Corsair wonders about Swaziland's new modesty ordinance...
So women will have their clothes ripped off (pants, specifically) and torn to shreds leaving them pantless in the streets because it violates traditional chastity rules... or something like that (Am I the only one who sees a logical problem with that?).
Logical problem? Or ulterior motive? Walk a couple granny ladies down Main Street in trousers and see if anybody rips their drawers off, even though required by law. Then walk a couple comely 20-year-olds down the same route. (Hubbah-hubbah! Hrowf! Hrowf!)
Don't forget to take notes, 'cuz this is purely for research!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 12:53 pm ||
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For those who don't know, Bob's use of quotes around that last word indicates sarcasm. Like when someone writes that Bob is a "respected journalist." Bob really must be mad. Incoherence, paranoia, lame insults, quote marks all over the place. I've got a feeling that getting beaten up by Third-Worlders won't make him happy this time.
Bob's gone from being a journalist to being a "journalist" to being an irritant to being funny. It did have the benefit, though, of making Chris relook The Speech, which I consider a milestone (the speech, I mean, not Chris relooking it). Obviously if it bunches Bob's BVDs there's something to it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 06:08 pm ||
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George Armstrong ("Yellow Hair") Custer graduated last in his class at West Point. He served with distinction in the Civil War, his units having enormously high casualty rates, and he was made a brevet (acting) general. Today, 126 years ago, commanding a force of 264 men, he attacked 5,000 angry Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at the Little Bighorn.
When he was being scalped by Indians General Custer sure wished he'd studied harder at West Point. Did you remember to get your hair cut today?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 07:21 pm ||
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General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a gift from the Union of Young Communists of Cuba. It was handed to an official concerned by Julio Martinez Ramirez, second secretary of the national committee of the Union of Young Communists of Cuba, on a visit to the DPRK. "A cigar? For me? Oh, you shouldn't have..."
Reading up on North Korea and then reading up on the rest of the world always makes me think of the blow-off in "Animal House," the scene where they were synchronizing their watches. North Korea is Belushi's watch...
(If you're one of the eleven people in the world who either didn't see the movie or were out for popcorn during that scene, everybody else's watch said 11:00 a.m., or whatever time it was; Bluto's showed 5:37.)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:16 am ||
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Iraqi opposition sources said Qusay Hussein, the younger son of Saddam, survived a car bombing. The sources said Qusay was targeted on June 9 in Baghdad when his car was booby-trapped. Damn. That's too bad. And who dunnit?
The Supreme Revolutionary Council, a Shi'ite opposition group backed by Iran, said Qusay was coming out of the presidential palace and heading for the headquarters of Iraqi General Intelligence when he came under attack. Qusay was to have entered a waiting car that was rigged with a large bomb that came from a Soviet-origin rocket launcher, identified as an RPG-7. But the council said Qusay was directed to another of eight vehicles at his service. Seconds later, the booby-trapped vehicle exploded and killed Qusay's driver and three bodyguards. That's why he has eight cars and gets in them at random. The Iranian involvement is pretty interesting, I'd think. And certainly they're practiced at setting car bombs. They probably just called somebody in Beirut and the next day it was done.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:05 am ||
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The Iranian regimeâs number two man offered the United States an olive branch "provided that Washington quits its imperialist and hegemonic policies and shows good will". Trouble is, they've always been pretty tetchy in their definition of "hegemonistic behavior"...
"If America drops its bullying as well as its imperialist policies, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to co-operate with that country", former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Friday during the weekly prayers. I'd call that significant, too. Rafsanjani's usually consistently vitriolic...
Since Iranian press and lawmakers revealed that Tehran and Washington were in secret talks studying best ways and means of normalising relations, this is the first time that Iranâs most powerful man after the leader brands an olive branch to the United States. "Iran is not pursuing an adventurist policy against America and if that country shows good will and treats other countries on an equal footing, Iran is ... ready for any kind of co-operation with America", Rafsanjani added. Rafsanjani had dispatched a team, led by a former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, to Cyprus to meet American officials there. It was after these divulgations, confirmed by influential lawmakers, that Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Iranian regime imposed a black out on the press on any article, comment or opinions concerning Iran-American talks. So speculation about the talks is blacked out. I'd not trust them too deeply, but obviously all is not as it seems...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:04 am ||
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#1
Trust Fred, and not Iranian pigs who forbid the normal development of children. Progress?: against the wishes of the theocrats who interfere in the governmental affairs of Iran, that country has just raised the age at which girls can be given in marriage to 13, from 9. The parasite class of mad mullahs had argued that since "the prophet" married Aisha - his child bride - at "six" (says the Bukhari Hadeeth) and consummated it when the little girl was "9", that age was god-willing (inshallah). If it quacks like a duck, then its a duck. If it acts like a pedophile, then it is a pedophile.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has reiterated his pledge to the US to end the infiltration of militants into Indian-administered Kashmir. Reports said he gave the assurance to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who telephoned him at the weekend. Mr Powell called the Pakistani leader after reading an interview in which General Musharraf appeared to back down on a promise to halt the infiltrations permanently. "Mr President General, Secretary of State Powell is on the line."
