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Pro-Regime Gunmen Kill 12 'Qaida' Militants in Yemen
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Africa Subsaharan
ANC used me like a condom, says expelled Malema
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Former president of the African National Congress (ANC) youth league, Julius Malema, has lambasted the leadership of South Africa's ruling party for using him to achieve their goals and then discarding him "like a condom."
E-e-e-e-w-w-w-w! Too much imagery!
Mr Malema made the accusations at a gathering of a new group called the "Friends of the Youth League" in Mthatha, South Africa's Eastern Cape Province.

The group has been created to provide a different platform for Mr Malema following the confirmation of his expulsion from the ANC, according to the City Press newspaper.

The ANC youth league has distanced itself from the new group.

Mr Malema claimed he had been mistreated by the ANC leadership despite his service to the party.

"Those of us who have remained loyal and entered treacherous places by defending the African National Congress... today we are not wanted," the South African Press Association quoted Mr Malema as saying.

"We are used like toilet paper or like condoms."
Posted by: Fred || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OK, is there some unknown South African meme or idiom that makes this less yucky and stupid sounding?
Posted by: SteveS || 05/05/2012 1:08 Comments || Top||

#2  You're lucky, kid. It coulda been a bald Michelin full of gasoline...
Posted by: tu3031 || 05/05/2012 1:37 Comments || Top||

#3  He's slicker'n a Clinton cigar.
Posted by: crosspatch || 05/05/2012 3:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Malema was more radical than even the ANC could tollerate.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/05/2012 8:05 Comments || Top||

#5  "We are used like toilet paper or like condoms."

Well, it at least didn't involve a caller with an icepick. Yet.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/05/2012 8:23 Comments || Top||

#6  More radical or simply a timing problem (demanded proceeding too fast)?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/05/2012 8:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Wasn't South Africa supposed to become an absolute utopia following socialist/communist principles after the end of apartheid?

Wha hoppened?
Posted by: AlanC || 05/05/2012 9:02 Comments || Top||

#8  Wha hoppened?
Posted by AlanC


Same thing that is happening here, only they are on steroids.
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/05/2012 9:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Besoeker, is there a tag for a rhetorical question? Maybe "/rhetq"?


Posted by: AlanC || 05/05/2012 10:47 Comments || Top||

#10  "/sarc" works pretty well to signal to those like me who are less subtle that a comment isn't meant literally, AlanC dear.

I think I shall make up a pot of chamomile tea -- it seems that kind of day, as we wait for Israel to bounce some rubble on the Persian side of the border.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/05/2012 17:32 Comments || Top||


Taylor prosecutor seeks 80-year sentence
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The chief prosecutor in the trial of Charles Taylor
The former President-for-Life of Liberia, of whom the best that could be said was that he wasn't quite as horrible as Prince Johnson, at least not usually.
has suggested an 80-year sentence after the Liberian former president's conviction for war crimes, according to a document made public Thursday.

The prosecutor said the term would be fair given Taylor's role in arming and aiding rebels who killed and mutilated thousands in neighbouring Sierra Leone during the 1991-2001 civil war, one of the most brutal conflicts in modern history.

"Should the trial chamber decide to impose a global sentence, 80 years imprisonment would be appropriate," said the document, signed by the Special Court for Sierra Leone's chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis in The Hague.

"The recommended sentence is appropriate to reflect the essential role that Mr Taylor played in crimes of such extreme scope and gravity."

Taylor, 64, was found guilty by the UN-backed court last week for aiding and abetting war crimes.
So he should be 144 years old when he gets out, except that this is Europe so he'll be 71...
In the first judgement against an ex-head of state by a world court since the World War II Nuremberg trials, Taylor was convicted on all 11 counts including acts of terrorism, murder and rape committed by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, who paid him for arms with diamonds mined by slave labour.

Taylor will be sentenced on May 30 by the court, based in the leafy suburb of Leidschendam outside The Hague. Should he get jail time, it will be spent in a British prison.

