[AnNahar] The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is steaming toward the waters off Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... rebels fighting in Yemen.
Navy officials said Monday that the Roosevelt was moving through the Arabian Sea. The Navy has been beefing up its presence in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea amid reports that a convoy of about eight Iranian ships is heading toward Yemen and possibly carrying arms for the Houthis.
Navy officials said there are about nine U.S. warships in the region, including cruisers and destroyers carrying teams that can board and search other vessels.
The Houthis are battling government-backed fighters in an effort to take control of the country. The U.S. has been providing logistical and intelligence support to 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... -led coalition launching Arclight airstrikes against the Houthis. That air campaign is now in its fourth week.
The U.S. Navy generally conducts consensual boardings of ships when needed, including to combat piracy around Africa and the region. So far, however, U.S. naval personnel have not boarded any Iranian vessels since the Yemen conflict began.
White House front man Josh Earnest would not comment specifically on any Navy movements in Yemeni waters, but said the U.S. has concerns about Iran's "continued support for the Houthis.
"We have seen evidence that the Iranians are supplying weapons and other armed support to the Houthis in Yemen. That support will only contribute to greater violence in that country. These are exactly the kind of destabilizing activities that we have in mind when we raise concerns about Iran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East."
He said "the Iranians are acutely aware of our concerns for their continued support of the Houthis by sending them large shipments of weapons."
#8
The Iranians have been given or will take everything they want. Even the donks in the Senate have realized this. It is very possible 0 will not be able to get even the 34 votes he needs for approval of this sellout. His withdrawal of the veto shows he is getting a glimpse of reality. The Iranians aren't going to walk away from this deal...unless
#9
Trying to rein-in the Iranian proxy, the Houthis; meanwhile the AQ in the Arabian Peninsula are linking up with the Yemeni tribes and expanding. The Yemen success "O" talked about is starting to look like the Titanic. What are the Navy's ROEs here--they got orders to sink Iran's Navy?
#10
The Iranians aren't going to walk away from this deal...unless
The Iranians need time to finish their nuclear weapons without the Israelis destroying the work sites. President Obama has their back so long as they continue negotiating. So they'll stay at the negotiating table, drawing the thing out, while America continues to prevent Israeli action. All else is kabuki theater.
#11
TW, If there's a Praying Mantis II on this convoy approaching Yemen, I bet the mullahs would walk.
There is no single strike solution for Israel. The only way the Israelis could possibly deal a significant setback to the Iranians is if the Saudis or GCC gave them basing rights for an extended campaign.
#13
Gott wonder if the Israelis might happen to have one or two of those very very quiet electric boats in position as a back-channel favor to the Saudi Royals...
Couple of mines in the right place, or a couple DM-2A4 might change the Iranian ships depth.
The Bammer's "talking points" on Yemen may had gotten a little more complicated ...
* BIGNEWSNETWORK > [BNN = Pakistani Defence] PAKISTANI TALIBAN CLAIM SUCCESSFUL TEST-FIRE OF [indigenous = internal-developed] MISSLE, i.e. the "OMAR I", showing to the World that the TTP's engineering unit or section now has the knowledge + capability to dev its own modern lethal weapons = advanced suicide techs as independent? of any Govt-State.
IFF THE TTP = PAK TALIBAN CAN DO IT, WHY NOT AL-NUSRA + ISIS/ISIL, ETC. HARD BOY GROUPS-NETWORKS!?
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > [Al-Monitor] SAUDIS ANGERED AT IRAN GAINS [+ lack of effective US action]. IRAN'S ALLIES ARE GAINING STRENGTH ON SAUDI ARABIA'S BORDERS CREATING THE WORST SECURITY ENVIRONMENT FOR THE KINGDOM IN DECADES.
* SAME > [GMA News] NEW LAW ALLOWS JAPAN TO SUPPLY US MILITARY IN SOUTH CHINA SEA, SAY OFFICIALS.
Beijing is NOT going to like or tolerate this.
Caroline Kennedy's job as Ambassador to Japan is to prevent China-Japan War [+ by extension US-China war], just got harder.
