[AlAhram] The number of Coptic families who have fled North Sinai’s El-Arish for Port Said after a series attacks on Christians has risen to 28 families with 93 members, priest Armia Fahmy, the spokesperson of the Port Said Coptic archbishopric, told Ahram Arabic website on Sunday.
Fahmy says that the families have been housed at the International Scouts Camp, as well as in homes provided by the Mary Girgis Church in Port Fouad and at the city’s relief centre. A number of students have been enrolled at different Port Said schools, with some already attending classes.
The spokesperson said that the Bishop of Port Said thanked the governorate and security officials for providing assistance to the families, and added that the number of fleeing families is expected to increase, therefore requiring more housing.
At the start of this month, the number of Copts who have fled North Sinai to the city of Ismailiya had risen to 143 families.
The cabinet had said earlier that a total 118 Coptic families have fled North Sinai, 96 of whom were given shelter in neighbouring Ismailiya, eight in Qalioubiya, 12 in Assiut, and two in Cairo.
The recent series of killings in North Sinai came after the Egyptian affiliate of 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.... hard boy group called on its supporters to attack Christians across the country in a video in which it grabbed credit for a deadly attack on a church in Cairo in December.
[CNN] North Korea has fired four ballistic missiles, three of which landed within 200 nautical miles of Japan, the country's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday.
Speaking to the Japanese parliament, Abe said the launch was a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions. "It is an extremely dangerous action," he said.
A US official also confirmed that Pyongyang fired four projectiles, which appeared to be ballistic missiles.
Abe said three landed within Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from its coastline according to international maritime law.
The move comes as South Korea and the United States hold joint military exercises, which Pyongyang views as preparations for an invasion.
A spokesman for the South Korea Defense Ministry, said "several projectiles" flew about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
The launch took place in Tongchang-ri, in the country's North Pyongan province, and the projectiles are believed to have landed in the Sea of Japan, which is also known as the East Sea, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry official.
The Japanese prime minister called the latest launches “utterly intolerable”. But he hasn't done anything about it, so he's tolerating it just fine...
[SCMP] North Korean weapons barred by UN sanctions ended up in the hands of UN peacekeepers in Africa, a confidential report says. That incident and others in more than a half-dozen African nations show how North Korea, despite facing its toughest sanctions in decades, continues to avoid them on the world’s most impoverished continent with few repercussions.
The annual report by a UN panel of experts on North Korea illustrates how Pyongyang evades sanctions imposed for its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to cooperate "on a large scale", including military training and construction, in countries from Angola to Uganda.
We don't have much swat with Angola, but Uganda? They contribute troops to ANISOM and are dependent on EU funds.
Among the findings was the "largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions" against North Korea, with 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades found hidden under iron ore that was destined for Egypt in a cargo vessel heading toward the Suez Canal. The intended destination of the North Korean-made grenades, seized in August, was not clear.
A month before that, the report says, a UN member state seized an air shipment destined for a company in Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... containing military radio communications items. It was the second time military-related items had been caught being exported from North Korea to Eritrea "and confirms ongoing arms-related cooperation between the two countries". Eritrea is also under UN sanctions for supporting gangs in the Horn of Africa.
Discovering such evasions is challenging because Africa has the world’s lowest rate of reporting on monitoring UN sanctions on North Korea. Just 11 of its 54 countries turned in reports to the panel of experts last year, the UN report says.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/06/2017 00:00 ||
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[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Turkish politicians should be banned from political campaigning across the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said Sunday.
"A collective EU response to prevent such campaign events would make sense so that individual countries like Germany where appearances are forbidden don’t end up being pressured by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ," Kern told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
Ankara is wooing voters among Germany’s three-million-strong population of Turkish origin -- the largest outside Turkey -- to support expanding President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... ’s powers in an April 16 referendum.
Several German towns prevented appearances by Erdogan’s ministers last week, citing security and safety concerns.
The cancellations have angered the Turkish government, which accused Berlin of seeking to undermine its referendum campaign.
