If they aren't gonna be there, how you gonna talk to them? [REUTERS] Representatives of Afghanistan, China, Pakistain and the United States will meet in Oman next week to discuss reviving peace talks with Afghan Talibs, an Afghan official and a Pak foreign ministry source said on Wednesday.
But it was not clear if Afghan Taliban ...Arabic for students... representatives would join the talks. Taliban sources said they had not yet received an invitation and plan to skip Monday’s discussions in Muscat, casting doubt on efforts to revive long-stalled negotiations.
The four-nation Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QGC), comprising Afghanistan, China, Pakistain and the United States, has been trying to ease the path to direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with little success.
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10/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] Egypt has extended a state of emergency for another three months, starting Friday, the official gazette said on Thursday.
Egypt first imposed the state of emergency in April after two church bombings killed at least 45 people. It was then extended in July for a further three months.
[AnNahar] An investigation into a jihadist truck rampage through a Berlin Christmas market pointed Thursday to a catalog of "gross mistakes" by security services in the lead-up to the deadly attack.
The scathing report found that authorities had missed several opportunities to arrest and deport the driver, Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, long before the attack that claimed 12 lives last December.
The 24-year-old, who had previously been jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in Italia, had been in touch with radical Islamists and sold drugs in Berlin, had managed to escape detection by skipping across German state lines and using different identities.
"Gross mistakes were made that should never have happened," said former prosecutor Bruno Jost in presenting the 72-page report.
Berlin police who had been tipped off that Amri was a potentially violent Islamist had conducted surveillance only on weekdays, taking off weekends and public holidays. And they dropped their observation altogether after the first few weeks.
Berlin police who had been tipped off that Amri was a potentially violent Islamist had conducted surveillance only on weekdays, taking off weekends and public holidays, he said.
And they dropped their observation altogether after the first few weeks, judging Amri to be just a small-time drug pusher.
Although Berlin police could have tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! Amri on drugs charges, he slipped through the net largely because of miscommunications with the prosecution service, he said.
And after the attack, police doctored their records to try and cover up their shortcomings, a revelation that is subject to a criminal investigation.
Six months before the carnage in Berlin, Amri had been arrested in the southern city of Friedrichshafen carrying two fake Italian passports.
But he was held for just two days, although authorities could plausibly have "taken him out of circulation for three or four months," during which time he may have been expelled to Tunisia, Jost said.
Instead, Amri went on to stage the December 19 attack, murdering a Polish truck driver before he plowing the vehicle into a crowd, killing 11 more people and wounding almost 100.
Amri, who had sworn allegiance to 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, was rubbed out days later by Italian police in Milan.
The cynical will note that the report was not released until after Angela Merkel won the recent election. Had this been known beforehand, no doubt AfD and the Free Democrats would have done better, and perhaps Bavaria's Christian Social Union, the more conservative sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, would have competed nationally -- or at least pushed harder about Frau Merkel's colonists.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/13/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
The scathing report found that authorities had missed several opportunities to arrest and deport the driver
In which President Sultan Erdogan I, "the much beloved", continues hollowing out his military.
[Ynet] Ottoman Turkish authorities have issued arrest warrants for 25 soldiers across The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and the breakaway Ottoman Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus, security sources said, as part of a widening crackdown following last year's failed military coup.
The soldiers, on active duty and of varying ranks in Turkey's military, are being sought across 13 provinces and Ottoman Turkish northern Cyprus, the sources said.
Prosecutors in the southeastern province of Mardin ordered the arrest of the soldiers over the "secret military structuring" of the network of US-based holy manFethullah Gulen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , the sources said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/13/2017 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] American Civil Liberties Union files lawsuit against state law that prohibits pariticpation in boycotts against Israel; suit claims Kansas teacher was denied teaching contract for refusing to agree to not boycott Israel; teacher in question reportedly boycotting Israeli products because of Israel's treatment of Paleostinians, claiming that Kansas law violates her free speech rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Kansas law prohibiting state contractors from participating in boycotts against Israel.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit Wednesday for a Wichita public school curriculum coach. It says Esther Koontz was denied a state teacher training contract because she wouldn't sign a statement saying she wasn't boycotting Israel.
The lawsuit says Koontz is boycotting Israeli products because of Israel's treatment of Paleostinians, and that the Kansas law violates her free speech rights.
The law took effect in July. The pro-Paleostinian group Paleostine Legal says 21 states have such laws, but the ACLU says this is its first challenge.
In recent years, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, which aims to "end end international support for Israel's oppression of Paleostinians," has picked up steam, with major figures in the academic, political and global economy fields voicing their disapproval of Israeli actions.
One of these is British director Ken Loach, who announced on Monday he will be donating the proceeds from the screenings of his latest film in Israel to the BDS movement.
Loach's film, "I, Daniel Blake," was widely acclaimed and screened in front of audiences at packed theaters in Israel last spring. At the end of the week, the British branch of the boycott group published a statement revealing it had been the recipient of all proceeds from the film's screening in Israel donated by Loach.
"Ken Loach, thank you for the support and generosity, it gives us strength," the organization's members told the British director.
The Kansas attorney general's office did not immediately reply to phone and email messages seeking comment.
[IsraelTimes] Slamming cultural agency's 'outrageous' anti-Israel decisions, Trump's ambassador says 'all agencies within the UN' are under similar scrutiny.
The State Department announced Thursday that the US is withdrawing from the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), effective December 31, 2018, citing financial considerations, the need for reform and the organization’s “continuing anti-Israel bias.” The Israeli government promptly announced that it would follow suit.
In a statement later Thursday, Ambassador Haley recalled that, “In July, when UNESCO made its latest outrageous and politically based decision, designating the Old City of Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs as part of Palestinian territory, the United States clearly stated that this decision would negatively affect our evaluation of our level of engagement with the organization.” Thursday’s decision to withdraw from UNESCO, she indicated, represented the result of that evaluation.
