[AnNahar] Hundreds of hardline Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... demonstrated outside Morocco's parliament Friday demanding the release of fellow Islamists tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in connection with suicide kabooms in Casablanca 11 years ago, insisting on their innocence.
The protesters held pictures of relatives and friends tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in the aftermath of the attacks, on May 16, 2011, which killed 33 people and led to the adoption of tough anti-terrorist legislation and a crackdown on Islamists.
"We stand here in Rabat, in front of the Moroccan parliament, to confirm that Islamist detainees were the biggest victims of the tragic events of May 16," Abderrahim Ghazali, a front man for the committee for the defense of detained Islamists, told the crowd.
"For 11 years they have suffered from injustice and oppression, and separation from their families... because of the terrorism law that was passed after these events," he said.
Activists accuse the Moroccan authorities of using the law to jail thousands of Islamists arbitrarily over the past decade.
Many remain behind bars after being convicted of involvement in the Casablanca attacks, despite King Mohammed VI freeing scores of Mohammedan murderous Moslems, including several prominent Salafist leaders, after Arab Spring protests swept the country in 2011.
A group of U.N. experts on arbitrary detention, visiting Morocco in December, called on the government to review the anti-terrorist legislation.
The crowd outside parliament, which included dozens of veiled women and young children, chanted "holy shit! Allahu akbar!" (God is greatest) and "No prison for our brothers!"
Ahmed Bel Baraka, one of the protest organizers, said around 1,000 Islamists were currently languishing in Moroccan prisons, some 400 of them tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! after the Casablanca attacks.
He said the rest were detained after returning from Syria, where an unknown number of Moroccan Islamists have gone to fight the forces of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... "People say we are terrorists, that we blow ourselves up. But that is not at all true," Bel Baraka insisted.
[AnNahar] Algeria has closed its embassy and its consulate in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... because of a "real and imminent threat" to its diplomats, the foreign ministry announced on Friday.
The decision was taken in coordination with the Libyan authorities, after certain information was received "about the existence of a real and imminent threat targeting our diplomats and consular staff," the ministry said.
[MailonLine] Boko Haram vowed in February 2012 to assassinate Ambassador Terence McCulley if the U.S. helped Nigeria with terror-fighting efforts 'We know his house ... We know his vehicle and the time he leaves his house and the time he returns,' the group said in a communique to media
The warning was similar to Ansar al-Shariah's pledge to kill U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya, three months before the deadly 2012 terror attack there Despite clear threats, Hillary Clinton's State Department fought efforts to officially designate the mass-murdering Nigerians as a terrorist group
A former State Dept. official said naming new terror groups 'sent the wrong message' about al-Qaeda and its allies as Barack Obama ran for re-election
Posted by: Besoeker ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"At this point, what does it matter"
"This is like, a couple years ago"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2014 9:42 Comments ||
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#2
It's not clear why the State Department resisted adding Boko Haram to its Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list for so long.
A former State Department official who served in a legal capacity under Secretary Clinton told MailOnline on Wednesday that one component of the decision was undeniably political.
Everything the regime does is.... "undeniably political."
[AnNahar] An appeals court Thursday upheld a judge's decision that a Canadian-Lebanese man should be extradited to La Belle France in connection with a 1980 Gay Paree synagogue bombing that killed four people.
The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the lower-court judge and the federal justice minister made no legal errors in concluding Hassan Diab should be handed to French authorities.
Canadian police jugged Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! Diab, a 60-year-old Canadian of Lebanese descent, in 2008 in response to a request from La Belle France, where he is wanted on charges of murder and attempted murder in the Oct. 3, 1980 bombing.
The bomb, hidden in the saddlebags of a parked cycle of violence, went kaboom! outside a Gay Pareeian synagogue during a Sabbath service, killing three French men and one Israeli woman.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine ... Paleostinian Marxist movement, founded in 1967. It is considered a terrorist organization by more than 30 countries including the U.S., European Union, Australia, Canada, and Antarctica. The PFLP's stated goal is the establishment of a socialist State in Paleostine. They pioneered armed aircraft hijackings in the late 60s and early 70s... -Special Operations was blamed for the bombing at the time. The investigation was reopened after Diab's name turned up on a list of former members of a Paleostinian bully boy group obtained by German intelligence officials.
Diab, who had been a part-time sociology professor at both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa before his arrest, has denied any role in the attack.
Stamps in Diab's 1980 passport indicated he was not in La Belle France at the time of the bombing.
