It's shoebox sized, adorned with a union flag and contains the British military's latest weapon against the Taliban.
Dip carefully inside the cardboard box and you will find plastic pouches full of something which is certainly recognisable as food: cold curries or other spicy substances, and garish packets of Oreo cookies.
This is the first update of the military's ration packs since the cold war era - out go traditional brown biscuits and corned beef hash and in come chicken tikka massala, chili con carne, yellow chicken curry, chicken arrabiata and beef and cassava.
Yesterday the Guardian was led into a small terrapin hut at a secret location in Kent, where the army unveiled the new MCR - multi-climate ration - 24-hour pack and was met by a not unpleasant smell of sample rations being cooked.
And, while the army is never going to win a Michelin star for its mess halls, the warmed food certainly did not taste bad.
The packs have been designed to provide the 4,000 calories a fighting fit squaddie is recommended to consume to operate in tough war zones.
Adaptability is of key importance: sometimes troops will be able to warm the food through but other times they will have to take their curries cold. So how do they taste cold? Amazingly, it worked.
Somehow the food scientists have found a way of making cold beef and cassava in a plastic pouch taste good. It's different from the hot stuff, but delicious and there's none of that weird, claggy-palate feeling you get from a petrol-station pasty, more the voluptuous richness of a really premium pie filling.
All laid out, the packs look a little like a British version of astronaut food. The old packs contained chocolate bars - not the best idea in 50 degree heat - a nonspecific tinned "paté" and canned treacle pudding.
Captain Paul Cunningham, the Navy officer responsible for the new packs, admits that many of these items are not the kind of thing modern soldiers would ever encounter in civilian life. A lot of the more institutional sounding items were simply being discarded as inedible, which compromised the nutritional balance of the pack.
In the new packs - which are being forwarded to frontline troops for testing from today with feedback forms - there are also halal, vegetarian and Sikh and Hindu ranges, and if that sounds like the menu at your local gastropub then Captain Cunningham is pleased. "The modern soldier's taste is different, far more international. My customers are 18- to 21 year old boys in Afghanistan and they particularly like these spicy tastes."
In the large, multinational bases in Afghanistan, troops eat well-balanced meals created by chefs from raw ingredients but when they move up to the forward operating bases or out into more remote areas they may have to survive on ration packs like these for up to 50 days.
Paul Carpenter, brigade catering warrant officer, 16th Air Assault Brigade, has just returned from Helmand where he was responsible for getting food to troops on the ground. "Recognition is important, he says. One day they can be eating in Colchester, the next in Afghanistan and we want them to feel they're getting the same quality." Other items soldiers will recognise will be energy bars, the Oreo cookies and dental chewing gum.
The history of military cuisine is long and sometimes brutal. While Napoleon observed "an army marches on its stomach", it took another half century and the disasters of the Crimean war, when supply lines collapsed and more soldiers died of disease and want than enemy fire, for the lesson to hit home.
The 19th-century celebrity chef Alexis Soyer not only produced model recipes for simple nourishing food for soldiers, he set up field kitchens at his own expense and designed a camp stove that remained in British army use well into the 20th century. Please note that the rations include McIlhenny Company's nectar of the warrior gods.
Extract
These include charges of racism, xenophobia, discrimination against ethnic minorities, poverty and homelessness, the treatment of vagrants and deportation of asylum seekers to countries where they might be tortured.
For example, Cuba criticized Canada for its discriminatory policies against Aboriginals and for cutting HIV/AIDS programs.
Saudi Arabia said there has been a re-emergence of "anti-Semitism and Islamophobia."
Iran urged Canada to take measures to put an end "to discrimination against the indigenous population."
Syria called for an end to racial discrimination against the Arab and Muslim communities in Canada, including "racial and religious profiling."
#1
How could Canada respond to this without sounding racist, xenophobic and discriminatory? Hmmmm.
"Hey guys, you're right! Just so we don't continue down this horrible wretched path, we'll send you folks all our vagrants, Arabs and Muslim communities. They'll be much better off with you, eh, and we'll be better financially able to take care of our Aboriginals and HIV/AIDS patients."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/06/2009 17:14
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#2
Sounds like the standard "blame the " form that the UN uses to blame US or Israel for stuff and all. I guess someone felt froggy and decided to put Canada in the blank. You know, just for grins.
#3
What's REALLY crazy is that Canada treats its "aborigines" better than most countries do. They even created a special state for them along the northern coast.
Muslims more or less got a free ride until they started making exorbitant demands. After that, Canada took a long, hard look at its "immigrants", and didn't like what it saw. I'm not surprised - I don't care much for unassimilated and unassimilatable immigrants, either (Messico, take note). Driving them into the Bay of Fundy at low tide may be a bit much, especially since most Muslims can't swim, but it cleans up the problem pretty well.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:36
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#4
What about the rampant anti-Americanism in Canada?
The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth published details regarding the assassination of leading Hizbullah military leader Imad Mughniyeh, explaining that the hands that placed the deadly blow up charge at Mughniyeh's vehicle to the right of the driver's headrest were solely Israeli.
Cheez, the people at the Israeli newspaper are as bad as the New York Times. Keep yer bloomin' mouths shut, ya morons ...
The paper said that operational planning for Mughniyeh's assassination commenced with the arrest of Ali Moussa Daqdouq a Hizbullah 'foreign operations' official by Israeli security close to Karbala, Iraq in January 2007. The Israelis interrogated Daqdouq and later delivered him to U.S. Central Intelligence Agents, which also questioned him regarding Mughniyeh, according to the Israeli daily.
The paper said that Mughniyeh was assassinated because he committed one mistake more than required. The fact that it was common knowledge that he would be visiting Iran's new ambassador to Damascus Hujat al-Islam Mossawi, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Islamic revolution on February 12.
The paper added that the Israeli assassination team sneaked into Syria from Iraqi-Kurdistan in three vehicles and monitored Mughniyeh the night before his assassination.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli team reached Mughniyeh's Mitsubishi Pajero and exchanged the headrest with another loaded with explosives. The Israeli team did not use a time bomb because they feared unforeseen sudden changes. Once Mughniyeh was seen seated next to the driver, the headrest blew up by remote control, the paper said.
Yedioth Ahronoth added that Israel fears Hizbullah and Iran would take revenge for Mughniyeh's killing. The first anniversary of the assassination is soon approaching on February 12.
#4
Y'know, this sounds an awfully lot like wishful thinking on the part of the Israeli newspaper. There are far too many loooonnngg strings hanging out of this narative that don't seem to be reasonable. Begin with the "commenced with the arrest of Ali Moussa Daqdouq a Hizbullah 'foreign operations' official by Israeli security close to Karbala, Iraq in January 2007." I can't see a bunch of Israelis running around the countryside in Iraq, even if they ARE Mossad agents. Secondly, IIRC, Iraqi Kurdistan doesn't have a common border with Syria - Anbar Province does. Frankly, I think the whole thing is a sun-dream. I'm sure the Mossad had a hand in his killing, but I don't believe this fairy-tale.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:51
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Grammy award-winning singer and Academy award-winning actress Cher told CNSNews.com that living under Republican rule almost "killed" her, and she does not understand why anyone would want to be a Republican.
She also said that President Barack Obama's "intelligence" and "spirit" are "so great" he will be able to do "more than anyone could possibly do."
"His intelligence is so great and his spirit is so great, I believe he will be able to do as much if not more than anyone could possibly do," Cher told CNSNews.com at the "Declare Yourself" inaugural ball.
"I just think he's totally the right person at this time in our history," she said. "He brings something more in his spirit than maybe another president could be even with the same intelligence. There's something about him that brings more with his spirit, and that's what Americans need right now. Republicans almost killed me."
When asked to explain how Republicans somehow "killed" her, Cher was not specific. "You know what? I have so -- I try to be charitable and there are some really good Republicans, but I just don't understand how anyone would want to be a Republican. I just can't figure it. I don't understand," she said. "If you're poor, if you're any kind of minority -- gay, black, Latino, anything. If you're not a rich -- I don't know. If you're not a rich born-again-Christian, I don't get it."
Cher also said President Obama will not end the war in Iraq right away. "I think as soon as he can. I don't think it will be easy. It would be kind of simplistic to think that's going to happen right away," she said.
#4
Still more proof that Sonny was the brains of the operation.
(Seriously, he was. He played the goof on stage, but that was all part of the act.)
Posted by: Mike ||
02/06/2009 17:22
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#5
Years ago, some wit made the headline that "Cher has disappeared".
In the story, according to her maid, Cher was in her steam bath, when she suddenly called out "Gatekeeper! Give me another year!!!", followed by a hissing sound.
The maid came to check on her, but found only a stinking, smoking pile of melted plastic on the floor.
#7
Cher isn't one of my favorite people to begin with. Now that she's suffering from dementia, she's even less of a favorite. Some people have no idea what the real world is all about, and never will. This moonbat has joined that group.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:30
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Yeah, I wanted to start my weekend pissed off...
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, preparing Friday to meet with families of terror victims, is concerned that Guantanamo Bay detainees have been held for years without trial. Obama wants to close the detention center in Cuba, and has signed an executive order to do so within a year.
He has invited relatives of Americans killed in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the next year to the White House for a meeting Friday afternoon. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says Obama will discuss his plans for Guantanamo Bay with the terror victims' families. Many of those families disagree with the president's plan to close the detention center. ...and I have invited them here, to the White House, to pay them lip service.
Obama "wants to discuss his plan to bring about changes in Guantanamo that he believes will make this country safer and bring about the very same swift justice that they desire on behalf of those that they know that have been killed," Gibbs said. "The main concern that the president has is the military commission's failure to bring those in detention to swift justice," he said. Anybody got any suggestions on the "swift justice" thing?
Obama is now reviewing the system, and likely to scrap it, to make sure the 245 suspects who remain there are given international and U.S. legal rights. Rights that they in fact don't have and don't deserve.
That review largely will determine whether the terror suspects should be tried in courts in the United States or released to other countries.