Defying local authorities’ block on a referendum rally, economy minister Nihat Zeybekci is to speak Sunday at two private events organized by Turkish groups in Cologne ...a lovely city in Germany. They invented perfume there... and nearby Leverkusen.
Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... on Saturday called Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to smooth the troubled waters, and the two countries’ foreign ministers are set to meet later this week.
Berlin would "certainly not end our criticism of developments in Turkey," German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel said Sunday in a guest article for newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/06/2017 00:00 ||
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[GatestoneInstitute] In 1990, the "Gayssot law" was passed, stipulating that "any discrimination based on ethnicity, nation, race or religion is prohibited". Since then, it has been used to criminalize any criticism of Arab and African delinquency, any question on immigration from the Muslim world, any negative analysis of Islam. Many writers have been fined and most "politically incorrect" books on those topics have disappeared from bookshops.
The French government asked the media to obey the "Gayssot law." It also asked that history textbooks be rewritten to include chapters on the crimes committed by the West against Muslims, and on the "essential contribution" of Islam to humanity. All history textbooks are "Islamically correct."
In hospitals, Muslims are increasingly asking to be treated only by Muslim doctors, and refusing to let their wives be treated by male doctors.
[DeutscheWelle] The Tunisian had frequently consumed cocaine and cannabis before driving a truck into a Berlin Christmas market. Italian authorities said they could not exclude the possibility he consumed drugs the day of the attack.
An autopsy of Tunisian suspected terrorist Anis Amri's body found traces of habitual consumption of cocaine and cannabis, reported Italia's ANSA news agency on Friday.
Italian prosecutors said while he likely had not consumed narcotics the day he was killed, they could not exclude the possibility he had been under the influence of drugs the day of the attack.
Munich-based daily "Suddeutsche Zeitung" revealed Amri, a failed asylum seeker, unintentionally told a federal police informant that he wanted to "do something in Germany" and could acquire an AK-47 assault rifle in 2015.
Amri last year drove a stolen lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving 12 dead and dozens more injured. He expeditiously departed at a goodly pace and traveled across western Europe despite an international manhunt.
Four days after the attack, he was rubbed out by Italian police on the outskirts of Milan during a routine ID check. He drew a weapon from his backpack and shot one of the Italian officers before being 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.... " grabbed credit for the Berlin attack, releasing a video in which Amri pledged allegiance to the bully boy group's leader His 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... The case drew widespread criticism when Munich-based daily "Suddeutsche Zeitung" revealed Amri, a failed asylum seeker, unintentionally told a federal police informant that he wanted to "do something in Germany" and could acquire an AK-47 assault rifle in 2015.
Crime-terror nexus
Despite the warning, German authorities in early 2016 concluded he did not pose a threat following a months-long surveillance program, deeming him a mere errand boy. Prior to the attack, Amri had a running history of drug dealing and petty crime. German authorities had detained Amri ahead of deportation for the maximum time allowed, but he was released after Tunisian officials failed to produce identity documents for him. Germany and Tunisia on Friday agreed to an immigration deal that will speed up deportations from Germany.
More than half of Europe's imported muscle had a criminal record, illustrating the relationship between crime and terror.
In October, researchers at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) revealed that more than half of Europe's imported muscle had a criminal record, illustrating the relationship between crime and terror.
"The presence of former criminals in terrorist groups is neither new nor unprecedented," the report said.
"But with the 'Islamic State' and the ongoing mobilization of European jihadists, the new phenomenon has become more pronounced, more visible and more relevant to the ways in which jihadists groups operate," it added.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/06/2017 00:00 ||
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"The day of the attack, he snorted a fat line of Islam"
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03/06/2017 9:54 Comments ||
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[Fortune] A new report from The Intercept details a system, Investigative Case Management (ICM), created by Palantir Technologies to support investigations by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. The system is scheduled to reach full capacity this fall.
The system, developed through a $41 million contract awarded in 2014, is designed to help ICE agents identify illegal immigrants by collating data from a half-dozen law enforcement databases. By cross-referencing data from the FBI, ATF, DEA, and other entities, ICM can build a profile including a person’s job, background, schooling, relationships, address, criminal record, and other data.