In June 2011, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger committed Diab for extradition to face French authorities despite acknowledging the case against him was weak.
The following April, then-justice minister Rob Nicholson signed an extradition order surrendering Diab to La Belle France.
During the Ontario Superior Court case, Maranger examined elements of La Belle France's request including eyewitness descriptions, composite sketches and handwriting on a hotel registration card allegedly penned by Diab -- evidence his lawyers fiercely disputed.
In his ruling Maranger concluded that La Belle France had presented "a weak case" that makes the prospect of conviction, "in the context of a fair trial, seem unlikely." But he said Diab must be sent to La Belle France under the terms of Canada's extradition law.
In his appeal, Diab argued that a flawed handwriting analysis and other evidence that at best creates a degree of suspicion amounts to a case that does not allow committal for extradition.
However, you can observe a lot just by watching... the Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Maranger "did not err in his approach."
Diab also contended that Nicholson made several mistakes, including opting to surrender him even though La Belle France has not yet decided whether to put him on trial for the bombing.
The appeal court ruled that the minister's surrender decision was reasonable, "even though a trial in La Belle France is not a certainty."
The court said a process or prosecution must simply be underway "that will, if not discontinued, lead to a trial. A trial of that person, however, need not be inevitable."
[DAWN] The Senate was informed on Friday that provincial governments had been sending fake reports about anti-polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... campaigns.
Saira Afzal Tarar, the Minister of State for National Health Services, told the house that the provinces shared fabricated figures of incomplete polio campaigns with the federal government, ultimately leading to travel restriction on Paks.
She was replying to an adjournment motion on international travel restrictions imposed on the country by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week.
The motion was moved by Senator Rubina Khalid.
Saira Tarar said the figures coming from districts and reaching the federal government through the provincial governments put the success rate of the immunisation campaigns as high as 80 to 90 per cent.
She said Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... had remained the least accessible province in terms of immunisation, with just 16 per cent of the population benefiting from it, followed by Sindh with 29 per cent. Punjab has the highest level of immunisation with 68.5 per cent and in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... the rate was 52.5 per cent.
She said that only 0.5pc of refusals to get vaccinated were based on religious grounds.
Ms Tarar described Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. and Fata, particularly North Wazoo, as dangerous in terms of strain of the poliovirus and justified measures taken by the Punjab government for internal travel restrictions on the people coming from other provinces.
She also informed the Senate that around 1 million vaccination cards had been printed by the federal government, which would be sent to provinces. Local documents required by provincial governments would be valid till June 1, she said.
Leader of Opposition in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan flabbergasted many by holding out an assurance of full support to the government in the fight against polio.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Polo, you lie, your children die, if you don't care about your children,LIE.
After all, it dosn't affect you.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/17/2014 2:38 Comments ||
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#2
More like "If we tell the government that we're not vaccinated, nobody from Pakistan proper will be allowed to come here."
#4
The best solution, make everybody leaving take the medicine, you don't take it you sit until several large men come and hold you down, then you take it.
NO EXCEPTIONS.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/17/2014 20:01 Comments ||
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#5
Um, according to the article (you did read it, right?) the actual vaccination rate is 80-90 percent.
The provinces are under-reporting it so that the Pakistani government restricts travel to those provinces.
In other words, they're lying bout their vaccination rates in order to keep outsiders, out.
[DAWN] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... activists protesting against rigging in May 2013 elections, were baton-charged by police near Nadra Chowk in the federal capital city on Friday, DawnNews reported.
A scuffle broke out between the protesters, enroute from their party secretariat to the election commission's office, and police personnel outside the Overseas Paks Foundation (OPF) office in Islamabad after the capital city's administration barred protestors from proceeding into the Red Zone area.
The administration had setup barricades along the way, with concrete blocks and barbed wire, to prevent the protesting party activists from moving ahead.
The protesters shouted slogans against the government and administration.
The district administration said that the demonstrators would not be allowed to proceed beyond Nadra Chowk to enter the Red Zone area.
Despite efforts by PTI's big shot Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi, who tried to control party activists, the protesters crossed the barricades and moved in front of the OPF office where the clash with police personnel took place.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] India's triumphant Hindu nationalists declared "the start of a new era" in the world's second most-populous nation as the ruling Congress declared defeat in elections that laid bare anger about sickly economic growth and rampant corruption.
