certainly appears that this administration, which is so very fond of regulating Americans lives witness the 13,000 pages of Obamacare regulations it has already penned doesnt hold itself accountable to the same set of rules that its so eager to compel the American people to obey.
#1
See also CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > THE US DEBT CLOCK KEEPS TICKING [n-ticking] RELENTLESSLY.
US Debt = US$16.1Trilyuhn or higher by this EOD Sunday???
versus
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > MASS IMMIGRATION OF BROWNS AND BLACKS HAS TURNED THE US INTO A CRIME WAR ZONE | [Daily Mail.UK] US VIOLENT CRIME INCREASES FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1993, AND IS 18% HIGHER FROM LAST YEAR [2011].
#6
We COULD have it worse. We could be working manufacturing NIKEs in Indonesia...or Apple products in China. That IS why they are there isn't it?
Or you could be a Heroin addict in Iran, that's what the Poppy fields in Afghanustain really mean...and the Processing plants in Pakistan , you think its all local economy?
Money has no more rationale than making more money. They will IF THEY CAN. That's why its always a good idea to own a gun. You keep Politicians and Corporations honest or else they have to hire bodyguards and that eventually gets to be a very much more expensive proposition. Like in Guatemala.
Vote and own a gun.
And always remember :They Will if they Can. You don't have to wonder about that.
And don't believe it just because you saw it on TV. Dan Rather was not your friend and neither is Whoopie Goldberg. NPR sounds nice, but then so does Big Bird. Its easy to be stupid. And its TOO easy to trust.
The Police work for a living, they obey who pays them. Make sure you pay them yourself. If you don't pay them, who does? Nobody works for nuthin'...except the people with no guns.
What if everybody in your business was armed while at work....would the boss call the Police? That IS what your Vote IS,
Be sure and Vote. Be SURE and vote. Only stupid people don't Vote.
And always remember: You deserve Exactly what you get. And if you don't Vote you deserve what happens to you.
(CBSLA.com) -- Fliers offering $40 worth of free medical-grade marijuana were reportedly passed out in Eagle Rock to try and draw residents to vote in the local election.
Was the free pot an incentive to get a larger turnout? Politics ranked "high" on resident's list of priorities. Nearly 10 times as many voters -- 792 residents -- turned out to the polls during the recent Neighborhood Council elections than last year.
"It's a little weird that people can't come out and vote on their own. I see that as a problem, as a social symptom," Eagle Rock resident Joerael Elliott said.
Many residents told CBS2′s Juan Fernandez they didn't think enticing voters with perks was right.
"You can't pay your way like that, that's not cool," resident Danielle Sargent said.
No one is claiming responsibility for the flier.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Seems a fair way to help take away the pain of having to put a politician in a position of power. I'm surprised it only took pot and not something stronger.
#3
Tip-a-canoe & Tyler Too..
(free apple-jack when you could prove your vote... led many states to no-booze on election day laws... need to be expanded to no pot)
Posted by: Water Modem ||
10/20/2012 20:04
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#4
...yeah, prepaid non-traceable debit cards are more with the times. It cuts out all the expense of ward heelers middlemen.
(Sh.M.Network)--At least 10 people are confirmed to have been injured in a grenade attack on a wedding party in Somali capital, Mogadishu on Friday evening, witnesses and police said.
Ali Mohamed, deputy district police boss, told Shabelle Media by phone that the hand-grenade was lobbed into a house at former Milk factory in Hodon district, where hundreds of men and women were taking part this evening a wedding ceremony.
Mr. Mohamed has immediately accused Al shabab to be behind the kaboom.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, was killed on Friday in a car kaboom in the Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh, state-run National News Agency reported.
The powerful kaboom rocked a street adjacent to Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh, leaving seven other people dead and 78 others maimed, in the first such attack in the Lebanese capital since 2008.
Hasan was close to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. and hostile to the regime in Syria. He had been tipped to take over as ISF head at the end of this year.
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#1
You'd think with all this money, he'd have the smarts to get the hell out of there...but nooooo...
[Bangla Daily Star] Gunmen blew up a bomb and shot up a bus packed with south Asian pilgrims, killing four worshippers and wounding 11 others north of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , officials said yesterday. The coordinated attacks took place late Thursday near the town of Balad, with security officials and medics identifying the victims as Pak Shias. There was no immediate confirmation from the Pak embassy.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Seventeen Lebanese people were killed on Friday in an ambush by the Syrian army at the Lebanese-Syrian border, reported Voice of Leb radio (93.3).
It said that the Lebanese were killed when Syrian troops ambushed their bus as it was heading from Leb's al-Qaa region to Syria al-Jousseh.
One of the casualties has been identified as Hamza Amer.
His body has been retrieved and returned to Leb, said VDL.
The fate of the remaining passengers is unknown.
The border between Leb and Syria has witnessed tensions since the eruption of anti-regime protests in Syria in March 2011.
Syrian troops have repeatedly infiltrated Lebanese border territories in pursuit of what it called army defectors and armed gangs.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Pak Daily Times] The political administration recovered at least 25 kidnapped labourers from the North Wazoo Agency on Friday. According to police, the kidnapping had taken place near Mandan Gate area of Bannu a week ago. Unidentified men came on cars from South Waziristan and tempted labourers sitting along the road by offering Rs 1,000 per day wage in North Waziristan. The witnesses of the kidnapping said that 25 labourers agreed to go with the men, while the relatives of the kidnapped workers said that they had gone to Waziristan to search for them but could not find anyone. The political administration recovered these labourers from North Waziristan.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] The government sought a diplomat's access to Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, incarcerated Please don't kill me! in the US in connection with plotting an attack on the Federal Reserve Bank, said an official of the Bangladesh embassy there.