About 15 victims' relatives are to meet mid-afternoon with Obama, many of whom are upset about over his Jan. 22 order to halt legal action on the Guantanamo cases.
The meeting was scheduled for the day after a senior Pentagon judge dropped charges against an al-Qaida suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of masterminding the 2000 USS Cole bombing and is being held at Guantanamo. A legal move late Thursday by Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials at Guantanamo, marked the last active war crimes case there. Family members say they've already waited too long to see the alleged attackers brought to court.
Retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, the commanding officer of the Cole when it was bombed in Yemen in 2000, said he would be among family members of Cole and 9/11 victims who are meeting with Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon. "I was certainly disappointed with the decision to delay the military commissions process," Lippold, now a defense adviser to Military Families United, said in an interview. "We have already waited eight years. Justice delayed is justice denied. We must allow the military commission process to go forward."
Seventeen U.S. sailors died on Oct. 12, 2000, when al-Qaida suicide bombers steered an explosives-laden boat into the Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, as it sat in a Yemen port. The Pentagon last summer charged al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian, with "organizing and directing" the bombing and planned to seek the death penalty in the case. New charges against al-Nashiri could be brought again later, and he will remain in prison for the time being. Maybe he can get sent to Saudi Fingerpainting School?
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned about the order to suspend charges against al-Nashiri. Smith said al-Nashiri had "orchestrated the mass murder of American soldiers" and must be punished. I urge them to reinstate the charges as quickly as possible and in a manner that ensures justice for the families and victims," Smith said in a statement Friday.
Last year, al-Nashiri said during a Guantanamo hearing that he confessed to helping plot the Cole bombing only because he was tortured by U.S. interrogators. The CIA has admitted he was among terrorist suspects subjected to waterboarding, which simulates drowning, in 2002 and 2003 while being interrogated in secret CIA prisons. Did they pee on his Koran too?
#1
hopefull a senator adds training wheels to the stimulas package for this asshat
Posted by: Dan ||
02/06/2009 17:22
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#2
This little meeting has made it very clear that the Big O looks at terrorism as a criminal matter and not an act of war. He does not have a clue to the implications of what his decisions w/r/t Gitmo closing and trying these terrorists means. It is all about looking good to his gullible adoring public supporters.
We will take our hits and then all this foolishness will be sorted out. Not a pretty picture.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/06/2009 18:17
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#3
Retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk S. Lippold, the commanding officer of the Cole when it was bombed in Yemen in 2000, said he would be among family members of Cole and 9/11 victims who are meeting with Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon.
Shakes The One's hand firmly, leans over with smile and says softly....."now listen to me you silly son of a bitch, you're a phutch'n this GWOT thing up by the numbers, how your copy over?"
#7
#8 the blood of Americans killed by this fool's policies is on his hands. History will not be kind. Posted by: Frank G
Nor will it be kind to the idiots that voted for this empty suit, the newspapers that heaped fawning adoration upon him, and the rest of the lunatic fringe that worships at the Altar of Obama. There's gonna be some blood spilled somewhere - it's just a matter of time.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:54
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#8
"voted for him and is now totally, totally sorry she did."
There's going to be a lot of this going around.
Morons.
Legislatures in Washington State have introduced legislation claiming state sovereignty. This legislation sends a strong message that many believe the 10th Amendment still stands.
Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State... But why are they doing this?
CONCORD, N.H.A day after saying he was getting involved in a sales tax case between Massachusetts and a tire vendor in his state, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is proposing a bill to protect businesses from having to collect sales taxes on behalf of the Bay State.
Massachusetts officials say the case before its Supreme Judicial Court applies only to Connecticut-based Town Fair Tire Centers Inc., and one set of circumstances. The company sold tires in New Hampshire to customers who appeared to be from Massachusetts, yet didn't collect the 5 percent sales tax that would have been levied on similar sales at one of Town Fair's Massachusetts stores.
Lynch said Friday his state needs to send a clear message that Massachusetts and other states shall not impose their sales taxes on New Hampshire businesses. New Hampshire does not have a sales tax.
#4
Leaving out the 10 most populous states and call a states convention as authorized under the Constitution, you can pass some really wicked changes to take back home and tell the boys in those other 10 to stuff it if they think they own the place.
#9
Sounds like a bunch of states are getting tired of 'unfunded mandates' from Washington, interference from other states (restrictions on gun rights, sales taxes, automobile purchases, etc.), and in the case of Michigan, people from other states coming to Michigan to cast ballots. One of the founding fathers (James Madison, IIRC) stated that "the role of the States and of the people is broad and unrestricted, the role of the Federal Government is small and restricted". Since those days, the Federal Government has encroached on many of the obvious states' and peoples' rights. These may be the first shots across the bow of the Feds, showing that a revolution is brewing. This is really gonna get Obambi in a huff!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:16
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#10
Compare wid RENSE > STATE [ e.g. ILLINOIS = US$9.0Bilyuhn State Budget Deficit] CAN RUN OUT OF MONEY, BUT CAN'T DECLARE BANKRUPTCY.
CALIFORNIA = US$42.0Bilyuhn in the gross deficit red, wid US$340.0Milyuhn owed just for February 2009. STATE GOVT PLANS TO BEGIN MANDATORY
"FURLOUGH FRIDAYS" [aka "PAYLESS WORK/PAYDAYS"?]EVERY 1st + 3rd FRIDAYS OF EVERY MONTH THRU YEAR 2010???
#12
Shame of it is, the 9th and 10th shoudl have been asserted long before now, to stop the court-creep using the "commerce" clause that lets the feds stick their noses into all kinds of places it does not belong.
A strong 9th and 10th woudl reverse a LOT of the creeping statism from DC.
Spin the wheel, Mahmoud.
ticktictickticktickticktick..ticktick...tick...tick...
52, boss.
ISLAMABAD (AP) Government helicopter gunships killed 52 Islamist militants Friday in two attacks in northwestern Pakistan, a lawless region where al-Qaida and Taliban militants increasingly hold sway, a government official said. The attacks took place close to the Khyber region, said Fazal Mahmood, the No. 2 government representative in the area. They destroyed five militant hide-outs, a large ammunition depot and eight vehicles, he said. I hope they were the "non civilian killing" helicopter gunships... It was not possible to independently verify his account because the region is very dangerous to visit. The Tourist Board won't be happy to see that...
Meanwhile, suspected militants shot and killed two alleged U.S. spies in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region near Afghanistan, said Tahir Khan, a tribal police official. Khan said the bodies were spotted early Friday. Both men were identified as Pakistanis, with notes pinned to their bodies that warned others to learn a lesson from their fate, he said. Insurgents have killed nearly two dozen suspected U.S. spies in recent months. So...ya think that's all of them, boys?
Time to take advantage of low rates again. Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company under U.S government control, will loosen rules for homeowners who see to reduce their loan payment by refinancing.
PRLog (Press Release) -- Feb 05, 2009 -- Time to take advantage of low rates again. Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company under U.S government control, will loosen rules for homeowners who see to reduce their loan payment by refinancing.
Some credit requirements will be dropped, reduction in income documents and in some cases waive the need for appraisal. Fannies Mae wants to allow all customers to refinance their loans and take advantage of low rates if they could not do it before.
Freddie Mac, a smaller rival of Fannie Mae is considering similar steps, even when borrower owes more then their home is worth.
Fannie Mae will also allow borrowers seeking to take out a loan that is more than 80 percent of the home value to qualify for refinancing, with credit scores below its 580 requirement.
The average U.S mortgage rate for 30 year fixed rose this week as volatility is expected to continue. 30 year fixed increased to 5.25% percent from 5.10 percent last week. The 15 year fixed rate jumped to 4.92 percent from 4.8 percent. Even with a small percentage point, saving over a year are significant. Bush ain't around to blame this time, Barney...
THE UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it has stopped importing aid into the Gaza Strip after hundreds of tonnes of food assistance were seized by the Hamas government.
The decision came after 10 truckloads of flour and rice brought in by UNRWA were intercepted and taken away yesterday by trucks contracted by the Islamist government's social affairs ministry, the agency said in a statement.
#1
10 truckloads of flour and rice brought in by UNRWA
To be sold on the black market at an inflated price, so Hamass can buy more weapons from Iran. You REALLY have to be a stupid group to get UNRWA mad at you.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 17:05
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#2
BETRAYAL! They never complained before...
Posted by: Caesar Slineting4188 ||
02/06/2009 21:28
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PRESIDENT Barack Obama plans to name business executives, academics and labor leaders to an advisory panel that will help guide his effort to rescue the economy and rebuild the shattered U.S. financial system.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was tapped by Obama in November to lead the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is modeled on a board created in the Eisenhower administration to advise the White House on intelligence matters. Mr Volcker is to join Mr Obama for an event to introduce the other 15 members of the economic panel.
According to the White House, the members will include Robert Wolf, chairman and chief executive of UBS Group Americas and Jim Owens, chairman and chief executive of Caterpillar Inc and labor leaders such as Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.
Yeah boy, get the SEIU in there, they know all about high finance ...
Penny Pritzker, chairman and founder of Pritzker Realty Group who was also the finance chair of Obama's presidential campaign, will sit on the board as will Laura D'Andrea Tyson, a former Clinton administration economist now at University of California, Berkeley.
Penny is the presidential equivalent of the 'Mayor's Man'. The board will meet, Penny will whisper in their ears, and the board will tell Obama what he wants to hear.
The panel includes some officials who served Republican administrations, such as William Donaldson, who was SEC chairman under President George W. Bush and Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, who served in the Reagan administration.
The naming of the advisory board comes amid a slew of data showing soaring job losses and a deepening recession. Economists are bracing for grim news when the Labor Department issues its January employment report.
Analysts polled by Reuters predicted the data will show U.S. employers slashed another 525,000 workers from their payrolls after cutting 524,000 jobs in December.
Mr Obama is prodding Congress to pass a more than $800 billion package of public works spending projects and tax cuts aimed lifting the economy out of recession.
