[WASHINGTONEXAMINER] In a shocking reversal of policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are being told to release undocumented Democrats and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings, essentially a license to stay in the United States, a key agent testified Thursday.
What's more, the stand down order includes a requirement that the whereabouts of illegals released are not to be tracked.
"We might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether," suggested agent Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Where's the written order? Who signed it?
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
The security authorities of Tajikistan have expressed concerns regarding thousands of militants concentrated along Tajikistan-Afghanistan border, it has been reported.
According to the authorities, the number of militants concentrated along the border has been estimated to be up to 5,000.
“Our intelligence agencies are not only closely following the situation in the inhabited localities in this and other districts of Kunduz Province, but also took additional security measures by reinforcing the Panj border detachment,” a spokesman for Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS) told Russia’s TASS news agency on Wednesday.
The official further added that the insurgents belonging to Taliban group, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Jamaat Ansarullah as well as few dozen natives of Tajikistan are among those gathered along the border.
The official also added that Dushanbe neither “underestimated nor overestimated these groups’ danger” having sufficient forces to rebuff the attacks and also “having strategic military allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), primarily Russia.”
This comes as sources close to the Secretary General of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said in mid September last year that the Russian forces may return on Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan amid fears the deteriorating security situation may affect the security of Central Asian countries.
The Russian officials had earlier expressed concerns regarding threats posed to Tajikistan from the South due to deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan amid presence of terrorist groups and emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) loyalists.
#2
More this slightly-wet-yet-sunny, cool Guam AM ...
* RELATED BIG NEWSNETWORK > [RFE] [Russia] CASH CRUNCH, [Over]STRETCHED MILITARY SPURS RUSSIAN TROOP CUTS NEAR AFGHAN BORDER.
ADVANTAGE = ISIS/ISIL + aligned Hard Boyz iff Russia's economy collapses. The US-West/Allies have a vested interest in preventing anything that destabilizes Russia [+ China + India, etal.]
+ gives the ISIS/ISIL, Hard Boyz + Global Jihad the advantage.
* SAME > [ANI] ISIS PENETRATION IN AFGANISTAN IS UNLIKE OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD: [CEO of Afghanistan] ABDULLAH ABDULLAH.
ARTIC > Abdullah Abdullah = comments appear to illustrate Kabul's desire = willingness to push Afghanistan forward by allowing the Taliban to give up insurgent violence and become a full-fledged domestic Political Party-Movement involved in formal National Governance.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Berlin has warned Kabul ...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title Most Evil Man in the World and didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either.... over the flow of refugees saying it will continue security operations in Afghanistan only if arrival of refugees stopped.
The country's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has said that Germany will stay in Afghanistan for providing security support as long as it is necessary but the influx of refugees be stopped.
"We're staying here as long as it's necessary. But we also expect that the Afghan population stays here," Maiziere said. "We want the influx of refugees to be stopped."
Maiziere said German police and soldiers will remain in Afghanistan "as long as it asks for security," but stressed, "because we want to stay, we do not want that many Afghans to leave their country."
The minister quashed any expectations Afghans may hold upon coming to Germany, stressing chances of asylum seekers finding success were slight.
"There is no welcome money in Germany. There is no guarantee of a job or an apartment," he told state broadcaster ZDF, warning Afghans not to succumb to propaganda spread by people.
Maiziere promised to bolster deportations of Afghans from Germany, using current flight routes between the countries and hiring charter planes. He also offered Afghanistan financial help to reintegrate returned migrants.
Germany has nearly 1,000 troops under NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... 's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The First Vice President Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... rejected reports suggesting his intention to step down from the government of national unity.
Admitting shortcomings that often lead to tensions with the government leaders, Gen. Dostum raised questions regarding the reports, saying "How it would be possible to distance from the government that we put efforts into for its establishment?"
The First Vice President was speaking during a gathering organized by the Youth Congress of Hezb-e-Junbish Millie led by him.
He said he will never allow any step to be taken for the collapse of the government, insisting that he has things to say and those sayings often lead to conflicts and tensions.
Gen. Dostum admitted that he has not been able to fulfill the majority of the commitments he made during the presidential campaigns, specifically pointing towards the Kunduz city incident which was overrun by the Talibs last year.
