A Soviet-era bomber aircraft "in very good condition" has been put up for sale on the internet auction site eBay, with a starting price of only $3m (£1.8m).
The Tupolev TU-95MS has flown for just over 454 hours of the 5,000 hours it is capable of, according to the posting, and bears the insignia of both the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian air force.
Also known as the Bear H, the plane requires a routine technical check before it can once again become airborne.
The plane already had one bidder, with five days of the auction remaining, when it was mysteriously withdrawn from sale.
Some 57 ships, 48 aircraft and 13 nations are now taking part in the search and rescue mission, which has been expanded further east into the South China Sea and further out into the Indian Ocean. Indian officials confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that authorities had begun searching the 572 islands comprising the Andaman and Nicobar island groups using heat-seeking devices to help find the missing plane, and would likely extend the search to the Bay of Bengal. I tried to link the google map of the Andaman Islands, but the new google seems to want me to log in, first. Nuts to them. I was surprised to see some pretty big islands between Thailand and India. Maybe some retirement opportunities?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/14/2014 12:53 ||
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#3
Be careful picking your retirement spot, lest you end up like the (probably fictional) guy who, in the 1930s, retired to the quiet tropical backwater of Iwo Jima.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/14/2014 14:54 Comments ||
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#4
Sum'bitch we're selling our A-10s to Malaysia? No way they'll appreciate the nose art and cannon buttons.
[An Nahar] An Indian guru declared dead has been in a deep freezer in his ashram for nearly six weeks with followers confident he will return to life to lead them, his front man said. "He ain't dead. He's meditatin'."
Devotees placed Ashutosh Maharaj, whom authorities declared clinically dead on January 29, in the freezer and have been watching over his body in the sprawling ashram in a small town in northern Punjab state. "He's stiff as a brick!"
Maharaj, reportedly in his 70s, is one of India's many gurus or god-men who headed the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission) and claims to have millions of followers around the world. "It only costs a dollar to join!"
Mission front man Swami Vishalanand insisted their leader was not dead but was in fact in a state of samadhi, the highest level of meditation, and was therefore still conscious. "You don't gotta breathe to be in a state of samadhi."
Vishalanand told Agence La Belle France Presse that followers were now waiting for him to end his meditation. Until then, the ashram in Nurmahal town would stay open with followers performing their own meditations and spiritual sessions. "Just let yer mind go blank! Slow yer breathing! Lower yer body temperature! Don't mind the decomposition!"
"Mahara-ji (a Hindi term of respect) is still sending messages through followers in their meditative stage to protect his body till he returns," he said earlier this week. "Otherwise he'll stay wherever he is, wherever that is."
The decision to place him in the freezer was challenged in court by a man claiming to be his former driver, who alleged several followers were not releasing the body as they were seeking a share of the guru's properties, local media reports said. "So he's gatherin' a bit of interest. That don't make him dead!"
But the court rejected the man's petition after receiving information from authorities confirming his death, reportedly from a heart attack, said Reeta Kohli, additional advocate general of Punjab state. "Deader'n a rock, yer honor!"
"The court rejected his pleas after the Punjab government said that the man is clinically dead and that it is up to his followers to decide what they want to do with the body," Kohli told AFP. "Whatever they do ain't botherin' him!"
Senior district police officer Gurinder Singh Dhillon said police "cannot interfere" now that the court has made its ruling. "Donut? These are really good!"
Maharaj's website, which says the mission was founded in 1983 and has spiritual centers around the world, has thanked its followers for standing by the mission while the guru undertakes his meditation. "Dig deep, O ye faithful!"
Vishalanand said scores of spiritual leaders throughout history have traveled to the Himalayas for months of samadhi in freezing temperatures, before returning to life. "Happens all the time! You've read all about them, we're sure!"
Another front man, who heads a nearby village where many of Maharaj's followers are living, has told local media that they will simply wait. "Yep. We'll be here till he gets up or until the Last Trumpet, whichever comes first!"
