[Ma'an] Egyptian troops resumed the demolition of tunnels under their border with the Gazoo Strip on Thursday morning, witnesses and security officials said.
An Egyptian security official told Ma'an the army was using explosives to destroy certain tunnels, after filling them with earth. In recent weeks Egypt has demolished tunnels east of Rafah and is now moving west.
The security source said the Egyptian army was expected to continue its demolition work for a significant period "in order to fight any element of terrorism."
Witnesses told Ma'an that Egyptian military vehicles, accompanied by bulldozers, were operating in the border area.
Prices have risen in Gazoo since the first demolition of tunnels earlier this month, as traders had come to depend on the route while under an Israeli blockade.
After gunnies killed 16 Egyptian border guards on Aug. 6, Egypt closed its border with the Gazoo Strip and moved to cut off the tunnel network that provides a lifeline to the besieged territory.
Egyptian authorities will re-open the Rafah crossing three days a week starting next week, the director of the pedestrian crossing said on Thursday.
Meanwhile Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader Mahmoud Warty Nose al-Zahhar ...a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership. Since 2006, Warty Nose has served as foreign minister in the government of Ismail Haniyeh. He is considered one of the more stubborn hard-liners and has no objection to kissing the Persian foot to keep the money flowing. Warty Nose's son, a member of the Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli raid in early 2008. Another one was disposed of when the IDF bombed his house in 2003... commented on Facebook that Rafah should be open the same amount of time as Egypt's crossing into Israel, Taba.
While Taba is open, allowing 10,000 Israelis to cross from the Sinai, there are more than 40,000 Paleostinians who are registered to travel through Rafah but still waiting on the Egyptian side, he said.
Zahar reiterated Hamas' insistence that the attack on Egyptian troops was not related to Gazoo, and claimed Israel's intelligence agency Mossad was behind the attack.
No one has grabbed credit for the deadly assault, but Egypt has launched a crackdown on Islamist snuffies in the Sinai in its wake.
Prosecution says chief editor of privately-owned el-Dustour daily 'spreading rumors that could disturb public safety; human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... group 'shocked
A Cairo court on Thursday ordered the chief editor of an Egyptian newspaper placed in long-term storage Book 'im, Mahmoud! pending trial on charges of insulting the country's president and potentially harming the public interest.
The case against Islam Afifi of the privately-owned el-Dustour daily is one of several lawsuits brought mainly by Egypt's Islamists against journalists, accusing them of inflammatory coverage and inciting the public against the Moslem Brüderbund, the country's largest political group.
In a noisy court session, the head prosecutor from Cairo's Criminal Court ordered Afifi held in jug and scheduled his trial for mid-September. He read out a long list of defamation charges including "insulting the president via a publication" and "spreading rumors that could disturb public safety and harm public interest."
Supporters of the defendant shouted in protest as the decision was read to the packed courtroom. Rights groups quickly expressed indignation at the decision, and the national journalist association, the Press Syndicate, called for an emergency meeting.
"Insulting the president is a vague accusation that can be easily politicized," tweeted leading youth activist Wael Ghonim, a former Google ...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign... executive who played a key role in Egypt's uprising last year.
"Tomorrow, when someone writes his opinion and calls Morsi a weak president ... he will be prosecuted for insulting the president," he added.
'As if no revolution has taken place'
A human rights group called The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights expressed its "shock" and said there is no need to detain the journalist since he is already banned from travel outside the country.
Another prominent case is that of TV presenter Tawfiq Okasha who was charged with suggesting the murder of President Mohammed Morsi during a talk show aired on private el-Faraeen TV earlier this month.
The network was taken off the air and Okasha was banned from travel pending his trial in early September. Lawsuits have also been brought against chief editors of el-Fagr and Sawt el-Umma weeklies on similar accusations.
The Islamists, and especially the Moslem Brüderbund, have intensified their campaign against media they perceive as antagonistic, claiming they follow the former regime's agenda. The group feels empowered after Morsi in June became Egypt's first elected civilian president in modern history.
Afifi's el-Dustour regularly runs articles warning of alleged Brotherhood plots and conspiracies to turn Egypt into a fundamentalist Islamic state. It also has promoted an anti-Brotherhood demonstration for Friday, initially calling for the torching of Brotherhood offices but later toning down its call to peaceful rallies in Cairo.
The protest call has spurred public debate, especially after a Brotherhood holy man issued a religious edict, known as a fatwa, saying that killing anti-Islamist protesters was permissible.
