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Rahami's wife skedaddled two days before bombings
Today's Headlines
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Air New Zealand passenger boarding safety vids rock !
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 04:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Kenya: Italian Trampled to Death By Elephant in Kenya
[All Africa] An Italian tourist was trampled to death by an elephant in a Kenyan national park while trying to get a good picture, police said.

"He was attacked not far from his tent while photographing it," a police officer who asked not to be named told AFP.

The man, who was 66, "sustained serious injuries and died before he could be taken to hospital", he added.

The accident occurred at Swara camp in the Tsavo National Park, near the Kenyan coast, and was confirmed by the city of Malindi's police chief Muchangi Mutawa, who did not provide more details.

The police source said the tourist had moved from his tent close to the elephant to take a photograph of the jumbo, which was near the Sabaki River.

Jumbo certainly buggered the book deal.
Posted by: Fred || 09/20/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why the pachyderm had a Pentax I'll never know.
Posted by: Shipman || 09/20/2016 8:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Interviewer: Mr. Hardcastle, your new book 'My Life in Kenya" what is it about?

Lionel Hardcastle: "My life in Kenya."
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 8:20 Comments || Top||

#3  confirmed by the city of Malindi's police chief Muchangi Mutawa, who did not provide more details.

"He was squashed like a bug."
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:17 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Zimbabwe: Chinese Given Farms
h/t Gates of Vienna
Farms built up and created by whites in Zimbabwe--and forcibly seized by the black government in an anti-white racist frenzy--are being handed over to Chinese "immigrants," it has been revealed.

The farms--large-scale operations which were previously the backbone of the Zimbabwean agricultural industry--have collapsed after being seized from their white owners.

According to a report in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, farms "just north of Harare lie fallow amid broken fences, fields scorched by fires and scarce livestock. There are few surviving indigenous trees as many were felled by new farmers who could not afford coal to cure their tobacco."

The Chinese farmers, the paper said, are taking over the "former white-owned farms in Zimbabwe to cash in on tobacco" crops. Tobacco--along with many foodstuffs--grow easily in the country’s warm climate and rich soil, but appear to be beyond the Africans’ ability to manage.
IMO, they should've stuck with whites --- Chinese don't need Africans for cheap labor.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 09:02 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Regime change back in the day:

In 1976, backed by British leaders and the "world community," U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summoned Smith to Geneva and gave him a heavy dose of power politics. If Rhodesia would not agree to immediately allow majority rule, Smith was told, her oil supplies would be cut off and more sanctions would be imposed.

Link
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 9:34 Comments || Top||

#2  "Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 10:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Yep B, however that same strata of the ruling class today is firmly against white majority rule in America (cause that is racist).
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/20/2016 10:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Yep B, however that same strata of the ruling class today is firmly against white majority rule in America (cause that is racist).

Yes indeed. The destruction of the predominately white, American 'middle class' anomaly is paramount. We must constandly be reminded; "You didn't build that."
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 10:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Chinese in ZimBobwe taking over farms.

Is that cultural appropriation or colonialism?
How strongly do you think Beijing will support this if the locals decide that yellow is no better than white?
Posted by: AlanC || 09/20/2016 10:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Little different than ME families and gas station/corner stores. Easy to engage if you're the right ethnicity, have government support and use strong family ties for slave labor.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 11:36 Comments || Top||

#7  So. The Chinese colonization of Africa has begun. I find myself unable to root for either side. Is it kosher to hope that they all fail?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 09/20/2016 12:47 Comments || Top||

#8  If I eat food from one of their farms, will I be hungry an hour later?
Posted by: Raj || 09/20/2016 16:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Women, Children, and Farmin B. Hard hardest hit.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 09/20/2016 19:08 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Putin Reportedly Planning Reforms to Effectively Resurrect KGB
[ABC] President Vladimir Putin is planning a major restructuring of the country's security services that would effectively mean a rebirth of the KGB, according to a report in the Russian media.

Respected business paper Kommersant quoted anonymous officials as saying that a new body called the "Ministry for State Security" would be established before Russia's 2018 presidential elections that, in its powers and roles, appears to closely resemble the Soviet-era KGB.