Narendra Modi, making his first comments on results day in his constituency of Vadodara in his home state of Gujarat ...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime... , where thousands chanted his name, told supporters that "good times are coming" as he thanked them for their "love" which propelled him and his Hindu nationalist party to a historic election win.
Preliminary results and media projections at the climax of the marathon six-week election showed the BJP on track for the first parliamentary majority by a single party in 30 years.
The BJP had won 133 seats and was leading in 148 others takin its total tally to 283 seats which is 11 more than the 272 seat required to form a majority government, according to the statistics provided by the Indian election commission website.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Friday that the government wanted to make next round of talks with the Pak Taliban meaningful and result-oriented.
Addressing a news conference, he said any progress towards next round of direct talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), was expected to be made in few days.
The minister said the government's broader agenda was focused on restoration of peace in the country. Nisar said he wanted that the next meeting of the Taliban-government committees should be decisive and both sides should put their agendas on the table.
He said the government was not responsible for the delay in the dialogue process, as it had been decided during the last two rounds that Taliban would convey the date and venue of the next round.
The interior minister said the dialogue process was the only option to bring peace in the country.
Head of Taliban negotiation committee Maulana Samiul Haq ...the Godfather of the Taliban, leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as Mullah Sandwich for his habit of having two young boys at a time... , on Wednesday had admitted that the negotiation process between government and TTP has been suspended for the time being.
He claimed that some 'powerful elements' were trying to derail the grinding of the peace processor to pave the way for operation in tribal areas.
Maulana Samiul Haq had asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... to play his role in making the negations a success.
Speaking about Islamabad's security situation today, Chaudhary Nisar said a new system of security would be introduced in the federal capital from next week. Under the new arrangement, police and Rangers would ensure round-the-clock patrolling to check street crimes and other incidents, he informed.
Replying to a question, he said there were five Pak nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay prison and the government was trying to bring them back.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] The U.N. Security Council is expected to vote next week on a resolution to haul Syria before the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... , although the measure is likely to fail because of opposition from Russia and China.
The resolution drafted by La Belle France aims "to send a message that there is accountability for the crimes committed in Syria," one diplomat said.
"There is a clear need to demonstrate that the international community is interested in accountability" for the more than three years of violence visited by the Damascus government upon the Syrian people, the diplomat said.
Western powers have decried mounting atrocities said to include systematic torture, chemical attacks and the use of "barrel bombs" packed with explosives.
The conflict in Syria so far has killed 150,000 people and displaced nearly half the population, as the government employs what one diplomat called "starvation and siege tactics" against its people.
Next week's Security Council vote also comes amid growing suspicions that Syria has been using chemical weapons on its own people.
Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said in a report earlier this week it had gathered evidence showing the Damascus government put chlorine canisters inside the barrel bombs it dropped from helicopters on opposition-held towns in northern Syria.
But many diplomats said they anticipate that Russia, as it has on three prior occasions, would reject the measure in the Security Council, which requires at least nine yes votes for approval, and no veto from any of the council's five permanent members -- China, La Belle France, Russian, Britannia and the United States.
Moscow already has indicated it doesn't back the measure.
"We believe you need to build a positive momentum," said Moscow's ambassador to the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Vitaly Churkin, who voiced concern that the vote could "exacerbate" differences among parties within the council.
The draft resolution expresses the council's "strong condemnation of the widespread violations of human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and international humanitarian law by the Syrian authorities and pro-government militias."
It also assails "human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law by non-state gangs," in Syria.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[Wash Times] American troops are no longer in Iraq, but the country still wants U.S. weapons for its security needs. The nation is primed to receive roughly $1 billion worth of military hardware from the United States.
A proposed deal includes 200 "up-armored" Humvee vehicles with machine gun mounts, precision-guided bombs and 24 AT-6C Texan II light-attack aircraft, among many other assets. Agency France Press reported Thursday.
"The proposed sale of these aircraft, equipment and support will enhance the ability of the Iraqi forces to sustain themselves in their efforts to bring stability to Iraq and to prevent overflow of unrest into neighboring countries," the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice to Congress on Tuesday.
Iraq had previously agreed to purchase 36 U.S. F-16 fighter jets, AFP reported. The assets of the newest deal would go to provide surveillance against terrorist attacks and defend the nation's oil infrastructure, the agency said. War is our business, and business is good. Airforce Technology Link, same subject.
