[ALMANAR.LB] At least 25 people were massacred and 120 maimed when gunnies in army uniforms attacked then torched a UN camp that was sheltering civilians in South Sudan last month, the UN said Friday.
The updated toll comes two weeks after the two-day shootout inside the camp in the northeastern town of Malakal, with a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) detailing the failure of peacekeepers to protect the civilians sheltering at the base.
Over 47,000 people lived in the camp, after fleeing for safety from a civil war that broke out in December 2013. The UN has said the attack was a possible war crime.
Reports of troops in government army uniforms storming the camp and "firing on civilians" were "credible", OCHA said, contradicting initial UN claims that the fighting was between tribal "youths".
"About 3,700 families' shelters were destroyed or damaged during the fighting and fires, along with multiple humanitarian facilities, including clinics, water tankers, nutrition centres and schools," OCHA reported.
Residents say 46 people were killed in the February 17-18 attack, while the UN has now updated to 25 an earlier toll of 18.
Those killed include three aid workers, two of them South Sudanese health workers for medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). One was murdered as he administered care, MSF said.
"Other people who tried to put out fires or help the maimed were deliberately targeted and shot," said MSF, which treated 46 people for bullet wounds.
Residents say some were burned to death in the deliberate fires that razed sections of the camp, where civilians lived in segregated ethnic plots to dampen tribal tensions.
"The 47,000 people living in the camp had already suffered through two years of violence and were forced to seek shelter amid inhumane, substandard conditions," MSF said. "As a result of this attack, many are now left with nothing."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
detailing the failure of peacekeepers to protect the civilians sheltering at the base
contradicting initial UN claims that the fighting was between tribal "youths"
I'm sensing two separate actions, the standard close proximity gang turf war which may have led to rioting and fires, then the blue hats engaging.
[Dhaka Tribune] Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has detained 14 men, including 12 foreigners, of a cyber fraud gang involved in swindling money using Facebook.
They were detained from Uttara, Nikunja and Bashundhara in Dhaka between Thursday night and early Friday. RAB also seized a good number of mobile phones, laptops and foreign currencies from the men.
The detainees are Nigerians Aiba, 30, Kasi, 30, Adwin, 35, Emnoar, 33, Kosmods Elkujmuzin Okulizi, 51, Zosoya, 27, Ebrahim, 27, and Besens, 29, Cameroon
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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No WAY! Nigerians? Whoda thunk it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/05/2016 7:55 Comments ||
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I see a limited event horizon for 14 miscreants.
For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Donetsk head of state Aleksandr Zakharchenko signed an agreement on Friday which will ban all live fire exercises by both sides in this nearly two year old civil war, according to Russian language news accounts.
Negotiators from the rebel, Ukrainian and Russian sides have been working on an agreement for a prisoner swap as well as the latest ban since last week, but so far only the live fire ban has been signed. The ban stops all live ammunition firing for practice within a 300 kilometer zone along the line of contact.
Despite this latest agreement by both sides, both side continue to fire on the other using artillery, 30mm autocannon and small arms fire.
According to data supplied by the Donetsk ministry of defense, Ukrainian forces violated the ceasefire Friday 190 times, with areas near northern western Donetsk city being the most active.
According to Donetsk ministry of defense spokesman Lt. Colonel Eduard Basurin, Ukrainian forces fired on rebel positions in Peski, Marinka, Zhovanke, Opytnoye, and Zamozhniy Pavlopole in Donetsk, and in Gorlovka further north.
Other settlements/villages fired on include Zaytsevo, Spartak, Staromykhailivka, Zhabichevo, Sosnovsky, Gagarin mine, Donetsk airport and Volvo Center and in Petrovsky district, specifically in the village of Trudovskoy, near Donetsk city.
Weapons used included 82mm and 120mm mortars, 30mm autocannon fire from BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers and 23/2mm antiaircraft guns.
According to a news report which appeared on censor.net.ua website, Ukrainian military officials say the rebels "grossly" violated the ceasefire on Thursday including the launching of 122mm rocket artillery at their positions near western Donetsk. A Ukrainian soldier was reported wounded in Peski from rebel gunfire.
A Ukrainian soldier was reportedly killed by a rebel sniper near Stanitsa-Luganksaya while on patrol near the river.
On Friday, another Ukrainian military official identified as Major Sergey Zhmurko said that rebel forces violated the ceasefire 57 times, with shooting concentrated in Marinka and Peski in western Donetsk city, and in Mayorsk, Troitskoye and Lugansk city in Lugansk.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com and on Twitter. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraine by clicking here.
[ALMANAR.LB] South Korea and the United States were set to open talks Friday on the possible deployment -- vehemently opposed by China -- of an advanced US missile defense system to counter the growing threat from North Korea.
South Korea's defense ministry said initial discussions would focus on potential locations, as well as cost-sharing and a timeline for installation of the THAAD system.
The system fires anti-ballistic missiles into the sky to smash into enemy missiles either inside or outside the Earth's atmosphere during their final flight phase.
The interceptor missiles carry no warheads, instead relying on kinetic energy to destroy their targets.
