#3
Debka has been correct quite often in the last 8 years in which I have followed them closely. Other Israeli media outlets now reporting the same thing about ground assault preparations that debka reported quite some time ago. Doesn't mean it will happen, but the JP and Arutz7 are reporting same thing.
#6
I have been reading Debka reports for years and have never ever seen a single one of their analysis prove out.
" Debka has been correct quite often in the last 8 years in which I have followed them closely"
Sure, when they are reporting something reported by another news service or something put out by a government ministry in a public context. But *never* have I ever experienced a "Debka Exclusive" being correct. Not once. Ever.
Sure, what they report might validate what some people might wish to be true and that influences people to believe it.
The government of Israel has said they might follow up with ground forces so Debka isn't reporting anything they couldn't get off of AP or Reuters in this case.
But if anyone can give me a single case of a Debka exclusive ever being correct, I will give you a cheese burger and a coke. I have never, ever, seen one. Not once.
Heck, they had us attacking Iran a half dozen different times over the past 5 years. A few times even saying the attack was "imminent".
#9
crosspatch, Debka called the transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria and Sudan first, before anyone else. That was the only time I've seen them correct, outside Israel.
I did not believe the Sudan part of the story, but then it got verified from another source that stated Sudan decided to return some unspecified equipment to Syria, saying they don't want to have anything to do with it.
these self-hating p*ssies should be obliged to serve in Gaza as human shields. I'm sure Hamas would welcome them with open arms
While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for the unity of the citizens of Israel and their support for the operation in Gaza, hundreds of left-wing activists gathered on the Defense Ministry's lawn to protest the deaths of over 200 Palestinians.
Five of the protestors were arrested for rioting after they damaged the security fence and clashed with police forces on the scene. Cracking heads is good to alleviate frustration
Around 300 activists took part in the protest, in order to condemn what they called Israel's "genocide and war crimes". The demonstrators marched through the streets of Tel Aviv until they reached the ministry's headquarters.
Many cried slogans such as "No to war yes to peace", and carried signs saying "Israel's government is committing war crimes", "Negotiation instead of slaughter", and "Lift the siege from Gaza". great slogans. Did you spend time on an unprotected street in Sderot to shout them?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008
16:25 ||
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#9
Danke Frank. I still wish somebody would round them up. Take them to Sderot. Chain them outside bomb shelters (where Sderot's citizens are spending the night).
#11
I'd suggest they hie themselves over to Gaza to serve as human shields for the paleos, but wouldn't that require that they be humans instead of suicidal pond scum?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/27/2008 18:42
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#12
I traded stamps for a while with one of these idiots. He was supposedly killed by one of the Hezbollah missiles. I don't miss him.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/27/2008 18:47
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#13
Move them to the other side of the fence. What is that I hear? Amalek?
If only it were so, Poison Reverse. Unfortunately, these are Jewish Israeli idiots. Being Jewish does not guarantee being intelligent, although one prefers to think that most of that sort have emigrated.
#18
#1 is right, Im guessing. The nominal leader of the israeli center left is LEADING this op. The mainstream zionist left, Meretz, was apparently informed in advance - i havent heard their reaction, I dont think these 300 represent them. Tiny group.
But they have the right to protest, a tribute to Israeli democracy.
There is an astonishing sense of déjà vu that confronts any half-detached observer of the post-26/11 mood in India. After the attack on Parliament seven years ago, Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke menacingly of an aar paar ki ladai and ordered full military mobilisation. This time too India has swung between decrying war-talk and keeping all options open. The romantic candles of sadbhavna have been snuffed out by the torches of assertive nationalism.
One of the main casualties of this national anger is the belief that Pakistan and India have a common destiny. Bolstered by elaborate people-to-people contacts, cricket matches and cultural exchanges, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh insisted at the NAM summit in September 2006 that India and Pakistan were co-victims of terrorism. Coming within months of the Mumbai train bombings that killed 250 people, this was an exemplary expression of dhimmitude.
Days before the Mumbai attack, President Asif Ali Zardari repeated the hackneyed formulation that there was a part of Pakistan that was forever Indian and vice versa. Despite the anger in Indian official circles at the ISI involvement in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, liberal hearts melted instantly. There was a flurry of punditry suggesting that Zardari was Indias newest best bet after Pervez Musharraf.
Ever since the West threw its weight behind the peace process, the strategic community in India has been divided between those in search of the good Pakistani and those who believed that Pakistan was inherently bad. That there was a section in Pakistan disgusted by the drift to extremism and anxious to rekindle Mohammed Ali Jinnahs vision of a modern, Muslim (but not Islamic) country, wasnt in doubt. But, were these voices of enlightenment akin to the Good Germans under Hitler? Were they consequential enough to impose correctives on State policy? Or were they the useful idiots expediently wheeled out during moments of international exasperation to tell the world that ordinary Pakistanis were innocent of crimes that were invariably the responsibility of someone else?
The issue has come to a head in the aftermath of the 26/11 attack. Liberal Pakistanis still insist that they were as shocked and as outraged as Indians at the brutality of the terrorists. They may well be right. Yet, why has Islamabad been so squeamish in admitting that the Mumbai attack was an operation originating in Pakistan? Why has it equated the criminality of non-State players with the sovereignty and national honour of Pakistan? Why does it take the spilling of Indian blood to unite Pakistan?
While the world was extremely generous in extending a helping hand to a fledgling democracy in Pakistan, it expected the democratic Government to responsive in addressing global security concerns. There was never any suggestion that either President Zardari or the late Benazir Bhuttos friends who occupy high office in Pakistan were responsible for either the Mumbai attack or the Kabul bombing in September. The finger of suspicion was always pointed at jihadi groups and ISI.
The feeling that Pakistan was fast emerging as the new epicentre of global terrorism and threatening the security of countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Britain and India, should have triggered a domestic churning. It should have offended the self-respect of Pakistani elite at least to hear their country described as a migraine.
Yet, there have been few voices of consequence from within Pakistan willing to tell the political and military establishment that enough is enough and that it is time to flush out the jihadis and the rogues who run them. Those who spent last summer telling the whole world that democratic Pakistan was bursting with exhilarating creativity that would leave India in the shade have abruptly chosen to maintain radio silence. All we have heard is vague talk about making steady, incremental gains in the fight against fanatics. Like the Good German, the Good Pakistani has couched his acquiescence in either silence or sophistry.
It is the sophistry that tells the tale of denial. After 26/11, there were many intellectuals from the South Asian diaspora eager to shed tears for a Bombay they imagined had perished in the fires at the Taj. They filled many column inches of iconic liberal publications. Curiously, their remorse was invariably couched with gratuitous references to how badly India treated its Muslim minority, how Babri Masjid and Gujarat have kindled a fierce desire for revenge, and how Kashmir remains the core dispute.
Cut out the mandatory allusions to the Sea Lounge at the Taj and the vibrancy of Bollywood, and you are left with the stark judgment: India had it coming.
The Good German claimed ignorance of the concentration camps and the Final Solution. The Good Pakistani is better informed. He has seen the devastation of the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad; he has watched the siege of the Lal Masjid; and he has experienced the growing hold of religious bigots on Pakistani society. He knows what the ISI is all about much better than we do. And he is too painfully aware that Pakistan is sleep-walking its way to disaster. Yet, when it comes to India, ordinary decencies have effortlessly yielded to the brusque message for India: You had it coming.
Earlier, the Good Pakistani was a social distraction, an embellishment of liberal Hindu self-flagellation and Indian Muslim angst. Today, he has become a red herring and a diversion from the urgent business of confronting the threat frontally. With infinite patience India is still trying to not be beastly to the Good Pakistani. Our Establishment is still hoping Pakistani civil society becomes truly civil.
Its likely to be an indefinite wait. In the war on India, the Good Pakistani has invariably sided with a Bad Pakistan. Only the naïve and the foolish should be surprised.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
16:20 ||
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India has received intelligence inputs saying that China has secretly resumed assistance to Pakistan's civilian nuclear programme. The report has also been corroborated by Western intelligence agencies. China's resumption of assistance is a possible follow up to the visit of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to Beijing on October 18. A bilateral nuclear agreement was signed during the visit. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had later said that China had agreed to set up two atomic reactors, the Chashma-3 and Chashma-4 and that the Pakistani-China Joint Atomic Commission would meet soon. The deal is expected to provide a symbolic balance to the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.
The Chashma 3 and 4 reactors have been under cloud since China signed up to the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004. Under group guidelines, no NSG member could provide nuclear assistance to a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Beijing claimed to have 'grandfathered' the Chashma 3 and 4 reactors saying that it had the right to fulfil the contract with Pakistan because it had been signed before China's entry into the NSG.
However, according to a senior government advisor, the US has demarched China about providing Pakistan reactors and declined to endorse the 'grandfather' clause. Beijing on its part had never given up its right to provide Pakistan the two reactors; it merely avoided angering the US for fear of sanctions.
China may have now begun preparing the ground for a transfer in expectation that the US may be too consumed with the financial crisis and the Presidential transition to take notice of any infraction of the NSG guidelines.
In the past, China has defended its nuclear cooperation to Pakistan arguing that Pakistan's nuclear arms posture was 'defensive' and that the Indo-Pakistan nuclear standoff provided stability to the region.
The Chashma reactors however are supposed be safeguarded and would, in theory, not contribute to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
15:30 ||
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#1
China stirring the pot? Knock me down with a feather. Next you'll say there's an "incident" along the Indo-China LOC border! I imagine those warships sent to pirate-duty will have to make a port callin Karachi to offload supply up
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 16:13
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Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday that dialogue was the only way to solve the problems confronting the region, amid heightened tensions with India in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
"We do not talk of war or vengeance, the whole region will suffer in case of war," Zardari told ministers and lawmakers at the family home in Nau Dero of his dead wife, former premier Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated one year ago in a gun and bomb attack.
Pakistan is not a failed state, the president said. "We're determined to rid the country of terrorism," he said, accusing "non-state actors" of forcing their agenda upon the country. He described extremism as a 'cancer'. Zardari told the gathering that included senior ministers and legislators that Pakistan would act to rein in extremists "because we want to do it", and not because "you want it".
He was apparently referring to countries putting pressure on Pakistan to take action in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
"We'll do it at an opportune time, right time," he said. "We'll choose our time. We'll cure it, we'll solve it, we'll correct it. We'll be accountable to ourselves. We'll fight our own wars."
"Can't be today, though. We're busy today. Ask us tomorrow."
Zardari said he hoped dialogue would soon begin in an effort to overcome regional threats, but did not elaborate. "Dialogue is our biggest arsenal... the solution to the problem of the region... is politics, is dialogue and is democracy in Pakistan, because democracy is part of the cure and not part of the problem," he said in a speech carried live on state television.
He mentioned the large markets that China and India have for Pakistani goods. More trade with both countries, he suggested, would be in Pakistan's interest.
Speaking at the same venue, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani also sounded a note of conciliation. "We don't want to have aggression with our neighbours," he said. "We want to have friendly relations with our neighbours. I assure you once again that we'll not act. We'll only react."
The Pakistani leaders' comments came a day after the US, and Pakistan's close allies China and Saudi Arabia, asked Islamabad to take steps to defuse tension with India and bring to justice those behind the Mumbai terror attacks.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
15:28 ||
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#1
Think of Predators as a language you can understand, Asif Ali.
Via Jihad Watch
Thirteen years after a war in which 100,000 people were killed, a majority of them Muslims, Bosnia is undergoing an Islamic revival.
More than half a dozen new madrasas, or religious high schools, have been built in recent years, while dozens of mosques have sprouted, including the King Fahd, a sprawling $28 million complex with a sports and cultural center.
Before the war, fully covered women and men with long beards were almost unheard of. Today, they are common.
Many here welcome the Muslim revival as a healthy assertion of identity in a multiethnic country where Muslims make up close to half the population. But others warn of a growing culture clash between conservative Islam and Bosnia's avowed secularism in an already fragile state.
This is a place where Saoodi-financed Wahabiist revival has to stop, and we need to lean on the Bosnians to make it stop. The EUnicks have no influence since they didn't stop the Serbs, but we did and we do. Get the Bosnian government to start cutting off, in various quiet and careful ways, Saoodi influence.
Posted by: ed ||
12/27/2008
14:22 ||
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On much of the world stage, President Bush has been widely reviled as one of the worst U.S. leaders of modern times, and it is hard to think of an American president who has received a worse press since Richard Nixon.
To his critics, who are legion on both sides of the Atlantic, the war in Iraq has been a monumental disaster, at a cost of more than 4,000 American lives and at least $500 billion. They see the war on terror, with the notorious Guantanamo prison camp as its symbol, as a catalyst for radicalizing tens of millions of Muslims that has made the United States a pariah in the Middle East.
The war in Afghanistan, they argue, is going badly in the face of a resurgent Taliban, the cost of Washington pouring most of its resources into Iraq. Bush, the theory goes, failed to keep his eye on the ball, weakening the fight against al-Qaeda through his supposed obsession with Iraq. He is also accused of undermining America's standing in the world, adopting a unilateralist foreign policy and refusing to work with its Allies.
Some of the criticism of Bush's foreign policy is fair. The early stages of the occupation of Iraq were poorly handled and there was a distinct lack of post-war planning. America's public diplomacy efforts have been poor or even non-existent, with little serious attempt to combat the stunning rise of anti-Americanism. More recently, Washington's failure to stand up more aggressively to Moscow after its invasion of Georgia projected weakness and indecision.
Much of the condemnation of his policies though is driven by a venomous hatred of Bush's personality and leadership style, rather than an objective assessment of his achievements. Ten or twenty years from now, historians will view Bush's actions on the world stage in a more favourable light. America's 43rd president did after all directly liberate more people (over 60 million) from tyranny than any leader since Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Widely seen as his biggest foreign policy error, the decision to invade Iraq could ultimately prove to have been a masterstroke. Today the world is witnessing the birth of the first truly democratic state in the Middle East outside of Israel. Over eight million voted in Iraq's parliamentary elections in 2005, and the region's first free Muslim society may become a reality. Iraq might not be Turkey, but it is a powerful demonstration that freedom can flourish in the embers of the most brutal and barbaric of dictatorships.
