Ugandan born British citizen Michael Keating and Chatham House Associate Director is set to replace the outgoing UN Special Envoy to Somalia Nicholas Kay whose tenure comes to a close next month, terrorfree Somalia can authoritatively reveal.
Keating who has variously served in public and private sectors in senior political, development and humanitarian positions has spent his childhood in Uganda, Kenya, Somalia and Iran.
Between 2011 and 2012, Keating served as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan where he worked with government, civil society and international community including the NATO assistance force, ISAF on elections, reconciliation, rule of law among others.
Keating comes to office at a crucial time when Somalia is navigating a delicate political process which will culminate into an election in August 2016 when the term of the current administration lapses. He will also be tasked with working closely with the African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM in bolstering security in the country ahead of the elections.
During Kay’s tenure, Somalia has achieved remarkable progress including the state formation process, development of state structures and preparations for elections.
Keating was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1959.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... will pledge an extra £12 billion ($18.2 billion, 17.1 billion euros) for the military Monday as he pushes Britannia's parliament towards a vote on joining air strikes in Syria within days.
The Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) will map out Britannia's defense strategy for the next five years after this month's Gay Paree attacks which killed 130 people showed the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
#1
PM Cameron is repor planning to sell Govt-Public lands + initiate major reforms in order to ensure that the Brit Armed Forces have the best equipment + training $$$ could buy for their upcoming Anti-Terror/ISIS fight.
[AlAhram] Brussels will remain under the highest level of alert for another week due to an ongoing terrorism threat, but schools and the underground train system will reopen from Wednesday, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said.
"The crisis centre decided to maintain the alert level four, which means the threat remains serious and imminent," Michel told a presser, adding the threat level will be reviewed again next Monday.
"We want to thank the people for their calm and understanding," he added.
The army and police will continue to be deployed in force and the country will reduce the number of events with large crowds, for fear of a repeat of the Gay Paree gun and suicide kabooms on November 13, Michel said.
But he added his government was trying to bring the country "back to normal as quickly as possible" while working with the security services.
It decided to reopen schools and the underground metro from Wednesday.
"For schools, that means that in the coming hours, we will guarantee a level of security everywhere on the country's territory," the prime minister said. "As for the metro, the aim is to reopen the metro gradually, but starting on Wednesday."
The rest of the country will remain on alert level three, which means an attack is considered possible and the threat credible.
Brussels has been locked down since Saturday with armed police and troops patrolling quiet streets.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet] Greek Cyprus was expected to deport six French citizens to Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... on Nov. 23 after they were detained at the island's main airport and suspected of links to holy warrior groups, authorities said.
The six French passport holders, five men of Turkish descent and one of Algerian descent, were detained on Nov. 21 evening after arriving at Larnaca airport on a low-cost flight from Basel, Switzerland, police said.
I wondered about that. The Swiss should be embarrassed that they didn't notice there was a problem.
Police said the suspects were aged between 25 and 33.
Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou told state radio that at least three of the six appeared to have "strong links to terrorist groups".
"There were suspicions against these specific individuals upon their arrival at the island," Nicolaou said.
"We have information suggesting that they have strong links to terrorist groups, while Interpol has already informed us that three of those suspects have been identified as having links to a terrorist organization," he said.
"The other three also appear to have some sort of link. They will probably be deported back to Switzerland at some point on Monday [Nov. 23]."
Greek Cyprus has stepped up security at its airports, ports and other public places following the jihadist attacks in Gay Paree earlier this month that left 130 people dead.
#1
Never mind, they aren't connected to the Paris attacks reports An Nahar, but they are undesirable as members of an Islamist association and therefore are being sent back anyway.
[Hurriyet] La Belle France, announcing fresh moves against terrorist financing, said on Nov. 23 it would target prepaid debit cards which it said were used in the recent Gay Paree attacks.
"We will regulate more strictly the use of prepaid cards which were used in the November 13 attacks, in order to make it harder to remain anonymous," Finance Minister Michel Sapin told a news conference.
Currently, prepaid credit cards can be recharged without identity checks so long as they don't exceed 2,500 euros over one year.
Details of stricter debit card rules, which are part of a wider set of measures to combat the financing of terror, are to be given in early 2016, the finance ministry said.
"There are new means of payment which have been created which should be on our radar," said Bruno Dalles, head of the ministry's Tracfin financing intelligence unit.
"I am thinking particularly of prepaid cards, especially if they are delivered in nearby foreign countries and used in La Belle France, for example to book hotel rooms," he told the news conference.
Among other measures, finance ministry officials are to be given easier access to information about suspects on police watchlists, allowing them to probe their finances, Sapin said.
