The authorities in southern Kandahar province have banned women’s songs in the local media, a move which has sparked outrage among the media supporters in the country.
NAI organization which supports open media in Afghanistan reacted towards the move, saying no governmental or non-governmental organizations have the right to ban women’s songs in the media.
According to NAI, the provincial information and culture directorate has asked the local media to prevent airing songs of women.
NAI said the instruction by the directorate is against the article 34 of the constitution of Afghanistan and the public media law.
Citing the public media law, NAI said such bans could only be enforced in consideration with the laws and no governmental or non-governmental organization has the right to restrict the open media in the country.
It also added that the local customs could not enforce restrictions as such moves have no legal basis, urging the local authorities to intervene and prevent enforcement of restrictions by the provincial information and culture directorate.
The Ministry of Information and Culture has also voiced concerns regarding the censorship of women’s songs by the local authorities in Kandahar saying such moves are against the enforced laws of the country.
The Libya National Army says that it believes that IS may be seeking to regroup in Sabratha from which it was apparently ousted by local militias following the US airstrikes on the town in February. Until that time, the local IS presence had frequently been denied.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari said today in Benghazi that the Western Operations Room had acquired intelligence that IS terrorists were moving back into Sabratha.
It was thought they might be planning to target army units in the west, which are commanded by colonel Idris Madi. Mismari provided no further details.
He also said that the army had yet to make contact with IS forces to the east of Sirte. He added however that it was believed that IS vehicles had been pulling back toward the town.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party will separate it religious activities from political ones, its chief said in statements published Thursday ahead of a weekend congress to formalise the change.
Rached Ghannouchi, an intellectual who once advocated a strict application of Islamic sharia law, told French daily Le Monde there was no room left in post-Arab Spring Tunisia for "political Islam".
"Tunisia is now a democracy. The 2014 constitution has imposed limits on extreme secularism and extreme religion," he was quoted as saying.
"We want religious activity to be completely independent from political activity.
"This is good for politicians because they would no longer be accused of manipulating religion for political means and good for religion because it would not be held hostage to politics," said Ghannouchi.
His comments come on the eve of a three-day congress for Ennahda, which is part of a coalition government.
Leaders say the congress will take the formal step of making the separation between political and Islamic activities.
Ghannouchi, who is expected to be re-elected as party head barring any last-minute surprise, said: "We are going towards a party which specialises in political activities.
"We are leaving political Islam and entering democratic Islam. We are Muslim democrats who are no longer claim to represent political Islam," he added.
He described Ennahda as a "political, democratic and civil party" but said its point of reference remain rooted in the values of ancient and modern Islam.
Ghannouchi and other intellectuals inspired by Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund in 1981 founded the Islamic Tendency Movement, which became Ennahda in 1989.
The party was persecuted under the regime of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his predecessor Habib Bourguiba.
Ghannouchi was sentenced to jail under Bourguiba and lived in exile for 20 years, returning home after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising ousted Ben Ali.
He received a triumphant welcome from supporters and won the post-revolution election in October 2011, but two years later Ghannouchi had to step aside amid a deep political crisis.
In 2014, the secularist Nidaa Tounes party of President Beji Caid Essebsi won parliamentary elections, beating Ennahda which came second.
But in January Ennahda became the single biggest party when some politicians quit Nidaa Tounes to form a new bloc in parliament.
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05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] The White House said on Thursday it was too soon to determine what caused the crash of an EgyptAir plane over the Mediterranean, it is still being investigated. It's another random catastrophe.
"It's too early to definitively say what may have caused this disaster," White House front man Josh Earnest said at a briefing. "The investigation is under way. And Sherlocks will consider all of the potential factors that could have contributed to the crash."
The United States offered condolences to families of the victims and aid to authorities investigating the crash, it said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ... US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said earlier that he had no special information about why an EgyptAir plane disappeared on Thursday, adding that he would not speculate on the cause.