You may have a few folks in this group that actually understand how an economy is supposed to work. The rest of them.....well, it doesn't bode well.
I still blame this economic mess on the "Wharton School Economics" that became popular in the early sixties that "it's all about Leverage"
(loose translation - "Don't pay your bills, that's your 'hold' over your creditors").
The rest is history.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/06/2009 16:15
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#5
Volcker Also Advises Think-Tank That Opposes Permanent Components of Stimulus Plan
#7
OK Mister super Zero, aren't these the same "Experts" who got us IN this mess?
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/06/2009 20:05
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#8
ION OBAMA, ISRAEL FORUM > JIHAD IS HEATING UP IN AMERICA/US, ISRAELI TARGETS LISTED ON [Pro-Islmaist/Violence] MUSLIM WEBSITE [Website indics support for its agendum from MANY US PROGRESSIVES ANARCHISTS, SOCIALISTS, COMMUNISTS, ETC,]; + OBAMA MISUNDERSTANDS THE GLOBAL JIHAD, + PRESIDENT OBAMA INVITES HAPAS TERRORISTS TO AMERICA [LIVE/RESETTLE IN AMERICA as by USPOTUS OBAMA Exec Order + vee LOOPHOLE-HEAVY?US$20.3Milyuhn US GOVT-SPONSORED MIGRATION ASSISTANCE to Paleo refugees and Conflict Victims in Gaza].
#9
OTOH, WORLD MIL FORUM [paraph = Google Chinglish translation] > RUSSIA PLANS TO BUILD A "COTTAGE VERSION" OF LAS VEGAS ON ITS PRIMORSKY TERRITORY [near Vladivostok].
And the similar one previously planned for the EURO-ZONE???
NO SOUP FOR YOU!
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on Friday said it is suspending humanitarian aid in Gaza until further notice, after Hamas seized control of its warehouses and stole 200 tons of food and supplies. Ah, they've expanded the operation.
The agency said it made the decision after Hamas personnel seized an aid shipment on Thursday. Earlier this week, Hamas police took thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents. UNRWA said 10 truckloads of flour and rice that had been delivered into Gaza on Thursday were taken away by trucks affiliated with the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs. Earlier this week, Hamas police took thousands of blankets and food parcels meant for needy residents. It appears Hamas has determined that some are more needy then others. Like Hamas...
UNRWA said the suspension would remain in effect until the aid is returned and the agency receives credible assurances from the Hamas government that such thefts will end. There was no immediate reaction from Hamas. We'll get back to you when we stop laughing. It could be awhile.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the agency would continue to distribute aid from its existing supplies in Gaza, but that stocks were running thin. "There is enough aid for days, not weeks," he said. Complicating the situation, he said the agency has not been able to import plastic bags used for food distribution, and that existing supplies will run out early next week. I'd kinda keep that quiet or the brave Resistance fighters will be by to grab that...
A UN spokesman on Wednesday said Hamas police in Gaza broke into a warehouse full of UN humanitarian supplies and seized thousands of blankets and food packages, creating a rare public clash between the international agency that feeds much of the territory and the militant group that rules it. Geez, that's gratitude for ya. How about we consider it a UNRWA Dope Slap...
The incident highlighted difficulties facing donors seeking to bypass Hamas while helping Gazans survive and rebuild after Israel's three-week military offensive. So...don't donate.
"Hamas policemen stormed into an aid warehouse in Gaza City Tuesday evening and confiscated 3,500 blankets and over 400 food parcels ready for distribution to 500 families," said UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness on Wednesday. "They were armed, they seized this, they took it by force," Gunness said, terming the incident absolutely unacceptable. STOP IN THE NAME OF THE UN!
Yeah...right. C'mon, guys, be serious, will yas.
Police seized the aid after UNRWA officials refused to voluntarily hand it over to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs, he said. Similar aid packages were distributed to 70,000 residents over the past two weeks, Gunness said. Ahmad Kurd, the Hamas official in charge of the ministry, did not deny the aid was seized. Other Hamas officials defended their actions. Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu demanded an apology and said UNRWA was spreading false news. Oh-oh. Looks like another case of Offended Palistinian Dignity...
Ihab Ghussein, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the incident occurred because the UN was storing the blankets in an area not authorized to be distributed. Ah. I knew there was a good reason...
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called UNRWA's decision unjustified. He said Hamas supports UNRWA's work, but believes that some of the agency's employees were giving aid to groups attached to rival political parties. "We as Hamas refuse all use of the people's needs for political ends," he said. He called on UNRWA "to put an end to using aid for political means, and to distribute it to all the needy equally." Yeah, that's our gig. Keep ya filthy infidel mitts off it.
UN officials said the aid was kept in a local storage facility because the organization's regular warehouses were full. The UN, human rights groups and Palestinians have often complained that a blockade by Israel and Egypt has left Gaza critically short of vital supplies. Riddle me this Batman. If vital supplies are "critically short", why are the warehouses so full they have to use local ones?
Kurd said the Hamas government had already distributed $50 million in emergency relief to residents and promised additional payments for hardship cases. Wait, make that 50 million billion zillion dollars...
Gunness said this was the first time Hamas seized UNRWA supplies. "Does anyone really think that the Americans, who are our single largest donor, or the Europeans, who are our largest multination donor, would give us aid in the generous way they do if they thought that aid would go to terrorists?" Gunness asked. And I'll bet he said it with a straight face too...
Russia plans to begin operating the nuclear reactor it has been building for Iran before the end of 2009, the Interfax News Agency quoted a top official as saying on Thursday. "If there are no unforeseen events... then the launch will go according to the timetable," Sergei Kiriyenko, chief of Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, was quoted as saying. "The launch is scheduled for this year."
A Rosatom spokesman said Kiriyenko was talking about the so-called "technical" start-up, which would be the first time the reactor is fully switched on, to test its systems before electricity is supplied to the grid.
Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor project has encountered delays in the past, mainly on the grounds of payment disputes between the Islamic Republic and Moscow.
Russia has already delivered nuclear fuel to Bushehr under a $1 billion contract to build the plant on the Gulf coast in southwest Iran.
#2
ION RUSSIA, WAFF > RUSSIA'S ARMY CAN'T WIN A FULL-SCALE CONVENTIONAL WAR AGZ POLAND OR TURKEY [Polish Analysis as per Russo-Georgian War = Russ Armed Forces'internal, combat opers SNAFUS? FUBARS?]; + OVER 1/3 OF RUSSIAN FIGHTER JETS ARE OLD OR UNSAFE [YAHOO NEWS vee KOMMERSANT Report].
#4
ION RUSSIA, TOPIX > ALEXANDER DUGIN: RUSSIA SHOULD CONSIDER WAR TO HEAD OFF NABUCCO PIPELINE PROJECT [War to stop efforts to stop or limit foreign = EUrozone, etc. dependency on Russ energy]???
Also on TOPIX > ANTI-ISRAELISM: IS TURKEY THE NEXT VENEZUELA?
A taste. Go read the whole thing. Seriously, go. We'll wait 'til you get back. :-)
'Fredrik' recently finished basic training in the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade. Together with thousands of other soldiers, he is waiting on a base a few miles from Gaza, ready to be deployed in case the cease-fire collapses. The only difference is that he is not an Israeli citizen, or even Jewish. He is a 29-year-old Swedish Pentecostal Christian.
Fredrik came here for the first time nine years ago as a tourist. "It was love at first sight. I stepped out of the airplane, looked around and felt that this was a country I could die for." He returned to his small Swedish hometown, where his father serves as a pastor in the local Pentecostal church. "I always commit 100 percent to things that I do and I felt strongly that this is where God wanted me to be," he explains, so he wrapped up his own career as a youth pastor and moved here.
Soon after his arrival, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up along with 21 young people in a discotheque in Tel Aviv. "Suddenly I realized that not everybody is nice," Fredrik says with a touch of irony. "When I was called up to do army service in Sweden, I had refused to carry a gun."
After having experienced terrorism up close, he stopped being a pacifist. "I realized that there are situations when one needs to use weapons to defend oneself."
That insight led him to an IDF conscription office in the summer of 2001, where he explained that he wanted to join the IDF. He received a resounding no for an answer, since he was not a citizen, nor Jewish. He was not even a legal resident, only a tourist. What follows is a classic tale of patient Swedish stubbornness, with a happy ending. 'Fredrik' even received his beret in the elite Egoz Unit, before being sent back to the 51st Infantry Battalion.
#2
Sounds like an intelligent young man that matured. Glad he understands that people sleep at ease because rough men are ready to do violence to others on his behalf.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 20:09
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Greek authorities are holding an Iran-bound ship carrying materials for the manufacture of surface-to-surface missiles, the Elefterotipia newspaper reported Friday. According to the Greek paper, the ship, called the Susanna, left a port in Slovenia more than a month ago.
The Jerusalem Post could not independently confirm the report. Is there any news about this elsewhere?
Separately, last week the Cypriot Navy stopped a Syria-bound Iranian ship, believed to be carrying weapons for Hamas. The US military had previously stopped the vessel in the Red Sea, but allowed it to continue because the US could not legally stop its journey or seize its cargo. The Cypriot-flagged Monchegorsk is currently anchored off the island's southern port of Limassol. Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias said last Friday that the ship had violated UN resolutions.
#1
I would doubt the quake was on a brand-new fault; more likely it was just one more quake on a fault that had shifted many times before in an area known for having earthquakes. In fact, the argument could be made that if indeed the dam did trigger the quake, the result was a less severe quake than would have occurred later, after more tectonic stress built up. (But if the fault was right under the lake, the increased water pressure might possibly have been transferred into the fault, allowing more stress relief than 'normal', but it is my understanding that this fault was some distance away.)
* WAFF > CHINA SPEEDS UP ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAMS. Domestic Nuclear Energy - PRC plans expansion of National NucPower Grid from current 9.0 GIGAWATTS to 70 GIGAWATTS over 11 Years, enuff to power 70 major Chin cities the size of America's = Amerika's San Francisco.