The success of the surge in Iraq will go down in history as a turning point in the war against al-Qaeda. The stunning defeat of the insurgency was a major blow both militarily and psychologically for the terror network. The West's most feared enemy suffered thousands of losses in Iraq, including many of their most senior commanders, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Abu Qaswarah. It was the most successful counter-insurgency operation anywhere in the world since the British victory in Malaya in 1960.
The broader war against Islamist terrorism has also been a success. There has not been a single terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, and for all the global condemnation of pre-emptive strikes, Guantanamo and the use of rendition against terror suspects, the fact remains that Bush's aggressive strategy actually worked.
Significantly, there have been no successful terrorist attacks in Europe since the July 2005 London bombings, in large part due to the cooperation between U.S., British and other Western intelligence agencies. American intelligence has proved vital in helping prevent an array of planned terror attacks in the UK, a striking demonstration of the value to Britain of its close ties to Washington.
President Bush, in contrast to both his father, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton before him, had a crystal clear, instinctive understanding of the importance of the Anglo-American Special Relationship. Tony Blair may well have been labeled Bush's "poodle" over his support for the war in Iraq, but his partnership with George W. Bush marked the high point of the Anglo-American alliance since the heady days of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
The decision by Bush, with Blair's support, to sweep the Taliban out of Afghanistan was a brilliant move, one that not all U.S. presidents would have taken. A weaker leader would have gone to the United Nations Security Council and sought a negotiated settlement with Kabul. It was a risky gambit that was vindicated by a stunning military victory in the space of a month, with a small number of U.S. ground forces involved.
Bush also made a firm commitment to defending the fledgling Afghan government, and succeeded in building a 41-nation NATO-led coalition. The notion that the resurgence of the Taliban is America's failure is nonsense. The U.S. has more than 30,000 troops in the country under U.S. or NATO command, making up over half of all Allied forces there. Continental European allies have simply failed to step up to the plate with more troops, with almost the entire war-fighting burden placed on the U.S., UK and other English-speaking countries. Afghanistan is not a failure of American leadership, it is a damning indictment of an increasingly pacifist Europe that simply will not fight.
President Bush also recognized the importance of re-shaping the NATO alliance for the 21st Century, backing an ambitious program of NATO expansion, culminating in the addition of seven new members in 2004. He also had the foresight to support the development of a missile defence system in Europe, successfully negotiating deals with both Poland and the Czech Republic. Bush was right to back the eventual inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in NATO, and both would be well on their way to membership today were it not for the feckless decision of France and Germany to side with Russia in blocking their path to entry.
Bush began his presidency primarily as a domestic leader. He ends it as a war leader who has left a huge imprint internationally. His greatest legacy, the global war against Islamist terror, has left the world a safer place, and his decision to project global power and military might against America's enemies has made it harder for Islamist terrorists to strike against London, Paris or Berlin.
Bush's decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power will make it less likely that rogue regimes, Iran and North Korea included, will seek to militarily challenge American power. The memory of the invasion of Iraq and the unequivocal message that sent is by far the most effective deterrent to Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.
If superpowers do not demonstrate an ability and a willingness to wield power (as Britain did on numerous occasions at the height of the Empire) their hegemony will be increasingly challenged. President Bush exercised U.S. military power to stunning effect in both Iraq and Afghanistan, an important reminder that America was still a force to be reckoned with after the 1990s humiliation of Somalia and the half-hearted missile strikes against Bin Laden in Sudan. In an age of growing threats and challenges, the projection of hard power matters, and America's next president would be wise to take heed.
#1
Not bad, but it's stunning how even an essentially positive analysis nonetheless integrates key myths and poor frameworks.
I assume everyone here can pick these out, but consider for a moment how in effect delusional the everyday discussion of US foreign policy has become.
Iraq a monumental disaster? Huh? By what measure? What were the alternatives that might have delivered such a strategic victory (regime removal - the blundering defeat of AQ there subsequently is very rich gravy, but still gravy)?
Gitmo is "notorious"? No, the distortions in "reporting" about it have been notorious. The gutting of the Geneva Conventions by the ICRC (their purported guardian) and "human rights" groups and orwellian SCOTUS justices, in their pretense that up is down and that suddenly, after 1977, the Conventions magically became adequate for all future developments, unlike the previous decades of their existence - that's quite notorious.
"Tens of millions" of Muslims have been radicalized because the US removed two of the most loathsome oppressors of Muslims, not to mention homo sapiens in general, on Earth? Uh, OK. The US wasn't a "pariah" to the uninformed and psychologically dysfunctional majorities in the MidEast before 2001? Oh - I guess I imagined all those decades of lunatic hatred, terrorism, and self-degradation by those failed polities.
So, no, I'm not going to be satisfied to see sensible general conclusions - it's kinda important to get the basic facts and the premises and the framework right, too.
#13
Definitely shock, then. I await awe with great anticipation.
Thank you for the popcorn, Barbara! If this keeps up, and I do hope it does, I'll retire to the kitchen to cut up crudites... for the nutritional balance, of course.
JAMMU: The Border Security Force (BSF) on Saturday shot dead a suspected Pakistani intruder along the Indo-Pak border in Jammu sector of Jammu and Kashmir, making it the second such incident in two days.
BSF troops of 110 Battalion, deployed on International Border (IB) at Chhawani Border Outpost (BOP) in Samba district, noticed some suspicious movement near the fence early on Saturday, BSF Deputy Commandant S Balasubramaniam said.
Troops then challenged the intruder and asked him to surrender. But, when he tried to flee towards the Pakistani side, he was shot dead. The body was later handed over to the police, he said.
The troops had killed a suspected Pak intruder at Chak Faqira Border Outpost (BOP) in Samba district on Friday.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
13:37 ||
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#3
As long as they don't treat 'em like they did David Hicks ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008 13:43
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Lets see, they will NOT give that German doc a citizenship pass because his son has downs syndrome, but they'll put out the carpet for Gitmo's worst?
Several suspected al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents staged a daring jailbreak Friday, killing at least 10 police officers and six prisoners during their escape from a prison in Ramadi, authorities said.
Authorities in Iraq's Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital, said three inmates considered to be senior militants in al-Qaida in Iraq escaped from the city's al-Forsan police station.
The prison break began when inmates overpowered a guard, grabbed his weapon and shot him dead. They also killed the prison commandant, officials said. Some 40 detainees were set free in an ensuing riot, which lasted for two hours. Police were able to recapture all but three of the militants, authorities said.
Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, was on lockdown as authorities tried to recapture the escapees. Police imposed a curfew and were conducting door-to-door searches of homes. Few other details were immediately available.
The Iraqi government took over security at al-Forsan from the U.S. military in September, and Friday's jailbreak could call into question the timetable for relinquishing U.S. control over the country. Iraq now controls security in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
#1
The great majority of disasters don't last very long, and those who are prepared provide a great buffer for society when they do.
For example, if someone stores enough food for their family for six months, once they know a disaster will only last a month, they can feed five other families as well.
In turn, that means the relief agencies can feed five more families. So a single survivalist can actively help eleven families, including their own.
Survivalists have also been around for decades, so there are some whose food is nearing its expiration date, when the disaster hits. Had they not used it, it would have just been thrown away, which gives them motivation for charity.
Federal minister for production Sardar Abdul Qayyum Jatoi said that if India thrusts war on Pakistan then half of Indian and 120 million of Pakistani population would be wiped off.
Speaking at a press conference in Dharki, he said that every thing is used in war and we would not sit idle if India attacks our country.
He said that India have to bear more loss in the war.
Sardar Abdul Qayyum Jatoi said that both countries are high alert. We do not want war but if it thrusts then situation will become worse.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
11:11 ||
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#1
that still leaves about 600 million Indians or more don't it
#3
I don't really think Pakistan can deliver those bombs. And given that Pakistan can't even keep drones out of their country, I think India can even without resorting to missiles.
I'll be that the problem is that the terrorist elements of the government are so whipped up with nationalist fervor they don't understand that as much as they should.
#4
I'm going to guess here, but I suspect the Pak Air Force has some decent elements. They fly F-16s and they do train their pilots. They aren't a match for the USAF in any way but they might stand up to the IAF for a couple days. They'll lose for the usual reasons -- while their pilots are brave, their logistics, support and mechanics suck. So after a day or two of combat ops with insha-allan maintenance, the Pak AF will be grounded.
So if I ran the IAF, I'd work real hard to pressure the Pak AF into an ops tempo that they just can't maintain, swatting Pak aircraft every way I can, luring the Pak AF into carefully-planned traps (using both aircraft and AA), and wait for the Paks to collapse.
And then I'd bring the heavy lumber through.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008 14:58
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Re: Indian air force - if I recall correctly the IAF pilots beat the USAF in mock combat dogfights not too long ago.
#6
Yes and no on the Indian pilots versas US pilots : US pilots were flying under rules of engagement which effectively nullified their electronic warfare advantages.
"We do not consider Jihad as terrorism in the parameters of Shariah."
KARACHI: Mufti Azam Pakistan, Maulana Muhammad Rafi Usmani Saturday said enemies of Pakistan are hatching conspiracies to destroy its atomic assets. During a Friday sermon, he said the situation at country's borders has become serious. Armed forces are ready, now the people are needed to be prepared practically, he said. "We do not consider Jihad as terrorism in the parameters of Shariah."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
10:55 ||
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#1
put a GPS lock on this asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 11:19
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#2
Actually, the Grand Mufti of Pakistan is correct... we DO wish to destroy Pak atomic assets...
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008 11:32
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That's acceptable, both Pak asses and atomic assets.
#6
perhaps there will be a usable port in Afghanistan in the next century, though
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 17:54
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Speaking of which... Pakiwakiland is real open to major earthquakes ... a few final tests on some carefully chosen fault lines could be worth their weight in Plutonium...
Just sayin..
Naxalites dragged a woman from her home and beat her to death -- in the presence of other villagers -- late last night. Thirty-odd rebels carried out the killing in Daldalia village under Charhi outpost, 22km from the district headquarters.
According to eyewitnesses account, the Naxalites acted on the suspicion that Etwaria Devi, 38, was a police informer and believed that she deserved death for her "crimes". After being dragged out of her home, the woman was beaten up with sticks, lathis and stones.
Though she cried out for help, fear of meeting a similar fate kept her neighbours from helping her. The only person who came to her rescue was her 13-year-old daughter, and the teenager was also beaten up and then locked up in her home -- for trying to save her mother.
After some minutes of severe beating the woman died on the spot.
Around 11:30pm, Naxalites armed with sophisticated weapons reached Daldalia and knocked on Etwaria's door. The deceased's husband, Kailu Oraon, opened the door and was overpowered by some cadre -- while others searched for Etwaria. When they spotted the mother of three hiding inside, the rebels dragged her outside. Kailu and his three daughters were locked up in a room with a warning to not intervene.
Eyewitnesses accounts state that after being dragged out of her home by her hair, Naxalites began a kangaroo court where they "levelled" charges against the woman for being an informer and then an enemy of the poor. The cadre alleged that Etwaria had passed several important information regarding the outfit's operations to the police, resulting in arrests and foiled attack attempts. The senior woman was also accused of leaking information to the police that later led to the Dahudaag gunbattle in July.
The officer in charge of Charhi police station, Vijaykant Thakur, was killed in the Dahudaag encounter.
After levelling charges, Naxalites passed a verdict to beat Etwaria to her death. Though the woman tried to save herself, she failed, as did her daughter, Namita, a Class VIII student, who also received blows on her head and arms after running out of the house where she was locked in with her father and sisters.
Police reached the murder spot in the morning and sent the body for post-mortem. Officers recovered two pamphlets near the body that warned of a similar fate to all police informers in and around the area.
Talking to reporters today, the officers, however, denied Etwaria's police link and described the murder as "brutal" and "irrational".
So far, Naxalites have taken many lives in similar fashion after accusing the people of being police informers, however, this was the first instance where a woman and a mother was made a victim of their suspicions.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
10:44 ||
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India on Saturday said Pakistan was trying to whip up "war hysteria" and asked Islamabad and leaders there not to create tension and deflect the issue of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
"A lot of issues are being raised in relation to the Mumbai terror attacks. It is unfortunate that an atmosphere has been created in Pakistan, some sort of war hysteria," External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said while addressing an international seminar of Parsi teachers here.
"I appeal to Pakistan and Pakistani leaders, do not unnecessarily try to create tension. Do not try to deflect the issue. A problem has to be tackled face to face. Evading a problem will not help to get rid of it," he said.
"The issue is not the defence of Pakistan, the issue is not war, the issue is the terrorist attack on Mumbai, the unprecedented scale, magnitude, ferocity as well as audacity all clearly demonstrated that it was not only pre-planned, but also well planned," he said.
"The issue is how to prevent terrorism. The issue is how to direct the international community to face the terrorist challenge and eliminate terrorism from the face of the world," he said.
The fight against terrorism, he said, was not directed at any country, nation or religion. "The issue is how to prevent terrorism and against the mentality which gives birth to terrorism, and against the set-up that aids terror."
Mukherjee said that terrorism has no religion and no respect for borders.
"Terrorism is not linked to a particular religion or community. I totally reject such an idea. Islam propagates love and affection."
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
08:37 ||
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#1
Islam propagates love and affection and deflects the issue of the Mumbai terrorist attacks,the defence of Pakistan is trying to whip up "war hysteria" and has no religion and no respect for borders.
#2
Not quite, Newc. The story is saying that the courts should not grant civil divorces to Moslem couples until after they receive a religious divorce. According to Sharia "law", a man may be married to more than one woman at a time, so there's no bar to his getting a civil divorce from his first wife and marrying a second. The first wife would be unable to marry in Moslem society afterwards. The intent here is to bar the faithless husband from marrying again, which we should all approve.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
12/27/2008 7:42
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#3
Eric, newc is correct. Any accomodation of Shariah in the common law is one more step to doom.
Your take is correct from a legalistic standpoint but that still makes accomodation of the Muzzies.