The hearings, which saw model Naomi Campbell testify she had received diamonds from Taylor, lasted a liesurely four years, wrapping up in March 2011.
Posted by: Fred || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
AL to go tough with opposition
[Bangla Daily Star] The ruling Awami League will take a tough stance if the BNP-led opposition parties enforce hartal
... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ...
or observe similar anti-government agitation programmes in the coming days.

AL insiders said the party would take to the streets to curb the opposition agitation. In no circumstances, the BNP and allies would be allowed to "hamper development activities of the government".

"We will go tough against those who will try to hinder development activities. We won't spare anyone who will try to create anarchy in the name of movement," AL Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury told The Daily Star yesterday.

He added that as a pro-people party, the AL would stay alert in the streets to thwart BNP's anti-government movement.

Khalid, however, said they believe "the opposition leaders who go into hiding and are not courageous enough to face charges won't be able to wage a movement to unseat this government".

The main opposition BNP has already announced that after May 6 it would take up programmes even harsher than hartal to press the government for return of its missing leader Ilias Ali, withdrawal of "false charges" against most of its top leaders and reinstatement of the caretaker government system to hold the next parliamentary election.

In last 12 days, the BNP-led 18-party alliance has enforced five dawn-to-dusk shutdowns and staged demonstrations across the country to protest the disappearance of Ilias Ali and his driver.

Ilias, one of the organising secretaries of the BNP and a former politician, went missing in the early hours of April 18.

AL high-ups claim the government has been trying its best to find out Ilias. So, they reason, there is no logic in calling hartal.

Besides, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide...
herself has assured Ilias' wife Tahsina Rushdir Luna of doing everything necessary to trace her husband.

On the two cases filed against the BNP leaders on charges of involvement in blasts and vandalism during hartal hours, AL leaders said the senior BNP leaders must accept responsibility when one bus driver had been burned alive and many vehicles smashed or torched by hartal pickets.

The ruling party leaders also said the charges had been brought against senior opposition leaders as they had threatened to set the country on fire.

About the opposition's demand for withdrawal of the charges, AL Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif said, "The law will take its own course and no one is above the law."

On April 29, Tejgaon police filed a case against 44 leaders and activists of the BNP-led 18-party alliance for torching a vehicle near the Prime Minister's Office that day.
Posted by: Fred || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Bolivia expropriates Spanish-owned company
[Al Jazeera] Spaniards react with anger to President Evo Morales's seizure of local subsidiary of power producer Red Electrica.
Posted by: Fred || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder when Obama will decide to nationalize oil companies in the US?
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/05/2012 7:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I wonder when Obama will decide to nationalize oil companies in the US?
Posted by: Glenmore || 05/05/2012 7:32 Comments || Top||

#3  When he has more flexibility.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/05/2012 8:26 Comments || Top||

#4  We ought to be safe then, he seems pretty inflexible if you ask me.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 05/05/2012 8:44 Comments || Top||

#5  The windmill bearings must be OILED!
Posted by: Besoeker || 05/05/2012 8:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Bye, Bye investments. I wonder if the Chinese get the picture.
Posted by: Dale || 05/05/2012 12:07 Comments || Top||

#7  I'm looking for Brazil to start this. They had a strong economy but its in the tank now. Oil going down is bad news. They will blame everyone but themselves.
Posted by: Dale || 05/05/2012 12:14 Comments || Top||


Argentina expropriates Spanish-owned oil firm
[Al Jazeera] Argentina's congress has approved the country's takeover of the Spanish-owned YPF oil company, clearing the way for President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner to sign the bill into law.

The lower house approved the takeover of YPF by a 207-32 vote on Thursday. The Senate approved the bill last week.

Deputies in congress debated the law, which includes the expropriation of Spanish energy company Repsol's $10.5bn controlling stake in the oil company.

Spain has threatened to retaliate against the so-far-uncompensated takeover of YPF, and the Moody's rating agency has said that trading with Argentina is now riskier than before.