He offered apologies fo the residents of Kunduz province and called on his supporters to remain patient emphasizing that the issues and problems are gradually resolved.
Gen. Dostum also called on youths of the country to take all necessary steps to prepare for the upcoming parliamentary election, promising that he will do everything he can to support the youth of the country, politically and financially.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
Man sucked out of passenger jet after bomb exploded was suicide bomber who smuggled his device on board in his WHEELCHAIR, claim investigators
Lots of texts and pics at the link. Some days it doesn't pay to go to work, eh Abdisalam?
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
Survivor Hassan Mohamed Nur ‘I blame the cause the bad weather. Imagine if the cause was a bomb, could the plane make a safe landing within 15 minutes after take off?’
Man-made global warming causes airplanes to make emergency landings!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/05/2016 7:55 Comments ||
Top||
#2
yeah bad weather creates explosions INSIDE airplanes all the time
surprised he didn't blame it on Israel or the US
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/05/2016 15:07 Comments ||
Top||
Wherever they choose to go, the US makes sure they are contained.
Islamic State fighters have streamed into Libya in recent months, a US official said Thursday, heightening fears the extremists are gaining ground and influence in the north African country.
About 5,000 IS jihadists are now in Libya, the defense official said, approximately double earlier estimates, while the number of IS extremists in Iraq and Syria has dropped.
The updated tallies come as the administration of President Barack Obama faces growing calls for the US military to step up action against the IS group in Libya, where the jihadists have already seized the city of Sirte and an adjoining length of Mediterranean coastline.
NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels next week to evaluate the ongoing US-led coalition campaign against the IS group and to discuss ways of redoubling efforts.
Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer now with The Soufan Group consultancy, said the United States has few good Libya options, but there is growing consensus something must be done.
"They are just terrified of it getting much worse, fast," Skinner told AFP.
"Once the Islamic State takes something, it's really hard and really bloody and really expensive to take it back."
The United States now believes there to be between 19,000 and 25,000 IS fighters in Iraq and Syria -- the group's so-called "caliphate" -- down from a previous count of 20,000-33,000.
But there are growing fears about the fate of Libya, which has been in chaos since the NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
Skinner pointed to the irony of Western leaders now scrambling for solutions in Libya.
"The international coalition is going to air-strike its way out of the chaos created by air strikes," he said.
"That's actually what people are considering. Something has to be done. The horrible reality is: what is that something?"
- Public executions -
IS fighters have capitalized on Libya's disarray and spread the group's influence into the north African nation, establishing a stronghold in Sirte, Kadhafi's hometown.
Life in the city, which IS fighters seized in June, now resembles that of other towns flying the jihadists' signature black flag. Witnesses have described public executions and say women are no longer allowed outside without a male guardian.
Reluctant to see its 18-month air campaign against the IS group in Iraq and Syria spread to a third country, the United States has repeatedly stressed the importance of finding cooperative local partners to help fight IS in Libya.
Washington has also pushed international allies -- especially former colonial power Italy -- to take the lead in any coalition operations there.
"We appreciate the leadership they've shown. We appreciate their contributions to the coalition to go after Daesh," State Department spokesman John Kirby said, using an Arabic abbreviation for the IS group.
US diplomats have also said any actions in Libya must be carried out alongside a functioning and unifying government.
Libya has had two rival administrations, with the recognized authorities based in the country's far east and a militia-backed authority in Tripoli since the summer of 2014.
- Ease of travel to Libya -
The decrease of IS fighters in Iraq and Syria is due to successes in the ongoing US-led air campaign and the relative ease of traveling to Libya from north African countries, the US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It's a "combination of battlefield deaths, desertions, internal disciplinary actions, recruiting shortfalls and difficulties that foreign fighters face traveling into Syria," the official said.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed the latest tally for Iraq and Syria, based on a new intelligence assessment.
Islamic State fighters "continue to be a substantial threat, but the potential numbers have declined," he said.
While Obama is not considering opening "a new front" against the IS group in Libya, Earnest said: "We're going to continue to watch how the threat in Libya evolves and we're going to continue to be prepared to take action."
The United States has already taken limited steps in Libya. In November, it launched an air strike killing top IS leader Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi.
