BERLIN (AFP) German President Horst Koehler praised Germany's troops in Afghanistan in a surprise visit Friday and said he would work to see their efforts are recognised, the defence ministry said.
Koehler made a stopover in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in his first trip to the country where Germany has stationed 4,500 troops in a NATO-led International Security Assistance Force tackling a Taliban-led insurgency.
He told the soldiers their mission in Afghanistan was "difficult and dangerous" but legitimate.
"I am going to do all that I can for the work that you do in Afghanistan, for our homeland, for the people here and for more security in the world, is recognised in Germany," he said.
The military mission in Afghanistan is deeply unpopular with the German public. Parliament however approved in February the extension of the deployment and dispatch of an extra 850 soldiers.
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05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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LONDON (Reuters) Ministers from Britain's new coalition government were in Afghanistan on Saturday for talks with President Hamid Karzai and to get a first-hand look at the situation there, the government said. Foreign Secretary William Hague, Defense Secretary Liam Fox and International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell will talk to Afghan ministers, meet British troops and visit a British-funded development project, the Foreign Office said.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government formed after Britain's May 6 election says its top foreign policy priority is the strategy for Afghanistan, where Britain has 9,500 troops battling Taliban insurgents.
The aim of the visit is to "gain a better understanding of the situation in Afghanistan, of the options going forward, and of the further work we need to do," the Foreign Office statement said.
"Our most urgent priority is to get to grips with the situation in Afghanistan. It will consume a lot of our time, energy and effort," Hague said in the statement.
Fox said he wanted to see the military situation on the ground and meet senior military commanders and Afghan ministers.
Mitchell said he would be looking at ways to improve the quality and impact of British aid to Afghanistan. "Building the capacity of the Afghan state to guarantee security and stability, deliver development and reduce poverty is central to defeating violent extremism and protecting British streets," he said.
The center-right Conservatives, the senior party in the British coalition, say the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan should be given time to succeed. The center-left Lib Dems, who opposed the Iraq war, say they are "critical supporters" of the mission in Afghanistan. Both parties accused the former Labour government of failing to give British troops in Afghanistan the equipment they needed, a charge Labour denied.
Conservative leader David Cameron said during the election campaign he would not set an artificial deadline for withdrawing British troops from Afghanistan but said they should start coming home in the next five years. The Lib Dems said a successful strategy should allow British troops to come home in the next five years.
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05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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Two churches belonging to the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), a Baptist Church, and a pastor's house have been demolished by Fulani youths in Kano State, northern Nigeria, after a few members of the Muslim community objected to their existence.
The old ECWA church building in Kwasam, Kiru Local Government Area (LGA) was burnt to the ground at around 11am on 19 May. At the same time, a newly completed church structure was demolished and the pastor's home was set ablaze, destroying all of his property. The ECWA pastor is now in hiding, after elements of the mob vowed they would not leave the area until he was dead.
Prior to this demolition, the ECWA Church leadership had been forced to appear before a Shari'a court. Since its members are from tribes indigenous to the area, the church argued that the land on which the church stood was their inheritance, adding that they had nowhere else to go. Nevertheless, the court ruled in favour of the complainants.
The Baptist Church in Banaka, Takai LGA, which was demolished on 15 May, has now faced demolition on four separate occasions. After the previous demolition, a group of Christians from Kastina State paid for the construction of a new building, and also drilled a well for church members to use. However, during the demolition, the well was blocked off completely.
Stuart Windsor National Director of CSW Nigeria says: It is unacceptable that churches can still be destroyed on the whim of a few extremists. These demolitions violate Nigeria's constitutional and international legal undertakings to uphold religious freedom and freedom of assembly. In addition, the constitution stipulates that non-Muslims cannot be brought before Shari'a courts unless they have agreed to this in advance and in writing, thus there is no valid basis for these demolitions. To combat such impunity, it is vital that the Federal Government of Nigeria takes measures to ensure that the Kano State authorities bring the perpetrators of these acts to justice swiftly, and offer timely and adequate compensation and protection to the churches and to the ECWA Church pastor.'
SANAA - Yemen has dropped charges against an opposition party journalist who was detained for months before being freed on health grounds in March, the defence ministry's Sep26.net news website said on Friday.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh gave instructions to halt judicial proceedings against Mohammed al-Maqaleh and to suspend his trial,' the website reported.
The measure, which definitively closes the case' of Maqaleh, was taken on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Yemen's unity which will be celebrated on Saturday, it added.