PROB > LT NUCLEAR SECURITY AS CHINA WILL LIKELY ACCUMULATE A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF REUSABLE = SALE-EABLE ADVANCED/HIGH-QUALITY PROCESSED NUCMATS [ Read, USEFUL FOR RADICAL MILITANT-TERRORIST AGENDUMS].
Cliff Cornell fled the U.S. Army four years ago for British Columbia when his Georgia artillery unit was ordered to serve in the Iraq War.
On Wednesday, Feb. 4, Cornell was deported from Canada, arrested in the U.S. and booked into the Whatcom County jail.
Cornell, who is from Arkansas, is going to be released on his own recognizance and ordered to report to Fort Stewart in Georgia, said Gene Marx, a local peace activist and member of the Bellingham Veterans for Peace, Chapter 111. He and other local peace activists are asking officials to make Bellingham a "sanctuary city" so military deserters will not be arrested by locals and handed over to federal officials.
Cornell is the second soldier, along with Robin Long in July 2008, to be deported from Canada and placed in the county jail in recent months. Long was eventually sentenced to serve a 15-month prison sentence in Miramar Naval Consolidated Brig near San Diego.
This article starring:
Cliff Cornell
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/06/2009
12:46 ||
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#1
i say give him to the slobbering jihad asshats that his desertion supported... air insertion to the NWFP... maybe even put some basic comm equip in his backpack so he can call his mum.
oh, yeah and a "this is the CIA" information brochure
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
02/06/2009 13:43
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#4
A quick Court Martial and BCD and bus fare to place of entry on to active duty. No unemployment bennies await you lad, and with the CM comes a federal felony conviction you have to put on those job applications you file know with 100k+ other Americans with clean records. Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid.
#6
I wonder when he realizes that this isn't Vetnam. Old hippies seldom, if ever change. Too bad he listened to his elders.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
02/06/2009 17:51
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#7
If Bellingham, WA does become a "sanctuary city", the federal government should cut off ALL federal funds.
The feds won't, especially under teh One. They will probably add another ten billion to the stimulus to cover sanctuary cities.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/06/2009 18:36
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#8
I really believe that exile would be a better option.
BOSTON (AP) -- Two Massachusetts lawmakers have filed legislation to bar new high-rise development that would cast midday shadows over a half dozen of Boston's public parks.
State Rep. Byron Rushing tells The Boston Globe that people should be allowed to enjoy as much sunlight as possible when in public spaces. Rushing is a co-sponsor of the bill along with fellow Boston Democrat, Rep. Martha Walz.
The effort was prompted in part by a proposed 47-story residential tower at Copley Place, near Copley Square and the Boston Public Library.
Rushing says the legislation would expand existing laws that keep shadows off Boston Common.
Meg Mainzer-Cohen of the Back Bay Association, which represents business in the area, says the proposal could thwart new development.
#2
State Rep. Byron Rushing tells The Boston Globe that people should be allowed to enjoy as much sunlight as possible when in public spaces
Fool, don't you know that unregulated nuclear power generator kills tens of thousands of people every year through skin cancer! Why next you'd be calling for exposure to all sorts of other harmful natural elements in the environment.
#4
Actually, there may be a little sense here. High rises can really screw up an area, by turning areas into constant twilight, which drives pedestrians away and hurts street level business.
Or by having reflective windows that make streets scorching hot and raise the cooling bills of the adjacent buildings by tens of thousands of dollars every month.
In either case, neither the architect nor the building owners usually give a damn whose business they mess with, until after the building is built and big, honking lawsuits start happening.
And since city councils and zoning boards will do anything that such businesses want, no matter how annoying, the State intervenes to keep city cores from turning into Blade Runner nightmares.
No inline snark this time, since Iowahawk stories are composed entirely of snark in the first place.
U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu announced his resignation this morning amid new reports that Alameda County workers had unearthed more than a dozen additional dead hobo bodies at his former home in Berkeley, California. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist had been the subject of a week-long controversy after he amended his White House application form to declare "3 or 4" hobo corpses in his crawl space, but after this morning's discovery, Chu said he felt he could no longer serve as an effective spokesman for Administration energy policy.
"Getting America on the road to energy independence requires a secretary who is focused full time on developing comprehensive strategies for alternative fuels, rather than a political distraction over a handful of decomposing drifters," said Chu. "I'm afraid I am no longer that person."
Chu said he would return to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he will resume his scientific work investigating particle dynamics and local homeless shelters. President Obama said he would accept the resignation with regret, and expressed hope that a new Secretary could be named within the week.
"It was an honest mistake on Dr. Chu's part," said the President. "The section of the screening questionnaire about dead hobos has been confusing for a lot of nominees. In his defense it only specifies 'basement/crawl space/storage shed,' so I can somewhat understand why he didn't mention the ones discovered by the backhoe yesterday. That said, it's important that we move forward with revitalized American energy leadership. I'd like to thank Dr. Chu for his service and delicious home-made beef jerky, and wish him well in his future endeavors."
Sources inside the administration say the President is favoring University of Texas petroleum geologist / registered sex offender G. Harland Tellis as Chu's replacement. Tellis is expected to face stiff opposition from netroots blog sites like the Huffington Post, who have thrown their support behind British pop singer Gary Glitter.
The Chu hobo kerfuffle was the latest in a week-long series of Obama administration personnel imbroglis that have led to 36 resignations since Tuesday. Former HHS Secretary Tom Daschle and Chief Performance Officer Nancy Killefer saw their tenures cut short over tax issues, which continue to dog Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Geithner is also dogged over dogs, after his failure to report over $14,000 in income from his backyard pitbull fight business. A federal grand jury probe over an alleged 12-state outlaw motorcycle gang methamphetamine network forced Commerce Secretary designate Bill Richardson to resign before Mr. Obama's inauguration. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis faces continued scrutiny over late taxes, lobbying, and involvement in a Tijuana car theft ring, while National Security advisor Samantha Power has received GOP criticism over her 2006 volunteer work as a sniper for the Taliban. Her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has yet to deliver a promised 'full explanation' after police discovered 11 Laotian prostitutes caged in the garage of her Chappaqua NY home. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack faces increasing questions over his one-time membership in an all-white golf and satanic baby snatching club. Last week Mr. Obama was forced to amend an earlier executive order banning lobbyist from administration jobs after news reports identified over a dozen members of his team who previously, or currently, lobbied on behalf of Raytheon, General Dynamics, the UAW, Church of Scientology, the Crips, ACORN, SPECTRE, Friends of Ebola, North Korea, Coalition for a Human-Free Planet, and MSNBC. The revised executive order, which requires Executive Branch employees to limit lobbying to lunch breaks, is expected to be revised again before the week.
Deputy administration press spokesman Bob Hitler Jr. brushed off press gallery question this afternoon following the Chu announcement, and said that early stumbles are part of every presidential transition.
"I think the American public understands that whenever there's a transfer of power, there are always going to be a couple of trips and stumbles, followed by an ethics imbroglio or two, and maybe a little glitchy pecadillo or occasional kerfuffly snafu," said Hitler. "If anything, these resignations just go to show how committed President Obama is to bringing ethics back to Washington. After the days of Scooter Libby and Jack Abramoff, I think the American public can take pride in the fact that almost 80% of the White House staff have full legal permission to pass within 300 feet of Chicago public playgrounds."
Whether the skein of ethics problems will dent the President's popularity is yet to be seen. Newsweek's longtime political analyst Jonathan Alter said he would award Mr. Obama another record 75th straight "up arrow" in his weekly Convential Wisdom column, but warned that he must act quickly before he loses control of the agenda.
"I blame Rahm Emanuel for this mess, and Obama needs to tell him to fix it now. The President has to get the public's attention focused on his new improved $180 quadrillion stimulus package and his weekend Vanity Fair cover shoot with Annie Leibowitz," said Alter, collapsing into tears while clinging to his Bearack the Bear plush inauguration collectible.
White House chief of staff Emanuel, who awaits arraignment in a Hopkinsville KY jail following his early Wednesday arrest for truck stop prostitution, was not available for comment.
#2
I don't need this. The truth is crazy enough. My 20-something niece told me three months ago that Obama is "AMAZING." After just two weeks and three days in office, I have to agree. God help us.
#3
I'm surprised that Cho wouldn't try to compare himself with Benjamin Franklin, the suspected serial killer of teenage girls, whose crimes have been covered up:
http://www.guineapigzero.com/franklin.html
Maybe that's why Obama tried to compare himself with Abraham Lincoln, to justify setting up Andersonville type prison camps for national emergencies. (Of course that was the Confederate side, but you wouldn't expect Obama to compare himself with Andrew Jackson, now would you?)
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
02/06/2009 13:14
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White House chief of staff Emanuel, who awaits arraignment in a Hopkinsville KY jail following his early Wednesday arrest for truck stop prostitution, was not available for comment.
#1
Larson broke into the house in the 700 block of Cromwell SW and then somehow ruptured a gas line which exploded, according to investigators. That blew out the walls and set the house on fire.
Now doubt attorneys have contacted his next-of-kin regarding a lawsuit against the homeowner for having a home that was unsafe to break into.
More than 200 people had to be rescued from their cars after they became trapped by heavy snow in Devon. The story neglects to mention the depth of the snow. The video shows a few inches at the most. A TV news program last week mentioned that the City of London hasn't a single snow plow. Maybe the US could send a C17 full of snow shovels to be dropped on the UK.
#2
No snowplows for London and just a few at the airports. I lived there for 6 years 1997-2003 and it only snowed once - the day we left, ironically. It was a duster, that's all. We played golf 12 months a year, rain or shine. I don't know if the NPV of buying, maintaining and underusing snowplows versus lost productivity is positive but I doubt it. Best to deal with wet leaves on the rail tracks and frozen points on the system to keep the Underground and NetRail running.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/06/2009 12:04
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#3
Why, there's so much support for Global Warming there, how are the puppets on BBC 4 dealing with this ?