The request was made to the US government during a meeting between the Bangladesh embassy officials and US State Department personnel last night.
The embassy sources said the State Department officials confirmed that Nafis was a Bangladesh national and they also handed over a photocopy of Nafis' passport and the statement of the case filed against him.
Nafis was placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! in New York on Wednesday in a sting operation. He had allegedly attempted to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too. on Friday accused Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... of ordering the liquidation of Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, condemning the deadly bombing that hit the Ashrafiyeh district in Beirut as a "cowardly terrorist attack against all of Leb and all the Lebanese people."
"I accuse Bashar Hafez Assad of assassinating Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan," said Hariri.
He described al-Hasan as "the guarantor of the security of the Lebanese."
In a statement he issued before news broke out that Hasan was among those killed by the blast, Hariri expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, demanding that the concerned authorities act with "utmost determination and speed to protect the citizens."
"The cowardly terrorist attack which targeted Ashrafiyeh today is an attack against all of Leb and all the Lebanese people. It is a cowardly act against the country's stability and security," he said in a statement.
"As I extend my sincerest condolences to the families of the deaders and my sincerest feelings of solidarity to the families of the maimed and all the people of Ashrafiyeh and Beirut, I demand that the concerned authorities act with utmost determination and speed, and exercise their duty to protect the citizens, their lives and belongings and to strike with an iron fist all those who try to tamper with Leb's stability and security," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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In a rare challenge to Pakistain's powerful generals, the country's Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the military should stop interfering in politics.
It was a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court 16 years after retired air marshal Asghar Khan filed a case, accusing the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of doling out money to a group of politicians.
Chief Supreme Court Judge Iftikhar Chaudhry said military intelligence agencies must stay away from politics.
"Such organizations have no role to play in the political activities/politics, for formulation or destabilisation of political governments," he said in the ruling.
"Nor can they facilitate or show favour to a political party or group of political parties or politicians individually in any manner which may lead to his or her success."
It is not clear whether the decision would reduce the military's vast power.
Pakistain has had three bloodless military coups in its history and been ruled by four military rulers.
The late former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, retired army chief Aslam Baig and retired ISI chief Asad Durrani "acted in violation of the constitution by facilitating a group of politicians and political parties", chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said.
In unusually strong language, it went on to say: "Their acts have brought a bad name to Pakistain and its armed forces as well as secret agencies."
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[Ynet] The gas flow on a pipeline carrying Iranian natural gas to Turkey was halted due to an explosion in eastern Turkey late on Thursday, injuring 28 soldiers, Turkish energy officials said.
The blast occurred in the area of Eleskirt, a town in Agri province in eastern Turkey, the officials said, on condition of anonymity. It was not clear what caused the blast, and when the gas flow will resume, they said.
But in the meantime Iran will lose income, and it will be believed the explosion occurred with malice aforethought.
[Pak Daily Times] The CIA is urging the White House to approve significant expansion of its fleet of armed drones that the agency uses to target suspected bad boy targets, according to The Washington Post on Friday.
A report in the newspaper said the move would extend the spy service's decade-long transformation into a paramilitary force. The report, which cites unnamed US officials, says the proposal by the Central Intelligence Agency Director David H Petraeus would bolster the agency's ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistain and Yemen. If approved, the CIA could add as many as 10 drones, the officials said, to an inventory that has ranged between 30 and 35 over the past few years, The Post said.
"The outcome has broad implications for counterterrorism policy and whether the CIA gradually returns to an organization focused mainly on gathering intelligence, or remains a central player in the assassination of terrorism suspects abroad," the newspaper noted. A White House panel, known as the Counterterrorism Security Group, headed by President B.O.'s counterterrorism adviser, John O Brennan, is evaluating the proposal.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Most of the desired future US Drone fleet will be to monitor mainstream Amerikans.
#2
As long as the Klingons collect and disseminate enough "actionable" intelligence to extricate their own people from places like Benghazi, I'm sure they'll be happy. Give them SOF, bombers, tanks, ships at sea, more secret money.
#3
Let me add that political asassination via Predator Drone is still assassination. In it, we find ourselves doing little more than pruning the tree of Islam. Legions of these people happily stand in line to replace their martyred breathren. Wars are not won in this manner, but ideologies are surely solidified. Unless rewritten, history is immutable. Booth is not remembered as a successful Shakespearean stage actor, only as an treacherous assassin. I pray we remove ourselves from this sordid business as soon as possible.
Hizbullah on Friday described the liquidation of Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, as an "ugly crime" and an "vicious attempt to undermine stability and national unity."
In a statement, the party "strongly" condemned "the abominable crime that targeted Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan."
Hizbullah called on security and judicial authorities to "exert utmost efforts to unveil the circumstances of the crime, identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice."
In an earlier statement, the party condemned the bombing that targeted the Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh.
"Hizbullah was greatly shocked by this tragic terrorist crime that hit al-Ashrafiyeh area and killed and maimed dozens of people," said the statement.
The party called on all Lebanese parties, political forces and citizens to close ranks to foil any conspiracy against the security of the country and the safety of its citizens.
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#1
That's something they have learned from Paleos---kill & condemn.
[An Nahar] African and European leaders will meet in Bamako on Friday to work on the logistics of reconquering Mali's desert north from armed Islamists.