Maqaleh, editor-in-chief of the Socialist Party's Aleshteraki.net website, was abducted on a Sanaa street in September and his whereabouts only became known several months later after the government said it was holding him. Freed in March for health and humanitarian reasons,' according to a Yemeni official, Maqaleh was on trial for his writings on the war in the north between Shiite rebels and the army, which ended with a February truce.
The Yemen Journalists Syndicate said Maqaleh's trial had been illegal and unconstitutional,' and that he was tortured.'
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05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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Yemen - Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday offered to form a national unity government with the opposition, and announced an amnesty for imprisoned southern separatists and Shiite rebels.
In a televised speech ahead of Saturday's 20th anniversary of Yemen's unification, Saleh invited all political groups inside and outside the country to a responsible national dialogue, within the framework of the constitutional institutions.'
According to this dialogue, it is possible to form a government of all the influential political parties represented in the parliament,' said Saleh, speaking in the city of Taez, 230 kilometres (140 miles) southwest of Sanaa.
The pardon would affect an estimated 800 prisoners linked to the southern separatists and about 2,000 Shiite rebels or sympathisers in the north.
Saleh said that the Yemeni Socialist Party, which is agitating to re-establish south Yemen as an independent state, would be a principal partner in the political dialogue. The YSP was the principal partner of the May 22, 1990 unification with the north, but it is now in opposition and most of its leaders live in exile.
Other major opposition parties in parliament include the Islamist Al-Islah party, popular among tribesmen who form the backbone of Yemen's traditional society.
Pro-independence demonstrations have multiplied in the south in recent months amid a worsening economic situation and charges of discrimination in favour of northerners.
South Yemen was independent from the British withdrawal in 1967 until it united with the north in 1990. An attempt to break away again in 1994 sparked a short-lived civil war that ended with it being overrun by northern troops.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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Mexican authorities should remain at the margin' of efforts to resolve the disappearance of former presidential candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, one of the politicians sons said in an e-mailed statement. The statement didn't provide details on the status of Fernandez de Cevallos, 69, a senior figure in the governing party. The family gave no details on the status of negotiations.
Fernandez de Cevallos, a former senator and one-time presidential candidate, went missing on May 14 from his ranch in the central state of Queretaro.
SEOUL, May 21 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Friday ordered "resolute and systematic" countermeasures against North Korea, saying its torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March violates the U.N. Charter and the 1953 armistice agreement that effectively ended the Korean War.
Presiding over an emergency meeting of his National Security Council (NSC), Lee also called for a prudent approach toward what he said is a serious and grave issue.
It was a "surprise military attack from North Korea (that came) while South Korean people were resting late at night," Lee said, according to spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye. "It constitutes a violation of the U.N. Charter, the armistice agreement, and the South-North Basic Agreement."
The 1991 Basic Agreement obliges the two sides not to invade each other and to work together towards reconciliation.
The Norks really have implemented that, haven't they ...
Lee instructed related ministries to take "systematic and resolute countermeasures against North Korea so that it cannot repeat this reckless provocation," the spokeswoman added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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HONG KONG, May 22 (Yonhap) -- China will likely be cautious on a multinational probe that found North Korea responsible for sinking a South Korean warship in March, scholars said Saturday.
"China will take a very cautious approach to comment on the issue by calling on various sides to remain calm. It probably cannot directly endorse South Korea's report," Simon Shen, an associate professor of international relations at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, told Yonhap News. "However, China can't and will not publicly support North Korea's stance, as well as it doesn't want to be seen as being responsible of the incident."
Shen expected that China will assume the role of arbitrator to settle the dispute.
"China would try to play a mediator role between North Korea and South Korea, possibly asking the North Koreans to offer their own version," Shen said. "China does not want to see fundamental changes in the peninsula, and all it wants is to reestablish some kind of a multilateral communication channel on this particular case."
Zhang Quanyi, an associate professor of political science at Zhejiang Wanli University in the southeastern Chinese city of Ningbo, agreed that China, North Korea's sole benefactor, will not wholeheartedly stand by the communist regime.
"China actually has already showed its dissatisfaction, if not 'punishment,' over North Korea's attitude and the regime's possible involvement over this incident, when Kim Jong-il was visiting China," Zhang argued. "Unlike his previous visits to China, Kim went back empty-handed."
