[DAWN] The Taliban ...Arabic for students... blamed US and Afghan forces for almost 90 per cent of civilian casualties in 2018, in a report released on Friday that suggested Afghanistan's largest hard boy group was not responsible for a single death or injury.
The data ‐ which NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... 's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan dismissed as "propaganda" ‐ follows a record year of bloodshed in the Afghan war, which by some estimates overtook Syria as the world's deadliest conflict zone.
The figures, which the Taliban release every year and are based on "witnesses and primary sources", showed a total of 4,170 civilian casualties ‐ 2,294 deaths and 1,876 maimed ‐ last year.
US and "stooge" Afghan government forces caused 3,705 casualties, while 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 other "unknown" entities were responsible for 465, the Taliban claimed.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] A Sudanese group organizing anti-government protests has called for a march on the presidential palace as President Omar al-Bashir Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. sacked the health minister Saturday over rising costs of medicines.
Deadly anti-government rallies have rocked cities including Khartoum since December 19, when protests first broke out over a government decision to raise the price of bread.
Authorities say at least 19 people including two security personnel have been killed in festivities during the demonstrations so far, but rights group Amnesia Amnesty International has put the corpse count at 37.
"We call on our supporters to gather at four different places in Khartoum and then begin a march on the palace" of the president on Sunday, the Sudanese Professionals’ Association said Saturday in a statement.
The association, which includes teachers, doctors and engineers, has held similar rallies in recent weeks but they have been swifty broken up by riot police.
Security forces were deployed in key squares across the capital on Saturday night.
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[ARABNEWS] The UN envoy for 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... arrived in the capital Sanaa on Saturday for talks to shore up a ceasefire in the country's lifeline port city of Hodeidah, an AFP photographer said.
Martin Griffiths is scheduled to hold talks in Sanaa with 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 ... leaders and will later travel to the Saudi capital Riyadh to meet Yemeni government officials.
He will also meet in the Houthi-held capital with retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert, who has been appointed by the UN to head the truce monitoring team.
Griffiths' visit comes as the ceasefire in Hodeidah was generally holding, although there have been intermittent festivities with both sides blaming each other.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor.... has asked the United States to provide military support so that Ankara can take over the responsibility of fighting the ISIS terror group in Syria, media reported on Friday.
The Ottoman Turkish government is requesting that the United States provide military support, including air strikes, transport, and logistics so that it can take on the responsibility of fighting the ISIS in Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported citing senior US officials.
Also on Friday, US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino said in a statement that US Ambassador for Syrian Engagement Jim Jeffrey will replace Brett McGurk as special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat the ISIS. "All our effective military staff were sacked as Gulenists"
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#1
FOAD,you wanna be big boy on the block then show that you are.
Posted by: Chris ||
01/06/2019 7:57 Comments ||
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[ToloNews] A survey by a US magazine shows that a big majority of US service members and veterans believe the "occupations" of Afghanistan and Iraq have lasted long enough, but they still support the ongoing war on terror raging since October 2001.
Smithsonian Magazine conducted a survey of 922 veterans and 109 active duty military personnel last Veteran’s Days with the help of the Stars and Stripes newspaper and George Mason University.
Analysts asked the troops and veterans to respond to questions about national security and the military.
Smithsonian Magazine reports that after more than 17 years of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, 84 percent of the 1,031 service members and veterans surveyed agreed that the "occupations" have "been going on too long."
"As far as we know, this survey was the first one to pose that question to current and former service members," the magazine notes in its January edition.
"Their frustration is significant because they also voiced strong support for the war on terror generally, with 83 percent saying it should continue," it adds.
The results echo the Afghanistan war weariness expressed by overall Americans in a survey published by the Pew Research Center last October.
Smithsonian Magazine also reports that nearly a third of US troops and veterans believe rival powers (36 percent) and terrorist organizations (38 percent) are a major national security threat. The rest believe rogue nations (18 percent) and criminal groups (8 percent) are the top menaces facing the American homeland.
A recent study by Brown University’s Costs of War Project reveals that the war on terror has killed between 479,858 and 507,236 people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistain, including at least 6,951 American troops.
There have been an estimated 147,124 deaths in Afghanistan, 64,942 in Pakistain, as well as between 267,792 and 295,170 in Iraq, the study shows.
According to the report, the post-9/11 wars have imposed a profound human cost on Americans: "Nearly 7,000 US" military fatalities and "more than 53,700" injuries."