Argentine policy makers, however, have brushed off concerns, and more than three-fourths of politicians approved the law during Thursday's vote.

President Kirchner, a combative career politician who has tightened state control of the economy, unveiled the plan to take over YPF from Repsol six months after her landslide re-election last year.

Agustin Rossi, head of the ruling party bloc in the lower house, heralded the move as a watershed in the country's energy policy.

"We're going to see a big improvement and a big difference [although] it's probably going to take a few years for us to achieve energy self-sufficiency," Rossi said.

"This isn't just about YPF, [all companies] will have to keep in mind that their business is a matter of public interest
and the aim is self-sufficiency," he added.
Posted by: Fred || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  cut off all foreign investment, loans, and trade. Let Argentina rot
Posted by: Frank G || 05/05/2012 8:23 Comments || Top||

#2  ...I do believe they are. It's just that there are so many suckers clueless out there who'll play just about any gamble even when everyone else knows the game is rigged.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 05/05/2012 11:23 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
China says U.S. agrees to have yuan in IMF basket
The United States supports China's bid to have the yuan included in the International Monetary Fund's basket of currencies, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said on Friday after high-level talks between Beijing and Washington.

China wants the yuan to be part of the IMF basket of currencies as part of long-term plans to turn the yuan into an alternative reserve currency next to the dollar and the euro.

But the IMF has said a currency needs to be convertible before it can be included in the basket. China envisions the yuan will only be convertible by 2015.
Posted by: tipper || 05/05/2012 10:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


The Grand Turk
Hide The Decline: Turkey Angry At S&P For Lowering Rating Outlook
Turkey's prime minister on Thursday accused ratings agency Standard & Poor's of bias for lowering the country's long-term credit outlook on the same day it upgraded Greece's credit grade.
 "How dare they! Don't they know who we are!?"
S&P on Tuesday had dropped Turkey's outlook from positive to stable, which mean it is no longer considering an upgrade of its credit rating, and cited concerns over government debt. The same day it had upgraded the ratings of neighboring Greece after Athens completed a major debt writedown with private creditors.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IIRC last week or week-n-half ago, India = Indjuh was expecting a major credit ratings upgrade but to their shock were instead downgraded - HILARITY DID NOT ENSUE.

Don't remember iff it was S&P, Fitch, or Other.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 05/05/2012 0:23 Comments || Top||

#2 
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 05/05/2012 5:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Dude... wheres my car?
Posted by: newc || 05/05/2012 12:32 Comments || Top||

#4  My mother (just arrived from visiting my brother in Oklahoma City) absolutely loved the Latma video, g(r)omgoru.
Posted by: trailing wife || 05/05/2012 21:29 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2012-05-05
  Pro-Regime Gunmen Kill 12 'Qaida' Militants in Yemen
Fri 2012-05-04
  Bajaur teenyboomer kills 24
Thu 2012-05-03
  Afghanistan: Pakistani driving truck bomb arrested
Wed 2012-05-02
  Suicide bomb blast hits hotel in Somalia, two MPs believed dead
Tue 2012-05-01
  'Egyptians thwart Iranian plot to kill Saudi envoy'
Mon 2012-04-30
  US drone 'kills three militants' in Miramshah
Sun 2012-04-29
  Syria Troops Kill 10 Rebels in Damascus Region
Sat 2012-04-28
   21 Taliban Insurgents Killed in Clashes
Fri 2012-04-27
  Separate bomb blasts rock Nigeria's newspapers, at least six killed
Thu 2012-04-26
  Libya bans religious, tribal or ethnic parties
Wed 2012-04-25
  Sacked Yemen Air Force Commander Quits Post
Tue 2012-04-24
  India orders deportation of 10 French nationals over Maoist links
Mon 2012-04-23
  Kazakh court sends 47 men to prison for terrorism
Sun 2012-04-22
  Tons of Explosives Seized from Militants Planning Attack in Kabul
Sat 2012-04-21
  Sudan Rebels Kill 79 Troops, Militia in Blue Nile

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