"When we close our eyes, we can talk to the Maharaj, who has assured us he will come back," Lakhwinder Singh told the Indian Express newspaper. Let us know when something happens.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#6
On his deathbed, this Maharaj vowed
He would climb up his schlong to a cloud,
So his whole entourage
Gives him daily "massage"
As he lies there on ice in his shroud.
Harrison Township An unidentified man, who sloshed through a swamp-like area in frigid temperatures and jumped a fence onto Selfridge Air National Guard Base, was found dead Thursday morning on the base, according to Michigan State Police.
The man was discovered around 7:30 a.m. outside of a building on the bases west side by a military member just before scheduled flight operations, Sgt. Daniel Heaton said.
A military member notified base security and fire personnel of the discovery, prompting a brief base-wide lockdown, Heaton said.
[An Nahar] A snowstorm paralyzed eastern Canada on Thursday, causing highway car pileups, flight cancellations and school closures. Takes a lot of snowstorm to paralyze eastern Canada.
As much as 40 centimeters (16 inches) of snow fell from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning in parts of Canada's Ontario, Quebec and Maritime provinces.
The Canadian Weather Office warned of dangerous blizzard conditions, after the region saw a sudden drop in temperatures accompanied by strong winds.
In Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax and Quebec City, nearly all flights were delayed or canceled, according to airport authorities.
In Quebec and New Brunswick provinces several schools remained closed.
Some 20 cars were involved in a highway crash between Woodstock and Kitchener, Ontario on Wednesday, but authorities said there were no serious injuries. Police blamed low visibility and slippery roads.
The Weather Office predicted a gradual improving of conditions on Thursday.
"An intense low pressure system near Nova Scotia will reach Newfoundland this evening," it said.
However "very cold temperatures" were expected in northern Quebec, with wind chills near minus 40 degrees Celsius (same in Fahrenheit).
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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[Egypt Independent] East African heads of state gathered in Addis Ababa Thursday in the latest push for peace in war-torn South Sudan, where almost three months of conflict has left thousands dead.
Leaders from the East African bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), gathered in the Æthiopian capital to "deliberate on the current situation in the Republic of South Sudan", a statement read.
South Sudanese media said President Salva Kiir is due to attend, but no direct talks between Kiir's government and the rebels were due to take place until next week.
Ministers met late Wednesday ahead of the main summit, including officials from Djibouti, Æthiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.
Officials discussed a report from Seyoum Mesfin, IGAD's chief mediator to slow-moving peace talks, the bloc said in a statement.
South Sudan's government has been at war with rebel groups since December 15, when a clash between troops loyal to Kiir and those loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar snowballed into full-scale fighting across the world's newest nation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
They just cant seem to kill all those pesky Christian that live in South Sudan. They have been slaughtering them for decades, but alas, they keep coming back like cockroaches.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/14/2014 13:04 Comments ||
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[An Nahar] Gambia ... The Gambia is actually surrounded by Senegal on all sides but its west coast. It has a population of about 1.7 million. The difference between the two is that in colonial days Senegal was ruled by La Belle France and The Gambia (so-called because there's only one of it, unlike Guinea, of which there are the Republic of Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, New Guinea, the English coin in circulation between 1663 and 1813, and Guyana, which sounds like it should be another one) was ruled by Britain... will drop English as its official language, President Yahya Jammeh said in his latest diatribe against former colonial power Britannia.
"We're going to speak our own language," he said, without specifying which of the poor west African country's indigenous tongues would replace English.
The 48-year-old Gambian strongman is often pilloried for rights abuses and the muzzling of the press, and members of the diaspora have set up critical news outlets against Banjul.
A video of his latest broadside against Britannia, delivered in English during the swearing-in of a new chief justice on Thursday, was uploaded on YouTube.
The country has several languages to choose from as a replacement for English.