Activists demand Morsi to take a strong stance against such statements. Egypt's Presidential Spokesman Yasser Ali on Wednesday said the president supports the right to hold protests and said "it is unhealthy" to spread fears about protesters' safety.
Leading pro-democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei Egyptian law scholar and Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. After stepping down from his IAEA position ElBaradei attempted to horn in on the 2011 Egyptian protests which culminated in the collapse of the Mubarak regime. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization's Executive Committee. condemned the imprisonment of the editor and the issuance of the fatwas, saying such developments betrayed the values of last year's revolt against Egypt's longtime strongman, former President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... "Instigating to kill in the name of religion, and accusing revolutionaries of betrayal are not crimes, but insulting the president in the press leads to imprisonment," he said. "It's as if no revolution has taken place."
Concerns of a possible showdown in Cairo have escalated, as the Brotherhood has asked its young followers to come out on Friday to protect the group's offices from opposition protesters.
Security authorities meanwhile warned in a statement that they would "confront with all firmness ... riots or chaos that harms citizens' interests."
The Brotherhood dominates both houses of parliament, including the upper chamber known as the Shura Council. The council controls state-owned newspapers and last month ordered the dismissal of 50 chief editors of state papers and other outlets.
The appointment of new editors, who are either sympathizers of the Islamists or members of the Brotherhood, sparked a wave of protests by journalists both within and outside state media. The Press Syndicate accused the Brotherhood of trying to monopolize the media and turn it into its mouthpiece.
Pro-democracy activists have shown mixed reactions to the court cases. Many defend the right of freedom of expression and deem the Islamists' practices as repressive. Others side with the Islamists and accuse journalists facing trials of spreading propaganda in the service of former regime loyalists.
#2
The main different between Mubarak and Morsi appears to be that Mubarak was pro- and Morsi is anti-American. Isn't it great that Egyptians finally got to elect someone who reflects their personal views? Allahu akbar.
DHAKA: Human Rights Watch yesterday slammed the Bangladeshi governments cruel restrictions on humanitarian aid to Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing persecution and violence in neighboring Myanmar.
The South Asian nation last month ordered three international charities Doctors Without Borders, Action Against Hunger and Muslim Aid UK to stop giving aid to the Rohingya because it might encourage a fresh influx. Bangladesh is already home to some 300,000 Rohingya and the countrys border forces have turned back scores of boats carrying hundreds more since sectarian violence broke out in Myanmar, formerly Burma, in June.
The Bangladeshi government is trying to make conditions for Rohingya refugees already living in Bangladesh so awful that people fleeing brutal abuses in neighboring Burma will stay home, said HRWs refugee policy director Bill Frelick.
This is a cruel and inhumane policy that should immediately be reversed, he said.
How much money have you raised to help Bangladesh host the refugees? Appreciate what you've done so far but you folks seem to forget that life sucks in Bangladesh for about 95% of the normal citizens...
The New York-based rights group said Dhaka had signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which prohibits the country from denying those within its borders, including refugees, access to food and healthcare.
The three charities provide water, healthcare, sanitation and other basic aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Aid workers have said the conditions in the makeshift camps for Rohingya are among the worst in the world.
Likely because conditions in all of Bangladesh aren't so good...
Speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in southeast Bangladesh, the Rohingya people are Muslims seen as illegal immigrants by Buddhist-majority Myanmar and viewed by the UN as one of the worlds most persecuted minorities.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2012 00:00 ||
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Wow. A leftist NGO criticizing poverty-stricken Bangladesh? I never thought I'd see the day.
#3
According to the article, this will cost a great deal of European money and do not much good
Welcome to the European Commission
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/24/2012 14:57 Comments ||
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#4
They can't even hold the EU together with money from across the globe what makes them think they can shut down the internet people would wake up then and all the robots would be jobless even in America!
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > [Sidney Morning Herald]LEADERS UNVEIL PLAN TO GIVE EU BUDGET CONTROL, i.e. "FINAL SAY" oer the national budgets of any each + all EU Member-States. DITTO SUPERVISION [EU-wide?] OVER THE ENTIRE BANKING INDUSTRY.
"Banking industry" > read, TO START WITH.
OTHER INDUSTRIES TO FOLLOW???
and
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > NORWAY: MUSLIM CLERIC CALLS FOR BEHEADING THOSE WHO FAIL TO FAST IN RAMADAN.