And in December the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the country soon after arriving.
Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, said it's difficult to work with "moderate" militias, as illustrated in Syria, where a hodgepodge of armed groups are pursuing rival goals that don't always align with America's.
"I would expect Obama to go slow on this latter matter in Libya, just as he has in Syria," he said.
"But I think he will quite likely use airpower -- and perhaps the occasional commando raid -- if there is reason to think that can contain or modestly weaken IS."
#4
I suspect Putin is hammering ISIS in Syria and a few of them have decided working in Libya (away from the bombs) sounds healthier. Similar thing happened between Afghanistan and Iraq at one point.
I'd let them run to Libya and concentrate on Syria/Iraq. Humiliate them if possible, send them running like cowards.
#5
"Gaining ground + influence" > ditto as per SE Asia + ex-Soviet Central Asia -Stans.
'Tis worrisome enuff to cause China to begin dev of specialized Anti-Terror Commando units vee the PLA, + to weigh using them overseas or out-ot-country on covert elimination/decap missions.
He's like a cartoon villain, except that he's real.
He can be pretty amusing, except when he's terrifying.
He's a bit of a clown and more than a bit childish, but he's also one of the most powerful men in Russia.
It is pretty much impossible to ignore Ramzan Kadyrov and he knows it. And the rambunctious Chechen strongman seems to be getting more brazen by the day. Kadyrov was at it again this week, posting a video on Instagram showing opposition figures Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Kara-Murza in the crosshairs of a sniper's rifle.
This comes just weeks after he called Vladimir Putin's foes "enemies of the people" and suggested in an article in Izvestia that they be placed in a psychiatric hospital in Chechnya--where he promised to double their injections. And, of course, he's widely believed to be behind the assassinations of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, human-rights activist Natalia Estimirova, and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
[snip]
What this suggests, according to some Kremlin critics, is that Kadyrov hasn't gone rogue at all. Instead, he is Putin's willing executioner-the leader of a death squad that can eliminate Putin's opponents with impunity, and with plausible deniability for the Kremlin.
Of course, Kadyrov the Frankenstein monster, Kadyrov the Kremlin's boogeyman and willing executioner, and Kadyrov the extortionist are not mutually exclusive. In fact, he's probably all of the above.
And, according to Moscow-based political analyst Nikolai Petrov, he may have made himself an indispensable part of Russia's political system-regardless of who is in the Kremlin.
"Kadyrov has the potential to be a tsar-maker," Petrov told The New Yorker's Yaffa. "Not because he has more men at his disposal than, for example, the minister of defense, but because his men, tens of thousands of them, will carry out his orders without thinking twice. If the minister of defense tells his troops to storm the Kremlin, he can't be sure that all of them will actually do it. But Kadyrov can."
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/05/2016 11:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
North Korea has started injecting fuel into its long-range missile and is on the brink of a launch.
The activity is ongoing at the North's launch pad in Dongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, according to a Pentagon official who spoke to the Asahi Shimbun on the condition of anonymity.
The movements were captured using a U.S. reconnaissance military satellite that can identify objects on the ground as small as 12 inches, according to the report.
The satellite also detected movement of people and equipment beneath a roof that is covering the launch pad.
North Korea had announced that it plans to launch an "earth observations satellite" between Feb. 8 and 24, and on Friday South Korea military and intelligence officials said if Pyongyang has started injecting fuel into a rocket, the launch is likely to occur within the week.
In December 2012, North Korea began preparations about a week to 10 days prior to launching the "Unha-3" and started injecting fuel about three to four days before liftoff.
Critics have said the North Korea plan is a cover for a test of its ballistic missile technology. China, its closest economic partner and traditional ally, has issued multiple warnings to Pyongyang.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday the situation is "serious," but stressed the need to maintain necessary communication with North Korea and not just with the United States, South Korea and Russia, Yonhap reported.
"We do not want further heightening of tensions," Wang said on Hong Kong's Phoenix Television.
Chinese state media had warned North Korea would pay a "severe price" if it goes ahead with the proposed satellite launch, and Hong Kong TV commentator Qiu Zhenhai said the North was not "taking China's face into consideration."
But China is also wary of any future deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, on the peninsula.