Caroline may be able to delay a China-Japan war, but might not be able to stop or prevent one in LT iff OWG Co-Superpower China still sees "US-style", over-the horizon [OTH] strategic access in East Asia-Pacific + around the World as absolutely vital or key to its newfound status under Anti-US = NON-US DOMINATED OWG-NWO + Globalism - DITTO AS PER PUTIN-LED RUSSIA + IRAN, OTHER, EITHER NATIONS ANDOR NGOS.
* FYI DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Popular Science] CHINESE SHIPYARD LOOKS TO BUILD ITS OWN [1.0Milyuhn-tonne] GIANT FLOATING ISLANDS.
China + PLA'S [larger?] version of the USDOD'S
MOABS.
* MANILA TIMES > EDITORIAL: "MALAYSIA'S ROLE [MILF, Bangsamoro Govt. + BBL] SHOULD BE EXPLAINED".
ARTIC > MANDO QUEZON = indic the desire of the MILF to have ALL OF MINDANAO, PALAWAN, + SPRATLYS AS ITS OWN SOVEREIGN TERRITORY FREE OF MANILA + CHRISTIAN = NON-MUSLIM PHILIPINES.
-----------------
Lest we fergit,
* LUCIANNE > [Bloomberg] OBAMA [deliberately] KEPT IRAN'S NUCLEAR BREAKOUT TIME A SECRET.
* SAME > [Real Clear Politics] OBAMA: "THERES A OF OF CHAOS AND TUMULT IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW".
Which IMO he as an Anti-US US OWG Globalist did much to cause andor induce, + did so INTENTIONALLY.
The good news ....
* JAPAN TIMES > OPINION: GLOBALISM IN [dire] NEED OF REVIVAL.
[AnNahar] Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin on Monday rejected Iran's offer to mediate a solution to the crisis in his war-torn country, insisting that Tehran-backed rebels surrender.
"Any mediation effort coming from Iran is unacceptable because Iran is involved in the Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... issue," Yassin said on the sidelines of an Arab-Turkish economic meeting in Kuwait City.
"Iran has become a major part of the Yemeni crisis and those who are a party to the crisis... cannot become mediators," he said.
Iran has been backing the Shiite Houthis who along with forces loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... have taken control of most of Yemen, prompting air strikes from a Saudi-led coalition to support the government.
Yassin said thousands of anti-government fighters had been killed since the start of the air strikes on March 26.
The Saudi-led air campaign was launched following a plea from President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after rebels closed in on his refuge in the southern city of Aden. He has since fled to Riyadh.
The minister said Yemen's exiled government will not accept negotiations unless the Huthis and pro-Saleh forces lay down arms.
"The Huthis and Saleh forces must withdraw from all cities and villages of Yemen, including Sanaa and Aden, return to (their northern stronghold of) Saada as civilians, and lay down their arms," Yassin said.
"After that we can talk about dialogue and a political solution. But now there is no room for negotiations," he said.
Yassin said that Arab and other countries will take part in a meeting to study plans for the reconstruction of Yemen after the war.
"There is a project we are studying with Gulf countries, an 'Arab Marshall plan' for reconstruction in Yemen," he said, referring to the U.S. program that helped rebuild Europe after World War II.
He provided no date for the meeting.
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04/21/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Australia and Iran will share intelligence to track imported muscle working with the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in Iraq, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Monday, as politicians urged caution.
In the first trip to Iran by an Australian minister in more than a decade, Bishop said it would be an informal arrangement.
Her comments came after a meeting with Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, President Hassan Rouhani and Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign affairs adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"We have a common purpose with Iran in defeating Daesh and helping the Iraqi government," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, using an Arabic acronym to refer to the Lion of Islam IS organization.
"During my discussions with the national leadership here, it was agreed that we could share intelligence, particularly on the foreign terrorist fighters from Australia who are taking part in this conflict in Iraq."
More than 100 Australians have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight with the jihadists, raising concerns about the threat of "home-grown" bad boys.
On Saturday, two men were nabbed Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in Melbourne for allegedly planning an IS-inspired attack at Anzac Day commemorations on April 25 honouring soldiers who fought and died for Australia.
Bishop said Tehran had a strong military presence and long relationship with Iraq, coupled with a sophisticated intelligence network in places where Canberra had no presence.