[Ynet] About 3,000 people attended the funerals on Friday of two Paleostinians killed by IDF fire in the West Bank during Nakba Day protests, as further festivities took place between protesters and soldiers.
"With our blood, with out souls, we sacrifice for you, o deaders!" mourners chanted as the bodies, draped in Paleostinian flags, were taken through the streets of the West Bank town of Birzeit.
After the funeral, hundreds of Paleostinians clashed with Israeli soldiers near the Ofer military prison, leaving at least four Paleostinians injured, an AFP correspondent said. Two Israeli journalists were attacked by protesters, according to several sources.
[Jpost] Uri Ariel says talks on Palestinian statehood are in their "dying throes" and predicts spiraling of Jewish settler population. The longer the Palestinians wait to make peace the less land they will eventually get. Tick-tock.
"I think that in five years there will be 550,000 or 600,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria, rather than 400,000 (now)," the minister said.
Ariel put the number of Israelis in east Jerusalem at between 300,000 and 350,000. Some 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas which, along with the Gaza Strip, Israel captured in 1967.
Hosting US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in Jerusalem on Friday, Netanyahu put the onus for the deadlock on Abbas.
"One of the things we have found, unfortunately, is that our Palestinian neighbors are moving ahead in a pact with Hamas. The United States has designated Hamas rightly as a terrorist organization," he said.
"I think the Palestinians have to make a simple choice - a pact with Hamas, or peace with Israel. But they cannot have both."
[IsraelTimes] Meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Friday morning in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran was continuing to develop its nuclear weapons capability and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Hagel responded by assuring the prime minister that America would not let Iran build a nuclear weapon.
"America's commitment to Israel's security is resolute, and as you noted, the military exercise that I visited yesterday with Defense Minister Ya'alon demonstrates that commitment very completely. It also demonstrates the cutting edge work our countries are doing together on rocket and missile defense, and I appreciate your comments on that point -- work that has strengthened Israel's security and saved lives, and I want to assure you, Prime Minister and the people of Israel, of the United States' continued commitment to ensuring Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, as President B.O. has said, and that America will do what we must to live up to that commitment."
Later Friday, Hagel met with President Shimon Peres.
"The problems we are facing are serious but we can and we should manage them," Peres said. "President B.O. said the US shouldn't be the coppers of the world and I agree, the US should be the peacemaker of the world. No one can replace you. Your armed forces are to keep the world peaceful."
Hagel's visit comes after stops in 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... and Jordan, where he also promised to keep Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.
The stop in Saudi Arabia was designed to calm Gulf states that feel vulnerable to Iran's influence and are frustrated at US policy on Syria, which has not yet included weapons or other lethal aid in the three-year civil war. Washington also wants to foster more effective, practical forms of defense cooperation on the Arabian Peninsula by integrating their air and missile defense systems.
Hagel addressed the Iran issue at the outset of a meeting of defense ministers from the Gulf states allied with Washington, including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Hagel promised the Gulf leaders that "under no circumstances" will the international negotiations with Iran this week in Vienna "trade away regional security for concessions on Iran's nuclear program."
"We will continue to hold Iran accountable for its destabilizing activities across the region," he added. "And we will continue working closely with all of our friends and partners in the Gulf to reinforce their defenses against these destabilizing activities."
#2
value judgement: a Hagel promise vs a bucket of spit.
Discuss amongst yerselves
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/17/2014 10:38 Comments ||
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#3
Zero's credibility is next to zero. Would Israel stake her national survival on some words from someone who has abandoned all our allies and emboldened our enemies? Would you?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/17/2014 12:37 Comments ||
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#4
Hagel promised the Gulf leaders that "under no circumstances" will the international negotiations with Iran this week in Vienna "trade away regional security for concessions on Iran's nuclear program."
He can say that because Val already traded them away.
Debka warning in effect
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw a large spanner in the works of nuclear diplomacy Sunday, May 11. Less than a week before the next round of talks with the six powers, he said: "The Revolutionary Guards should definitely... not be satisfied with the present level [of missile production]. They should mass produce."
Referring to Western concerns that Iran is designing missiles able to carry nuclear warheads, Khamenei said: "They [the West] expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly threaten Iran with military action. So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation."
Khamenei spoke during a visit to the aeronautics fair organized by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which are responsible for Iran's missile and nuclear programs. The important bits of the post, IMHO
Of late, mainly under pressure from Israel, Washington informed Tehran that there was no escape from opening a discussion on ways of restricting the weapons dimensions of its nuclear program and its ballistic missile projects.