The war in Afghanistan has reportedly killed an estimated 2,272 American troops and left 20,412 maimed while the conflict in Iraq has resulted in the death of at least 4,483 others and injury of 32,253, the most recent Pentagon figures show.
In 2017, the Brown University study found that by the end of 2018, the United States was scheduled to have spent nearly $6 trillion on government-wide costs of the war on terror since 2001.
The estimated cost amounts to about $23,386 per individual American taxpayer, which is more than three times the amount ($7,740) calculated by the Pentagon.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s administration has intensified efforts to convince the Taliban ...Arabic for students... to engage in peace negotiations with the Afghan government, making the "political reconciliation" between the two parties the primary goal of its strategy to end the more than 17-year-old war.
In Iraq, however, there are no plans to withdraw the nearly 5,000 American troops fighting ISIS. The Trump administration has announced plans to pull out from Syria.
The Trump administration has denied reports of a US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The report was originally published on www.breitbart.com. Changes have been brought to this copy for style purposes.
To Churchill’s mind, these Talibs were, together with other local priestly figures such as the mullahs and fakirs, primarily responsible for the wretched condition of the local Afghan tribesfolk and their violent indisposition to foreign rule. Churchill viewed them “as degraded a race as any on the fringe of humanity: fierce as a tiger, but less cleanly; as dangerous, not so graceful”. He blamed the Talibs for the Afghans’ lamentable absence of civilised development, keeping them in the “grip of miserable superstition”. Churchill was particularly repelled by the Talibs’ loose moral conduct. They lived free at the expense of the people and, “more than this, they enjoy a sort of “droit du seigneur,” and no man’s wife or daughter is safe from them. Of some of their manners and morals it is impossible to write.”
#3
As satisfying as the "glass parking lot" scenario is to contemplate, it's impossible to kill an idea. Better them that get too big for their britches get mad an example of early. From a great distance. Thinking TLAM or such...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/06/2019 7:15 Comments ||
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[DAWN] Pakistain on Friday dispatched a Terror Financing Risk Assessment Report electronically to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) followed by a 12-member team to explain the action plan that the government intends to follow to come into compliance with international obligations and secure an exit from the grey list of the Gay Paree-based watchdog.
A senior government official told Dawn that the high-level delegation led by Secretary Finance Arif Ahmed Khan left for Sydney, Australia to attend a three-day meeting of the FATF. The delegation comprised representatives of the State Bank of Pakistain (SBP), National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Financial Monitoring Unit.
The official said the delegation will address questions and observations of the FATF on the basis of risk assessment report already transmitted to the global anti-terror financing watchdog. The report highlights the implementation status of plans for various agencies of the government on the FATF’s recommendations.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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“Look how kewl and cutting edge I am! Don’t notice that my people are falling ever further behind while I preen and posture.”
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... said he will travel to New York City in the coming days to assume the chairmanship of the largest bloc of developing countries at the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... In July, the bloc, known as the Group of 77, chose the "State of Paleostine" to serve as its next leader.
"We will continue moving forward and making accomplishments, one after another," Abbas told a group of Egyptian journalists and intellectuals Friday, according to the official PA news site Wafa. "In [the] coming days, I will go to New York to take over the chairmanship of the Group of 77...This is something that will strengthen the State of Paleostine’s status in the international arena."
"Paleostine"
...scare quotes added...
is scheduled to take the Group of 77 over from Egypt in January.
The Group of 77 is a consortium of 134 developing countries that often works together in the UN General Assembly. The body was originally founded in 1964 with 77 countries, including Egypt, 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... , Brazil, Thailand and India. Over the years it has grown to include countries such as South Africa, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , Cuba, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Singapore, and Angola, and currently represents some 80 percent of the world’s population.
In October 2018, the General Assembly voted by an overwhelming majority to temporarily grant Paleostine additional rights and privileges, allowing it to head the Group of 77.
While it serves as the leader of the body, Paleostine will be able cosponsor proposals and amendments, make statements, and raise procedural motions.
In October, both Israel and the US expressed strong opposition to granting the Paleostinians extra rights at the UN.
On Saturday, Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi met in Cairo, where they discussed reconciliation between the Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", terror group, which rules the Gazoo Strip, and Abbas’s West Bank-based Fatah faction, Wafa also reported.
[PRESSTV] The administration of US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... has ended cooperation with the United Nations ...an idea whose time has gone... into human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... violations by the United States.
The state department quietly ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, The Guardian reported Friday.
