Lev L. Dassin, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Ben-Ami Kadish pleaded guilty earlier today to a one-count information charging him with participating in a conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of the Government of Israel.
In summary, according to statements at Kadishs guilty plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz, the Information and other documents filed Manhattan federal court:
Kadish is a former employee of the U.S. Armys Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey ("the Arsenal"). On numerous occasions from about 1980 through 1985, Kadish provided classified documents relating to the U.S. military including some relating to U.S. missile defense systems to an agent of the Government of Israel, Yossi Yagur, who photographed the documents at Kadishs residence.
Kadish, 85, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Kadish is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan federal court by U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley on February 13, 2009.
Mr. Dassin praised the investigative work of the New York and Newark Field Divisions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and thanked the U.S. Army for their support in this case.
This prosecution is being handled by Assistant United States Attorney Iris Lan from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York and Trial Attorney Kathleen Kedian from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Departments National Security Division.
#2
Mr. Kadish knew the risk when he chose to break the law, regardless of the idealism behind that choice. He can't complain that he had an extra quarter century of freedom before the deserved punishment fell upon him.
gromky, a traitor is one who reveals key information to his country's enemies or otherwise undermines the war effort. I'm sure you aren't contending that Israel and the U.S. have ever been enemies, even during President Carter's term in office, just before these events occurred.
Harkatul Mujahideen district Commander Bilal Ahmad has been killed in an encounter with the Army at Sopore in Baramulla district of J&K. One more terrorist is still holed up and the encounter is on.
This is an Indian-style encounter, not an RAB-style encounter.
Two army personnel were killed in an encounter with six suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists which continued for the second day on Thursday in the Poonch sector close to the Line of Control.
The deceased have been identified as Subedar Rakesh Kumar and Nayak A P Singh of Rashtriya Rifles, Army sources said. The six terrorists that included JeM local commander Abu Dawood have been encircled by the security forces amidst intermittent gunfire. The gunbattle was on till the last reports came in.
The encounter took place in the backdrop of Indo-Pak tensions following evidence that the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks originated from Pakistan.
Meanwhile, two pistols with its three magazines and 50 rounds of ammunition of pika guns were recovered in Nangali forest area in the same border district, the sources said.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
16:39 ||
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BAGHDAD The U.S. formally transferred control of the Green Zone to Iraqi authorities Thursday in a pair of ceremonies that also handed back Saddam Hussein's former palace. Iraq's prime minister said he will propose making Jan. 1 a holiday marking the restoration of sovereignty. Under the new security agreement between Washington and Baghdad to replace a U.N. mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, the Iraqi government also now has control of American troops' actions and of the country's airspace.
Many of the changes inaugurated on New Year's Day won't bring immediately visible results. The Green Zone, the country's government and military command center, remains ringed by concrete blast walls and off limits to most Iraqis. U.S. troops still man its checkpoints, although now as trainers rather than leaders.
But the Americans have moved out of the Republican Palace, the sprawling former headquarters of Saddam's regime that they took over shortly after the 2003 invasion. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki formerly took control of the building Thursday and exulted over the security pact under which U.S. troops are to leave the country by 2012. "A year ago, the mere thought of forces withdrawing from Iraq was considered a dream," al-Maliki told reporters afterward. "The dream that no one had the right to think about became true."
He called for making Jan. 1 a national holiday called "Sovereignty Day." Iraq already officially observes New Year's Day as a holiday.
Also on Thursday, British troops turned over to Iraqi officials the airport in Basra, the country's second-largest city. Britain says it will withdraw its approximately 4,000 soldiers in Iraq by May 31.
"Iraq is taking another step toward the future, signaling to its citizens and the international community that it is indeed a new day for sovereign Iraq," U.S. Army Col. Steven Ferrari said at a separate ceremony handing over control of the Green Zone.
The Green Zone was the most potent symbol of the U.S. invasion and occupation. The 4-square-mile area, which nestles into the start of an oxbow bend of the Tigris River, formally is called the International Zone. Sarcastically, it's called "The Bubble" because the foreigners who live and work there often have little contact with the shabby and violent city on the other side of the 13-foot-high, reinforced concrete blast walls around the perimeter.
But the sense of security is only relative. The zone was a favorite target for rockets and mortars fired by insurgents. In 2007, the attacks were so heavy that the U.S. Embassy ordered its workers to wear flak jackets and helmets anywhere outside.
Asked whether insurgents could resume attacks now that the area is under Iraqi control, Ferrari said, "Common sense says they'll probably test the Green Zone."
The walls and the seemingly endless series of checkpoints inside have been worrisomely porous. A suicide bomber attacked the parliament's dining hall in 2007, killing one person. Suicide vests wired with explosives have been found on the grounds.
Although Baghdad is calmer now, the Green Zone is full of unsettling reminders of war. Duck-and-cover bunkers dot sidewalks under lush date palms. Walls bear signs warning drivers not to stop for any reason and frequent speed bumps force vehicles to a near crawl.
Even before U.S. troops took control of the area in 2003 and put up the walls, the neighborhood had an air of intimidation. Saddam and his sons had lavish residences there and motorists who drove through understood they shouldn't stop. Now, Iraqi officials have their eyes on making the area accessible, inspiring and educational, even though it's not yet clear when they will feel confident enough to take down the walls.
"It depends. There are many steps to take," Iraqi Security Minister Sherwan al-Waili said when asked about prospects for opening the zone.
In July, the National Investment Commission approved plans to build a $100 million luxury hotel in the zone. And in the next couple of months, the Iraqi High Tribunal plans to open a museum in the zone detailing the brutality of Saddam's regime. It will include a replica of the hole-in-the-ground hideout where Saddam was captured in 2004, two years before he was executed, tribunal head Arif Abdul-Razzak Al-Shaheen told the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat last month.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/01/2009
16:35 ||
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Climate realists around the world have contended for years that the real goal of alarmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his followers is to use the fear of man-made global warming to redistribute wealth.
On Monday, one of Gore's leading scientific resources, Goddard Institute for Space Studies chief James Hansen, sent a letter to Barack and Michelle Obama specifically urging the president-elect to enact a tax on carbon emissions that would take money from higher-income Americans and distribute the proceeds to the less fortunate.
The eco-socialism cat was let out of the bag on page five of a PDF Hansen published at Columbia University's website on December 29...
(letter follows)
#1
Hansen proposes a tax on carbon with proceeds distributed per capita (not on the basis of wealth).
Although Hansen says this will be a progressive tax, I'm pretty sure he is factually wrong on this. On gasoline, use increases with income but at a slower rate than income. The same is true with electricity.
#2
It's Progressive, really! And the only Ukranians Stalin killed were Kulacks, he'd never do anything mean to real honest poor deserving Peasants, that would be against communism!
#4
The carbon tax has social benefits. It is progressive. It is useful to those most in need in hard times, providing them an opportunity for larger dividend than tax. It will encourage illegal immigrants to become legal, thus to obtain the dividend, and it will discourage illegal immigration because everybody pays the tax, but only legal citizens collect the dividend.
Yes, we all know that the only thing that keeps illegal immigrants from signing up to become legal is the absence of free money directed at them. And how do you collect the tax on money that is often paid in cash off the books?
And what about those who consume massive amounts of carbon fuels by flying or using mass transit? Should we put GPS chips in them tax them for the distances they travel from home? They are already talking about putting GPS chips in cars so that they can tax us on road use. I believe Oregon and Idaho have seriously considered the possiblity of doing that.
It won't be long before the start rationing our food intake too. No one should get more than their share. Obesity is a problem and health care is expensive. It's all for the good of the children.
#6
The time is going to come yet when all these idiots are gathered into one room, and the air taken out of it. People are going to get angry and stay angry, and it's not long off. Hanson needs to both be fired and refund his cumulative paycheck for the last ten years. He's a political "scientist" who is more than willing to make up data when the real stuff doesn't fit his beliefs.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 21:27
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#7
Global Warming is only one part of it - we now have the US-WORLD RECESSION/DEPRESSION, aka MSM-Net's "GREAT DEPRESSION II", which can last for many more DECADES than the original 1929-1939/WW2 Dreat Depresion I ever would've have.
ITS NOT SOCIALISM-GOVTISM OR OWG-NWO, ETC. ITS "US-GLOBAL ECONOMIC RECESSION/DEPRESSION" + "ECON CHAOS", ITS MULTI-STATE, MULTI0REGION, MULTI/TRANS-CONTINENTAL "NEW ECONOMIC COMMUNALISM/COMMUNITARIANISM" + "GROWTH BLOCS"???
In more important news, MCDONALD'S GUAM brings back the SPICY CHICKEN SANDWICH + MEAL!
#8
Again, unfortunately for all concerned the GREAT SOLAR EXPLOSIONS = "GREAT SOLAR STORMS" known as the "SIRIUS EVENT" DID OCCUR - the Perts remain scientifically uncertain as to what the phenom meant as per PRESNET + LONG-TERM LIFE ON EARTH.
* GLOBAL WARMING-COLING > this will be the first time that MODERN OR POST-MODERN SCIENCE, HUMAN ANALYTICAL METHODISMS, ETC, will be around to observe BOTH A MAJOR NATURALLLY-OCCURRING EPOCH(S) THAT IS ALSO A POSSIBLY CATASTROPHIC NATURAL GLOBAL EPOCH(S)???
PRAGMATISM > NO MATTER HOW GOOD OR BAD ONE'S SCIEN MODEL(S), THEORIES, + CALCULATIONS, ETC. ARE, NOTHING WILL BEAT WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURS.
E.g. TOPIX/REDDIT > SCIENCE WANTS TO DEV AND POWER-UP A TINY "WORKING SUN" [as modeled on our own].; + CNN last Nite > LARRY KING Guests > on "UFO's" as de facto SPACE ALIENS VISITING EARTH, versus MASSIVE GOVT-LED HI-TECH COVERUP + CONSPIRACY [Le Questionne = WHY A COVER-UP?].
Why a COVER-UP(S), why build MILE-LONG OR LARGER SPACE CRAFTS, why "Globalism" versus "Status Quo", why .............................@!
Oliver Stones "JFK" > DONALD SUTHERLAND as "THE COLONEL" = "Thats the real Questionion, is't it, Mr. Garrison, WHY"???
#9
Looks like the FBI-CIA/INTEL-PYWAR - you know, the Mafia - and DHS, World-conquering USSA = Weak United Socs Republiks of Amerika's SKYNET, etc. is ruuning low on bytespace to SSSSSHHHHH read our emails again???
D *** NGED CARLYLE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE - OOOOPSIES, MY BAD, I MEANT "CARLYLE INVESTMENT GROUP".
Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that 630 million years ago the earth had a warm atmosphere full of carbon dioxide but was completely covered with ice.
The scientists studied limestone rocks and found evidence that large amounts of greenhouse gas coincided with a prolonged period of freezing temperatures. Such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed, the university's school of geography, earth and environmental sciences warned.
While pollution in the air is thought to trap the sun's heat in the atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up, this new research suggests it could also have the opposite effect reflecting rays back into space.
In other words, they haven't a clue ...
This effect would be magnified by other forms of pollution in the earth's atmosphere such as particles of sulphate pumped into the air through industrial pollution or volcanic activity and could create ice age conditions once more, the scientists said.
Dr Ian Fairchild, lead investigator, said: "We came up with an independent test of a theory that the earth, like a baked Alaska pudding, was once hot on the outside, surrounding a cold, icy surface.
"It happened naturally in the past, but the wrong use of technology could make it happen again."
The limestones studied were collected in Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean, which is covered in ice and snow.
Scientists unclear on the distinction between causation and correlation. Sigh.
#1
And they are also unclear about the concept that a theory must be falsifiable. Specifically, if high CO2 concentrations cause global warming and high CO2 concentrations cause global cooling, then clearly the theory so described can't be demonstrated false.
Might as well substitute "God's Will" for "high concentrations of CO2".
Posted by: Flerens Dark Lord of the Wee Folk6525 ||
01/01/2009 14:53
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#2
Such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed, the university's school of geography, earth and environmental sciences warned.
Any "Academic" that could say that with a straight face deserves to be punched in the CV
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 15:04
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deserves to be punched in the CV
That's cold, Frank. You really know how to hurt an academic LOL
They do, BJ - whichever ONE will get them grant funding and/or power over the little people at the momemt.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 15:29
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Dr Ian Fairchild, lead investigator, said: "We came up with an independent test of a theory that the earth, like a baked Alaska pudding, was once hot on the outside, surrounding a cold, icy surface.
Somebody, get the PhD Revoking CommitteeTM on the horn!
#11
Well gosh. According to Wikipedia, which I'm sure our good Dr. Fairchild can't be bothered to read because, after all, he's an expert, 630 million years ago was the end of the second "Snowball Earth" period, when the glaciers covered all or almost all of the entire planet, oceans included. One supercontinent was breaking up in order to form a second... leaving the watery bits unmoderated by intermixture with those pointy land bits that gain and lose heat so differently. If I recall correctly, this being yet another subject on which I am not expert, the supercontinents when not covered by glaciers were mostly desert in their interiors, with therefore very little in the way of green plants to absorb the carbon dioxide, thus driving up the CO2 level.
We have no supercontinent today, the desert area is relatively small compared to the amount covered by green plants, and the seaweed in the ocean is thriving, absorbing at least as much if not more CO2 than the land plants. Oh, and we are not at the end of a Snowball Earth ice age. Other than that, I've no doubt the good Dr. Fairchild's theory about the near future holds precisely true.
#13
The ozone hole was a scam. The "green" scientists used the weather GEOS to take thermal pictures of the North Pole during an aurora. The aurora made the satellite pics look like there was a hole in the ozone.
This and other cheap camera tricks provided plenty of tax payer funding for the universities out there.
#14
Hell, why don't they just tell us what "offerings" we need to make to appease some angry god/s while they're at it? It would make about as much sense as this drivel.
Posted by: Scott R ||
01/01/2009 18:28
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#16
As I have been saying for over 3 years...Negative phase of the PDO. We have now gone negative with the AO. And now...the sunspot minimum which has now been physically linked to long tern atmospheric and oceanic cooling.
#17
Actually, Poison Reverse, the ozone hole turned out to be an entirely natural phenomenon, which has always been present over the Antarctic for about 6 weeks at dawn (i.e. polar spring: they have a six month daytime and a 6 month night-time). It requires temperatures below -30C, which are only available during the polar winter/night and a few weeks afterward, and direct sunlight, which is only available during the polar summer/day. The Arctic never gets cold enough to have an ozone hole. Ozone destruction occurs on the surface of sulfuric acid cloud crystals, and needs to be catalyzed by certain chemicals. Chlorofluorocarbons can do it, but over 80% of the catalysts that actually do it are contributed by volcanoes, not man. The ozone hole has been present since the first observations during the 1957 Geophysical Year, and has not increased in size or magnitude since that time.
Once it was understand that man had no role in the ozone hole and that it couldn't ever expand beyond Antarctica in a 6-week window, everyone lost interest.
#19
Well 650 Myears ago the Sun was about 4% less bright; so, of course it was colder most of the time most everywhere. Who does peer review on these idiotic climate papers?
#23
Yes the sun wasn't as bright but there is little evidence of glaciation in the billion or so years before the Sturtian and Marinoan period.
Of course the interior of the earth might have been an important source of heat.
The real mystery here is how the Sturtian and Marinoan periods (and other glacial periods) could have ended. With the high reflectivity caused by glaciation, cooling should be self perpetuating. One theory is that the weight of the glaciers made volcanos more active producing carbon dioxide and injecting water vapor into higher altitudes (where it is much more efficient as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). The volcanos might also have produced enough dust to reduce the reflectivity.
We really need a time machine to check this stuff out.
#24
ION FREEREPUBLIC > RESEARCHERS: GRAPE-SEEDS CAN KILL CANCER CELLS.
You see, MADONNA, PAULA, this is why Daddy liked 'loved drinking GRAPE SODAS when he was a kid, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO certain Female Guam relations demanded to buy TAB + FRESCA instead, thus ruining both CHILDHOOD + MEDICINE + EARTH'S FUTURE.
1980's BLOOM COUNTY Skit > THIS IS WHY ALL WOMEN MUST BE BANNED [among other], LIKE ASBESTOS!
HIALEAH, Fla. -- Four months after they appeared in the waters between Havana and Miami, the four dead men remain nameless. At a morgue in the Florida Keys, they lie on stretchers stacked like bunk beds, their bodies chewed by sharks, their faces too putrified to be recognized. not bad for the NYTimes; no Castro cheerleading
Obama's coming into office. Expect all the leopards to change their spots and never, ever admit it.
All of a sudden Doonesbury is showcasing the effects of removing Saddam from power & the NYT is downplaying Castro's heroic revolutionary leadership. You'd think Obama is going to have to deal with the real world or something.
IMPERIAL BEACH --One alcohol-related arrest led to another, and then another, early New Year's Day.
It began about 1:15 a.m., when sheriff's deputies were called out to Elder Avenue and Third Street in Imperial Beach by a report that a man had just crashed into a car, said sheriff's Lt. Larry Nesbit.
The car's owner had gone outside and argued with the driver, who responded by punching her in the face, Nesbit said.
Deputies arrived and arrested the man on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and battery, the lieutenant said. The woman did not require medical treatment, Nesbit said. While deputies were taking that man into custody another man "staggered into the scene," Nesbit said. That man was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public.
Minutes later a third man, a friend of the man who had crashed, pulled up and loudly questioned the deputies about what they were doing, Nesbit said. Deputies determined he was also impaired and took him into custody on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009
12:59 ||
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#1
where they from Australia? sounds like a bad episode of cops ij atlanta
Britain is preparing to receive foreign terror suspects from Guantánamo Bay so that Barack Obama can shut it down, The Times has learnt. Government sources say that Britain now supports moves to rehouse the detainees, despite previous refusals to help President Bush.
A Downing Street official said that a process to deal with the detainees was being put in place and that decisions would be for the Home Secretary to decide on a case-by-case basis.
The issue is the subject of intense negotiations within Whitehall. The Foreign Office appears much keener on the idea than other departments, which will have to deal with the suspects immigration status and whether they will need special housing and cash benefits. Having foreign terror suspects with no links to the UK housed here inevitably will provoke controversy.
Of course the Foreign Office wants to do it, they want to get off to a good start with Obama, said a Whitehall source. This is the sort of thing that will require a Cabinet-level decision.
Britain accepts that the prison should be closed, according to a diplomatic source, and that the US is going to need help to close it. The Government is supporting a call from Portugal for EU members to resettle detainees. The letter from the Foreign Minister Luis Amado to his EU counterparts follows weeks of internal EU discussions. Germany has said that it is considering taking in detainees. Mr Amado plans to raise the issue at a meeting of EU foreign ministers this month. It is also on the agenda at an EU General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting.
Late last year the Bush Administration sent a number of European allies, including Britain, a list of detainees, cleared for release by the US military, who face persecution in their home countries. The US State Department cabled about 100 countries for help in closing the jail.
The entreaties were met largely with refusals, but there is a desire to help Mr Obama, who has vowed to begin moves to close the prison as soon as he takes office this month. The President-elect has not made any formal request for help, but there have been talks between the US State Department and his transition team and he has made clear that he will exert pressure on Europe to take prisoners no longer deemed a threat.
The US military says that of the 248 prisoners still in Guantánamo Bay, approximately 60 have been cleared for release. One move being discussed in Washington is for the US to take in 17 Chinese Uighurs, who cannot return to China, as an opening gesture. Mr Obamas plan is for the most dangerous detainees between 30 and 80 men to be taken to the US for formal trials. This presents problems, however, as evidence against inmates such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, was supposedly obtained through duress.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/01/2009
12:49 ||
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#1
Excellent. EU resettlement efforts could mean that these terrorists will get EU passports, and the visa-free entry into the US that these passports bring with them.