Hence Khamenei's furious comeback -- intended to force the Obama administration to give ground on these demands or prepare for nuclear diplomacy to be blown out of the sky.
The closer the negotiations come to a deal, the nearer Tehran approaches a military coup that would oust President Rouhani and reduce the supreme leader to a figurehead.
In the last DEBKA Weekly, published Friday, May 9, exclusive Iranian sources revealed another reason for the supreme leader's pugnacity. The radical Revolutionary Guards chiefs have made it clear that they will never give up on a nuclear weapon. The closer the negotiations come to a deal, the nearer Tehran approaches a military coup that would oust President Rouhani and reduce the supreme leader to a figurehead.
Khamenei read the writing on the wall and, finding himself between a rock and a hard place, decided that he had better stand firm on any further concessions - even this meant sacrificing nuclear diplomacy and its rewards.
They never intended to give up their nuclear weapons anyway, and expected to get the rewards for their fait accompli without doing so.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
05/17/2014 12:13 ||
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#1
If this wasn't such a potentially serious problem I would be laughing sardonically at our precious Bozo and his diplomatic clown mobile.
[Ynet] Leb's powerful Hezbollah movement told the head of the Maronite church on Friday that his planned trip to Jerusalem to accompany Pope Francis would have "negative repercussions".
Nice life y'all have here. Be a shame if you all lose it...
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai has said he will join the pope on his May 24-26 tour of the Holy Land, drawing criticism in Leb, which remains in a formal state of war with its southern neighbor Israel.
"We presented our point of view ... about the negative repercussions of this visit," Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, head of Hezbollah's political council, told news hounds after meeting Rai at the patriarch's offices in the hills overlooking Beirut. "We hope that these considerations are taken into account."
[AnNahar] Five aid workers from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who were kidnapped in Syria in January have been freed, the medical charity said Thursday.
In a statement, MSF said three of the staff members were released on April 4 and the remaining two on Wednesday.
"Out of respect for the privacy of the five, MSF is not disclosing their identities, nor will the organization comment further on the circumstances of the captivity or the release," said the aid group, which is also known as Doctors Without Borders.
The Swedish branch of the charity later said that the five were from Belgium, Denmark, Peru, Sweden and Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... MSF said that the kidnapping took place on January 2 in a hospital that it was running in northwestern Syria to provide essential healthcare to people affected by the country's raging civil war.
In the wake of the abduction, MSF said it was forced to close one hospital and two health centers in the Jabal Akrad region.
"The relief of seeing our colleagues return safely is mixed with anger in the face of this cynical act that has cut off an already war-ravaged population from desperately needed assistance," MSF's president Joanne Liu said in a statement.
"The direct consequence of taking humanitarian staff is a reduction in lifesaving aid. The long-term victims of this abduction are the Syrian population. Some 150,000 people in the Jabal Akrad region are now deprived of MSF's medical care, while living in a war zone."
In 2013, MSF medical staff in the three now-shuttered facilities performed 521 surgical operations, many for trauma wounds, more than 36,000 medical consultations, and safe hospital deliveries for more than 400 mothers, the organization said.
"Across northern Syria, where MSF continues to operate other medical facilities, security constraints have made it extremely challenging to provide assistance," it said.
- 'Complete disregard' -
MSF said that medical facilities had been attacked and bombed, and health workers killed or threatened by gangs.
Elsewhere in Syria, denial of official access and insecurity have prevented MSF from being able to set up medical activities, the organization said.
It said the kidnapping was a stark illustration of the brutality seen in the Syrian war, which has driven millions of people from their homes and claimed more than 150,000 lives.
"This incident is representative of the complete disregard shown toward civilians throughout Syria today," said Liu.
"While millions of Syrians need assistance for their survival, among some of the armed parties to the war, the very idea of independent humanitarian presence is rejected," she added.
Given the massive needs of Syria's embattled population, Lui said that MSF should be running some of the largest medical programs in the organization's four-decade history.
"In the current environment our capacity to respond is painfully limited," she said.
MSF has been running makeshift hospitals and health centers across the north of Syria since 2012, a year after the war broke out following a crackdown on protests against the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... In addition, it is helping a network of Syrian medical groups run 50 hospitals and 80 health centers, as well as running programs for some of the over 2.7 million refugees who have fled to Iraq, Jordan and Leb.