Since May 7, 2018, the rapporteurs have not received a response to their inquiries and at least 13 requests have been unanswered.
Among the issues are separation of children from their families at the US border with Mexico amid Trump’s crackdown on the caravan of immigrants colonists trying to enter the United States.
Felipe González Morales, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants colonists, said he has tried to set up a formal visit by approaching the administration twice but to no avail.
"In the absence of an official visit, we cannot publish a country report to be presented to the UN human rights council," he said.
The administration of former President Barack Obama I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody... gave "timely, thoughtful and constructive responses," at least to the five official complaints made by UN expert on adequate housing Leilani Farha (pictured above) since her appointment in 2014.
"This suggests the US has abandoned even the most rudimentary forms of human rights accountability, and a whittling away of access to justice for those in the US whose human rights may have been violated," Farha said. "It also demonstrates a rather inappropriate arrogance, at a time when human rights in the US are particularly fragile."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
"rappateur"... there's that word again. Without looking it up in my "Dictionary of Dead Languages" and just going by the various contexts it appeared in, I would guess it means "a-hole"
"The United States will not send a single dime to the United Nations for any reason until this 'rapporteur'is recalled and his assignment permanently terminated. If this is not accomplished by April 1st, 2019, the United States will review the diplomatic status of all personnel employed by the United Nations."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/06/2019 12:40 Comments ||
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#4
"It also demonstrates a rather inappropriate arrogance, at a time when human rights in the US are particularly fragile."
...and then his lips fell off.
[Ynet] After year volunteering with an Israeli youth movement, Bilal Taha is proud to be in a combat unit, even if it means guarding settlements, and believes more Arabs will soon join the army.
Before leaving his IDF base, 21-year-old Corporal Bilal Taha removes his military uniform and changes into civilian clothing; only then does he board the bus home to his Galilee village of Deir al-Asad, where service in the IDF is unusual, to say the least. Taha is a rare phenomenon, an Israeli Arab who chose to serve in the army.
"There are many who are not happy with my being a soldier," he says, "and I don’t know what their reaction would be if I entered the town in uniform."
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] After 18 months of research, first claims being finalized for reported $35b from Tunisia, $15b from Libya, for assets Jews left behind when kicked out after establishment of Israel.
Israel is preparing to demand compensation totaling a reported $250 billion from seven Arab countries and Iran for property and assets left behind by Jews who were forced to flee those countries following the establishment of the State of Israel.
"The time has come to correct the historic injustice of the pogroms (against Jews) in seven Arab countries and Iran, and to restore, to hundreds of thousands of Jews who lost their property, what is rightfully theirs," Israel’s Minister for Social Equality, Gila Gamliel, who is coordinating the Israeli government’s handling of the issue, said Saturday.
Continued on Page 49
[ARABNEWS] A new Paleostinian political party wants to unify factions to increase resistance to the occupation, one of its members has told Arab News.
The Paleostinian Democratic Group is the latest arrival on the territory’s political scene, which is dominated by the rivalry between Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth", and Fatah.
It was formally launched on Jan. 3 in Gazoo and Ramallah and comprises political parties and civil society organizations.
Qais Abu Layla said one of the group’s most important goals was to unify Paleostinian factions to increase resistance to the occupation, and to oppose policies designed to weaken Paleostinian democracy and increase fragmentation.
A split between Hamas and Fatah, which has sometimes spilled over into deadly violence, has seen rival administrations run by Hamas in Gazoo and by President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... ’ Paleostinian Authority in the West Bank. Attempts to reconcile the two have failed.
"Our position is not only opposed to the PLO (Paleostine Liberation Organization) leadership but also to Hamas. We feel both are responsible for the split and the negative results that it has produced," Abu Layla told Arab News.
"While we oppose the dissolving of the PLC (Paleostinian Legislative Council) we believe that the idea of elections within six months can be a way out of the impasse for the reconciliation."
The elections must include Gazoo and Jerusalem and they should be based on proportional representation, he added.
But the party’s motives have been called into question by some.
Suheir Ismael, founding director of women’s media NGO TAM, said the group's scope was too narrow.
"The group was created after people lost their salaries as members of the Paleostinian Legislative Council. To be honest, most people are very skeptical of any political move that is largely on paper, " she told Arab News.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Official says China, India and others ’not willing to buy even one barrel more,’ but others have stepped up.
Potential buyers for Iran’s beleaguered oil industry have "significantly increased" in spite of renewed US sanctions targeting the nation’s chief export, Tehran’s oil minister said Saturday.