ARTIC = would also like to set up an Islamic School for pupils in Norway's capital city of OSLO, i.e. the same OSLO that the Radical Group Ansar-al-Sunna demands be given to Muslims as part of a breakway Muslim Nation.
* SAME > [Professor-Historian Norman Davies] UK HAS LOST ITS IDENTITY. UK = Great Britain at risk of "DISSOLVING/BREAKING UP" due to weak Govt. policies on immigration + immigration-led Nanny-Welfare State which may induce Scots + Welsh to leave the Britannic union.
Among other, IIUC WASHINGTON DC = LONDON = BIG GOVTS WID NO $$$ OR NOT ENUFF FOR ITS OBLIGATIONS.
* DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > UK BLOCKS CHINESE [tourism] VISA PLAN AMID FEAR OF RISE OF ORGANIZED CRIME IN COUNTRY, as well as fear of new flood of Chinese-Asian +Illegal Migrants.
OTOH ARTIC = denotes that Britain may be losing out on significant revenues from the tourist trade as only 147,000 Chinese visited the country last year, compared wid 1.2Milyuhn whom visited France for the same period.
GRAFT-VS-PUBLIC/ECON-REVENUES.
The US has similar fears as per a Chinese tourist waiver program for GUAM + CNMI, at least until after the US MISSLE SHIELD IN EAST ASIA IS WELL-ESTABLISHED???
GENEVA: A Swiss radiation lab is awaiting a decision from Yasser Arafats widow on whether it should conduct tests on the remains of the former Palestinian president to see if he was poisoned, its spokesman said.
Still won't help with finding the Krugerrands, Suha...
The possible probe, which has already been requested by the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, comes after a media investigation found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafats belongings, suggesting he could have been poisoned.
We have shown our interest as long as the independence, credibility and transparency in our involvement is guaranteed, said Darcy Christen, a spokesman for Lausanne University Hospitals radiology lab, was quoted as saying in AFP report.
Independence, credibility and transparency aren't the three words I'd use around any member of the Arafat clan...
Arafats widow, Suha Arafat, and their daughter, on July 31 filed a lawsuit suit in France over the radioactive poisoning claims. They lodged the complaint for murder against persons unknown in France because Arafat died at a military hospital near Paris in 2004.
Because a criminal complaint had been filed, Christen said the lab was waiting for Suha Arafats approval before it decided on its involvement. The lab is one of several specialists consulted by the Al-Jazeera news channel, which commissioned an analysis of Arafats personal effects, including clothing he wore in the days before he died age 75.
Suha Arafat has already said she would seek an exhumation to allow specialists to take additional samples for testing, and the Palestinian leadership has said it would be willing to allow exhumation if Arafats family agreed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2012 00:00 ||
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Will the tests show if he was 'poisoned' with the AIDS virus? What are the chances someone 'salted' the corpse with polonium? Would the planter of poponium get a Pulitzer Prize for his/her work?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/24/2012 5:55 Comments ||
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#2
+1 for the Miss Piggy photo.
Posted by: American Delight ||
08/24/2012 6:23 Comments ||
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Miss piggy, eh? For a minute, I was thinking Sura was looking pretty good as a blond.
Ankara investigates possible involvement of Tehran in deadly kaboom near Syrian border
Turkey has said it is investigating whether another country, possibly Iran, was involved in an kaboom that killed nine people near Syria earlier this week. The announcement reflects concern about spillover from the war in Syria as well as increasing tension with Iran, a regional power that supports Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... Turkey blamed a Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, for the attack in the southern city of Gaziantep. In a separate incident near the Iraqi border, Turkish media reported Thursday that five soldiers and 16 Kurdish cut-throats died in a nighttime ambush of a military convoy and an ensuing operation by security forces.
Some Turkish officials allege there are links between the PKK, which denied it carried out the bombing, and Syrian intelligence. Turkey backs the Syrian opposition in its war with forces loyal to Assad, and relations between Ankara and Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... have sharply deteriorated since the conflict began in March 2011.
In an interview Wednesday night with CNN-Turk television, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc left open the possibility that Iran might be a culprit in Monday's bombing near a cop shoppe in Gaziantep.
"It's not just about Syria, connected to it or limited to it," Arinc said. "All foreign elements who may be involved in our geography."
Asked if that included Iran, he said: "It could be Iran, it could be here or it could be there."