"Hello, Colin! This is Perv!"
"YOU OUTTA YER GODDAMN MIND?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:05 am ||
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The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has supported the Ittehad-i-Tanzeemat-i-Madaris Deenia's call for observing June 28 as protest day against the Madaris Registration Ordinance. "Alright, guys! Let's get a little civil unrest going, here. You guys call the strike, and we'll support it, okay?"
The MMA's decision was announced by Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmad at a press conference here on Monday. The Qazi also urged the people to come out on roads after Juma prayers to protest police raids on mosques and Madaris under, what he said, the FBI supervision. Terming the raids in Lahore an act of hooliganism, he said searching the mosques without any justification was an intentional attempt to create harassment among the faithful, prayer leaders and students only to appease anti-Islam forces. He said religious forces were the well-wishers of humanity and these were being wrongly projected as terrorists. He denied there was any Al Qaeda network in Pakistan and said Indian agency RAW and the US agencies FBI and CIA were involved in terror acts in the country. He went on to deny the existence of the continent of South America, decried the color orange as un-Islamic, and blamed McKenzie King for assassinating himself.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:46 am ||
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A gunny was killed in an encounter with troops at Dhok Seri (Poonch) yesterday. The police claimed recovery of a rifle, 3 magazines, 600 rounds of ammunition, 4 UBGL grenades and 4 hand grenades from the site of the encounter.
A snuffy whose identity could not be ascertained died in a gunbattle at Mangota, in Rajouri district yesterday.
The police claimed arrest of several suspected militants from various parts of the valley since last evening and further claimed recovery of arms and ammunition from their possession.
Reports from Varmul said troops of 14 RR cordoned Brar village in Bandipore area this morning and took 14 persons into custody.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 05:14 pm ||
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Hizbul Mujahideen today appealed to the state employees not to participate in the assembly election process in any way. The outfit warned that the elections in the state would be sabotaged, "for the people of state did not offer supreme sacrifices of 85000 lives for elections but for achieving the right of self-determination." In civilized parts, one can lead to the other...
"Let the political leaders and their parties who plead for restoration of negotiations make Indian rulers read the writings on wall and ask them to demonstrate sincerity by initiating concrete measures to find a permanent, viable and practicable solution to Kashmir dispute", said a spokesman of the Hizbul Mujahideen in a statement. Something like Hizbul's been doing?
The spokesman said India had launched a propaganda campaign against the indigenous character of ongoing freedom movement of Kashmir in an attempt to mislead the world. He said the successful attacks on Indian security forces by the outfit militants was enough proof of its indigenous character. He said the character would be safeguarded at all costs by the outfit. The number of Pak, Afghan, Arab, Dutch and probably Eskimo corpses may have had something to do with the success of that campaign.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 05:27 pm ||
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Uganda rebels have killed three people and abducted another 14, say local officials in northern Uganda. Fighters from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) launched two separate attacks on Monday around the town of Gulu. The Ugandan army has been trying to wipe out the LRA from their bases in southern Sudan in recent months, with the permission of the Khartoum authorities. Just wipe them out. They're getting boring and they give Christians a bad name...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:06 am ||
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Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who once supported violent revolutionaries with money and guns, now is positioning himself as a defender of democracy, constitutional rules and federalism to resolve ethnic disputes. His advice to Islamic separatists from the Philippines to Chechnya is to give up the struggle and integrate with their neighbors. This new message of respectability is being carried by his most trusted ambassador, son Saif ul Islam Gadhafi. Gadhafi says Chechens, for instance, would be better off being part of a powerful Russia than forming a separate Caucasian statelet. "We told them, 'We want Muslims to be in the Russian government.'"