State television aired footage Friday of military exercises and the firing of Beijing's DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, also known as a "carrier killer."
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] The Belgian who led the Nov. 13 attacks on Gay Paree bragged that he slipped into La Belle France with a group of 90 gunnies from Europe and the Middle East, according to testimony from the woman who tipped police to his location.
In an interview aired Thursday by RMC television and confirmed by her lawyer, the woman identified only as Sonia said Abdelhamid Abaaoud was proud of the attack that killed 130 people.
The 42-year-old woman was with Abaaoud's female cousin on Nov. 15 when the younger woman got a call from a Belgian number. It was Abaaoud, asking for a hideout.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[REUTERS] Berlin police had a previous lead that the German capital could be the target of an attack when conducting raids on Thursday in a search for men suspected of links to Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... holy warriors, a front man said.
"We had a lead some time ago of a possible attack in Germany, in Berlin. We do not have, as far as I know, anything more concrete," Berlin police front man Stefan Redlich said in a podcast.
"What is circulating on the Internet and in some media -- that Alex(anderplatz) is an attack target, or Checkpoint Charlie -- we don't have anything on that. We can't confirm that," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
[ALMANAR.LB] Developments on the Turkish-Syrian border give serious grounds to suspect that Ankara is planning a military invasion in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"We have serious grounds to suspect intensive preparations by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... for a military invasion on the territory of the sovereign state of Syria," Major General Igor Konashenkov, Defense Ministry front man, told journalists.
"We are recording more and more signs of concealed preparations by the Turkish military," he added.
The front man reminded that Moscow had previously provided the international community with irrefutable video evidence of Turkish artillery firing on Syrian populated areas in the north of Latakia Province.
"We are surprised that the talkative representatives of the Pentagon, NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... and numerous organizations allegedly protecting human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... in Syria, despite our call to respond to these actions, still remain silent [on the shelling by Turkey]," he said.
Turkey is trying to conceal its illegal military activity on the border with Syria and has canceled an agreed Russian surveillance flight over its territory because of that, Konashenkov said.
"Such steps carried out by a country, which is a NATO member state, in no way contribute to the strengthening of trust and security in Europe," the front man told journalists.
Konashenkov called the cancelation of the Russian surveillance flight over Turkish territory "a dangerous precedent and an attempt to conceal illegal military activity near the border with Syria."
The violation of the Open Skies Treaty by Ankara won't go without a proper response from Moscow, he said.
Konashenkov also said Russia has boosted all kinds of intelligence and surveillance activities in the Middle East.
"So if someone in Ankara thinks that the cancelation of the flight by the Russian observers will enable hiding something then they're unprofessional."
The front man reminded that 32 foreign observation flights took place in Russian air space in 2015, in accordance with the treaty, with four of them carried out by Turkish observers.
The earlier agreed observation flight over Turkish territory was canceled on February 3, after Russian experts revealed the route, which would have included airfields and areas near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#3
Cyprus Intervention v2.0? A Win-win for the Grand Turk: (1) establish Turkmen puppet state and (2) ethnic cleansing relocation of Kurds out of Northern Syria.
[REUTERS] Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and aides to his successor Condoleezza Rice both received classified emails on personal email accounts, the top Democrat on a key congressional oversight panel said on Thursday.
House Oversight Committee ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings ...Representative-for-life from Maryland, representing half of Baltimore City, which makes his district ultra-safe, and most of Howard County, which is out-populated by the city. Cummings' politix are so liberal they're tedious... said the disclosures about the emails were made by the State Department's Inspector General, who is reviewing email practices of five previous secretaries of state.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The question is not whether they received classified info over their email. The question is did they send any out over their open email.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/05/2016 8:19 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Well, was it stored on a PRIVATE, unsecured, non ".gov" e-mail server? Did it have the classification markings stripped? Do you have an E-mail from Colin Powell telling subordinates to strip the markings from the e-mails? Are there over a thousand of such e-mails? What did the law say then? What was the technology back then and was it easier to circumvent it back then than now?
yeah, he may have said the truth, but it isn't the whole truth, and that is how these perverts turn truth into a lie...
#3
Sure, and the George Wallace bureaucracy supported institutionalized 'hate crimes'.