The summit comes a week after the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Security Council passed a resolution giving West African nations 45 days to lay out details for a military intervention.
The vast region the size of La Belle France fell under control of radical Islamist groups in the chaos that followed a March coup in the country that was once considered one of Africa's most stable democracies.
Concerned that the area could become the same type of haven for al-Qaeda Islamists that Afghanistan was a decade ago, Mali's neighbors and the West are keen to drive the snuffies out.
In the months that they have been in control of the region, the Islamists have imposed their version of sharia law, arresting unveiled women, stoning to death unmarried couples and amputating the limbs of suspected thieves, according to residents and rights groups.
They have also destroyed ancient Moslem shrines that have been revered for centuries and are classified as World Heritage Sites, but which the snuffies consider blasphemous.
The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has said that it could send up to 3,000 troops to recapture the area.
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[An Nahar] A series of attacks by suspected Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists in northeast Nigeria ... a particularly crimson stretch of Islam's bloody border... has killed a number of people and destroyed several buildings, residents and authorities said Friday.
Explosions and gunfire that started late Thursday shook the city of Potiskum, with residents reporting several schools and a government building burnt, along with a number of dead.
Police said they were seeking to restore calm and clear unwent kaboom! bombs on Friday morning, while some of the ordnance continued to detonate.
"There are so many bombs here and there and I can't give you the casualty figure now, because our men are still in the field to restore calm," said state police commissioner Patrick Egbuniwe.
A military source said some houses had been destroyed by homemade bombs and a security checkpoint was attacked, but he could not give a corpse count yet.
He said Islamist bully boy group Boko Haram was suspected behind the violence.
"I cannot ascertain as of now how many people were killed, apart from the one (suspect) that I know who was shot at the checkpoint," the military source told AFP.
Residents of the city, which has been repeatedly hit by Boko Haram, described heavy kabooms and gunfire, with the city under military lockdown on Friday morning as security forces sought to track down the attackers.
Two residents spoke of seeing a number of bodies, while one said several schools were burnt, including an Islamic seminary.
"From where I stand, I can see the local government secretariat completely burned and several shops around it smoldering from last night's attack," one resident said.
Another said that "at least five primary schools, including an Islamic seminary, have been burnt in the attacks."
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[An Nahar] Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party elected former parliament chief Saed al-Katatni on Friday to replace Morsi, who stepped down on taking over the presidency. Katatni, who headed the Islamist-dominated parliament dissolved shortly before Morsi's election in June, beat his rival Essam al-Erian with roughly 67 percent of the vote by party delegates.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... on Friday accused Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... of ordering the liquidation of Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, warning that "we must not accuse anyone in Leb because we would be implementing what Bashar wants."
"I openly accuse Bashir al-Assad and his regime of killing Wissam al-Hasan," Jumblat said.
"Bashir al-Assad does not care about material damage or loss of life in Leb and we must confront politically," he told the Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... satellite TV network.
In another interview with LBCI television, Jumblat said: "The crime bears the signature of Bashar and Bashar's gang and is aimed at taking Dire Revenge™ on one of the most prominent struggle figures in Leb."
"It's a severe blow but we won't be scared," Jumblat vowed.
The Druze leader warned that "it is important not to engage in internal confrontations so that we don't give Bashar the excuse."
"He does not care as he is killing an entire population," Jumblat noted.
He said there is a "Syrian intelligence apparatus" that still has its roots in Leb and "there is more than one Michel Samaha in the country."
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10/20/2012
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The rumor mill surrounding the health of Fidel Castro churned anew on Friday, despite a letter from the aging Cuban revolutionary published by state media and denials by relatives at home and in the United States that he is on death's door.
Social media sites and some news organizations have reported allegations by a Venezuelan doctor that Castro, 86, had suffered a massive stroke, was in a vegetative state, and had only weeks to live, though the same doctor, Jose Rafael Marquina, has made some claims before that have not panned out.
Marquina told Spain's ABC newspaper that Castro had suffered a "massive embolism of the right cerebral artery" and while not on life support or breathing artificially, was "moribund" at a house in a gated former country club in western Havana.
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10/20/2012
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#1
And Kim Jong-un's wife has not been seen for over 40-days-n-39-nights.
[Pak Daily Times] At least three security personnel were killed and ten others, including five coppers and a woman, were maimed in a remote-controlled blast in the thriving provincial capital on Friday.
According to the sources, the blast targeted a Frontier Corps (FC) convoy that was patrolling the Badini intersection area. "The bomb was attached to a bicycle and it was remote-controlled blast," sources said, and added that at least three coppers were killed and 10 others were critically injured. A large number of police and FC personnel rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area following the incident.
The dear departed and injured were shifted to the Civil Hospital Quetta for medical aid. The dear departed were identified as Nawab Khan, Sarmad and Wajid Khan, and injured security personnel were identified as Sajad Ahmed, Feroz Ahmed, however identity of three others could not be ascertained. Two of the seriously injured security personnel were referred to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) for treatment. DIG (Investigation) Hamid Shakil told news hounds that at least two coppers were killed and ten others, including four coppers, a woman and a passerby, were maimed in the blast. The Bomb Disposal Squad said that around eight to 10 kilogrammes of explosives were used in the attack.
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[Pak Daily Times] Despite the outrage over the Taliban's shooting of teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, Pakistain's government has failed to gather enough support for a military operation against the hard boyz believed to be behind the attack, Voice of America reports.