What happens if the Female wants out? If she has to wait till the Koranimals let her she cedes half her property off the top.
#4
Civil should be strictly separated from religious. If a woman is unable to attain a civil divorce without a sharia divorce then she is at the mercy of the sharia courts, even if she doesn't want to get married again.
Further, keep in mind that requiring the sharia divorce prior to the civil gives priority to sharia rules as to property distribution and custody.
If the consequence is that a woman then cannot get married in the muslim faith that's her choice, but at least she had the choice.
#5
I agree that if someone wants to be bound by their religions demands, that is their choice, as long as it is within the civil law. However, it is not the job of the civil authorities to accommodate those who want the advantages of both systems. If accommodation happens, it must be at the expense of religious law.
A MEMBER of al-Qaeda in Iraq who broke out of jail has been killed in a firefight while two other prisoners on the run have been surrounded by police. "We killed 'Imad the killer' and he is lying on the street in front of me," an officer said. "We are exchanging gunfire with the other two who are hiding in a house in Street number 20 in the centre of the city."
The man killed by Iraqi forces, Imad Ahmed Farhan, was nicknamed "Imad the killer" because police say he has admitted to murdering at least 100 people. The men escaped from Forsan police station in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, yesterday in a brazen breakout that sparked a gunbattle which killed 13 militants and policemen.
The incident began at around 2am when a prisoner called out that he was sick, and a policeman went to a communal cell to check. When the officer entered the cell holding 40 men, 13 of them al-Qaeda members, they grabbed him and cut his throat with a makeshift knife. They then seized his gun and went to the police chief's office and slit his throat. The 11 al-Qaeda prisoners then dashed into the courtyard where they shot a lieutenant and made it to the armoury before the gun battle erupted.
This article starring:
IMAD AHMED FARHAN
al-Qaeda in Iraq
IMAD THE KILLER
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Posted by: tipper ||
12/27/2008
06:43 ||
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#1
alias "Imad The Killed"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 9:48
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#2
A tombstone for him might read " I Mad No more. I Dead, Now".
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
12/27/2008 11:09
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#3
The story started bad, but at least it ended on a positive note. And no Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the verdict or sentence.
A family talking during a movie enraged a nearby viewer so badly that he shot the father in the arm.
Philadelphia police say James Joseph Cialella Jr, 29, shot the man after a brief altercation. Cialella was still inside the theater when police arrived.
Police arrested and charged him with attempted murder, aggravated assault, violation of uniform firearms act, possession of an instrument of a crime, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
#1
Shooter will spend some time in jail and pay serious cash to a lawyer to avoid a longer stay.
On the other hand, I'd suspect the guy that got shot, along with most of those who saw this action take place, will be considerably more cognizant of their obligation to be quiet in movie theaters from now on.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 10:22
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#5
Theaters... I hates'em.
Posted by: John H. Dillinger ||
12/27/2008 10:38
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#6
More 'proof' that guns need to be banned. Every time an irresponsible (or crazy) gun posessor does something like this it is another nail in the coffin of the Second Amendment.
#7
that's not proof, that's an idiot with a gun who got pissed off. I would rather keep my guns since we will soon be over run like Great Britain with muzzies who always seem too be able too find guns
#8
If he was in violation of the "uniform firearms act", he probably had an illegal gun. I think it's very rare for people carrying legal firearms to be involved in this kind of thing. Correct me if I'm wrong.
#9
Arm All at their own discretion, like Vermont (of all places!). This guy would have had to at least think twice in that he was almost guaranteed an armed response.
That's why the scare quotes, rabid. My point is that every time somebody does something bad with a gun the anti-gunners make political hay out of it. The fact that more laws should not have an effect on those already violating numerous gun laws does not apply to their 'logic'.
#12
Bad behavior by gun posessors is used as an excuse to ban guns. Banning guns buries the Second Amendment. Bad behavior by gun posessors is abused to bury the Second Amendment.
#15
VCRs and DVD players are the proverbial double-edged sword, sure you can avoid the jerks by watching at home, but when you do go to the movies too many people act like they're in their own freakin' living room.
There should be no Second Amendment issues here -- everyone knows that an icepick in the base of the skull is the best way to mete out justice in a movie theatre.
Posted by: regular joe ||
12/27/2008 19:27
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#16
I've found that a large drink in the lap will stop most talking. If you buy a large, most refills are free....
just saying
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 20:05
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Israeli aircraft struck Hamas terrorist security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in an unprecedented series of simultaneous strikes. Hamas and medics reported that dozens of terrorists people were killed and that others were still buried under the rubble.
Terrorism Health Ministry official Moawiya Hassanain said at least 120 terrorists people were killed. In one of the Hamas compounds, bodies of more than a dozen uniformed terrorists security officers were seen lying on the ground. One survivor raised his index finger in a show of Muslim faith, uttering a prayer.
Among the dead was the Gaza terrorist police chief, Maj. Gen. Tawfiq Jaber, witnesses said.
Israel confirmed it carried out a series of air strikes on Hamas installations, but did not provide details. Israel has warned in recent days it would strike back hard against continued rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli border towns. There was no sign of an Israel ground offensive, in parallel to the air attacks.
#5
Expecting UN and EU condemnation shortly. It's fine with the UN / EU as long as it's Paleos killing Jews. When Israel finally responds, well that's simply not permitted.
#8
It would not surprise me if 'international outrage' over this escalated for a few weeks, to be followed by an Arab assault. It would time well as an introductory test for Obama. It would work to boost oil prices. It would divert internal attention from economic woes of the neighboring states. The two things those neighboring states have to fear are 1) getting whipped again, and 2) what might be worse, winning, and no longer having Israel to blame or to provide regional economic activity. That would lead rational governments to make noise but do nothing, but the Arab governments (and Iran) have often been lacking in the 'rationality' department.
#14
Gaza's not the rel problem & the Gazans have always just been pawns in the game.
Indeed. The real problem is Jooooooooooos breathing Arab air... or just breathing... depending on if you're talking to a moderate or a stone cold whabi saucer.
#17
All police HQs in Gaza destroyed The wide-scale offensive on Hamas installations in the Gaza Strip was codenamed 'Operation Cast Lead,' after a Hanukkah poem by H.N. Bialik referring to a "dreidel cast from solid lead."
Methinks, there's a better poem "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say:
I have slain a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-seven fold."
The Vatican's spokesman has urged Israelis and Palestinians to renounce violence and seek a peaceful solution to their conflict after Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire.
Don't dis the boss' relatives, Ratzinger.
#21
How long do you think it would take for the Israelis to systematically push all Gaza Paleos into Egypt, then slam the door shut behind them?
Moose, the 'Gyptos aren't buying ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008 13:49
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#22
Why isn't every mosque on the target list?
Posted by: ed ||
12/27/2008 14:42
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#23
I hope they go back at them again tonight.
And make sure government/terrorist/clerical officials don't live a life with any of the modern conveniences whatsoever. A condition that for sure will go away after a short but obligatory period of resistance marked by those same officials living the lifestyle they should be living. Make their privileged lifestyles contingent on peace being maintained - both in practice and rhetoric.
They can start the process by bombing every one of their government buildings and personal villas. With them in it.
#26
I'm having a hard time getting the warm fuzzies over this. Sure, I like seeing Israel pound the Paleos, but nothing meaningful will come of this.
It's not brutal enough to make the Paleos change their thinking and it does nothing to reform Gaza. Take, hold, reform, rebuild is the solution. And the reform process will spill enough Paleo blood for us all to have something to cheer about.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/27/2008 17:47
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#27
The only thing that'll reform them is another spin on the wheel.
#29
Mike N - yeah, they are being realistic. In 2006 they said they were going to crush Hezb, and so they looked like they had lost even after doing considerable damage to hezb. A lower bar gives them much more flexibility, both operational and propagandistic.
I think what Glenmore is referring to as the real problem is Iran. Hamas is an ally/puppet of Iran, and weakening Hamas, or even just forcing i it to step back from the brink for its own survival despite that not being in Irans interest, is a way of demonstrating Israels strength relative to Iran. Doing so when oil is low, is a good idea.
Arab reaction? Word from Israel is that they got a wink and a nod from Egypt and Jordan (Livni was in Egypt a couple of days before) neither has withdrawn its diplos from Tel Aviv.
The usual arab street elements will make faces.
So far the targets of value vs the collateral damage ratio seems to have been exceptionally good. Advantage of tactical surprise.
I dont know if they will go in the ground in a big way. Im inclined to think they wont, but I dont really know.
I note that PA officials are said to have said they are ready to go back into Gaza if Hamas falls. I dont think Israel would object if that happened, but I dont think they are counting on it, and its very good that they are NOT announcing that as a goal.
If Hamas survives but is severely chastened, that would be good too.
#34
Happy Hanukkah, liberalhawk! I hope you didn't lose too much Hanukkah gelt playing dreydl with the little ones... and that this time Israel makes all our fondest dreams come true.
Ace footballer David Beckham's protection may turnout to be the biggest-ever security operation when he arrives in Dubai on Monday to make his debut for AC Milan, for top officials fear that he may be an ideal high-profile target for Muslim fanatics. Spies at the intelligence agency MI6 are afraid that al-Qaida may attack the United Arab Emirates any time.
Beckham will be making several public appearances before the January 6 friendly match against Hamburg. It's a huge headache. We are planning as if it is a state visit. Security measures could not be any higher, the Daily Star quoted one security source as saying.
We're used to stars coming to Dubai but what makes this different are the public appearances he will be making - autograph signings and training sessions. Fans want to meet him face-to-face and that poses a different kind of risk to what we normally see, the source added. Armed guards will be watching Beckham round the clock, and roads around the venues for his training may be sealed off. Even those allowed anywhere near Beckham would have to pass through airport-style scanning machines.
Associates of the legendary performer, Michael Jackson, who wish to remain unnamed, have confirmed to All News Web that recent rumours regarding Michael Jackson converting to Islam are in fact true. 'Michael might not have become a hard-core observer of all the precepts of the Koran but he has made a commitment to come to know the faith and be inspired by it.' the associate commented. 'He has undergone some form of ceremony. Michael has basically been a vegetarian for years and doesn't eat pork at all so the dietary rules are not a problem.'
Another associate also confirmed that while rumours of Michael Jackson being at deaths door and in need of a lung transplant were wildly exaggerated, Michael is struggling with health problems. 'Michael does have health issues and his lungs are not in perfect condition' the associate commented.
'Michael does read the Koran at least once a day and is finding that it gives him massive strength and courage in dealing with the problems that life has thrown at him.' the associate, who is himself an African-American convert to Islam noted 'He has made the first baby steps into the Islamic way of life, whether he will continue on in this journey and grow in his Muslim faith remains to be seen.'
#5
He likes to keep animals around for his young friends. Expect his goat herd to grow to hundreds in a short time, to comply with local traditions, don't cha know.
The Sri Lankan army, backed by artillery, fighter jets, and helicopter gunships has reportedly captured a Tamil Tiger training base.
On Friday, Sri Lankan soldiers fought a fierce battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) over the town of Mulliyawalai near Mullaittivu, the main military headquarters of the rebels, the defense ministry said. The military added that heavy fighting was going on in the area but failed to give details of the number of the soldiers killed in the battle.
Earlier military reports claimed that soldiers have killed at least 40 rebels in the clashes that erupted Thursday along at least three fronts outside the town of Kilinochchi, the besieged political capital of the LTTE.
In the recent months, government forces have cleared most of the land held by the rebels, pushing them into a small area in the jungles of the northeast. Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu are the two remaining big towns still under rebel control in the north of the island.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:36 ||
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Serious legal problems would be involved in resettling terror suspects released from Guantanamo Bay in Spain, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Friday, adding to European unease about the idea.
You mean we can't just release them? Who knew?
Zapatero was speaking at a press conference after the daily Periodico de Catalunya reported that he favored taking in Guantanamo inmates following US President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to shut down the notorious military detention center at a US Navy base in Cuba.
"While I am anticipating [an eventual request from Washington], it poses serious legal problems," Zapatero said, while adding that no such request had yet been made.
Just let them go inside Spain. How hard can that be?
The European Union is divided over the question, with some countries seeking a concerted European approach and others already opposed to the idea.
The Netherlands has gone furthest, ruling out accepting any newly freed inmates. "If they are not to be tried but cannot return to their own countries, it is first and foremost the responsibility of the country which arrested and imprisoned them, the United States," a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday. "The Netherlands will not take in Guantanamo inmates."
So they don't want the tar-baby ...
Portugal and Germany previously signaled they might accept detainees, but France was cautious, welcoming the camp's imminent closure, but calling for a common European position. "We think consultation between Europeans should continue because we think it is natural that our response should be discussed and coordinated between Europeans," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told AFP.
Germany had previously made a similar announcement. "In our view Guantanamo must be closed on legal and humanitarian grounds, in terms of international law and human rights, and for moral reasons," German government spokes-man Thomas Steg said Monday. "If we begin to review such closure plans and take a stance, then it can only be in a European context based on a discussion with all member states."
Translation: having been (inadvertently) called on their position, the Euros, as usual, will do nothing but talk. A lot ...
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:36 ||
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#1
Wasn't Zapatero one of the main complainers about Guantanamo?
We should free all Spanish citizen held in Guantanamo and then parachute them into Andalucia.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/27/2008 12:15
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Ethiopian police are arresting young Somali men in the Bole area of the capital Addis Ababa over the past few days and 200 are now in detention.
So far, hundreds have been arrested either directly from their homes or on the streets, but many of them have been cleared and released after questioning, fingerprinting and checking their identity papers.
Most of the arrests took place on Tuesday night and Wednesday in the Bole area, the part of the town where most of the Somali community lives. Till Friday morning, police were still holding around 200 men without giving any reason.
Ethiopia's federal police spokesman, Commander Demsash Hailu, has so far not been able to offer any explanation for the arrests, but a Somali embassy spokesman said he understood that security was being tightened before a regional summit.