Seoul and Washington announced their intention to begin formal talks on its deployment following Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch on February 7, which was widely regarded as a covert ballistic missile test.
The first official meeting has been on hold amid fierce opposition from China and Russia, with Beijing warning the deployment had the potential to "destroy" relations with Seoul.
China sees THAAD as a threat to the effectiveness of its own nuclear deterrent, arguing that it could be used to monitor Chinese missile launches as far inland as Xian in the northwest.
The defense ministry in Seoul stressed Friday that any deployment would be solely aimed at countering North Korea's "increasing nuclear and missile threats".
"North Korea has continued its nuclear tests and long-range missile provocations and defied South Korea and the international community's deterrence efforts," the ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
CHERAMY (Certain High Explosive Righteous Atomic Yield) is THAADs' CONUS partner.
[ALMANAR.LB] Russia on Friday voiced "deep concern" and urged restraint after North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un ordered that his country's nuclear arsenal be readied for pre-emptive use at any time.
"We are following the development of the situation very closely and hope that all the countries in the region and third countries will maintain restraint and equanimity in this difficult situation," Kremlin front man Dmitry Peskov said.
Bellicose rhetoric is almost routine for North Korea at times of elevated tensions but Peskov told news hounds in Moscow that Kim's latest declaration "caused deep concern" for Russia.
Kim ordered the North's nuclear warheads deployed "on standby" in a widely-expected uptick in military sabre-rattling from Pyongyang following the UN Security Council's adoption of tough new sanctions.
While the North is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear warheads, experts are divided about its ability to mount them on a working missile delivery system.
The EU on Friday imposed additional punitive measures against North Korea over its recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests carried out in defiance of United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... resolutions.
Europe's move came two days after the UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted its toughest sanctions yet against Pyongyang, imposing unprecedented inspections of all cargo to and from the notoriously reclusive country which has locked itself away from the rest of the world for the past 60 years.
Hours after the United Nations adopted the tougher sanctions, North Korea fired six short-range projectiles into the sea in a new show of defiance.
Russia -- which enjoys friendly ties with the reclusive Stalinist regime -- backed the tough UN measures against North Korea on Wednesday, after arduous negotiations between the United States and Pyongyang's main backer China.
Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... told members of the security council that the North Korea situation was "extremely tense".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
With that lack of light pollution NK could offer itself as the world capital of star-gazing. With a chance for an up close, personal view of a mini-star.
[NEWSMAX] Twenty-four hours after the U.S. persuaded the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... to impose what is advertised by the B.O. regime as the toughest sanctions yet on North Korea, for its illegal nuclear and missile tests of Jan. 6 and Feb. 7, on March 3, dictator Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... responded by ordering his armed forces to be ready to use nuclear weapons "at any time" and to be prepared to make a "preemptive attack."
China's late dictator Mao Tse-tung once derided the United States as a "paper tiger," but was reminded by Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev "that paper tiger has nuclear teeth."
Western media that regularly dismisses as mere bluster Kim Jong-un's frequent threats to make nuclear missile strikes against the United States should remember -- and should report -- that the North Korean dictator is capable of delivering on his threats.
North Korea has six mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), armed with nuclear warheads, capable of reaching the western United States, perhaps as far as reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... , according to "Military and Security Developments Involving the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea," a recent Defense Department report.
North Korea also has 50 medium-range Nodong missiles, at least some of them nuclear armed, that can reach South Korea, Japan, U.S. military bases located there, and the U.S. mainland if launched from a freighter.
Senior national security experts from the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations have warned repeatedly in articles and congressional testimony that North Korea's KSM-3 and KSM-4 satellites orbit over the United States at the optimum trajectory and altitude to evade U.S. early warning radars and national missile defenses and make a surprise electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the contiguous 48 United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Kinda makes me wonder if the 0bean administration is starting to realize the error of its ways.
#5
North Korea's KSM-3 and KSM-4 satellites orbit over the United States at the optimum trajectory and altitude to evade U.S. early warning radars and national missile defenses and make a surprise electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the contiguous 48 United States.
There is some speculation that the initial 'tumbling' of KSM-4 was actually a staged kinetic dispersal action for a plume of EMP microsats (HPM pills). An interesting addition to this 'obviously paranoid rant' is the suggestion that the EMP has been team designed to target specific Made-in-China communication components.
#6
EMP again? Look, an EMP attacked is stupid tactics, it is localized (there's math involved), but still a strategic attack inviting a strategic response which likely would old fashioned thermo nuclear warheads targeted against silos and cities. We got no cell phones or radio, but you got no country and 1200 people in a mineshaft.
Counterforce is an opponents better choice, except for the Ohio factor of course.
The agreement on freezing the oil output at January levels, which has already received support from a number of countries, is theater and is not meaningful, Arthur Berman, an independent US geological consultant with thirty-seven years of experience in petroleum exploration and production believes.
“It has contributed to a sentiment-based rally in crude oil prices over the last several weeks but is otherwise meaningless,” Berman told Trend.
Gasoline jumped 40 cents a gallon last couple weeks in Chicago. That's some sentiment...