Two in five Gambians speak Mandinka, while Fula or Wolof are used by another 34 percent. Jammeh himself is from the minority Jula tribe, which speaks a Manding language most closely related to Bambara, spoken in nearby Mali.
Gambia, a country of about 1.8 million, is a finger of territory flanking the Gambia River, with Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... on either side and a narrow Atlantic coastline.
In 2008, Jammeh gave an ultimatum to gays and lesbians to leave his country, saying he would "cut off the head" of any homosexual found in Gambia.
Two years later the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... cancelled 22 million euros ($30 million) of aid because of concerns over human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. and governance issues.
Gambia stunned the Commonwealth mainly grouping former British colonies by withdrawing from the 54-nation bloc in October, branding it "an extension of colonialism".
Jammeh said Britannia had "no moral platform" to talk about human rights anywhere in the world.
"What brought the British in the first place to Gambia... was trade in ivory because Gambia had a lot of elephants," he said.
"They ended up wiping out the elephants and then turned around and started selling Africans. The British instituted slavery."
"The only thing they left us with is unfortunately the English language," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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About 30,000 people speak Jula. Tops. In Senegal and Gambia combined. Most Gambians know enough of other tribal languages to transact business in the market. I was going to ask how Jammeh proposes to keep a functioning government without a common language for paperwork, but he doesn't need no steenkin' paperwork; he has his bully boys.
By the way, Mauretania is just a little ways to the north; and while it supposedly outlawed slavery, finally, in 1989, this law is more honored in the breach than the observance. The Arabs continue to be a big market for slaves from this area. Senegal gets a lot of black Africans fleeing slavery in the North African countries.
[An Nahar] A total of 28 people have been killed and 365 injured in anti-government protests rocking Venezuela, the country's top prosecutor said Thursday, lamenting an atmosphere of "violence and chaos."
"In all there have been 28 deaths" since the protests first erupted in early February, Luisa Ortega Diaz said on the sidelines of the U.N.'s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"What began in Venezuela as a peaceful demonstration has been transformed into violence and chaos," she said, speaking a day after some 3,000 students marched in Caracas and similar numbers gathered in other cities to mark a month since the first deaths in weeks of demonstrations.
On Wednesday, police fired tear gas and water cannon at scores of rock-hurling students in the capital, as a student and civilian died in the country's third city Valencia and a member of the Bolivarian National Guard died in festivities in the nearby city of Naguanagua.
Speaking to a conference organized by the Venezuelan government on the country's "progress and achievements" in the area of human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... , Ortega Diaz said a prosecutor and three members of the national guard were among the dead.
One hundred and nine members of the national guard or Venezuelan national police force were also among the 365 injured, she said.
"The right to demonstrate is not absolute," she told the conference, insisting that "citizens have the right to demonstrate peacefully and without weapons."
She said police had seized 25 firearms, plastic explosives and more than 200 incendiary devices.
Since the protests began, opposition leaders and students, as well as government authorities, have accused each other of backing radical groups that attack demonstrations with firearms.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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Unconfirmed news reports claim the Russian Navy is deploying land-based 'Bastion' anti-ship missile systems as a response to the recent U.S. move entering two naval vessels to the Black Sea. The two American Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Truxtun (DDG-103) crossed the Bosphorus Strait Friday, headed into the Black Sea, as tensions simmer over Ukraine's Crimea region. The Russians also moved two naval combatants from the Mediterranean Task Force back to the Black Sea Fleet. Tension is mounting in the Crimea Peninsula with the preparations for a referendum on independence from Ukraine later this week.
MOSCOW, March 9 (RIA Novosti) -- Russia's Defense Ministry is considering a ban on US inspections of Russian nuclear weapons under the New START deal over the standoff in Ukraine, a ministry source told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
They got everything they wanted from START, why not break the deal? We substantially decreased the number of warheads we held, the Russians didn't. Now's the time for them to laugh about it.
The ban would be a reaction to the US decision to suspend military cooperation with Russia over Ukraine, said the source, who requested anonymity.