Voice of America evinces no surprise at this.
The political divisions in the country over what to do with Death Eaters living within its borders remain as strong as ever despite the national shock over the attack, the report notes, adding that politicians continue to squabble over what to do about the Talibs behind the attack.
The VoA referred to the ruling Pakistain People's Party's attempt this week to table a resolution in parliament that referred to a military operation in Wazoo. Opposition party leaders and the head of Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... -Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... shot the idea down. PML-N representative Saddiqul Farooq said his party refused to back the move because such an operation now would displace millions and push the hard boyz to more violence.
"We have to deal with this issue with reason, not with military might, military might will be part of that reasonable formula -- that if by presenting them very acceptable positive and constructive conditions, if they don't come to terms, then we can use force," VoA quotes Farooq. He says the presence of international forces in Afghanistan and the Pak government's position as an official ally of the US is inciting attacks on Pak soil. Once the US and coalition troops leave Afghanistan, the Pakistain Taliban will no longer have a reason to attack, he asserts.
The report quotes analyst Ayesha Siddiqa as saying that despite the shock of the attack on Malala there is no agreement between the government and the opposition on a consensus to fight the turbans. What resulted, she says, is not much more than political melodrama. "What is not happening here, is people coming together and saying, whatever the source of violence, we have to put an end to it. We have to put an end to sacrificing our soldiers, our children, our men and women. That is not happening," Siddiqa is reported as saying. So far, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship. has announced a $1 million bounty for the Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan, who announced the Taliban was responsible for the attack on Malala.
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#1
Divided?
Half want to kill them, and half will settle for just seriously Maiming, so they can't move or talk again, there's your division.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/20/2012 1:32
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(Sh.M.Network)--An official in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... said they have seized on Thursday a boat carrying heavy weapons at a town along the coast of Barri region.
Abdisamad Mohamed, the governor of Barri region, told news hounds that the boat which was laden with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), anti-tank mines and other explosive weapons has been seized by Puntland forces during operations.
"The smugglers had fled by the time the Puntland forces have tracked down the ferry after a tip-off by local residents in coastal Qandala village," he added.
Reports said boat as coming from Yemen and the weapons has been destined for Somali beturbanned goons of Al shabab-linked with Al Qaeda.
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[Bangla Daily Star] At the Missouri college where Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis enrolled, a classmate said he often remarked that true Mohammedans don't believe in violence.
That image seemed startlingly at odds with the Bangladesh native's arrest in an FBI sting this week on charges of trying to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York with what he thought was a 1,000-pound car boom.
"I can't imagine being more shocked about somebody doing something like this," said Jim Dow, a 54-year-old Army veteran who rode home from class with Nafis twice a week. "I didn't just meet this kid a couple of times. We talked quite a bit. ... And this doesn't seem to be in character."
Nafis, who at the time of his arrest Wednesday was working as a busboy at a restaurant in Manhattan, was locked away You have the right to remain silent... without bail. His attorney has not commented on the case, but in other instances where undercover agents and sting operations were used, lawyers have argued entrapment.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, whose department had a role in the arrest as a member of a joint federal-state terrorism ... any action taken by a non-Moslem state that constrains the violent impulses of Moslems or their allies ... task force, said the entrapment argument rarely prevails.
"You have to be otherwise not disposed to do a crime," Kelly said. "And if it's your intent to do a crime, and somehow there are means made available, then generally speaking, the entrapment defence does not succeed."
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#1
cuz a muslim would never lie, Jim
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/20/2012 8:49
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#2
Have the "Muslims Fear Backlash" stories come out yet? I thought the Times had a template...
[Pak Daily Times] Air Marshal Asghar Khan on June 16, 1996, wrote a letter to former chief justice of Pakistain Sajjad Ali Shah which contained the names of politicians who received money in 1990.
Some of the people on the list and the money they received is as follows: Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... , Rs 3.5 million; Mir Afzal Khan, Rs10 million; Lt Gen Rafaqat, Rs 5.6 million for distribution among journalists; Abida Hussain, Rs 1 million; Jamat-e-Islami Rs 5 million; Altaf Hussain Qureshi, Rs500,000; Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Rs 5 million (Sindh); Jam Sadiq, Rs 5 million (Sindh); Muhammad Khan Junejo, Rs 250,000 (Sindh); Pir Pagara Rs 2 million (Sindh); Maulana Salahuddin, Rs 300,000 (Sindh); different small groups in Sindh Rs 5.4 million and Humayun Marri Rs 1.5 million (Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... ). The letter also contained the names of Bazenjo and Kakar tribes.
Younis Habib Habib, Mehran Bank's chief executive, in March 2012 had informed newsmen that MQM chief Altaf Hussain was given Rs 20 million, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif Rs3.5 million and his brother Shahbaz Sharif was given Rs 2.5 million. The court in March 2012 also took notice of a news item that the ruling Pakistain People's Party withdrew Rs 270 million from the secret fund of the Intelligence Bureau for pushing its agenda in Punjab in 2009 but it did not mention this case in the short order.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Malala Yousafzai, the Pak schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, has been able to stand with help for the first time, doctors treating her at a British hospital said yesterday.
She is unable to talk because a breathing tube has been inserted into her windpipe but she can communicate by writing, said Dave Rosser, the medical director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England.
Despite the news of Malala's progress, he warned that she is "not out of the woods yet", her doctors' chief concern being an infection in the bullet track through her head.
Malala was shot on a school bus in the former Taliban stronghold of the Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... valley on October 9 as a punishment for campaigning for the right of girls to an education, in an attack which outraged the world.