The new body would be known by the acronym "MGB."
I hope the carburetors are easier to keep tuned.
The reforms would restore most of the KGB’s functions to its successor service, the FSB, while also returning the foreign intelligence gathering to the same body, according to the newspaper.

The result would be a single powerful security structure, sitting at the heart of the state's enforcement machinery, much as the KGB once did in the Soviet Union.

Significantly, the changes would grant the new ministry powers not only to conduct criminal investigations but also give it procedural oversight over cases run by Russia's other law enforcement bodies. At the same time, Russia's top investigative bodies that now oversee political trials would see their powers sharply reduced and transferred to the MGB. The measures would make the body the most powerful security structure in the country.

"If before we were just providing support to investigation, then now we're being tasked with managing their progress from the moment that criminal charges are brought to their transfer to court," an anonymous FSB operative told Kommersant.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I didn't realize it's been away.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 9:15 Comments || Top||

#2  planning a major restructuring of the country's security services

We could do with some of that here.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:21 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
China facing full-blown banking crisis?
China has failed to curb excesses in its credit system and faces mounting risks of a full-blown banking crisis, according to early warning indicators released by the world’s top financial watchdog.

A key gauge of credit vulnerability is now three times over the danger threshold and has continued to deteriorate, despite pledges by Chinese premier Li Keqiang to wean the economy off debt-driven growth before it is too late.

The Bank for International Settlements warned in its quarterly report that China’s "credit to GDP gap" has reached 30.1, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia's speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis.

Studies of earlier banking crises around the world over the last sixty years suggest that any score above ten requires careful monitoring. The credit to GDP gap measures deviations from normal patterns within any one country and therefore strips out cultural differences.

It is based on work the US economist Hyman Minsky and has proved to be the best single gauge of banking risk, although the final denouement can often take longer than assumed. Indicators for what would happen to debt service costs if interest rates rose 250 basis points are also well over the safety line.

China’s total credit reached 255pc of GDP at the end of last year, a jump of 107 percentage points over eight years. This is an extremely high level for a developing economy and is still rising fast .

Outstanding loans have reached $28 trillion, as much as the commercial banking systems of the US and Japan combined. The scale is enough to threaten a worldwide shock if China ever loses control. Corporate debt alone has reached 171pc of GDP, and it is this that is keeping global regulators awake at night.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/20/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  This has been talked about for at least a decade.

The thing to remember is the longer it goes on, the bigger the crash when it happens.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/20/2016 4:56 Comments || Top||

#2  China been facing a "full-blown banking crisis" for decades --- I don't think they've read the same economics books as the rest of world leaders (just as Chinese astrology is different from the Western one).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 6:24 Comments || Top||

#3  It doesn't have to be a crash. It can manifest as a long slow slide. I would think that the government form can have a large effect.

See also Japan.
Posted by: AlanC || 09/20/2016 7:56 Comments || Top||

#4  China has a lot of paper money to cover up the cracks in its system.

Only problem is, they are starting to run out of cash. A couple years from now, if things stay the same will get very interesting.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/20/2016 9:47 Comments || Top||

#5  It doesn't have to be a crash. It can manifest as a long slow slide.

The thing about China is that there is huge amounts of middle class money chasing too few real investment opportunities, and much of goes into what are little more than leveraged ponzi schemes. Everyone will rush for the exits at the same time, and default on loans at the same time.

The government will flood the system with printed money, but that will crash the Yuan, making everyone else very unhappy.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/20/2016 17:52 Comments || Top||

#6  An example is large numbers of couples getting divorced in order to facilitate buying a second home. With borrowed money of course.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/20/2016 20:30 Comments || Top||


US, Japan, ROK discuss tougher measures against North Korea
Foreign ministers for the United States, Japan and South Korea met in New York on Sunday, ahead of U.N. meetings, to discuss stepped-up measures against North Korea and expand collaboration with one another after Pyongyang's fifth and largest nuclear test, Reuters reported.

The Sept. 9 blast was in defiance of U.N. sanctions that were tightened in March.

The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and their South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, was the first since the latest nuclear test. It will be one of the main issues discussed by world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week. In a joint statement, the ministers said North North's disregard for multiple U.N. resolutions prohibiting its missile and nuclear programs called for even stronger international pressure.
Then they had lunch.
"They discussed the important work currently taking place in the Security Council to further sanction North Korea and considered other possible measures of their own, in particular ways to further restrict revenue sources for the DPRK's missile and nuclear programs, including through illicit activities," the ministers' statement said.