La Belle France is to also to make it easier to freeze a wide range of assets of individuals suspected of committing, or planning to commit, acts of terror, not just their bank accounts, as is the case now.
Sapin also said he would ask EU members to accelerate implementing the bloc's latest anti-money laundering measures.
"We have received messages of sympathy and support from our (foreign) colleagues," Sapin said, but now "we must go beyond emotion and take action".
Sapin also asked the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body fighting money-laundering and terrorist financing, to become "more subtle" when identifying uncooperative states.
For now, the FATF's black list only contains two countries, Iran and North Korea, he noted.
La Belle France will also be asking for easier EU access to SWIFT, the transit system for 90 percent of international bank transfers, Sapin said.
#3
Carefully, Froggy, you might affect the Democrud presidential ambitions of the Beast. How else are the Islamist backers of another ValJar/Huma administration going to funnel the money into the race?
Watch all the heartwringing and counterproductive virtue signalling try to start up again. You've been warned.
[Rudaw] A 4-year old Syrian toddler whose lifeless body was found off the coast of the western Turkish city of Bodrum Sunday by fishermen was among a group of 15 migrants reported missing after a boat sank on its way to Greece, according to Turkish media.
The toddler was identified as a 4-year-old Syrian girl named Sena after a survivor, Nirvan Hassan, identified her, according to the Hurriyet Daily News. Nine bodies have so far been recovered from the lost craft, and the corpses have been sent to the bustling provincial capital Mugla for an appointment with Dr. Quincy, Hurriyet added.
"When she got on the boat, her mother would continuously call out Sena. That's when I learned her name," the Zaman newspaper quoted another survivor as recalling of the incident.
The drowning death of Sena mirrors the death of 3-year-old Kurdish toddler Alan Kurdi, whose body also washed up on The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's Aegean coast after a boat carrying him alongside his family and 15 other migrants sank in September. A picture of Kurdi's limp, lifeless body circulating on social media became a symbol of Syrian refugees fleeing violence in their homeland.
#1
It could mention that the Kurdi's had been in turkey for 2 years before their dad bought a lifeboat and got some of his family killed for a chance at western benefits.
PJ Media does some nice reporting with a healthy dose of snark.
A man, who just two years ago was the poster boy for the far-Left media's attacks against the U.S. government's no-fly list for "unfairly" targeting Muslims, finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison -- arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell.
It's a long way from 2013 when Saadiq Long's cause was being championed by MSNBC's Chris Hayes, Glenn Greenwald, and Mother Jones, and was being represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) terror front.
His story got considerable media attention when his CAIR media representatives here pushed the story that Long wanted to return to his native Oklahoma from his current home in Qatar to visit his ailing mother but couldn't because he was on the TSA's no-fly list. They said his case represented institutional "Islamophobia."
Long's cause got international attention when Glenn Greenwald published an article at The Guardian saying that Long was "effectively exiled from his own country." Kevin Drum of Mother Jones branded it the "Kafkaesque World of the No-Fly List." CAIR has 22 article entries related to Long's case on its website.
After several months of wrangling between his CAIR attorneys and the Department of Homeland Security, Long was temporarily removed from the no-fly list and allowed to return to Oklahoma.
Once home, however, he was still subject to FBI surveillance according to claims he made during a press conference with his CAIR handlers. After an incident with local police and the FBI, Long was apparently placed back on the no-fly list, preventing his return to Qatar.
That prompted even more outrage from the far-Left media and garnered him an appearance with his CAIR handler on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show. Eventually, Long boarded a bus to Mexico and got on a flight there to return home to Qatar.
U.S. and Turkish officials confirmed Long's arrest to PJ Media, saying that he was arrested along with eight others operating along the Turkish-Syrian border. So far, no U.S. media outlet has reported on his arrest.
No kidding. MS-NBC hasn't said a peep? Not a word from Mother Jones?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Kafkaesque World
A harem, a bed, a believer.
Next morning, a huge Ungeziefer!
The press is in trauma:
"It's worse than Obama!
There must've been dust in that reefer."
#3
Even though I don't like the no fly list as it is horribly broken, it was put in place for a reason and there are still reasons for asstwats like this moron to be on there.
Since no date or time period is given in this report, I assume it is a retrospective of cumulative action.
[Rudaw] At least 210 people in Iraq's Anbar province, held captive by 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 (ISIS) last year were rescued by Iraqi forces and reunited with their families, the Iraqi military said Monday.
Several ISIS bandidosLions of Islam also were killed in festivities with the Iraqi forces that were trying to free the hostages.