#4
I'm from Winnipeg (AKA Winterpeg). There is snow on the ground 5 months of the year. Much of the snow removing equipment one sees clearing the roads are not specialty items just for show. You see front end loaders and graters used all the time. Seems to me that I see them more often than I see 'snowplows' or 'snowblowers'. Doesn't London have any of these?
#5
Hey Chemist!!! I thought I was the only 'burger from the Peg. Only two more months to go before we can start sandbagging against the floods, eh? From the floods come the mosquitos. From the mosquitos come the wish for winter and the snow. Ahh Winnipeg.
Former Russian president and apparent avid Abba-fan Vladimir Putin paid £20,000 ($29,000) to fly an Abba cover band from the UK to Russia to perform a private concert for him at a remote resort.
"It was the most bizarre gig I have ever done," said Jennifer Robb of the Björn Again Abba-cover band to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Plans for the concert, which took place on January 22nd at Lake Valdai resort, nine hours outside Moscow began taking shape sometime before Christmas when Björn Again founder Rod Stephens received a mysterious phone call.
"The voice on the end of the phone said, 'Kremlin... Russia... Moscow... we want your band'," he told the Telegraph. But the call was no joke, and about a month later the band found itself on a plane bound for Moscow.
Security at the resort was extremely tight, recalled Robb. "We arrived at a building which looked like a big stronghold with metal security gates. We had to put all our belongings through an X-ray machine," she said. "At one point I went outside to get some fresh air and there was a man with a machine gun who said something in Russian and made it very clear that I wasn't allowed to wander anywhere on my own."
And instead of taking the stage in front of a concert hall full of fans, the band members found themselves playing to a room featuring three couches.
"The prime minister was wearing a tuxedo and bow tie. The others were all men and wearing tuxedos too," said Robb, adding that she suspected the audience members were likely security guards.
But the surreal atmosphere didn't stop Björn Again from putting on a show dazzling enough to move the usually stone-faced Prime Minister Putin to burst into song during the band's rendition of Honey Honey, according to Robb. The band's set, which also included such hits as Waterloo, Money, Money, Money, Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia, apparently met Putin's expectations.
"At the end, the prime minister shouted 'bravo, bravo' and gave us great applause," said Robb.
Band founder Stephens initially thought £20,000 was a fair sum to earn for the private, hour-long show, but upon realizing the depth of Putin's love for Abba, he's having second thoughts. "I wish I'd asked for twice as much now," he told the newspaper.
It's not the first time Abba has emerged as a favourite among international leaders and politicians - John McCain also recently admitted he was a fan and Queen Elizabeth has even been reported as owning a number of Abba records.
Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, urged Thailand on Thursday to welcome Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar. Thailand's treatment of the Rohingyas, an oppressed Muslim minority from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, has been widely condemned as evidence emerges that hundreds were rounded up by the Thai military and towed out to sea.
Jolie issued the plea during a visit to camps in northern Thailand which house 111,000 mostly Christian ethnic Karen refugees from Myanmar. "Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years, makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores," the Oscar-winning actress said in a statement issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Two Rohingya boat people found off Indonesia this week said they were rounded up and beaten by the Thai army before being cast adrift in rickety, engineless boats. Thailand's military has admitted towing hundreds out to sea and cutting them adrift, but insisted they had adequate food and water and denied reports the boats' engines were sabotaged.
#2
I have a better idea! Why doesn't Malibu (or where ever she's living these days) welcome Mulsim refugees. That way she can experience the same joys that the "little people" have when these people move next door.
I'd especially like to see what happens if she meets a couple of "yuts" while she's wearing a bikini.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/06/2009 11:21
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#3
bikini, or how bout one of her movies when she is naked
#2
Moral inhibition also plays a strong part as well.
While the high school football coaches are not entirely correct about sex making your legs weak, there are biological reasons why using sex solely for reproduction, at least during the reproductive years, and monogamy, will produce more, and possibly better quality offspring.
Two reasons, especially, is less stress on the immune system from the different "fingerprint" of bacteria cultures from other people--one partner will be less stressful than multiple partners.
The other reason is non-competition with sperm, which are designed to compete with other males' sperm.
If there is no competition, the female has no "choice" of favoring one males sperm over another, and there is less stress on the successful sperm. This matters, even at the cellular level.
But the list from conception to maturity strongly favors religious people.
A United Nations human rights treaty that could prohibit children from being spanked or homeschooled, ban youngsters from facing the death penalty and forbid parents from deciding their families' religion is on America's doorstep, a legal expert warns.
Michael Farris of Purcellville, Va., is president of ParentalRights.org, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association and chancellor of Patrick Henry College. He told WND that under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC, every decision a parent makes can be reviewed by the government to determine whether it is in the child's best interest.
"It's definitely on our doorstep," he said. "The left wants to make the Obama-Clinton era permanent. Treaties are a way to make it as permanent as stuff gets. It is very difficult to extract yourself from a treaty once you begin it. If they can put all of their left-wing socialist policies into treaty form, we're stuck with it even if they lose the next election."
The 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 193 nations worldwide, but not the United States or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to do the formal recognition, and in the United States there's been opposition to its power. Countries that ratify the treaty are bound to it by international law.
Although signed by Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on Feb. 16, 1995, the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, largely because of conservatives' efforts to point out it would create that list of rights which primarily would be enforced against parents.
The international treaty creates specific civil, economic, social, cultural and even economic rights for every child and states that "the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration." While the treaty states that parents or legal guardians "have primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child," Farris said government will ultimately determine whether parents' decisions are in their children's best interest. The treaty is monitored by the CRC, which conceivably has enforcement powers. There's a lot more. Obama indicated in October that he would support this document.
#3
Sounds like Hillary's old childs-rights hoo-hah. Part of the reason why, though I voted for her in the primaries, I really, really didn't want to see her back in power. She used to push ideas that were more than a little insane.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/06/2009 10:52
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#4
Commies gotta protect their base, the teachers' unions. Thus, no more home schooling. Too many dangerous democratic ideas taught by mothers. Gotta implant the socialist agenda at an early age.
#5
How does the Federal government have the jurisdiction to make a treaty on home schooling? That would be a State right and I don't see how the Feds could have standing to negoiate it away. Of course there are a lot of things the Feds do that I don't see them having jurisdiction over.
#6
For that matter how can the Federal Government make laws (or treaties) covering so called 'privacy' or 'reproductive' rights? Where the hell is that given in the constitution? (not that anyone o the SCOTUS reads it anymore...)
#2
Lane Kiffin, for calling Urban Meyer a cheat without knowing that it is not a violation of NCAA rules to make a telephone contact of a recruit while he/she is visiting another campus. Right out the box he showed what a stupid ass he is - insulting the National Championship team's coach. And yes under full disclosure I am a proud member of the Gator nation.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/06/2009 11:47
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#3
Speaking of Clemens...from Joe Torre's book.
After reading the following passage about Clemens' pregame ritual following a steaming hot whirlpool bath, though, I simply cannot help sharing it.
"He'd come out looking like a lobster," Yankee trainer Steve Donahue said.
Then Donahue would rub the hottest possible liniment on (Clemens') testicles.
"He'd start snorting like a bull," the trainer said. "That's when he was ready to pitch."
So now we know why he was considered a "fire balling right hander".
#4
In today's Australian papers, there is video of footballer Setanta O'Hailpin knocking out a teammate in a practice match, and then kicking him as he is lying face down on the ground. Now that is special.
It's been a vintage year. They all are, I guess.
#6
"Then Donahue would rub the hottest possible liniment on (Clemens') testicles."
Good grief. That's far more information than I want to know.
Clemens couldn't do the rubbing himself?
Do any of you know ANY heterosexual man who would rub another man's testicles, liniment or not? (Outside of some kind of actual medical procedure, though I can't think of any that involves rubbing the testicles.)
Now I gotta go scrub my mind's eye with Brillo....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/06/2009 12:56
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#7
The junior senator from Illinois, Plaxico Burress.
Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez for his incredibly dumb comment about Michigan football players just before Ohio State kicked their collective asses in Flint.
I got $20 that sez following Michigan's third consecutive loss of the 2009-2010 season, Rodriguez will be sent packing.
#1
One of the most significant moments in golf. He used a Wilson 6 iron head attached to a lunar scoop handle. He hit two balls. One he said went "miles and miles". In reality they only went somewhere between 200 and 400 yards in the reduced gravity. Not bad considering he did it one handed and with the suit on.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/06/2009 12:46
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#2
That's gonna make a hell of souvenir in about 100 years. I doubt the accent stage blast hurt it.
...On Wednesday, in an interview with Politico, Dick Cheney warned of the possible deaths of "perhaps hundreds of thousands" of Americans in a terror attack using nuclear or biological weapons. "I think there is a high probability of such an attempt," he said.
When the interview broke and was read on the air, I was in a room off a television studio. For a moment everything went silent, and then a makeup woman said to a guest, "I don't see how anyone can think that's not true."
I told her I'm certain it is true. And it didn't seem to me any of the half dozen others there found the content of Cheney's message surprising. They got a grim or preoccupied look.
The question for the Obama administration: Do they think Mr. Cheney is essentially correct, that bad men are coming with evil and deadly intent, but that America can afford to, must for moral reasons, change its stance regarding interrogation and detention of terrorists? Or, deep down, do the president and those around him think Mr. Cheney is wrong, that people who make such warnings are hyping the threat for political purposes? And, therefore, that interrogation techniques, etc., can of course be relaxed? I don't know the precise answer to this question. Do they know exactly what they think? Or are they reading raw threat files each day trying to figure out what they think?
The bad thing about new political eras is that everyone within them has to learn everything for the first time. Every new president starts out fresh, in part because he doesn't know what he doesn't know. Ignorance keeps you perky....