"I believe that Iran has information that we would seek and they were very agreeable to share that information with us," she said, without spelling out what Tehran would get in return.
"I won't go into detail of our intelligence-sharing arrangements," she said.
"But obviously if Iran has information that will be of interest to us, if we have information that would be of interest to them, in pursuing our common purpose of defeating Daesh, then that is an appropriate exchange."
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, a former intelligence analyst, warned Canberra it was "flirting with evil".
"The regime in Iran can't be trusted and Australia is flirting with evil by establishing any sort of security relationship with it," he said, adding that Tehran had a track record of disseminating disinformation to further its own agenda.
The Labor opposition also urged caution.
"We need to keep our eyes open whenever we deal with them," Labor leader Bill Shorten said.
Australia is part of an international coalition in Iraq and last week began deploying 330 more troops to train local soldiers fighting IS, joining an aerial and special forces contingent in the region.
Iran, though not part of the coalition, has run a parallel campaign using Shia militias and military advisers to reverse the IS surge that came close to felling the Baghdad government last June.
Bishop said she made a point of explaining to Tehran that the deployment of more troops was strictly for military training purposes.
"I don't want there to be any misunderstanding, any miscalculation or any misjudgement, and I made that point very clearly to each one of the leaders that I met," she said.
"They must have an understanding of our role, because there's a lot of misinformation that is flowing around Iraq and we know that Daesh is very good at propaganda."
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04/21/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Italia is studying the possibility of mounting "targeted interventions" against Libya-based people smugglers behind a huge surge in the numbers of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Monday.
"The hypothesis of military intervention (to stabilize Libya) is not on the table... but what is possible are targeted interventions to destroy a criminal racket," Renzi said at a presser with his Maltese counterpart Joseph Muscat.
"Attacks on death rackets, attacks against slave traders (traffickers) are in our thinking," Renzi said, adding that defense ministry experts were studying all options.
The option of some sort of limited military action aiming to take out or apprehend smuggling kingpins was first raised last week by Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.
He said the operations could be based on the example of anti-terrorist strikes carried out as part of the allied campaign against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in Iraq and Syria.
Italia regards the reestablishment of the rule of law and state authority in conflict-torn Libya as key to addressing the migrant crisis.
Rome has said it would be willing to lead an international peacekeeping force in its former colony but only if the warring parties have first agreed to a U.N.-brokered ceasefire and peace accord.
The chaos in Libya is widely seen as allowing people traffickers from all over north Africa to operate out of the country with impunity.
#1
The chaos in Libya is widely seen as allowing people traffickers from all over north Africa to operate out of the country with impunity.
If its all the North African med states, how will a mission of Italians in Libya stop it?
I heard a report on the subject of the flood of migrants to Europe on NPR yesterday. Apparently these people pay $1,000 each for a place on a boat crossing the Mediterranean. One of them gets to ride free in return for steering the thing -- the people smugglers just take money, provide an overaged fishing boat, and point the thing in the northerly direction. Each boat carries an average of 700 passengers.
[AnNahar] The Greek island of Lesbos is being flooded by a rising tide of people seeking to illegally migrate to Europe from the nearby Turkish coast on just about anything that will float.
"The situation is no longer manageable," said International Organization for Migration worker Zoi Livaditou, who each morning takes stock of new groups of immigrants plucked from the Aegean Sea or arriving on the beach after risky night-time crossings.
"We're averaging around 200 arrivals each day," Livaditou said, noting that Lesbos' capital, Mytilene, counts only 36,000 full-time residents.
But with both Mytilene and a recently-opened detention centre now overflowing -- and with aid workers unable to give those rescued much more than survival blankets -- local officials now see little alternative to letting immigrants continue on their journey to reach Athens.
"We started on foot from Iran," said a 25-year-old Iran-born Afghan who recently arrived from the Turkish coast, visible to the naked eye from Lesbos.
"We walked nearly 20 hours towards The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... without food or water, and some people were maimed," he said, adding that he left his mother and two brothers behind in the hopes of getting "a chance to be reborn" in Europe.