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
China needs to be told in no uncertain terms if its pet keeps shitting on the grass, we will start throwing the shit over the fence back to the owner.
#2
ION WMF > NORTH KOREA AND RUSSIA TO FIGHT [agz the USA, Japan] IN THE OUTBREAK OF WAR IN [Northeast]EAST ASIA SOON. CHINA UPSET AND FORCED TO FIGHT?
and
* SAME > US PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT IN 1943 PROPOSED TO RETURN MANCHURIA, TAIWAN, OKINAWA/RYUKYUS, AND KANTO PENINSULA BACK TO CHINA, US ASSISTANCE IN GETTING THE BRITISH OUT OF SINGAPORE, HONG KONG, AND MALAYA.
WASHINGTON, May 21 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday warned North Korea of consequences for the sinking of a South Korean warship on the inter-Korean sea border.
"I think it is important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences," Clinton said in a joint news conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in Tokyo, according to a transcript released by the State Department. "We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community. So we will determine our best options, moving forward, and send a clear, unmistakable message to North Korea regarding the international community's, and most particularly, its neighbors' concerns about its behavior."
Is that a strongly-enough worded denunciation?
"It is premature for me, at this moment, to announce options or actions without that level of consultation among the regional nations that are most directly affected by North Korea's behavior," she said. "I look forward to being able to work out the details over the next week."
The top U.S. diplomat arrived in Tokyo earlier in the day on the first leg of her week-long tour of three Northeast Asian nations. Other destinations include Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul. The ship sinking seems likely to dominate the trip, originally set around the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue with China focusing on the possible revaluation of the Chinese currency, bilateral trade and other economic issues to cope with the global economic downturn.
Clinton said she will discuss the Cheonan disaster with Chinese officials in Beijing. "Then I will travel to Seoul to consult with our South Korean partners about the way forward," she said. "But let me be clear. This will not be and cannot be business as usual. There must be an international -- not just a regional, but an international -- response."
Clinton urged North Korea to "stop its provocative behavior, halt its policy of threats and belligerence toward its neighbors, and take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments, and comply with international law."
She dismissed North Korea's denial of involvement. "This was a thorough and comprehensive scientific examination, and the United States and other international observers were deeply engaged," she said. "The evidence is overwhelming and condemning. The torpedo that sunk the Cheonan and took the lives of 46 South Korean sailors was fired by a North Korean submarine. And the United States strongly condemns this act of aggression."
That's a good statement, but it's still unlikely we're going to go further than that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
This Administration's plan is that Kimmie will die while laughing his ass off at the thought of Bambi actually doing anything (besides kissing ass).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2010 0:09 Comments ||
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#2
SECSTATE HILLARY versus...
To wit,
BIGNEWSNETWORK > {SecDef] GATES: ITS NOT UP TO US TO RESPOND TO NORTH KOREA ATTACK. South Korea, NOT US.
#6
Now for the sexist in me. Zero did not have the balls to talk about an act of war in public. My vision of him telling Hillary to do it was him saying,"I can only talk bad about America and America's values. How could I be confrontational to North Korea and their dear leader?" "Hillary, Joe and I are pacifists, this is mans work, you go do it!"
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/22/2010 10:45 Comments ||
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#7
That's not sexist, 49 Pan, that's reality.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2010 10:56 Comments ||
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#8
Oh, dearie me - consequences! Such language. I think I'm getting the vapors.
Investigators say a North Korean midget submarine and a support vessel left a naval base on the west coast two to three days before the attack on the South Korean corvette Cheonan on March 26 and returned to port two or three days later.
They said the submarine and support vessel left the base on Cape Bipagot, around 80 km from Baeknyeong Island on March 23 and maneuvered out of the sight of South Korean and U.S. intelligence. The ship apparently accompanied the submarine to provide support and offer aid in case the sub encountered difficulties. The submarine took a detour out into open seas and arrived in waters to the west of Baeknyeong Island on March 25. There it is believed to have awaited its prey 10 m under the surface for about a day.
The military believes that the submarine found the Cheonan on the evening of March 26 and fired a CHT-02D torpedo at the vessel from 3 km away. At the time of the attack, the Cheonan was in waters that are 30 to 40 m deep, while the North Korean submarine was further out at sea where the water is between 40 to 50 m deep, posing no problems to launching a torpedo.
"When the sub attacked the Cheonan at 9:22 p.m. on March 26, the tides in the West Sea were slow, and it looks like the North strategically planned the attack," said a military source. The sub apparently returned to Cape Bipagot on March 28.