A statement by the military said that the operation took place in southern Anbar province. It said the captives were from 70 different families and that they had been returned to their tribes.
ISIS seized the Anbar capital of Ramadi on May 17, in what was considered one of the jihadists' most important victories, since majority Sunni Anbar is Iraq's largest province.
The Iraqi government began a military campaign against the bandidosLions of Islam in Anbar on July 13, vowing it would continue until the province is entirely cleared of the turbans.
In September, the bandidosLions of Islam destroyed the key al-Boshjal bridge to stop the advance of Iraqi forces. The Anbar provincial council has asked the Iraqi military to help rescue imprisoned Anbar residents, warning that ISIS might want to use them as human shields.
ISIS is in control of about a third of Iraq since launching a lightning offensive in June last year.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
and speaking of Anbar province, how's that furious Ramadi liberation op coming
the one that was 'days away' two weeks ago
yeah
that one
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/24/2015 7:43 Comments ||
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[Rudaw] Kurds from across Greater Kurdistan have come together to fight ISIS. In the above video Kurds from throughout the region praise their united effort against ISIS in Shingal.
"The united Peshmerga fighters from all parts of Kurdistan fighting ISIS shoulder to shoulder have raised their morale because they feel like they are connected together with a strong relationship," one unnamed Kurdish fighter told Rudaw.
Six minute video at link -- click on the headline to go there.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
See also BHARAT RAKSHAK, LUCIANNE > [NYT] OPINION: JOHN BOLTON: TO DEFEAT THE ISIS, CREATE A SUNNI STATE.
[IsraelTimes] Arab workers to be banned from Etzion settlement bloc; extended family of gunnies to be barred from Israel; mass Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, arrests expected
Amid an escalation of Paleostinian terror attacks, Israel is reportedly set to introduce a series of dramatic new security measures -- including barring the extended family of terrorist assailants from entering Israel, conducting mass arrests of Hamas activists in the West Bank, and deploying large numbers of reserve troops to safeguard terror hot spots.
Legal preparations for some of the measures are now being finalized, Israel's Channel 2 news reported Monday, hours after an Israeli soldier was stabbed to death at a gas station, and a 21-year-old Israeli woman murdered on Sunday was laid to rest.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem, where Hadar Buchris was stabbed to death on Sunday, said the Israel Defense Forces was stepping up its operations in the West Bank and had been given free rein in the area to preempt terror attacks. He urged Israelis to be resilient in the fight against terror.
Among the new measures planned, Channel 2 reported, are wide-ranging arrests of Hamas activists in the West Bank, to prevent the Islamist terror group -- which seeks the elimination of Israel and spearheaded an onslaught of suicide kabooms in the Second Intifada from 2000-2005 -- from stepping up its involvement in the current terror wave. Israel is also looking into the legality of deporting -- from the West Bank to Gazoo -- alleged inciters of violence against Israel.
In a further measure that underlines the sharply increased friction in day-to-day interaction between Israelis and Paleostinians, Israel is also reportedly set to bar all Paleostinian workers from supermarkets, factories and other facilities in the Etzion Bloc of settlements south of Jerusalem, an area that has seen several recent terror attacks. The Paleostinian Maan website said 2,000 Paleostinians could be affected.
As an apparent deterrent and punitive measure, Israel is also to bar the extended family of terrorist assailants from entering Israel -- meaning "80-100" relatives of an attacker, Channel 2 said.
Finally, the report said, the IDF will deploy soldiers called up for reserve duty in January to bolster the standing army and protect terror hot spots, including roads that have been targeted by car-ramming Paleostinian terrorists.
[AlAhram] President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... said on Monday Russian air strikes in Syria would last as long as was necessary to punish those guilty of blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt last month, an incident in which 224 people were killed.
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.... Death Eater group (ISIS) claimed Wednesday that it planted "the bomb that downed the Russian airliner Airbus A-321" over Sinai last month.
ISIS also claimed they downed the Russian plane due to "Russia's rash arrogant decision" to participate directly with its own air force in the war against the "Muslims of Al-Sham," in Syria, starting 30 September 2015.
The Kremlin said last week that a bomb had ripped apart a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month and promised to hunt down those responsible and intensify its air strikes on Islamist forces of Evil in Syria in response.
Egypt has opened an investigation into the causes of the crash, and allowed Russia to take part in the probe that is still underway.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
And the only appropriate punishment can be meted to them in Hell?
This kind of thing -- the destruction of a Kurdish city during which another Kurdish population was decimated -- makes the future neo-Ottoman Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan I chortle with evil glee. Photos can be seen here.
[Hurriyet] The town of Sinjar has become a ghost town since the departure of 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.... and Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) turbans in early November.
