#2
And here I thought the evolution of prisons was to avoid executions and as an alternative deny the convicted individual liberties and access that law abiding citizens had.
[An Nahar] South Sudanese troops fought Sunday to win back the key oil town of Malakal from rebels loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar, the army said a day after reclaiming the strategic town of Bor.
The army said its troops were launching an offensive to retake the rebel-held southern portion of Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state and one of the main battlefields since fighting erupted last month between rival forces loyal to Machar and President Salva Kiir.
Communications with forces on the ground have been spotty, but as of late Saturday, "they were preparing the final operation to clear the town," army front man Philip Aguer told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Both rebels and the government have claimed in recent days to control the northeastern town, which has already changed hands twice and where rebels launched a new offensive Monday.
The army meanwhile said that a day after its key victory in Bor, the bitterly contested capital of Jonglei State, the road linking the town to the capital, Juba, about 200 kilometers (130 miles) south, had been cleared.
"We are telling the nation now that the Juba-Bor road is fully secured," Lieutenant General Malual Ayom Dor said in a statement issued from Bor.
But he said other parts of the eastern state were still a battlefield.
"The liberation of Bor is not the liberation of Jonglei state. There are other places still where the rebels are active," he said.
In the third key battleground of Bentiu, the capital of the northern state of Unity, the army front man said the situation was "quiet" Sunday.
South Sudan erupted into conflict on December 15 in what Kiir called a coup attempt by Machar, whom he sacked in July. The former vice president denies the charge and accuses his ex-boss of trying to purge his rivals.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... has doubled the number of its citizens working for private companies in the 30 months since it introduced wide-ranging reforms to tackle long-term unemployment, Labor Minister Adel al-Fakeih said on Sunday.
Policy makers fear a failure to create a productive local workforce will leave the kingdom vulnerable to any future fall in oil revenue. Despite the lack of any significant protests during the 2011 Arab uprisings, they were uncomfortably aware that unemployment contributed to unrest in neighboring countries and worry about the long-term risk of political instability.
#1
I have good days and bad days, but on my good days I seem to recall that there is this strip of land in SA about 15K wide by 100K long bordering the ocean. This area from what I remember from some where produces 90% of all SA petroleum products. Bizarrely enough it is also Shia, not Sunni. Am I remembering that correctly?
h/t Instapundit
Russia began drilling a well in its Bazhenov shale formation in Siberia this week, tapping in to what may be the worlds largest single reserve of shale oil.
Moscow is coming to the shale game very late; because Russia is already rich in conventional oil and gas, its felt little pressure to invest in unconventional reserves. But as its hydrocarbon production begins to stagnate, Moscow is realizing that shale energy might actually be worth looking in to. And no wonder: Russia has the worlds largest reserves of shale oil, and ninth-largest reserves of shale gas. Earlier this week, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Gazprom Neft broke ground on its first fracking well in the Bazhenov shale, just outside of Salym. The sands are running out for the oil ticks
#1
Just what we need, Russia has oil, and we don't.
We're dependent on them?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/20/2014 18:15 Comments ||
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#2
This morning Drudge was reporting that even the Euro-eco-weenies are considering abandoning their tree hugging status in order to jump on the fracking train.... That just has to cause some serious mind spinning in Europe with all them windsolarhydrojunkies...
[An Nahar] Clashes between police and protesters raged in the center of the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Sunday after 200,000 defied new restrictions on protests to turn out for a new rally against President Viktor Yanukovych.
Several hours of the bloody festivities left dozens injured and further raised stakes in the almost two month-standoff between the opposition and Yanukovych which has seen protesters seize control of the center of Kiev.
The U.S. embassy in Kiev urged an end to the violence. In a statement is called on the Ukrainian government to "immediately start negotiations with all sides to resolve the political standoff, address protesters' concerns, and prevent violence from spreading."
Ukrainian police used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon in a bid to disperse the hundreds of people who sought to storm police cordons near the Verkhovna Rada parliament in the capital, witnesses and Agence La Belle France Presse correspondents said.