"Relevant authorities are doing everything they can to try and find out what the facts are of what happened today. I have no more knowledge than others at this point with respect to those facts," Kerry told a news conference at NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... headquarters in Brussels.
The EgyptAir Airbus A320 jet carrying 66 passengers and crew from Gay Paree to Cairo disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean south of Greece earlier on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
"It's too early to definitively say what may have caused this disaster,"
Interesting. It's true, but usually, the official position is "we have no indication that this was an act of terrorism". Giving up on trying to sell that story?
LONDON: Houthi militias have carried out a wave of arrests of their opponents in Yemen, seizing them at gunpoint and torturing some, rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
An examination of 60 cases in the report showed a pattern of “arbitrary arrests” and “enforced disappearances” by the Houthis. The rights group says the Houthi clampdown is part of the militias’ campaign to defeat opposition in areas of Yemen under its control.
Incidents that took place in Sanaa, Taiz, Ibb and Hodeidah between December 2014 and March 2016 show that detainees included opposition figures, kommies, journalists and academics.
[Dhaka Tribune] War crimes accused Md Yusuf has died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Beat the hangman, did he? Too bad.
Dhaka Central Jail prison guard Md Zakaria told the Dhaka Tribune that Yusuf died around 9:15am on Thursday.
He was admitted to the DMCH on April 20 this year. Yusuf, son of late Kurban Ali, hailed from Ramharitaluk under Sudharam upazila of Noakhali.
On October 5, 2015, police incarcerated Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! Yusuf and two others hours after the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) 1 had issued arrest warrants against five Noakhali war crimes suspects for their alleged involvement in crimes in Sudharam upazila during the 1971 Liberation War.
The tribunal sent three war crimes accused to Dhaka Central Jail the following day.
According to the prosecution, Yusuf along with two others ‐ Amir and Abul - were involved in the abduction, torture and killing of at least nine people of Ramharitaluk, Debipur and Uttar Chakla villages in the upazila on September 13, 1971.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
they should hang his corpse...just because
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2016 10:30 Comments ||
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[The Australian] An Australian magistrate lashed out at supporters of five alleged terrorists for failing to respect her position when she entered the court, leading to a standoff in which a lawyer said the protesters were simply adhering to their faith.
Islamic cleric Robert "Musa" Cerantonio, Shayden Thorne, Antonio Granata, Paul Dacre, and Kadir Kaya were arrested in Cairns on Sunday and charged with preparing to enter a foreign country with the intent to engage in a hostile activity. It is alleged they planned to travel to the Middle East after sailing on a small boat to Indonesia.
A group of about ten men appeared in court yesterday to support the alleged terrorists and refused to stand when magistrate Luisa Bazzani entered the courtroom. Bazzani told the young men it was customary for people to stand and showed a lack of respect for them not to, and that this may be relevant at a later time.
She subsequently mentioned the matter to the five men's lawyer, Rob Stary, who told her the refusal to stand was in accord with the men's Muslim faith. Stary told Bazzani that former Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno had previously excused Muslim men from standing due to their religious convictions. He said, "They stand for no one other than Allah. Justice Bongiorno accommodated that."
Bazzani said she did not share Justice Bongiorno's position. She said, "I consider it absolutely disrespectful."
[Times] Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam remained tight-lipped when questioned by a French anti-terror judge for the first time on Friday, one of his lawyers told media.
Authorities had hoped he would shed some light on the operational details of the November attacks that killed 130, as well as provide clues as to whether other members of the wider jihadist cell are still at large.
But his lawyer Frank Berton said: "He did not want to say anything today" according to AFP.
The 26-year-old was prepared to speak at "a later date", the lawyer added.
"We need to give him time."
Tell him he has about ten seconds...
Abdeslam is the last surviving member of the team of Islamic State (IS) gunmen and suicide bombers who killed 130 people at bars and restaurants, in the Bataclan concert hall and outside the Stade de France national stadium last November.