The New START, signed in 2010 by US President Barack Obama and his Russian then-counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, envisages curbing nuclear arsenals of both countries by half by 2021. The treaty's implementation is overseen, in addition to satellite and remote monitoring, by 18 on-site inspections a year.
The United States has not conducted any inspections under the New START since the start of this year, according to the US Department of State's website.
Moscow's military intervention in Crimea and the peninsula's upcoming March 16 referendum on whether to leave Ukraine and join Russia has caused muted official reaction in Central Asia. Nonetheless, Russia's actions in Ukraine is particularly closely followed across the region. And the Kremlin's justification for using force in Crimea--namely to protect ethnic Russians living there--has put Central Asian leaders on alert.
In March, the foreign ministries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan both issued carefully worded statements on Ukraine, expressing their concern but without mentioning Russia. "Kazakhstan is deeply concerned with the current developments in Ukraine," the Kazakhstani foreign ministry said. "Further escalation of tensions may lead to unpredictable consequences at both regional and global levels" (mfa.kz, March 3). According to Uzbekistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, events in Ukraine create "real threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country [which] cannot but arouse a deep alarm and concern in Uzbekistan" (mfa.uz, March 4).
All five post-Soviet Central Asian republics--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan--are home to varying numbers of ethnic Russians. Therefore, Moscow's rationale for troop deployments in a former Soviet republic to supposedly protect its Russian population could easily also be applied to any of the Central Asian states. The Kremlin seems to be setting just such a precedent in Ukraine by violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided security assurances to Kyiv in exchange for it giving up Soviet-era nuclear weapons deployed on Ukraine's territory (see EDM, March 10). Twenty years ago, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom provided such security assurances to Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan--requiring all to give up their Soviet nuclear stockpiles in exchange for assured territorial integrity and political independence.
Should Moscow's policy of violating its neighbors' sovereignty under the pretext of protecting Russians abroad expand beyond Russia's actions in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine now (see EDM, February 28, March 4), Kazakhstan would be a logical next target. It shares a common border with Russia, stretching over 7,591 kilometers (4,716 miles), the longest continuous land border in the world. And according to the last census, carried out in 2009, Kazakhstan's ethnic-Russian minority numbered 3,793,764 (23.7 percent of the total population).
Hence, on March 10, President Nursultan Nazarbayev surprised many when he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a telephone conversation that Kazakhstan, "as a strategic partner [of Moscow], understands Russia's stance on the protection of the rights of national minorities in Ukraine and its security interests." Yet, he also called for a "peaceful regulation of the crisis in Ukraine on the basis of the preservation of Ukraine's sovereignty [within] the norms of international law" (akorda.kz, March 10).
Bet the Kazaks and Ukrainians wish they'd kept their nuclear weapons...
#1
Last I knew China was building pipelines to tap Kazakh oil and gas (already were buying railtrains of oil.) Kind of doubt they'd be as tolerant over Russian actions there as they are of Ukraine.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/14/2014 17:16 Comments ||
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#3
Giving reports, I kind of think Russia will get the rest of Ukraine first, then most towards Europe. Latvia or Belarus would be after Ukraine. Bad experience with Stan's. Everyone does, must be the air.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/14/2014 17:29 Comments ||
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[Pak Daily Times] Ukraine moved on Thursday to mobilise a volunteer force to ward off Russia's expansionist threat as Berlin warned Moscow of long-term damage to its economy and EU relations over the Crimea crisis.
The Verkhovna Rada parliament unanimously backed the creation of a new force of up to 60,000 volunteers who could keep Russian troops from advancing beyond the Crimean peninsula they seized at the start of the month. The dramatic decision to bolster Ukraine's defences with people outside the army came shortly after US President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... threw his full weight behind Ukraine's new pro-European leaders in their Cold War-style standoff with the Kremlin.