Posted by: Mike ||
02/06/2009
06:35 ||
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#1
I will give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he is sane and he is intelligent enough to understand his daily G2 briefings. If so, I cannot see how he could be so absolutely reversal regarding interrogation techiniques, Gitmo, WoT, etc. I suspect Jim Jones has him on a rigorous training regime so he can understand all the nuances of what he is reading and hearing. But he also has a political faction he is beholding to for cover. Which one he listens to at the time of decision is the final determination.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/06/2009 12:14
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Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 -- June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981--1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967--1975). Born in Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s, where he was an actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and a spokesman for General Electric (GE). His start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he switched to the Republican Party in 1962, at the age of 51. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election in 1980.
As president, Reagan implemented bold new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics," included deregulation and substantial tax cuts implemented in 1981. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against organized labor, and ordered military actions in Grenada. He was reelected in a landslide in 1984. His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, namely the ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. The president had previously ordered a massive military buildup in an arms race with the Soviet Union, forgoing the strategy of détente. He publicly described the USSR as an "evil empire" and supported anti-Communist movements worldwide. He negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, resulting in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals.
Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of ninety-three. He ranks highly among former U.S. presidents in terms of approval rating.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/06/2009
06:33 ||
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We need him more than ever.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/06/2009 11:59
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Sadly, he isn't coming back.
We need to BE like him, not wish for his return.
Conservatives have the ideas that work in the real world. But in an age of mass media, good ideas aren't (unfortunately) enough. All conservatives need to learn to articulate, politican conservatives even more so. That's Reagan's legacy - articulate it, and they will come.
It seems most of today's Repubs don't get that message.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/06/2009 16:01
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#3
I sill miss him, his humor and his spine.
Both are lacking in the current GOP leadership in the Senate and the party in general.
Islamabad High Court on Friday declared disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan a free citizen and abolished his house arrest. Chief Justice of the high court Sardar Muhammad Aslam while announcing a verdict on several petitions filed against house arrest of Dr AQ Khan declared him a free citizen and said that he is free to move across the country, Pakistan's The News said.
Khan, lionised by many Pakistanis as the father of the country's atomic bomb, was pardoned but placed under house arrest in 2004 by the then president, Pervez Musharraf, soon after he made a televised confession to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya. "The high court has declared him a free citizen," one of Khan's lawyers, Iqbal Jaffry, told a television station, after a decision by the court on a challenge to restrictions on Khan.
"He will have all rights available to people under the constitution and the Quran," he said. According to a reuters report, Khan's house arrest had been relaxed over the past year and he had been allowed to meet friends. He gave a series of interviews to media after a new government came to power last March.
The 72-year-old scientist, who has been treated for prostate cancer, irked the army by making comments about the smuggling of nuclear equipment that appeared to implicate the military and former army chief and president Pervez Musharraf.
A court upheld his detention last July and barred him from talking to the media about nuclear proliferation while he was under house arrest. Last year, a UN nuclear watchdog said Khan's network smuggled nuclear weaponisation blueprints to Iran, Libya and North Korea and was active in 12 countries.
Last month, the department said it had imposed sanctions on 13 individuals and three private companies because of their involvement in Khan's network. Pakistan regards the Khan nuclear proliferation case as closed, but US and international nuclear experts investigating proliferation still want to question Khan. Due to security reasons, Khan will have to inform government about his movement in advance.
The verdict has directed the government to provide security to him on immediate basis. VVIP security would be given to him. Khan will be free to express his views, talk to media and carry out research and get treatment of doctor of his own choice.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/06/2009
05:36 ||
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#1
was he given a 'GPS watch' as a friendly parting gift?
#7
If it's too obvious that he's been whacked by US or Indian agents he'll be a martyr. It would be much better if he could, like, have a heart attach while in a compromised position with a harlot. You know, something that really would disgrace him.
#15
Rabbi Jacob must the Jew that Midoman claims to know so well.
Posted by: ed ||
02/06/2009 15:56
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#16
Yep, tu3031, I would say I was third base with your crappy mama! But I'm sick of it; Next time, I'll stick to second base!
Posted by: Rabi Jacob ||
02/06/2009 16:19
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#17
Ooooooh! I insult your mother! Your pitcher help you come up with that one in between the amore' sessions?
Ma had eleven kids. If you made a move on her, she'd break you in two and feed what was left to her dog.
#18
Why would I make a move on her! she keeps asking me day and night! Last time she saw my arab pitcher on cam, she wanted to visit Morocco and enjoy some other arab pitchers!
#20
Tweezers! What for? Ask her to bring her set of false teeth and a lot of bikinis. She won't use her teeth for what she is going to do in Morocco. Your mama will be returned to you after usage in good shape. Don't worry!
#21
Yeah, I have no doubt she'd come back in good shape. She probably won't even realize anything happened.
She won't have to convert to Islam and blowup a mosque or a girls school or anything, will she? I know you folks are twitchy about that after you consort with infidels. Probably why you stick to goats and camels.
#22
I note the banter is somewhat friendly today. I expect our new Moroccan friend is desperate to find some sort of understanding to guide him in his life path. Rantburg is here for you.
#23
Thanks 5MT. If your mama wants to traval to Morocco, I swear I'll take care of her. My family runs a 3 star hotel in Essaouira. It's on Atlantic Ocean. Ask her to bring a lot of bikinis too!
#24
Knowing that in Essaouira, which is a berber city, initialy a fishermen village, there are only goats on argan trees, and no women, you're mama will be served as plat du jour to the fishermen.
#26
Midoman, you don't even qualify to be one of those pathetic lions of Islam. You're more like one of the pig turds of Islam. We all need three stones for wiping and a good bath after encountering you.
#27
Mama cursing....child's play, bitch. We've had better, smarter, and more masculine. Saw your pic on the facebook link. Ever had an actual female respond? Just asking, cuz ya got a purty mouth. But you've no doubt heard that before
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/06/2009 19:15
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#28
Careful, Midoman, or we'll get lotp on you again.
By the way, how's the surf there? Or is that unIslamic?
#29
I say we get the Jewish lady to bitchslap him again.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2009 19:44
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#30
Knowing that in Essaouira, which is a berber city, initialy a fishermen village, there are only goats on argan trees, and no women...
Yeah, you wouldn't know anything about Muslim gay rape or goat fucking, would ya kid?
Do you make the goats wear bikini's as that seems to be a new fetish we've been made aware of today...
#31
Yep Ebbang, the surf is great. We have some soft rainfall right now but the winds are great as usual. But this year, I didn't see US tourists down the waves. Are u guys broke or what? Do u want me to send some money or food or something to eat? :)
#35
Is it normal for you guys to live either on debts or on ration coupons while you spend 3 trillions bucks in Irak? George Washington have to wake up from the dead and kick your respectful asses! I would never imagine the state of California will, one day, stop honoring its bills. Is it true that California is Broke? Where is Arnold ?
#36
Where are USA? Where is Arnold? Is he hiding?
What happened to USA ? The muslim you hate is ruling you and, he is black!! He is at the whitehouse! What happened to you! A muslim slave is ruling USA! I'm speechless! A black slave who became a master to rule whites slaves! :)
It had the makings of a pretty good story. Three Chinese warships patrolling against pirates in the Gulf of Aden—an unusually remote mission for the Chinese navy—were stalked by an Indian submarine. The Indian interloper is discovered, pursued and eventually forced to surface by the Chinese convoy. You have two rising powers squaring off "Hunt for Red October" style, with China proving that its navy can handle more than a gang of pirates.
There's one small problem though. The story is apparently fiction. While there are reports of some jostling between the two navies, which would be expected given China's high-profile mission far beyond its waters, the story of the submarine surfacing appears to have come from a faked news report. The original source was a piece in a Chinese publication called the Qingdao Chenbao. The Feb. 3 story was republished by some mainland web portals, and picked up the next day by the South China Morning Post. (The subscription-only story is here, complete with an editorial cartoon that says, "Captain Singh! I think they're on to us.") The Indian military denied the report.
One poster on a Chinese bulletin board soon pointed out that story lifted several parts verbatim from a 2008 story about a training mission in PLA Life magazine. Then the official media jumped in, noting that details of the Chinese ships' location on the date of the alleged confrontation don't match what was recorded in the state press. And it turns out that there is no publication called the Chenbao listed for Qingdao.
I discussed the item earlier today with Andrei Chang who edits a military news publication called Kanwa Asian Defence. "I'm sure it's a fake news story," Chang says. He notes that some details of the piece don't make sense, including why exactly the Indian sub would be forced to surface. He says fake military stories have appeared in China both under his name and Jane's Defence News. Fake products "are not just shoes or clothes," he says. "It includes stories."
Posted by: john frum ||
02/06/2009
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#1
Just because the story is fake doesn't mean it wasn't a glorious naval victory for the People's Liberation Army Navy. Long live Jiang Zemin and the Three Indents! Or was that the last Emperor?
(Warning: the preceeding paragraph may contain melamine and should not be consumed by pets or children)
#2
VARIOUS NET MIL FORUMS have repor andor alluded on INDIA'S DENIAL OF THE INCIDENT.
OTOH, PART II > INDIA is repor concerned about the THREE SUBS Chin had deployed to the Mediterranean, AS PER CHIN's INCREASINGLY POTENT NEWER, AND NUMERICALLY SUPERIOR SUB FLEET, VERSUS INDIA'S STEADILY DECLINING SUB FLEET [only FIVE TOTAL Indian Navy Subs repor may be de facto operating by 2012?].
As a [related]reminder, INDIA [old]> NO AIRCRAFT CARRIER FOR INDIA's NAVAL AVIATION?, and similar Articles.
AT THIS RATE, DON'T BE SURPRISED/SHOCKED IFF INDIA'S NAVY DEVOLS INTO A SPECIALIST COAST GUARD OR RIVERINE CORP OF ITS LANDLUBBER ARMY???
One of my favorite moments was during a 4th of July Parade in Larkspur (Marin County) CA. Barbara was a Congress Critter at the time and Grand Marshal riding in an open convertible. As she passed the Silver Peso biker bar the patrons yelled, Hey Babs! She turned to wave and they followed up with a chorus of "Show us your tits".
#5
I could sit here and post apologies all day long. I used to think the people of Massachusetts were all loony liberals because of Ted Kennedy but I'm not so proud anymore.