For months, he was the most wanted fugitive in Europe until he was tracked down and arrested on March 18 in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek where he grew up. Transferred to France on April 27, he is being held at Fleury-Merogis prison, southeast of Paris.
Abdeslam was brought for questioning in central Paris in a large black 4x4 vehicle with tinted windows, escorted by heavily armed elite police and with a helicopter flying overhead.
But although he had spoken to investigators while in custody in Belgium, he refused to cooperate on Friday. The Paris prosecutor's office said: "From the start, he exercised his right to remain silent by refusing to reply to questions from an investigating magistrate.
[Al Ahram] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's incoming prime minister Binali Yildirim is a longstanding and faithful ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... who has shown the president unstinting loyalty even before he won the highest office.
The appointment of Yildirim to lead the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and thus lead the government signals a move to a more pliant premiership for Erdogan than was the case under the outgoing Ahmet Davutoglu, who feuded with the Turkish strongman on one too many issues and earlier this month threw in the towel.
Yildirim has worked side-by-side with Erdogan since his widely admired stint as mayor of Istanbul from 1994-1998, moving to federal office after the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) won power in 2002.
As prime minister, Yildirim's main task may not be to devise policy of his own, but rather to implement Erdogan's dream of creating a presidential system in Turkey to enshrine his status as the undisputed number one.
"And now it's time for the presidential system," Yildirim said earlier in May just after Davutoglu resigned.
As a ferry company chief and then as transport minister, Yildirim has for the last two decades worked in the transport sector, an absolutely key area in Turkey which is trying to catch up its lag in infrastructure with vast new projects.
As such, he has been a key lieutenant of Erdogan in implementing what the president likes to call his "crazy" projects to create a "New Turkey", almost always pictured in the press wearing a hard hat and flourescent jacket.
Projects completed so far include new roads, high speed rail lines and most spectacularly of all, the first tunnel under the Bosphorus opened in 2013 which now carries tens of thousands of passengers a day on an undersea rail line.
To be opened in August this year is the third bridge over the Bosphorus, named after the Ottoman Sultan Selim the Grim and which will likely prove a lasting monument to Erdogan's rule.
Under construction is a brand new international airport for Istanbul while on paper is possibly the most ambitious project of all -- a shipping canal that will run parallel with the Bosphorus and take some of the pressure off the clogged waterway.
But in contrast with the sweeping ambition of the projects he has criminal masterminded, Yildirim is softly spoken and almost mumbles his way through speeches.
This will set him apart from Davutoglu who sought to steal some of the limelight from the charismatic president, with populist and sometimes deafening speeches of his own.
The extent of Yildirim's loyalty was shown in 2014 when he agreed to a near mission impossible to stand for mayor in Turkey's third city of Izmir, a bastion of the secular opposition.
With the AKP desperate to show one of its heavyweights could garner support in the Aegean city, Yildirim performed creditably, receiving 36 percent of the vote but still finishing a clear second.
Yildirim, 60, worked as head of the Istanbul ferry company while Erdogan was mayor of the city in the second half of the 1990s.
After the AKP won power, he served an almost unbroken stint from 2002 to 2013 and again from 2015 as transport minister.
According to the columnist for the Hurriyet daily Abdulkadir Selvi, the only serious difference between the two men is that Erdogan supports the Fenerbahce football side and Yildirim their arch Istanbul rivals Galatasaray.
Yildirim has held on to his post as transport minister despite the occasional controversy, notably in 2004 when a new high speed train derailed in the northwest of the country, resulting in the deaths of 41 people.
There was also anger in 2005 when a photo emerged of his wife dining alone while he sat at a table with fellow men, prompting allegations of sexism.
And he also remarked he did not attend the Western-orientated Bosphorus University in Istanbul, saying he was put off by male and female students mixing freely on the campus.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
That article was almost New York Times in its back-handedness.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A power struggle within Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority has intensified as attempts to form a new government flounder, threatening to turn violent and ruin US-led efforts to defeat ISIS.