Gadhafi told a meeting at London's Royal Institute for International Affairs this month that Muslims should learn from Jews. "Jews in America do not ask for a separate state. That's why they are stronger. They have influence in a very influential superpower. The Jewish model in America is a good model for Muslims all over the world."
Turning to the crisis between India and Pakistan, Gadhafi said an independent Kashmir was impractical. What was needed was to re-create the old Raj, uniting India, Pakistan and Bangladesh into a superstate, along with Sri Lanka for good measure. "Imagine a country with a [gross domestic product] of $500 billion, a population of 1.3 billion and 140 nuclear warheads," he said. "It could have a Muslim prime minister or president." I shudder to think of Qazi in charge of such a state...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:59 am ||
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French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin - who met Mr Arafat in Ramallah on Tuesday - has said Mr Bush's announcement "converges with the aims of France and the European Union". But he added that it "was up to the Palestinians to choose their own leaders". "One man, one vote, one time..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:06 am ||
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Yasser Arafat has said it is up to the Palestinian people alone to choose their leaders. Mr Arafat was reacting to a policy speech on the Middle East by President George Bush in which he made it clear that he wanted to see the veteran Palestinian leader replaced, suggesting he was "compromised by terror". Asked for his response to Mr Bush's speech, Mr Arafat said: "This is what my people will decide. They are the only ones who can determine this." That comes as no surprise. I'll also be surprised if he can remember having said it by now...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 01:18 pm ||
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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, described the statement as balanced. "I cannot find in the statement anything that necessitates firing Chairman (Yasser) Arafat, but (I find) a call for reform in the Palestinian Authority and finding a new administration," he said. Mr Mubarak said Egypt was willing to help restructuring Palestinian institutions. That's because he didn't look very hard. Hosni has probably bought into the plan for kicking Yasser upstairs to President-for-Life Emeritus until he moves to the nursing home.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 09:06 am ||
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Four Palestinians were killed Tuesday, including a high-ranking intelligence officer, as the IDF raided the Palestinian Authority security headquarters and imposed a curfew on the city. The four were killed in an exchange of gunfire at the PA security complex in Hebron. Palestinian security chief [in Hebron], Nizam Jaabri, turned himself in to Israeli soldiers.
Palestinian sources also said that Israeli forces arrested 150 Palestinians, including the chief of intelligence in the Hebron area. The assault on the hilltop building in Hebron began when IDF troops surrounded the site and exchanged fire with policemen inside. Then soldiers entered the building and searched from room to room, while forces outside used loudspeakers to demand that all the Palestinians inside surrender with their hands raised. Security officials said that some policemen gave themselves up. This reads much more like a mopping-up operation than an offensive. I wonder if the Paleostinians are still groggy from the operation in April, or if they think the jig's up? It sounds like they're tired.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:03 am ||
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel was "preparing to launch a massive operation in the Gaza Strip against the Hamas organization, the beginning of which we witnessed today," a reference to Monday morning's apparent assassination in the Strip, in which missile-firing IAF helicopter gunships killed two senior Hamas military commanders and four other people. This is what they should have just gone ahead and done in the wake of Defensive Shield.
Sharon said that due to the recent increase in terrorattacks and warnings of attacks, "a number of measures in the territories, beginning with a massive incursion into cities and remaining there indefinitely," will be carried out. According to Sharon, troops will remain in Palestinian towns in an effort to capture and arrest terrorists. Sharon emphasized that the operation was not meant to be an invasion to occupy the territories but rather meant to deal with those who carry out terror attacks and their commanders. "We do not intend to control the Palestinian's civilian lives," said the prime minister. Only to control the Paleostinian population. There's a difference...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:11 am ||
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Yasser Arafat was asked Tuesday if he was the man in question when President Bush called for a change in the Palestinian leadership. "Definitely not," said the Palestinian leader, who went on to express support for Bush's outline that proposed a Palestinian state in three years. "Who? Me? Nah. Musta been... uh... somebody else."
Officially, the Palestinian leadership described Bush's ideas as a "serious effort to push the peace process forward." But Palestinian officials have been unanimous in rejecting his call for a change of leadership. "Nah. We already had an election."
Other scenarios - persuading Arafat to step down, or making him a figurehead, or conversely allowing him to lead without a formal title in a way that might satisfy the Israelis - have been discounted by the Palestinians. They prefer the idea of waiting until he dies or loses his mind entirely.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 04:07 pm ||
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U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the American decision to abandon Yasser Arafat and call for a new Palestinian leadership was made "reluctantly" and only after giving him numerous chances to renounce terrorism and implement reforms.