"China, India, Japan, South Korea and other countries that were granted waivers from America to import Iranian oil are not willing to buy even one barrel more from Iran," Amir Hossein Zamaninia told the SHANA news agency, in comments translated by Rooters.
However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... "Despite US pressures on [the] Iranian oil market, the number of potential buyers of Iranian oil has significantly increased due to a competitive market, greed and pursuit of more profit."
He did not give any further details.
Other countries granted a 180-day waiver from the sanctions by Washington included Greece, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... , Italia and Taiwan.
The report appeared to contradict a report by Rooters last week that India has handed Iran a tax break worth hundreds of millions of dollars to green-light an oil import deal hindered by the sanctions.
In November, US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s administration reinstated all of Washington’s sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.
The sanctions were the second batch that the Trump administration has reimposed on the Islamic Theocratic Republic since it withdrew from the nuclear agreement last year.
The rollback ended US participation in the Obama-era accord, which now hangs in the balance as Iran no longer enjoys the billions of dollars in sanctions relief it was granted under the deal in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis. Its rial currency has plummeted and oil exports have steeply fallen.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Iranian military is developing a new underwater missile system for their naval forces, a commander from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) told Press TV on Saturday.
According to the IRGC Navy Commander, Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri, the Iranian military was developing an underwater warfare system for the first time in its existence.
"God willing, that (the unveiling) will take place in IRGC Navy’s upcoming drills," Takgsiri told the Iranian Tasnim news agency, adding, "The underwater domain is one of our necessities which we should aspire to."
The commander added that some new underwater weapons and systems will be unveiled in the future drills.
The admiral further elaborated on IRGC Navy’s "total readiness" to respond to threats, saying the force was carefully watching all the activities by extra-regional enemies who are present in Middle East waters.
"Our intelligence and operational forces have under their watch any slightest provocation by the enemies," he said.
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[PRESSTV] Syrian Kurdish leaders seek a Russian-mediated deal with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... 's government regardless of US plans to withdraw from their region, a bigwig has said.
The deal would mark perhaps the most important milestone because the two biggest chunks of Syria splintered by seven years of war would be rejoined, leaving only a corner in the northwest in the hands of bully boys.
Senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd told Rooters the Kurdish-led administration that runs much of northern Syria presented a roadmap for an agreement with Assad during recent meetings in Russia.
"The final decision is to reach an agreement with Damascus, we will work in this direction regardless of the cost, even if the Americans object," Rooters quoted Jia Kurd as saying in the northern Syrian city of Qamishli.
The main aims of the roadmap, the report said, are to protect the Syrian border with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund.... , to integrate the governing structures of northern Syria into the constitution, and to ensure a fair distribution of resources.
Last week, residents in Manbij asked the Syrian government to retake the northern city on the Ottoman Turkish border after a US pledge to withdraw troops from the Arab country.
[ALMASDARNEWS] Syrian Kurdish YPG leader Sipan Hemo offered last month to hand over control of Kurdish-held lands to the Syrian government in return for Kurdish autonomy, media said Saturday.
The Kurdish militia commander came to Russia’s Hmeimim base in western Syria days after the US president announced troop withdrawal from the country, Asharq al-Awsat reported.
Hemo then traveled to Damascus to tell Syrian authorities that YPG was ready to give up control of the Syrian-Ottoman Turkish border, before going to Moscow on December 29.
In Russia, the Kurdish leader asked for assurances and suggested that Moscow bring out of mothballs a draft constitution it had proposed for Syria, which guaranteed the Kurdish right for self-determination.
The publication linked this trip to the surprise handover of the flashpoint Manbij city to the Syrian army on December 28, which was confirmed nearly simultaneously by the Syrian government and Kurdish forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
With the U.S. abandonment this is the only chance they have. Make a deal with Assad and let his army secure the border with the reliable Russians supporting the Syrian Army against the Turks. Kurdish forces to serve by controlling their areas and supporting the Syrian Arabs against the Turks and Persians. Maybe the U.S. Can support them from Iraq via the Kurdish government there.
#3
Assad. and the Alaiwites he represents, have an incentive to ally with the Kurds against everybody else -- particularly the Ottoman Turks to the North and the Persian (Theocratic) Empire to the East. The " U.S. abandonment " might be necessary to bring the Kurds back to a reality where outsiders are not going to declare war on Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran to give them a homeland.