#3
Exactly the problem with sending them to Britain, or anywhere in the EU: they will immediately apply for "refugee" status, demand a huge payment, and be set free. After all the poor dears were tortured unmercifully for seven years at Gitmo; they deserve no less.
Of course, if we had actually followed the Geneva Convention, these illegal combatants would have been lying in an unmarked grave since shortly after they were captured.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/01/2009 16:45
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#5
Let us wish them much joy from their decision, all of which they have amply earnt. After refusing the hated President Bush for what clearly was no reason other than a desire to deny him anything he asked for, they now scramble to give to President Obama what he hasn't even asked for? Did they not learn in school that nobody likes a suck-up?
Former Sunday Express journalist Yvonne Ridley has been awarded more than £20,000 in compensation and £5,000 costs after winning a case for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination against the Islam Channel.
An employment tribunal ruled in April that Ridley had been unfairly dismissed by the digital channel and upheld her complaint of sexual discrimination and harassment. Now a tribunal in London has awarded her £20,532 in compensation and ordered the Islam Channel to pay her £5,000 in costs.
Ridley's case, which was part-funded by the NUJ, was held in London in February and heard evidence from a number of figures in support of her claims including the Respect MP George Galloway. Ridley, who resigned from the channel in April last year, complained that she had effectively been dismissed after relations between her and the channel's chief executive, Mohammed Ali, broke down.
The tribunal also found that Ridley had been unfairly dismissed, and ruled that the way she was treated was "riddled with unfairness" and that she was subjected to "a wholesale approach of seeking to blame her at various points".
Earlier this year Ridley won nearly £14,000 in damages after winning a four-year unfair dismissal case against Arabic TV station al-Jazeera. Ridley was sacked from her job as an editor on the Doha-based channel in November 2003 and launched an unfair dismissal case.
Ridley hit the headlines when she was held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan while on assignment with the Sunday Express in 2001. She subsequently converted to Islam and now works for the Iranian-based 24-hour English language news channel PressTV, where she fronts her own London-based current affairs show, The Agenda.
In a year of housing foreclosures, bank and automaker meltdowns, bailouts and layoffs, we can almost forget that we still have heroes amongst us -men who make us want to stand at attention and salute.
The leader of American troops in Iraq from Jan. 2007 to Sept. 2008 implemented a counterinsurgency strategy that significantly reduced the levels of violence in a nation on the verge of civil war. To the surprise of many, America - with Iraqi and some international help - suddenly began winning the war in Iraq. Bring out the champagne and raise a toast to the man who turned the tide.
And this too, is the most underreported story of 2008; is this liberal media bias once again?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009
10:39 ||
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Guess what part of the government actually works - not good for the long term health of the republic.
The IAF on Thursday bombed a building in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, reportedly killing seven people, including senior Hamas leader and cleric Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, and injuring thirty others. Army Radio reported that according to Palestinian sources, his family was warned before the attack but did not leave the building.
Earlier, the IAF launched a quick-fire response shortly after a Grad-type missile slammed into the top floor of an Ashdod building. The army said that the air force struck both the Gaza terror cell that launched the projectile and the launching device. Several Hamas homes which were used to store weapons were also bombed in the afternoon air raid.
Since Thursday morning, the IAF struck over 20 targets, including rocket launching sites in northern Gaza, as well as tunnels and a car in the southern Gaza Strip, killing several Hamas operatives. In addition, the IAF bombed the homes of three senior Gaza terrorists.
One of the homes belonged to Mohammad Baroud, a top Popular Resistance Committees operative. The army said that Baroud was the head of all rocket cells in northern Gaza and that he was funded and supported by Hamas. The army said that there were anti-tank missiles, rockets and bombs in the home.
Another of the homes destroyed belonged to Hasim Drili, a northern Gaza Hamas operative. The army said that he had a manufacturing plant in his home for rockets, mortar shells and missiles.
The third home belonged to Tafik Abu Raf, a Hamas terror operative in the central Gaza Strip. The IDF said that he had a weapons laboratory in his house.
Not including Thursday's strikes, IAF warplanes have carried out some 500 sorties against Hamas targets, and helicopters have flown hundreds more combat missions in five days of raids, a senior Israeli military officer said Wednesday on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.
More than 400 Gazans have been killed and more than 1,600 have been wounded since the start of the Gaza operation, Gaza health officials said. The UN said the Gaza death toll includes more than 60 civilians.
Meanwhile, IDF Infantry, Engineering Corps and Artillery Corps troops, as well as thousands of reserve soldiers, were awaiting an order to cross into the Strip in the event of a ground operation. The IDF said the imminent military action would be limited, but that it would involve a large number of ground forces, Israel Radio reported.
Military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich said preparations for a ground operation were complete. "The infantry, the artillery and other forces are ready. They're around the Gaza Strip, waiting for any calls to go inside," Leibovich said.
Also Thursday, government officials said that Israel was demanding international monitors as a key term of any future truce with Gaza factions. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who rebuffed a French proposal for a two-day timeout, won't agree to a truce unless international monitors take responsibility for enforcing it, the officials said. Something like UNIFIL, Ehud?
He had made this point in talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world leaders who are pressing for an end to the violence, they added. The idea was floated before the offensive but did not gain traction because of the complications created by the existence of rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza, defense officials said.
This article starring:
Popular Resistance Committees
Hasim Drili
Hamas
Military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovich
Mohammad Baroud
Hamas
Sheikh Nizar Rayyan
Hamas
Tafik Abu Raf
Hamas
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
10:27 ||
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#1
In other words:
To the World: Put your bodies where your mouths are, or shut up.
Most sincerely yours,
Ehud Olmert,
democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel
on the other hand, the fact that any liberal has figured it out is a positive sign
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 15:28
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#6
Olmert talked big last time, too. Ended up doing the same thing they always do. Drop some bombs and arty and called it a day. I'll be impressed when I see something intended to have long term effects.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/01/2009 15:43
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#7
IAF just knocked off another mosque that was being used for weapons storage and the like. This is the third or fourth mosque so destroyed.
The IDF had expected Hamas to be able to launch 200 or so rockets/day but the actual is averaging about 60-70 or so even with the cloudy weather which helps Hamas. Maybe they are saving their best shot to coincide with a ground invasion.
Pakistan and India exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities Thursday, honoring an agreement that prohibits the countries from attacking each other's nuclear installations, said Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.
Pakistan and India have routinely exchanged these lists on the first day of the year since 1992 under an agreement that was signed in 1988.
Thursday's exchange came at a time of high tension between the nuclear-armed nations following the November attacks in Mumbai that left 164 people dead.
India has blamed Pakistani militants for the attacks. Pakistan has promised to punish those involved but has demanded India share evidence to support its accusations.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
09:47 ||
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#3
WORLD MIL FORUM [paraph = GOOGLE Chinglish translation] > IIUC CHINA OFFERS PAKISTAN 240,000 TROOPS, + INDIAN MEDIAS FALSELY ACCUSE CHINESE MILITARY PERSONNEL OF HELPING PAKISTAN
[Chin-made PK Army vehicles invol in 20,000 PK troop shift]???
ALso on WMF < CHINA'S PLA "IRON FIST FIRST" POLICY: PRO-PEACE INITIATIVES GOES TOGETHER WITH STRONG MILITRYA READINESS FOR WAR. INDIA WARNED TO NOT ACT MILITARILY RASH IN ITS POST-MUMBAI DEALINGS WID PAKISTAN; + CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER: PAKISTAN MUST TRY TO AVOID CONFLICT WITH INDIA - INDIA-PAKISTAN CRISIS STRENGTHENS THE HANDS OF REGIONAL TERRORISTS.
#4
WORLD MIL FORUM > ASAHI SHIMBUN [Japan]: CHINA TO SOON BEGIN CONSTRUCTION OF FIRST TWO OF PLANNED FIVE-SHIP, 60,000 TONNE AIRCRAFT CARRIER CLASS, wid completion of two same expected before or NLT Year 2015; + GERMAN NAVAL EXPERTS: DEUTECHWELLE - CHINA's PLAN NAVY WITH ITS 832 SHIPS AND VESSELS IS NOW ASIA'S LARGEST AND STRONGEST. US NAVY = PLAN has 232 ships with Asia's largest SURFACE WARFARE-COMBATANT SHIPS!?
ALso on WMF > HONGKONG MEDIAS: CHINA TO BEGIN OFFCIAL VTOL AIRCRAFT PROGRAMME TESTING IN 2009???
Stepping up the rhetoric in what has escalated into an all-out verbal war between Hamas and Egypt over the Gaza government's perceived responsibility for the devastating results of Operation Cast Lead, a senior Egyptian parliamentarian on Thursday accused Hamas leaders of abandoning the Palestinians of Gaza to their fate.
"Where are the Hamas leaders now, when the residents of Gaza are getting killed? All of Hamas's leadership is in bunkers"
"Where are the Hamas leaders now, when the residents of Gaza are getting killed? All of Hamas's leadership is in bunkers," Muhammad Bassiouny, the head of the parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, charged in an interview with an Egyptian television channel.
Egyptian security forces were in pursuit of a Hamas terror cell that had recently infiltrated Egypt
Hamas leaders have largely gone underground since the IAF began its extensive bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip on Saturday and on Wednesday, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin said that many members of the organization's leadership echelon were hiding out in mosques and hospitals, some of them disguised as doctors and male nurses.
In a televised address to the Palestinian public on Wednesday evening - the first such appearance since violence flared six days ago - Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh derived confidence from his conviction that "the Arab people have proven the Palestinian issue is in their hearts."
Bassiouny, a former ambassador to Israel, scoffed at Haniyeh's faith in the Arab world's support, saying, "No one cares if all of the Palestinians are destroyed; what kind of talk is this?"
Bassiouny was also highly critical of Hamas for killing an Egyptian border guard on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram reported Thursday that Egyptian security forces were in pursuit of a Hamas terror cell that had recently infiltrated Egypt - for fear of a terror attack on Egyptian soil. According to the report, Egyptian authorities were also concerned over the possibility that the cell would try to target security forces along the Gaza border.
The paper reported that Egyptian forces had arrested 59 Palestinians in the city of Al Qantarah El Sharqiyya in the northeast of the country. The fugitives from Gaza were unarmed, the report said, but authorities were nevertheless taking steps to return them to the Strip.
#1
Bassiouny, a former ambassador to Israel, scoffed at Haniyeh's faith in the Arab world's support, saying, "No one cares if all of the Palestinians are destroyed; what kind of talk is this?"
Heh. The Paleos don't realize they are the turd in the punchbowl now.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 10:12
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#2
Hamas abandoning Gazans
Since when were Gazans anything but a tool and a means to an end for Hamas?
#3
Bassiouny, a former ambassador to Israel, scoffed at Haniyeh's faith in the Arab world's support, saying, "No one cares if all of the Palestinians are destroyed; what kind of talk is this?"
Finally, an Arab that will admit the truth - the Palestinians are only pawns in a game of "gotcha". This should be broadcast around the world.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 13:37
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#4
This article backs up the point that I was trying to make yesterday. The exiled Hamas leadership needs Jihadi's and the Gazans need food, clothing, jobs, etc...marriage of necessity. The commonality being, they all want to kill Jews.
Now, they are off to divorce court. Too late, "Divorce not Approved", by the IDF.
GUWAHATI: Five people were killed and at least 20 wounded, six of them critically, when serial explosions rocked busy market places and other areas in Assam's main city of Guwahati on New Year's day on Thursday. "The nature of the explosives is not immediately known although it appears to be some improvised explosive device," the police official said. He said in two of the instances, bombs were planted on parked bicycles.
"We suspect it to be the handiwork of the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom)," Deputy Inspector General of Assam police G.P. Singh said. The blasts took place ahead of home minister P Chidambaram's visit to the state. At least 12 people were injured when a suspected cycle bomb exploded at Bhootnath locality, which falls on the route Chidambaram was to take, shortly before his arrival here on a visit.
Three persons were injured in a blast outside a Big Bazar retail chain outlet at Bhangagarh, an upmarket commercial area near Guwahati Medical College. Earlier, an Improvised Explosive Devise (IED) kept in a municipal corporation dustbin went off at around 3.30 pm leaving three persons wounded. The injured admitted to the hospital were identified as Altaf Ali, Fatema Begum and Raul Ali, official sources said. The dustbin was kept near a TB hospital. The state witnessed serial blasts on October 30 killing 88 people.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
09:21 ||
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#1
we need the 'geeze not this shit again' picture
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 15:26
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I do not recognise Wajeha al-Huwaider when I first catch sight of her walking through a smart American suburb wearing a tracksuit, her nails painted bubble-gum pink. She is from Saudi Arabia, where women are so oppressed they are not even allowed to drive, and I had expected her to be dressed from head to toe in black, maybe even wearing a veil.
Bare-headed and pretty, she power-walks past the perfectly trimmed lawns in this peaceful Virginian town near Washington, looking for all the world as if she has just stepped off the set of Desperate Housewives. Huwaider, 47, a human rights activist and writer who has made herself a thorn in the side of the Saudi Government, is in America visiting her two teenage sons, who live with their aunt and uncle and attend school there. We have arranged to meet at 11am at her sister-in-law's house.
In a few days she is due to return to Saudi Arabia, the only country where women legally belong to men, a status that Huwaider is battling to change. In March last year, on International Women's Day, she filmed herself driving in a remote area of Saudi Arabia (where women are allowed to drive). She was appealing to the authorities to lift the ban on female drivers in the rest of the kingdom, which follows one of the strictest interpretations of Islam.
Dressed in black, her head covered but her face visible, she is seen steering her car along country roads and past a few surprised locals. The video caused a sensation. It was picked up by YouTube and has so far received more than 130,000 hits, provoking comments on the site ranging from "You go, girl, I'm proud of you!!!" to "Behead those law-breaking women."
Many Saudis fear that giving women the right to drive would signify an erosion of traditional values. "Women drivers are called whores," says Huwaider. "If a woman is caught driving, she gets taken to the police station and her husband or father is made to sign a document saying that she will not do it again, otherwise she will be put in jail. I thought they would ban me from travelling after I made the video but they didn't. They never even responded. I think they are smarter now they don't want to make me a hero."
In the past, Huwaider has been detained, interrogated for hours and forced to sign a statement agreeing to desist from all human rights activities. In 2003, she was banned from writing, after saying in an article that young Saudis were increasingly attracted to a Western way of life and would welcome an American invasion. But she continues to write online. And in 2006 she was banned from leaving the country after she stood on a bridge between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia holding a placard addressed to King Abdullah: "Give Saudi women their rights."
At the time she lived with her 14-year-old son in Bahrain and commuted each day into Saudi Arabia to work. A few days later the ban was mysteriously lifted, but Huwaider is still closely monitored. "I know I'm being watched. I can feel it. They listen to my calls. When they arrested me, they kept saying: 'Tell us who is behind you, who is giving you all this power.' I tell them: 'Nobody. I got it from myself."' She is not interested in leaving Saudi Arabia. "Even if I get political asylum today, I'm not going to go for it. I want to do things inside the country."
Huwaider says the ban on women drivers is just the tip of the iceberg. "My dream is to get rid of the system called guardianship," she says, talking rapidly, her eyes bright and impassioned. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot make even the most trivial decisions for themselves. She points at the white shirt I am wearing. "This morning you decided to wear that shirt, it's up to you," she says. "But in Saudi Arabia, it would be up to your male guardian." Women can scarcely leave the house without written permission from a male relative, often a younger brother or even a son. They need permission to travel, work, see a doctor, even to own an identity card.
What frustrates Huwaider most is that she feels society has taken a step backwards in her generation. "I look at my mom's generation and they had more freedom than we did. There were no religious police following women and telling them what to wear. They didn't have to cover up and wear black. They used to travel without permission. They used to run businesses or work on farms. These days, women cannot make any kind of decision. And they have no security. When a woman gets divorced, she loses everything."
It is hard to tell how much of an impact Huwaider has had on Saudi society. Certainly, she has done more than anyone to bring the plight of Saudi women to international attention. She is optimistic that change will happen. "If I didn't have that hope, I would stop my work." Recently there have been a couple of positive signs. A royal decree declared last year allows women to stay in hotels without a male guardian. Previously they were barred from even checking in alone. And King Abdullah, who came to the throne three years ago, is seen as more moderate than previous rulers. He recently took a women's delegation to China and is behind an effort to recruit more female diplomats.
Huwaider says a downturn in the economy might help women regain some freedom. "If we go through an economic crisis, we will gain more rights, because we cannot afford to have women living like princesses and queens with drivers to take them everywhere."
Not all Saudi women welcome her attempts to change their society. "The women can be worse than men (towards me), very aggressive. They are insecure and afraid of losing their husbands. When women are all covered, no one can tell who has a better face. And some women don't want women to drive, because then men will be mixing with women." But she is undeterred. "A lot of people wish I would just disappear. The religious people hate my guts. But I will never stop writing and campaigning, because that is my life. I cannot just keep quiet."
The restoration of the Grade II listed Victorian building will begin this month after emergency repairs to the roof were completed at Number 8 Brougham Terrace in Liverpool.
Henry William Quilliam, the son of a wealthy watchmaker, opened the mosque on Christmas Day 1889 after converting to Islam two years earlier following a trip to Morocco. He took the name Abdullah Quilliam. But the mosque stopped running in 1908 when he decided to go travelling.
Dr Mohammad Akbar Ali set up the Abdullah Quilliam Society in 1997 after discovering 8 Brougham Terrace was the home of the mosque. He said: "It is extremely important especially for the younger generation who are searching for roots in this area.
"We can say your roots are here. You have become a Muslim, you have adopted the whole heritage of the Muslim nation and you have something concrete to look to which is Brougham Terrace, the first mosque established by an Englishman on English soil. It is unique in that sense."
Galib Khan, the society's chairman, hoped the mosque would be open by July. He said: "This truly is the birthplace of Islam in Britain."
When work is completed in 2011 it will include the restored mosque, a new mosque, a courtyard, museum, art gallery, learning centre for inter-faith work, library and cafe. The emergency roof repairs cost around £100,000 and £2.5 million still needs to be raised towards the project.
Sheikh Nizar Ryyan, a senior Hamas leader and cleric was killed along with several others when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on his Jabalya home, Palestinian sources reported Thursday. We're running out of white raisins.
#1
gee. That's too bad for Hamas. But I keep logging on to see if the ground invasion has begun yet. I thought they would do it on New Years day when a good percentage of the world would not be paying attention. I thought they were really serious this time. Maybe I was wrong.
#2
You are probably right. They are like a tough woman in a down and dirty biker bar. Maybe it is best for them to not to pick a fight. But they can't leave and they can't stay. There are just no good options available. At least none that I can see.
#3
Not that I give a crap. But there seem to be some confusion concerning the correct spelling of his last name. Jpost and AP is spelling it as, Ryyan and CNN is spelling it as, Rayan.
Again, I don't give a crap. I would like a clarification for research purposes. Nizar Rayan is not listed as a "cleric" also, Rayan has the surname, Dr. (MD or PhD.)
#4
Israel assassinated a Hamas strongman Thursday in its first assault on the top leadership of Gaza's rulers, escalating a crushing aerial offensive even as it declared it was ready to launch a ground invasion.
The airstrike targeted the eight-story apartment building that was home to Nizar Rayan, 52, ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers in Gaza. The attack killed 12 other people including two of Rayan's four wives and four of his 12 children, Palestinian health officials said. The Muslim faith allows men to have up to four wives.