The embassy spokesman said he understood it had security concerns in the Bole area which is close to Addis Ababa's international airport, especially in the light of the upcoming African Union summit, and he added that if there was a security threat in Bole, then the embassy itself could be the first target.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:36 ||
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The Syrian flag flew over Damascus' first-ever embassy in Beirut on Friday, as final preparations were made for its official opening after warming ties ended years of tensions between the two neighbors.
The work took a comic turn on Friday when an impostor showed up at the building in the Hamra business district, briefly causing a stir by claiming to be the new ambassador.
Witnesses told AFP the flag was raised overnight as work continued to prepare the building for the opening before the end of the year.
Two brass plaques bearing the inscription "Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic" in Arabic and English were also put up outside the building, where the mission will operate on the first three floors.
An official date for the inauguration has not yet been announced, but the leftist As-Safir Lebanese daily on Monday quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem as saying this would happen "immediately after Christmas."
On Monday, three diplomats from Damascus began working at the embassy in advance of the opening. Syria has yet to name an ambassador, and the highest-ranking diplomat is currently a first secretary.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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The Education Ministry has sought details of schools operating under the banned Jamaatud Dawa charity, to hand over control of such institutions to provincial educational departments. Following the recent government ban on the charity, schools run by Dawa in the Tribal Areas and other parts of the country were also closed. Initially, heads of institutions previously operating under the charity will be changed, and new headmasters will be appointed on recommendations by provincial educational departments. Sources said there was also a possibility that these schools might be converted into seminaries and their control handed over to non-government organisations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:35 ||
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Fears are growing that this lawless area, bordering Kenya and Ethiopia, could become a stronghold for terrorists with possible links to al-Qaeda.
Somalia's weak official government, the 14th in the last 17 years, depends entirely on the presence of Ethiopian troops, who are deployed in and around the capital, Mogadishu.
They invaded in December 2006, mounting an American-supported operation which overthrew an earlier Islamist regime, styling itself the Islamic Courts Union.
But Ethiopia has pledged to withdraw its troops at the end of December. When they leave, the official government is likely to fall - or be forced to evacuate Mogadishu.
An armed group styling itself Al-Shebab is likely to take over. Already, its fighters are believed to control more than 80 per cent of southern Somalia. These radical Islamists believe in imposing Sharia law and they recently approved the stoning of a 13-year-old girl.
Al Shebab, the fanatical armed wing which broke from the Islamic Courts Union which ran Somalia for the second half of 2006, now holds more than 80 per cent of the country -- more territory than the Courts controlled during their reign.
Rashid Abdi, Somalia analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said: "They may be forced to moderate their radical line once they take over just to stay in power.
"But there are those who predict al Shebab turning into some kind of Frankenstein's monster taken over by, or at least sympathetic to, foreign elements who have ambitions outside Somalia, to spread radical Islam or mount terror attacks, in northeastern Kenya or eastern Ethiopia."
The group, listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington, has been accused of sheltering the al-Qaeda cell which bombed the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and blew up an Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002.
Last month, the US embassy in Nairobi warned that it continues to receive indications of potential terrorist threats aimed at American, Western, and Kenyan interests in Kenya including threats of "suicide operations, bombings, kidnappings, attacks on civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels".
There are fears that al Shebab, whose stronghold is the Somali port of Kismayo just north of the border with Kenya, could launch an attack on coastal resorts popular with Western tourists over the Christmas holidays.
The United Nations office in Nairobi has warned staff of a "heightened level of alert along the coast".
Al Shebab's chief military commander, Muktar Robow, said earlier this year that he was ready "to take orders from Sheikh Osama bin Laden".
His forces were swelled by foreign fighters who answered a call to jihad when the Ethiopians invaded, in December 2006, to crush the Islamic Courts Union.
That intervention, heavily encouraged by Washington, is widely seen to have prompted the radicalisation of Somalia's Islamist movement and to have launched its Iraq-style insurgency which has killed thousands of civilians and forced 1.1 million people into desperate squatter camps. Two-thirds of the population of Mogadishu, the capital, have fled.
This has created a humanitarian disaster where 3.2 million people, half the population, now needs handouts, but where international aid staff cannot work and food shipments must be shepherded by warships to ward off pirates.
"I think it is finally starting to sink-in in Washington, two years too late, that sending in the Ethiopians as a proxy force to deal with the Islamists was just madness," said Andrew McGregor, terrorism editor at the Jamestown Foundation, a right-wing think tank in Washington.
There is some hope that once the Islamists seize control -- and few doubt that they will -- they will curb their insurgency, which largely targets the Ethiopians, and that Somalia might enjoy a level of stability as was seen under the Islamic Courts Union.
But there are concerns whether al Shebab, whose name means "the youth" and whose forces are largely illiterate and disaffected young men, can peacefully consolidate their power once they are in charge.
"Unless they can reach out and form some new alliances, which is not an easy thing to do among Somalia's clans, they will fail and we will see the start of yet another civil war," said Mr Abdi.
"I'm not optimistic. The future looks bleak and is likely to be bloody."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:35 ||
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It appears that both the official government and the Islamic Courts are splitting into factions. With luck the locals will be too busy killing each other to kill outsiders.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/27/2008 12:10
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The government will not withdraw army from FATA and Swat and the operation there will continue, Adviser on Interior Rehman Malik said on Friday. Locals were co-operating with the security forces, he said, adding that all political and religious parties were united and would defend the country together. Malik added some elements wanted conflicts between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan diverts troops from FATA to Indian border
Pakistan is moving nearly 20,000 troops from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to Kasur and Sialkot amid reports of Indian troop movement and rising tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi.
A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the redeployed 14th Division would "counter any misadventure by India". "The troops have been moved from the western border areas where the operation [against Taliban] is not going on. But this is a limited movement to reinforce our defence on the eastern border," the official told Daily Times. He said Pakistan Army had restricted the leaves of its troops and officers in view of the security situation.
Pakistan Air Force continued its 'enhanced vigilance' with fighter jets flying low over major cities on Friday evening to test their capability of countering a possible attack at night.
Pakistan Navy's Fleet Commander Rear Admiral M Asif Sandila visited deployed units to assess their operational preparations and told navy troops to stay alert. "Pakistan will respond in a befitting manner if its maritime interests are attacked," he said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan told the United Nations Security Council it would consider an Indian attack a declaration of war, a private TV channel cited unidentified officials as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: A gunman driving a vehicle rigged with 17 containers of TNT was shot down by Iraqi army soldiers after killing a soldier in a checkpoint he targeted in the city of Falluja on Friday, a police source in Anbar said. "Security agencies detonated the explosive vehicle after imposing a security cordon in the area," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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The United Auto Workers may be out of the hole now that President Bush has approved a $17 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry, but the union isn't out of the bunker just yet.
Even as the industry struggles with massive losses, the UAW brass continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course. And it's costing them millions each year.
The UAW, known more for its strikes than its slices, hosts seminars and junkets at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Mich., which is nestled on "1,000 heavily forested acres" on Michigan's Black Lake, according to its Web site. But the Black Lake club and retreat, which are among the union's biggest fixed assets, have lost $23 million in the past five years alone, a heavy albatross around the union's neck as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis.
Critics call it a resort for union leaders that wastes money from union dues. "It's their members' money that they're spending on this thing," said Justin Wilson, managing director of the Center for Union Facts, a union watchdog group. "The union has bigger issues at hand than managing a golf course."
Managing the course may become a burden for the union. The UAW covers costs for the Reuther Center from the interest it earns on its strike fund, according to tax documents, but massive losses in the past five years have forced the union to make heavy loans to keep the center afloat. Critics call it a poor investment for a group with over $1.25 billion in assets. "Unions certainly have had real estate investments in the past, but investments are supposed to make money, not bleed money," said Wilson.
The Reuther Center is open 11 months of the year to offer courses on leadership, political action, civil rights and other topics; it hosts nearly 10,000 visitors annually. The UAW says it sends workers there to "learn, experience unionism (and) commit to labor's cause," according to their Web site.
The center was purchased in 1967 and underwent massive renovations in the '90s under the careful watch of former UAW president Steve Yokich. "Today's Black Lake might not exist if not for Steve Yokich," said union member Bob Reidt, whom Yokich appointed as Black Lake's director. "Yokich is responsible for rebuilding Black Lake."
The UAW erected a monument to its longtime president Walter Reuther -- the center's namesake -- which bears an inscription of his words: "There is no greater calling than to serve your brother. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well."
But Reuther, who died in a plane crash en route to the center in 1970, never knew the satisfaction of Black Lake's "well-groomed fairways," a course that Michigan Golf Magazine called a "stunning visual marvel."
Union members can play golf at discounted rates on one of the country's top 100 courses, designed in 2000 by famed course architect Rees Jones at a cost of $6 million.
The center has a storied history. Reuther had his ashes scattered at the site, and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz honeymooned there in 1940, well before it was bought by the UAW. "It's funny that they call it an education center -- it's a resort," said Wilson. "If I was a union member, I would prefer that they rented out a room at the Ramada Inn."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#6
Why would the UAW want to buy Ford? The way it is now they have the best of both worlds -- they can dictate stupid business decisions to Ford (and GM) under threat of a strike and avoid the consequences of the result -- all the while continuing to suck the lifeblood of the company.
The UAW will continue to drain the resources of the corporations while trying to get the taxpayers on a schedule of providing 'bailouts' for companies which are 'too big to allow to fail'. That way not only do they get to drain the corporations themselves - but also each and every taxpayer.
Problem is that the UAW needs to keep the corporations alive. Look for them to start organizing protests and marches on D.C. to get another (and another and another) bailout.
Aswat al-Iraq: A civilian man was wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) blast targeted the house of a displaced local resident in central Baaquba city on Friday, an official security source in Diala said.
"An IED planted by unidentified gunmen went off on Friday evening near a house that belongs to a displaced local resident in the area of al-Anafsa, central Baaquba, leaving one civilian wounded and the building totally devastated," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
He did not give more details.
According to security sources in the province of Diala, areas in the city of Baaquba have witnessed during recent week blasts by persons believed to belong to al-Qaeda network in Iraq targeting displaced families that returned to their original dwelling places.
More than 27,000 families in Diala were forced to leave their homes due to sectarian violence. Only 2400 families of them returned after a relative improvement in security conditions in the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
01:35 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
Chinese warships headed toward Somali waters Friday to combat piracy, the first time the communist country has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.
The deployment to the Gulf of Aden, which has been plagued by increasingly bold pirate attacks in recent months, marks a major step in the navy's evolution from mostly guarding China's coasts to patrolling waters far from home.
The move was welcomed by the U.S. military, which has been escorting cargo ships in the region along with India, Russia and the European Union. But analysts predicted the Chinese intervention could be troubling to some Asian nations who might see it as a sign of the Chinese military becoming more aggressive.
The naval force that set sail from southern Hainan on Friday afternoon included a supply ship and two destroyers _ armed with guided missiles, special forces and two helicopters. China announced it was joining the anti-piracy mission Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council authorized nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Pirates
#2
I wonder if these will be indigenously-produced destroyers, or some of the ones they bought from the Russians. If the former, they may never make it to Somalia.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/27/2008 12:35
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The Chinese will release the pirates all right : with 500 pounds of chains on their ankles, right into the ocean.
#4
they couldnt let the Indian Navy do stuff their and not get involved themselves. The rivalry we have discussed earlier continues to develop, albeit with China and India (and the rest of the world) nominally on the same side.
A child was killed and nine persons, including security personnel, were injured when the Taliban fired rockets on Civil Colony in Khar district and Fajja village of Bajaur Agency, local sources said on Friday. They said that two of the injured were in critical condition. Meanwhile, security forces pounded Taliban hideouts in Mamoond and Khar tehsils, but no reports of casualties to the Taliban were received. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar said the organisation did not oppose female education and the ban on education for females by the Swat Taliban had nothing to do with the TTP. He told reporters on Friday over telephone that the TTP was in the process of convincing the Swat Taliban to review their decision. The spokesman said the TTP had also set up an investigation committee to look into the matter. Omar said they stood by their decision of not resisting the security forces' advance in Bajaur, however, the TTP was concerned about the public's suffering due to the operation.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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Caroline Kennedy made a little more news on NY1 tonight, telling host Dominic Carter that she finally spoke to Hillary Clinton -- who didn't initially take her call -- and that, if she's not selected, she won't run for the seat.
"We did have a very nice, you know, conversation, and obviously I'm not gonna talk about that, except to say that she said this was the greatest job that she'd ever had and could imagine having," Kennedy said. "So, she was very encouraging, and that was, you know, that was nice because she's a huge inspiration of mine."
Kennedy, who projected a relaxed, accessible persona, was also asked if she'd run in 2010 if not selected. "Well, if he doesn't select me, I would support the person that he does select," she said.
In other words, she's not going to dirty her hands if she actually has to, you know, run for the job.
Kennedy also implied that she'd voted for Democrat Freddy Ferrer over Mayor Mike Bloomberg, her local patron, in 2005: "I've been a Democrat all my life," she said. "I am, you know, a Democrat through and through. I've always voted Democratic. You know, that is where my heart lies."
A spokesman, Stefan Friedman, confirmed she'd voted for Ferrer.
Kennedy also said she'd had "a number of conversations" with Governor David Paterson, who will make the choice.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#5
if she's not selected, she won't run for the seat
so if she's not given the seat as royalty, she doesn't want it enough to have to actually do anything, like campaign (how vulgar!) for the rubes' votes. I'm REALLY disliking this pampered entitlement bitch now. Before this, I couldn't have cared less
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 10:29
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#6
Kennedy, who projected a relaxed, accessible persona, was also asked if she'd run in 2010 if not selected.
Hows about we access your financial disclosure, huh, Princess?
An official source reported that the Yemeni security in Aden on Friday thwarted an attempt by prisoners to escape al-Mansorah prison in Aden.
The official almotamar.net reported that prisoners, possibly al-Qaeda suspects, have dug a 6-meter long underground tunnel inside the prison's cell before the guards find out the tunnel.
"We'll dig three tunnels and name them Achmed, Mahmoud, and Harry."
The al-tagheer.com quoted a source in Aden as saying that more than 25-40 al-Qaeda suspects attempted to escape the al-Mansura jail early Friday.