#5
IMO, if the Erdogan and his neo-Ottoman Empire wasn't so staunchly Sunni the Assad's, Alaiwites and schismatic Shia that they are, would have been far more neutral. As it is the Iranians may be "the only game in Town" for many of Syria's territorial ambitions. Personal survival, increased control of Lebanon, etc.
[PRESSTV] Iran has lashed out at British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for making "hasty and false" remarks against Tehran, saying his claims are an example of interference in the internal affairs of an "independent country."
In a statement on Saturday, Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi expressed regret over Hunt's "meddlesome and absurd" remarks and his wrong terms and claims about Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari, who is currently serving her term in Iran on espionage charges.
"Unfortunately, the British foreign secretary has made hasty and false remarks several times in recent days about an issue which has basically nothing to do with his country," Qassemi said.
He added that the British foreign secretary's claims indicated his lack of knowledge on the case.
Britannia's foreign minister claimed on Friday that Iran had denied medical care to Zaghari, who has now gone on hunger strike, and said it was "shameful" for Tehran.
"I was given a clear assurance that she would be given access to all the doctors that she needed. That hasn't happened," Hunt said.
Iran’s intelligence authorities nabbed Please don't kill me! Zaghari at Imam Khomeini International Airport in April 2016 as she was on her way back to London. She was subsequently put on trial and handed a five-year jail term after being found guilty of spying and spreading propaganda against the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] An Iranian arbitration body gave its approval on Saturday to an anti-money laundering bill seen as crucial to maintaining international trade and banking ties, the official IRNA news agency reported.
"The bill on amending the law to counter money laundering was approved with certain changes and will be sent to the parliament speaker to be communicated to the government," Expediency Council member Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghadam told IRNA.
The Expediency Council settles disputes between parliament, which approved the bill last year, and the conservative-dominated Guardian Council, which vets all legislation and had rejected it.
Conservatives have argued that new legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing will provide Western powers with leverage over Iran’s economy and how it funds regional allies such as Leb’s Hezbollah.
But the government of President Hassan Rouhani says the laws are needed to meet demands set by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which monitors countries’ efforts to tackle financial crime.
Iran is alone with North Korea on the FATF’s blacklist ‐ although the Gay Paree-based organization has suspended counter-measures since June 2017 while Iran works on reforms.
The FATF will meet again in February to discuss Iran’s progress.
The government is hoping to salvage banking and trade ties after the United States walked out of a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between major powers and Iran and reimposed crippling unilateral sanctions.
The other parties to the deal ‐ Britannia, La Belle France, Germany, China and Russia ‐ have sought to salvage the agreement and maintain trade with Iran, but have called on Tehran to meet FATF requirements.
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01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[ARABNEWS] Escalating festivities between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Ankara-backed National Front for Liberation (NFL) in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province have raised concerns about a deal to set up de-escalation zones in the region.
The deal was brokered between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , Russia and Iran in September 2017.
The al-Qaeda linked HTS, trying to control key roads in the province, has increased its activity in southern Idlib and the city of Hama and captured some villages from Ottoman Turkish-backed Death Eater groups.
The festivities led to the death of more than a 100 civilians and fighters, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
A separate deal, signed last September in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, said the areas where the festivities took place were due to be cleared of heavy weaponry. The deal also required Russia to ensure the status quo in Idlib and avoid military attacks in the region.
But this deal is not yet fully implemented as Russia launched an Arclight airstrike in southern Idlib, resulting in significant damage.
In a joint declaration published Friday, local councils in Syria called for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor as a precaution in case the festivities spread to urban areas. The province is home to about 3 million people.
Turkey has 12 observation posts in the region and has raised the alert level as some of the posts, manned by Ottoman Turkish troops, are close to areas where there has been fighting.
HTS, which dominates more than half the region, remains the most powerful rebel alliance in Idlib and is considered a terrorist group by Ankara.
Sinan Hatahet, an Istanbul-based expert on Syria, said festivities were expected because HTS has been trying to consolidate its power over Idlib.
"This is a major point of disagreement between Russia, Iran on the one hand, and Turkey on the other. Moscow and Tehran want Turkey to be more assertive to counter HTS in Idlib, but Turkey is not willing to spend any finances and resources for such a fight that is very complicated," he told Arab News.
Ankara had it made it clear that its strategic depth interest lay in northern Aleppo and some areas in northern Idlib, he added, but that the de-escalation deal was not currently under threat.
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[ARABNEWS] Iran’s telecommunications minister says his country’s three new satellites have successfully passed pre-launch tests.