Turkey and Iran have expanded trade in past years and tamped down their traditional rivalry, but sharp differences over the Syrian conflict as well as Turkey's decision to host a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... radar that would send a warning if Iran fires missiles have led to increasingly tense rhetoric on both sides.
Hossein Naghavi, front man for Iran's parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, suggested that Turkey was jeopardizing its own security with its Syria policy and that the bombing in Gaziantep was the result of "terrorist groups" that were reacting to its position.
"Turkey is now facing an internal crisis and it would be better for it to solve its own domestic problems rather than intervening and expressing hostile remarks" against Syria, Naghavi said Tuesday in remarks carried by ICANA, the news website of the Iranian parliament.
In July, Turkish media reported that a dozen people suspected of links to the al-Qaeda network were tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! in southern cities, including Gaziantep. US officials and others worry that Syria could become a new foothold for cut-throats inspired by al-Qaeda who are currently fighting on the opposition's side.
In an analysis published just before the Gaziantep bombing, Stratfor, a US research center, said Turkey faced the possibility of a backlash.
"If Ankara is expanding its involvement in Syria, it will do so in a measured fashion because it will be fearful of pushback from the Syrian regime and Iran via the Kurds," the report said.
WASHINGTON: Former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has called upon the United States to respect Pakistani public opinion and stop expecting to change Pakistans regional policies through non-transparent means.
Speaking to an elite audience of journalists, think tank scholars, opinion makers and government officials at a luncheon in Washington held by the Center for the National Interest, Professor Haqqani said that America and Pakistan should no longer put up the pretence that they are allies.
Haqqani said that it is unrealistic to believe that endless discussions and chats and what I call the clash of narratives will somehow, some day produce a change of thinking either in Washington or Islamabad.
According to Haqqani, realism dictated a fresh approach in US-Pakistan relations.
The US isnt going to be convinced to treat India as an enemy for Pakistans sake and Pakistan wont be convinced to give up its nuclear weapons or end its support for jihadi groups it sees as strategically beneficial for regional influence because America wants it to, he said.
So the future of US-Pakistan relations is what I call a post-alliance future, Haqqani explained.
If in 65 years, you haven't been able to find sufficient common ground to live together, and you had three separations and four reaffirmations of marriage, then maybe the better way is to find friendship outside of the marital bond.
Arguing that the US tries to use aid to Pakistan as leverage in trying to force behaviour change on Pakistans part, Haqqani said, The behaviour change is not going to come unless and until there is behaviour change on your part. So you should stop the meddling... you have to stop going in and seeing all our politicians and thinking they are all your friends and trying to influence. Make Pakistanis realise that America has an interest in Pakistan, but you know what, America respects Pakistani opinion. Show respect for Pakistani public opinion. And if Pakistanis dont want to be your friends, you dont want to be their friends, thank you very much.
Haqqani said, Now stop thinking of each other as allies. That will give Pakistan flexibility in terms of being able to do certain things which may or may not be approved by the United States, but the people in Pakistan who always claim our sovereignty is most important, they will be able to exercise that sovereignty, but then they will also have to bear the responsibility for that sovereignty.
America, in turn, will be freer to institute more coercive measures against Pakistan, without being accused of betrayal because charges of betrayal do not apply if the two parties are not allies to begin with, Haqqani said.
I am nowadays proposing that it is time for both countries to recognise that the convergence in interest that is needed for two countries to be allies does not exist at this point, Haqqani explained, adding that such a relationship between the US and Pakistan wouldnt mean the two couldnt work together in areas we can work together.
Haqqani also said Pakistan needs to form a commission to thoroughly investigate who knew al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan because somebody knew [it].
If a huge mafia operation is found in New York, its not necessary that the New York police was helping them run their operation, but it is essential that the New York police come clean on why did they fail to find it, he said.
It is Pakistans responsibility to the world to say who did it? Who? Doesnt matter. It doesnt have to be the government, it doesnt have to be the ISI, it doesnt have to be the military and I say that again and again. It may be private individuals. But whoever it is, we need to come clean on that because that is the only way we will reassure the rest of the world that the Pakistan government and the Pakistan state has its hands clean in relation to this whole thing.
Haqqani said Pakistan's military needed to be under greater civilian control, adding Pakistan's national interests are defined by generals, not by civilian leaders.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Here Here.Two countries with nothing in common cannot be friends.They want Islamic rule and to be more like Saudi.Iranian people want Democracy not Islamic rule.Lets help them more than the Pakis who hate us whatever money we throw at them.