In launching the campaign on Saturday, Israel made it clear that no one in Hamas was immune and Thursday's strike drove that point home. The airstrike blew a huge hole in the side of the building where Rayan lived and sent a thick plume of smoke into the air.
Hamas leaders went into hiding before Israel launched its operation, but Rayan was known for openly defying Israel.
Heh
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 10:19
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#5
"but Rayan was known for openly defying Israel"
Now he can be known for openly being dead.
Enjoy eternity in HELL, asshole.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 10:58
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#6
Remeber that Arabic is written in a different alphabet, Poison Reverse, and the names are being transliterated, based on what the writer is capable of hearing. I'm afraid there will never be perfect consensus on the proper spelling of such names. For that matter, think of the variation in spelling of Slavic names as ambitious but illiterate peasants emigrated to the U.S. Looking randomly in the Cincinnati telephone book, a city full of German rather than Slavic names, I find quite a few variations on a single name (Novak, Nowak, Novick, Nowacki, etc.), and the Poles use the Latin alphabet, not Cyrillic.
Security officials said that Rayyan was not only the religious leader of Hamas's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, but also one of their military commanders. He was often seen in uniform, and participated in military exercises. He was considered one of the most fanatical Hamas commanders, and was said to be close to Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh, who was killed by the IAF in 2002.
He was both the director and the financier of the 2004 terrorist attack at Ashdod's port which killed ten Israelis.
In October 2001, he sent his son to perpetrate a suicide attack in the Gush Katif settlement Elei Sinai, in which two young Israelis were killed.
Channel 10 reported that Rayyan had replaced Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as the organization's top clerical authority after Yassin's assassination in 2004.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 11:23
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#8
"In October 2001, he sent his son to perpetrate a suicide attack in the Gush Katif settlement Elei Sinai, in which two young Israelis were killed."
Way to go, Daddy. That'll show those Jooooooos.
Luckily, now you'll have eternity to sit in by the fire and explain to your son what a failure he was for killing only two Jooooooo.
Aren't family reunions heartwarming? *sniff*
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:31
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#9
From Timesonline Mr Rayyan, a 52-year-old lecturer at Gazas Islamist University who was rated by some amongst Hamas's top decision makers, had mentored suicide bombers and would sometimes go on patrol with Hamas fighters.
#11
On eve of his death, Hamas leader Nizar Rayan predicted victory
THE day before a powerful blast sent his headless body flying out of his Gaza home, senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan predicted that the Islamist movement would defeat Israel.
"God willing, Hamas will win," Rayan said in a vitriol-laden speech that the movement's television broadcast just after he, his four wives and two of his daughters were killed in the Israeli blitz of the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Rayan, who was 51, is the most senior Hamas leader killed since Israel unleashed its massive bombardment on Saturday in response to persistent rocket fire from the enclave.
Israeli F-16 jets fired two missiles at Rayan's five-storey house in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The powerful explosion hurled his decapitated body out into the street, according to witnesses.
"It was like an earthquake," a neighbour said of the massive blast.
A dozen neighbouring houses were destroyed or damaged in the explosion which killed 12 people in all and brought to 414 the death toll since "Operation Cast Lead" started.
The Israeli air force said the secondary blasts demonstrated the house was used for weapons storage, and claimed it was also a communication centre. "In addition, a tunnel was located under the house and was used for the escape of terror operatives," it said.
In the minutes following the strike, dozens of people rushed to the scene, pulling bodies from the rubble including those of the two girls, aged seven and 10.
A neighbour, Mohammed Al-Madhun, 75, watched flames emerging from his building but refused the leave.
"I want to die like Sheikh Nizar," he said, referring to the bearded Hamas commander's honorary title.
Rayan was a hardliner within the Islamist movement.
A few months after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, Rayan vowed at a Gaza City rally that the Islamists would also seize control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank which is administered by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
#13
Rayan's five-storey house in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza
The guy had a five-storey house in a refugee camp? Was it one storey for each of his four wives and then a ground floor for communal gatherings? Or one storey for himself where he could get away from all the nagging?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2009 13:01
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#14
Gateway has an update that sez all four naggers bought the farm with the headless Hamas Hamster
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 13:03
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#17
THE day before a powerful blast sent his headless body flying out of his Gaza home, senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan predicted that the Islamist movement would defeat Israel.
#18
Was it one storey for each of his four wives and then a ground floor for communal gatherings? Or one storey for himself where he could get away from all the nagging?
I doubt the wives of a hardcore Islamicist were free to nag. This was a guy who sent his son to suicide - you can be pretty sure he didn't hesitate to beat the women he married.
1st floor for the wives
2nd floor for young boys
3rd floor for goats
4th floor for sheep
5th floor for watching paleo rockets outbound as aphrodesiac prelude for the other floors and occasional gun seks
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 15:11
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#20
Here is a compilation of interview blurbs from Bloomberg.
My favorite is, :
"...Abusada [a prof at Alazur U in Gaza which is loosely affiliated with Fatah] said Hamas had to bear some responsibility for the situation in Gaza because it had refused to renew the cease-fire with Israel and had boycotted national unity talks with Abbas. Even though there is some criticism of Hamas, you wont hear it now, he said. People feel this is not the time to criticize Hamas. Not when they are facing aggression from an enemy."
#21
GEO TV pakiwikiland says:
GAZA CITY: Senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan was killed on Thursday with his four wives and 10 of his children in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, medics and witnesses said.
and 2 other people
#22
"God willing, Hamas will win," Rayan said in a vitriol-laden speech that the movement's television broadcast just after he, his four wives and two of his daughters were killed in the Israeli blitz of the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
#23
Translation error? - he actually said "Allah", and God didn't understand?
/discuss amongst yourselves, quiz in 1 hour
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 20:19
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#24
Frank,
There is absolutely no error. The Hindu's are also known making similar statements. For example, if a family member of a Hindu family is sick, the quote "if it is the will of God, he or she will live but, if he or she dies, God is not God or God doesn't understand," is stated.
My understanding is that all religions quote "if is the the will of God then..." but, Christians refrain from quoting "God is not God or God doesn't understand" when the Christian doesn't get his or her way with God/Jesus.
Is Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), front organisation of Lashkar-e-Taiba, preparing to reincarnate under a new name in the wake of a ban clamped on it by the UN Security Council for its involvement in Mumbai terror attacks?
According to sources in New Delhi, JuD may be planning to rename itself as 'Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool' (Movement for defending the honour of the Prophet) to avoid restrictions which Pakistan could be forced to impose on it because of UNSC sanctions. The indication that JuD may be thinking of changing its name came as some senior cadres of the outfit recently organised a rally in Pakistan under the banner of Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool (THR), the sources said. In fact, JuD itself is a reincarnation of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) after the latter was banned by the U.S. seven years ago.
Formed in 1990 in Kunar province of Afghanistan, LeT does not believe in democracy and Saeed, its founder leader, has publicly declared it several times that 'jihad' is the "only way Pakistan can move towards dignity and prosperity".
Like the old Soviet saying: You pretend to pay us and we will pretend to work...
If you expect you'll be getting a refund from California when you file your 2008 state income tax return, be prepared: you may instead receive a "registered warrant." Translation: an IOU.
California is rapidly running out of money. Blame it on the state budget deficit that continues to bleed billions of dollars from California's reserves. Facing inadequate credit to make up the difference, California's Controller John Chiang warns that by the end of February, the nation's most populous state may not be able to pay some of its debts, and instead be reduced to issuing those creditors IOUs.
#1
Yipes. That's a wake up call. I'll make sure I up my deductions so that I owe the government next year!
Better get your federal tax returns in early this year. With all of their generous handouts to their buddies, they have little left for we, the peasants.
#2
We own Mr. Lotp's childhood home in CA and have planned to retire there in 12-14 years. I loved living there in the 80s but the state has driven out half its business tax base and the lib idiots are intent on driving out the rest of it too. Sigh.
#3
Quation for you California 'Burgers. Are the people of CA embarrassed?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/01/2009 11:10
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#4
I'm not from California, Mike, but I'll bet the answer for 99% of Calis is "no."
It's obviously Bush's fault.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:13
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#5
Might want to re-think that strategy, lotp.
Just sayin'....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:14
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#6
meh....no. All the claims and counterclaims are a game of political chicken. The Donks from LA/SF regions control the legislature, and Arnold's not strong enough politically to fight em. Fortunately, they can't (legally or politically) pass a tax increase without Rep votes, who won't go along without spending cuts first. All the dire claims are trying to get the CA voters to accept those tax increases without cutting spending. Shut the state down and the Shit will hit the fan.
Chris Reed is a UT editorial writer with brains who also writes a blog - see his take here
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 11:16
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#7
So they are going to rip off the people who actually do work and pay taxes to support the 40% of the state that does not?!?
That doesn't make any sense to me, I can't believe they find this to be acceptable.
I'm starting a new job in the Bay Area in Feb, I'm glad I won't be filing 2008 taxes. Maybe they'll have their sh*t together by next year.
#8
Condolences big jim...I've lived here (Bay Area) for the last 10 years. I've seen it go from bad to ridiculous. I'm owed a refund from Kali (being fiscally responsibile here is not helpful). Plenty of conservatives in my enclave in the East Bay but the rest of the moon bats drown us out.
The weather is great and all but I'd rather live in Idaho where the air is free and clear of all the political CO2. Gee...think the state gov will accept my IOU for next year's taxes? not...
#10
Quation for you California 'Burgers. Are the people of CA embarrassed?
Uh, yeah. I've wanted outta here for years but can't talk Mrs. Uluque into leaving. It's nuts.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2009 13:26
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#11
While I mostly agree with Frank G's assessment about the game of political chicken, I also believe the quality of life in this state has been deteriorating for years. The schools and hospitals are way overcrowded, the freeways are nightmares, I can't go surfing for 72 hours after rain because the water is polluted, the ticky-tacky housing tracts stretch out as far as the eye can see and every day they pave over old farm land to build more houses. Don't ask 'em where they're gonna get the water because you don't wanna know. On and on it goes and it's getting worse all the time. The politicians are all totally irresponsible, out of touch with reality and beholden to special interests. Most of the people have recently moved here from somewhere else so they don't know any better. I suppose if you compare it to Hoboken it's not so bad but if you can remember how it used to be that's not good enough. I used to love this state but she let herself go and now I want a divorce.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/01/2009 13:46
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#12
actually the Dem legislature figured out how to end run on tax increases...
they call them fees. fees are not limited by the amendment that prohibits the tax increases they wanted... saw it linked on boortz a few weeks back.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 14:37
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#13
the "Fee" scam won't pass court scrutiny
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 14:48
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#14
Are you talking about the Cal Supremo's or the 9th Circus scrutinizers, Frank?
#15
Supremos - it's a State law. If the Donks can't get Rep votes to cover their ass, they'll pay bigtime in 2010. BTW - redistricting was taken away from the Legislature. Gerrymandering your own safe districts is over, bitches!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 16:25
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#17
My aunt and several of my cousins live up near Marysville and Grass Valley. The taxes are crazy, but life itself isn't so bad. At least they don't have to put up with soot-filled air and megopolises that stifle daily life.
Our local government has started the "fee" thing, and so far haven't been handed their heads. However, they tried to institute two others, and lost their right arm to the shoulder.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 21:18
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Macro F8
A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft destroyed a vehicle in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least three foreign militants, said intelligence officials. "This is OnStar. We received a signal that your airbags have deployed, oh...and your sunroof is open. Whoops, apparently your vehicle didn't have a sunroof..."
At least one local militant was wounded in the attack in the South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, said the two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. "I can say no more"
The three militants killed Thursday were from a Central Asian country, said the officials without providing further details. They said they received information about the attack from local agents. Hmmmm Central Asian....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009
08:09 ||
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press. The precedent is set,in places like the former Soviet Union and Cuba
Nicastro represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days along with The Herald in nearby New Britain. Pun intended.
That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore.
Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. "The media is a vitally important part of America," he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations. You want government to do something about it? How about reducing the size of government just for starters.
If it's that vital, shouldn't someone in the private sector pony up the money in return for a share of the profits? Oh, sorry, what profit ...
To some experts, that sounds like a bailout, a word that resurfaced this year after the U.S. government agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the automobile and financial sectors. An ultimately futile bailout, BTW. Government spending is almost always a wash, transferring money from one bucket to another with near zero benefit for any sector save for government.
Relying on government help raises ethical questions for the press, whose traditional role has been to operate free from government influence as it tries to hold politicians accountable to the people who elected them. Even some publishers desperate for help are wary of this route. The problem for newspapers are strictly economic. There was a time 20 years ago in which newspapers could have set the stage for their survival in an increasingly digital world, by improving their very quality. Currently, in nearly every market I would place journalistic quality of enwspapers an order of magnitude above electronic media simply because newspapers do the hoofing needed to gather actual news and write about it cleanly, simply and without any personal or political bias.
The point of no return blew by in 1995 and there is precious little they can do about it now.
And no: a government bailout won't help anyone save for government.
#1
Sadly, I predict that they will be successful in their efforts. When you come to realize that we have been sold out, all of the madness begins to make sense.
#3
There is no saving the Bristol Press -- it was dead back when I wrote for it in the 1980s, but too stubborn to recognize it. Connecticut is dominated by a statewide paper (the Hartford Courant), which is itself dying -- a Trib-owned rag that has cut back to becoming almost a parody of a high school paper.
Not that this is any great loss -- the paper has not written a single news story (aside from a couple of Sat. Op-Eds from a Republican functionary) about its brazenly crooked Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) who is the primary wirepuller of the financial meltdown.
Newspapers have devolved into Fan-zines of government, and you will see those in government committed to make them formally into wholly owned newsletters.
Their de-evolution would not be a big deal except that both broadcast and internet media basically rip-and-read what's in the dead woods.
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/01/2009 10:07
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#5
"The media is a vitally important part of America,"
Obviously they confuse technology with content. The means of communication are there, open, and flowing, just not the same old self-important ego centrics with a death grip on the conduit. With the near term integration of personal cell phone w/camera technology and the net, there will evolve multiple providers who'll deliver news and information without the hysterically hypocritical proclamation of 'independent' by sock puppets of special interests and dogma. Get the friggin loyal party members subsidize you from their coffers.
#8
"I truly believe that no democracy can remain healthy without an equally healthy press," said Fiedler, now dean of Boston University's College of Communication. "Thus it is in democracy's interest to support the press in the same sense that the human being doesn't hesitate to take medicine when his or her health is threatened."
The 'Press' is healthy and probably hasn't been healthier. The problem is that most people (like this idiot) think the Press is solely the MSM. It isn't - not anymore. Today's press is Blogs like Rantburg, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, and yes even the Daily Kos and Huffington Post. It is also independent reporters like Michael Yon. Some give balanced news, some unbalanced hype (which people will eventually catch on to and they will eventually wither and die too). Some, like Rantburg, have knowledgable people who know their field (unlike the MSM which often quotes self-proclaimed 'experts' who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground).
The MSM is what is failing - and deserves to die. The Old Grey Whore Lady, CNN, CBS, and others has squandered their credibility and are now in danger of extinction.
I say let them die. Extinction is a completely natural process which makes way for more advanced species. The Press will survive just fine.
#9
Pappy some very talented people wrote for the paper; I was not one of them.
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/01/2009 14:50
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Patterico has regularly taken down the LA Times for their rubbish and propaganda published as news (see today's column by Rosa Brooks on why Israel's at fault: "you can't bomb your way to peace, Israel), but his year-end review is worth a read as to why these unethical, untalented, political-hack, fuckers need to join the unemployment line, stat
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 17:03
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#11
They do a media bailout I'm done paying taxes.
#12
Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it.
When I said "I know what he's trying to do", I sumrise it's not really so much about the papers' survival as it is their host communities' relevance.
When Connecticut was first established, the center of power was set in the state government; towns exists at the sufferance of the state. Their only source of income outside of state largesse is property taxes, Which means there are some well-to-do areas, and some not-so well off areas (often times caused by self-inflicted wounds).
Now the big push in Connecticut is 'regionalization', meaning that communities around the major cities (Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven) are supposed to be lumped in with, and forced to support, those urban sinkholes. Think of them as post-modern counties.
If communities like Bristol and its surrounding areas can give the appearance that they are relevant and viable communities, they can argue that they shouldn't be lumped in with the Hartford-money-down-the-drain donor towns.
No government funding of the press. It sslanted enough to ward collectivism and government power as it is now. And that's one of the reason;s its failing: its not reporting the news, its INTERPRETING the news, and failing to do its job in a democracy: *accurately* and *completely* informing the voting public.
More than 700 white farmers will retain their land in keeping with proposals by Zimbabwe's government to improve food security and restore confidence in the agriculture sector, the state-run Sunday Mail weekly reported here.
Quoting a report presented at the ruling party's annual conference two weeks ago, the paper said the government was currently drafting offer letters for a group of 341 unspecified white farmers who would be allowed to continue
farming throughout the country.
Don't believe it ...
Another group of 97 white farmers would also be allowed to continue running conservancies in six of the country's 10 provinces while a further 278 farms would be spared from government expropriation as they are protected under bilateral investment protection agreements with 13 countries.
This would bring to 716 the total number of farms spared from compulsory acquisition by the Zimbabwean government for purposes of resettling landless people.
Zimbabwe had more than 6,000 white farmers who formed the backbone of the economy prior to the land reform programme in 2000. A further 140 white farmers would be prosecuted for failing to vacate farms after receiving eviction notices.
The decision to spare some farmers from eviction follows on the heels of a landmark case in which 78 white farmers successfully challenged the constitutionality of Zimbabwe's land reform programme at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal in Namibia. The tribunal ruled in favour of the farmers and said Zimbabwe had violated the SADC Treaty which forbids countries to discriminate on the basis of colour or race. All of this happy-talk took place at the powerless SADC in Windhoek. What will actually happen is Zim may be another story.
#1
That ruling will mean a whole lot when a group of Zanu-PF thugs shows up in the middle of the nigh, drags you and your wife outside, rapes both of you, sets you on fire, etc.
#2
Slightly off topic (but not much), anyone ever seen the French documentary "Idi Amin Dada"? I watched it the other day... a fascinating film. It brought to mind the phrase "banality of evil". I had thought "Dada" in the title was a reference to the surreal, but in fact Idi Amin had a last name, and it WAS "Dada". Ironic, eh?
#4
Let's hope those white farmers got some top-soil saved from the good old days and know how to dry-plant behind a team of oxen.
Apologies for not responding to your query the other evening re Namibia, Besoeker, but I concur, they are a waste of space and oxygen, much the same as the Patriotic Front they morphed from, no change at all.
BTW, a good friend of mine is still trying to teach the principals of ploughing to the proper depth, but I guess that's hard when there are only AK47s, dogma and no tractors.
Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.
On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.
Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.
While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Teheran's sense of ascendancy this week was Britain's Channel 4 network's decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad's speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.
Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, "We're offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see."
While that sounds reasonable, the fact is that Westerners see Ahmadinejad speaking for himself all the time. They saw him at the UN two years in a row as he called for the countries of the world to submit to Islam; claimed that Iran's nuclear weapons program is divinely inspired; and castigated Jews as subhuman menaces to humanity. Balance at the link.
#1
You know what amazes me most about the world today is the lack of outrage by those who claim to be civilized, such as the European "elites" and "liberals" or the common NPR educated masses. They seem to have come to the point where they think it is okay for terrorist organizations to convince women to strap on bombs and blow themselves to a fine pink mist while taking as many other women and children with them as they can.
How does one get to the point where they can justify this in their mind? Any elites or liberals out there that would like to explain it to me?