The submarine class was unknown until now. The 130-ton sub ranks between the Shark (325 tons) and a Yugo class (85 tons). Air Force Lt. Gen. Hwang Won-dong, the chief of the intelligence analysis team, said, the sub "is similar to the shark-class submarine and was built recently for export, equipped with night-vision equipment and other high-tech gadgets, as well as a unique structure to enhance its stealth capabilities." Intelligence experts say the sub is the same as the three "Ghadir" class midget submarines the North exported to Iran.
At first, investigators suspected a shark-class sub of the attack because they were unaware of the movements of this class, dubbed "Yono" or salmon. But by backtracking information, they apparently discovered the new class. "Two North Korean subs left the naval base two or three days before the attack, but we were unable to detect this," said Sohn Ki-hwa of the intelligence team said. "This will not lead to major shifts in our intelligence assessment capabilities, but we will improve what needs to be improved."
But questions linger why the Cheonan, a corvette battleship equipped with sonar equipment, was unable to detect the movements of the sub or the launch of the torpedo. "The Cheonan's sonar is an old model with a limited range, so there's a strong possibility that it failed to detect the torpedo which was launched from far away," said a military source.
3 km doesn't seem that far, but readers with better insight are encouraged to explain this in the comments.
Experts say North Korean subs and other ships probably conducted several infiltration and surveillance operations in waters near Baeknyeong Island. "We have no information whether North Korea conducted prior surveillance of the waters where the attack was carried out, but we believe it carried out training missions in waters off North Korea's coast with similar underwater conditions," Hwang said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Someone with better tech knowledge can correct this, but my old Cold War memory says: Close to shore (islands), (relatively) shallow waters, high currents = tough sonar conditions likely, be it in the coastal areas of the Barents sea or the Yellow sea. Good place to hide a sub if you can keep station.
I wonder if its more difficult to detect if the Korean patrol boat were just using passive against an electric boat, no active pinging (And even then I'm not sure that active would gain much in shallows other than a lot of multipath noise).
#2
I understand that there are certain conditions where sonar actually bounces off of layers of water like a mirror. Perhaps this is relevant here, but I doubt it.
Was the torpedo going fast or slow? Was the Cheonan going fast or slow? Was the Cheonan heading straight for the torpedo or at an angle?
Do the Norks make this model of torpedo? Did they get an assist in designing it? What kind of technology does this torpedo have? I understand that the Norks made the sub, but did they develop the tech or did they get an assist, probably from the Chinese again? Iran will have this, no doubt. Also, a couple years back, I remember that Russia helped some drug folks, I think in Columbia, manufacture primitive drug-running subs.
If that sub is 130 tons, I think that means it displaces less than about 120 cubic meters of water, so it's maybe 3x3x12 meters or so? That doesn't sound like much of a home for two or three days. Probably a crew of two or three? Probably has a diesel motor that it used to bug out right away after the Cheonan was hit by the torpedo. I wouldn't think batteries would let it move fast for more than what, three hours or so? (WAG!)
It'd be a shame if one of these were found caught in a net somewhere. I hear that giant squid can be a real problem for them, too. Or maybe one of their propellers could get bent and cavitate a bit or mysteriously fall off in the middle of a mission. How embarrassing.
#4
If that sub is 130 tons, I think that means it displaces less than about 120 cubic meters of water, so it's maybe 3x3x12 meters or so? That doesn't sound like much of a home for two or three days.
It sounds like the kind of semi-submersible boat the drug runners use in the US that the USN cannot detect without an humint hint. CBGs are at risk to a swarm of such vessels and so not have sufficient escorts to defend against them.
The boat doesn't have to stay on station, it only has to show up when prey is in the neighborhood. Or sortie for a day or two when the weather is nice and maybe get lucky. That's all they have to do, get lucky once.
They aren't conventional warriors. They're terrorists. That's why they so quickly hitch up with drug runners. We're playing a suckers game by sending warriors to fight with them. And we're going to lose economically if it's as long a war as I suspect it will be.
#5
I understand that there are certain conditions where sonar actually bounces off of layers of water like a mirror. Perhaps this is relevant here, but I doubt it.
thermoclines and prolly not relevant at these depths.
/not a bubblehead, but watch a lot of movies and read a lot.... and currently staying at a Holiday Inn. No, really. I am
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2010 9:02 Comments ||
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New documents shed light on the past of Pir Khan, the man at the center of last week's terror raids.