Hurriyet news hounds entered the northern Iraqi town near the border with Syria, where around 250,000 Yezidis had lived before the area was seized by ISIL jihadists in August 2014. Many of the fleeing Yezidis were killed, women were forced to slavery, and many died on the mountains trying to escape. Those who managed to survive the harsh conditions of their escape took shelter in the area ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.
Sinjar was recaptured from ISIL on Nov. 13 in a major operation led by forces from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and backed by U.S.-led air strikes. Around 27,000 Peshmerga forces from the Massoud Barzani ... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes... -led KRG entered the town on Nov. 12 and took control. Civilians are still banned from entering the ruined town, where landmines and bomb traps remain active, but Hurriyet news hounds were able to enter the town, where they witnessed traces of war, death, cruelty and occupation.
Camps built for the Yezidis by the KRG and international aid institutions can be seen on the road from Zoha, around 150 kilometers from Sinjar. One side of Sinjar has a road bordering the northern Syrian region of Rojava, where People's Protection Units (YPG) turbans and their flags can be seen. On the road passing from the other side is the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , still under the control of ISIL. In the towns of Sinone and Rabia, which were also occupied by ISIL last year, have no signs of the life.
Yezidis are now living in thousands of tents in the valleys near the mountains that surround Sinjar. These mountains today create a natural border between the Yezidis and ISIL Death Eaters, and on the top of these mountains a mock-up of a vehicle with a heavy machine gun symbolizes the Peshmerga forces ruling on the Yezidi side.
In the ruined Sinjar itself, traces of departed ISIL turbans can be seen everywhere, with bullet holes and turned over cars visible on every street.
Peshmerga forces in the town told Hurriyet's news hounds not to make any move without their knowledge, particularly warning about bomb traps or unwent kaboom! landmines in the area. Sinjar is now filled with pictures of KRG head Barzani and flags of his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
On the walls of the many burned-out houses, scrawled graffiti proudly describes how buildings were looted by ISIL and which senior ISIL commanders carried out the looting.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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Iran's supreme leader, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran, said on Monday U.S. policies in the Middle East region were a threat to both countries and called for closer ties between Tehran and Moscow.
The civil war in Syria has evolved into a c*********k wider proxy struggle between wannabe global powers.
"The United States is now trying to achieve its failed military objectives in Syria by political means," he added, referring to proposed peace talks to end the civil war in Syria.
The U.S. State Department pushed back against the remarks, saying its only intentions are to support the Obamagenda, foreign policy be damned in Syria are to help find a peaceful solution to the conflict there.
Khamenei praised Putin for "neutralizing Washington's plots"...
On Monday Putin relaxed an export ban on nuclear equipment and technology to Iran.
Iran's ambassador to Russia also said on Monday that Moscow had started the process of supplying Tehran with an S-300 anti-missile rocket system. The only thing missing is
Ů ŘąÚŻ بع آ٠عŮŮا
said by Khamenei.
Posted by: Spoter Unimp7266 ||
11/24/2015 00:00 ||
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#4
I'd love to find out how the Russia-led + Iran-led OWG Global Federal Union(s) will ultimately decide or choose their lines of demarcation differentiating or separating their two competing "Spheres of Influence".
D *** NG IT, THERE OUT OF "PAYDAY" BRAND PEANUTS-N-NOUGAT CANDY BARS AT THE LOCAL SUPERMARKET WHERE I SHOP - WHY, GOD, WHY!
Using chemical and other forensic tests FSB agents narrowed down the “likely” location of the bomb to seats 30A and 31A, according to a report in Life News. And they added the bomb packed explosives “equal to one kilo of TNT”.
The report added that the bomb appeared to have been stowed in the space usually reserved for a lifejacket, adding to fears that Islamic State may have used a mole inside the airport to smuggle it on board.
“Investigators and secret service experts managed to locate the seat under which the terrorists planted the bomb which destroyed Airbus A321,” says the report in LifeNews.
“The bomb which was equal to one kilo of TNT exploded and its forces went forwards and hit the rows up to 27. The wave went slightly backwards too and hit the row 32.
Although the Kremlin initially rejected the idea, the head of Russia’s FSB security service told President Vladimir Putin last week it was now clear the explosion was caused by a homemade explosive device on board the plane.
A $50 million reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
#1
“The bomb which was equal to one kilo of TNT exploded and its forces went forwards and hit the rows up to 27. The wave went slightly backwards too and hit the row 32.
You idiots keep telling them how their bomb performed. I'm sure they appreciate the feedback.
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.
David Cameron
North Korea
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
Massoud Barzani