#4
Shallet, the predominant emotion of the NPR audience is guilt: guilt for being white, guilt for being 'first-world', guilt for being relatively well-off. But why suffer for the guilt themselves when they can have the Israelis stand in for the West. This also involves insideous racism against the side identified as more third-world or darker in color because it doesn't hold them to any moral standards; any action is excusable. In the case of the Europeans an additional factor is involved: economics. Better to sell your Nokia cell phones to a market of over a billion Moslem than to a few million Israeli Jews.
#5
I came to know that Muslims hate pigs and lizards. They like spiders. Christens hate Jews because of a two thousand years old lies. Could any one tell me why Muslims hate apes?
#11
I don't think most Christians hate Jews in this day and age. Some, like Aryan Nations, might (but then I wouldn't exactly call them Christians either...).
#12
Bible reading Christians certainly don't hate Jews, their sister faith, as they share a common destiny. Jesus was a Jew, as were all of his original disciples. Rome had Arab collaborators that fostered hostility against the Jews thousands of years ago, even slaughtering a pig on the altar BC, and the conspiratorial lies still remain, mostly in the Roman Church. I would say this deep-seated resentment of apes goes way back. Hiram, King of Tyre, using Phoenician/Philistine laborers, brought apes, timber, the rare gold of Ophir, and other building materials for King Solomon to build the First Temple. Mt. Ophir is on the Malay Peninsula, along with apes, baboons, and Asian Muslims today.
#13
Seems like I hear far more bigotry coming from Jews (and liberals) regarding Evangelical Christians than I have ever heard coming from Christians towards Jews. But then annon just seems to be trolling.
#21
I'm not prejudiced---
I hate everybody, regardless of race, creed, or color.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/01/2009 21:40
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OK, so suppose for arguments sake that Joooos are descended from apes and pigs. It is also known that Mooselimbs descended from basically the same line as the Joooos.
Where does this lead?
Best case (from Muslim perspective): Abraham was a human, and that he somehow ended up marrying something that was a cross between a monkey and a pig, leaving Abraham's preferences in question.
The involvement of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in pushing a cease-fire indicates primarily the deep-seated differences between the Syria-Hamas-Iran axis and the Egypt-Saudi Arabia-Palestinian Authority axis. These two axes that now need an external mediator still cannot agree on Hamas' status.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who earlier this week outlined his plan, is willing to open the Rafah crossing on the condition there is a cease-fire and the crossing is operated by the PA with European observers, according to a 2005 agreement. Mubarak thus seeks to shrink Hamas down to a Palestinian faction that must first make peace with Fatah and the PA.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt seek to prevent Hamas not only setting the cease-fire terms, but gaining the status of a sovereign authority, an almost-government, undermining Mahmoud Abbas' authority and becoming an equal to Israel or any other partner in the cease-fire. Egypt is concerned that a separate cease-fire with Hamas, under Arab and international pressure, could be considered recognition of Gaza's separation from the West Bank, turning the Strip into a Syrian-Iranian satellite on Egypt's border.
In contrast, Syria with Iranian support sees Turkish brokering as a chance to achieve full partnership in the crisis management, and later, as a veto-holder over the rest of the Israel-Palestinian negotiations. So Erdogan's toughest job is to find a common denominator that will satisfy the rival axes and allow an Arab consensus regarding Hamas and Israel. Turkish sources say Erdogan has no plan or organized initiative, and he intends at this stage to hear both sides and locate points of agreement.
Hamas is opposed for the moment to the Egyptian plan that delegitimizes it as a governmental authority, and demands total control of the crossings, a cease-fire contingent on Israel stopping all "acts of aggression" and opening the crossings between Israel and Gaza.
Hamas can already chalk up a few achievements in this conflict. It didn't seek the cease-fire - Egypt, the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority and France are trying to convince it and Israel to accept one. Thus Hamas moves itself and Gaza from a local conflict between Israel and the organization into the international and inter-Arab arenas. Hamas, which has conquered Arab public opinion, has also won the status of a legitimate and critical partner in the dialogue in which the legitimacy of the Israel's attack is crumbling after its rejection of the humanitarian cease-fire.
#1
Hamas, which has conquered Arab public opinion, has also won the status of a legitimate and critical partner in the dialogue in which the legitimacy of the Israel's attack is crumbling after its rejection of the humanitarian cease-fire.
Well Goollly!! It just sounds like it is all so rosey for Hamas. Lucky for them they just got the snot knocked out of them.
I'm sure Erdogan will achieve his "most difficult job" of becoming the leader of the Arab world by finding "a common denominator that will satisfy the rival axes and allow an Arab consensus regarding Hamas and Israel"
Don't worry individual Gazan citizens. Erdogan is coming to your rescue! Though he has "no plan or organized initiative, and he intends at this stage to hear both sides and locate points of agreement" so you can sleep well knowing that Erdogan has (according to this piece of propaganda) assumed command and has his strongly worded statements and lunch menus planned.
#2
Israel should propose that these brave Sunnis send military detachments to occupy Gaza, to insure order and demilitarization, then Israel would not only cease fire, but it would open wide power, water, the flow of non-military goods, etc.
Of course, the Sunnis would be there entirely on a "humanitarian" mission, to insure that the Paleos don't hurt themselves...
#3
That's an old timey negotiating trick from way, way back. Be totally agreeable, but set the terms very carefully.
In this case, the terms sound fine to rational persons, but totally outrageous to Ham-Ass.
A SOUTH Korean woman barred from entering Japan last year has reportedly passed through its immigration screening system by using tape on her fingers to fool a fingerprint reading machine.
The biometric system was installed in 30 airports in 2007 to improve security and prevent terrorists from entering into Japan. The woman, who has a deportation record, told investigators that she placed special tapes on her fingers to pass through a fingerprint reader.
Japan spent more than Y4 billion ($A64 million) to install the system, which reads the index fingerprints of visitors and instantly cross-checks them with a database of international fugitives and foreigners with deportation records.
The South Korean woman was deported in July 2007 for illegally staying in Japan after she worked as a bar hostess in Nagano in central Japan. She was not allowed to re-enter Japan for five years after deportation but the Tokyo immigration bureau found her in August 2008 again in Nagano.
A South Korean broker is believed to have supplied her with the tapes and a fake passport, the Yomiuri said, adding that officials believe many more foreigners might have entered Japan using the same technique.
#1
Fingerprint logon for computers can be fooled with fake fingers, too. IIRC a Japanese researcher did it using ballistics jelly to replicate the fingerprint patterns of various people. Worked fine.
Army troops at Kaous municipality, 15km from Jijel downtown, have eliminated a terrorist at an ambush at a mountainous road through the mountain of Bouhenech, a security source said. The terrorist was surprised by the Army troops opening fire on him. A Kalashnikov has been seized, while the security services are still investigating his identity.
In the meantime, a terrorist group composed of 4 elements in Tipaza central province, have managed stealing 9 cows near Menacer municipality.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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(Xinhua) -- A car loaded with 100 kg of explosives exploded on Wednesday in Bilbao of northern Spain, causing considerable property damages but no casualties, local media reported.
The blast occurred in front of the facilities of Radiotelevision of Basque Country, shortly after an anonymous call in the name of the Basque separatist organization ETA sounded a bomb alert, local police was quoted as saying.
The building affected by the explosion accommodates the offices of daily newspapers El Mundo, Deia, Marca and Expansion, radio station Onda Cero, and TV channel Antena 3.
The Spanish Interior Ministry said that ETA's target was the Basque Radiotelevision, as shown by some ETA documents seized by the ministry earlier in the year.
The bomb was planted on a stolen car, whose owner was found to be tied to a tree near Bilbao.
According to official information, ETA killed 14 people in 17 attacks in 2008.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Wednesday that "ETA will lose all the battles," while opposition leader Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party echoed that "the Spanish society will defeat ETA."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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For those who thought the new era of Democratic governance would be dull, we present this year's Senate replacement follies. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich kept the entertainment going yesterday by defying just about everyone and nominating former state Attorney General Roland Burris to the seat being vacated by President-elect Obama.
Recall that federal prosecutors had gone public with their criminal complaint against Mr. Blagojevich earlier this month expressly to deter him from making such an appointment. Mr. Obama had then declared that the Governor should not make an appointment, and Senate Democrats had said they wouldn't seat anyone Mr. Blagojevich did appoint. Majority Leader Harry Reid repeated that pledge yesterday regarding Mr. Burris, who lost to the Governor in a primary in 2002 but then was vice chairman of his transition team.
Democrats who run the state assembly are still trying to impeach Mr. Blagojevich, but meantime they've stepped back from allowing a special election for the seat. Democrats hope to dump the Governor and then have his replacement appoint a different Democrat. No doubt they're afraid Republicans might win given this exquisite display of competent, honest Democratic government.
Meanwhile, Democrats in New York are fighting over Caroline Kennedy's campaign to be appointed to the Senate seat being vacated by Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton. Former Democrat and former Republican and now independent Mayor Mike Bloomberg is all for the idea, as reportedly is Mr. Obama, whom the daughter of JFK and niece of Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed at a crucial moment during the Presidential primaries. Not so happy is New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the son of a former three-term Governor, who would like the seat himself and was once married to a Kennedy.
Caught in the middle is Democrat David Paterson, who will appoint a new Senator but is Governor himself only because Eliot Spitzer flamed out with a prostitute. Ms. Kennedy hasn't helped herself with a recent spate of interviews showing she doesn't know very much about many public issues. But then how much worse could she be than the professional politicians who populate Albany or represent New York in Washington? Democrats will outnumber Republicans in New York's House delegation next year, 26-3, and it speaks volumes about their abilities that Mr. Paterson might choose a dynastic neophyte over any of them.
Lest it be overlooked, there's also the spectacle in Delaware, where the soon-to-depart Joe Biden has arranged to have a crony appointed to take his Senate seat of 36 years. Edward "Ted" Kaufman, a former aide to Mr. Biden, is expected to keep the seat away from a more ambitious Democrat for two years, until Joe's son Beau Biden, the state attorney general, can return from his National Guard tour in Iraq and run in 2010 to maintain the family business.
And don't forget Colorado, where a mooted Senate replacement for Secretary of Interior nominee Ken Salazar is his brother, Congressman John Salazar. Democratic Governor Bill Ritter, who has benefited from the money and organization of the Salazar political machine, will make that appointment.
So to recap all of this change you can believe in: A Kennedy and Cuomo are competing to succeed a Clinton in New York; the skids are greased for a Biden to replace a Biden in Delaware; one Salazar might replace another in Colorado; and a Governor charged with political corruption in Illinois wants one of his cronies to succeed the President-elect. Let's just say we're looking forward to 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
I proudly hold the personal distinction of never having watched so much as a single episode of Dynasty.
#2
There is a silver lining of course.
The Blago appointment of a professional black victim is apparently giving Harry Reid a massive case of jock itch.
#14
Happy New Year, all. Let us hope that someone in the US Military has the cojones this year to tell BO what needs to be done to win in Afghanistan, and how certain actions (ARCLIGHT!) can change the complexion of Somalia. I will continue to HOPE that things CHANGE for the better for all of us. In the meantime, a little prayer now and then can do wonders.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 13:00
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#15
Happy New Year! Drink up!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 13:01
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#25
I'm with OP on the ARCLIGHT thing, never even been near one, but it sounds like some folk would learn some manners and respect, instead of lying like taqiya b'stards.
And, no, I never got a New Year snog, Miss Blondie, Isa still looking for a volunteer, all the English girls sit on their hands, lol!
A day after Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois appointed Roland W. Burris to fill President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat, new details emerged about how the governor worked behind closed doors to make the appointment, and the United States attorney prosecuting Mr. Blagojevich on corruption charges sought a 90-day extension to bring an indictment against him.
At a Tuesday news conference here, Mr. Blagojevich breezily introduced Mr. Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, as the "next United States senator from Illinois." But United States Representative Danny Davis, who like Mr. Burris is a longtime fixture of the Illinois Democratic Party and an African-American, said he was offered the seat in a meeting with an emissary of the governor last Wednesday, and turned it down on Friday.
"Given all the revelations and all the controversy, I would not be able to take it from the governor," Mr. Davis, who has represented a Chicago district in Congress since 1996, said in an interview. "I felt that if I was to take the appointment, I would spend so much of my time deflecting and defending the position that it would take away my real reason for being involved in politics and political life -- to find solutions to problems."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
So Mr. Davis couldn't come up with the scratch?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 0:41
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#2
"I felt that if I was to take the appointment, I would spend so much of my time deflecting and defending the position that it would take away my real reason for being involved in politics and political life -- to find solutions to problems."
An Iranian newspaper has been banned after publishing an article which authorities say has condoned Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip. The Iranian Culture Ministry banned the publication of the centrist daily Kargozaran, after it published a statement by a radical group blaming pro-resistance factions and countries for the current situation in the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper's recent move was in clear violation of Iran's press law, said Mohammad Parvizi of the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry on Wednesday. He added that Iran's Press Supervisory Board will refer the newspaper's case to court.
Parvizi said the statement portrayed Palestinian fighters as terrorists who take shelter in kindergartens and hospitals and provoke Israeli bombardments leading to the death of children and civilians.
Kargozaran Managing Director Morteza Sajjadian on Wednesday acknowledged that publishing the statement was a mistake. "In the past week most of the articles and material published by this newspaper had been in support of Gaza's civilians and the publication of this statement was an unintentional mistake," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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The Iraqi government has called on members of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization residing in a camp north of Baghdad to leave the country.
The Iraqi government will take over the control of Camp Ashraf home to 3,500 Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) members on January 1, as part of a bilateral security deal between the US and the country.
"The Iraqi government will deal with the people in this camp in a humane way and according to internationally adopted standards, the Iraqi constitution and Iraqi laws," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The government of Iraq does not have any intention to expel the people of this organization or force them to leave Iraq. But it calls on those people to find another place outside Iraq in any state that may accept them as refugees, or for those who wish to return to Iran to go of their own free will," reads the statement.
"Iraq is no longer a suitable place for them because the Iraqi Constitution does not permit dealings with an organization classified as a terrorist group," Reuters quoted al-Dabbagh as saying.
The MKO moved to Iraq in 1986 and used the country as a launch pad for attacks on Iran.
During the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, the MKO joined the Saddam regime's troops to fight Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
This is the latest - final? - twist in a bizarre story. When I last was in the know a few years back, the Bulgarian contingent had been assigned to run Ashraf. Pretty impressive, as incongruous military stories go: a central European military guarding fringe Iranian expat terrorists/dissidents/nutjobs/whatever in a US-policed Arab country.
I won't be surprised if the Iraqis find this a thorny problem. The question of finding a place to put these people, a country willing to take them as refugees, may not be so easily solved, if the period 2003-2008 was any indication .....
The UN Coordinator on Humanitarian Access to Gaza on Wednesday called for the immediate opening of the Karni crossing, in order to transfer humanitarian supplies to Palestinians.
"Without the violence stopping, it is extremely difficult to get food to people who need it, we cannot assess where the most urgent needs are, and it is too dangerous for civilians to leave their homes to seek urgent medical treatment, buy supplies and assist people in distress," Maxwell Gaylard said in a statement.
"We desperately need Karni to open, today, to get wheat grain in. UNRWA has no wheat grain for the 750,000 people who need it," he added.
The statement went on to stress that Gazan hospitals were without power, and that fuel was needed to reopen the main power plant.
"[Israeli authorities] are offering their cooperation and we are offering ours. They have been responsive to specific requests, which we appreciate. But the gravity of the situation now demands more," said Gaylard.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Hamas must be running low on humanitarian rockets.
#4
Israel needs to "miss" once or twice, and hit the UN "by accident". It would make the entire job a lot easier.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 14:55
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#5
Japan: 1945. "Hey, where's our food and oil, Yankee dogs? We're hungry and cold."
It used to be that this was the point of the exercise. How long do you think Hamas would last if wars were fought like they used to be?
#7
tu3031, actually, at the end of WWII, Japan was on the verge of starvation. (If we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the next targets would have been the railroads between the rice paddies and the cities, which would have caused real starvation.)
General MacArthur requested and got food for the Japanese. When he was asked why we didn't just let the Japanese starve, he replied "We're better than that".
On the other hand, Japan had surrendered, and ceased hostilities.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/01/2009 21:33
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Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces on Wednesday arrested 18 wanted persons and seized a large amount of arms and ammunition during security operations in different parts of Basra province, according to a local source. "Police forces conducted search raids in the areas of Shatt al-Arab, eastern Basra; Abi al-Khaseeb (20 km south of Basra city), and al-Zubeir district (35 km west of Basra)," the media office of Basra's police told Aswat al-Iraq. "Eighteen men, who are wanted on criminal and terror-related charges, were arrested during the raids," it noted. "One of those arrested was disguised in women's clothes," it added. "Two machine guns, Katyusha rockets and three boxes containing ammunition were seized during the raids," according to the office.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
"One of those arrested was disguised in women's clothes,"
A clear violation of transvestite rights! Notify the ICLU (Iraqi Civil Liberties Union)!
National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani has not ruled out Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive during the Mumbai terror attacks, being a Pakistani. "Could be. I am not saying more than that because we don't have... I hate to say this, we don't have proof," he told a TV channel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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The famous beards and moustaches of India - seen as representing a huge tradition to the outside world - are under threat, a new book says. It says that the country's famous facial hairs are disappearing as India enters the clean-shaven digital age. The book says that the traditional belief that facial hair is a sign of virility appears to be facing the chop. It says that young people in particular do not want an itchy moustache or beard which they think makes them look old.
"Hair India - A Guide to the Bizarre Beards and Magnificent Moustaches of Hindustan" says that India's extravagant beards and moustaches - proudly sported by generations of Indian men - are being trimmed as the country becomes more clean-shaven and urban. Author Richard McCallum says that clean chins are becoming more commonplace among younger people who no longer have role models sporting beards or moustaches. He points out that most well-known Indian cricket players no longer have facial hair, while many in Bollywood have opted instead for token designer stubble.
Mr McCallum spent several months travelling the length and breadth of the country to find the bushiest beards and most magisterial moustaches before they disappeared forever. "It was an idea that started out as a bit of fun but turned into a labour of love," Mr McCallum, a British travel business operator, told the AFP news agency. "Beards and moustaches tell the story of modern India - how it is becoming a more Westernised, homogenised place, but also how the great traditions and the love of display still exist. "Male grooming is important to Indians, and facial hair proved a topic that took us to places and into conversations with people we would never have met otherwise."
The book categorises beards according to bristle-design. There is the "the chin strap", "the soup strainer", "the wing commander" and "the walrus". What is claimed to be the world's longest beard, measuring 1.6 metres (five ft) and the world's longest moustache also feature in the book. But the emphasis is on ordinary stall-owners and rickshaw drivers displaying moustaches and beards that are cut, dyed, waxed and preened in various shapes and sizes. "Some people were confused when we first told them why we wanted to take their picture, but they soon became very keen," said photographer Chris Stowers.
While facial hair will always be proudly displayed by Sikhs, for whom "kesh" (uncut hair) is a religious principle, it seems that among sectors of society it is inexorably falling out of favour. One of the few professions where it remains a mandatory requirement is among doormen of five-star hotels. "Young people don't want an itchy moustache or beard which they think makes them look old," Lalan Singh, 40, a restaurant doorman in Delhi's Connaught Place told AFP.
He is the proud owner of a handlebar moustache that took three years to grow. He could be one of the last of his kind.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
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#1
What really kills facial hair are two things: women and children.
When women have husbands they actually like, instead of just being their husband's property, they want to get close, and beards are in the way. And small children seem to have a natural fear of facial hair, and are friendlier to clean shaven fathers.