National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy said the new National Guard would "ensure state security, defend the borders, and eliminate terrorist groups" -- a term many in Kiev use to call the well-armed militias who patrol Crimea alongside Russian troops. Ukraine's conventional army of 130,000 soldiers -- half of them conscripts with ageing equipment -- is dwarfed by a 845,000-strong Russian force that has the backup of nuclear weapons. The flaring crisis on the eastern edge of Europe was sparked by the ouster last month of a pro-Kremlin regime that prompted President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President 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... to seek and win the right to use force against a neighbour for the first time since a brief 2008 war with Georgia.
The more nationalist and Western-leaning team that rose to power on the back of a deadly popular revolt is viewed with derision by Putin and increasing warmth by Washington and EU states. Putin's March 1 decision to order troops into Crimea for the "protection" of the Russian-speaking majority there now threatens to bring down a host of political and economic sanctions that could leave the Kremlin more isolated from the West than at any point since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... -- a fluent Russian speaker whose upbringing in Communist East Germany shaped both her cautious approach to Moscow and understanding of the importance of keeping relations with the Kremlin on track -- delivered her most ominous warning to date in an appearance before the German parliament.
"If Russia continues its course of the last weeks, it would not only be a catastrophe for Ukraine," she told the chamber. "It would not only change the relationship of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... as a whole to Russia. No, it would also, and I am firmly convinced of this, massively damage Russia both economically and politically." Merkel accused Russia of using the "failed" expansionist tactics of the previous two centuries. Russia's parliament is still due to consider legislation next week simplifying the process for the annexation of Crimea -- a strong possibility after the Black Sea region holds a hotly disputed referendum on Sunday on switching over to Kremlin rule. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said meanwhile that it had postponed the process for the Russian Federation to join its 34-member organization. The European Union will debate travel bans and asset freezes on Monday against Russian officials held responsible for threatening Ukraine's territorial integrity.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
E.G. WORLD NEWS, INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > MILITANT ISLAMIST WEBSITE CALLS FOR TERROR ATTACKS AGZ FRENCH SOIL AND HOLLANDE.
I say again that the JudeoChristian West has an opportunity in Russia's Gitmo-in-the-Black-Sea to preempt the Soon-to-Nuclear Global Jihad including any Hard-Boyz desired Euro-Jihad.
This is also an opportunity for the powerful Russian Orthodox Church [Greek?] + other to "showcase" itself to the West on Russia, UNO? secured neutral ground.
and
* WORLD NEWS [WaPo] CRIMEA'S TATARS BRACE FOR RUSSIAN ANNEXATION.
The odds of Foreign Jihadis coming to rescue their Muslim brethren in the Crimea + even Ukraine proper is very high.
* VOICE OF RUSSIA > CRIMEA: OBAMA BETTER BE CAREFUL ABOUT GIVING "WRONG IMPRESSION" TO YATSENYUK - EXPERT.
["DON'T GO CHASING WATERFALLS" = "RED LINES" here].
#3
The parliament unanimously backed the creation of a new force of up to 60,000 volunteers who could keep Russian troops from advancing beyond the Crimean peninsula
A chance for oligarchs to steal some more before the game is over?
Six Russian Su-27 fighter jets and three military transport planes with ground support personnel arrived Thursday at an airbase in Belarus to boost the airspace defenses of the two countries' Union State, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said the aircraft from the Western military district have been deployed to the Babruysk airbase in line with a bilateral agreement on the joint protection of the Union State's airspace.
The planes will reinforce the four Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter jets already at the nearby Baranovichi airbase.
[An Nahar] As part of trade talks, the European Union wants to ban the use of European names like Parmesan, feta and Gorgonzola on cheese made in the United States.
The argument is that the American-made cheeses are shadows of the original European varieties and cut into sales and identity of the European cheeses. The Europeans say Parmesan should only come from Parma, Italy, not those familiar green cylinders that American companies sell. Feta should only be from Greece, even though feta isn't a place. The EU argues it "is so closely connected to Greece as to be identified as an inherently Greek product."