On Monday she was flown in an air ambulance from Pakistain to Birmingham, Britannia's second city, where she is being cared for in the hospital that treats British soldiers seriously maimed in kabooms and shootings in Afghanistan.
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[Pak Daily Times] At least three gunnies attacked a popular hotel in the Indian-held Kashmire on Friday, killing a bellboy and leaving at least two other people injured, security forces said. Remember the Pak cross-border fire a couple days ago? It's almost like the two were related...
The armed gang began shooting outside the Silver Star Hotel on the outskirts of the main city of Srinagar at about 4:30 pm (1100 GMT) before entering the premises and firing "indiscriminately", according to a police statement. Police said in the statement that "the cut-throats had planned an... attack on army vehicles which were passing by. They did not succeed and thus tried to enter a nearby hotel." The dead man was a bellboy, a security bigshot said from the scene, while police said two others have been "rushed to hospital where they are being operated upon".
Afadal Mujtaba, a deputy inspector general for Srinagar police, told AFP that "these three gunnies opened fire and killed this boy and injured two others". Dozens of soldiers and paramilitary police called to the spot cordoned off the four-storey hotel and were undertaking a search inside the hotel and the surrounding area to try and catch the gunnies, who are thought to have fled. The motive for the attack remained unclear, although the police referred to the attackers as "militants".
So the motive was to kill some people and terrify the rest. Typical jihadi hatefulness.
Friday's attack, the first in Srinagar since May of this year, occurred on a day when several bigwigs from the army, police, intelligence agencies and government met to review the security situation in the state. In the May attack, two motorcyclists fired on a group of army officers, injuring seven. Militant attacks on tourists or the tourist industry are rare and gunnies usually target security forces in their convoys or check-points.
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[An Nahar] U.N. and Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived on Friday in Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... as he bids to secure a ceasefire in Syria's 19-month conflict, an AFP journalist said.
Brahimi was received at Damascus airport by Syria's deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Muqdad, and was scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Saturday.
Brahimi will also meet Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... "very, very soon," front man Ahmad Fawzi told AFP on Thursday.
The veteran Algerian diplomat has called for a ceasefire during the four-day Moslem holiday of Eid al-Adha that begins October 26.
He arrived in Syria following a regional tour to countries that play influential roles in the crisis -- Egypt, Turkey, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... , Iran, Iraq, Leb and Jordan.
On Thursday the envoy stressed that a temporary ceasefire in Syria could for the basis for a real truce in the war-torn country, where more than 34,000 people have been killed since March last year.
"If the ceasefire is implemented, we can build on it and make it a real truce as well as the start of a political process that would help the Syrians solve their problems and rebuild their country," Brahimi said in Amman.
But he also warned: "If the Syrian crisis continues, it will not remain inside Syria. It will affect the entire region."
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#1
Appreciate pencilneck's killing of all these muslims...
[An Nahar] A female keeper at Sydney's Taronga Zoo was fighting for her life Friday after being crushed against a fence post by "miracle" elephant Mr Shuffles, an animal she had cared for all its life.
An ambulance spokeswoman said emergency services were called to the elephant enclosure and discovered that a woman in her 40s had been badly hurt.
"She had critical injuries, multiple injuries. The patient was unconscious and had stopped breathing," the spokeswoman told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Paramedics later told news hounds that the woman suffered severe chest injuries and her heart stopped beating for five minutes before she was revived and rushed to hospital.
Zoo director Cameron Kerr said the injured keeper had worked with the elephant, Pathi Harn, since its birth in 2010, an event that made headlines at the time.
Better known as Mr Shuffles after its early wobbly attempts at walking, the elephant was believed to have died during labor but was born alive, defying expert opinion that such an outcome would take a "miracle".
The zoo said the woman was conducting a routine training session when "a young male elephant pinned the female keeper against a bollard".
"Two other keepers in an adjoining stall responded to her call and moved the elephant away," it said in a statement, adding the public was never at risk.
"An investigation has been immediately commenced into this incident and what may have prompted the reaction. It's unknown at this time why the young elephant challenged the keeper."
Kerr described the elephants at the zoo as "domestic" because they "come from families brought up with people", adding: "There's a very close bond between our staff and our animals."
A small herd of Asian elephants was brought to Australia from Thailand in 2006 in a bid to increase numbers of the endangered animals and Taronga Zoo now has eight in captivity.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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#1
That is so depressing. May she recover. There is no such thing as a domestic cat, much less elephant.
#3
Male elephants occasionally get aggressive. It's a condition called pesth and doesn't seem to be connected with mating. I heard some fairly funny stories of narrow escapes when I was in Thailand.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012 9:18
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#7
I can't be the only one who harkened back to the "Chuckles the Clown" episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show, can I? It stands out to me as one of the more memorable episodes.
[An Nahar] Syria's air force carried out raids on Friday morning against rebels besieging a major military base in the northwestern province of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Military aircraft dropped bombs that targeted rebels camped near (the base at) Wadi Deif," concentrating their firepower on the villages of Talmans and Maashemsha, said the Britannia-based monitoring group.
The gunnies have launched what they call a "final assault" against the strategic military camp of Wadi Deif where about 250 soldiers have been holed up for days. The base also houses tanks and fuel.
The battle for the base has killed at least six soldiers, according to the Observatory, which said that the facility has been surrounded by around 2,500 rebel fighters.