Khan is being detained as part of an international investigation into the botched terror attack in New York City.
The Boston Police Hackney Division approved Khan's license to drive a taxi 13 times since he first applied in 1997. The paperwork reveals that Khan also worked at a pizza shop, in construction and drove a Cambridge taxi.
Pir Khan indicates that he came to the United States from Pakistan in 1991 and said that he had never committed a crime. His record as a cab driver in Boston was clean.
Federal authorities are only saying that Khan is being held on immigration violations.
#1
The White House has essentially forced the Pentagon and the CIA to fire off more and more drone strikes in Pakistan, because of executive orders to ban secret CIA detention centers and close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
President Obama outlined a new national security strategy rooted in diplomatic engagement and international alliances on Saturday as he repudiated his predecessor's emphasis on unilateral American power and the right to wage preemptive war.
Eight years after President George W. Bush came to the United States Military Academy to set a new course for American security in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Obama used the same setting to offer a revised doctrine, one that vowed no retreat against American enemies while seeking "national renewal and global leadership."
"Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system," the president told graduating cadets. "But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation. We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice -- so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don't."
Mr. Obama said the United States "will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well" while also trying to "build new partnerships and shape stronger international standards and institutions." He added: "This engagement is not an end in itself. The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times."
The president's address was aimed not just at the 1,000 young men and women in gray and white uniforms in Michie Stadium who could soon face the perils of combat in Afghanistan or Iraq as second lieutenants in the Army but also to an international audience that in some quarters at least grew alienated from the United States during the Bush era.
The contrasts between Mr. Bush's address here in 2002 and Mr. Obama's in 2010 underscored all the ways a wartime America has changed and all the ways it has not. This was the ninth class to graduate from West Point since hijacked passenger jets destroyed the World Trade Center and smashed into the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside. Most of those graduating on Saturday were 12 at the time.
#3
Obama doctrine: "If we s*ck hard enough, if we s*allow often enough..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/22/2010 12:39 Comments ||
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#4
Mr. Obama said the United States "will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well" while also trying to "build new partnerships and shape stronger international standards and institutions."
Can you imagine being a West Point Cadet and having to sit in this audience and listen to this drivel and these lies, and have to behave civilly???? And realize that he IS your CiC??
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/22/2010 12:39 Comments ||
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#5
Damn, if he keeps this crap up, Yankees are going to start waving Confederate battle flags.
#8
Mr. Obama used the same setting to offer a revised doctrine, one that vowed no retreat against American enemies while seeking "national renewal and global leadership."
well, surrender is not technically retreat. the phrase "national renewal" does not necessarily mean that this nation will be renewed. and there will eventually be global leadership, just not from the US on his watch, so no lies that i can see.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
05/22/2010 16:22 Comments ||
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#9
PowerLine has a much different take on Obama's speech and concludes that "The Times's account of the speech reflected the obsessions of the reporter and his newspaper, not the reality of what Obama said."
#5
Brennan held a series of positions at the agency in America and abroad; he worked in Saudi Arabia and in Washington on Near Eastern and South Asian analyses. In the 1990s, he led counter-terrorism efforts for a variety of programs and worked closely with Tenet, who appointed him as his chief of staff in 1999.
Brennan was named CIA deputy executive director in March 2001 and served in that post until 2003.
No surprises here. This is the same man who....with all of his US State Department ME regional counterterrorism knowledge, language, Agency intelligence experience and assignments, FAILED to prevent the attack on 9/11. Why is he still on the Federal payroll?
I don't know. Because the current govmint is trying to show the mooselimbs how understanding, compromising, empathetic, sympathetic, apologetic, sensitive, anti-semitic, PC, and because we have a president whose name is Barack Hussein Obama? And maybe because they are collectively crazy? In denial about 911?.
Two men detained in Pakistan for alleged links to the attempted Times Square bombing have admitted playing a role in the botched attack and are unrepentant, with one angrily accusing interrogators of "siding with the infidels," a senior intelligence official said Saturday.
The pair are among six men officials say have been detained in Pakistan for alleged ties to Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States two days after the failed May 1 attack in New York. Like Shahzad, the detainees are all members of their country's urban elite, including several who were educated in the United States.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2010 11:11 ||
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#1
Among those detained in Pakistan was Salman Ashraf Khan, the co-owner of the upscale Hanif Rajput Catering Service. Two other suspects "wanted him to help bomb a big gathering of foreigners" whose event his company was catering, the Pakistani intelligence officer said.