In a Saturday tweet, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said: "Last night, Iranian satellites passed tests successfully." He did not mention a launch schedule.
On Tuesday, Iran said it plans to send Payam, a 200-pound (90-kilogram) non-military satellite into a 310-mile (500-kilometer) orbit using an Iranian Simorgh satellite-carrier rocket.
Iran usually displays space achievements in February during the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iran’s plans for sending three satellites into orbit demonstrate the country’s defiance of a UN Security Council resolution that calls on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Iran says the launch does not violate the resolution.
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[ARABNEWS] US National Security Adviser John Bolton has warned the Syrian government it should not see the impending US military withdrawal from the country as an invitation to use chemical weapons.
US President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described xsby Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... said in December that US troops had succeeded in their mission to defeat ISISgunnies and were no longer needed in the country.
The announcement, which took officials in Washington and allies abroad by surprise, contributed to Jim Mattis’ decision to resign as US defense secretary and prompted concern that ISIS could stage a comeback.
"There is absolutely no change in the US position against the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and absolutely no change in our position that any use of chemical weapons would be met by a very strong response, as we’ve done twice before," Bolton told news hounds on his plane shortly before landing in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[11 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Red line?
Posted by: Otto Forkbeard2391 ||
01/06/2019 11:07 Comments ||
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[FreeBeacon] A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a security guard who was injured during a 2015 terror attack by ISIS radicals in Garland, Texas. Bruce Joiner alleged the FBI was liable, arguing the bureau had prior knowledge of the impending violence and had even helped incubate the idea with attackers, but then failed to stop it.
Joiner was shot in the lower leg after Elton Simpson
...African-American known wolf who turned to Islam in high school to keep himself from running with a wild crowd, but found jihad instead. The FBI first noticed him in 2006 when he befriended a man trying to set up a jihadi cell in Phoenix, then stopped him from joining Al Shabaab in 2010...
and Nadir Soofi
...born in Garland, Texas to a Pakistani father and an American mother, he was an outgoing teenage heartthrob back at his fancy private school in Islamabad but failed at everything he tried after his divorced mother brought him with her to America, so he turned to his dad’s religion for solace. Along with Phoenix roommates Elton Simpson and Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, he looked around for a jihadi project — and this nice little massacre seemed just the ticket...
opened fire at a perimeter checkpoint at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, where inside "The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" was taking place.
That was Pamela Geller’s effort. As far as I know, there was not a second one.
ISIS later claimed responsibility, marking the first time the terror group ever carried out an attack on U.S. soil. Simpson and Soofi were fatally shot within yards of where their attack began.
Documents released through other court cases, however, revealed how close the FBI was to the action of the attack, which has since drawn media and congressional scrutiny.
Shortly after the "Muhammad Art Exhibit" event was announced in early 2015, the undercover agent who had been infiltrating the small cell of radicals texted Simpson, saying, "tear up Texas."
Additionally, the undercover agent was in a separate car directly behind Simpson and Soofi when they opened fire and had been taking pictures of the attackers' car just seconds before the shooting began.
When the first shots were fired, the undercover agent fled his own vehicle, but was apprehended by local police, at which point the agent told police he was undercover with the FBI.
Joiner claimed the FBI was liable for his injury and was seeking millions in damages but has consistently maintained that his lawsuit was about getting information from the bureau to uncover the full extent of their actions leading up to the attack.
This article starring:
Elton Simpson
Posted by: Besoeker ||
01/06/2019 00:00 ||
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[10 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Judge knows where his bread is buttered.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
01/06/2019 7:09 Comments ||
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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.
...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...
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
[PRESSTV] The administration of US President 
[Ynet] After year volunteering with an Israeli youth movement, Bilal Taha is proud to be in a combat unit, even if it means guarding settlements, and believes more Arabs will soon join the army.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[PRESSTV] Iran has lashed out at British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for making "hasty and false" remarks against Tehran, saying his claims are an example of interference in the internal affairs of an "independent country."
North Korea
[ARABNEWS] US National Security Adviser John Bolton has warned the Syrian government it should not see the impending US military withdrawal from the country as an invitation to use chemical weapons.
[FreeBeacon] A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a security guard who was injured during a 2015 terror attack by ISIS radicals in Garland, Texas. Bruce Joiner alleged the FBI was liable, arguing the bureau had prior knowledge of the impending violence and had even helped incubate the idea with attackers, but then failed to stop it.