To the west of the base, regime warplanes battered a residential area of the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan on Thursday, killing at least 49 people, almost half of them children, rescuers told an AFP correspondent at the scene.
The air strikes destroyed two housing complexes and a mosque, where many women and kiddies had been taking refuge, in the strategic northwestern town. Among those killed was a nine-month-old baby.
All of the victims buried under the rubble of the residential buildings had been retrieved, but bodies were still under the rubble of the nearby mosque, according to the rescuers and hospital officials.
Violence across Syria killed 168 people on Thursday -- 70 civilians, 61 soldiers and 37 rebels, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists, medics and lawyers for its information.
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10/20/2012
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#1
Yokay, I'll bite, I thought the MSM-Net said the Rebs already captured it???
[An Nahar] A powerful car boom on Friday rocked a street adjacent to Sassine Square in Ashrafiyeh, leaving eight people dead, including Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces.
Seventy-eight people were maimed in the first such attack in the Lebanese capital since 2008, according to state-run National News Agency.
The booby-trapped car was parked outside a five-story building facing al-Farah Library, around 200 meters from the Phalange Party The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology. 's Central House, NNA said.
An Agence La Belle France Presse photographer saw two apartment buildings devastated by the bombing. One building was ablaze as Red Thingy workers evacuated bloodied casualties.
Balconies were torn off by the force of the blast, windows shattered and cars crushed by falling masonry.
Flying glass from the shattered windows maimed more than 20 people inside their apartments, NNA said.
The agency noted that the blast did not target the convoy of a political figure.
"We heard a powerful kaboom. The earth shook under our feet," said Roland, 19, among a large crowd of army, rescue workers and onlookers at the scene.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel later arrived on the scene to inspect the kaboom's aftermath.
Georges Kettaneh, in charge of the Red Thingy operation, said at least 37 people were maimed.
Relatives of employees at BEMO bank, whose windows were broken, dashed to the area to look for their children. "Where is Pierre?" one man cried, as a young woman searched for her mother in the rubble.
Nancy, aged 45, was in tears as she reflected on having nearly missed death.
"I was just coming home when I saw my house in flames. I would have been dead if I had stayed home."
A rescue worker, identifying himself as Rahmeh, said "this reminds me of attacks during the (1975-1990) civil war and after the war."
Prime Minister Najib Miqati said "the government and all its security and judicial authorities are on alert to unveil the circumstances of this blast, pursue and punish the perpetrators, and foil any attempts to drag Leb back to the episode of bombings."
Miqati also declared Saturday a day of national mourning and ordered the closure of state institutes, the lowering of flags to half-mast and the modification of TV and radio programming.
An extraordinary security meeting was also held at the Grand Serail to discuss the attack, while cabinet was expected to convene on Saturday morning to address the situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Nothing wrong with Lebanon that another faction and a billion dollars won't cure.
[Jerusalem Post] Six others, including three children, injured at mosque near Pakistain border; same mosque was hit in 2010.
A jacket wallah killed two guards as he went kaboom!" outside a mosque in a restive southern province of Iran on Friday after being prevented from reaching worshippers inside, Iranian media reported.
The bomber set off his boom belt a few hundred meters (yards) outside the Imam Hossein mosque in the city of Chabahar, killing two members of the Basij militia that were on guard, Fars news agency reported.
Six others, including three children, sustained injuries in the kaboom, it said.
Chabahar is in Sistan-Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province, near the Pak border. It has a history of unrest, with the mainly Sunni Mohammedan population complaining of discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shi'ite Mohammedan authorities.
An attack by two suicide bombers at the same mosque in 2010 killed 39 people including women and kiddies during a religious ceremony.
The Sunni rebel group Jundollah, which says it is fighting for better rights for Sunni Mohammedans in Iran, grabbed credit for that attack, which it said was in Dire Revenge™ for the execution of its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi.
The group is believed to be based in Pakistain and since 2003 has claimed a number of attacks and kidnappings inside Iranian territory.
In its most audacious attack, it targeted a meeting of Revolutionary Guards and tribal figures from Sistan-Balochistan in October 2009, killing six senior commanders and 29 others.
Iran says Jundollah has links to al Qaeda and has accused Pakistain, Britannia and the United States of supporting it to stir instability in its southeast. The three countries deny backing Jundollah.
[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda hard boyz set off a boom-mobile inside an army base in southern Yemen at dawn on Friday, killing at least 14 soldiers, military officials said.
The hard boyz drove through several checkpoints before entering the base of the Yemeni army's 115th brigade in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province, where a drone raid killed at least seven Al-Qaeda members the day before, one official told AFP.
"Four members of Al-Qaeda with boom belts... traveling in a military vehicle managed to pass through several army checkpoints to reach the camp" at Shaqra, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Abyan capital Zinjibar, another said.
"Two soldiers were killed at the entrance of the base by the assailants who then continued their journey to the camp where three of the four occupants got out of their vehicle, while the driver went kaboom!"," said the official.
In all 14 soldiers were killed and 10 others maimed.
The army killed two of the hard boyz who got out of the vehicle, while a third one managed to escape on foot, officials said, adding that a manhunt was underway.
The attack came 24 hours after rockets fired from a drone near the southern city of Jaar killed at least seven suspected members of the terror network, including a local leader, an official in the restive region said.
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[An Nahar] Former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... said Thursday that Iran has told him it would accept the fall of Syrian ally Bashir al-Assad if the conflict-torn country holds elections.