"What I said at that time was that Mr. Arafat had been anointed, but what we're saying this time, and what we have come to the conclusion on, is that he is not giving the Palestinian people, and his associates along with him, are not giving the Palestinian peoplethe kind of leadership that they deserve, that they need really to move forward and find peace," Powell said. "And it was reluctantly that we came to this conclusion, but it was the only conclusion we could come to," he said in an interview with National Public Radio.
Speaking to the New York Times, Powell disclosed President George W. Bushâs anticipated public demand that Arafat be replaced began in private some ten weeks ago in the Palestinian leaderâs besieged headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, with rough talk coming from him. "I told him the direction in which they were moving had to change in a very fundamental and strategic way, and we had to see that if he wanted the United States to be a partner in this moving forward," Secretary Powell said in an interview published Tuesday. "To be blunt, we haven't seen enough of that."
"I'm very pleased," Powell said of Bush's long awaited announcement. "I've been working with my colleagues on this almost nonstop."
Powell's remarks shed some light on how talks with Israel and Arab and European allies, continuing waves of suicide bombings and Israeli reprisals, and months of intense internal debate finally led the US President and all of his top national security advisers to agree - Arafat would have to go.
Powell said of the new approach, "It really captured not only our disappointment with the current leadership, but expressions of disappointment and regret we've heard from Arab leaders, as well as within the Palestinian community." In return for a change in Palestinian leadership and a crackdown on terror, Powell added, Bush has committed his personal and official prestige to establishing a Palestinian state within a timeframe of three years.
"Toughness is like a windshield wiper," he said. "It can swing from one side to the other. If they do what is necessary, then obligations will fall on the other side, and I am quite confident the president will expect all parties - the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Israelis - to meet their obligations." Powell said essentially the same things in an interview on FoxNews this afternoon, painting the same picture. The Bush team made an honest effort to get Yasser to change his ways, and at every opportunity Yasser stayed a thug. Bush and his team had to adapt to each contortion as it occurred, but Rantburg, VodkaPundit, Junkyard Blog, Mark Byron and a host of others are vindicated: he didn't wobble. He saw the problem, gave it a serious effort as it stood, then poked it, prodded it, and then put together a solution within the constraints he saw. That doesn't mean the solution he's proposed will work; he's obviously got the Egyptians and Jordanians on board and the Moroccans for some reason, and the Soddies if they stay there. If the backroom talks with Iran work out, maybe he'll see some lessening of support for Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and, second-hand, for Hamas. He's put together a good, honest package, no matter how many nits may be picked on it; and if this one doesn't work, he'll come up with another.
FOLLOWUP:Steven den Beste, as usual, has an excellent detailed analysis of the implications. He says it better than I could, I agree with his conclusions, so that saves me much typing.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 07:36 pm ||
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If Abu Sayyafâs Commander Robot wants to surrender, he must do so without conditions, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Roy Cimatu said yesterday. Cimatu was reacting to reports that the Jolo-based Robot, whose real name is Ghalib Andang, has sent surrender feelers to a National Police Commission adviser. Robot is reportedly fed up with being a fugitive and does not want to end up like Abu Sabaya, believed killed in a sea battle with government troops last week. The NaPolCom adviser on crime prevention and criminal justice, Barbara Anonas, quoted Robot as claiming he had split two years ago from Sabaya. "Lessee here... I can spend a couple years in jug and then get out and start a new career in the food service industry, or I can have a shoot-out with the coppers and fall overboard and be eaten by sharks. Hmmm... Lemme think..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:22 am ||
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The American military has dismissed a claim by al-Qaeda that it has emerged largely unscathed from the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. US Army Colonel Roger King said the claim by Osama Bin Laden's organisation was "wishful thinking". He was responding to a statement by a senior al-Qaeda official, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who said 98% of the group's leaders - including Bin Laden - were alive. The US-led force in Afghanistan has had little contact in recent weeks with Taleban or al-Qaeda fighters, many of whom are believed to have crossed into Pakistan. But troops have uncovered weapons caches which they believe belonged to the militants. But we can also bet they're going to try for something spectacular in the very near future to show the world they're still alive.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
06/25/2002 10:14 am ||
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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.