I personally hate stubble, but can testify that a well-kempt beard can tickle in all the right places. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:25
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Might be a good thing. Seeing as how there are some Islamonutcases out there who think shaving offends Allan. If that is the case, then I approve shaving.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, on a tour of rocket-battered Be'er Sheva Wednesday, said Israel will not allow Hamas "thugs" to rule in the Middle East. "We have made a change in the equation, gone are the days in which Hamas fired at us and we kept quiet," Livni said. "They erred in thinking that when Israel restrained itself, it would not respond."
Livni said Israel cares about its citizens while at the same time Hamas does not care about its own. "They use women and children in order to defend terrorists. We will not allow these thugs to rule in the Middle East," she said.
Earlier, President Shimon Peres visited Ashkelon as Qassam rockets pounded the southern city, and vowed that "the IDF is ready for any scenario."
During his tour, Peres met with Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin and officers from the Home Front Command, and was given an assessment of the security situation in the city. Peres also visited the city's Barzilai Hospital, where he met with Bedouin laborers wounded by a Qassam strike on Monday that killed 27-year-old Israeli construction worker Hani al Mahdi, from the Bedouin village of Aroer.
Peres refused to elaborate on how long he thinks the IDF operation will last, but did say that "our army shows sensitivity and doesn't hurt civilians as much as possible, even though the terrorists hiding in family homes."
Peres added "this is not a war that we started; it is a provocation that had carried on for months. We left Gaza and we have no interest there."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#2
Let's loan them a dozen B-52s, weapons and crews. Take off from Ben Gurion Airfield, fly over Gaza, come back - 30-minute actual mission time, an hour to form up. Make six trips a day. By the end of the second day, allow the Israeli 2nd Squeegie Brigade in to mop up.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 14:53
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Canada's National Post gets it. Too bad the New York Slimes or Washington Post-intelligence can't.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 14:57
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good link, OP - they DO get it
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 15:08
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the comments (from OP's link) make we want to puke but the actual article itself is spot on
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 15:35
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"Peres added "this is not a war that we started; it is a provocation that had carried on for months. We left Gaza and we have no interest there."
Peres,
How's that capitulation Land for Peace lab experiment working out? After giving into the terrorists demands, by leaving Gaza, why is it that the media have all but forgotten about the past extreme generosity of the Labor Party, during this IDF operation? Also, at what point did you realize that by leaving Gaza, you automatically extended the rocket range of Hamas?
Multiple paragraphs please. Pencils down in 90 min.
Also on WMF > OBAMA's DANGEROUS GAME: SMASH RUSSIA AND CHINA! Webster G. Tarpley's book "THE MEN BEHIND OBAMA" claims that Zbigniew Brzezinski is PEBO's true overall political advisor, and that once in power Obama's new POTUS Admin will likely come out in suppor of "Ziggy's" great pro-Neocon geostrategic agenda to PDeniably but globally expand WAR-OPS [vee GWOT = "ANTI-TERRORISM"] agz a host of international countries, wid INTENT TO ULTIMATELY DESTABILIZE IFF NOT UTTERLY DESTROY RUSSIA AND CHINA, ETC. AS CHALLENGERS TO US-CENTRIC WORLD DOMINATION [USOWG-NWO!?
* OTOH, PRAVDA > US PREPARES TO IMMORTALIZE ITS HUGE DEBT [new 100-Year Bonds].; + WORLD MIL FORUM POSTERS > IT WILL TAKE THE US MANY GENERATIONS, NEARLY 200 YEARS TO PAY OFF ITS CURRENT GROSS WORLD DEBTS EVEN IFF THE US PAYS US$700BILYUHN IN BAILOUT EVERY YEAR FOR 200 YEARS!
D *** NG IT, SILLY MORIARITY THOUGHT 30-YEAR US TREASURY BORROW BONDS WERE "IT" - we missed "THE IMPOSSIBLES" animated movie on Disney Channel again, didn't we!?
#10
Brzezinski is not high on most people's list of suspected neocons. Quite the opposite - he's the very model of a modern geo-realist. Where did that author come up with such an idea?
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said an 88-year-old woman fended off a naked intruder by grabbing the man's crotch and squeezing. Deputy Paul McRedmond said the man got into the house Tuesday through a sliding door. He backed the woman into her living room and pushed her face down onto a chair. "Into the living room, y'old bat!"
That's when the woman reached behind and squeezed. "Aaaaiiieee!"
The man tore free and fled. "Keds, don't fail me now!"
McRedmond said a county code enforcement officer who heard the police call on his radio spotted a car near the woman's house and passed on the license information to authorities. Troutdale police arrested a 46-year-old man. He has been jailed on accusations of burglary, harassment and private indecency. Bail was set at $110,000. And, believe it or not, I introduce our suspect... Michael G. Dick, 46, was arrested by Troutdale police a short time after the attack, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Gave him a "voice-change" operation, eh? Egg-cellent!
#5
First heard this on the radio and thought that i had mis-heard the perp's name... shows my ears are still 5 by 5 (unless Spousal Unit wants something done)
Happy New Year, Y'all!
#6
That's when the woman reached behind and squeezed
A 88 year old reach-around ewwww
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/01/2009 10:12
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The question now is whether he is still Big Dick or if he has been demoted to Little Dick. Anyway, three cheers for Granny. Hip, hip, hooray. Hip, hip, hooray. Hip, hip, hooray. And a happy new year to you, maam, whoever you are.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 10:43
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#8
Frequent opening and closing of prescription bottles enhances grip strength.
India on Wednesday claimed Pakistan was in 'denial' over the Mumbai attacks and refusing to acknowledge evidence linking the gunmen who carried out the assault with elements in Pakistan. "If anyone is in a state of denial, anything that we give will be denied," Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: One gunman was killed and another was wounded while they were trying to plant an improvised explosive device (IED) in southwestern Kirkuk city. "The incident occurred in Wahed Hozayran area, southwestern Kirkuk city," Brig. Sarhad Qadir told Aswat al-Iraq. "The wounded gunman is currently being interrogated," the officer said, providing no further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
So did you hear the one about the two jihadis who bombed at the improv?
Hamas rockets have struck the large southern cities of Be'er Sheva and Ashdod, home of Israel's largest port, for the first time since the militant group broke its cease-fire with Israel on Dec. 19.
A former U.S. intelligence official said Hamas is now using Iranian versions of the Katyusha and Grad rockets with a range of 18.6 to 21.7 miles (30 to 35 kilometers). The new rockets dramatically extend Hamas' reach. Hamas had relied heavily on the shorter-range homemade Qassams that fly only up to 1.8 miles (3 kilometers), the former official said.
The rockets do not have guidance systems so they are indiscriminate in targeting. But that makes them well suited for a barrage on a town or a dispersed battlefield of soldiers, particularly if fired in great numbers.
"Hamas has definitely learned from Hezbollah," the former official said.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe on Wednesday told reporters in Crawford, Texas, that there is no doubt both Iran and Syria are supplying Hamas with weapons. Iran has long been suspected of providing financial support to the militant Palestinian group. The U.S. counterterrorism official, however, said that many Hamas' rockets are cobbled together in a rudimentary way by militants in Gaza from parts smuggled into the region. The official declined to discuss numbers.
In the month-long 2006 conflict with Israeli, Lebanese Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 missiles into Israel, about a third of its missiles stores at the time. Most were Katyusha-type rockets, which are quick to set up and have ranges of about 12 miles.
The Israeli government said in 2006 that Hezbollah also wielded Iranian-made missiles with ranges of up to 50 miles (80 kilometers). Hamas does not appear to have used those longer-range tactical missiles, the former intelligence official said.
Four Israelis have been killed by Hamas' rocket fire in recent days, including three civilians, since the cease-fire broke on Dec. 19.
Gaza officials say Israel's retaliatory airstrikes have killed about 390 and wounded about 1,600. Hamas says some 200 uniformed members of Hamas security forces have been killed. The UN says at least 60 Palestinian civilians have died.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#3
Where will Iran get the money to fund Hamas and it's other pet projects in the coming year? It seems like there will have to budget cuts in the terrorist groups.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 12:04
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Where will Iran get the money to fund Hamas and it's other pet projects in the coming year?
China, in exchange for very advantageous terms in future oil contracts.
Russia, because the US and Europe have an interest in the region.
#5
If you've always wondered why all the Chinese stuff out there is cheaper than everything else, part of the reason is they're not paying as much for feedstocks as the rest of you.
Corruption, alleged links to militancy and campaigns about the role in genocide of 1971 led to voters' humiliating rejection of Jamaat's religion-based politics in the parliamentary polls, say political analysts and civil society leaders. "The voters have rejected misuse of religion in politics through their ballots," political analyst Prof Imtiaz Ahmed told The Daily Star. The people didn't like distortion of religion for political gains, he added.
Human rights activist and former adviser to caretaker government Sultana Kamal said, "This result is the reflection of peoples' secular mind. They have proved again through ballots that they don't like communalism, chauvinism and fascism."
Veteran freedom fighter and former army chief Lt Gen (retd) M Harun-ur-Rashid believes the new generation rejected Jamaat when they learned for the first time about the party's role in 1971.
How about they keep it there and take it off Israel's hands?
Oh, they mean the issue not the gods-forsaken strip of coastal land. Oh well.
Arab governments will take their case for an end to Israel's attacks on Gaza back to the U.N. Security Council, Arab foreign ministers said on Wednesday
After a meeting of Arab ministers in Cairo, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said the ministers strongly condemned what they called barbaric Israeli aggression.
"(The ministers) direct an immediate demand that the U.N. Security Council convene and ask it to issue a resolution that binds Israel to immediately stop the aggression," he said, reading from the ministerial statement.
Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo to seek a common position in response to Israel's military attacks, which have killed at least 25 percent of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The U.N. Security Council called on Sunday for an immediate end to all violence in Gaza, where Israeli air raids have killed close to 400 people in the last five days.
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Arabs should take the Israeli attacks to the U.N. Security Council, even at a risk that a resolution would face a veto from one of the five permanent members of the council.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo to seek a common position in response to Israel's military attacks, which have killed at least 25 percent of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
If all 400 killed were civilians then at max 1600 people out of a population of 1,500,000 are civilians in Gaza.
An official spokesman denied Indian media reports on Wednesday that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had made a statement on the arrest of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative Zarar Shah. The Prime Minister's House said in a statement that the reports were 'baseless', adding that Gilani "did not issue any such statement".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called on Wednesday for an immediate meeting of rival Palestinian factions, at the opening of an emergency session on how to deal with Israel's Gaza onslaught. "We call on our Palestinian brothers to hold an immediate reconciliation meeting," Moussa told foreign ministers from the 22-member.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Ma'an -- Gaza's Hospitals are the source of the latest dead as yesterday's wounded head to overcrowded morgues and medical supplies dwindle. Medical sources put the number of dead at 398.
Among those who succumbed to their wounds on Wednesday were:
*Mahmoud Abu Nahl, who died in an Egyptian hospital
*Ismail Hamdan, a 10-year-old boy who was hit with a missile Tuesday along with his two sisters
*Paramedics Eyhab Al-Madhoun and Mahmoud Abu Hasira who were hit while rescuing civilians
Fresh airstrikes bring more dead
After a several-hour noontime lull Israel resumed airstrikes in the Gaza Strip Wednesday afternoon. The lull coaxed many families out of their homes to inspect damage, find family or replenish food reserves. By four o'clock however, Israeli strikes resumed and targeted a donkey-cart in Bani Suhayla Square in Khan Younis, killing two and injuring several others.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
No mention that most targets were Hamas ordinance or launchers.
"targeted a donkey-cart in Bani Suhayla Square" No mention of the contents of the cart.
Fred's not shy about scouting sources (Iran, Gaza, ect.) so we get an idea of the propaganda these folks live with. It's no wonder their heads are warped.
#2
I noted the scrupulous use of the word "projectile" to describe missile and rocket launches by Gazans against Israel. Their use of language is positively Orwellian. Projectile = rock?
#3
By four o'clock however, Israeli strikes resumed and targeted a donkey-cart in Bani Suhayla Square in Khan Younis, killing two and injuring several others.
Two Palis or two donkeys? Dare we hope that some ISM jackasses were included?
#5
Have the Paleostain rockets EVER hit a Soldier or Military Installation? I can't remember a single one.
Therefore they all hit civilians.
But nobody seems to care about that.
Only if Israel stops its aggression unconditionally, lifts the blockade and opens the Gaza crossings will Hamas agree to "talk about all issues - and seriously," Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday night, at the end of the fifth day of the IDF's Operation Cast Lead. In a televised address, the Hamas prime minister added that only after these conditions have been met, will an internal Palestinian dialogue be launched.
Haniyeh turned to Palestinians in Gaza. "The situation in Gaza before the war will be different from after the war," he assured them. "This is a war that divides two eras and, with God's help, victory will be ours, because these people stand firm, the resistance stands firm and because the occupation will fail to achieve anything. "Our blessings are with all those who have fallen in battle, all the casualties and all the operatives on the ground," he said.
On a satisfactory note, Hanieyeh said that the Palestinians were closely following international opinion, particularly in the Arab world. "We get the feeling that Israel is standing against the Arab and Muslim free world that will never accept this crazy war against a people without [proper] arms in such a small area, but [are] a great and strong people nonetheless."
"Gaza is not the only place standing against this aggression," he continued. "That's what they wanted. They sought to isolate it from the Arab world, but this storm among Arab nations has proved that the Strip is not alone and the occupation cannot do this. The Arab people have proved that the Palestinian issue is in their hearts."
Choosing to steer clear of criticizing Egypt for not opening the Rafah border crossing, Haniyeh said that "the occupation alone is responsible for what is going on - for the aggression and the blockade."
Earlier Wednesday night, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in an address broadcast on Palestinian TV that the stalled negotiating process had become useless and was not reaching any of its goals - namely the creation of a Palestinian state. "Negotiation is not a goal by itself; it's a tool," Abbas said. "Unless it is a tool to achieve peace ... there is no need for it to continue."
Turing to Gazans, Abbas said that the Palestinian people were standing firmly with them. He described the IDF operation as a "massacre" directed at the entire Palestinian people and called it "cheap election propaganda." The PA president also appealed to the UNSC to hold an emergency session on the Gaza situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
This is a poor translation.
Allow me to offer a more accurate one:
If the IDF doesn't stop attacking Gaza, we'll keep shooting rockets at Israeli kindergartens.
However, if the IDF does stop attacking Gaza, we'll keep shooting rockets at Israeli kindergartens.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 0:52
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#2
If the IDF doesn't stop attacking Gaza, we'll keep shooting rockets at Israeli kindergartens.
Retranslated: If the IDF doesn't stop attacking Gaza, we won't be able to keep shooting rockets at Israeli kindergartens.
#4
"Gaza is not the only place standing against this aggression," he continued. "That's what they wanted. They sought to isolate it from the Arab world, but this storm among Arab nations has proved that the Strip is not alone and the occupation cannot do this."
What? The Arab League just rejected Hamas' terrorist actions.
"The Arab people have proved that the Palestinian issue is in their hearts."
What? The Egyptian (Arabs) military were shooting at Gazans (Arabs) as they were trying to cross the Egyptian border.
Since he was federally charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been wrongly caricatured as some kind of hapless jester prancing on the edge of madness.
Jesters hold rattles with a likeness of their heads on the end of a stick, and they hop off into a corner, prattling to themselves. That's what jesters do.
Jesters don't pick up the race card in a nationally televised news conference and slam it into the face of every Democrat in the U.S. Senate, a palm heel strike to the tip of the nose, leaving all of them watery-eyed, their lips stinging.
Yet that's what Blagojevich--aided by former Black Panther-turned-Daley-machine-functionary Bobby Rush--did at that stupendous news conference in Chicago on Tuesday. That's when the governor appointed Democratic empty suit Roland Burris, an African-American, to fill the Senate seat vacated by Obama.
"Please don't allow the allegations against me to taint this good and honest man," said Blagojevich.
It was a brazen move, and a smart one, and though the race card was ugly, there was no passion in it. There was no lunacy involved.
"This is not about Roland, this is about Rod," said savvy political consultant Thom Serafin when I called him while watching the circus of the politically bizarre. Serafin correctly predicted weeks ago that it would be Burris, shortly after Blagojevich was arrested and most other Senate hopefuls pulled out lest they be infected by the governor's dilemma.
"This is Rod telling the political class that he's still active, that he's still around, that he's still the governor," Serafin said. "And how do they deny Roland Burris? They can't."
On TV, Burris was chattering amiably, saying nothing as usual, and this time he forgot to mention several key facts about himself: That he's waited his turn and now it's his turn; that he's had his gravestone carved with all his political titles but he left room for more, and that he helped elect Blagojevich by running in the Democratic primary for governor and pulling African-American votes from Blagojevich's strongest challenger, former Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas.
It's that kind of arithmetic that politicians find impossible to deny.
"Let me just remind you that there is presently no African-American in the Senate," said Rush, the U.S. representative of the 1st Congressional District, whom the young Obama challenged years ago and got trounced by, teaching Obama to embrace the realities of Chicago politics: Go along and get along.
On Tuesday, Rush was obviously quite ill, but he was not mentally unstable. He was certainly strong enough to use the angry race language of the 1960s as he stood next to Burris and Blagojevich. Rush warned that no sitting Democrat would go on record for long to bar an African-American from taking the seat.
"I would ask you to not hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer. Roland Burris is worthy," Rush said.
Hang? Lynch?
Isn't that the old politics of race that Obama was to have transcended for us?
But there it was, out in the open again, the images of young men hanging from trees in old black-and-white photos offered up easily by Rush, who has himself cozied up to Mayor Richard Daley and for a time was in charge of a Daley political fund.
"And I don't think any senators want to go on the record to deny an African-American from taking a seat in the U.S. Senate," Rush said, ominously.
Grown-ups have seen such theater before. The only things missing were cameo performances by those two prolific race card players, Al Sharpton and Chicago's own Rev. Jesse Jackson.
But Sharpton was preoccupied, giving photo ops to Caroline Kennedy for her New York Senate campaign. That video clip of the two having a cozy lunch, chatting amiably like old friends as they spear their vegetables, continues to run endlessly on cable TV news. While Sharpton might think the Kennedy lunch was expensive, she will no doubt consider it cheap at the price.
Meanwhile, Jackson has his own issues. His son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Bud Light), is mentioned in the Blagojevich federal criminal complaint as Senate Candidate 5, whose emissaries reportedly promised Blagojevich $1 million in campaign cash in exchange for his appointment. Congressman Jackson has denied making any such arrangement.
Senate Democrats are talking tough now, saying they won't seat Burris, but that won't hold. The debate has been framed. The only African-American in the Senate leaves for the White House, another African-American is appointed to fill that spot, and Democratic politicians know they owe their livelihoods to African-American voters.
That talk about transcending race was just talk. Skin pigment trumps ideas, and Blagojevich, who may be facing a jury soon, wants all the friends he can get.
Of course, Tuesday's fiasco could have been avoided. Democrats in the state legislature could have stripped Blagojevich of his appointment powers and imposed a special election. Obama also could have demanded it. But as he has done so often in his career, Obama avoided a confrontation and looked the other way.
Democrats tried to finesse this, and they allowed Blagojevich the opening he needed, to hold that news conference and defy everybody. And so I'm forced to tip my hat to Gov. Dead Meat on this one, for sheer brazenness.
He's no jester. And it takes guts to keep a straight face while Democrats about you are losing theirs.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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That's when the governor appointed Democratic empty suit Roland Burris, an African-American, to fill the Senate seat vacated by Obama.
Here I though this was all about preserving a "black" seat, now it realize it's about preserving the empty suit seat.
Given the voting record of the fine people of Ill, it's probably best their next senator is selected not elected.
Besides Burris did grease Blogo, so all's fair in the Windy City.