The source said some prisoners are convicted and some others were detained over the latest al-Qaeda attack on the U.S Embassy in Sana'a that claimed 17 lives of security guards and people.
The source said that the security authorities are investigating the prisoners and people in neighboring houses to know where prisoners got the digging tools. The report said that security forces are surrounding the prison.
In February 4, 2006, on Friday, twenty-three suspected al-Qaeda members escaped from the Political Security Central's Prison in Sana'a. The fugitives escaped through a more than 300-meter long underground tunnel. The tunnel was dug from under the women's prayer yard at Al-Awkaf Mosque to Political Security Central Prison, crossing the prison yard to prisoner' cells.
Some of the escapees surrendered, some were killed in hunting and some others still at large.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Yemen
Palestinian militants fired 22 mortar shells from the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday and early morning Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces continued its preparations for military action in Gaza.
The mortars struck the Western Negev, damaging one building. No one was hurt in any of the incidents.
Reportedly, a "limited operation" will begin within days that will combine an air attack with some ground operations against Hamas and other Gaza terror groups.
The cabinet has given the go-ahead for an operation of a few days' duration with clearly defined goals.
Meanwhile, Israel renewed its transfer of humanitarian aid into the Gaza
Strip on Friday.
The IDF said the first of approximately 90 trucks had started to deliver medicine, fuel, cooking gas and other vital goods into Gaza. The shipment includes a large donation of goods from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's wife.
On Sunday, the prime minister will hold a series of consultations ahead of a possible military action in the Strip. No major move will apparently be made until these discussions have concluded.
In statements Thursday, senior security officials were unwavering. "Anyone who harms Israeli citizens and soldiers will pay the price," Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, speaking at the graduation of a pilots' training course at Hazerim Air Force Base, said, "We will have to use all of our might against the terror infrastructure and create a different security reality around the Gaza Strip."
Israel is planning a relatively short operation that will cause maximum damage to Hamas "assets." The defense establishment says the operation would not necessarily limit itself to stopping rocket launches and that during the operation, daily massive rocket launches can be expected. Hamas might fire rockets with a range beyond the 20 kilometers it has used so far.
By evening Thursday, seven rockets and nine mortars had been fired from the Gaza Strip, as opposed to 70 mortars and rockets shot the day before. One Grad rocket landed south of Ashkelon. There were no injuries or damage.
Despite the rockets, Barak opened the crossings this morning for the passage of food and medicine. Although Hamas operatives are behind most of the rocket launches, Palestinian sources in the Strip said Thursday that the Islamist group still wants to renew the cease-fire.
The sources said Hamas is under pressure by Gaza residents and other factions to significantly improve the terms of the cease-fire, particularly regarding the opening of the crossings in light of the increased distress of the civilian population.
The sources warned that an Israeli ground operation would result in many civilian casualties in Gaza, especially in the refugee camps.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Thursday called on Gazans to overthrow Hamas.
"We do not want to fight the Palestinian people, but we will not allow Hamas to hurt our children," Olmert said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television. He added Israel had great power but does not wish to use it.
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip Thursday there were long lines at bakeries, and sales were limited to NIS 3 worth of bread, less than a large family needs per day. Electrical power and water was cut several times Thursday. Cooking is difficult due to a gas shortage.
"It is impossible to live like this," a Gaza man told Haaretz. We have to come to some resolution - either a full cease-fire or full-scale fighting with Israel."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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The specter of a military invasion on Friday hung over Hamas-run Gaza Strip, where two children were killed as Palestinian militants fired more rockets despite Israeli threats of harsh retaliation.
Two girls, one aged five and the other 12, were killed when their house in northern Gaza was hit by a rocket which witnesses said was apparently fired by Palestinian militants targeting southern Israel. Four other family members were wounded.
The casualties came amid mounting speculation that the Israeli military would soon launch an operation in the Gaza Strip, which most media said would probably be limited in scope and not a full-scale invasion.
"Army preparing for combined ground, air operation in Gaza," declared the front-page headline in Israel's Haaretz.
Violence in and around the Palestinian enclave has flared since a six-month cease-fire ended on December 19, and escalated dramatically on Wednesday when militants fired more than 80 rockets and mortar rounds after Israel launched deadly air strikes over the coastal strip. On Friday, 13 rockets and mortar shells hit southern Israel, causing no casualties but damaging a house that was unoccupied at the time.
Israel had responded to earlier retaliatory rocket attacks by tightening the blockade it has imposed since the Islamist Hamas won democratic elections in 2006 and then seized power in Gaza in June 2007.
But officials said dozens of truckloads of supplies were delivered to Gaza on Friday after Israel decided to temporarily allow humanitarian aid into the impoverished territory. At the same time, the Israeli government issued dire warnings to Gaza militants, saying it would strike back hard if attacks continue.
"I will not hesitate to use Israel's strength to strike at Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television on Thursday, adding ominously that "tens of thousands of children and innocents" would be at risk "as a result of Hamas' actions."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#1
Gaza braces for invasion as Barak threatens children
Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi army forces seized 56 Katyusha missile launching pads and five missiles in a farm in eastern Mosul city on Friday, an army source said. "The force seized the pads and missiles thanks to intelligence tip-offs in the area of al-Jammasat, eastern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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The U.S. coalition said Friday its forces killed 11 Taliban militants, including the leader of a bomb-making cell, during an operation in southern Afghanistan. The raid in Kandahar province on Thursday targeted a bomb-maker responsible for roadside bomb attacks that killed NATO soldiers, a coalition statement said.
Militants barricaded themselves inside a home during the raid and opened fire on the coalition forces.
"You'll never take us alive, infidels!" [BLAM! BLAM!]
After giving time to allow women and children to leave, ...
"Captain, sir, we got the wimmins and the kiddies out of the way."
"Very good, sergeant, now let's grant those hard boyz their wish."
"You bet, Captain."
... the coalition forces fired on the militants with guns and grenades, it said.
[KA-BOOM!!!]
One woman who remained in the building was wounded in the leg. She was evacuated to a coalition medical facility, it said.
Coalition forces found dozens of land mines, grenades, AK-47s and bomb-making materials in the home, the coalition said.
Overnight raids by elite Special Forces troops have been a sore point with some Afghans, including President Hamid Karzai. Afghan officials say camp-followers innocent civilians are often wounded or killed during the risky operations.
Karzai last week attended a memorial ceremony for three Afghans killed in an overnight raid in Khost province. Afghan officials said the three were innocent civilians; the U.S. coalition said they were militants or linked to the insurgency.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#1
On this site TAawaiggego, a troll from Russia, vomited a huge number of links to uninteresting pages.
#5
Yet another smear from Karzai's heroin defense committee, posing as a government.
Enough! I have NEVER supported nation building in the Pashto sections of Afghanistan; ie: the toilet of Central Asia. I would have declared the use of civilian airplanes for mass murder on 9-11,should have been declared as a use of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Taliban-al-Qaeda's home base should have been nuked to oblivion. The Northern Alliance would have been able to pick up the pieces.
#7
Easy for you to say Beldar etc. since you're posting from Canada, which does not possess nuclear weapons. Nice try at goading another country into bearing the responsibility for using them.
It seems that Illinois' legally challenged Gov. Rod Blagojevich is not the only close Barack Obama associate and Democratic governor being investigated by the feds for possibly selling government business in return for campaign contributions.
New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson, who is the newly named Secretary of Commerce in Obama's about-to-be Cabinet, is also being investigated by a federal grand jury in his home state for possibly steering state bond business from the New Mexico Financial Authority toward David Rubin, a significant campaign contributor, according to an NBC News report, among others.
NBC's Lisa Myers reports that two former state officials say they've recently been questioned by a federal grand jury specifically about allegations that Richardson or aides pushed state business worth nearly $1.5 million in fees toward CDR Financial Products in 2004. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills.
This was about the same time as CDR's founder, Rubin, donated $100,000 to two of Richardson's political action committees; mainly it appears to cover expenses of the governor and his staff at the Democratic Party's National Convention in Boston that summer.
Rubin also donated another $29,000 to Richardson's unsuccessful presidential campaign this year and last.
The probe is part of a broad national federal exploration of "pay-to-play," in which government officials reap financial or other benefits in return for state business.
Richardson has ignored reporters' questions on the federal investigation, while a spokesman says he's confident the relationship was entirely appropriate and the governor expects state employees to cooperate fully with federal investigators. A CDR spokesman also said the transactions were appropriate.
An Obama transition official has refused to comment on whether the president-elect knew of the investigation before he appointed Richardson to his new Cabinet position.
Obama has called Richardson "my great friend" and said the governor would be a key member of his administration's economic team. Richardson, the first Latino in Obama's Cabinet, described himself the same way.
On Tuesday, the Obama transition team issued a five-page report of its own involvement with Blagojevich, who's charged in a federal criminal complaint with demanding money for state aid, business and his appointment of Obama's Senate replacement.
The Obama team report completely absolved the Obama team of any wrongdoing, as the Ticket reported here. But Obama was already on vacation when the report was issued and has said he won't be talking further about the matter. The president-elect's main Blagojevich contact, new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel also happened to be unreachable on a vacation in Africa.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#2
One of the alternate state mottoes there newc [along with Home of the Flea - Land of the Plague, Manana, et al]. Two prior State Treasurers are or have served federal time for corruption. Just another version of corruption in 'Name that Party', though I think their model is more (Mexican) PRI rather than Chicago.
Bangladesh has arrested more suspected militants ahead of next week's elections, a police officer said on Friday, bringing to 23 the number of people held as part of a pre-polls crackdown.
The South Asian nation will hold its first elections in seven years on Monday amid an unprecedented security operation to counter terrorist attacks and vote-rigging. Eight men were arrested following raids in the northern Govindaganj district where police also seized a cache of explosives -- big enough to make 300 grenades -- that could cause "serious damage", area police chief SM Shibly said.
"It is the biggest haul of explosives we've found in the recent months. We are conducting massive operations across the region to find out other members of the group," he said. The men are suspected of belonging to the banned extremist group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). More than 50,000 military personnel have been deployed across the country, 600,000 police officers are manning polling booths and the country's elite Rapid Action Battalion has undertaken a massive anti-crime crackdown since campaigning began two weeks ago. Earlier this week, two suspected JMB militants were arrested in southeastern Comilla district after a raid uncovered a cache of grenades hours after Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia held a campaign rally nearby. The deputy chief of the Rapid Action Battalion, Colonel Gulzar Uddin, said a big attack was unlikely before the polls."It appears that they are trying to regroup, but we don't think they have the capacity to make major attacks ahead of the polls," he said.
Guarding polls: Khaleda urged her supporters to guard the elections against rigging by opponents, raising the spectre of protests and violence if she loses a vote billed as the best chance for a return to democracy.
Khaleda and her rival, the Awami League's Sheikh Hasina, are rated the top candidates in the elections, with some giving Hasina an edge. "A vested quarter is hatching conspiracy to get to power by manipulating the election results," Khaleda said late on Thursday, in an apparent reference to the Awami League and the government. "Guard the polling centres until you get the result sheets so that no one can change your mandate," she told supporters. "Sensing a tide of masses in favour of the BNP-led alliance across the country and fearing ... inevitable defeat in the election, they are also conspiring to kill me," she said to cheering supporters in Jamalpur, north of the capital Dhaka.
Hasina, meanwhile, alleged the BNP and its staunch ally Jamaat-e-Islami were trying to create violence to thwart the election, fearing defeat. She warned against "intimidating the voters" in an effort to turn the tide in Khaleda's favour. An analyst for the international Eurasia Group has said there is a 70-percent chance Hasina will win. Many Bangladeshis say the vote will be close but give Hasina a slight edge.
Atiur Rahman, professor of development studies at Dhaka University, said three key factors would influence the coming vote: food prices, farmers' welfare and combating corruption. "People will evaluate who of the two ex-PMs addressed these issues more while they were in power," Atiur told Reuters on Friday, adding he thought Hasina's government had scored best. Sirajul Islam Chowdhury, a retired professor, columnist and analyst, said, "I think the past records of the parties will influence the election, including the abuses of power ... the Awami League looks more favourite to win.""I do expect a stable government after the vote," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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(PTI) In what is seen as an embarassment to Pakistan, a previously unknown pro-Taliban group claimed responsibility for Wednesday's car bomb attack in Lahore for which Islamabad sought to implicate India by claiming its nationals were involved. Punching holes in claims by Pakistan's security and intelligence agencies, a man identifying himself as Toofan Wazir, the commander and spokesman of the group called 'Ansar Wa Mohajir', phoned 'The News' daily from somewhere in North Waziristan to claim responsibility for the Lahore blast and earlier rocket attacks on Dera Ismail Khan city.
Wazir reportedly threatened more attacks against security forces and government installations to avenge two recent US missile strikes in North Waziristan in which several militants from Punjab province were killed.
The report in the influential daily said it appeared "obvious that he (Wazir) and his men are pro-Taliban and part of the Pakistani Taliban".
Media reports have said that hours after Wednesday's car bomb attack, intelligence and security agencies in Lahore arrested an alleged Indian national identified as either Satish Anand Shukla or Satish Anand Sharma. The man, who purportedly worked in the Indian High Commission in London, belonged to Kolkata, the reports said.
Geo News channel subsequently reported that intelligence agencies had yesterday arrested three more alleged Indian nationals on the basis of information provided by the first man who was nabbed. A camera and a pistol were reportedly found in their possession.
Police officials in Lahore have not confirmed the arrest of the alleged Indian nationals and there has been no official word . The Indian High Commission here has also not been informed about these arrests.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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#1
Oops. Wazir didn't get the memo
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 9:45
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#2
Not to worry... the ISI will hand deliver a copy of the memo shortly
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008 13:41
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Aswat al-Iraq: Security forces defused a car bomb in northern Mosul city on Friday, according to a source from the Ninewa Operations Command (NOC). "The bomb squad in Ninewa province managed on Friday to defuse a car bomb parked on a street in al-Mohandessin neighborhood, northern Mosul, without incident," the source told Aswat al-Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq
In his century-old Wonderland classic, Lewis Carroll has Alice saying, "I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle." Substitute Alice for Pakistan and one begins to understand Pakistan's alternating personality syndrome.