So, a little "hard-grated cheese" for pasta? It doesn't have quite the same ring as Parmesan.
U.S. dairy producers, cheesemakers and food companies are all fighting the idea, which they say would hurt the $4 billion domestic cheese industry and endlessly confuse consumers.
"It's really stunning that the Europeans are trying to claw back products made popular in other countries," says Jim Mulhern, president of the National Milk Producers Federation, which represents U.S. dairy farmers.
The European Union would not say exactly what it is proposing or even whether it will be discussed this week as a new round of talks on an EU-United States free trade agreement opens in Brussels.
European Commission spokesman Roger Waite would only say that the question "is an important issue for the EU."
That's clear from recent agreements with Canada and Central America, where certain cheese names were restricted unless the cheese came from Europe. Under the Canadian agreement, for example, new feta products manufactured in Canada can only be marketed as feta-like or feta-style, and they can't use Greek letters or other symbols that evoke Greece.
Though they have not laid out a public proposal, the EU is expected to make similar attempts to restrict marketing of U.S.-made cheeses, possibly including Parmesan, Asiago, Gorgonzola, feta, fontina, grana, Muenster, Neufchatel and Romano.
And it may not be just cheese. Other products could include bologna, Black Forest ham, Greek yogurt, Valencia oranges and prosciutto, among other foods. You know what the difference is between mortadella and bologna? About four dollars a pound.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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Fuck the EU - Really dump the a-holes and return to Fortress America! Seriously!
#7
Yeah, good luck on them getting US consumers to give up Wisconsin cheddar.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/14/2014 14:52 Comments ||
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#8
Sorry babe, but US is not subject to the EU. I believe that issue was resolved a couple hundred years ago. I will continue to call them french fries.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/14/2014 14:54 Comments ||
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#9
Joe, you figure not with our current regime. They would have us JOIN the EU in a New York minute.
[An Nahar] A conservation group has teamed up with the Canadian tax man to offer deductions for land donations to help lovelorn moose.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada is looking for land along the border between the country's easternmost Nova Scotia and New Brunswick provinces to create a corridor wildlife can wander through.
The hope is that New Brunswick moose will migrate to Nova Scotia to mate, since the population there is endangered.
"It'd be nice if some New Brunswick moose go over and make friends in Nova Scotia to boost the gene pool and help the species survive there," the Nature Conservancy's Andrew Holland told AFP.
While New Brunswick has a healthy moose population numbering more than 29,000, Nova Scotia's herd has been thinned to only about 1,000 after a parasite infestation.
The campaign was launched in 2013 under the catchy banner "The Moose Sex Project." But the corridor will likely also be used by lynx, bobcat, ducks, bears and deer.
The non-profit has so far secured 13 donated and purchased properties totaling more than 2,060 acres along the Chignecto Isthmus, which includes swamps, lakes, marshes and bogs.
It is now looking to secure an additional 1,730 acres to complete the corridor.
Land donations are eligible for tax breaks under Canada's Ecological Gifts Program, which was set up to help promote biodiversity and environmental conservation.
It is administered by Canada's environment ministry.
To date, 1,054 land gifts valued at more than Can$635 million (US$572 million) have been made across Canada under the program, protecting 150,000 hectares (370,660 acres) of wildlife habitat.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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A cyber attack on Russian communication systems by anonymous hackers on early Saturday morning has compromised India's defense dealings with Russia and raised serious concerns about a possible major security breach.
Believed to have been carried out by an international group of anonymous hackers in retaliation to the last week's Russian invasion of Ukraine, the attack was detected by Indian technical intelligence agencies at about 4am on Saturday.
Most of the leaked documents relate to India's dealings with Russia for the purchase, overhaul and repair of front-line fighter aircraft like the Sukhoi-30 MKI and the MiG-29.
They include correspondence between Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), which makes the SU-30 and MiG-29 among other aircraft, and the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) which manufactures the aircraft under license in India.