Most migrants make the crossing to Lesbos in inflatable boats supplied by human traffickers. Confiscated by the Greek coasties, a growing number of the flimsy vessels can now be seen bobbing on the waves near the island's pier.
- Mother and newborn twins -
"It was very dangerous. The inflatable boat was packed with people, it was dark, and there were lots of little children," said Ismail Kadilah, a 37-year-old Kurd who fled the war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo.
Encountered as he disembarked from a ferry in Athens' Piraeus port, Kadilah said he spent "two days in a camp on Lesbos."
After that, he said, authorities "released us and bought us a ticket for Athens."
Kadilah said his wife and three children were still in Turkey, waiting for him to "rent an apartment thanks to someone we know from Syria who is already in Athens" -- a phrase often used by immigrants who take squalid rooms from slum landlords doing business in Greece's capital.
The market for such shady services is ripe.
Neither Athens nor other Greek cities have many facilities to provide first aid or lodgings to migrants and asylum seekers.
According to the state secretariat for immigration created by Greece's new hard-left government, the entire country counts only 200 emergency quarters, 1,000 lodgings and 300 rooms to house minors.
The new government blames that scarcity on the political priorities of previous cabinets. Those, officials say, focused on opening confinement centres with capacities for about 4,500 immigrants each, and where detention can last up to 18 months.
To deal with the surging influx of people, government officials have called on local authorities to use abandoned state buildings, stadiums or military barracks as temporary quarters for newly arrived immigrants.
A total 10,445 migrants arrived on Greek shores during the first quarter of 2015, a number more than tripling the 2,863 people registered during the same period last year, according to the coasties.
Those figures confirmed the acceleration of illegal immigration to Greece in 2014, when 43,518 people arrived by maritime routes compared to 11,447 in 2013.
All Greece's Aegean islands are affected by the influx, including Leros, Kos, Chios, Rhodes and Crete.
On Saturday, Greek coasties boats rescued a group of migrants off the southern coast of Samos, a young mother and her newborn twins among them.
#5
I recall that there were tides of immigration that swept Europe periodically the past several thousand years. Every so often another tribe from Asia or the Middle East would blow through and set up shop. I'm beginning to wonder if this is just another one of those.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2015 18:28 Comments ||
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[AnNahar] Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu drew ridicule Monday after blaming a printing error for the absence of any mention of the grinding of the peace processor with Kurdish rebels in his party's manifesto for June 7 elections.
The grinding of the peace processor to end a decades-long conflict with the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) has been one of the cornerstone policies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has been in power for over 12 years.
But commentators were mystified last week when there was no mention of the grinding of the peace processor neither in the AKP's 350-page election manifesto nor in a long speech by Davutoglu to present it.
The prime minister insisted that the omission had no meaning and said some pages had slipped off on the way to the printers due to a problem with the digital formatting.
"We noticed that some pages fell out when the manifesto was being sent to printer: one or two pages fell out," Davutoglu said on Sunday.
"But those pages will be added back and the manifesto will be reprinted," he added.
Journalists also pointed to the fact that the word "Kurdish" had been mentioned only once in the manifesto, which referred to the country's biggest minority as "Kurdish origin citizens".
His statement drew widespread ridicule on social media, with users arguing that a party cannot run a country if it is unable to use a printer.
"You don't even know how to use a printer, how can you run a country?" said Twitter user @seldaalkan.
Journalist Bulent Kenes from the now strongly anti-AKP Zaman daily quipped: "I didn't know you (Davutoglu) had such a great sense of humour!"
The government is seeking to make peace with Kurdish leaders to end the decades-long insurgency in the southeast by the PKK for self-rule and greater rights that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The AKP is relying on Kurdish support in June 7 parliamentary elections to push through changes to the country's constitution to create a system in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... would wield strong executive powers.
However the grinding of the peace processor appears to have hit a stumbling block in recent months with divisions over whether the PKK should disarm before or after a peace deal.
So good of this Pakistani newspaper to concern itself with America's little problems.
[Dawn] A pilot programme launched by the B.O. regime to prevent radicalisation from taking root is creating suspicion that it's a plot to profile American Moslems.