So what?
How does that apply as a license for permissiveness now?
Remember the low-information-voter is very unlikely to know about the extent of Hillary's involvement or the scope. The media certainly won't enlighten them.
[DAWN] The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside an election tribunal's order that had declared the chief of the banned Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ...which is the false nose and plastic mustache of the murderous banned extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain, whatcha might call the political wing of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi... (ASWJ), Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, as the successful candidate from NA-89 (Jhang).
Consequently his opponent, PML-N's Sheikh Mohammad Akram, who had earlier bagged the National Assembly seat from NA-89 in the May 11, 2013 polls, was held to be the returned candidate.
On Dec 8, 2015, a three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, had reserved ruling on the election dispute between the two candidates. The ruling was reserved on a petition instituted by Sheikh Akram, after the Faisalabad ...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after... election tribunal declared Maulana Ludhianvi the returned candidate from the constituency in his place, without ordering repolling.
The tribunal had accepted Maulana Ludhianvi's petition on the grounds that Sheikh Akram had not disclosed in the nomination papers that there was a pending criminal case against him.
The constituency of NA-89 (Jhang) has always been considered a hotbed for sectarian strife. The seat went to Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, founder of what was then known as the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain ...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts... (SSP), in the 1988 general elections.
"The mandate given by the electorate must not be interfered with on hyper-technical grounds," observed Justice Qazi Faez Isa, who wrote the judgment that was released by the Supreme Court in the open court on Wednesday.
"The appeals are allowed and the impugned judgement of April 9 [2014] of the election tribunal is set aside," Justice Isa said while announcing the verdict.
"Consequently, the earlier election results notified by the Election Commission of Pakistain, which had declared the appellant (Sheikh Akram) to be the elected candidate from NA-89 Jhang-I constituency [are] maintained," the judgement added.
"Unfortunately the tribunal not only set aside the election of the most popular candidate chosen by the people to represent them, but did so for factors wholly extraneous to the law," the verdict regretted, adding it substituted the elected candidate with a defeated one without satisfying whether another candidate was entitled to be declared elected as per the legal requirements.
The judgement explained that the present case was not one where the appellant was found to have committed any corrupt practice, nor was it a case where a mistake had been committed in counting the votes or compiling the results or where a recount or recompilation had produced a different result.
Since Sheikh Akram was not disqualified from contesting elections the votes polled by the appellant, who had incidentally received the majority of votes, could not have been disregarded, nor could it have been presumed that the runner-up would have got the appellant's votes, the judgment said.
"The people of the constituency elected the appellant from a field of 21 candidates. Would the electorate, or a sufficient number of them to change the result, not have voted for him if they knew about the pendency of the same case," the judgment asked.
"We need to consider whether due to non-disclosure of a traffic offence for rash driving, the appellant who had won the elections, should have been unseated and the voters who had voted for such a candidate be disenfranchised," the verdict said.
A candidate is not ineligible or disqualified to contest the elections merely because a criminal case is pending against him. Non-disclosure of a pending case cannot be equated with the non-disclosure of a criminal case in which a person has been convicted and one which may entail his disqualification, the judgment said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
[AlAhram] Donor nations pledged on Thursday to give $11 billion in aid to Syrians by 2020 as world leaders tried to tackle the world's worst humanitarian crisis, while The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... reported a new exodus of tens of thousands fleeing air strikes.
With Syria's five-year-old civil war raging and another attempt at peace negotiations called off in Geneva after just a few days, a donor conference in London sought to address the needs of some 6 million people displaced within Syria and more than 4 million refugees in other countries.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Europeans said helping Paleostinians establish 'territorial contiguity' without Israeli permission; EU: Construction is 'humanitarian'
Israel is preparing to lock horns with the European community over what it claims is illegal European building in the West Bank aimed at helping the Paleostinians to establish territorial contiguity.
Army Radio reported Thursday that Israeli inspectors were having difficulty keeping up with the pace of prefabricated homes which, it said, are delivered flat-packed in the dead of night to be assembled early in the morning.
Continued on Page 49
#2
The European Union folk do not realize that by condoning and encouraging terror against Israel they are, in the Arab mind, condoning terror against all Western targets, including themselves. And they are beginning to reap the harvest of that foolishness. Terror in Europe will continue to grow as a direct consequence of their own behavior, in condoning and encouraging it. I wish them luck in dealing with it..