"They reaffirmed that they remain open to credible and authentic talks aimed at full and verifiable denuclearization of the DPRK," the statement said, referring to the country's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Why wasn't this done a decade ago?
Washington has pressed Beijing, which is Pyongyang's most important diplomatic backer and trading partner, to do more to rein in North Korea. China has expressed anger with North Korea for its largest nuclear test to date, but has not said directly whether it will support tougher sanctions. It has said it believes sanctions are not the ultimate answer and called for a return to talks.
That's because the Norks continue to do China's bidding, which is to destabilize northeast Asia.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/20/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  IF our elected leaders cared about us more than re-election, this would have been *solved* 20 years ago.

But by all means, please continue to pretend that tax rates and unemployment rates and abortion and "racism" matter.
Posted by: Crusader || 09/20/2016 0:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Since the Chinese sponsored dog is driving all this, just give the Japanese and ROK the green light for nuked themselves.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/20/2016 7:58 Comments || Top||

#3  I think on this very site some one proposed that we whip up some monkey copy of a first generation nuke. Then give it to Taiwan which proceeds to conducts a test. The ROC then announces that their nuke design was stolen from the DPRK.Then it's popcorn time.
Posted by: Pliny Glons2836 || 09/20/2016 8:13 Comments || Top||

#4  "We'll steal your more prolific!"
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:20 Comments || Top||

#5  ....got to remember Japan has been stuck in the economic doldrums for two decades. Dating/Courting is expensive (especially in Tokyo). Cheaper to buy a Playstation and a couple of games. When your average 'affordable' apartment is no bigger than two Motel 6 rooms, it kills the nest building instincts.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 09/20/2016 10:31 Comments || Top||

#6  P2k.... are you suggesting a connection btwn sex and finance ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 10:32 Comments || Top||

#7  Tough to ask a girl to a movie when you can't afford the tickets.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 09/20/2016 11:08 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Emails Show That Blumenthal Urged Reporter To Investigate Obama's Activities In Kenya
[Daily Caller] A journalist who says that longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal urged him in 2008 to investigate whether Barack Obama was born in Kenya has released emails that shed new light on the matter.

The journalist is James Asher, the former Washington bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.

He caused a stir on Friday when he wrote on Twitter that in 2008, Blumenthal told him during a face-to-face meeting that Obama was born in Kenya. Blumenthal, a former journalist and Bill Clinton White House aide, denied the accusation on Sunday, telling Fox News that what Asher claimed "never happened."
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 04:02 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Little wonder he despises the Clinton's. They and Blumenthal were on a quest for the truth. Who knows what they might have stumbled upon.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 8:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, I believe African Muslim daddy was invented to get Barry into Harvard.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 8:50 Comments || Top||

#3  With probing in the right places one just might find that Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya. We can't find out from Hillary because she never tells the truth about anything and she's liable to pass on from pneumonia or whatever it is she has before the last debate.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/20/2016 9:12 Comments || Top||

#4  I simply can't see her standing up there and going toe-to-toe with Trump. I've been wrong before however.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 9:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Do we care anymore?
There is little to be done about it anymore other than to bash his supporters and hope we can repair his worst efforts. I expect in these last +-100 days of him struggling to build a legacy, some real zingers.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:08 Comments || Top||

#6  Born here or not, he has had unbelievable privileges not afforded to most biracial single parent kids. I believe he at least claimed to be a foreign student and when the college transcripts were inappropriately accessed by employees of the testing site, showing he got a foreign student free ride (Indonesian?), they were immediately threatened with prison if it ever came up again.....I wonder if Bleachbit has erased the companies' records?
Posted by: Thor Lumumba3940 || 09/20/2016 10:48 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
In sexless Japan, almost half of single young men and women are virgins: survey
h/t Gates of Vienna
Talk about a shrinking population. A survey of Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women are not in a relationship.