#2
Its a start. Now pull monetary support from all the so-called "cultural" parts of the un and kick them out of NY. If they want the US to still host the UN, then move it to St Louis. EAST St Loius.
Place your bets, ladies and gents, on how long this agreement will last -- will they make it as far as implementation day (December 1) or melt down before then?
[IsraelTimes] The newly signed agreement in Cairo rests on PA resuming control of Gaza but sticking points remain Hamas recognition of Israel, fate of armed wing
The two major Palestinian factions reached a unity agreement Thursday after Egyptian mediation.
Islamist group Hamas, listed as a terror group by Israel, the US and the EU, and the secular Fatah party have ruled over separate territories since a near civil war in 2007.
Here are key points of the agreement and what remains unaddressed:
The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, will resume full control of Gaza by December 1 at the latest. The PA was kicked out of Gaza in a violent coup 2007 but last month Hamas agreed to hand over civilian power.
All the major Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, will meet in Cairo on November 21 for discussions about forming a unity government.
The border crossings from Gaza with Israel and Egypt will be handed back to the Palestinian Authority in the coming weeks, with a November 1 deadline, according to the Fatah negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed. The crossing with Egypt may require more time for the handover.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Gaza for the first time in a decade in the coming weeks, according to an official from his party.
The issue of tens of thousands of civil servants employed by Hamas will be solved by February 2018, according to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television.
Punitive measures taken by the PA against Gaza, including reductions in energy payments for the strip, are expected to be relieved.
Still to be resolved
The future of Hamas’s 25,000-strong military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was not mentioned in any of the public statements or documents.
Israel has said it will reject any agreement in which Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since 2008, does not disarm, as has the United States. Israel has also demanded it end all terror activity against Israel,and release the remains of two IDF soldiers killed in the 2014 summer war between Israel and Hamas.
Recognition of Israel was also not mentioned. The Abbas-led Palestine Liberation Organization has recognized Israel, while Hamas has not as it is vowed to its destruction.
Hamas is classified as a terrorist group by the United States and European Union, and Western diplomats say they could not accept any government of which Hamas is a part unless it recognizes Israel.
A senior Paleostinian official told French news agency AFP the agreement is set to include 3,000 Paleostinian Authority coppers deployed in the Gazoo Strip and near its border crossings with Israel and Egypt by November 1.
"This effectively means the Paleostinian Authority would resume both security and civil responsibility (in Gazoo)", the official said.
[IsraelTimes] Lead negotiator Saleh al-Arouri, the Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, terror chief who Israel says planned 2014 kidnapping, killing of 3 Israeli teens, explains rationale behind Paleostinian reconciliation.
Reports from Egypt Thursday, quoted by Israel Radio, said Hamas was not prepared to disarm. The Islamist terror group was said to have instead agreed, under the terms of the emerging reconciliation deal, that it would not use its weaponry unless a resort to force was approved by a joint panel. There was no immediate official confirmation of this.
Israel’s Channel 10 reported last week that Israeli officials fear Arouri’s powerful position in Hamas could lead to an upsurge in terror if Fatah-Hamas reconciliation goes ahead, since Fatah could give Hamas greater flexibility and freedom in the West Bank.
Celebrations broke out in the Gazoo Strip after the announcement of the deal on Thursday, with residents waving flags of Egypt, Paleostine, Fatah and Hamas.
[AnNahar] U.N. Sherlocks will this week travel to an air base in Syria that the United States and its allies say was used to launch the sarin gas attack on Khan Sheikhun, diplomats told AFP on Wednesday.
The trip to the Shayrat airfield comes just weeks before the release of a much-awaited report on the Khan Sheikhun attack that the West and a U.N. commission have said was carried out by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... 's forces.
The team from the joint U.N.-OPCW probe, known as the JIM, left Monday for Damascus and were to go to the Shayrat airfield, said a Security Council diplomat, who asked not to be named.
The United States in April launched a missile attack on Shayrat after concluding that Syrian aircraft, loaded with sarin gas, had departed from that airfield to attack Khan Sheikhun.
At least 87 people, including more than 30 children, died in the gas attack on April 4.
Syria's government has denied any involvement and maintains it no longer possesses chemical weapons after a 2013 agreement under which it pledged to surrender them.
The JIM visit to Shayrat would address criticism from Russia that the panel is biased by refusing to accept Syria's offer to visit the military base.
Western diplomats have expressed skepticism however, suggesting the visit would be used by Damascus to try to bolster its assertion that the sarin gas was released by an accidental air strike on a storage depot.
The joint investigation of the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was set up in 2015 by the Security Council to determine who is behind chemical weapons use in Syria.
The JIM has already determined that Syrian government forces were responsible for chlorine attacks on three villages in 2014 and 2015, and that 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.... jihadists used mustard gas in 2015.
The OPCW earlier this year presented a report confirming sarin gas was used in the attack at Khan Sheikhun, but did not assign blame, leaving that determination to the JIM.
In total, the OPCW is investigating as many as 45 suspected chemical attacks in Syria since mid-2016 including the recently-disclosed use of sarin on an opposition-held village on March 30.
The United States, La Belle France and Britannia are facing a showdown with Russia over the fate of the gas attacks investigation when the JIM's mandate comes up for renewal in the coming weeks.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley ...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... last week said allowing the JIM to continue its investigations of gas attacks in Syria should be a "top priority" for the Security Council.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/13/2017 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[REUTERS] Representatives of Afghanistan, China, Pakistain and the United States will meet in Oman next week to discuss reviving peace talks with Afghan Talibs, an Afghan official and a Pak foreign ministry source said on Wednesday.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Trump administration's ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