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/01/2009 10:17
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I don't see a winning strategy for Rod on this. How can he make this turn out well for him? Seems like he's just putting his head on the chopping block on this one. With moves like this, the political machine has no choice but to get rid of him, fast! The quickest way is a night swim in the Chicago River, but that may backfire at this point. The state legislature could get him off stage with a public impeachment and conviction. It might pass the smell test for the willing dupes in the MSM, but will Illionis voters buy it? Could spell trouble for some of Rod's cronies in 2010. Then you have the Obama problem. He's got to keep those buses coming, to throw tainted pals under and his white wash machines will be running 24/7. 2009 looks to be a troubling year for Illionis politics, but it also holds the possibility of real change and real reform. Is there a Bobby Jindal in Illionis?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 10:30
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#5
"Is there a Bobby Jindal in Illionis?"
If there was, Richard, he's been wearing cement overshoes for years. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:03
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I don't see a winning strategy for Rod on this. How can he make this turn out well for him?
He's making it less-bad; if he going down, he's taking the Democrats down with him.
NATO is seeking to seal an agreement with Moscow to allow the military alliance to fly equipment over Russian airspace to Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday. "Both sides are already aware of the fact that an air agreement would be desirable," the NATO official told AFP.
The talks "at many levels" are able to take place now following the end of a four-month freeze the alliance imposed after Moscow sent troops into Georgia. Envoys from NATO and Russia are set to hold top-level talks next month where the question could be raised. Moscow agreed in April to allow "non-lethal" NATO supplies to transit Russian territory by land on its way to Afghanistan.
This must be done largely by train and involves obtaining similar transit agreements with other countries in the region such as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, the official said. "This is part of the Russian-NATO cooperation regarding Afghanistan. We have the land agreement and now of course one important thing is also to have an air transit agreement." Some individual countries, including Germany, already have such an agreement for supplies to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Security forces arrested 28 alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban 'facilitators' and demolished 19 houses including that of a senator as troops backed by helicopter gunships and tanks continued a major operation to secure the international highway in Khyber Agency that serves as a supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
It was not clear if the arrested men would be tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act or tribal laws.
Security forces also arrested more than 100 Afghan nationals illegally living in Pakistan from Jamrud tehsil and deported them through the Torkham crossing point to Afghanistan, Khyber Agency Political Agent Tariq Hayat Khan told a news conference in Peshawar. "We are heading towards our goals," Khan said.
Security forces ensured during the operation that they avoid collateral damage, and hospital officials in Jamrud said they had not treated anyone with wounds on Wednesday. Five civilians had been reported dead during the operations on Tuesday. Khan regretted the civilian deaths and announced compensation for the victims' families.
The political administration imposed a curfew in the area and all roads leading to Jamrud were blocked for all traffic, causing problems for some commuters.
Pakistan has commuters?
Afghanistan-bound trucks carrying military and non-military goods for the NATO and American forces were stopped for the second day, as the operation against six outfits threatening the route continued.
"There was no resistance at all from the Taliban side as they seem to have gone underground," local residents said, amid heavy artillery fire heard in Peshawar.
Locals of Ghundi and Shahkas area said by telephone the security forces dynamited the mudhouse of Malik Attaullah amid a curfew in Ghundi. Attaullah is alleged to have provided shelter to the defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's local commander Mustafa Kamal Hijrat. Media reports said intelligence agencies arrested Hijrat last month, after he led several attacks on truck terminals in Peshawar.
Senator: The security forces also razed the house of Senator Nasir Khan following intelligence reports that he provided land to a private militia to set up a centre in Jamrud, administration sources said. "I will lodge strong protest against the forces' action against me," the enraged senator said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
This at least sounds like a good way to clear a supply route. It might be more effective with some US tanks and gunships though - you know, guys that hit what they aim at (and aim at what needs hitting.)
Hamas vowed on Wednesday to fight "until the last breath" if Israel makes good on threats to send ground troops into Gaza after rejecting calls for a truce and pressing on with its air assault.
They keep promising and promising but they're still breathing.
"We in Hamas are ready for all scenarios and we will fight until the last breath," senior official Mushir al-Masri told AFP as warplanes pounded Gaza for a fifth day and the enclave's Islamist rulers hit back with rockets. "Israel will embark on a veritable adventure if it decides to invade Gaza. We have prepared surprises for them," he vowed.
The Israeli security cabinet earlier rejected international proposals for a truce in its offensive on Hamas in Gaza, a senior government official said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after a meeting of his security cabinet that the current conditions were not right for a Gaza ceasefire but he did not rule one out in the future. "If conditions will ripen, and we think there can be a diplomatic solution that will ensure a better security reality in the south, we will consider it. But at the moment, it's not there," Olmert was quoted by an aide as saying.
"The government decided to adopt a success strategy.
Well THAT's a new approach.
The government wants to reach the goals of halting terror from Gaza. Once we reach this goal we will be ready to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire."
Quoting Olmert, he added: "We did not launch the Gaza operation only to end it with the same rocket firing that we had at its start."
Unfortunately, if you end it now it won't be the same rocket firing - it will be the new, more powerful ones from China coming at farthest corners of your country.
Following the Israeli rejection of the truce, Hamas said it was prepared to study proposals for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that would require Israel to halt attacks and lift "entirely" its blockade of the Gaza Strip. "Once we receive a proposal, we will study it," said Hamas official Ayman Taha. "We are for any initiative that will bring an immediate cessation to the aggression and lift the siege entirely."
Protests earlier mushroomed around the globe and world's top diplomats scrambled to find a way to stop one of Israel's deadliest-ever offensives on Gaza that has so far killed at least 390 Palestinians, including 42 children, and wounded more than 2,000 others, according to Gaza medics.
On the ground, Israeli jets continued to hammer Hamas targets throughout Gaza, carrying out more than 35 strikes overnight targeting government offices, weapon storage facilities and contraband tunnels, the army said. The massive Israeli assault has left many Hamas structures and bases in rubble and has killed several senior officials of the Islamist group.
But it has failed to stop the rocket fire. Since late Tuesday, Hamas's armed wing sent five rockets slamming around the desert town of Beersheva some 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Gaza border the deepest its projectiles have reached into Israel yet. Since the start of the Israeli offensive, Gaza militants have fired more than 250 rockets into Israel, killing three civilians and one soldier and wounding several dozen people.
Hamas has remained defiant in the face of the Israeli onslaught, vowing to reach ever-deeper into Israel with its rockets. The group has also threatened to carry out suicide attacks inside Israel for the first time since January 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Hamas vowed on Wednesday to fight "until the last breath" if Israel makes good on threats to send ground troops into Gaza after rejecting calls for a truce and pressing on with its air assault.
#2
The government decided to adopt a success strategy.
I'm sure 100 years ago they would have found it odd that such a statement could be written. But here we are in 2009, where it seems odd only that they admit they intend to win.
#3
"Hamas vowed on Wednesday to fight 'until the last breath'"
Your proposal is accepted.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 11:20
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#4
Napalm sucks the air right out of the lungs of such twits. That's what Israel should be using against the Gaza tunnels and any underground "command posts" they can find. Of course, hitting them when they're buried under mosques, girl schools, or hospitals does make it difficult. Israel needs to go into Gaza, shoot everybody that even picks up a small stone to throw, blow up all "underground command posts", level all buildings over two stories in heighth, and lay a minefield a mile deep along the entire INSIDE border of Gaza, and pull out. Use napalm against anyone that tries to clear the mines. Line a double-wire border fence with claymores every five feet. Plant acoustical and motion sensors along the Israeli side of the fence, and use artillery to collapse any tunnel the Gazans may try to dig. FORCE THE REST OF THE WORLD TO SUPPLY GAZA WITH FOOD, WATER, POWER AND WHATEVER ELSE THEY NEED, while cutting off everything that might have come from Israel, or through it, before. The rest of the world will probably get tired of supporting these parisites in a few years, and they'll slowly be drained away. That's Israel's best bet, and they should take it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 15:14
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#5
what... no arclight missions?
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
01/01/2009 15:17
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#8
Wasn't it Sharon who suggested building a canal about 100 feet deep all along the Gaza/Egypt border? It would certainly make tunneling a lot more difficult.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/01/2009 16:55
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#9
Has somebody copywrighted "to the last drop of blood"?
Security forces have flushed out the Taliban from various areas of Salarzai tehsil and Khar area of Bajaur Agency, officials said on Wednesday. The areas cleared of Taliban presence include Arrang and Barrang in Utmankhel tehsil, Roghgan and Pashat in Salarzai tehsil and Khar area of Bajaur, they said. In other areas, security forces continued targeting Taliban positions with artillery and mortars, but there were no reports of casualties. A grand jirga of Mandal tribes held in Civil Colony, Khar, on Wednesday assured the government of support against the Taliban. The Bajaur assistant political agent said it was the responsibility of local people to thwart rocket and missile attacks from their areas on Khar and other locations of the agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Canada has not been granted consular access to detained Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan in Iran, a foreign affairs spokesman said in Ottawa Tuesday.
"Consular officials have been in contact with Iranian authorities, including by diplomatic note, to obtain confirmation of Derakhshan's arrest and to seek consular access," Canadian foreign ministry spokesman Rodney Moore told AFP. "To date, we have not received a response from the Government of Iran." "Consular officials will continue to press Iranian authorities for access to Mr. Derakhshan, consistent with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations," he added.
The Iranian judiciary confirmed earlier Tuesday that Derakhshan, whose highly political "hoder.com" blog has not been updated since October 30, is under arrest over remarks he allegedly made about key figures of the Shiite faith. Derakhshan's "case is under preliminary investigation and he is in custody," Iran's ILNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi as saying. Jamshidi did not say when and where Derakhshan was detained.
Some reports outside Iran said he was arrested on November 1 shortly after arriving in Tehran on a private visit. Moore said Canada learned of his reported arrest in mid-November. A conservative Iranian website said in November that Derakhshan had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel. Dubbed the "father" of Iranian blogging, Derakhshan, 34, sparked a blogging revolution in the Islamic republic by posting precise instructions in 2001 on how to set up Persian-language blogs, which have burgeoned to around 70,000 in recent years.
I'm sorry to see him arrested but he got pretty anti-US and pro-DinnerJacket of late. Guess the mullahs failed to be impressed. Maybe they figured it was an overly obvious cover for his Zionist conversion.
Or maybe they're just paranoid.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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(Xinhua) -- In spite of the whether conditions, Israeli warplanes continued on Wednesday targeting by missiles different targets belongs to Islamic Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, witnesses said.
Whither the weather ...
They said that Israeli Apache helicopters struck a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, which belongs to an Islamic Jihad (Holy War) movement's activists.
Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian Health Ministry told reporters that Ihab el-Madhoun, a Palestinian doctor died of his wounds he sustained on Tuesday. El-Madhoun was critically wounded as he was working with a medical team trying to rescue a number of Palestinian casualties northeast of Gaza City on Tuesday night. The paramedic Mohamed Abu Hasira was killed in the strike.
Meanwhile, Omer Alnasser, head of public relations in the Hamas-ruled ministry of health in Gaza said in a statement that since Saturday, 390 Palestinians were killed and 1900 wounded. "We are about to prepare a list of names of all were killed so far, and an up to date figures will be delivered to the mass media within the coming a few hours," said Alnasser.
The Israeli air fighters supported by the pilotless drones kept hovering over the Gaza Strip, in spite of the raining and cloudy whether, where a house in southern Gaza strip was bombarded, whereone woman was critically wounded. Witnesses said that four more airstrikes were carried out on different targets in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, not far from the border with Egypt, where Israeli artillery and naval gunships shells other targets in the enclave.
Overnight, Israeli airstrikes continued, where more than 40 Israeli airstikes were carried out on different targets in the Gaza Strip, where two Hamas-government's installations were bombarded for the second time.
The building of Hamas cabinet and the building of the former preventive security of president Mahmoud Abbas security forces were leveled to the ground after they were bombarded by Israeli rockets. Israeli warplanes had also launched airstrikes on the borderline between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, saying that the airstrike targeted dozens of underground tunnels under the bordersused for smuggling.
Meanwhile, in spite of the intensive airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Islamic Hamas movement's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for launching more than 40 long-range rockets at Israeli cities. The group said in short statements sent to reporters' cellular phones that the rockets targeted the cities of Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sderout and other Jewish communities in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip.
"Our operation called the Oil Spot will continue and rockets' firing on the Zionist enemy cities and towns would be widened to revenge the massive massacres committed against our people," the Hamas armed wing said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Line up the artillery, and pound away. Walk it right up to the sea and down to the Egyptian border. Nobody's going to complain but the idiots on the far left in the West.
I HOPE there's an ammo ship on its way to Tel Aviv with all the weaponry the Israelis might ever need, including some of the heaviest bunker-busters the IAF can handle. Every member of Hamass needs to die, and quite a few of the other fringe groups. Since the "palestinians" "elected" these a$$holes, may every person over the age of 12 die as accessories before the fact and collaborators. It's time for Gaza to cease being a problem for the Israelis.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 14:15
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#2
[I'm a repetitious random spammer with below-average links]
Taliban militants executed a man in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border after accusing him of spying for the United States, an official said Wednesday. The bullet-riddled body of 28-year-old Mohammad Nawaz was found dumped on a roadside on Wednesday in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
It doesn't matter whether he was actually a spy. All they have to do is kill some poor schmo they don't like, and call him a spy; it has the same deterrant effect on potential future spies.
#5
Did they do, lotp? I've only ever read about them, never saw one close enough to note details...unlike those either sending or receiving the dear little things. ;-)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a constitutional amendment Tuesday extending presidential terms in the country from four years to six, a change that many suspect is intended to benefit his predecessor -- and possible successor -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Now fall on your sword like a good boy, Dmitry...
Many entertainers in the Arab world cancelled their New Year's celebrations as a show of solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza following five days of a ruthless Israeli military offensive against the already beleaguered Strip.
New Year events scheduled to take place in Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan and many other parts of the Arab world have been either postponed or cancelled.
Four days of air strikes on the blockaded Strip yielded 380 dead and over 1750 wounded the majority of whom were civilians, prompting angry demonstrations world wide that have extinguished the normally festive mood around New Year's Eve.
Abdel Moneim Kamel, head of the Cairo Opera House told AlArabiya.net on Wednesday that Egyptian singer Mohamed Mounir's concert scheduled for New Year's Eve has been postponed till late January.
Mounir expressed his sorrow over the massacre in the Gaza Strip, explaining in a statement that "delaying the concert is a message sent to the whole world, so that it would move forward and help the people in Gaza."
The Egyptian government also announced the delay of events organized to celebrate the New Year, including an Egyptian operetta set to be recorded for the festive season and the debut of a new TV channel, Nile Comedy, initially scheduled for Thursday.
"We postponed the launch of Nile Comedy and instead of festive shows, we are airing documentary films," Osama al-Sheikh, head of Egypt's Nile Thematic channels, told AlArabiya.net.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Big deal.
It's still the 7th Century in most of the Muddled East anyway.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 0:53
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#2
I think muslims never celibrate new year read following article about muslim new year Link for muslim new year
#3
Four days of air strikes on the blockaded Strip yielded 380 dead and over 1750 wounded the majority of whom were civilians
Lying assholes
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 8:55
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#4
It's still the 7th Century in most of the Muddled East anyway.
That's basically the problem in a nutshell. The Muddled East is celebrating the year 709 and we are celebrating 2009. As technology forces us together the question is are we going to split the difference and allow them to take us back to the 1300s?
#6
2009 is going to be a very bad year for any country dependent on oil production. The price cannot come up until the market stops contracting and starts to expand. Not likely for quite awhile.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 11:36
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#7
Richard of O, there is a way for oil prices to rise without market expansion - suply contraction. A war in the Persian Gulf would do it. Or revolution in KSA. Etc.
Federal authorities have charged an Iraqi-born Canadian citizen with conspiring to spy for the former regime of Saddam Hussein while allegedly working at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, in the second such case to emerge in a week.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a criminal complaint in Maryland against Muyad Mahmud Darwish, a Canadian citizen born in Iraq, alleging he was paid by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) for providing assistance and information.
Last week, Saubhe Jassim al-Dellemy, an Iraqi national living in Maryland, pleaded guilty to the same charges.
Both Darwish, 47, and Dellemy, 67, face a maximum five-year prison sentence for conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. They are not accused of seeking or obtaining classified information. Neither one was ever recognized by the U.S. government as an Iraqi government diplomatic or consular officer.
The agency said in a statement that the charges were backed by confidential IIS documents seized by the U.S. military after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
In one incident described by an IIS document, Darwish, who lived in Maryland, reported that Iraqi volunteers were being trained by the US military in Virginia.
Darwish was detained in Buffalo, New York on Dec. 24 after trying to enter the United States from Canada, where he resides. He was scheduled to appear in a Buffalo court on Tuesday for a detention hearing. Dellemy is scheduled for sentencing on March 5.
This article starring:
Muyad Mahmud Darwish
Saubhe Jassim al-Dellemy
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
It's a bitch spying for a fallen regime that kept good records. See: "East Germany" and "Iraq"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 8:08
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Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger separatists are open to restarting peace talks with the government, despite the continuing military offensive aimed at crushing the group, a senior rebel official said.
A new military push deep into the rebel heartland in recent months has forced the Tamil Tigers to retreat from vast swaths of land they once controlled, and the government has said it expects to finish off the group in the coming months. Rebel political chief Balasingham Nadesan told The Associated Press the rebels did not believe they were facing imminent defeat. "We have made several strategic withdrawals in order to save the lives of our people and maintain the strength of our forces. When the time and place is conducive, we will regain the land we have lost," he said in an e-mail sent to the AP late Tuesday. Nadesan said the rebels had not abandoned hopes for new peace talks. "We have always been ready for peace talks, but the Sri Lankan government has been always insisting on a military solution," he said.
Condition for peace: The government said it would only consider new peace moves if the rebels agreed to disarm. "For three decades we were trying to convince (rebel leader Velupillai) Prabhakaran and his terror group to come to some sort of reasonable arrangement, but they failed," Cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella said. If the group refuses to lay down its weapons, "we will not move an inch from our position," he said.
Fighting across the north continued Wednesday, and the rebel-linked TamilNet website reported that air force jets bombed a village killing four civilians and wounding 13 others. Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said there were no airstrikes Wednesday morning.
The latest government offensive has squeezed the rebels into an increasingly shrinking area in the northeast. Fighter jets have relentlessly pounded their strongholds and the military has closed in on the rebels' administrative capital, Kilinochchi Nadesan said the rebels remained confident they would not be driven out of their heartland, but implied that if they were, the conflict would continue anyway. "We are used to all types of wars," he said, adding that the Tamil Tigers began as a guerrilla group. "We will struggle on with the help of our people until their political aspirations are met."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
It looks like the government is offering the Tigers their choice of two kinds of peace. They can achieve peace by surrunding or the can enjoy the peace of the graveyard. Simple, no?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 11:52
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"The Israelis claim they have learned the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, but they haven't," Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday night. In a televised speech, Nasrallah said that Israel had not set a clear target for the current Gaza operation, asserting that the IDF wasn't sure it would achieve anything and that the military action in the Strip would end in failure.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
He's right. They haven't learned lessons of second Lebanon war. They went back and learned lessons from wars that they won.
#2
Actually, I don't see this current endeavor as accomplishing much. The Israelis are obsessed with keeping a nonsensical status quo, and absolutely refuse to do anything that would eventually lead to a forced resolution.
It is like a great big prisoner sharing a prison cell with a small, insane psychopath prisoner, who constantly attacks the big guy in annoying ways until the big guy loses his temper and punches the small guy once.