Posted by: ed ||
05/22/2010 11:15 Comments ||
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#2
"Like Shahzad, the detainees are all members of their country's urban elite"
It's either a disease or genetic with these clowns - maybe both.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/22/2010 13:00 Comments ||
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#3
siding with the infidels
That us and them shit they are taught since a young age is the reason muslims dont get on with other religions or cultures!
Posted by: Paul D ||
05/22/2010 14:58 Comments ||
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#4
So Faizal "Where are my car keys?" Shahzad acted alone. With these other six guys.
#5
So Faizal "Where are my car keys?" Shahzad acted alone. With these other six guys.
It sounds like he acted alone on this side of the pond. Back home he had a lot more help than the six arrested -- what about those who trained him? Didn't he spend the better part of half a year at at Tehreek-e-Taliban-Pakistan training camp, being taught how to make car bombs?
Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy by a website on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.
Addressing rallies, clerics rejected an apology to the Muslim world by US cartoonist Molly Norris who initiated a blasphemous cartoon contest on Facebook and called for death punishment to her. They also called for jihad against blasphemers as the only way to stop recurrence of the crime by the West against the Holy Prophet which, in the recent past, had assumed alarming frequency, mainly due to Muslim rulers' apathetic attitude.
Friday saw growing protests against blasphemy. Religious leaders, addressing charged protesters, held the Muslim rulers responsible for the increasing trend of blasphemy and asked them to display their love for the Holy Prophet by taking concrete action.
In Lahore, the largest public meeting and protest rally was held by Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool (THR), an alliance of about 30 religious parties formed in response to European blasphemous campaigns since 2005, outside Masjid Shuhada. The participants were chanting slogans like Death to blasphemers,' Lay down lives to save the Holy Prophet's honour,' Expel all Americans to purge the Land of the Pure,' etc. Addressing the protesters, leaders warned the West that if it continued committing blasphemy of the Prophet of Islam in the name of freedom of expression having no boundaries,' they must keep in mind that the response of the Muslim world would also know no boundaries.
Convener Maulana Ameer Hamza condemned the silence of the Pakistani rulers on the issue. He also lashed out at the PML-N leaders and the Sharif family, saying they (the Sharifs) claimed themselves to be lovers of the Holy Prophet and builders of the country's nuclear bomb but were ashamed of protecting the Holy Prophet's honour and countering the US drones with their nuclear bomb. He warned that if blasphemy was not stopped and perpetrators not punished, neither the US ambassador nor the embassy would be spared. He said the Sharif family had spent nine years in exile in Saudi Arabia but upon their return they abolished Arabic language from the syllabus in the province and made the language of blasphemers compulsory.
Dr Farid Paracha of the Jamaat-e-Islami demanded initiation of a competition to expose the holocaust myth in response to the cartoon competition. Zubair Ahmad Zaheer said Muslims had the right to cross every limit to avenge blasphemy. Qari Yaqoob Sheikh termed it journalistic terrorism of the West against Islam.
ISLAMABAD: NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commander General Stanley McChrystal visited Pakistan on Friday to provide an update on the alliance's current operations in Afghanistan. McChrystal called on Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and discussed matters of mutual interest and defence cooperation.
During his visit, the general also briefed a group of Pakistani parliamentarians on ISAF's current operations and strategy in Afghanistan. The session provided an opportunity for the parliamentarians to interact with the commander, a US embassy press release said.
General McChrystal visits Pakistan regularly to consult with General Kayani and Pakistani leaders on ISAF's activities. ISAF and the US continue to collaborate with Pakistan to achieve our mutual goals of defeating terrorism and establishing peace and security in Pakistan and the region', the press release said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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ISLAMABAD: On the directives of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for blocking Facebook in the country, all cellular companies froze Blackberry services until further notice.
Although the PTA had blocked Facebook, the website was still accessible on Blackberry handsets as these services are routed through RIM servers. According to sources, the PTA has asked all cellular companies to put an immediate cap on all Blackberry services until further notice.
The PTA had issued the directives on the orders of the Lahore High Court, who had asked the government to make sure that Facebook was blocked for all Internet users in the country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh, thank G*d. From the headline, I thought they meant in the US.