I agree with almost everything he said which, given my political philosophy, is not a surprise.
What is a surprise is that he said it at all without all the waffling and PC BS. I wanted to reach in and bitch slap that reporter when he started in on partisanship.
#3
Graham is making a lot of sense here but I disagree with what he says about housing. He's moaning a groaning about the way houses are sitting empty and how housing prices have fallen. But that is in direct contradiction with all the wailing all these politicians have done in the past about the need for "affordable housing". Face it, housing costs had gotten completely out of control. The only way anybody could afford a house was to get one of these "exotic" mortgages which is exactly what started all this trouble in the first place. The boom had gone on way too long and the bust was way overdue. Stimulate something else, please, and let the housing market come back down to earth.
#4
I'm not a native of S.C. but IIRC Graham is quite a RINO. I agree EU6305 abt the housing remarks. We should've never bailed out finance and certainly not auto. We should've taken our medicine and faced the music & had a rough couple yrs. We're doing what japan did in the 90s but it looks worse. No one in congress is talking about expanding our manufacturing base in any way. There are really only a few adults up there, but none are in power.
#6
You can see the tract houses going up by the thousands on the prairie to the east of Colorado Springs. There are hundreds of houses being built in places like Monument, Palmer Lake, the Black Forrest, all along Co. Hwy 115, in Fountain and Security - just about everywhere. Right now, though, there really isn't enough water to meet the needs of all those homeowners. There aren't enough well-paying jobs to fill all those $250,000+ homes being built. Townhouses and condominiums are sitting empty, sometimes for years. The median income in Colorado Springs is about $38,000 a year, yet most of the houses built in the area BEGIN at $175,000, and move up rapidly. Hewlett Packard, SCI, Intel, and a dozen smaller electronic firms have either cut their workforce or left town in the last five years. The housing industry just didn't know when to quit, and the market average price has dropped from about $190,000 to about $160,000 now. It's still going down, and there's no way to predict where it will bottom out.
Whoever let Babs out of her cage should be shot.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 16:59
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KABUL (AP) No one knows who brought the book to the mosque, or at least no one dares say.
The pocket-size translation of the Quran has already landed six men in prison in Afghanistan and left two of them begging judges to spare their lives. They're accused of modifying the Quran and their fate could be decided Sunday in court.
The trial illustrates what critics call the undue influence of hardline clerics in Afghanistan, a major hurdle as the country tries to establish a lawful society amid war and militant violence.
The book appeared among gifts left for the cleric at a major Kabul mosque after Friday prayers in September 2007. It was a translation of the Quran into one of Afghanistan's languages, with a note giving permission to reprint the text as long as it was distributed for free.
Some of the men of the mosque said the book would be useful to Afghans who didn't know Arabic, so they took up a collection for printing. The mosque's cleric asked Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai, a longtime friend, to get the books printed.
But as some of the 1,000 copies made their way to conservative Muslim clerics in Kabul, whispers began, then an outcry.
Many clerics rejected the book because it did not include the original Arabic verses alongside the translation. It's a particularly sensitive detail for Muslims, who regard the Arabic Quran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Quran itself, and a mistranslation could warp God's word.
The clerics said Zalmai, a stocky 54-year-old spokesman for the attorney general, was trying to anoint himself as a prophet. They said his book was trying to replace the Quran, not offer a simple translation. Translated editions of the Quran abound in Kabul markets, but they include Arabic verses.
The country's powerful Islamic council issued an edict condemning the book.
"In all the mosques in Afghanistan, all the mullahs said, 'Zalmai is an infidel. He should be killed,'" Zalmai recounted as he sat outside the chief judge's chambers waiting for a recent hearing.
NAIROBI, Kenya -- As U.S. Navy ships looked on, Somali pirates sped away Thursday with $3.2 million in ransom after releasing an arms-laden Ukrainian freighter -- ending a four-month standoff that focused world attention on piracy off Somalia's lawless coast.
The Navy said it couldn't seize the bandits for fear of endangering 147 other seamen still held hostage on other hijacked ships. Great. So now the pirates are going to start playing leapfrog?
So, within sight of two nearby U.S. warships, the pirates counted the cash -- air-dropped by parachute -- then took off in motorboats, pirate Aden Abdi Omar said, speaking to The Associated Press by satellite phone after arriving in the central Somali town of Harardhere.
"We are not holding it (the ship) anymore," said Omar, adding that more than two dozen pirates made their escape aboard motorized skiffs, navigating the choppy waters in small groups. The $3.2 million booty -- among the largest-ever reported ransoms -- would be divvied up among the pirates, he said.
The seizure of the MV Faina, loaded with Soviet-era tanks and other heavy weapons, was one of the most brazen in a surge of pirate attacks on shipping off the Somali coast. Vessels from the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet quickly surrounded the cargo ship after it was seized Sept. 25, to make sure the arms on board did not get into the hands of Somali insurgents believed to have links to al-Qaida.
The hijacking brought an unprecedented naval response. Warships from countries including the U.S., India, Britain, France, Germany, China, Saudi Arabia and South Korea have joined the anti-piracy campaign, though attacks continue. Turkey's government announced plans Thursday to send naval ships for the campaign.
On Thursday, U.S. seamen inspected the pirates' boats to ensure they weren't carrying any of the freighter's weapons cargo.
But the Navy did not take action against the pirates because they still hold many hostages from other ships, said Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. "Even when you release Faina, there are still 147 mariners held hostage," Campbell told the AP. "We're concerned for their well-being."
Ships from the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet closely monitored the Faina and its 20 surviving crew throughout the standoff after the captain died of a heart attack, and the U.S. sent medical workers to the ship Thursday once the pirates left.
"We are extremely pleased" at the release, said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. "The United States Navy and our coalition partners will continue to fight piracy, and work with the international community to find a long-term, shore-based solution to this maritime crime."
Late Thursday, MV Faina's captain Viktor Nikolsky said his ship was under the protection of the Navy and would head to Mombasa, Kenya.
Negotiations for the release of the ship and its crew dragged on for months because of the interference of unidentified "third parties," according to a statement by the ship owner, Vadim Alperin, posted on his spokesman's Web site. No explanation was given.
Piracy is big business off the coast of war-ravaged Somalia, which has not had a functioning government for 18 years. Pirates made off with up to $80 million in ransom in the past year, seizing 42 vessels off the country's 1,900-mile coastline along the Horn of Africa. But no hijacking attracted as much attention as the Faina and its weapons cargo, which was a wake-up call about the danger piracy poses to one of the world's most important trade routes.
"It showed Somali piracy no longer affected just small coastal vessels but important and dangerous cargos," said London-based analyst Roger Middleton.
In November, pirates hijacked the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker filled with crude oil that was released in January. And last week they took the MV Longchamp, a German tanker filled with explosive gas.
Intelligence agents had feared the weapons onboard the Ukrainian ship -- which include 33 Soviet-designed tanks and crates of small arms -- could fall into the hands of Somali insurgents the State Department says have links to al-Qaida. Diplomats in the region previously have said the cargo was destined for southern Sudan, something the autonomous region has denied. Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua repeated his country's claim to the cargo Thursday.
The high ransom payments mean pirates are unlikely to stop attacking.
Still, Middleton said the international anti-piracy campaign has reduced the success rate of attacks to about 20 percent. Last year, pirates took 42 of the 111 ships they attacked.
Graeme Gibbon Brooks, managing director of the British company Dryad Maritime Intelligence Service Ltd., said the drop was due to the coalition activity and unseasonably bad weather. Most of the 16 attempted hijackings in 2009 occurred in the first two weeks of January, when the weather was good. Three of those ships were captured.
But pirates are showing a worrying new sophistication in their attacks, several experts told the AP, including greater use of global positioning systems that allow them to extend their range. Identification systems designed to stop ships from colliding can also lead pirates to potential prey because of the radio signals they put out. The pirates may be trying to buy magnetic mines and heat-seeking missiles that can be fired from the sea, according to a recent report in Jane's Intelligence Review. Brooks said pirates also were jamming emergency frequencies with Arabic music or sending out false distress calls to lure warships in the wrong direction.
He warned that pirates have begun to mount diversionary assaults or attacks on several vessels at the same time. "We've gone from a pattern of sporadic attacks to a situation where the pirates coordinate," he said.
In one incident last week, pirates simultaneously attacked three ships. Coalition forces were able to save two, but the third -- the Longchamp -- was captured.
Vice Admiral Gerard Valin, the commander of a French naval task force, said five pirate gangs operate from Somalia, each with about 200 to 500 members.
The coalition does not issue exact figures for security reasons, but Middleton said there are between 20 and 30 warships off the Somali coast. Even with all the extra firepower, it was hard to prevent attacks, due to the vast waters and the pirates' increasing ingenuity, Valin said.
"I will not say congratulations," he said. "We have to respect the adversary." Kill them all the instant they step off the boat unless they surrender peacefully.
#1
just send in a sub and blow up that natural gas carrier they hijacked. Explosion should be like a very small atomic bomb and take out the pirate warren
#3
Not to worry, the pirates are certain to be followed and the funds tracked. Key leaders will quietly be dealt with and never heard from again. Game over with no press.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/06/2009 12:58
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#4
I'd rather they were dealt with publicly and loudly, Pan.
The messier the better.
(Doesn't have to be by us - China or Russia are welcome to do it. They don't give a rat's ass in hell what the "rest of the world" thinks. Not that I do either, but with Bambi as our "leader".... Oy.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/06/2009 13:02
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#5
Not to worry, the pirates are certain to be followed and the funds tracked.
How does one track cash, 49 Pan? Surely nobody is tracing serial numbers in Somalia these days. I like the idea of quietly dealt with, though.