Then the small guy gets up, dusts himself off, and starts attacking again. Eventually, the little guy is going to come up with some way of injuring the big guy, but the big guy just can't bring himself to throw the little guy out of the cell entirely.
#3
You are probably right. I was hopeful they might be serious this time. But as no ground invasion begun yet, it looks like just another round of the same ol' abusive and dysfuntional relationship. The have a knock-down fight. The neighbors call the police who will drive by and tell them to keep it down. Another year will go by.
#7
WAFF.com/TOPIX > VARIOUS ISLAMIST WEBSITES [Forums] CALL FOR ATTACKS AGZ AMERICAN, ISRAELI WORLDWIDE INTERESTS.
E.g. Sub-Article > SOMALI JIHAD FIGHTER - WE WILL ESTABLISH/SET UP ISLAMIC RULE FROM ALASKA + CHINA, TO SOUTH AMERICA, JAPAN, RUSSIA, + INDIA.... WE ARE COMING!; + WAS IRAN PROPHECIED TO RULE THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MUHAMMED AND QURAN!?
An IAF helicopter on Wednesday afternoon carried out a targeted strike in Rafah, Channel 2 reported. There was no initial word as to who was targeted in the strike.
Earlier, a senior Islamic Jihad rocket-maker and dispatcher of rocket-firing squads was killed in a targeted killing in Khan Yunis.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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International military forces helping Afghanistan to fight Islamic extremists said Wednesday they had killed 17 militants in separate operations.
The US military said troops under its command had killed 11 militants Tuesday in an operation against the radical Hizb-e-Islami faction led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, about 60 kilometers from the capital, Kabul. The battle was fought in the Sarobi district, where militants killed 10 French soldiers in August in the deadliest ground battle for international soldiers since the invasion of Afghanistan by US-led forces in 2001.
The US attack in Sarobi targeted a Hizb-e-Islami leader wanted for trafficking weapons and fighters and for carrying out attacks, the US military said in a statement. The militants had opened fire on approaching troops, it said. "Coalition forces returned fire and killed two of the militants. Still receiving fire, coalition forces engaged the militants with close-air precision munitions and killed the remaining nine militants," it said, referring to air strikes. Weapons, ammunition and other military equipment found at the scene were destroyed, the statement said.
Meanwhile, the separate NATO-led force said that its aircraft on a combat-escort mission had spotted "eight insurgents with weapons moving into fighting positions" in eastern Afghanistan Tuesday. "The aircraft engaged the insurgents, killing six," it said.
There were allegations that some civilians were hurt in the strikes, the International Security Assistance Force said, adding that it was investigating, but it had clear evidence the aircraft fired at "enemy insurgents."
Also Wednesday, French Defense Minister Herve Morin arrived in Kabul for a New Year visit with French soldiers in the NATO-led force. Morin was also due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and to visit a French-funded mother-and-children's hospital in the capital. He will also take part in a military outreach operation with Afghan civilians and join French troops at one of their forward operating bases for the New Year's Eve celebration. On Thursday Morin is scheduled to fly to a large military base outside the southern city of Kandahar, where France has stationed six Mirage 2000 fighter jets to support US and NATO-led troops on the ground.
This article starring:
Sarobi district
French Defense Minister Herve Morin
GULBUDIN HEKMATYAR
Hizb-e-Islami
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Around 300 Pakistanis deported escaped the custody of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Immigration Cell from the Islamabad airport on Wednesday.
FIA sources told Daily Times Turkish authorities deported 408 Pakistanis who went to Turkey on fake documents.
The sources said the deportees were shifted from the international arrivals lounge to the domestic arrivals lounge upon arrival in Islamabad to facilitate pilgrims arriving after haj. They said one of the deportees shouted a slogan and all the deportees started running out of the lounge. They said the Civil Aviation Authority and airport security were placed on high alert. Only about 150 deportees were arrested, while 258 managed to escape. Adviser on Interior Rehman Malik suspended the shift in-charge and other airport staff and ordered a joint enquiry of the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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At least 25 percent of Palestinians killed during Israel's onslaught on the Gaza Strip have been civilians, a United Nations agency says. More than 390 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Israeli campaign on Gaza, and some 1,900 others are reported wounded.
According to many Western media outlets, the ongoing strikes, which have now entered their fifth day, are the ugliest massacre Palestine has witnessed in decades.
"A minimum of 25 percent of all those killed are civilians and it may well be far higher," Christopher Gunness, a spoksman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, told AFP on Wednesday.
Israeli officials say the operation is aimed at taking out Hamas compounds throughout the coastal sliver.
In retaliation to the attacks on Gaza, Hamas has launched rocket strikes on Israel. Six Israelis have died since Saturday, while sixteen others have been reported wounded.
The UN figures come as Israel rejected an international proposal for a 48-hour humanitarian aid truce in Israeli offensive on Gaza.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
"At least 25 percent of Palestinians killed during Israel's onslaught on the Gaza Strip have been civilians"
So you're saying 75% of paleo "civilians" aren't stupid to live next to a rocket launcher or a mosque munitions dump?
Who knew?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 0:48
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#2
"Hamas has continues launched launching rocket strikes on Israel"
#4
It took less than a week for history to be rivised. Already the Hamas rockets are retaliation for Israeli attacks.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/01/2009 2:15
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#5
Pfft. Nobody needs to hear from the UN's refugee-farmers. Those fuckers are the primary agents in creation of the cultural monster which is Palestinian nihilism. The whole UN refugee apparatus ought to be defunded & every single employee ought to be out on the street this morning with tin-cups and "will poison minds and condescend to indigenous peoples for food" placards.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/01/2009 9:23
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#6
Those fuckers are the primary agents in creation of the cultural monster which is Palestinian nihilism.
I thought Islam was the primary agent, but I might be quibbling.
#8
Don't forget that according to the U.N. there are no 'terrorists' in the world (they haven't defined what terrorism is yet) so what we would call a terrorist - they call a 'civilian'.
#10
So what would a good figure be? Does the UN want 99% or something? I say 75% is amazing and it shows the determination of Israel to try to target terrorists as best they can even though the terrorists do their best to hide behind women and children. And men.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that Israeli attacks on Gaza had to stop before any truce proposals could be considered.
"First, the Zionist aggression must end without any conditions... Second the siege must be lifted and all the crossings must be opened because the siege is the source of all of Gaza's problems," he said in a televised speech to Palestinians. "After that it will be possible to talk on all issues without any exception," Haniyeh said, referring to recent truce proposals raised by all parties, including Israel.
Haniyeh was speaking from an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, which has suffered the deadliest Israeli attacks in the past four decades in which at least 394 Palestinians have been killed.
Haniyeh sounded a defiant tone, saying the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip will win the fight against Israel. "We tell the Palestinian people in Gaza and everywhere that you will win, inevitably," Haniyeh said. "Victory is near, God willing, and it is closer than people think."
In his speech, Haniyeh said: "What is happening in Gaza is not normal aggression. It is a real war, a war without morals, with neither principles nor laws. It is a war of elimination against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."
The head of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, earlier on Wednesday said that Israel is hesitating to launch a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip for fear of failure. According to Nasrallah, a ground operation in Gaza will prove extremely difficult for Israel, because of the one and a half million residents who are "embracing the resistance."
In a televised speech made before an audience of Hezbollah supporters in Beirut, Nasrallah added that Israel hasn't declared specific goals for Operation Cast Lead because it won't be capable of achieving them. "What is happening in Gaza is a victory, despite all the pure blood being spilled," said Nasrallah.
Nasrallah on Sunday said that he had asked his fighters to be on alert for a possible Israeli attack on Lebanon following the raids on Gaza that have killed nearly 400 Palestinians. "What is happening today is a Palestinian copy of the July war," Nasrallah declared, drawing a comparison between the Israel Defense Forces offensive in the Gaza Strip and the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which Hezbollah waged against Israel in southern Lebanon.
This article starring:
Hassan Nasrallah
Ismail Haniyeh
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Palestinian Victory?
I do not think those words mean what you think they mean
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 9:32
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#2
The war must not stop until Israel has you, Ismail Haniyeh. Then it will stop, for you. It must go on at least until the February elections, then we will see.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
01/01/2009 11:41
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(Xinhua) -- Under a new Spanish law which offers the Spanish citizenship to children or grandchildren of Spaniards who fled the country since the beginning of the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) till 1955, about 150,000 Mexicans are entitled to the Spanish citizenship.
The Spanish embassy in Mexico said on Tuesday that with the approval of the "Law of Grandchildren" by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government, some 150,000 Mexicans, who were children or grandchildren of Spaniards who fled their country during that period, could get the Spanish citizenship.
Hundreds of Mexicans are expected to go to the Spanish Consulate to apply for the Spanish citizenship, and the embassy has beefed up human resources to provide the service.
The law has been effective since Monday, but so far the application procedure has not started yet in Mexico as most of the Mexicans who came for consultation do not have all required documents, said the Spanish embassy in Mexico.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Is payback time! Karma City! But, then again, if you're wanting real Spanish in-migration where better to look? Excepting Hialeah of course.
Rep. William Jefferson is running out of options. The Louisiana Democrat, in his final days in office, lost a longshot bid Monday to delay his trial on bribery charges.
Jefferson has been trying to get the charges thrown out, but a federal judge refused and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in November. In a one-sentence ruling Monday, the appeals court refused to put that decision on hold while Jefferson appealed to the Supreme Court.
That means, unless the Supreme Court decides to step in, a federal judge can soon set a trial date in a case that has hung over Jefferson for more than 3 years. The FBI raided his home in 2005 and his congressional office in 2006. A grand jury indicted him in June 2007.
Jefferson argues the charges are invalid because the grand jury got reviewed information related to his job as a congressman. That, Jefferson says, violates a constitutional clause that shields lawmakers from prosecution for performing their legislative duties.
Jefferson is charged with taking bribes, laundering money and misusing his congressional office for business dealings in Africa. During the raid on Jefferson's home, FBI agents discovered $90,000 in cash in Jefferson's freezer. Jefferson has promised there is an "honorable explanation" for the money in the freezer, but he has yet to make it public.
He lost his bid for re-election in December to Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao, who will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.
A federal judge in Alexandria, Va., could set a trial date at the next court appearance, which is scheduled for Jan. 15.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#3
Without the title of "the honorable" (spit) in front of his name his political cover has evaporated, and he's now just another crook. I'd expect a quick conviction.
(AKI) - Five people were killed and several others were injured in bomb attacks in northern Iraq on Wednesday. In the largest attack, three people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in the town of Sinjar, northwest of Mosul, near the Syrian border.
"The car bomb exploded at a market in central Sinjar city, west of Mosul, killing three and injuring four, including two policemen," a source told news agency, Voices of Iraq.
Sinjar, 120 kilometres northwest of Mosul, is inhabited by Yazidis, a religious minority whose followers are generally situated in northern Iraq.
According to the UN High Commission for Refugees, there are about 550,000 Yazidis in Iraq and concentrated in the district of Sinjar.
In a second attack on Wednesday, a bomb targeted a police patrol in Mosul. Two Iraqi civilians were killed and nine others were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded. No police were injured in the attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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(AKI) - Israel is using 'brute force' in its attacks in the Gaza Strip in a bid to change the balance of power in the Middle East, a Lebanese political analyst said on Tuesday. Talal Nizameddin, a political analyst at The American University of Beirut told Adnkronos International (AKI) while Israel is targeting Hamas in Gaza, it also has a broader strategy linked to the 2006 Lebanon War.
"This military operation is intended show that Israel can rely on the military option to achieve its aim, and it wants to show its enemies - and not only the Palestinians - that it can use brute force to change the balance of power in the region," Nizameddin said in a telephone interview from Beirut.
More than 360 people have been killed since Israel began intense air attacks in the Gaza Strip last weekend.
The Israeli Defense Forces said the operations in Gaza were in response to the continued firing of rockets and mortar shells on Israeli territory, and that it intended to destroy the infrastructure of the militant Hamas organisation.
Targets included Hamas training camps, headquarters, large weapons storage facilities, and missile launching pads in the Gaza Strip, it said.
Nizameddin told AKI that the operation could be part of a broader policy targeting Iran, Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah Islamist movement, as well as Hamas. He said the Israeli action in Gaza could be a precursor to a broader military operation, which could include Lebanon.
"There could be a follow up attack on Hezbollah, or Palestinian groups in Lebanon could fire rockets at Israel, who would in turn retaliate," he said.
Nizameddin also said the latest Gaza offensive could further strengthen the Lebanese Shia cleric Hassan Nasrallah and his ally, Iran. On Monday, tens of thousands of people gathered in the south of Beirut to protest against the raids. The rally had been called by Nasrallah a day earlier.
"If Israel succeeds - and it does not look like it will succeed - but if it does succeed, it would greatly weaken Hezbollah and Iran. However, if there is a ceasefire or the war drags on or becomes more protracted, it could greatly strengthen Nasrallah and Iran in the long run," Nizameddin told AKI.
Nizameddin, lecturer and associate dean of student affairs at The American University of Beirut, pointed out that there could be more protests in the Lebanese capital, particularly as people gather for the Shia celebrations of Ashura this week.
"I do not think we have seen the largest protests yet, until after New Year's Day when we may see the closure of universities and daily protests, but it depends on how events unfold in Gaza," Nizameddin said.
Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert from the London think-tank Chatham House, warned there would be widespread political repercussions and Israel's action would put more pressure on Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
"This is discrediting all the moderate forces in the region, and all the allies of the United States because of their inability to stop it and they are seen to be in alliance with this ," Shehadi told Adnkronos International (AKI) from Beirut.
"Killing people for the sake of killing people will not achieve any result. On the contrary it will create more anger and more support for the people they are trying to fight."
"When the battles die down, how will they look? What is the political cost?"
He said the United Nations, the Arab League and the European Union were looking "completely useless" and Israel's military action would boost Iran's clout in the region.
"This is weakening all of Iran's adversaries in the region, the Saudis, the Egyptians," he said.
Both Shehadi and Nizameddin were pessimistic about the prospects for peace particularly since Syria suspended Turkish-mediated peace talks with Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
"Israel using 'brute force' to shift balance of power"
Works for me.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009 0:55
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#2
When persuasion doesn't work then it's time to try "brute force".
#4
"Killing people for the sake of killing people will not achieve any result. On the contrary it will create more anger and more support for the people they are trying to fight."
Ohkay. So Iz'rl is killing people for the sake of killing people. Not, say, killing specific people who, say, have been involved in activities trying to kill THEM, and preparing for much more of the same.
Guess I misunderstood. Figures - after all, I'm no Middle East expert from Chatham House.
#5
Do Islamofascists understand anything else? They want to dominate the Earth, one way or another, no? Starting with "Juice", i.e. Ain't it better that their gall should be eliminated, rather?
#7
"it will create more anger and more support for the people they are trying to fight."
And doing nothing, sitting there takign a beatring from faily rocket and mortar attack... that builds support for Israel?
No. It does not even make the damned slanted newspapers and TV news here in the USA.
The Press does not cover it, so there is no pressure brought to Hamas and its puppeteers in Iran.
Once again, the failure of the press to publsih ALL the news, and their imposing an ideological slant on things has caused harm to the west by presenting the flase as true, and only one side of things.
Israel is damend if they don;t strike, and damned if they do, in terms of "opinion" liek this idiot spouts.
So they make a decision on what will stop the enemy from killing innocent civilians inside israel.
And that means strikes to destroy the enemy and their capability to continue those strikes.
The Palestenians should be thankful that the Israelis are using precision weapons and specific targeting with their attacks. Were they as random and indiscriminate as the Hamas attacks, far more in Gaza would be dead. And were Hamas not putting missiles in apartment buildings and places like that, far fewer Gaza civilians would be dead.
Put the blame squarely where it deserves to be: Hamas and Iran.
#14
"Brute Force" is flying over Gaza in a dozen B-52s, each dropping 76 500Lb iron bombs, three times a day for a week. Targeted killing involving precision weapons is only "brute force" against those on the receiving end. Of course, an Arab can't understand the difference.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/01/2009 20:00
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let the Israelis shwo some real brtue force:
Hub to hub 155' HE, followed by side-by-side D9's scraping the debris for a 2Km "dead zone" along the border wiht Israel. Push the Debris up to build a big berm at the border.
Then tell them for every rocket that hits Israel, Gaza loses a grid square to artillery to widen and deepen the zone.
#16
"Of course, an Arab can't understand the difference." - Old patriot.
No, it's an obvious fact(to the whole discerning world) that that's a clear and serious flaw in his psychological make-up. That propensity for one track mind thinking and blame projection on to others. Himself being always righteous without par!
Was it a wonder why Ishmael was likened to a donkey in Genesis?
CHENNAI: The 'Q' branch police on Tuesday arrested a 23-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil for helping the LTTE smuggle goods from the state. Dileepan, a native of Jaffna, was arrested from Red Hills and three satellite phones which he had brought from Switzerland were recovered from him. He landed in the police net after sleuths traced the calls he made to an LTTE organiser, Antony, who was under police detention.
Police had arrested Antony, also a Sri Lankan citizen, on Sunday from Madambakkam near Tambaram. The police team recovered eight pieces of GPS equipment, three satellite phones, two cell phone repeaters and 500 kg of ammonium nitrate from his house and also from his friend's house in Acharapakkam.
Dileepan, who left for Switzerland at the age 17, had been living in that country. He was working in a bakery there, where he got friendly with a person called Rome alias Johnson, police said. Johnson gave him three satellite phones and asked him to pass them on to a person called Ameer Antony in Chennai. Johnson, police said, has been a procurement agent for the LTTE.
Dileepan, who did not know that Antony has been in police detention since Sunday, tried to reach him on his mobile phone. Officers tracked down the call and arrested Dileepan.
Police sources said LTTE has some agents active in Switzerland through whom it was procuring electronic goods, which are first brought to Chennai. The goods are then taken to Sri Lanka by fishing boats from coastal hamlets
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
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Ma'an - Vice President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini went to Hebron on Wednesday with a delegation of Europeans to show solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli attack.
The delegation was received by Hebron mayor Khalid Al-Useili and other members of the city's municipal council.
The delegation was given an update on the situation in Hebron in light of the recent settler attacks against Palestinian homes following the eviction of right wing settlers from the Rajabi home. He called the actions in Hebron a "prelude to the bloodshed by an Israeli war machine which targets residential buildings, mosques, hospitals and schools paying no attention to international conventions and laws."
Al-Useili asked members of the delegation to exert pressure on their home governments and on the European Union to stop Israeli aggression both in Hebron and in the Gaza Strip.
He also called on France, the current president of the European Union to place more pressure on Israel, as well as the UN Security Council which he suggested pass a binding resolution on the situation in Gaza.
Al-Useli also asked the visiting delegation to support an application by the Hebron municipal council to UNESCO for status as a World Heritage Site. The ancient mosque and old city would thus be preserved and Israel would be prevented from destroying precious landmarks Palestinians consider part of human cultural heritage.
For her part, Morgantini said, "We came to Hebron to show solidarity with the Palestinians as we can feel the tyranny upon them, and we believe they have the right to live in freedom by ending occupation of their lands. We believe they have the right to achieve their national dream and gain their rights in accordance with international conventions. We herby call on the whole world to exert endeavors towards achieving Palestinian freedom and letting the Palestinians live in peace securing normal life for their children as their counterparts in the world."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
heh. If it weren't so serious it would be funny. The UN will huff and puff and issue a strongly worded statement. The world will consider action taken and move on to more important issues - like how Jen feels about Jlo. The civlized world has asked the UN to take action against terror for years. The terrorists have always ignored the UN. Now that they call on the UN, they should not be surprised that the civlized countries put as much stock in the UN as they do.