Law enforcement officials have been doing such outreach for years. But now that federal officials are putting their stamp on it, some Moslems and others fear it is profiling disguised as prevention and worry it could compromise civil liberties and religious freedom.
The effort divides Moslem leaders who, on one side, argue that more must be done to fight extremism in their community and that this programme is a historic opportunity for input. Others fear the programme, which could be rolled out nationwide after being being tested in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Boston, is just another veiled way for law enforcement to target their community.
Sceptics remember the New York police department's surveillance of Moslems, uncovered in an investigation in 2011, and an FBI informant's description of how he was taught to ingratiate himself to a southern Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, religious community in the mid-2000s to secretly gather contact information and record conversations.
The US government announced the "countering violent extremism programme" last fall, billing it as a community-driven initiative to tackle terrorism and bully boy recruitment by preventing radicalisation from taking root.
President Barack Obama I bowled a 129. It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something... later said Moslems needed to fight a misconception that groups like the self-styled Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... speak for them, even as senior administration officials insisted they were not focusing exclusively on that particular threat.
Some 20,000 fighters have joined the Islamic State group and other murderous Moslems in their campaigns in Iraq and Syria, including at least 3,400 from Western nations, according to US intelligence agencies.
As many as 150 are estimated to be American, though they did not succeed in reaching the war zone. Officials have long eyed the threat of home-grown murderous Moslems such as Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building and killed 168 people 20 years ago.
But the rise of the IS group has taken front and centre in the past year. The countering violent extremism programme is led by attorneys' offices, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, local law enforcement agencies and, critically, local faith and community groups.
Posted by: chris ||
04/21/2015 5:21 Comments ||
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#9
we SHOULD be profiling - not on race but on the politico-religious dogma of islamofascism.
We should name Islamofascism as the enemy, ban sharia. Ban funding for mosques, foundations or religious schools by Saudi Arabia or anybody within Saudi Arabia. Ban religious organisations from raising money by certifying food - they want Halal Certification then they pay for it themselves.
ban faith courts.
Then subject all mosques and religious schools to independent auditing. Ban any imams who preach loyalty to Sharia as more important than loyalty to the secular law of the land.
#10
they analysed us and they know it's a winning strategy to appeal to the concept of "race".
That's how they win, especially when they appeal to the left within our society.
To counter it, be sure to always use secular Muslims as your allies which they are.
Eg: Ban sharia. Islamists want sharia but secular Muslims do not. Therefore you Islamofascists are not representing all Muslims. Therefore you cannot call this position racist since it's clearly not a race and you don't even speak for all Muslims.
#11
Islam is an ideology. Unlike race it is something ypou can reject so I am not going to allow yopu to profess it if it enfdnagers me or lmy beloved one. I will fight it just like I would have fought the Aztec religion, Communism or Nazism. Unhappy about thois? Reject it.
Posted by: Bill Javitch3680 ||
04/21/2015 7:18 Comments ||
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#12
Profiling? Of course they would say this. This is what they do. I'd say we should do more of this. The last time I looked our enemy is not the little old ladies with umbrellas, Mormons, Mennonites, 7th Day Adventists, Tea Party, conservatives, Christians, etc. However, the "O" admin does seem to think the Christians and conservatives are the enemy.
[Dawn] Afghan military chief Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi called on Saturday for "sincere" counter-terrorism cooperation between his country and Pakistain and cautioned against missing the "historic opportunity" of defeating terrorists.
"Countering and ultimately defeating this menace and threat [of terrorism] effectively, therefore, requires sincere, close, result-oriented cooperation and coordination...based on the accepted principles and norms of equality, non-interference in each other's affairs and mutual respect," the Afghan chief of general staff said at a passing out parade at the Pakistain Military Academy (PMA), Kakul.
The Afghan commander became the first foreign dignitary to preside over the commissioning ceremony of officers who completed their training at the country's premier military school. Six Afghan cadets are also undergoing training at the school.
Continued on Page 49
[Dawn] ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Watch ... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge.... , Privacy International, Digital Rights Foundation and other organizations have expressed serious concerns over the proposed Prevention of Electronic Crimes (PEC) Bill and declared it a risk to the freedom of expression and privacy in Pakistain.