Moreover, many of them have never got close and cuddly. Around 42 percent of the men and 44.2 percent of the women admitted they were virgins.
These people need help. I'm willing to volunteer.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 09/20/2016 08:57 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Please, do not share this information with Slick Willy. After all, he does like virgins tucked away on little island hideaways.
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/20/2016 9:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Interesting addendum to the FGM article quote about 'weak Egyptian men'. I have also seen collaborative data regarding US 'millennials'. I wonder if it is a phenomena of the increasingly complex task of forming physical relationships, globally declining libidos or if the other half are banging like rabbits.
Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Are they aware what awaits each and 71 of their compatriots after their demise?
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 09/20/2016 10:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Most popular plastic surgery for Japanese women

This should factor into the above self-reported information.
Posted by: 3dc || 09/20/2016 13:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Supposedly, it was rumored in mythology that only virgins could capture unicorns. Do you suppose that unicorns went the way of the Shakers?
Posted by: JohnQC || 09/20/2016 16:02 Comments || Top||

#6  I volunteer to help with the women.
Posted by: DarthVader || 09/20/2016 16:22 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't think it's a sex problem, so much as a relationship problem. Commitment when you have apps where you literally shop for a one-night hookup, makes monogamy seem redundant in many people's minds. Add in the spread of contraceptives eliminating "Accident" children and you get a large population shrink.

Though I suppose it could also be life-expectancy increasing, and health overall, may play a part. We hear constantly about how close we are to defeating everything from old-age to impotency. Go figure Millennials aren't in a hurry to procreate.
Posted by: Charles || 09/20/2016 18:36 Comments || Top||


Paramount unveils new infantry fighting vehicles
[UPI] MIDRAND, South Africa, Sept. 19 -- A new family of infantry combat vehicles has been unveiled in South Africa by the Paramount Group.

The Mbombe line is comprised of the Mbombe 4 -- also known as the Marauder XT in certain markets -- the Mbombe 6 and the Mbombe 8.

Paramount, a South African company, said the vehicles have an 80 percent commonality of parts, which is a significant cost benefit to armed forces.

"The development of Mbombe 8 has enabled Paramount Group to provide potential customers with a complete family of 4 x 4, 6 x 6 and 8 x 8 ICVs which share over 80 percent of common components to reduce through-life costs and make for easier training and logistics," said Ben Jansen, chief executive officer of Paramount Combat Systems. "This commonality relates to both the driveline aggregates, as well as the fact that all three vehicles utilize a conventional, or in-line, automotive driveline configuration, positioning the powerpack at the front of the vehicle and along its center line."

The Mbombe 8 builds on Paramount's Mbombe 6, which employs a new form of construction for unprecedented levels of protection, while keeping profile to a minimum, the company said. The 8x8 also draws on the company's experience designing the highly effective and battle-tested Marauder and Matador mine-resistant vehicles.
Posted by: Besoeker || 09/20/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Paramount Group

Look for the autonomous RPV on street corners and in theatres near you.

Posted by: Skidmark || 09/20/2016 10:27 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2016-09-20
  Rahami's wife skedaddled two days before bombings
Mon 2016-09-19
  Police names AFG 'Naturalized Citizen' Ahmad Khan Rahami as NY bomb suspect, UPDATE: Arrested!
Sun 2016-09-18
  Stabbing attack at Minnesota mall leaves at least eight injured
Sat 2016-09-17
  At least 24 killed in suicide blast at Mohmand Agency mosque during Friday prayers
Fri 2016-09-16
  Pakistani Taliban Target Shia Mosque On Eid Day
Thu 2016-09-15
  Russia kills 250 ISIS terrorists near Palmyra
Wed 2016-09-14
  Three French Women Charged over Terror Plots
Tue 2016-09-13
  Mosque attended by Orlando gunman Omar Mateen destroyed in suspected arson attack
Mon 2016-09-12
  Syria Cease-Fire Is Violated After Less Than an Hour
Sun 2016-09-11
  Hillary faints just before 9/11 ceremony, taken away
Sat 2016-09-10
  Car packed with gas cylinders parked in front of Marseilles synagogue
Fri 2016-09-09
  Norks conduct 5th nuclear test
Thu 2016-09-08
  ISIS abandons al-Bab
Wed 2016-09-07
  Saudi Arabia’s top cleric says Iran’s leaders ‘not Muslims’
Tue 2016-09-06
  Drone strike kills 'seven al-Qaeda suspects' in Yemen


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