In some of the most violent scenes since the start of the protests, demonstrators rocked police buses outside the Verkhovna Rada and set two of them on fire while the air filled with the stench of tear gas.
Their faces covered by scarves or ski masks, many of the protesters wielded sticks or even chains amid temperatures of minus seven degrees Celsius. They were confronted by helmeted riot police equipped with shields.
Health officials said 24 people were maimed and three were hospitalized, while police said more than 30 officers were hurt and 10 hospitalized. Police insisted the water cannon was used to douse flames on the buses and not against protesters.
Kiev riot police said the protesters had captured a security services officer and brutally beat him up. He was then rescued but found seriously injured and in a "state of shock."
The flames from the blazing police bus lit up the evening sky while the thud of smoke bombs and stun grenades echoed around.
In what amounted to a pitched battle, the protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails as they sought to penetrate police lines whenever the tear gas and smoke cleared.
Opposition leaders including former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on the protesters to refrain from using force but their calls were ignored.
Amid the chaos of the festivities, Klitschko was sprayed with powder from a fire extinguisher leaving his eyes irritated and face and clothes covered in white powder.
"I call on President Yanukovych: find it in yourself not to repeat the fate of (Nicolae) Ceausescu and (Muammar) Qadaffy," said the boxer turned politician, referring to the slain Romanian and Libyan autocrats.
He urged the president to "call early elections so that the situation does not get any worse."
His spokeswoman said Klitschko traveled to meet with Yanukovych for emergency talks at the president's Mezhygirya residence outside Kiev. Police guarding the president's home allowed him through but it was not clear if the talks took place.
Earlier, some 200,000 people had filled Kiev's Independence Square and surrounding streets for a new mass rally in defiance of new strict curbs on protests.
Protesters expressed frustration at the rally over the lack of a clear program from the opposition leaders after almost two months of protests over Yanukovych's decision to ditch a pact with the EU under Russian pressure.
The opposition called the rally after Yanukovych on Friday signed off on the new legislation banning nearly all forms of protest that outraged activists and troubled the West.
The new laws allow the authorities to jail those who blockade public buildings for up to five years and permit the arrest of protesters who wear masks or helmets.
Other provisions ban the dissemination of "slander" on the Internet and introduce the term "foreign agent" to be applied to non-governmental groups that receive foreign funding.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] A 15-year-old maid was brutally beaten up allegedly by her employer in Defence on Saturday.
The girl was reported to be in a critical condition after she was brought to the Services Hospital by the Defence police. A private hospital in Defence, where she was brought first by the employer, called the police keeping in view the condition of the girl.
The police said the man took his maid to a private hospital for treatment, saying she got injured after falling from a tree in the house. When the hospital officials examined the girl, they called the police who took the girl to the Services Hospital. The police took the suspect into custody.
The police said initially the suspect claimed that the girl had injured herself to avoid action for stealing valuables from the house but later changed his statement admitting that the family gave "mild punishment" to the maid.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Former president and Pakistain People's Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday moved an application with a trial court for getting rid of the five corruption references pending against him in the accountability court.
On the application of Mr Zardari, special judge Mohammad Bashir of the accountability court Islamabad issued notices to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and sought its reply on February 3, the next date of proceedings.
The judge also exempted Mr Zardari from day-to-day appearance before the court after Farooq H. Naek and Amjad Iqbal Qureshi, the counsel for the former president, cited security concerns.
The five corruption references were filed against Mr Zardari 17 years back. They included Cotecna, Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), ARY Gold, Ursus tractors and polo ground cases.
The accountability court in October last year had reopened the proceedings against Mr Zardari in compliance with the Supreme Court judgment passed in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case in December 2009.
In the judgment, the apex court had ordered the revival of the cases which had been closed after the promulgation of the NRO in 2007.
The Cotecna corruption reference was initially prepared by Saifur Rehman, the then chairman of Ehtesab Bureau, during the second government of Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... .
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... and her spouse Mr Zardari were the main accused in the reference while Nusrat Bhutto, former CBR chairman A.R. Siddiqui and six directors of the Swiss company, Cotecna, were the co-accused.