On Urdu talk shows, Pakistan's Muslim fundamentalists explain Islamist extremists who launched 61 suicide bombers in 2008 against political parties and their rallies as reactions against their spineless anti-Americanism. Terrorist attacks on military installations are rationalized as understandable reactions against an army chief who is pro-American. The three English schools torched in Peshawar recently were described as "nests of paganism."
A majority of Pakistanis believe Sept. 11 was a CIA-Mossad plot to justify a crusade against Islam. Which helps explain why there is no shortage of volunteers for suicide missions. Tens of thousands of 16-year-old boys, who have completed 10 years of Koranic studies in madrassa schools, brainwashed against the United States, India and Israel, are mentally conditioned to believe that martyrdom is the highest calling against the heathen.
....
#2
Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.
If kittuah leaps for the butterfly and miss, is kittuah the same kittuah if him finds deh success? Is kittuah land on a different place regardless of huntery success or failure? Quantum Kat knows but refuses to take a definite stand.
#3
A majority of Pakistanis believe Sept. 11 was a CIA-Mossad plot to justify a crusade against Islam. Which helps explain why there is no shortage of volunteers for suicide missions.
A year has passed since Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto departed, leaving us in a black hole of emptiness and vacuum, where we could only feel pain and helplessness. I recall my slain leader as I lie in bed weak with a strange sense of desolation. One of the most active members of her team always ready to respond to her orders, I find myself limp with an aching heart. Garhi Khuda Baksh and every nook and cranny of the country will be awash in the resplendent colours of the PPP flags in days leading to her first death anniversary, every splash of red, green and black with a beautiful face with a halo around it, vibrant with life and determination, that of my leader Shaheed Mohtarma.
Red perhaps now ominously stands for her historic sacrifice, the blood that she shed, Green for her homeland, In which she had great hope till she breathed her last and black perhaps for all of us that mourn her and will continue to do so all our lives.
I cannot bring myself to call her deceased as I languish in denial, I still call her as my BIBI as for all these years that I spent in her service, I addressed her as My Prime Minister. All the best years of my youth were devoted to her and to the day when I could see all the collective efforts of her disciples culminate into a beautiful new day for the country. Sadly, that day will perhaps dawn with a Pakistan devoid of her. Her opponents continuously repeated, She will not return and She would not be allowed to return. As her anxious followers looked towards her with a creased brow, following such propaganda, she would always say reassuringly I will be with my people before the elections.
Return, she did, as she promised, never to go back as she found herself a home in the hearts of millions of her country men. Those with tattered clothes, those that bathe in their own sweat toiling day in and day out, passing from youth to elderliness and waning a bit too quickly in the process. Those are her people, the teeming millions, she resides in their hearts, She indeed is the queen of hearts.
Her ominous words ring in my ears as she called one morning not too many days before her shahadat, I see a lot of bloodshed, she said as she narrated to me how her workers were run over by a car in the constituency of Arbab Ghulam Rahim, dont worry Mohtarma I said, everything will turn out to be fine. Little did I know that her were almost prophetic and that it would be her blood that would be spilled such brutally.
Galliantly, like a medieval warrior, a knight in shining armour, she laid down her life for her people, those who honoured her memory with tears and aching hearts. Clinging to her posters as the last ray of hope, they almost believe she would be reincarnated. With meager earnings to boast of, I see the poor and the deprived investing into her beautiful posters selling at every traffic signal. They wish to hold on to her memories in whatever way, each one of them feels a little of Benazir Bhutto in them.
Like the Rani of Jhansi and the Razia Sultan of the present day, I saw her never faltering, even during days when hope was grim, days when people abandoned us and her followers ran from pillar to post to get her message across. Repeat, Repeat and Repeat your message unless people hear it, Yes my beloved leader, people hear you loud and clear. Your words are forever embedded in the hearts and minds of the nation.
I went to Garhi Khuda Buksh on her soyem as if in a trance I saw thousands mourning chanting to God that Benazir was innocent. I thought I would not make it to her grave. How would these mourners let me past, I was anxious to get to Bibi. Suddenly an old man appeared from no where, asked the crowds to make way and the crowds parted, and there I witnessed a most amazing sight, a huge grave, larger than any in the mausoleum, as if almost touching the sky. Covered with mounds of roses, Majestic and regal even in death, I thought just as in life. I touched the grave where I supposed her feet would be and begged for forgiveness as an ill-fated Pakistani who could do nothing to save my leader.
The bullet shot at you my Bibi did not hit just you, It hit millions in a single shot, how can I ever find the words to pay a homage to you that is worthy of your glory. Perhaps such words have never been coined.
A bit of something in everyone has died eversince. I looked at a devoted jiyala wanting to believe every word when he said, dont worry I have dreamt that Bibi would come back in another form. Suddenly, I felt lighter as I whispered to myself, Bibi Come Back .your people yearn for you, My Leader.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
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#1
Brraaaaiiinnss
/Zombie Benazir
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 10:16
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For anyone with an interest in the starry skies and around 42 million dollars to spare, NASA may have an interesting proposition. The US space agency has announced it is selling three used space shuttles when they are retired in 2010, after 30 years of service.
Sadly for enthusiasts planning their own voyage of discovery, the orbiters will only be made available for display in museums and other educational institutes.
And potential buyers may have to move quickly. One of the three craft -- the most complex aircraft ever built which launches into space like a rocket before gliding back to Earth like a plane -- has already been earmarked for the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
There the shuttle will join a wealth of exhibits held by the museum which mark the history of flight and space exploration, including a first successful motorized plane produced by the Wright brothers in 1903.
The two remaining craft, which were generally used to transport equipment into space, will be cleaned, decontaminated and stored in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida while new homes are found.
The 42-million dollar cost includes six million dollars to fly the shuttle to its new home piggybacked on a special Boeing 747, but not the costs of the final road transport. For those with a smaller budget, NASA is also selling engines found at the rear of the shuttles and which run on a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They will cost around 400,000-800,000 dollars each, not including delivery.
The 37-metre long shuttle has carved a place into space history, helping to construct the orbiting International Space Station and to repair the Hubble space telescope. It must be kept in a covered and temperature-controlled area, NASA said.
Only six space shuttles were ever built. The prototype Enterprise never flew in space. Two were destroyed. Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its lift-off in 1986 killing seven astronauts on board. Columbia disintegrated as it returned to the Earth's atmosphere in 2003 also with seven astronauts on board.
Only three shuttles remain -- Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. They are due to make eight more flights to the ISS to finish construction and carry out the last maintenance mission on the Hubble.
According to the British daily The Guardian, the Science Museum in London has voiced interest in buying Endeavour, but reportedly only American organizations are being considered.
#1
CHALLENGER, when Reagan challenged the USSR = "Evil Empire", versus:
COLUMBIA, surname for the USA = NEW WORLD/CONUS-NORAM, blew up in her end leg after an otherwise highly successful GWOT = SHUTTLE SPACE MISSION, taking to their deaths international Astronauts representative of World Nations invol wid Dubya-USA in the GWOT + former GUAM resident Willy Mccool!?
#2
Collectively, the warning is that America may win most or all of the BATTLES, but in or near the end will lose THE WAR, TO SOCIALISM AND RADICAL ISLAMISM.
WHICH, WEIRDLY AND MYSTERIOUSLY BUT ONLY COINCIDENTALLY + PCORRECTLY DENIABLY, IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, TAINT IT!?
#8
Ummm... I was in DC a few years back and they had a shuttle at the Air and Spaces Annex at Dulles. Do you really need 2 shuttles in that mesuam, folks?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/27/2008 10:18
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#9
Mike N-
The bird at NASM is Enterprise, which is pretty much an empty shell - after the flight test program ended, she became a parts source for the other shuttles, and a lot of her innards went to Endeavour when she was built. It was decided long ago that the Smithsonian would get one of the orbiters as well, so eventually the public could actually walk around in a spacecraft. I've also heard that the USAF Museum in Dayton OH is pushing hard to get one of the orbiters, which leaves only one available for purchase.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/27/2008 16:00
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OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian soldier was killed and three others were injured in southern Afghanistan on Friday when a bomb blast hit the armored vehicle they were riding in, the military said. The incident occurred in the Zhari district to the west of the city of Kandahar, where Canada has a 2,700-strong military mission.
Canada has now lost 104 troops since the country's military mission to Afghanistan started in late 2002. The soldier was the seventh Canadian member of the armed forces to die in bomb blasts in December alone. The mission is due to end in 2011.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama has said all along that neither he nor his team was involved in any eye-popping dealmaking over filling his vacated Senate seat. Obama's hand-picked investigator agreed. "Everybody behaved appropriately," declared Greg Craig, Obama's incoming White House counsel and the person asked to conduct the internal inquiry into contacts between the transition team and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Translation....cover story being told uniformly.
Prosecutors have said Obama is not implicated in the case against Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. But the corruption scandal has drained precious energy from Obama's preparations to take over the White House.
In addition to the time Craig devoted to the internal review that Obama requested, the topic also has surfaced at news conferences intended to highlight key appointments and policy priorities. And Obama himself had to sit down last week in Chicago for an interview by federal investigators, Craig's report revealed. Accompanying him was lawyer Robert Bauer, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Federal investigators last week also interviewed two top Obama aides, incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. Though Craig completed his review more than a week ago, Obama delayed making it public until those interviews were finished and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald gave his team the go-ahead to put it out. Then he and Rahm split for an extended, media controlled vacation.
Rahm went to deepest, darkest Africa. Not sure what he's doing there but he's not coming back anytime soon ...
The inquiry was released Tuesday in Washington while Obama was vacationing in Hawaii. Though Obama has taken questions on the matter on five occasions since Blagojevich's Dec. 9 arrest, the president-elect did not make himself available Tuesday to talk about it. Signal to press.... don't bring it up again if you wish to see me on a regular basis.
Blagojevich is accused of trying to use his authority as governor to appoint Obama's Senate replacement to get cash or a lucrative job for himself, starting days before Obama's Nov. 4 election through Dec. 5. The governor has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has resisted multiple calls for his resignation, including from Obama. And he will hopefully fight to the very end of Obama.
Wiretapped conversations cited in the criminal complaint against Blagojevich were not available to the Obama lawyers who conducted the internal review. Which means Obama lawyers probably requested them.
And they don't get them because their client hasn't been indicted.
It's a great game: Fitzgerald & Co. know what's on the tapes but no one else does. They know who talked to whom and when. They can check telephone records and find out who each party on the tapes talked to before and after each taped call. They can then go to those third parties and ask questions about what they said to the targets. They can then go back to the targets and ask each of them what was said in those conversations. And anything that doesn't sound or smell right gets more attention.
This is how Fitzgerald & Co. trapped Scooter Libby. Libby might not have done anything wrong in outing Plame (a reasonable debate could be had), but he didn't help himself by giving conflicting and inconsistent answers to the investigators. And federal investigators hate being lied to.
Brick by brick, drip by drip, Fitzgerald & Co. build a case based on the taped conversations, the phone logs, and by repeated interviews with the targets and the third parties. And it's doubly bad for Rahm and any other staffer involved, because they don't dare invoke their Fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination: even the New York Times would have to report that, and you can imagine the damage to the Bambi administration.
I am not going to pray that the country fail just to get Bambi. I am not going to be like the Kos Kiddies these past eight years despoiling George Bush at every opportunity. I want the country to recover, the recession to end, our troops to come home with the honor they deserve, and the good people of the world to be safe from terrorists.
And if I can have all that and a salacious scandal for the Bambi administration, well then, heh ...
#1
President-elect Barack Obama has said all along that neither he nor his team was involved in any eye-popping dealmaking over filling his vacated Senate seat. Obama's hand-picked investigator agreed.
"Everybody behaved appropriately," declared Greg Craig, Obama's incoming White House counsel
Well that settles it then, right? Nothing to see here, everybody move along. Guess we're in for four years of the media acting as Obama's volunteer PR staff.
#4
So convenient that Rahmbo had booked a safari at just this time of year. Remember, Rahm is still the elected CongressCritter from the 5th District of Illinois. Keeping that little chit in his pocket for insurance.
BAKU - Azerbaijans parliament on Friday called a referendum in March on whether a two-term presidential limit should be scrapped, a move likely to prolong leader Ilham Aliyevs grip on power.
Parliament, dominated by the pro-government Yeni Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan) party which is led by Aliyev, voted to hold the vote on March 18 in the oil-producing nation. Aliyevs second and last term allowed by the constitution is due to end in 2013.
Few doubt that Aliyevs presidency will be extended.
Azerbaijans nation will openly and freely express its confidence in the countrys President Ilham Aliyev, parliamentarian Ali Ahmedov, Yeni Azerbaijans deputy leader, told the legislature before the vote. The date of the referendum was set by a 100-7 vote.
The ex-Soviet republic, which lies along the Caspian between Russia and Iran, has been dominated by the Aliyev family for more than three decadesfirst under former Communist boss Heydar Aliyev and since 2003 by his son Ilham. Ilham Aliyev, 47, won his current five-year term in October in a landslide election boycotted by the opposition and judged by European monitors as less than democratic.
The president is blamed by critics for concentrating too much power in his own hands though he remains popular after years of an economic boom fuelled by high energy prices while the opposition remains weak and fractured.
Police on Wednesday broke up a rally by a dozen opposition activists, who tried to protest against the referendum outside the Constitutional Court headquarters. Before being pushed away by police, the protesters briefly unfolded banners reading Down with the monarchy! and We do not need a king!
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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The world's first reported cases of the Ebola-Reston virus in hogs in the Philippines is under investigation, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
The Philippine government asked the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the world Organization for Human Health and the WHO to send experts to investigate the outbreak, the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a news release.
Lab reports in October confirmed pigs on farms in the Nueva Ecija and Bulacan provinces were infected with the Ebola-Reston virus and a virulent strain of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome.
The syndrome can't be transmitted to humans. The Reston-Ebola virus can infect humans, but no deaths or serious illnesses have been reported yet, the United Nations said.