#5
D *** NG IT, I FOR ONE DIDN'T KNOW AMERICA = AMERIKA HAD TWO WIVES!?
To wit,
* TOPIX > THE GREAT SINO-AMERICAN DIVORCE.
IIUC the passion ended after the collapse of Lehman Brothers back in 2008, whereupon arguments began oer what brand of State Capitalist sex was better.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday summoned a senior US diplomat to lodge a protest against recent drone strikes in North Waziristan Agency.
A Foreign Office statement read, "The US Embassy was today demarched on recent drone strikes in North Waziristan. A senior US diplomat was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty."
Don't worry, if Mitt Romney wins the election all drone-zaps will become instant violations of international law come January 21st...
Four drone strikes were carried out during Eid holidays in the area. Seeking anonymity, a local official had told Daily Times that the missiles were fired when people were gathering for Eid celebrations on August 17.
Attacks by unmanned American aircraft are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, which says they violate its sovereignty and fan anti-US sentiment, but US officials are said to believe they are too important a weapon to give up.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2012 00:00 ||
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Like Easy-E said keep the EIGHT BALL ROLLING-NWA!
The United States is colluding with a top Israeli newspaper to stymie Israel's efforts to strike Iran's nuclear weapons program, according to a leading nationalist pundit.
Writing in Friday's edition of Makor Rishon, one of the Israel's veteran journalists, Amnon Lord, paints a picture of intense U.S. meddling in internal Israeli political and security-oriented processes in an effort to prevent a successful Israeli strike on the weapon program meant to make it extinct.
"From a technical military point of view, Israel does not require any kind of coordination with the Americans," writes Lord regarding the plan for a raid on Iran. "There is a concern that the Americans will learn of the date for an attack and try to prevent it in different ways. The Americans have not given the Israelis a feeling that they are true partners in the operative arena, in the past two years. On the contrary, the IDF has identified preventive American activity against an Iran operation."
"This is particularly evident in the grave matter of the leaks regarding Azerbaijan in the past, about the Kurdish region, and recently in the publication of the flight paths to the target. All this is the product of our ally, with the cooperation of one of the largest media platforms in Israel, which serves and assists the Obama administration against the government of Israel. The Americans are the ones who are feeding some of the arch-pundits with damaging information."
Lord -- who was formerly Makor Rishon's editor-in-chief and currently writes a weekly column and is a senior editor -- does not name names, but most informed Israeli readers would have no doubt that he is referring to the Yediot Aharonot media empire. In essence, he is accusing the newspaper of colluding with an external force -- the Obama administration -- against the Israeli government and the IDF, in an existential matter of national defense.
Much as Jonathan Pollard deserves to be in a federal pen the rest of his life, but the hypocrisy of Champ's administration is breath-taking...
Lord states that Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the IDF Chief of Staff, is hard at work preparing the IDF strike on Iran and that reports that he thinks such a strike is beyond the abilities of the Israeli military are "simply a disinformation campaign by media people who disguise the fact that it is motivated by a political view."
#1
time is ticking down for any "plan" to work in the ME. There are so many fires buring, it's just a mtter of time before one explodes into an inferno. the Israelis better keep this in mind.
#2
This White House has also organized funding and instruction in techniques for the Israeli version of Occuppy Wall Street, which spent the marching season busily protesting cost of living issues and demanding government spending on rent control and other counterproductive socialist measures.
The eastern and western parts of the Palestinian Territories accelerate on their separate paths.
[Ma'an] Religious authorities in the West Bank failed to consult their counterparts in the Gazoo Strip over proposed changes to divorce laws, the head of Islamic courts in Gazoo said Thursday.
The chief Islamic judge in the West Bank Sheikh Yusef Ideis announced Thursday that the Islamic supreme court would meet Monday to discuss a new law granting women the right to initiate divorce.
The law will come into effect in September, Ideis said in a statement.
But the head of Islamic courts in Gazoo Hassan al-Juju told Ma'an there had been no coordination on the new law. "No one consulted us on this issue."
Al-Juju said Islamic authorities in Gazoo would be happy to study the new law if it was discussed with them, but as they had not been consulted it would only apply in the West Bank.
He added that personal status laws should be unified across the West Bank and Gazoo.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pool hall, Peoria Slim had found another sucker... member of the Secretariat of the General Union of Paleostinian Women Khawla al-Azraq welcomed the reform which she said would protect women suffering from domestic violence.