In a joint statement, issued on Monday, members of the Senate have been urged to take a stand against the bill and ensure that any new cybercrime legislation is fully compliant with international human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. standards.
"We have serious misgivings about the process through which the PEC bill was drafted and revised. By excluding civil society and the private sector from consultation on the bill, the government prevented genuine public scrutiny of the bill, prior to voting in the National Assembly.
"Resultantly, not only the democratic process in Pakistain, has been undermined but the bill contains several provisions which are potentially damaging to privacy and freedom of expression," the statement said.
"In breach of Pakistain's obligations under the international human rights law, Section 34 of the bill is overly broad and fails to include adequate safeguards for the protection of the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. It empowers the government to order service providers to remove or block access to any speech, sound, data, writing, image, or video, without any approval from a court," it further noted.
The statement said that by removing judicial oversight, the bill is a 'blank cheque for abuse'.
It was further noted that although the bill provides for a complaint procedure, it does not require such a procedure to be put in place nor is there any requirement for the complaint procedure to include the right to appeal to an independent tribunal.
"In any case, even an ex post facto right of appeal is likely to be inadequate given the sheer breadth of the blocking powers contained in section 34," the statement said.
It was also noted that the bill allows the federal government to unilaterally share intelligence with foreign spy agencies without any independent oversight.
"The cooperation between intelligence agencies must be governed by specific laws and overseen by an independent oversight body, capable of ensuring intelligence is not shared when it puts human rights at risk. As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated last year in her report on the right to privacy in the digital age, intelligence sharing arrangements that lack clear limitations risk violating human rights law," the statement said.
The statement recommended that information-sharing with foreign governments and entities should be regulated by specific laws and subject to independent oversight. A clear and accessible legal regime, compliant with international law, should govern any data copied by the state authorities.
Digital Rights Foundation Representative Nighat Daad told Dawn her organization had been working for the rights of international users and found the bill undemocratic.
"The bill was drafted secretly and no one is aware of what the actual draft bill contains. Whatever has been revealed is unacceptable. The bill gives monitoring agencies, the right to arbitrarily block any content," she said. She said the bill gave agencies massive power to carry out surveillance without judicial oversight.
"According to the law, e-mail cannot be sent to anyone without their permission, otherwise the receiver can register an FIR against the sender," she said.
"It is suspected that only vigorous punishments will be given under the National Action Plan but anyone including civil society activists and journalists may be victimised," she said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/21/2015 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] DUHOK, Kurdistan Region -- Eight Yezidi have arrived in Snune town, north of Shingal, after nearly nine months in ISIS captivity, a Kurdish official said.
"We have ramped up our efforts to rescue all Yezidi hostages from ISIS. Recently, we managed to free another eight Yezidi in coordination with Shingal security forces,"Mahmood Nuri, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government Office of Refugee Affairs, told Rudaw on Monday.
"Until now, an estimated 905 Kurdish Yezidi have been freed from ISIS captivity in Iraq and Syria," he added.
Qasim Simo, of the Shingal security office, also told Rudaw on Monday: "The condition of the rescued Yezidis, consisting of four children and four women, is not critical and they are originally from the village of Kochon near Shingal."
Two weeks ago, 31 Yezidi prisoners escaped the captivity of ISIS in Tal Afar, a city in northern djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... province, according to a Peshmerga official.
On April 8, more than 200 Yezidis were released after more than eight months in the hands of ISIS, a Kurdish security official said.
ISIS overran the Yezidi ancestral land in Shingal in August, unleashing a wave of atrocities against the religious minority that included looting, mass executions, organized rape and slavery.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/21/2015 00:00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] An ex-intelligence officer under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was "the strategic head" behind the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and drew up the blueprints for the jihadists' capture of northern Syria, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
Former colonel Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, who was better known as Haji Bakr and was killed by Syrian rebels in January 2014, "had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years", according to the magazine.
The weekly said it had been given exclusive access to 31 documents by Bakr, including handwritten lists and charts, after lengthy negotiations with a rebel group in Aleppo, northern Syria, which came in possession of the pages after IS fled the area.
The trove "was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover", according to Spiegel, detailing the creation of a caliphate in northern Syria, complete with meticulous instructions for espionage activities, murder and kidnapping.