Energy ministers of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar agreed to freeze the oil output at Jan.11 level. Later, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that over 15 countries have joined this initiative.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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Gasoline jumped 40 cents a gallon last couple weeks in Chicago. That's some sentiment...
It's called supply and demand. The new demand is the now authorized export market. You are now competing against the world. First you shipped your jobs and employment overseas. Now something as fundamental as energy is now open to world demand. You compete with a hungry giant of China and disruptions in other geographical locations. Your product will sell well and at the highest price it can be got. It was a nice honeymoon while it lasted.
#2
ProK, the U.S. Is the largest exporter of fuels on the planet, should we keep that at home too and remove any profit incentive from refining? Coal, should we keep that unused at home as well? Our ideas, keep them at home where they are too expensive to build?
We do have farmland tho, how do you feel about corn and wheat exports? Why should the rest of the world free ride off our agricultural efficiency? It's time for an export tax on grains, the government will buy any surplus at half the market rate.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
03/05/2016 9:04 Comments ||
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#4
Doc, much of the recent price increase is probably due to refinery 'turnaround' - scheduled maintenance work generally done at time of lowest demand, which is now for many markets.
#6
It is my opinion that the current oil prices are mainly the result of Saudi Arabia and the major international oil cartel's attempt to destroy not only the Canadian oil tar sands industry, but also the U.S. oil fracking industry, but more than anything the small independent oil companies in the U.S.
U.S. oil prices rallied again on Friday after a one-day pause, helped by strong U.S. jobs data and technical buying after crude prices breached resistance levels on charts.
Also on Friday, the U.S. oil rig count fell by 8 to a total of 392, oilfield services firm Baker Hughes reported. At this time last year, drillers were operating 922 rigs in U.S. oil fields.
Brent futures rose $1.63 to $38.70 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures settled at $35.92 a barrel, up $1.35, or 3.91 percent for the session. U.S. oil also posted a 9.5 percent weekly gain.
The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, continued its recovery on Friday driven by improved rates for panamaxes and smaller vessels.
The overall index, that gauges the cost of shipping resources including iron ore, cement, grain, coal and fertiliser, was up seven points or 2.05 percent, at 349 points.
The index, which touched an all-time low of 290 points on Feb. 10, has since registered gains in 16 successive sessions to rebound by over 20 percent.
Continued on Page 49
[DAWN] Just days after its unanimous adoption by the provincial legislature, the Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Protection of Women against Violence Act (PPWVA) 2016 -- which contains remedies for victims of violence -- has landed at the door of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Police on Friday placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! four panchayat members suspected of marrying off a nine-year-old girl in Vani in a Rahim Yar Khan village after taking notice of the incident and registering a First-Information Report (FIR) against the alleged offenders.
Three of the four suspects arrested have been identified as Punnu, Ghazwa and Kaalu after FIR no. 46/2016 was registered under Section 310 of the Pakistain Penal Code, Gulshan Fareed police checkpost in-charge Ilyas Ali told Dawn adding that the marriage has been halted.
A panchayat had decided earlier this week to give the girl as Vani in marriage to a 14-year-old boy in order to settle what was alleged to be a murder dispute. The arrested men are said to be signatories of the panchayat ruling.
After the girl's brother's wife died earlier in February, her family suspected foul play. A panchayat was held in which it was decided that the nine-year-old sister of the alleged murderer would be married as Vani to a 14-year-old cousin of the dear departed wife. The man was also asked to pay a Rs150,000 fine to his deceased wife's relatives.
Ilyas Ali said, "As soon as we learnt of the incident, we registered an FIR and then arrested the suspects in a raid. We also recovered the panchayati order that gave the girl as Vani in marriage to the boy."
He said it was possible more suspects would be arrested in the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/05/2016 00:00 ||
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h/t Instapundit
Declaring that he "has to be true to himself," local man Steve Bakowski announced Friday that he is bravely stepping out and choosing to openly self-identify as a man.
"I don’t care what people say. I don’t care what people call me," an audacious Bakowski told reporters. "I know in my heart that I’m a man. I’ve always known it, ever since I was a kid. I’ve never even second-guessed it. So I’m going to tell it like it is. I’m a man, and I’m not ashamed to say it."
When asked about the possibility of facing backlash for his courageous stance, Bakowski was undeterred.
"I know our culture can be hostile to people like me," he stated. "But I’m prepared to face the consequences. I know there are others out there who feel exactly like I do. They need to know they’re not strange, they’re not some weird freaks."
"They need to know they’re not alone," he added. I wish it were funny
#1
Or as conservative comedian/juggler David Deeble says, "Iâll tell you a little about myself before we get started: Iâm married. I got married old school â to a woman."
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.
North Korea
North Korea
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
North Korea
The agreement on freezing the oil output at January levels, which has already received support from a number of countries, is theater and is not meaningful, Arthur Berman, an independent US geological consultant with thirty-seven years of experience in petroleum exploration and production believes.
U.S. oil prices rallied again on Friday after a one-day pause, helped by strong U.S. jobs data and technical buying after crude prices breached resistance levels on charts.