Several letters written by UAC president M Pogosyan to HAL chairman RK Tyagi refer to a host of issues discussed during the 31st session of Indo-Russian Subgroup on Aviation (IRSA) held in New Delhi on February 20 this year. The IRSA is a sub-group of the Indo-Russian Inter Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation.
Some of these letters discuss the delays in finalizing a contract between UAC and HAL for the RD-33 MK engines, which power the MiG-29 fighter aircraft.
There is also a great deal of discussion in setting up Repair and Over Haul (ROH) facilities for the SU-30 MKI, which has been delayed due to indecision on the deputation of Russian specialists. Pogosyan admits that the delays are due to the disagreements between Russia and India on the "financial aspect of reimbursement rates for 2014".
[DAWN] 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... loaned $1.5 billion to Pakistain last month to help Islamabad shore up its foreign exchange reserves, meet debt-service obligations and undertake large energy and infrastructure projects, Pak officials have told Rooters.
The Saudi assistance has contributed to a sharp recovery of the Pak rupee, which rose to a nine-month high of 97.40 from 105.40 against the dollar between March 4 and 12, its strongest rally in 30 years.
"On a personal guarantee of the prime minister, Saudi Arabia has given $1.5 billion, which has helped bail out the rupee," one senior Pak government official close to the deal told Rooters, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to disclose the source and purpose of the funding.
The governor of the Saudi central bank declined to comment, and officials gave no details of the loan terms.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Saudi Arabia loaned Pakistan $1.5bn to shore up economy bought another $1.5bn worth of atomic bombs from Pakiwakiland.
[DAWN] Governments around the world are increasingly invoking blasphemy laws, with Pakistain by far the country that jails the most citizens for allegedly attacking religion, a US report said Thursday.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government advisory panel, voiced fear that the rise in laws banning blasphemy was leading to punishment of people who merely express different religious views or who have been falsely accused.
The report found Pakistain used its controversial law at a level "incomparable" to anywhere else, listing 14 people on death row and 19 others serving life sentences for alleged blasphemy against Islam.
Pakistain has never carried out the death penalty for blasphemy, but the report charged that the law, and the lack of procedural safeguards, has contributed to an alarming number of mob attacks and vigilante violence against minorities.
Egypt has seen a rise in use of such laws since the 2011 overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... , the report said.
Citing local activists, the report found blasphemy cases involved 63 people in 2011 and 2012 and disproportionately targeted the Christian minority.
The US commission opposes blasphemy laws, saying they "protect beliefs over individuals."
"This trend of greater usage of blasphemy laws will surely lead to increased violations of the freedoms of religion and expression," said Knox Thames, the commission's director of policy and research.
"Governments will jail people, and hard boyz may kill others in the defense of undefined notions of religious sentiment," he said, calling blasphemy laws "inherently problematic."
Blasphemy is a sensitive issue for many Moslems. In Islam images of the Prophet Mohammed (PTUI!) are forbidden.
Pakistain in the past has urged the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... to make blasphemy an internationally recognized offense.
The commission report also highlighted Bangladesh's arrests of three self-professed atheists last year and said Indonesia has locked away Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! more than 120 people since 2003 for blasphemy, although they generally have not been prosecuted.
While blasphemy cases took place mostly in the Islamic world, the commission noted that Russia last year enacted a blasphemy law after punk band Pussy Riot put on a performance critical of President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President 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... inside a cathedral.
The report also pointed to Greece, where a man was arrested in 2012 for blasphemy after mocking a late Orthodox monk on Facebook.
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[Egypt Independent] Four men convicted of raping and murdering a woman in New Delhi had their death sentences upheld on Thursday for a crime that caused a huge public backlash against an entrenched culture of violence against women in India.
The victim, a trainee physiotherapist who was raped for an hour and tortured with an iron rod on a moving bus, became a symbol of the dangers women face in a country where a rape is reported on average every 21 minutes.