The magazine said Bakr was "bitter and unemployed" after the American decision to dissolve the Iraqi army in 2003. Between 2006 and 2008 he was held in the U.S. military's Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib prison.
In the years that followed his influence grew in jihadist circles, Spiegel reported, and in 2010 Bakr and a group of other former Iraqi intelligence officers placed holy manHis Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... at the head of the Islamic State group.
The move was reportedly designed to give the group a religious dimension.
The weekly quotes an Iraqi journalist as saying career officer Bakr was himself "a nationalist, not an Islamist".
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04/21/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
And Saddam was working on others too. It was going to be all of this and more, if you did not put a cap on Iraq.
#2
After the Saddam's fall, the dismantling of Iraqi army was a cockup of the first order. There were senior military personnel in and out of the Pentagon that advised against it, but the dismantling took place anyway. Of course nothing coming forth from the Center for Lessons Learned, unless I've missed something.
#3
When both Arial Sharon & Saudi king give you, virtually, the same advice "Choose a 'nice' Sunni general and appoint him the new headman."---you ought to listen.
[AnNahar] The Ketaeb Hezbollah paramilitary group handed over the body of a man suspected of being Saddam Hussein's long-runaway deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri to Iraq's government on Monday for further testing.
Killing Duri -- who was vice president at the time of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has for years been the most senior member of Saddam's regime still on the lam -- would be a major victory for Baghdad.
Ketaeb Hezbollah says the man killed by pro-government forces on Friday was Duri, but he had previously been reported dead only to resurface in audio and video messages.
"Today, we handed over the body of the criminal Izzat al-Duri to the Iraqi government" after confirming his identity with "tests and also testimony from those who previously met him", Ketaeb Hezbollah front man Jaafar al-Husseini told journalists.
Husseini told AFP the day before that two men captured by Ketaeb Hezbollah who had seen Duri in the past six months said the dead man was him, but that account could not be independently confirmed.
Ketaeb Hezbollah -- one of the most powerful militias fighting alongside government forces against the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) jihadist group -- delivered the body in a heavily armed convoy of dozens of vehicles to a blocked-off section of street in central Baghdad.
It was transferred in a transparent container to a white Mercedes van, which then departed.
A health ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , confirmed it had received the body and would conduct DNA testing.
Ghanim Abdulkarim Ghanim, a human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. ministry official, had earlier said the government would use available files on Duri to determine whether it was him.
If necessary, it would seek to compare a blood sample to that of a relative, or identify the body by its physical features.
Husseini, speaking on a Ketaeb Hezbollah-affiliated television station on Sunday, said the man believed to be Duri was killed near the town of al-Alam north of Baghdad, and his body later transferred to the militia.
That account squared with one from Omar Abdullah al-Jbara, a leader in the volunteer forces from Al-Alam, who said local fighters and police clashed with a group of men on Friday, killing 12, including one who resembled Duri.
The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order -- known by its Arabic initials JRTN and believed to be close to Duri -- took part in a sweeping IS-led holy warrior offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last June.
But little has been heard from JRTN and other groups since, with IS dominating the conquered territory.
Senior members of Saddam's Baath party, to which Duri belonged, have also reportedly played a major role in IS itself.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/21/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Wasn't there a sizable reward on him? Is is still active?
[StrategyPage] They established a fierce reputation with their adversaries in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Telemark operators also use psychological warfare. An example of this is their use of their logo (similar to the skull symbol used by the Marvel comics character the Punisher) in Afghanistan, where they would come at night and mark homes of Taliban or Taliban sympathizers with a spray painted version of their logo. Many of the Telemark operators consider themselves modern day Vikings and not to be messed with. In Iraq and Afghanistan the Islamic terrorists quickly learned to avoid these Norwegian soldiers who were more unpredictable and dangerous than most European troops. (emphasis added)
Israel has added the name of a Palestinian teen to its "Monument to the Memory of the Victims of Terrorism", upsetting the youth's parents and a group representing families of slain Israelis with both demanding his name be removed.
Sixteen-year-old Mohammed Khudair, according to a murder indictment, was burned alive in July in Jerusalem by three Israelis avenging the deaths of three Jewish teenagers killed by Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank a month earlier.