The new law follows a rise in incidents in which women were killed by their relatives and husbands in the West Bank, al-Azraq noted.
She told Ma'an that rights campaigners were waiting for the Paleostinian Authority to adopt a new set of personal status laws, drafted by women's groups, to protect women from domestic violence.
Laws in the West Bank and Gazoo are drawn from several legal systems as a result of various foreign occupations. Jordanian law is applied in the West Bank, and Egyptian laws are in force in Gazoo.
Both legislative systems discriminate against women, allowing men to divorce far more easily than women.
Efforts to unify the legislative framework and enact Paleostinian laws have been hampered by Israel's occupation and detention of politicians, and the internal division which led to separate governments in the West Bank and Gazoo Strip.
#6
I thought that all Muslim laws were taken directly from the Koran, which was dictated directly from Allah to Mohammed. How is it possible to change one jot or tittle of the law?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/24/2012 23:21 Comments ||
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INTERNATIONAL nuclear inspectors will soon report that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges and may be speeding up production of nuclear fuel while negotiations with the United States and its allies have ground to a near halt, according to diplomats and experts briefed on the findings.
Almost all of the new equipment is being installed in a deep underground site, on a military base near the city of Qom, that is considered virtually invulnerable to attack. It would suggest that a boast by senior Iranian leaders late last month - that the country had added more than 1000 new machines to its installation despite Western sabotage - may be true.
The report will also indicate, according to officials familiar with its contents, that Iran is increasingly focused on enriching uranium to a level of 20 per cent - a purity that experts say gets it most of the way to the level needed to produce a workable nuclear bomb.
The report does not try to answer the question of whether Iran has made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. US intelligence officials believe it has not, and Iran insists it wants to use nuclear power for peaceful ends.
Nonetheless, the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency's experts is likely to renew the debate over Iran's intentions at a time when Israel is stepping up warnings that the window to conduct a pre-emptive military strike is closing.
A faction led by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak will almost certainly argue that Iran has moved closer to what he calls a ''zone of immunity'', the point at which so much equipment is installed in the underground facility, called Fordow, that it will be too late for Israel to stop Iran from producing a weapon should it choose to do so.
The report could also become an issue in the US presidential race. The presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, used a trip to Israel last month to claim President Barack Obama had wasted time in fruitless negotiations with Iran.
''This will stir more discussion of how much time is left for diplomacy,'' said Olli Heinonen, the former chief inspector for the IAEA and now a fellow at Harvard's Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs. ''Even if the new centrifuges are not operating yet, a thousand new ones would represent a 20 per cent increase - and an increased production level will be a red line for many people.''
The Egyptian government newspaper Al-Gomhuria reported that Hezbollah held an unprecedented military exercise this week, which included over 10,000 of its operatives.
According to the report, the drill was personally supervised by Hezbollah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
After Nasrallah threatens to kill tens of thousands of Israelis, Hezbollah trains for war inside Israel.
Over 10,000 Hezbollah fighters participated in the terror organization's largest military exercise to date last week, which included defensive tactics and "preparations to conquer the Upper Galilee," Lebanese newspaper Al- Joumhouria reported Thursday morning.
"This is happening in full coordination with Iran," said Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research school at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya's Institute for Counter-Terrorism. "In his last two speeches in hiding, [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah indicated that he would join an Iranian counter-strike if Israel struck Iran's nuclear program."
La Belle France signaled Thursday that it was prepared to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria, piling pressure on Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... 's embattled regime as it widens a major offensive against rebels in Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... and surrounding areas.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged the international community to consider backing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, but cautioned that closing the Arab nation's entire air space would be tantamount to "going to war" and require a willing international coalition that does not yet exist.
US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland says that Egyptian government officials who will attend an upcoming Arab summit in Tehran should press Iran to make good on its obligations or bear the consequences.
Nuland stressed she wants to see the new Egyptian government cementing Egypt's relations with its neighbors, especially Israel.
This is what President Obama is going to be remembered for. Obamacare is the culmination of a national conversation about what government is intended for that's finally about to be decided after almost a century of discussion. But the grotesque ineptitude of asking the utterly powerless Egypt to rear up on its collective hind legs and spout the words America dictates while leading from behind...
Western diplomats say Islamic Theocratic Republic installed 'hundreds' of enrichment centrifuges in Fordo facility; UN nuclear agency forming a special Iran team. MK Danon: Israel 'preparing for all scenarios'
No concern seen on the White House brow....