They were charged with taking as kickbacks six per cent of the total value of a $131 million pre-shipment contract awarded to the Swiss company.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Explosions injured almost 30 people in central Bangkok on Sunday during a continuing "shutdown" protest aimed at toppling the Thai government, an emergency centre said.
Twenty-eight people were taken to several hospitals across the city, according to the Erawan Emergency Centre. Protesters said the injuries were caused by two separate blasts at a rally.
Witnesses said the kabooms occurred about two minutes apart.
The first blast went off about 100-200 meters (yards) from a stage set up by protesters, and the second went off near a row of vendors selling anti-government T-shirts.
The violence is the latest to hit the city as Thailand's increasingly volatile political crisis drags on.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts Sunday afternoon near Victory Monument, in the north of the city.
Earlier on Saturday a gunman opened fire on anti-government protesters in Thailand's capital, severely wounding one man in the latest violence to hit Bangkok as the country's political standoff drags on, officials said Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/20/2014 00:00 ||
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[PJ Media] Excerpt: Losing is not a bad deal if the the loser's purse is bigger than the expected value of the winners pay packet outside the deal. Since it is the Globetrotters, not the Generals, that drive the total size of the revenue, it makes sense to accept second-best. The bigger the audience the Globetrotters attract the bigger the losers' purse of the Washington Generals. It is rational for the Generals to aim for a smaller slice of as long as the Trotters keep growing the pie. Like many of us, author Richard Fernandez has looked behind the curtain and sees little difference.
#1
Here is a reply I posted at Wretchard's site, it bears reposting here at the 'burg:
The philosophizing and the social agenda are interesting, but they
are the ultimate goal, not primary one in the present. The goal and
not the means. We lose sight of that at our peril.
Hillary's inevitability has more to do with the 47% Romney accurately
described than anything else.
99% of the people in this country who get their income from a
government source - public sector workers, welfare recipients, ag
subsidy recipients, grant recipients, attorneys (most of whom are de
facto public employees or rent-seekers) and rent-seeking "private"
businesses - are going to vote for whichever candidate will have the
lowest likelihood of cutting off or even diminishing their income
stream. Period. Do not kid yourselves that anyone who works for the
government, no matter how conservative their lifestyle is privately,
will do anything but vote for the most fiscally irresponsible
candidate under ANY conditions. All Hillary, all ANY candidate has to
do, is project the image that not one single government expenditure
will be cut in any way and they will win any election at the national level.
In a down economy, fear of losing the magic government check trumps
everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. It is the real explanation for
2012. More than conservatives staying home. More than election fraud.
You can point out that this dynamic has been growing for a while, and
perhaps so. But the real cause for concern is an ugly new twist. The
left has become very aware of this new found permanent voting
propensity. They have awoken to its power. They will exploit it to
the max. We really, truly have reached the point where if Hillary set
fire to a bunch of third graders on national TV pretty much everyone
who gets a government check would vote for her against anyone from
the center/right anyways. And everyone in the entertainment industry
would either claim it didn't happen or blame Republicans.
If she told the public work force, people in subsidized industries
like education, and welfare recipients, "I'm planning to round up
every serious Christian, conservative and orthodox jew, gun owner,
and person we can prove advocates for limited government, confiscate
their property, and send them to concentration camps and kill them -
but your magic checks will never be interrupted", 99% of those people
would vote for her with a smile on their face and joy in their hearts.
If you believe otherwise, you are a terrible, terrible fool. Russians
and Germans - people who had similar attitudes towards the size and
power of government and were more educated, more informed, and more
enlightened than today's left living in America and the LIV's who
have profited by a bloated government - cheered on as their
governments committed terrible atrocities, as long as their own
situations remained comfortable. What, precisely, is different this
time, such that we can be confident history will not repeat itself?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/20/2014 8:09 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] Former president and Pakistain People's Party (PPP) co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday moved an application with a trial court for getting rid of the five corruption references pending against him in the accountability court.
Nawaz Sharif