At least 82 people, mostly the activists and supporters of BNP, were injured in post-election violence in seven districts Tuesday night and yesterday.
Reports from different districts said over 20 people were injured in Patuakhali while 10 in Khulna, 12 in Kishoreganj, 14 in Satkhira, 15 in Thakurgaon, 10 in Natore and one at Jagangirnagar University.
Meanwhile, the officer-in-charge (OC) of Kuliarchar Police Station in Kishoreganj has been suspended for his negligence of duty as well as for his failure to control the post-polls law and order situation.
Assistant Inspector General (AIG-Media) Nazrul Islam told The Daily Star that the OC did not take proper measures to prevent the attack by the criminals. "It's a message to all police officials so that they do not neglect their duties," he said.
Khulna Correspondent adds: The lone elected BNP lawmaker from Khulna-2, Nazrul Islam Manju, yesterday urged AL leaders to stop attack on the supporters of four-party alliance in his constituency.
Addressing a press conference, Manju alleged that at least 10 supporters of BNP and Jamaat were injured in separate attacks by AL activists in the city since the announcement of Monday's polls results.
A correspondent from Kishoreganj reports: At least 20 to 30 AL activists attacked the houses of local BNP men in Kuliarchar and Katiadi upazilas Tuesday midnight and yesterday morning, leaving 12 injured.
The AL activists, led by Abul Mansur Rubel who is the younger brother of Kuliarchar upazila unit AL president Abul Hossain Liton, attacked the house of Nityalal Das, BNP president of ward no-3, at Daspara under Kuliarchar pourasava at about 5am.
The attackers ransacked the house of Nityalal and hacked him, leaving him critically injured. The group also beat up his mother, sister and wife as they tried to save Nityalal. The BNP leader was first taken to Zahurul Islam Medical College Hospital where he was shifted to Dhaka.
In another incident, six BNP men were injured by AL workers at Parbacharparatala village in Katiadi upazila Tuesday midnight.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Federal investigation agencies discovered important evidence about last week's suicide blast in Bunir and arrested six people on Wednesday, police said. The blast occurred during the by-election in NA-28 at a polling station on Sunday, killing at least 35 people. Investigators have recovered a shoe of the suicide bomber. They said the vehicle used in the blast was snatched from Karachi. They said 80 kilogrammes of explosive was used and hundreds of AK-47 bullets were packed in it to increase the intensity of the blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: Two Iraqi policemen on Wednesday were wounded while trying to defuse an explosive charge in a Diala neighborhood, according to a local security source. "One of the cops is an explosives disposal expert," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "The wounded were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment," the source noted, adding that the improvised explosive device (IED) went off in al-Hurriya neighborhood, downtown Saadiya district (155 km northeast of Baaquba).
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Aswat al-Iraq: Two Katyusha rockets were fired at a Multi-National Force (MNF) base near Kut city, a local source in Wassit's police said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday evening, the MNF's Camp Delta Base (15 km west of Kut city) was hit by a Katyusha rocket attack," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. The source did not reveal whether the attack has caused damage to the base.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Time to kill us some more JAM insects, and some Iranian microbes. Can we still do that, as of midnight tonight?
#2
Can only use force now while under direct attack or with the cooperation and foreknowledge of the Iraqi government (and thus the warning and escape of the targetted bad guys.) Not sure how counter-battery fire fits in.
As we approach the dawn of 2009, I raise a toast (champagne, of course) to the United States of America, for all our faults the greatest country in the world. Every day I'm grateful my ancestors got on those boats.
I raise a toast to Iraq, which we welcomed into the league of democracies this year.
I raise a toast to the United States Military, the main reason Iraq is now a free country and the reason we are the free-est nation that ever existed.
I raise a toast to President Bush, who for all his faults is a decent man who stood his ground when others wanted to abandon Iraq - and America - to terrorists.
I raise a toast to Fred, the Mods, and the denizens of Rantburg - the best damn community/family in the world. (It should be - it wraps around the world. :-D)
So join me, fellow Rantburgers, in raising a toast of your choice - beer, wine, champagne, martini, margarita, sparkling apple juice, or fizzy water - to the USA, to our friends and allies, to us.
Good fortune to our friends, confusion to our enemies.
L'Chaim!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/01/2009
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#2
Thanks for another year of the best information available on the web. Cheers. May we all find peace and prosperity in 2009. God bless you one and all!
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/01/2009 9:02
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#6
I think that for those of us younger than 70, we will look back on last year and the this one as "The Bad Time". Like the "The Great Depression" was for our parents and grandparents, this will be a time that will leave an impression on us. I think we can all get through this, but I believe that few of us will get through it unscarred.
Happy New Years to you and your people. I hope you get through it with minimal damage and maximum joy.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
01/01/2009 9:05
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#7
Merry New Year to all RBers!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/01/2009 9:50
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#16
Very eloquent, and very true, Barbara. I second your words, and the rest here. And may Rantburg in this year of 2009 give rudders to many more like Thor Thusorong7719, conservative or not.
Look, when I am a best-selling author and all the top-rated literary outlets are begging to review my latest book, I'll toast Fred in $20-a-bottle champagne. (Not that Crystal stuff-my daughter drank it once, and couldn't figure out the appeal, unless it was to consumers with way more money than sense.)
Ah, krep, the guardians of the literary scene will never fall for that. I do historical novels, about the western frontier, which is something they wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole - box-Chablis it is. To Fred! (huzzah! huzzah! huzzah!)
#20
Happy New Year. Thanks to this wonderful Rantburg community, I'm so glad I found you, and to be kept so well informed.
I second Thor Thusorong7719 comment.
;)
Posted by: Jan ||
01/01/2009 22:38
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The Anti-Car Lifting Unit (ACLU) mistakenly killed four people late on Tuesday who had arrived in the city to celebrate the New Year.
An ACLU squad mistook the visitors form Quetta for carlifters and opened indiscriminate fire on their car on Khalid Bin Waleed Road in Ferozabad police station precincts. The police later tried to cover up the incident by filing a fake encounter report.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A Saudi Web site says that a popular radical cleric who urged Muslims to target Israeli interests around the world was arrested.
Saudi security officials were not available for comment Wednesday. The site, Rasid, posts news about Saudi Arabia's Shiite community and has reliable contacts within both the Sunni and Shi'ite religious community. The site said Sheik Awadh al-Garni was detained Monday in connection with his recent fatwa, or religious edict.
Al-Garni had called on Muslims to avenge the attacks on Gaza by targeting Israeli interests "everywhere." Fatwas are not legally binding and it is up to individual Muslims to follow them. Al-Garni is popular but not a member of the official religious establishment.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Really? Doesn't this deserve the flying pig graphic?
#2
If he's Shia, he probably was arrested for something related to all the yoof riotings.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
01/01/2009 2:04
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#3
A Hyper fantasy for the New Year:
1) Sunnis use the current Israel-Hamas dance as an Islam-based excuse to oppose Shia governments, resulting in intra-Islam jihad focused between Sunni and Shia dominant countries, and finally rid the world of those dirty Shiite infidels! Inshralla! Allua akbar!
2) Temporarily relieved of the heartbreak of Mohameditis while Islamic jihadi-rage is turned inward until Shiites are no more, Western societies implement legal and militaristic measures designed to wage...
PESHAWAR: A series of massive blasts has been reportedly heard in Peshawar, the capital city of NWFP province on early Thursday, police sources reported. Police is trying to locate the exact scenes of blasts however, no casualty reports have so far been received in the incidents, police confirmed.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/01/2009
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#1
Last day of class at some girls schools?
Work accident at some bomb school (& secondaries)?
Ethiopian troops who have been propping up Somalia's interim government since invading two years ago were packing up to leave the country on Wednesday amid fears their departure will allow a strengthening Islamic insurgency to take over. But it was unclear when the thousands of soldiers would actually depart.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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A US judge refused to release two Guantanamo terrorism suspects on Tuesday and upheld the government's authority to keep them, after ordering freedom last month for five prisoners whose case led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
Federal District Court Judge Richard Leon said in two separate rulings the government had shown enough evidence to justify holding Yemeni citizen Moath Hamza Amhed Al Alwi and Tunisian Hisham Sliti as "enemy combatants" linked to al Qaeda or Taliban forces. The Bush administration welcomed the rulings, but the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern over potential precedents. "This decision raises serious concerns given the reliance on classified evidence and the very broad definition of detention authority that it contains," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jonathan Hafetz said.
Alwi and Sliti said the US government has illegally held them for seven years at the US Naval base on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. About 250 terrorism suspects remain at the Guantanamo prison, and most are contesting their confinement after the Supreme Court in June ruled that they have a constitutional right to do so.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/01/2009
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Oil prices have jumped after Russia's decision to shut down a natural gas pipeline to Ukraine and over the US's latest supply data.
On Wednesday, Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose $5.57, or 14.2%, to settle at $44.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
US markets will be closed Thursday for the New Year's holiday and many market participants were off Wednesday.
Wednesday's rally picked up steam in the afternoon following reports that Russian energy giant Gazprom will cut off gas supplies to neighboring Ukraine beginning Thursday because of a dispute over unpaid bills.
The supply disruption could affect energy prices in western European markets.
Few market analysts believe crude prices in 2009 will not fall further and rebound next year.
In 2008, oil prices jumped to unprecedented heights only to give up four years of gains in just five months.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
There's a political future or at least a few PhD's in that market activity. Sure sounds like someone was manipulating the price to make some index or year/quarter end price level. Hope the SEC and Merc are examining the trading records.
The good news is the headline on Friday will show substantial drops in the price.
Israeli leaders Wednesday rejected a proposal to pause attacks on the Gaza Strip for 48 hours, declaring that there were no guarantees Hamas fighters would in return stop firing rockets into Israel.
Discussions were continuing in hopes of developing a more durable cease-fire. But after looking at the existing proposal, "we saw that it did not contain the necessary elements to make the truce permanent," said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "It lacks a plan to enforce the cease-fire, to make sure Hamas won't shoot rockets into Israel anymore, and stop the smuggling of weapons."
"It does not contain any guarantees," he added. "There is nothing in the proposal that if we declare a unilateral cease-fire it will mean anything to Hamas and that it will ensure a durable cease-fire afterwards."
He said meetings among Israeli leaders would continue today. "There is a lot of work that still needs to be done," he said.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President Bush had spoken this morning to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, who reassured Bush that Israel was targeting Hamas operatives and trying to avoid civilian casualties. When asked whether the two had discussed a specific timetable for seeking a cease-fire, Johndroe said they hadn't discussed anything specific.
"What's more important is the goal. As I said, we all want to see an end to the violence as soon as possible," Johndroe said at a news conference in Crawford, Tex., where Bush is visiting his family ranch. "President Bush wants to see an end to the violence. Prime Minister Olmert wants to see an end to the violence. But I think from the prime minister's perspective, an end to the violence means that Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel, and Israel won't have to go after the rocket launchers."
Johndroe reiterated the White House's calls for a "sustainable and durable cease-fire that Hamas respects," and said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "has been working the phones almost nonstop since Saturday," when the Israeli bombing campaign began.
Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip for the fifth day from the air and from the sea, targeting Hamas outposts and the network of tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border used by the militant group to smuggle weapons, the Israeli military said. The strikes rattled buildings in Gaza City, where the targets included an office of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader in Gaza. Israel said the office was used for planning attacks against the country.
Hamas continued firing as well. By Wednesday afternoon local time a barrage of more than 20 rockets and mortar shells had struck southern Israel. About 40 rockets hit Israeli territory Tuesday. Five rockets crashed in and around the city of Beersheba, about 25 miles from Gaza, late Tuesday and Wednesday--the farthest strikes by Hamas yet. There were no serious casualties reported Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that 630 million years ago the earth had a warm atmosphere full of carbon dioxide but was completely covered with ice.
IMPERIAL BEACH --One alcohol-related arrest led to another, and then another, early New Year's Day.
Former Sunday Express journalist 
The IAF on Thursday bombed a building in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, reportedly killing seven people, including senior Hamas leader and cleric 
I do not recognise Wajeha al-Huwaider when I first catch sight of her walking through a smart American suburb wearing a tracksuit, her nails painted bubble-gum pink. She is from Saudi Arabia, where women are so oppressed they are not even allowed to drive, and I had expected her to be dressed from head to toe in black, maybe even wearing a veil.
The restoration of the Grade II listed Victorian building will begin this month after emergency repairs to the roof were completed at Number 8 Brougham Terrace in Liverpool. 
Sheikh Nizar Ryyan, a senior Hamas leader and cleric was killed along with several others when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on his Jabalya home, Palestinian sources reported Thursday.
Is Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), front organisation of Lashkar-e-Taiba, preparing to reincarnate under a new name in the wake of a ban clamped on it by the UN Security Council for its involvement in Mumbai terror attacks? 
Army troops at Kaous municipality, 15km from Jijel downtown, have eliminated a terrorist at an ambush at a mountainous road through the mountain of Bouhenech, a security source said. The terrorist was surprised by the Army troops opening fire on him. A Kalashnikov has been seized, while the security services are still investigating his identity. 
(Xinhua) -- A car loaded with 100 kg of explosives exploded on Wednesday in Bilbao of northern Spain, causing considerable property damages but no casualties, local media reported. 
For those who thought the new era of Democratic governance would be dull, we present this year's Senate replacement follies. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich kept the entertainment going yesterday by defying just about everyone and nominating former state Attorney General Roland Burris to the seat being vacated by President-elect Obama.
A day after Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois appointed Roland W. Burris to fill President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat, new details emerged about how the governor worked behind closed doors to make the appointment, and the United States attorney prosecuting Mr. Blagojevich on corruption charges sought a 90-day extension to bring an indictment against him.
Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces on Wednesday arrested 18 wanted persons and seized a large amount of arms and ammunition during security operations in different parts of Basra province, according to a local source. "Police forces conducted search raids in the areas of Shatt al-Arab, eastern Basra; Abi al-Khaseeb (20 km south of Basra city), and al-Zubeir district (35 km west of Basra)," the media office of Basra's police told Aswat al-Iraq. "Eighteen men, who are wanted on criminal and terror-related charges, were arrested during the raids," it noted. "One of those arrested was disguised in women's clothes," it added. "Two machine guns, Katyusha rockets and three boxes containing ammunition were seized during the raids," according to the office.
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said an 88-year-old woman fended off a naked intruder by grabbing the man's crotch and squeezing. Deputy Paul McRedmond said the man got into the house Tuesday through a sliding door. He backed the woman into her living room and pushed her face down onto a chair.
Aswat al-Iraq: One gunman was killed and another was wounded while they were trying to plant an improvised explosive device (IED) in southwestern Kirkuk city. "The incident occurred in Wahed Hozayran area, southwestern Kirkuk city," Brig. Sarhad Qadir told Aswat al-Iraq. "The wounded gunman is currently being interrogated," the officer said, providing no further details.
Arab governments will take their case for an end to Israel's attacks on Gaza back to the U.N. Security Council, Arab foreign ministers said on Wednesday
An official spokesman denied Indian media reports on Wednesday that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had made a statement on the arrest of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba operative Zarar Shah. The Prime Minister's House said in a statement that the reports were 'baseless', adding that Gilani "did not issue any such statement".
Only if Israel stops its aggression unconditionally, lifts the blockade and opens the Gaza crossings will Hamas agree to "talk about all issues - and seriously," Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday night, at the end of the fifth day of the IDF's Operation Cast Lead. In a televised address, the Hamas prime minister added that only after these conditions have been met, will an internal Palestinian dialogue be launched. 
Since he was federally charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been wrongly caricatured as some kind of hapless jester prancing on the edge of madness.
Security forces arrested 28 alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban 'facilitators' and demolished 19 houses including that of a senator as troops backed by helicopter gunships and tanks continued a major operation to secure the international highway in Khyber Agency that serves as a supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Security forces have flushed out the Taliban from various areas of Salarzai tehsil and Khar area of Bajaur Agency, officials said on Wednesday. The areas cleared of Taliban presence include Arrang and Barrang in Utmankhel tehsil, Roghgan and Pashat in Salarzai tehsil and Khar area of Bajaur, they said. In other areas, security forces continued targeting Taliban positions with artillery and mortars, but there were no reports of casualties. A grand jirga of Mandal tribes held in Civil Colony, Khar, on Wednesday assured the government of support against the Taliban. The Bajaur assistant political agent said it was the responsibility of local people to thwart rocket and missile attacks from their areas on Khar and other locations of the agency.
(Xinhua) -- In spite of the whether conditions, Israeli warplanes continued on Wednesday targeting by missiles different targets belongs to Islamic Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements, witnesses said. 
Taliban militants executed a man in a restive Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border after accusing him of spying for the United States, an official said Wednesday. The bullet-riddled body of 28-year-old Mohammad Nawaz was found dumped on a roadside on Wednesday in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a constitutional amendment Tuesday extending presidential terms in the country from four years to six, a change that many suspect is intended to benefit his predecessor -- and possible successor -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Many entertainers in the Arab world cancelled their New Year's celebrations as a show of solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza following five days of a ruthless Israeli military offensive against the already beleaguered Strip.
Federal authorities have charged an Iraqi-born Canadian citizen with conspiring to spy for the former regime of Saddam Hussein while allegedly working at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, in the second such case to emerge in a week.
An IAF helicopter on Wednesday afternoon carried out a targeted strike in Rafah, Channel 2 reported. There was no initial word as to who was targeted in the strike. 
International military forces helping Afghanistan to fight Islamic extremists said Wednesday they had killed 17 militants in separate operations.
(Xinhua) -- Under a new Spanish law which offers the Spanish citizenship to children or grandchildren of Spaniards who fled the country since the beginning of the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) till 1955, about 150,000 Mexicans are entitled to the Spanish citizenship. 
Rep. William Jefferson is running out of options. The Louisiana Democrat, in his final days in office, lost a longshot bid Monday to delay his trial on bribery charges.
(AKI) - Five people were killed and several others were injured in bomb attacks in northern Iraq on Wednesday. In the largest attack, three people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in the town of Sinjar, northwest of Mosul, near the Syrian border.
(AKI) - Israel is using 'brute force' in its attacks in the Gaza Strip in a bid to change the balance of power in the Middle East, a Lebanese political analyst said on Tuesday. Talal Nizameddin, a political analyst at The American University of Beirut told Adnkronos International (AKI) while Israel is targeting Hamas in Gaza, it also has a broader strategy linked to the 2006 Lebanon War. 
At least 82 people, mostly the activists and supporters of BNP, were injured in post-election violence in seven districts Tuesday night and yesterday.
Federal investigation agencies discovered important evidence about last week's suicide blast in Bunir and arrested six people on Wednesday, police said. The blast occurred during the by-election in NA-28 at a polling station on Sunday, killing at least 35 people. Investigators have recovered a shoe of the suicide bomber. They said the vehicle used in the blast was snatched from Karachi. They said 80 kilogrammes of explosive was used and hundreds of AK-47 bullets were packed in it to increase the intensity of the blast.
The Anti-Car Lifting Unit (ACLU) mistakenly killed four people late on Tuesday who had arrived in the city to celebrate the New Year.
A Saudi Web site says that a popular radical cleric who urged Muslims to target Israeli interests around the world was arrested. 
Ethiopian troops who have been propping up Somalia's interim government since invading two years ago were packing up to leave the country on Wednesday amid fears their departure will allow a strengthening Islamic insurgency to take over. But it was unclear when the thousands of soldiers would actually depart.
A US judge refused to release two Guantanamo terrorism suspects on Tuesday and upheld the government's authority to keep them, after ordering freedom last month for five prisoners whose case led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling. 
Oil prices have jumped after Russia's decision to shut down a natural gas pipeline to Ukraine and over the US's latest supply data. 