LUCKNOW: A mother of two young children has gone into hiding after her dissolute husband wagered her in a card game and lost.
Tumko hum juen mein haar gaye hain (I have lost you in the game of cards), was what Sokendra Kumar, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, told his wife when four men, who had won her showed up to collect their booty on December 19.
The woman raised an alarm and the neighbours rushed in to prevent the men from dragging her away. She told us about the whole thing, but by the time the picture was clear, the four, who had come to take her away, fled, Sharad Malik, a neighbour, told TOI on phone from Muzaffarnagar.
After the din had died down and with the backing of the neighbours, she went to the cops, who told her to buzz off. They scolded me saying that I should not bother them on trivial issues. For them it was too small a thing to intervene, the woman said.
Vijay Kumar, station officer, Thana Bhawan, confirmed the woman had approached him. It was found to be a false allegation and the issue was only limited to a domestic dispute and she went home, he said.
Residents of the area said thats when the woman went into hiding, fearing the men who had beaten her husband in the card game might show up again. Some of the neighbours know where she is, but she is too scared to go home fearing that her husbands friends might kidnap her, said another local resident on the condition of anonymity.
We owned some four bighas of ancestral land which we had given on batai (partnership) and used the earnings to get two square meals a day for the family of four, including his wife and their two sons, aged seven and four, said Sokendra Kumars mother, Shakuntala.
But he sold the land and squandered the money in gambling and drinking. He even sold all the utensils, she said.
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
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There has been no official announcement, no victory parades or televised addresses by the victorious party, no cheering crowds welcoming the liberators but Swat, to all intents and purposes, has fallen to the Taliban. It is the announcement that all girls education in the valley will cease from January 15 that is the tipping point. All schools that teach girls have been ordered by the Taliban to close by that date or face the inevitable consequences being blown up being the most usual of these. They have already blown up well over a hundred girls schools, principally those operated by the government, but have moved in recent weeks to blowing up private institutions as well. Female education has virtually ceased anyway, and the Taliban announcement merely puts the seal on what is a manifest reality the government has lost the battle for Swat and the Taliban have won. They operate at will, go where they like, issue orders and proclamations that a terrified public are unable to ignore and broadcast their message of obscurantism on the radio for all to hear and obey.
The ANP government of NWFP has called for assistance. But little seems to be forthcoming. Refugees stream out of the valley, the operators of private schools try to fight a rearguard action, the tourist trade is dead and buried long ago and the beautiful valley of Swat now enters a time of darkness. The Taliban announcement regarding girl's education may seem a strange point at which to declare Swat 'fallen' but it is of huge symbolic significance. It is significant because there will be compliance the population and the operators of schools, including the government who are the majority education provider will do what they are told. They will obey the orders of the Taliban because the Taliban are more powerful than the government that is supposed to protect and sustain them. The government is unable or unwilling to protect its own schools and is not going to lift a finger to protect those of the private sector. It gives the clear impression of having abandoned Swat and its people to whatever their fate may be.
Could the government either of Musharraf or the present rudderless, drifting Marie Celeste have done anything to stop this? Yes, and in all likelihood they decided not to. The notion that somehow the militants are our 'allies' runs as a strong and deep current through elements of the army and intelligence services, the bureaucracy and the politicians themselves. There are powerful forces that provide tacit if not overt support to them, forces which would like to see the Taliban triumphant in the rest of Pakistan and not just Swat. The caliphate of Swat is becoming a reality before our eyes. Where next?
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
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#1
"They have already blown up well over a hundred girls schools"
WTF is it with these taliban types - do they absolutely hate women tha much?
Time to start gelding any and all that we capture.
Hundreds of foreign election observers are fanning out across Bangladesh in an attempt to ensure a fair election in a country where the main candidates have invoked Islam in order to win. The stakes in Monday's parliamentary elections in the Muslim-majority country, which come two years after a military coup, are high as the growing influence of Islamic radicals threatens to undermine Bangladesh's most important diplomatic relationships.
The country's biggest donors are spending millions of pounds on the vote - Britain has given £1 million to the Asian Network for Free Elections - after putting pressure on the desperately poor country to hold the polls. The foreign ministry in Dhaka estimates that 500 observers will monitor the election.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two former Clinton administration officials were named Tuesday to join the State Department in high posts when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state.
James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser under President Bill Clinton, was chosen as deputy secretary of state. Jacob J. Lew, who was Clinton's budget director, was named to oversee management and budget issues as co-deputy, a unique arrangement for the department.
President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden also named Thomas E. Donilon, another Clinton administration veteran, to be deputy national security adviser. Antony Blinken, chief of staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was named as Biden's national security adviser. Biden is the committee's outgoing chairman.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Obama will empty out the American oil reserve as soon as he gets into office. There's no sense in keeping anything for emergencies, it might benefit America.
#4
While W. Bush filled the SPR to 100%, I wish he had also talked to some of his Texas oilmen friends to restock their shallower oilfields with cheap oil that could be quickly recovered.
Importantly, not above ground where it could be seized, but in out of the way fields that could sit idle for years with little notice.
#6
.5MT: I didn't say it was. However, that is just the SPR. Typically, crude oil is stored above ground en route to the refineries, and there is considerable capacity there as well.
However, in above ground storage it would still be easily snatchable by the government. So Texas oilmen would be better off by pumping it back underground where they could recover it with ease, but the government could not.
I am reminded of the story of a very profitable silver mine in old Mexico. The trouble was, that once the silver ore was refined at the mine, they had to transport it a considerable distance to where they could cash it in.
And the distance was covered with both banditos and corrupt local government officials with their banditos.
So the silver mine melted the silver into a giant ball with large handles, that had to be towed by a 40 mule team. When the banditos and local government showed up to steal the silver, the miners just abandoned the ball and went a safe distance away, until the banditos had given up in frustration.
Because they were the only people in the whole region who had a 40 mule team, and knew how to use it.
Posted by: Bunker Hill ||
12/27/2008 13:25
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#8
The problems with putting the oil down into an old field are that: More than one company will generally have wells in those fields so there is no way to keep the oil under the well of the company that put it there. And secondly, if you pump it in at one spot, it is going to spread out. There is no guarantee you are going to be able to pump it all back out again.
#9
Oil goze into tanks, and back a few years... some got went into crude ponds. Pumping it back into the formation can lead to costly contamination, seepage, and other legal issues and problems as discussed by crosspatch.
DHAKA - Bangladesh said on Friday it would protest to India about Indian ships conducting a survey in an area in the Indian Ocean Dhaka states falls in its territorial waters. The spot lies southwest of Bangladeshs southwestern Mongla port in a block earmarked by Bangladesh for exploration of gas and oil.
The vessels moved towards Indian waters after protests by a Bangladesh navy vessel that located the intruding ships during a routine patrol, but came back afterwards, the ministry said. Bangladesh sent a navy frigate to the area, but Indian ships refused to pull away, saying they were within Indian waters, a foreign ministry official said.
An Indian survey ship was seen conducting a survey in the deep sea block 14 in the maritime area claimed by Bangladesh. The survey ship was aided by two other support vessels, a foreign ministry statement said. Bangladesh will lodge an official protest with India on Saturday, the statement said. Bangladesh will ask for postponement of any exploratory or development activity in the area till such time the maritime boundary between the two countries is settled by mutual agreement.
Bangladesh sent war ships to a similar disputed sea patch in November when Myanmar started exploring gas and oil. Myanmar later withdrew its vessels and agreed to negotiate the issue with Bangladesh. Both countries said they would need more talks to settle the dispute.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade has urged the world community to recognise the military junta in Guinea which seized power earlier this week. He said the coup leaders had pledged to hold polls but this would take time.
Mr Wade became the first head of state to publicly back the coup, which has been condemned internationally but supported by many Guineans. "My feeling is that this group of military men deserves support. We should not throw stones at them," President Wade told France's Radio France Internationale in Paris.
He said he had had a telephone conversation with Capt Camara, describing him as a "perfectly honest" man. And despite the junta's earlier statements that new elections in Guinea would be held in December 2010, Mr Wade said Capt Camara "spoke of eight months".
Capt Camara earlier said he had no intention of standing in the elections and that he wanted to restore order to the country and rid it of corruption.
The US embassy in Conakry has called for an immediate return to civilian rule in Guinea, while France, which currently holds the EU presidency, also said a vote should be held soon. South Africa's President Kgalema Motlanthe has said the junta must step down and hold elections immediately.
Guinea's two main opposition groups have also urged the coup leaders to stage polls in a year's time.
Despite condemnation from the international community, the coup appears to have been welcomed by many within the country. Sick and tired of despotic rule under the former president and his hugely corrupt government, Guineans are pinning their hopes on the military, the BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross says.
The deposed Prime Minister, Ahmed Tidiane Souare, and many within his cabinet have also endorsed Capt Camara's move, as well as older sections of the military.
"Please don't kill us!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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CAIRO - Egypts foreign ministry on Friday denied claims by a human rights group that an Egyptian man was being detained in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of spying but was instead facing unspecified 'security charges'. The Egypt-based Arabic Network for Human Rights had said that software engineer Yusef Ashmawi, who has been held in Saudi Arabia for four months, was accused of spying for Egypt.
During the only visit he was allowed, he told his brother-in-law that he was being accused of spying on Saudi intelligence and relaying the information to Egypt, the networks chief Gamal Eid said.
But Egyptian consular affairs official Ahmed Rizq told AFP that Ashmawi, who was contracted to work for the Saudi defence ministry and intelligence services, was categorically not accused of being a spy. The charge is not spying. Many Egyptians work in sensitive workplaces in Saudi Arabia, he said, adding that the charges were security related without giving further information.
"He's not a 'spy', he's an 'agent'. Can't possibly be accused of being a spy," he added.
Rizq had said in a statement on Thursday that the foreign ministry was following the case. Saudi authorities have said that they have been detaining Ashmawi for several months in a security case, but they have not yet told us the nature of the case, he said.
Asked about the foreign ministrys comments, Eid said: The foreign ministry has no idea about whats going on, so it cant deny it. It is trying to improve its image because of its negligence over the past four months."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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This year will be longer than usual -- by one second, the U.S. Institute of Standards and Technology said Wednesday.
The earth is sufficiently out of sync that a leap second has been scheduled for 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern Standard Time on Dec. 31, said the institute, noting those interested in watching it happen should go to www.time.gov before midnight, London time, and click on their time zone.
A total of 24 leap seconds have been added since 1972, the last being in December 2005, because the earth is slowing and does not rotate exactly once every 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, the Institute said.
The discrepancy went unnoticed until highly accurate atomic clocks were developed in the late 1960s. It was decided then, by international agreement, that operators of atomic clocks around the world would adjust the time of day by adding one second to the world's official time when needed.
#1
ION TOPIX > SCIENTIST WARNS ABOUT RUNAWAY GLOBAL WARMING.
We'll either be living underground, or in LOGAN'S RUN, i.e. a computer-controlled, nuclearized, enviro/popul-controlled, domed = encapsulated/enclosed City(s)???
In the past few days, a rather bizarre assessment made by an American risk-advisory agency began doing the rounds. India had given Pakistan a one-month deadline to take serious action against Islamist terrorists on its soil and on December 26 time would run out. On Boxing Day, India would declare war or otherwise begin military operations across the Line of Control and the international border.
The claim was, of course, rubbish. It has been fairly clear since November 26 that the Government of India is not seriously contemplating war. Even talk of surgical strikes and covert operations -- so popular among retired Generals and impressionable anchors on television news shows -- is grossly premature.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
12/27/2008
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#1
most of the 'India cant because it needs...' claims are bullshit. if India wants to submit pak-land to punishment, it will happen. all that India needs is the will to pull the trigger and the acceptance of the possible shit storm that may follow.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/27/2008 0:28
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#2
"An easier option is working with Iran. For that to happen, Iran will have to stop short of actually building a nuclear bomb. Much will depend on whether President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defeated in the November 2009 election and replaced by a moderate."
Actually, Iran made much of their progress towards nuclear weapons under so-called moderates. The more moderate rhetoric shielded them from reaction from the naive West. Ahmadinejad almost does the West a favor by consistently using hyperbole rather than stealth. If Amaddinejad loses, Iran simply regains the advantage of being able to say one thing while doing the opposite.
A deadly Ebola outbreak in the central Democratic Republic of Congo has killed nine and infected 21, the UN-sponsored radio Okapi quoted the health minister as saying Thursday.
The DR Congo has been hit by Ebola outbreaks three times before. In 1976 the virus killed nearly 500 people on both sides of the country's border with Sudan.
It struck again in 1995, killing 245 people in the western province of Bandundu, and a further 26 cases were confirmed in 2007 in the Western Kasai province, after 187 people died from a host of diseases, including Ebola, malaria, typhoid and dysentery.
#1
the media will have too start acting like this is an epidemic of global proportions until they can think of a way too make the paleos look like choir boys
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said. The move represents a sharp escalation in the stand off between the nuclear-armed neighbors and stands to weaken Pakistan's U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban close to Afghanistan.
Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.
From orbat.com, the 14th Division is returning to its home station in the Cholistan sector (also known as the Multan sector) near Lahore, a key location to stop an Indian armored thrust into central Pakistan and the Pak cities to the east. Apparently the Indians have a very strong strike force on their side of the border in that location, and the 14th is part of Pakistan's XXXI Army Corps charged to stop said Indian strike force. The 14th had been sitting in garrison in the NWFP (silly western reporters no doubt thought they were fighting the Taliban, hah-hah), but now the 14th is moving to plug a potentially catastrophic hole for the Paks. It suggests that the Paks are worried that the Indians just might be coming this time.
An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders the Afghan-frontier province of South Waziristan, said he saw around 40 trucks loaded with soldiers heading away from the Afghan border.
A senior security official refused to comment directly on Friday's troop movements, but said, "Necessary defensive measures have been taken, they are in place and Pakistan's armed forces are prepared to tackle any eventuality."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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#1
happy hunting to all the predators out there...
Pakiwakiland is looking the other direction...