For the first time since the US withdrawal at the end of 2011, Shiite factions came close to taking arms against each another last month, when followers of powerful holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... stormed the parliament in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
Rival Shiite turbans took up positions nearby, raising the specter of intra-Shiite fighting similar to events in the southern city of Basra in 2008, in which hundreds of people were killed.
Trucks carrying those militiamen, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, patrolled the capital in clear view of the security forces, video published on the website of Iranian-backed group Saraya al-Khorasani showed.
The crisis presents the biggest political challenge yet to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a moderate Shiite Islamist who took office in 2014 promising to defeat ISIS, mend rifts with the minority Sunnis and Kurds, and root out corruption eating away at state income which has already been eroded by a slump in oil prices.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Israel’s government is filing legal action against a local human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... group after it refused to reveal the identities of Israeli soldiers who alleged wrongdoing among the ranks during the 2014 Gazoo War.
The government will demand next week in court that the group, Breaking the Silence, identifies the military personnel who gave anonymous testimonies of alleged crimes committed during the conflict, UK daily The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
The conflict, waged between Israeli forces and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, fighters, led to the deaths of over 2,000 people, many of them civilians.
The case comes after months of fierce debate on the human rights group by leading politicians and a public accusation of "treason" by the country’s defense minister.
The rights group’s legal team said that the move poses a threat to freedom of speech and human rights activism in Israel.
The group, which was founded 11 years ago, is made of partly of former Israeli army members, and has collected and published testimonies from soldiers that expose alleged human rights abuses.
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05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
Muhammad Jibril Abdul Rahman, known as the Prince of Jihad,
Presumably because of his raspberry beret.
is designated as a terrorist on US, EU, and UN sanctions lists and is subject to an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. He is a prominent member of Jemaah Islamiyah.
But his jihadi propaganda website, Arrahmah.com, has been making thousands of dollars by hosting advertisements from global companies. The ads were delivered to the website, which includes images of beheadings and hangings, by intermediaries including Google's AdSense, the biggest online ad network, which take a portion of the revenues.
There is no suggestion that the advertisers or Google knowingly funded a designated terrorist, a criminal offence in the US that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison or a $1m fine.
After being contacted by the Financial Times, Google cancelled Arrahmah.com's account and advertisers asked to be removed from the site. However, ads for major western brands continue to appear on the site through other intermediaries.
Arrahmah.com illustrates the increasing sophistication of Islamist propaganda networks and the expanding range of funding sources they have been able to tap into. Large technology groups including Google, Twitter and Facebook have come in for criticism by security services in recent years for not doing enough to keep extremists off their platforms.
The website, which promotes its views in sections such as "Jihad Zone", attracts about 600,000 visits a month. Arrahmah.com discloses prominently that Abdul Rahman is its chief executive.
In 2010, Rahman was sentenced to five years in an Indonesian prison for concealing information related to the terrorist attacks at two prominent hotels in Jakarta, which killed seven people and wounded around 50.
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago. Meanwhile, President Obama is so noble he never considers getting anything in return for releasing 'ailing' militants from prison. In fairness, the man doesn't know how...
Luis Jalandoni, the insurgents' exiled chief peace negotiator said, "We applaud the plans and programs announced by president-elect Duterte. We believe these would be key factors to achieving peace."
Jalandoni said the rebels were expected to shortly exchange delegation visits with Duterte's people "as part of the process for preparing the resumption of peace talks" as well as to work out terms of cooperation.
Duterte on Monday welcomed plans by Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison to end nearly 30 years of exile in the Netherlands to participate in the peace talks. Sison and Jalandoni both said no guerrillas would actually serve in Duterte's cabinet before reaching a political settlement, when the insurgents hoped to cease fighting and join a coalition government. Jalandoni also said the insurgents would consider a ceasefire and would ask the Duterte government to release 543 "political prisoners."