Although it would be funny to see all the CrackBerry addicts start twitching when they can't check their email every 10 seconds.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/22/2010 0:58 Comments ||
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#2
And here was I imagining Obama getting driven to the newest Best Buy and running in to grab someone.
"My blackberry is dead! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?!?"
Posted by: Charles ||
05/22/2010 2:13 Comments ||
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#3
"My blackberry is dead! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?!?" Posted by Charles
Yes, yes, your the bloke with NO previous work experience. Sorry, but we're not hiring at the moment. Please come back after December, 2012. Sales are down. It's a dreadful economy right now. Things might be looking up a bit after that.
#4
Practically every smart phone these days gets web and email. And many of them can connect to your work email and sync your contacts and calendar. Nobody needs a "blackberry" anymore. That functionality is becoming ubiquitous.
#5
Blackberry has proprietary (and encrypted) network connectivity between the mobile device and RIM's data centers--which are not in Pakistan. Your Blackberry talks in a secure manner to RIM's infrastructure which proxies Internet connections on your behalf, e.g. a web session to Facebook.
Country level authorities like Pakistan can't get in the middle of your Blackberry network traffic to block, filter or monitor. The PTA probably asked RIM to filter Facebook on their behalf, and RIM probably told them to pound sand. Instructing Pakistani mobile carriers doing business with RIM to disable *all* Blackberry data traffic was probably the only way to ensure compliance with the Facebook order.
#6
Practically every smart phone these days gets web and email.
And plays all kinds of music and video. I just got a new cell phone and the tri-lingual Verizon instructions had 10 inadequate pages on the cell phone and 50 pages on video and music. It is hard to believe I lived long enough to get to the point where I would ask for a POTS cell phone.
Unlike smartphones, many BlackBerry models lack cameras. That makes them a better choice than smartphones for government people who are out of the office a lot, need to check email to get things done but should not deliberately or inadvertently take photos of documents or other material. In classified settings, all comms capability on the BBs is turned off. But there is a lot of sensitive data that is not classified but must not be shared - personnel and acquisition information, for instance.
#8
my brand-spanking new BB Storm 2 does all the usual, plus camera, plus...stuff I don't even know how to do yet. That said, I liked my old LG Env2....it just didn't do well in the permanent press cycle
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/22/2010 11:08 Comments ||
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His rock band have been described as South Asia's U2. They have sold about 30 million albums around the world. And now the pony-tailed, Pakistani-born Muslim rocker Salman Ahmad is in the UK to sell his message of tolerance and non-violence to Muslim groups, and promote his autobiography, Rock & Roll Jihad.
Ahmad is fighting a cultural battle against those he calls "murderous thugs masquerading as holy men". Extremists are reaching out to the same youth market that he is, he says. But Salman Ahmad believes that arts and culture can play an important role in combating extremism. "Music has the power to bring people together," he insists. "And that's what the extremists don't want."
Ahmad, who trained as a doctor, formed his band, Junoon, in 1990 after giving up medicine for music - a passion since childhood. At the age of 18, in President Zia ul-Haq's Pakistan, Salman Ahmad suffered the loss of his precious first guitar which was smashed by extremist students who had stormed into a secret talent show in which he was participating. "After they'd broken my guitar, they threatened to shoot me if I ever played it again," he says. "I saw radicalisation first hand."
Salman Ahmad - a Beatles fan inspired by Led Zeppelin - refused to be silenced. He now lives in the United States but travels regularly to Pakistan where, he says, today's artists have to perform "like guerrillas". And he has had his own troubles, even in the US. He told the BBC he was almost prevented from performing last month in New York's Times Square when the mayor's office was alarmed after an internet search revealed the word "jihad" in the title of his new album, due out on 1 June.
"The Muslim community is allowing their language and culture to be hijacked," he says. "There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and they enjoy music and poetry and dance and laughter, but the picture that goes out in the world is the extremist picture. I wouldn't have been able to sell 30 million records if the extremist view had been the majority view".
He vehemently rejects the hardline view that Islam forbids music. "I am a practising Muslim and I've studied the Koran," he says, "and I believe my faith inspires my creativity - 1,400 years of Muslim culture has seen artists, singers, and beautiful love poetry."
Salman Ahmad, with his felt hat, necklace, and dark glasses, sees himself as a cultural bridge between East and West. He has played his blend of Western and Eastern music at the UN General Assembly. He has also performed - under tight security - at a concert in Indian-adminstered Kashmir.