Annan, who served until August as the U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... special envoy on Syria, renewed his call for a peaceful solution to the crisis and warned that foreign weapons were only fueling a conflict said to have claimed more than 34,000 lives.
Speaking on a visit to Washington, Annan said that he sensed support for a democratic solution in Syria when he visited Tehran in July and met with three top Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad.
"They all had the same message when I pushed them -- that... we accept that Assad may have to go, but the Syrian people should be allowed to decide through elections, even if it's organized under U.N. authority," Annan said.
"One choice phrase they gave me is that 'democracy is a solution, democracy is the answer in Syria,'" Annan said at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.
Annan said the Iranian leaders did not limit calls for democracy to Syria but also made clear they would push for a similar path in Bahrain, a U.S.-allied monarchy that has put down protests against its Shiite majority.
Iran, which is led by Shiite holy men, ... and describes itself as a democracy...
is Assad's main regional ally and has criticized Western and Arab pressure on his regime, led by the Alawite sect. But Iran has denied U.S. charges that it has shipped arms to Syria.
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[An Nahar] Former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... called Thursday for a discussion on decriminalization of drugs, criticizing the crackdown on traffickers in Mexico led by outgoing President Felipe Calderon.
"When you look at the results of Calderon's efforts, most people will tell you it has not worked. He's got lots of people killed," Annan said at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
"There is need for change in policy, but it has to start with a debate and discussion because there are very strong emotions on either side," Annan said.
Annan served last year on a global commission headed by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso that recommended decriminalization of drugs. He reiterated Thursday that drug laws "have not worked."
"We have applied them (the laws) for decades. It's got the prisons filled with lots of young people who sometimes come out destroyed for having an ounce, or whatever," he said.
"We should approach it through education, health issues, rather than a brutal reaction," he said.
Annan also called more attention to curbing demand for drugs -- which in Mexico's case comes largely from the United States -- rather than just cutting down on supply.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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Top|| File under: Narcos
[Yemen Post] At least nine Al-Qaeda operatives were killed including most dangerous leaders from AQAP and its offshoot Ansar Al-Sharia in a Yemeni raid early on Thursday.
The state-run September 26 website quoted a military source in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province as saying the Death Eaters were targeted in the Jabalain area.
"They were surrounded and raided by the 119 infantry brigade and the pro-government popular committees as Al-Qaeda continued to receive devastating blows," the source said.
"Nadir Haider Nasser Al-Shadadi, one of the most wanted leaders of Al-Qaeda, was among those killed," the source continued.
This month, Yemen sentenced several terrorist suspects to death and to years in prison after convicting them of joining Al-Qaeda and forming gangs that attacked military and security chiefs, offices and public properties.
Earlier this year, the Yemeni army launched a US-backed offensive and drove Al-Qaeda Death Eaters out of their strongholds in Abyan and Shabwa provinces. Hundreds of Death Eaters including big shots were killed, injured and enjugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! The authorities are now continuing a massive hunt for the remaining operatives, with many key of them and cells enjugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in the past few months.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[An Nahar] Libyan fighters linked to the army on Friday pounded the town of Bani Walid, a former bastion of toppled strongman Muammar Qadaffy ... one of those little rainstorms from the Arab Spring... , killing at least two people, local sources said.
"We have received two people dead and 16 maimed until now," said Abdullah al-Mansouri, deputy director of Bani Walid's hospital.
"The shelling is ongoing so the number of casualties could grow," he said, adding that those killed were a 13-year-old boy and a man in his fifties.
The military commander of the town, Salem al-Waer, gave a higher toll and said shelling had intensified. "Five people were killed and more than 40 homes destroyed by rocket fire and mortar rounds," Waer told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone.
Skirmishes between Bani Walid fighters and Misrata "militias" were concentrated on the outskirts of the hilltop town, including in the nearby valley of Mardum, the commander said.
"But we are in control of the town," he added.
The spike in violence comes one year after rebels defeated die-hard loyalists of the former regime both in Bani Walid and the desert city of Sirte, hometown of Qadaffy who was captured and killed on October 20, 2011.
The crisis in Bani Walid was triggered by the death of Omran Shaaban, a native of rival city Misrata who was credited with catching Qadaffy.
Shaaban, 22, was kidnapped in July and held hostage for weeks in the oasis town, where he was allegedly tortured, before the authorities brokered his release.
He died last month of gunshot wounds sustained during his ordeal.
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[An Nahar] The North Korean army threatened Friday to carry out a "merciless military strike" against South Korea next week, in a serious escalation of cross-border tensions.
The Korean People's Army (KPA) vowed to initiate the strike if a group of North Korean defectors now living in the South went ahead with plans to scatter propaganda leaflets next Monday from balloons floated over the border.
"The moment a minor movement for the scattering is captured... a merciless military strike by the Western Front will be put into practice without warning," the KPA said in a statement carried on the official Korean Central News Agency.
Residents in and around the area where the activists plan to launch their balloons should "evacuate in anticipation of possible damage", the statement said.
"The surrounding area will become targets of direct firing of the KPA," the statement said, adding: "The KPA never makes empty talk."
A group of North Korean defectors plan to carry out the leafleting exercise on October 22 at 11:30 am (0230 GMT) at the border near the town of Paju, around 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Seoul.
Such exercises are relatively common and North Korea has threatened action in the past, but Friday's statement was unusually strong with its specific naming of the time and location, coupled with the evacuation warning.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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Top|| File under: Commies
#1
"Points and Laughs", Yeah sure.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
10/20/2012 1:28
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#2
I wish that once....just ONCE...somebody would stand up and call these morons out.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/20/2012 6:24
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#3
Yawn.