[AnNahar] Iran is recruiting Afghan refugees to fight in Syria to reduce casualties among Iranian Guards personnel and Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... , a Western official said late Thursday.
Tehran strongly denies its forces are directly involved in the Syrian conflict but Hizbullah publicly acknowledged in April last year that it has been fighting alongside Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's troops.
Like Hizbullah and most Iranians, the Afghan recruits are Shiites and support Assad, whose Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In exchange for their recruitment of the Afghans, Iran is offering them stipends of $500 a month and residency permits, the paper said, quoting Afghans and Western officials.
Details of the recruitment drive by the elite Revolutionary Guards were posted this week on a blog catering to Afghan refugees in Iran, the Journal said.
It said this was confirmed by the office of Grand Ayatollah Mohaghegh Kabuli, an Afghan religious leader in the Iranian Shiite holy city of Qom.
The paper quoted the Western official in Iran as saying recruiting Afghans was part of a strategy to send poor foot soldiers to the battle front.
Gen. Hossein Hamedani, a senior Guards commander involved in planning war strategy in Syria, said last week that with God's help, Iran had trained an extra 130,000 soldiers ready for dispatch.
Thanks to the planning and wisdom of Iran's leaders, Syria's regime could enjoy "some stability," he said.
The 130,000 was an apparent reference to all the Shiite fighters including Iranians, Hizbullah, Afghans and other imported muscle.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/17/2014 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Iran has pursued ballistic missile development even as international talks surrounding efforts to scale back its nuclear program have been ongoing, a confidential UN report said overnight Thursday-Friday.
"Analysis of Iran's ballistic missile program remains a challenge," the UN Panel of Experts report, obtained by Rooters, said.
"With the exception of several launches, periodic displays of hardware and one recent revelation of a new ballistic launch facility, the program is opaque and not subject to the same level of transparency that Iran's nuclear activities are under IAEA safeguards," the panel wrote.
"Among the most important items Iran is reportedly seeking are metals as well as components for guidance systems and fuel," the panel report said. "Similarities between Iran's ballistic missiles and space programs can make it difficult for states to distinguish the end-uses of procured items."
In 2010, the UN passed a resolution that included a ban on Iran developing missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
An Iranian official, quoted by Rooters, said that the ballistic missile program would not be interrupted. "Iran purchases parts from various countries, including Russia and China, and then assembles missiles in Iran," he said.
"Some Gulf countries have been involved in the missile delivery to Iran. Iran has never stopped its missile program and has no intention to do so; it gives Iran an upper hand."
Earlier Thursday, negotiators from Iran and six world powers hunkered down to a second day of talks aimed towards what could be a historic deal on Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
Tehran has often claimed that missiles should not be part of the ongoing talks with the P5+1 world powers.
Indications of how the talks were progressing in a rainy Vienna were thin on the ground, however. Both sides warned on arrival on Tuesday that the negotiations would be hard.
After three earlier rounds, this time Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany aim to start drafting the actual text of what could be a landmark agreement.
Success could help Tehran and Washington normalize relations 35 years after the Islamic Revolution toppled the autocratic US-backed shah, but failure could spark conflict and a regional nuclear arms race.
The parties want to get a deal by July 20, when a November 2013 interim deal -- under which Iran froze certain activities in return for some sanctions relief -- expires.
This could be extended, but time is of the essence with hardliners on both sides -- members of the US Congress and arch-conservatives in Iran -- skeptical of the process and impatient for progress.
The United States, Russia, China, Britannia, La Belle France and Germany want Iran to radically scale back its nuclear activities in order to make any dash for the bomb virtually impossible and easily detectable.
In return, the Islamic Theocratic Republic, which denies wanting atomic weapons, wants the lifting of all UN and Western sanctions, which have caused its economy major problems.
Even though there have been indications of some narrowing of positions, for example on the Arak reactor, both sides are sticking to the mantra that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
"Quite frankly, this is very, very difficult. I would caution people that, just because we will be drafting, it certainly doesn't mean an agreement is imminent or that we are certain to eventually get to a resolution of these issues," a senior US official said Tuesday.
The talks are tentatively scheduled to last until Friday, with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif telling national media on Tuesday that he expected three more rounds before July 20.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/17/2014 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.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
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[Jpost] Uri Ariel says talks on Palestinian statehood are in their "dying throes" and predicts spiraling of Jewish settler population.
[IsraelTimes] Meeting with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Friday morning in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran was continuing to develop its nuclear weapons capability and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
