[NEWS.XINHUANET] Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said Friday that his government would offer asylum to Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange for as long as the whistleblower wants.
"If he wishes to give up asylum and hand himself over, that is his decision. But if he wants to remain under protection, the Ecuadorian state will continue (offering it)," Correa told the press during a trip to the coastal province of Esmeraldas.
Correa spoke out after Assange said Thursday that he would accept to be extradited to the United States if his rights are protected.
The former hacker and journalist has been living at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted in connection with the sexual assault of two women.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[REUTERS] 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... 's former leader Yahya Jammeh on Saturday flew into exile in Equatorial Guinea after stepping down under pressure from West African nations to accept that he lost a December election to President Adama Barrow, mediators said.
His exit ends rising tension as thousands of troops from 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... and Nigeria who entered the tiny country on Thursday were poised to swoop on the capital Banjul. It also paves the way for the return home of Barrow, who was sworn in as leader at the Gambian embassy in Senegal on Thursday.
Jammeh took power in a coup in 1994, and his government is accused of torturing and killing perceived opponents. There were few celebrations in Banjul as news of his departure spread, but some people said they felt relief after years of fear.
"The rule of fear has been banished from Gambia for good," Barrow told a crowd at a Dakar hotel on Friday, once it became clear a deal had been struck for Jammeh to relinquish power.
"To all of you forced by political circumstances to flee our country, you now have the liberty to return home," said Barrow, 51, who worked as a property developer and led an opposition coalition few thought would win the Dec. 1 vote.
The initiative to force Jammeh out will likely be viewed as a triumph for African diplomacy and could set a precedent in a region where democracy advocates have spent decades pressing for fair elections and an end to authoritarian regimes.
Jammeh's security forces offered no resistance to soldiers from West African bloc ECOWAS. Around 4,000 troops are still there and some will remain to ensure security, said Marcel de Souza, head of the ECOWAS commission.
The crisis was a test for the bloc, not least because Jammeh had held office longer than any other current president in the grouping of 15 states.
"If something like that (not accepting poll results) happens in the same way in another ECOWAS country, it will be the same treatment," de Souza told a news conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
He did as I asked and wanted. So keep him well, no?
[Guardian] Donald Trump is actually giving Mexican workers more reason to head to the US, not less.
In Mexico it is known as "el efecto Trump": a barrage of taunts and tweets that rattle the economy and hammer the peso. For the new president, it is part of a strategy to pressure companies to move jobs back to the United States. Mexico’s job will be to suck it up, accept the millions of people Trump has promised to deport, and pay for the proposed border wall.
Reality may soon disrupt this vision because Donald Trump, in one of the first great ironies of his presidency, has given impoverished Mexicans more reason to migrate to the US.
#9
re #6: Raj, I seem to recall that there was a time where we stationed armed military on the border. Unfortunately, one of the troops shot a teenager who was out hunting, which ended the exercise.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/22/2017 14:55 Comments ||
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[Ynet] Turkish prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for more than 400 people, including soldiers and security officers, in 48 provinces across the country following July's failed coup, broadcaster Haberturk said on Saturday.
They were being sought on suspicion of using Bylock, an encrypted smartphone messaging app that the government says was used by the network of Fethullah Gulen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... who is alleged by Ankara to have orchestrated the attempted coup, Haberturk reported.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/22/2017 01:00 ||
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#1
DC is not a village. DC is a place of many different people all going their separate ways. Then they think they are the best of humanity collectively. Best example is O's new home with his security wall. You wouldn't see people talking over the backyard fence to their neighbor. Laundry hanging in the backyard. No front stoop gatherings. All live in their private little boxes. The only power they have is intimidation to their group thought. Stray and you'll pay.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] Two Afghan refugees have been nabbed Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! on charges of sexually abusing a female university student in Delhi, the capital city of India, it has been reported.
The two men have been identified as 27-year-old Twaab Ahmad and 31-year-old Sulaiman Ahmadi.
The victim, a 21-year-old student of Jawaharlal Nehru University was reportedly drugged and sexually abused by the two men who met her at a pub in the city.
Chinmoy Biswal, additional deputy commissioner of police (south), quoted in a report by Hindustan Times, said that the arrested men were living in Delhi on United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards.
Biswal further added that Twaab was working as an event manager.
The victim was reportedly invited by the men to their apartment after they met in the pub.
Police officials have said the men and the victim had drinks in the apartment of the perpetrators and she found that she was gang-raped after waking up in the morning.
The woman has reportedly taken to a hospital for examination and the two men have been sent to Tihar jail after appearing before a Delhi court.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
The victim was reportedly invited by the men to their apartment after they met in the pub.
Police officials have said the men and the victim had drinks in the apartment of the perpetrators and she found that she was gang-raped after waking up in the morning.
Well it's good to know that stupid isn't unique to the European strains.
[NATION.PK] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... yesterday said the Panama leaks case had exposed the real face of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... who used politics and public offices to boost his business and increase his wealth.
In an interview to Waqt News, Imran Khan said the Panama issue should have ideally been resolved in the parliament. PTI had to come on the roads on being denied justice in the parliament, he averred.
He lauded his party workers, including women, youth and children, for staging protest sit-ins against corruption. He extended his gratitude towards his supporters who stood by him against corruption and whose support made the rulers accountable.
The PTI chief said Gen Zia ul Haq ...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988... had brought Nawaz Sharif in politics by holding non-party-based elections in 1985.
Answering a question, Imran said 20 years back, he joined politics because nobody was prepared at that time to speak against corruption. Sounding optimistic regarding the Panama outcome, Imran said he was about to achieve his objective against corruption after 20 years.
He said: "It must be ascertained who is lying, Nawaz Sharif or his children. It has been proven that the country’s plundered money was sent abroad to purchase the London flats and set up offshore companies. BBC has also made a documentary on it." Khan affirmed he was desirous of engaging Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan as his counsel in the Panama case, but he didn’t do so because of his affiliation with PPP.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[FOX] New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that he was requiring health insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost to women.
Cuomo’s announcement comes on the same day that over a million people around the world took to the streets to protest Donald Trump just hours into his presidency.
The ’Women's March’ attracted protesters who mostly sported pro-women and anti-Trump messages. Hundreds of "sister marches" were held in cities across the U.S. and internationally.
Cuomo took to Twitter to talk about his effort to "firmly secure access to reproductive health services in New York State."
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.
[NEWS.XINHUANET] Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said Friday that his government would offer asylum to Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange for as long as the whistleblower wants.
[REUTERS] 
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
[FOX] New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that he was requiring health insurance companies to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost to women.