Tubby must be lonely - now that no-one can find his girlfriend. He needs relationship counseling.
Maybe the Babe got caught writing love notes to her Ex???
Anyhoo, IMO the DPRK's primary focii remains preventing any more Chinese influence + control, etc. in Govt, Econ than already exists, let alone takeover, even iff it means the DPRK launching unilateral attacks agz US Milfors or UNCOM assets in the ROK, USFJ, etc.
At this point in time, China is more dangerous than raucus Nuke-wannabe Iran as the DIAOYUS/SENKAKUS DISPUTE > bigger picture = about WHOM CONTROLS THE STRATEGIC ROUTES/
CORRIDORS, I.E. AIR-SEA-SPACE, FROM THE ECS + YELLOW SEA INTO WESTPAC + NORPAC.
The so-called DRAGON TRIANGLE".
E.g. TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > JAPAN MUST RESPOND TO CHINA NAVY MOVES.
ARTIC NUTSHELL = JAPAN MUST RECOGNIZE THAT CHINA IS THE STRONGEST MILPOL POWER IN EAST ASIA, HENCE MUST LEARN OR GIVE IT RESPECT, OR ELSE JAPAN RISKS TROUBLE.
FYI the independence movement in French Polynesia is repor growing - China has already begun making Diplomatic, Econ overtures in favor of either the status quo or future independence.
#5
ION WAFF > US AND JAPAN COWER IN FEAR OF CELESTIAL CHINA | REPORT: JAPAN, US TO CANCEL ISLAND DRILL.
Posted elsewhere.
and
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > A POINT OF VIEW: CHINA - WHAT KIND OF SUPERPOWER COULD IT BE?
Iff China hopes to be a "post-US" Global Superpower or Hyperpower of similar mode, let alone "Space/Star/Astro-Power", or even just Cold War = USSR-style, then "Middle Kingdom II" or "Return to the Middle Kingdom: East Asia Bugaloo" taint it.
[An Nahar] Syria condemned on Friday the car booming that left eight people dead and 78 others maimed in the Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh, describing it as a cowardly terrorist act, state news agency SANA reported. Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi was quoted as saying "these sort of terrorist, cowardly attacks are unjustifiable wherever they occur."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Yemen Post] The Yemeni authorities seized explosives including Russian-made bombs inside a parcel that was sent from Hadramout ...the formerly independent Qu'aiti state and sultanate, annexed by Communist South Yemen in 1968, encompassing a region along the Gulf of Aden, extending eastwards to the borders of the Dhofar region of Oman. The people are called Hadhramis and speak Hadhrami Arabic. The city Tarimis estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad (PTUI) anywhere in the world, approximately seven in every square yard... province to the capital Sanaa on Friday, the interior ministry reported.
"Half a kilo of TNT, two Russian-made bombs, a mine and 50-cm detonator were seized in Sanaa inside the package, which was supposed to contain henna," it said.
Officials at the local land transport company which transported the explosives found the suspicious package and reported it to the authorities, the ministry said, adding an investigation has been launched into the case.
The seizure occurred hours after official reports said Al-Qaeda bombers carried out early Friday suicide kabooms and raids on a military base in the southern province of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... killing at least 18 soldiers and injuring others.
The incidents come amid an ongoing, massive hunt for Al-Qaeda forces of Evil across the republic in which many forces of Evil including big shots have been killed, placed in long-term storage Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! and injured in the past few months
Posted by: Fred ||
10/20/2012
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
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.
Democrats launched a fresh round of attacks on Republicans over the issue of voter fraud Friday after a man working for a firm under contract to the Republican Party of Virginia was accused of discarding state voter registration forms.
The Israeli navy has intercepted a boat of pro-Palestinian activists trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Lee Iacocca, the man credited with saving Chrysler, has thrown his support to Mitt Romney in the Republican's effort to unseat Barack Obama and take the reins of the country after the November election.
Seven out of the 10 presidential toss-up states have lost jobs since President Obama took office, and the unemployment rate is higher today in six of those states than in January 2009, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Matt Barber praises Americans willing to correct their mistake of 2008.
KARACHI: Three activists of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and two Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H) workers among 10 people were killed in the city violence on Friday.
cycle of violence
Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Internal Security Forces, was killed on Friday in a car 
Seventeen Lebanese people were killed on Friday in an ambush by the Syrian army at the Lebanese-Syrian border, reported Voice of 
Wazoo
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
In a rare challenge to Pakistain's powerful generals, the country's Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the military should stop interfering in politics.
Hizbullah on Friday described the 
[An Nahar] A series of attacks by suspected 
Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
The rumor mill surrounding the health of Fidel Castro churned anew on Friday, despite a letter from the aging Cuban revolutionary published by state media and denials by relatives at home and in the United States that he is on death's door.
At least three security personnel were killed and ten others, including five 
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
Nawaz Sharif
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
At least three 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
A female keeper at Sydney's Taronga Zoo was fighting for her life Friday after being crushed against a fence post by "miracle" elephant Mr Shuffles, an animal she had cared for all its life.
Syria's air force carried out raids on Friday morning against rebels besieging a major military base in the northwestern province of Idlib, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
[An Nahar] A powerful 
Najib Miqati
Al-Qaeda 
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
Mahmoud 
North Korea
[Yemen Post] The Yemeni authorities seized explosives including Russian-made bombs inside a parcel that was sent from 