#7
However, the timing is about right. It takes India 30 to 60 days to mobilize its military to the point of launching a substantial offensive action. During that time they're pursuing the usual diplomatic solutions, but if none is found I think they'll go ahead and pull the trigger.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008 11:18
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#8
I still think Keebo0ki.
Freaking out the Pakis to the point of bedwetting might just be enough. Perhaps a closing of 2 or 3 camps.
Regardless, resupply is going to be a rat-bastard of a problem.
They threaten Hamas and open the borders. That doesn't make a bit of sense.
GAZA/Tel Aviv - Israel on Friday gave Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions in the Gaza Strip 48 hours to reduce ongoing rocket and mortar attacks from the salient or risk an Israeli military operation into the strip.
For the first time in 10 days, Israel opened its border crossings with the Gaza Strip Friday morning to allow in essential humanitarian supplies.
If Hamas, the radical Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip, responds by reducing rocket and mortar attacks from the strip, Israel will put off a military operation, officials said.
Speaking on an Arabic television station popular in the Gaza Strip, Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued what he said was a last-minute call to stop the rocket attacks and avoid bloodshed.
Egypt, meanwhile, was making efforts to curb the escalation in Gaza, a day after Tzipi Livni traveled to Cairo Thursday for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman spoke on the telephone with Hamas de-facto foreign minister in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Israel Radio reported Friday. The broadcaster added that Egypt had also beefed up its forces along its border with the Gaza Strip, fearing Palestinians may try to breach the border should Israel attack. A spokesman in Cairo would not confirm.
Livni told Mubarak Thursday that enough is enough and that Hamas was mistaken if it thought that its rocket and mortar attacks would improve the conditions of a six-month, Egyptian-mediated truce, which expired one week ago.
Hamas has said it is interested in a new truce, but wants improved terms. In particular, it opposes conditioning the opening of Israels border crossings with the complete cessation of rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
Attacks from the salient continued Friday, with militants launching at least 10 mortar shells and two rockets into southern Israel by the afternoon, a military spokesman said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/27/2008
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#1
There are no "civilian" targets in Gaza. Line up the 155s wheel-hub to wheel-hub, and start firing. When there's nothing left higher than a 3-foot pile of rubble, stop. Wait to see if anyone crawls out of the rubble, and ask them if they are willing to live in peace with Israel as a neighbor. If they say yes, then start working to help them recover. If they say no, go back to step one and begin all over. Sooner or later, there will either be no one to talk to, or the survivors will sue for peace under any terms, including accepting the right of Israel to exist. If the "world" protests, tell them to blow it out their nether ports.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/27/2008 16:18
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#2
isn't the idea of a siege to deny supplies to the enemy so they lose the will to fight?
Israel is doing it backwards... they are teaching the enemy that they can do without, and giving them supplies often enough that they never give up
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
12/27/2008 16:23
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#3
electricity off, blow the sewage dam, let Egypt deal with them
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/27/2008 16:30
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One of the reasons I had to come back here, was cause I knew there'd be something negative about opening the border, and I figured it would still be up after the op had started. Of course I wouldnt have guessed myself what it meant, and its perfectly understandable after 2006 to doubt israels ability to pull off a deception like this (and of course this op isnt over yet) but at this point Barak is looking smart.
Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) -- An Illinois panel considering the impeachment of Governor Rod Blagojevich is divided over whether to subpoena aides of President-elect Barack Obama and a U.S. congressman. The committee is looking into the Democratic governor's alleged attempt to auction Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich's attorney, Edward Genson, today sent the 21- member impeachment committee a list of witnesses he wants summoned to testify before the panel next week. The list includes Obama's chief of staff appointee Rahm Emanuel and adviser Valerie Jarrett, both of whom were interviewed last week by federal prosecutors in a corruption probe of the governor's office.
Republican members of the impeachment panel want Democratic Chairwoman Barbara Flynn Currie to grant Genson's request to subpoena Emanuel, Jarrett and U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., a Chicago Democrat and aspirant to Obama's former Senate post.
KATHMANDU - Nepals crippling electricity shortage is set to worsen, with the Himalayan nation facing power cuts of 16 hours a day by mid-February, officials said on Friday, in a fresh blow to the Maoist-led government. Power generation has fallen because mountain snows are not melting fast enough in winter and river levels are low, hampering an economy which has not recovered from a decade-long civil war.
The government has declared a national power emergency, which it expects to last up to five years, and the electricity authority said daily power cuts would increase to 12 hours from nine hours from next week, and to 16 hours from mid-February. The situation will only worsen as we have no way to meet the demand, senior Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) official Sher Singh Bhat said.
Nepals many rivers cascading down from the Himalayas have the potential to generate up to 83,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity, officials and experts say. But last week Bhat told Reuters the country generates only 336 MW of total capacity despite demand for 770 MW, which rises by 60 MW a year.
The government said it would give a seven-year tax exemption to private companies producing hydroelectric power by 2012. It will also import electricity from India and install diesel-run generators in the next two months. Building expensive new power plants is politically sensitive in Nepal, one of the worlds poorest nations.
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NOT too disimilar from CALIFORNIA reportedly ruing out of $$$ for normal Govt. operations come February or March 2009.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Caroline Kennedy emerged from weeks of near-silence Friday about her bid for a Senate seat by saying that after a lifetime of closely guarded privacy, she felt compelled to answer the call to service issued by her father a generation ago. She said two events shaped her decision to ask Gov. David Paterson 11 days ago to consider her for the position if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and her work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
In her first sit-down interview since she emerged as a Senate hopeful, the 51-year-old daughter of President John F. Kennedy cited her father's legacy in explaining her decision to seek to serve alongside her uncle Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy. "Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth," she said. "Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I'm not saying that I am anything like him, I'm just saying there's a spirit that I think I've grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me."
She also credited her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, with giving her the courage to seek the job. "I think my mother ... made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected," she said.
Continued on Page 49
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"We're starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service."
For those who don't care to sully their hands with honest campaigning there is of course the Blago option. How much money you got to spread around, Princess?
New Delhi, Dec. 26: Ignoring Pakistan's objections to the Kishan Ganga hydro power project, the government on Friday cleared the proposal for building plant with a capacity of 330 MW in Jammu and Kashmir at an upwardly revised cost of Rs 3,642 crore.
"Pakistan had raised some questions about the project, but we are sure it fully complies with the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 between the two countries," the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, said while announcing the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). The Minister said, "The project cost had been revised from Rs 2,238 crore to Rs 3,642 crore because of the change in scope of the project, ecology, law and order and inaccessibility of the dam area during winters."
He also said that the lowest bidder had quoted a very high price which was reduced by 110 per cent and the task of completing the project in time has been entrusted with state-run power utility National Hydro Power Corporation Ltd (NHPC).
Describing the project of being "strategic importance" to India, the minister said, "It will help the country use its share of water from the treaty. It will create irrigation potential in Baramulla." The project was conceived in 1994.
Meanwhile, keeping in mind the country's energy requirement for next 25 years with intent to sustain a robust average growth rate of nine perc ent, the Union cabinet in its meeting here approved the "Integrated Energy Policy". The policy aims at optimal exploitation of domestic resources and exploring and acquiring assets abroad to attain energy security for the country, Mr Chidambram said.
The broad vision of the policy, drafted by the Planning Commission, is to reliably meet the demand for energy services in all parts of the country with safe, clean and convenient energy at the least cost.
Mr Chidambaram said, "It has also been decided to set up a monitoring committee under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary to review the progress of implementation of the policy."
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NEW DELHI: Even as tensions with Pakistan persist in the wake of 26/11, India is now poised to ink its biggest-ever defence deal with US: the around Rs 8,500-crore contract for the supply of eight Boeing P-8I long-range maritime reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft for the Navy.
"Virtually all the steps'' required for the contract to be signed, including tabling of it in the Cabinet Committee on Security for approval, have been completed, said sources on Friday.
The first of these LRMR aircraft will be delivered within four years of the contract being actually signed, with the rest being handed over by 2015, said sources. The LRMR planes will replace the eight ageing and fuel-guzzling Russian-origin Tupolev-142Ms. Customised for India and based on the Boeing 737 commercial airliner, the radar-packed P-8I aircraft will go a long way in plugging the huge gaps in Navy's maritime snooping capabilities with a range of over 600 nautical miles.
Incidentally, Navy is also in the hunt for six new medium-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft for around Rs 1,600 crore to achieve its aim of an effective three-tier surveillance grid in the entire Indian Ocean.
Both Navy and Coast Guard have come in for some criticism for not being able to pre-empt the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, even though the two forces maintain that they did not get "actionable intelligence'' in time.
The P-8I aircraft will also be armed with Harpoon missiles, torpedoes and depth bombs to give them potent anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capability. Moreover, they "will enhance interoperability'' between the Indian and American navies, in keeping with the growing strategic embrace between the two countries.
The LRMR deal will supplant last year's $962-million contract signed with US for six C-130J `Super Hercules' aircraft for use by Indian special forces.
US is still, however, leagues behind Russia, Israel and France in supplying military hardware and software to India. While Russia notches up sales worth about $1.5 billion to India every year, Israel chalks up an annual tally of around $1 billion.
Apart from the C-130J deal, America's only big-ticket deal with India in recent years has been the $190-million contract in 2002 to supply 12 AN/TPQ-37 firefinder weapon-locating radars.
Then, of course, India last year acquired amphibious transport vessel USS Trenton for $48.23 million, with the six UH-3H helicopters to operate from it costing another $39 million.
During its quest for LRMR planes, India had earlier rejected the US offer to lease two P-3C Orion reconnaissance aircraft under a $133-million contract. India, of course, remains unhappy over the American decision to sell eight more P-3C Orion aircraft to Pakistan, which already has two such planes in its inventory.
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Getting tired of buying Yugos from the Russkies?
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.
JAMMU: The Border Security Force (BSF) on Saturday shot dead a suspected Pakistani intruder along the Indo-Pak border in Jammu sector of Jammu and Kashmir, making it the second such incident in two days.
Several suspected al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents staged a daring jailbreak Friday, killing at least 10 police officers and six prisoners during their escape from a prison in Ramadi, authorities said.
A MEMBER of al-Qaeda in Iraq who broke out of jail has been killed in a firefight while two other prisoners on the run have been surrounded by police. "We killed 'Imad the killer' and he is lying on the street in front of me," an officer said. "We are exchanging gunfire with the other two who are hiding in a house in Street number 20 in the centre of the city."
Israeli aircraft struck Hamas 
Ace footballer David Beckham's protection may turnout to be the biggest-ever security operation when he arrives in Dubai on Monday to make his debut for AC Milan, for top officials fear that he may be an ideal high-profile target for Muslim fanatics. Spies at the intelligence agency MI6 are afraid that al-Qaida may attack the United Arab Emirates any time.
Associates of the legendary performer, Michael Jackson, who wish to remain unnamed, have confirmed to All News Web that recent rumours regarding Michael Jackson converting to Islam are in fact true. 'Michael might not have become a hard-core observer of all the precepts of the Koran but he has made a commitment to come to know the faith and be inspired by it.' the associate commented. 'He has undergone some form of ceremony. Michael has basically been a vegetarian for years and doesn't eat pork at all so the dietary rules are not a problem.'
Ethiopian police are arresting young Somali men in the Bole area of the capital Addis Ababa over the past few days and 200 are now in detention. 
Chinese warships headed toward Somali waters Friday to combat piracy, the first time the communist country has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.
A child was killed and nine persons, including security personnel, were injured when the Taliban fired rockets on Civil Colony in Khar district and Fajja village of Bajaur Agency, local sources said on Friday. They said that two of the injured were in critical condition. Meanwhile, security forces pounded Taliban hideouts in Mamoond and Khar tehsils, but no reports of casualties to the Taliban were received. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar said the organisation did not oppose female education and the ban on education for females by the Swat Taliban had nothing to do with the TTP. He told reporters on Friday over telephone that the TTP was in the process of convincing the Swat Taliban to review their decision. The spokesman said the TTP had also set up an investigation committee to look into the matter. Omar said they stood by their decision of not resisting the security forces' advance in Bajaur, however, the TTP was concerned about the public's suffering due to the operation.
Caroline Kennedy made a little more news on NY1 tonight, telling host Dominic Carter that she finally spoke to Hillary Clinton -- who didn't initially take her call -- and that, if she's not selected, she won't run for the seat.
An official source reported that the Yemeni security in Aden on Friday thwarted an attempt by prisoners to escape al-Mansorah prison in Aden. 
The U.S. coalition said Friday its forces killed 11 Taliban militants, including the leader of a bomb-making cell, during an operation in southern Afghanistan. The raid in Kandahar province on Thursday targeted a bomb-maker responsible for roadside bomb attacks that killed NATO soldiers, a coalition statement said.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian soldier was killed and three others were injured in southern Afghanistan on Friday when a bomb blast hit the armored vehicle they were riding in, the military said. The incident occurred in the Zhari district to the west of the city of Kandahar, where Canada has a 2,700-strong military mission.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama has said all along that neither he nor his team was involved in any eye-popping dealmaking over filling his vacated Senate seat. Obama's hand-picked investigator agreed. "Everybody behaved appropriately," declared Greg Craig, Obama's incoming White House counsel and the person asked to conduct the internal inquiry into contacts between the transition team and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. 
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two former Clinton administration officials were named Tuesday to join the State Department in high posts when Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state.
CAIRO - Egypts foreign ministry on Friday denied claims by a human rights group that an Egyptian man was being detained in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of spying but was instead facing unspecified 'security charges'. The Egypt-based Arabic Network for Human Rights had said that software engineer Yusef Ashmawi, who has been held in Saudi Arabia for four months, was accused of spying for Egypt.
A deadly Ebola outbreak in the central Democratic Republic of Congo has killed nine and infected 21, the UN-sponsored radio Okapi quoted the health minister as saying Thursday.
Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) -- An Illinois panel considering the impeachment of Governor Rod Blagojevich is divided over whether to subpoena aides of President-elect Barack Obama and a U.S. congressman. The committee is looking into the Democratic governor's alleged attempt to auction Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat.