ACLU privacy expert Jay Stanley told The Intercept that conclusions drawn using the ICM tools could be used to engineer the sort of mass deportations President Trump has promised.
[IsraelTimes] Suspect, unnamed by authorities, believed to be dual Iranian-Canadian national who worked on parallel talks team, previously detained for spying.
D'you think Pretty Boy Trudeau will cough up multiple pallets of various cash currencies to ransom his citizen, dear Reader?
Iran’s judiciary has indicted a member of the country’s team that negotiated the nuclear deal with world powers, a front man said Sunday, likely an Iranian-Canadian national previously detained by authorities on suspicion of espionage.
An Iranian-American also faces charges after allegedly taking $3.1 million from people after promising to help them emigrate to foreign countries, judiciary front man Gholamhosein Mohseni Ejehi said, according to reports by Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
Do you think President Trump will palletize cash for this one?
In the case involving the nuclear team member, Ejehi said it would be up to a court to decide whether to try the individual charged. Ejehi did not directly name the team member who had been indicted, nor did he explain what charges the indictment carried.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... Ejehi did say the person involved was a dual national with the initials D.E. That suggests the person indicted likely is Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, a dual Iranian-Canadian national.
In August, hard-line news outlets said authorities detained Esfahani, who reportedly worked as a member of a parallel team focusing on lifting economic sanctions as part of the deal. He later was granted bail, which is rare in Iran for those accused of having committed a serious crime.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Esfahani reportedly served as a member of the Iranian team working at the Hague on disputes between Iran and the United States over pre-revolution purchases of military equipment from the US by Iran. He is a member of the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants in Canada. He also has served as an adviser to the head of Iran’s Central Bank.
It doesn't sound like he has much regard for his other citizenship...
The News Agency that Dare Not be Named could not reach Esfahani for comment. Canadian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The nuclear deal remains a sore spot for Iranian hard-liners, but it was a foreign policy victory for moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani is widely expected to seek a second term in Iran’s May presidential election.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the smoke and fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... Ejehi announced the case against the unnamed Iranian-American, who presumably faces fraud charges.
"The person has been detained but they were not a government official," he said.
The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
There have been several Iranian-Americans detained in the wake of the nuclear deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.
Among them are Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his octogenarian father, Baquer Namazi , who are serving 10-year prison sentences for "cooperating with the hostile American government." Also detained is Robin Shahini , who is serving an 18-year prison sentence "collaboration with a hostile government."
Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, meaning that those it detains cannot receive consular assistance. In most of the recent cases, dual nationals have faced secret charges in closed-door hearings before Iran’s Revolutionary Court, which handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government.
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03/06/2017 00:00 ||
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And then there is Robert Levinson, a Jewish American with no dual citizenship, whose return then-Secretary of State John Kerry said was a priority to the Obama administration when he was "negotiating" the Iran nuclear deal. The Times of Israel reminds us
Levinson disappeared during a trip to Iran’s Kish Island on March 9, 2007. A 2013 Associated Press investigation found he was working for the CIA on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission to find information about Iran’s nuclear program. US officials have said they are no longer certain he remains in the country.
The 2013 AP investigation showed that in a breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from hotspots around the world, including the Middle East and Latin America.
The official story when Levinson disappeared was that he was in Iran on private business, either to investigate cigarette smuggling or to work on a book about Russian organized crime. It has a presence on Kish, a tourist island.
His family is calling on President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise and bring the man home.
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.
[AlAhram] The number of Coptic families who have fled North Sinai’s El-Arish for Port Said after a series attacks on Christians has risen to 28 families with 93 members, priest Armia Fahmy, the spokesperson of the Port Said Coptic archbishopric, told Ahram Arabic website on Sunday.
North Korea
[DeutscheWelle] The Tunisian had frequently consumed cocaine and cannabis before driving a truck into a Berlin Christmas market. Italian authorities said they could not exclude the possibility he consumed drugs the day of the attack.
[IsraelTimes] Suspect, unnamed by authorities, believed to be dual Iranian-Canadian national who worked on parallel talks team, previously detained for spying.