"The day the murderers of my daughter are hanged, we will feel we have got justice," the victim's mother said after the Delhi High Court confirmed the sentence of hanging handed down by a trial judge last September.
"We hope, even in other such cases, justice will be done in the same fashion," the mother said. Indian law bars the press from identifying rape victims.
Defense lawyers said they would appeal to the Supreme Court, with one denouncing Thursday's decision as politically motivated. India holds a general election in April and May.
"This is not a fair trial," A.P. Singh, representing two of the convicts, told news hounds after the ruling by a panel of two female judges. "If the judgment had come after the elections, it would have been in our favor ... Clearly, the judges are under political pressure."
Gym instructor Vinay Sharma, bus cleaner Akshay Kumar Singh, fruit-seller Pawan Gupta, and unemployed Mukesh Singh were sentenced to death for their part in the gang rape and killing of the 23-year-old woman in December 2012.
During the seven-month trial, a fifth defendant hanged himself in his cell. A sixth, who was under 18 at the time of the attack, was sentenced to three years' detention, the maximum allowed under juvenile law.
In his original sentencing of the four, the trial judge said India's courts "cannot turn a blind eye to the need to send a strong deterrent message to the perpetrators of such crimes".
If the Supreme Court upholds the sentence, a final decision will lie with the president, who has the power to grant clemency. Indian courts condemn around 130 people a year to death but the sentences are rarely carried out.
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[Bloomberg] Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) has started a bribery related investigation into its operations in Russia and neighboring countries at the request of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The biggest maker of computer-networking equipment disclosed the probes in a Feb. 20 filing, which said the company or its resellers may have violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Russia and some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Wall Street Journal reported the disclosure earlier yesterday.
Cisco, based in San Jose, California, said it didnt anticipate that the results will have a material effect on its finances.
The company takes any such allegations very seriously and is fully cooperating with and sharing the results of its investigation with the Commission and the Department, Cisco wrote in the filing. John T. Chambers has been at the helm of CSCO for nearly 20 years. The firm has enjoyed a high degree of success and is flooded with cash. Very interesting timing and DoJ 'look see' if nothing else.
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 Nahar] An Indian guru declared dead has been in a deep freezer in his ashram for nearly six weeks with followers confident he will return to life to lead them, his 
[An Nahar] A snowstorm paralyzed eastern Canada on Thursday, causing highway car pileups, flight cancellations and school closures.
[An Nahar] A total of 28 people have been killed and 365 injured in anti-government protests rocking Venezuela, the country's top prosecutor said Thursday, lamenting an atmosphere of "violence and chaos."
Unconfirmed news reports claim the Russian Navy is deploying land-based 'Bastion' anti-ship missile systems as a response to the recent U.S. move entering two naval vessels to the Black Sea. The two American Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Truxtun (DDG-103) crossed the Bosphorus Strait Friday, headed into the Black Sea, as tensions simmer over Ukraine's Crimea region. The Russians also moved two naval combatants from the Mediterranean Task Force back to the Black Sea Fleet. Tension is mounting in the Crimea Peninsula with the preparations for a referendum on independence from Ukraine later this week.
Moscow's military intervention in Crimea and the peninsula's upcoming March 16 referendum on whether to leave Ukraine and join Russia has caused muted official reaction in Central Asia. Nonetheless, Russia's actions in Ukraine is particularly closely followed across the region. And the Kremlin's justification for using force in Crimea--namely to protect ethnic Russians living there--has put Central Asian leaders on alert. 
...Second and fourth President 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...
[An Nahar] As part of trade talks, the European Union wants to ban the use of European names like Parmesan, feta and Gorgonzola on cheese made in the United States.
[An Nahar] A conservation group has teamed up with the Canadian tax man to offer deductions for land donations to help lovelorn moose.
[Egypt Independent] Four men convicted of raping and murdering a woman in New Delhi had their death sentences upheld on Thursday for a crime that caused a huge public backlash against an entrenched culture of violence against women in India.