And he has a huge following in his home country, Pakistan, where, in the 1990s, his band were banned from performing after they took a stand against political corruption in a song called Accountability. "The extremists hate it," he says. "They would like nothing better than to ban all of this. But they can't because millions of kids listen to music and watch Bollywood films.
"I'm saying to the extremists, you don't speak for Islam. You don't speak for me. I say to them: 'If you want to go and blow yourself up it's your choice, if you want to commit suicide, but do not assign any spiritual value to it.'
TEHRAN - Iran will hand an official letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency chief on Monday about its nuclear fuel swap agreement with Brazil and Turkey, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday. Leaders of the three countries announced the agreement, under which Iran will send some of its enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for fuel rods for a Tehran medical research reactor, on Monday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Istanbul on Friday he hoped the deal would open the way to a negotiated settlement of Iran's row with the West over its nuclear programme. But the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, after months of negotiations, agreed a draft resolution on a new set of sanctions against Iran that Washington handed to the Security Council on Tuesday.
After the joint announcement of Iran, Turkey and Brazil, Iran's permanent ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency announced the country's readiness to submit the letter to the agency,' IRNA reported.
In a meeting with the agency's chief Yukiya Amano on Monday, Iran will hand over the letter,' the news agency added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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TEHRAN - The visiting mothers of three US hikers held in Iran for 10 months on spying accusations were leaving the Islamic republic on Friday without their children, the hikers' lawyer said.
I am with the mothers and we are on our way to the airport without their children,' Masoud Shafii told AFP, adding that they were leaving Tehran tonight (Friday).
The lawyer had said earlier that the three American women had met with their children Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 at Esteghlal hotel in the capital's north. At their first teary-eyed reunion with their loved ones at the same hotel on Thursday, the mothers appealed for the trio's release as a humanitarian gesture' by Iran.
Iran's English-language Press TV and Fars news agency reported that on Friday the mothers also met with mothers of Iranian diplomats who were detained by American forces in Iraq. Press TV showed footage of the meeting at the same hotel.
Five Iranian diplomats were freed by the US military in Iraq in July 2009 after 30 months in detention. The US military freed the five after arresting them in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on January 11, 2007, accusing them of arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks in the war-torn country.
The children had appeared on Thursday before reporters alongside their mothers dressed in jeans and T-shirts, with Shourd also wearing a maroon headscarf in conformity with the Islamic dress code for women in Iran. They were then taken back to prison after a five-hour meeting.
Washington described the encounter as positive.'
It is something that we have... pushed hard for,' State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington on Thursday when asked whether the move raised hopes for their eventual release.
Iran has given no official indication it is preparing to release the three, although the visit itself was seen as a breakthrough. During their short stay Iranian officials did not make any comment about the visit.
The three American hikers were detained on July 31 last year after crossing Iran's border while on a hiking trip in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region. Washington insists they are innocent and should be released, stressing they had mistakenly strayed across an unmarked border in a remote mountainous area.
On Wednesday, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi renewed accusations of espionage against the trio. Despite their being spies and entering Iran illegally, they were dealt with according to religious teachings and in a humanitarian way,' Moslehi said.
In March, Tehran public prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the three faced espionage charges. But last December, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they were accused of illegal entry.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/22/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
What ya wanna bet the Iranians wanna trade these "spies" for some Iranian "diplomats" held by US forces in Iraq?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/22/2010 7:36 Comments ||
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#2
"Hiking in Iran???!!!" Were these (Adult) "children" lobotomized or simply deluded Kumbaya types?
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.
Two churches belonging to the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), a Baptist Church, and a pastor's house have been demolished by Fulani youths in Kano State, northern Nigeria, after a few members of the Muslim community objected to their existence. 
President Obama outlined a new national security strategy rooted in diplomatic engagement and international alliances on Saturday as he repudiated his predecessor's emphasis on unilateral American power and the right to wage preemptive war.
Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy by a website on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.
His rock band have been described as South Asia's U2. They have sold about 30 million albums around the world. And now the pony-tailed, Pakistani-born Muslim rocker Salman Ahmad is in the UK to sell his message of tolerance and non-violence to Muslim groups, and promote his autobiography, Rock & Roll Jihad. 
TEHRAN - Iran will hand an official letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency chief on Monday about its nuclear fuel swap agreement with Brazil and Turkey, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday. Leaders of the three countries announced the agreement, under which Iran will send some of its enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for fuel rods for a Tehran medical research reactor, on Monday.