Both incidents drew world attention and Israel, citing a nationalist motive for Khudair's death, swiftly declared the Palestinian youth a "victim of terrorism", enabling his family in occupied East Jerusalem to receive Israeli state stipends.
His accused murderers are still on trial, and the case has largely faded from public attention.
But it resurfaced in an outpouring of bitterness on Tuesday, the eve of Israel's annual Remembrance Day for soldiers and civilians killed in decades of conflict, when state-owned radio reported that Khudair's name had been officially inscribed on the stone monument in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery.
The Almagor Terror Victims Organisation, a group founded in 1986 and representing the families of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks, demanded the government remove the plaque honoring Khudair.
"(Khudair's) name on the memorial debases the memory of all the other fallen people," Yossi Tzur, an Almagor member whose 17-year-old son was killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in 2003, told Israel Radio.
"He is not part of the Israeli ethos. He is not part of the sacrifice our children made at the altar for the sake of Israel's establishment and existence," Tzur said.
Khudair's parents told Reuters they had not been consulted by Israel about adding their son's name to the memorial, which lists more than 4,000 people.
"We can't accept that his name be included among soldiers who killed his relatives in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank," said Khudair's father, Hussein.
His mother, Suha, said her son was "a Palestinian martyr, and not Israeli", and their family felt shamed. Maybe, as long as his family doesn't have a vote in Israel.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities as the clock ticked down to the start of Remembrance Day after sundown on Tuesday.
Israel regards the monument as an important national symbol, and Pope Francis visited the site during a Holy Land pilgrimage last May.
[AnNahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... said he had invited 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... snuffies to fight alongside his regime but he denied the presence of Iranian troops in Syria in an interview with French television broadcast Monday.
Continued on Page 49
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[AnNahar] Leb is expected to witness a new wave of security attacks by jihadist groups, warned sources to al-Akhbar newspaper on Monday.
They said that a prominent member of the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front had recently arrived in the country to lead these attacks.
Known as al-Ashaath and aged no more than 35, he arrived in Leb to head a jihadist group aimed at carrying out or coordinating terrorist attacks in the country.
The sources added that the previous waves of attacks had relied on jacket wallahs and booby-trapped vehicles, but the new stage will witness "a radical change" in tactics.
"The attackers will not abandon suicide missions, but they will focus more on explosives and 'immersive' operations, because they have a greater impact," they explained.
"There are no restrictions to what can be targeted," they added.
"The war against all who permit the shedding of the blood of Moslems in Leb will be waged again," the sources told al-Akhbar.
"The targets will not be limited to 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... or the army, but should the need arise, they will include western interests that are working on oppressing Moslems," they said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, Gloria slowly backed away from the eight-foot bull frog. If the creature croaked she would surely be deafened... a jihadist commander, who was involved in previous attacks in Leb, told al-Akhbar: "The previous jihadist strategy has failed."
He attributed the failure to electronic and security infiltration of the terrorist groups.
He revealed that military barracks and embassies are viable targets for attacks.
Terror groups had in recent months carried out attacks against Hizbullah strongholds in Leb, including those in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahieh.
They had also targeted army checkpoints in various regions in the country.
The security forces and military had in return cracked down on gunnies and terrorists, arresting several suspects.
The most recent operation led to the arrest of dangerous suspect Sheikh Khaled Hoblos, who along with his gang, had waged festivities with the army in the northern region of Bhannine in October.
#2
Geographically speaking, the military attracts a proportionally larger percentage of recruits from southern states while youth of northeastern states are underrepresented.
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.
[StrategyPage] They established a fierce reputation with their adversaries in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Telemark operators also use psychological warfare. An example of this is their use of their logo (similar to the skull symbol used by the Marvel comics character the Punisher) in Afghanistan, where they would come at night and mark homes of Taliban or Taliban sympathizers with a spray painted version of their logo. Many of the Telemark operators consider themselves modern day Vikings and not to be messed with. In Iraq and Afghanistan the Islamic terrorists quickly learned to avoid these Norwegian soldiers who were more unpredictable and dangerous than most European troops. 