#3
"We are just concerned about the five kilometers of 3 meter metal piping, as well as the five meter thick reinforced concrete roof. Seems excessive for uhemn....a baby. milk. factory?"
[IsraelTimes] Chief of staff says improved weaponry will serve as deterrent 'against enemies'
The commander-in-chief of Iran's army disclosed on Thursday plans for an upgraded missile program and brushed off the threat of new sanctions.
"Iran's future missile program will become more precise and stronger, and these are deterrent weapons that pose no threat to our neighbors and friends, but are against enemies," the Iranian Tasneem agency quoted Major General Ataollah Salehi as saying.
Ballistic missile tests by Iran were prohibited under Security Council resolution 1929, which was passed five years ago and remained valid until July's nuclear deal went into effect January 16. Since then, in line with another Security Council resolution passed immediately after the nuclear deal, Iran is "called upon" to refrain for up to eight years from any work on ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear weapons.
Iran has been repeatedly accused of breaching the terms of the previous and current resolutions. It has maintained that its missile program is for defensive purposes only and thus is not bound by the restrictions.
Last month, the US warned Iran regarding a series of missile tests which it said violated the terms of previous agreements including the nuclear deal, and said they could result in fresh sanctions on the Islamic Theocratic Republic. Washington has since said that plans for new sanctions are on hold.
Addressing the threats of renewed sanctions due to missile development, Salehi was defiant, saying that the Islamic Theocratic Republic would not abide by any such resolutions and they were of no concern to his military.
Last month, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps had rebuffed US threats, saying that Iran would "keep producing missiles for as long as the United States supports Israel" and that it has so many missile it "doesn't know where to put them."
Iran says it has ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), which are capable of striking Israel -- which it refers to as the "lesser Satan," with the United States being the "great Satan." Threatening Israel with complete destruction is a common theme in statements by Iranian leaders and military officials, though they are usually careful to note that such a move would only be in a "defensive" context.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/05/2016 00:00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[ALMANAR.LB] The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry wondered at the statements of the foreign ministers of La Belle France and the US on the Syrian Arab army's recent victory in Aleppo.
The French and U.S. statements, which imply bewilderment at the army's victories, are quite odd, an official source at the Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The army sealed an important victory on Wednesday by breaking the long time terrorist siege of Nubbul and al-Zahraa towns in the northern countryside of Aleppo province, which followed a series of other previous victories.
The siege, which was imposed by the two terrorist organizations of Jabhat al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... and Ahrar al-Sham ...a Syria jihadi group made up of Islamists and salafists, not that there's that much difference, formed into a brigade. They make up the main element of the Islamic Front but they don't profess adoration of al-Qaeda and they've been fighting (mainly for survival) against the Islamic State. Their leadership was wiped out at a single blow by a suicide kaboom at a crowded basement meeting in September, 2014... among others, lasted for three and a half years, during which the locals showed "an unrelenting resilience and unshakable confidence in victory over the terrorists," according to the source.
With this victory, over 60,000 Syrians were freed as the "brutal siege" came to an end, said the source.
It highlighted that the French and U.S. foreign ministers' statements belied their feigned care for the Syrian people.
They have further indicated the close connection between the faceless myrmidons and the countries conspiring against Syria that are moving ahead unbridled with their involvement in shedding Syrian blood, said the source.
It also underscored these countries' continued support to the faceless myrmidons and their tools of the mercenary opposition groups through providing them with the political cover to veil their responsibility for the Syrian people's prolonged suffering.
The source stressed that the Syrian people, hand in hand with the Armed Forces, are now more determined than ever to continue their fight against terrorism.
The Syrian people, the source added, are also committed to serious work to find a political solution to the crisis through dialogue among the Syrians.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Odd is about the best thing you could say about any French or US statements about anything in the ME.
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.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The First Vice President Gen. Abdul Rashid 
He's like a cartoon villain, except that he's real.
North Korea has started injecting fuel into its long-range missile and is on the brink of a launch.
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] The Belgian who led the Nov. 13 attacks on 