Iran has installed many more uranium enrichment machines in an underground bunker, diplomatic sources said on Thursday, potentially paving the way for a significant expansion of work the West fears is ultimately aimed at making nuclear bombs.
Several sources said Iran had put in place additional enrichment centrifuges in its Fordo facility, buried deep inside a mountain to protect it against any enemy strikes. One source suggested it involved hundreds of machines.
"Our basic understanding is that they were continuing to install," a Vienna-based diplomat said, adding the new centrifuges were not yet operating.
If confirmed in a report expected next week from the UN atomic watchdog, the development is likely to be seen as a sign of Iran's continued defiance of international demands to curb its nuclear programme, which Tehran says is entirely peaceful.
At Fordo, near the holy Shiite Mohammedan city of Qom, Iran is enriching uranium to a fissile concentration of 20%, activity which the West wants it to stop immediately as it brings it closer to the level required for nuclear weapons.
Iran denies Western allegations that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, saying it needs to refine uranium to that level to provide fuel for a medical research reactor.
But its refusal to suspend enrichment - which can have both civilian and military uses - has been met with increasingly tough Western sanctions and heightened speculation that Israel may attack its nuclear sites.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard... the UN nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add muscle to a probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Creating a unit focused on only one country is an unusual move for the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency, reflecting the priority the UN nuclear watchdog is attaching to Iran amid fears that it is moving closer to the ability to make nuclear weapons. It also indicates frustration by top agency officials over Iran's refusal to cooperate with IAEA experts who are trying to follow up on suspicions that Tehran was - or is - secretly working on an arms program.
Iran says such allegations are based on evidence fabricated by the United States and Israel and insists its nuclear program is meant only for making reactor fuel, medical isotopes and peaceful research. But it refuses to give up uranium enrichment, which can produce both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads, despite offers of fuel from abroad. And its stonewalling of the IAEA probe has increased concerns that it has something to hide.
The agency's move comes at a crucial time. With both the agency and international diplomatic efforts stalemated in attempts to engage the Islamic Theocratic Republic on its nuclear program, fears are growing that tensions could spill over into armed conflict.
Israeli leaders have been loudly expressing impatience over Western diplomatic and economic moves to deter Iran and increasingly talk of attacking its nuclear facilities, though some analysts believe the saber-rattling is a bluff to increase pressure on Tehran. Iranian leaders have rejected Israel's warnings, threatening punishing retaliation.
The four diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the restructuring plans, spoke ahead of a renewed attempt Friday by the agency to breach Iranian resistance to its requests for access to sites, documents and people linked to the suspected secret weapons-related work.
One of diplomats likened the restructuring plan to the agency's Iraq "Action Team" - the squad of experts who uncovered components of Saddam Hussein's fledgling nuclear-weapons program in the 1990s.
That unit, however, had broad on-the-ground access under U.N-mandated inspections. That's lacking in the case of Iran, which allows agency inspectors access only to its known nuclear activities and has for years blocked its attempts to probe alleged evidence of secret nuclear weapons research and development.
Asked for reaction on the IAEA plans, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, said: "I have not heard of such a thing, and I cannot comment." IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency had no immediate comment.
Danny Danon, deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, told the AP in a phone interview Thursday that Israel was "preparing for all scenarios." He also was dismissive of the agency's new Iran squad.
"We are getting close to the point where the window of opportunity will be closed to us, and that's why you hear all those voices," he said when asked about the war rhetoric. "We have seen too many teams, too many summits, too much talk. It is about time to take action."
#1
"Window of opportunity to be closed ..." > read, victory in November POTUS Elex by a pro-War/Bomb Iran Romney, as agz the pro-Diplomacy/Sanctions, now ex-POTUS Bammer.
Presuming of course, that Mittens follows through wid his own anti-Iran rant.
OTOH Syria + Jordan = Iran what East China Sea + South China Sea = China, I.E. "RED LINES" THAT AMBITIOUS IRAN + CHINA MUST CONTROL, NOT "MAY" OR "SHOULD" CONTROL???
#2
"the UN nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise ..."
I'm so RELIEVED that the UN is finally doing something. Boy - a team of sleuths - what a brainstorm. I'm waiting breathless with anticipation.
You'll have to excuse our illustrious leader. He has much, much bigger things with which to concern Himself...er...such as getting Himself reelected, screwing up the economy, granting amnesty to illegal aliens, violating the US Constitution and lining the pockets of his cronies.