Incumbent leader Benigno Aquino ended talks with the communists in 2013 over the militant demand for the unconditional release of their detained comrades that his government would not grant.
[An Nahar] The council of ministers announced Thursday that it unanimously rejects any attempt to naturalize Syrian refugees in Leb, after remarks attributed to U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon stirred a storm of criticism in the country.
"The cabinet reaffirmed the Lebanese consensus on rejecting naturalization and any policies that encourage the refugees to stay where they are, seeing as the only solution to the refugee crisis is the Syrians' speedy return to their country, which contradicts with the principles of voluntary return, integration and naturalization," said the cabinet in a statement issued after its weekly session at the Grand Serail.
The cabinet also agreed to "conduct the necessary contacts" and "demand clarifications regarding Ban Ki-moon's remarks on the naturalization of refugees."
Media reports meanwhile quoted the U.N. chief's official spokesperson as saying that the naturalization of Syrian refugees in Leb is not on the table and that efforts to resettle some of them outside Leb are still underway.
According to An Nahar newspaper, Ban Ki-moon had said in a report he submitted to the Vienna conference on Syria that refugees have the right to obtain the nationalities of the countries they live in.
Ban Ki-moon's reported remarks had prompted an urgent meeting for the Lebanese government's Syrian refugee cell which comprises Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas and Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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"That ain't us!"
ERBIL – The U.S. Department of State spokesman denied Kurdish news reports that U.S. Special Envoy Ambassador McGurk had visited the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria [Rojava] this week to discuss future military operations against the Islamic State (ISIS).
“Those reports are wrong,” US State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday in Washington. “No he [McGurk] didn’t visit there. Totally false reporting,” he added.
The official also denied the report on Twitter. “No truth to K24English reports about Brett McGurk travel to Kobani [Kobane],” he said. "Lies! All lies!"
Moreover, the official said no meetings took place in Kobane to discuss future military operations against the Islamic State.
“I’m not aware of any visit,” Kirby said.
Local Kurdish media reported that the U.S. Special Envoy visited the Kurds to discuss future operations.
While the US wants the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to carry out an operation to take the Islamic State capital of Raqqa, the Kurds rather want to capture Jarabulus and Manbij, and open a corridor to the besieged canton of Afrin.
According to news reports, ISIS has intensified security measures in Raqqa and deployed hundreds of militants in the surroundings of the city after the SDF announced they have a plan to storm Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State.
[Al Ahram] The United States has added the 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.... group's branches in Libya, Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and 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... to its global terrorism blacklist, the State Department announced Thursday.
The three IS branches were declared "specially designated global terrorists," which imposes sanctions and penalties on foreign persons who pose a serious risk of committing acts of terrorism that threaten US nationals or national security.
The State Department said the three groups emerged as IS branches in November 2014 when IS leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... announced he had accepted oaths of allegiance from fighters in Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2016 00:00 ||
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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.
[Dhaka Tribune] War crimes accused Md Yusuf has died at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
[The Australian] An Australian magistrate lashed out at supporters of five alleged terrorists for failing to respect her position when she entered the court, leading to a standoff in which a lawyer said the protesters were simply adhering to their faith.
[Times] Top Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam remained tight-lipped when questioned by a French anti-terror judge for the first time on Friday, one of his lawyers told media.
[Al Ahram] 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] A power struggle within Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority has intensified as attempts to form a new government flounder, threatening to turn violent and ruin US-led efforts to defeat ISIS.
[Financial Times] An Islamist militant accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings has been selling advertising space on his website to international corporations including Citigroup, IBM and Microsoft using a service provided by Google.
[AFP] Philippine communist militants waging one of Asia's longest insurgencies said on Wednesday they would enter into peace negotiations with president-elect Rodrigo Duterte and ask him to add four of their associates to his cabinet. Duterte had offered four cabinet positions to the militants and expressed his willingness to release ailing guerrillas from prison to restart peace talks that stalled three years ago.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[Al Ahram] The United States has added the 