The US Navy has cut short home leave for crew of aircraft carrier USS Stennis by four months to send the warship back to the Middle East and Persian Gulf next week, Press TV reported.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta notified the USS Stennis crew in Seattle on Wednesday that they are needed in the Middle East region, following the requests forwarded by the US Central Command. The Stennis had departed from the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain in January and was due to be redeployed next to the Pacific towards the end of 2012, Reuters reported.
In early July, the US navy added another warship to its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, in an attempt to bolster America's military presence in the Persian Gulf. Earlier in June, other four mine countermeasures (MCM) ships arrived at the Fifth Fleet to be deployed for a seven-month period in an area of operations, including the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean.
A US Senate report indicates that the United States has now nearly 15,000 troops in three bases across Kuwait - three times the average number of American forces in the Middle Eastern country before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. According to the report, having the military bases throughout the region is a "lily pad" model to allow for a rapid deployment of military forces.
The American forces have also been stationed in Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
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#1
good move. just wish our carriers weren't operating in such a small body of water.
#3
"A US Senate report indicates that the United States has now nearly 15,000 troops in three bases across Kuwait - three times the average number of American forces in the Middle Eastern country before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003."
Yes, because a lot of those combat units that were pulled out of Iraq were simply moved across the border into Kuwait. That has been widely reported.
Leading Iranian opposition figure Mirhossein Mousavi, under house arrest for more than a year, was taken to hospital on Thursday for treatment for a heart problem, one of his former senior advisors said, Reuters reported.
Mousavi and fellow reformist Mehdi Karoubi ran for election against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009 and became figureheads for the large protests that followed by Iranians who accused authorities of rigging the vote to bring back the hardline incumbent. The government denied any vote wrong-doing and said Iran's foreign enemies had plotted to overthrow the country's leaders by stirring up the protests, the biggest opposition demonstrations since the 1979 revolution.
"Mousavi was taken to the hospital this morning after his blood vessels became blocked," said Ardeshir Amir Arjomand, a senior advisor to Mousavi during his presidential campaign and leading exiled opposition figure.
"He has not been feeling well since last night, but the security forces did not take him to the hospital until this morning because they wanted to install cameras there," Arjomand told Reuters by telephone from Paris.
Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard and Karoubi have been held incommunicado since February last year when the two leaders called their supporters onto the streets for a rally in support of uprisings in the Arab world - the first demonstrations by their pro-reform "Green movement" since street protests were crushed by security forces at the end of 2009. Since then, the two opposition leaders have not been seen in public.
Months after the 2009 election, members of parliament called for the pair to be tried and hanged but the authorities chose to isolate rather than officially arrest them, wary of angering their supporters.
Arjomand said the families of the two opposition figures had been under "severe and inhumane pressure" in recent months.
"Mr. Mousavi did not suffer from any illness prior to his house arrest. He and his family have been under a lot of pressure but he has stood firm ... The same is true for Mr. Karoubi and his family."
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MOSCOW: The Russian Foreign Ministrys point man on Syria says Moscow has guarantees from the Syrian government that it will not use or move its chemical weapons.
And if you can't believe a restatement of a Russian government official about a promise made by Pencilneck, what can you believe?
Speaking in an interview to The Associated Press on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said that Russia is working closely with the Syrian government to make sure its arsenal of chemical weapons remains securely in place and does not fall into the hands of terrorists. Gatilov said Russia is in full agreement with the Americans on the need to prevent Syrias chemical weapons from being used.
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#1
As long as they have chemical johnny on the spots they can keep fighting the ass-wipe wars!
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.
...a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership. Since 2006, Warty Nose has served as foreign minister in the government of Ismail Haniyeh. He is considered one of the more stubborn hard-liners and has no objection to kissing the Persian foot to keep the money flowing. Warty Nose's son, a member of the Qassam Brigades, was killed in an Israeli raid in early 2008. Another one was disposed of when the IDF bombed his house in 2003...
GENEVA: A Swiss radiation lab is awaiting a decision from Yasser Arafats widow on whether it should conduct tests on the remains of the former Palestinian president to see if he was poisoned, its spokesman said.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
WASHINGTON: Former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has called upon the United States to respect Pakistani public opinion and stop expecting to change Pakistans regional policies through non-transparent means.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
The US Navy has cut short home leave for crew of aircraft carrier USS Stennis by four months to send the warship back to the Middle East and Persian Gulf next week, Press TV reported.