#6
I'd rather the pirates be dealt with in a VERY NOISY and deadly way - by the sudden appearance of a rain of iron bombs from a dozen B-52s, staggering through the air with every weapon they could carry. The whistle of the bombs falling would be the first sound the pirates heard - and likely the last, to boot. As for the "world court" or "public opinion", how many divisions do the morons of "public opinion" have, and how well armed are they? Two Boy Scout pacts armed with BB guns could probably defeat them. If the United States wants to be respected, then do something to gain that respect - or at least, deadly fear.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 13:34
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#7
why should the us incur the bullshit..just how many us ships have been hijacked??? cause and affect...the world dumps on the US and the affect is a more staple world as the US slowly pulls back...
40 years ago this would of been dealt with...and hell pompeii was able to clear the med..but he did not have to deal with PC bullshit...but today why should the US deal it? to be crapped on regardless of what we do? let the UN deal it or the countries affected
Posted by: Dan ||
02/06/2009 14:30
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#8
uuuumm mean less staple word...damn enter button
Posted by: Dan ||
02/06/2009 14:31
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#9
Bomb them ashore, and destroy them and their families. It is the only language they understand.
#10
I agree that the more public the hit the better. It works as a great message to the lower level guys to think twice. I am speculating here, but with that sum of money there are other organizations at work here supporting the pirates. We need to find out who is organizing and executing these strikes. The money is the key ticket to do this. They will spend the money, it has no real value in Somalia and will be spent outside Somalia. That is where we will catch it and trace it back to key leaders and organizations that are supporting this.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/06/2009 15:26
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#11
The US should not be wasting billion dollar warships and hundreds of crew on this penny ante escort enterprise. Let those affected deal with it until a US ship get taken, then start killing very publicly. US ships will then be known to be off limits the world over.
Two Aegis destroyers operating off the Horn probably costs more than the all the ransom the Somali pirates took in last year. None of it from US ships.
Posted by: ed ||
02/06/2009 15:50
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#12
"Ukrainian freighter....There are still 147 Mariners held hostage" > read, MULTIPLE FOREIGN GOVTS.
I'm a'guessin that US DepSTATE [sub-read, USDOD-USN]didn't get universal consent to send in the SEALS-DELTA FORCE. As for the Soviet Tanks + other heavy arms, these can be hit and destroyed by International SPECOPS + AIRPOWER once they begin to unload ashore.
#13
start by publicly announcing that $6 million was paid, and watch the intramural festivities when the gangs try and explain where the other $2.8M went
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/06/2009 19:51
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#14
#11, among other reasons for US naval patrols off the Horn, you can count the Iranian attempt to ship radioactive sands through the canal to be used against Israel. There's a lot going on there and protecting against overt piracy is only one reason for being there.
Not. Looks like the hawks will win the day in one form or another.
JERUSALEM -- Polls just days before Israel's national election show a close race between front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
One poll shows Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party winning 25 seats in Israel's 120-seat parliament. Livni's centrist Kadima party gets 23.
The poll also shows that Defense Minister Ehud Barak's moderate Labor party has been pushed out of third place by hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party. It also predicts hard-liners winning a clear majority in parliament.
The Dahaf Institute poll was published Friday in the daily Yediot Ahronot. Pollsters surveyed 1,000 people, and the margin of error was 2.6 percentage points.
Polls in Israel's two other major dailies had similar results. Israelis vote on Tuesday.
#1
He sounds annoyingly Hegelian, using the assumption that if you take any two things and blend them together, you will always get something better than the original. This is not true, as it ignores the value of competition in culling bad and antiquated ideas.
Take for example, civilization and barbarism. Unless civilization is so weak that barbarism can annihilate it, it will eventually destroy barbarism, because barbarism cannot compete. Barbarism has *no* elements that are preferable to civilization, so the struggle is one of natural selection.
This can be seen right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, where foolish efforts to preserve parts of their failed governmental systems along with new and efficient modern systems is an obvious lesson. Everything new has succeeded, and every preserved system has failed.
BAGHDAD Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls.
Interviews suggest that the low voter turnout also is an indication of Iraqi disenchantment with a democracy that, so far, has brought them very little.
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the fall of a brutal dictator, Iraqis witnessed unprecedented violence in their nation and what they believe is humiliation under a foreign occupation. Even on Saturday, U.S. tanks could be spotted across Baghdad on largely empty roads.
Following elections in 2005 Iraq spiraled into a sectarian war. People cowered in their homes while others literally killed each other in the streets. Many here feel the people they elected were party to or were at least complicit in the violence. The security forces too were feared as sectarian death squads and Iraqis also believed that American raids or passing U.S. tanks sometimes resulted in innocent civilian deaths.
Many blame the U.S. presence in Iraq for sowing the seeds of sectarianism by bringing back exiles to rule them.
Beyond the disillusionment, thousands of potential voters were unable to cast ballots Saturday because official voter lists did not contain their names. Street protests resulted.
"I didn't participate in this election because I don't trust any list," Yasir Baqir, 28, said on Saturday in Fallujah. "Like any election, we read and see many promises but nothing real (happens) and there is still a crisis, a security crisis, an economic and a services crisis."
Saturday's turnout of about 51 percent was well below the 76 percent turnout who cast ballots in national elections in December 2005 and even below 57 percent who voted for provincial councils and their national assembly in January 2005. On Election Day in January 2005, 44 people were killed. Saturday one person was reported killed in non-election related violence.
"There was a mood of apathy before the elections," said Ali al Adeeb a Shiite legislator from Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's party. "Many asked themselves what is the good? Why should we vote and for what? The enthusiasm came as the elections got closer."
Despite the turnout, the Independent High Electoral Commission said participation was a positive sign for provincial elections. The commission also characterized voting violations on Election Day as extremely low.
"[The commission] is very pleased with the turn out," said Judge Qassim al Aboudi. "All these complaints who claimed not to be on a voter registry for a number of reasons were at the wrong center or did not update their information."
Despite that assessment, it seems that tens of thousands of mostly displaced people didn't get to vote. The commission said this was a mistake on the voter's part. Many didn't check where they were supposed to vote before Election Day.
Most of the confusion seemed to be concentrated in Sunni Arab and Kurdish areas.
On Sunday Maliki's Coalition of the State of Law seemed to be the big winner but preliminary results will not be available until the end of the week. Maliki spent weeks heavily campaigning for the party of candidates who would fill the seats across the nation. He was widely criticized by other slates for using government resources to campaign.
The extent of the power of the provincial councils is unclear. While they control the security, public facilities and influence local ministry official appointees, their budgets come from the central government. Governors, who are elected by the provincial councils, can be ousted by a vote of the national parliament.
Maliki has strongly advocated for a stronger central government and weaker provinces. If he can fill provinces with his supporters, he may be able to garner further power for the federal government.
Many officials outside of Maliki's circle worry he has grown too strong.
As a Shiite Islamist, he recast himself last year as a nationalist despite heading a Shiite Islamist party. Maliki cracked down on Shiite militias in the south and in Baghdad and his support for Arab parties in the Kurdish Arab regions has given him new support from some Arab Sunni constituents.
Iraqis cast their ballots in 42,000 heavily secured polling stations across the country on Saturday. The electoral commission received the most complaints from Nineveh province and Diyala province where Kurds and Arabs rub up against each other and are vying for power.
#2
The left prefers the usual totalitarian 99%, that's why they work so hard to make sure the dead vote and vote often, why districts show more votes than voters who signed in, and why Mickey Mouse is so often registered by ACORN in multiple districts across the county. It's just not a popular name. The left only wants a facade of democracy, as in Peoples' Democratic Republics.
In a palatial house replete with guns, flags and other manifestations of tribal power, America's key ally in once-volatile Anbar province explained what he would do if the counting of votes in Saturday's election failed to show his party as the victor.
"We will form the government of Anbar anyway," vowed Ahmed Abu Risha, his voice dipping to a quiet growl. The tribesmen seated in his visiting room, where photos of U.S. generals and Sunni monarchs adorn the walls, nodded in approval. "An honest dictatorship is better than a democracy won through fraud," Abu Risha said.
Here, in the cradle of the Sunni insurgency, tribal leaders nurtured and empowered by the United States appear ready to take control the old-fashioned way -- with guns and money -- if their political ambitions are frustrated.
Abu Risha and other leaders of the Awakening, the U.S.-backed Sunni sheiks who rose up to quell the insurgency, charge that Sunni politicians of the Iraqi Islamic Party have committed electoral fraud, which party officials deny. The allegations, coupled with threats to use arms, have prompted provincewide curfews and strict security measures. Although the United States handed responsibility for the security of Anbar to the Iraqi government in September, U.S. Marines this week returned to Ramadi in observation roles, patrolling areas from which they had largely withdrawn.
Iraqi election monitoring officials have found the allegations serious enough to investigate, and election commission chief Faraj al-Haidari said initial assessments could be released as early as Thursday. But he also suggested that the allegations might have been driven more by the struggle for power than by evidence, saying there would be no need to hold new elections in the province.
"The case of Anbar is taking a political direction," Haidari said. "We don't interfere with politics."
Abu Risha appeared unwilling to countenance a defeat. What would happen if his rivals win? "Disaster," he warned.
Ever since they turned against the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq more than two years ago, a dozen of the sheiks who founded Awakening have considered themselves the saviors of Anbar. Enriched by U.S. contracts and courted by U.S. military commanders eager to preserve security gains, the tribes are more powerful than at any time since the demise of Iraq's monarchy half a century ago.
Now, they seek to transform their anti-insurgency credentials into political power. But democracy is a new concept for the Anbar sheiks, who are participating for the first time in elections. In 2005, they ordered their tribesmen to boycott the polls, allowing the Iraqi Islamic Party, a religious Sunni group, to take control of the province amid paltry voter turnout.
The tribal leaders' inexperience has shown. In a world of byzantine allegiances and fickle loyalties, the original Awakening leaders have split up, bickering over who has the authority to lead them. Several Awakening parties competed in the elections, dividing their vote. At least four founding sheiks were candidates.
Abu Risha reached out to Islamic Party candidates, further alienating him from other Awakening leaders, though he remains the most powerful because of his American support.
On Wednesday, in this oatmeal-colored provincial capital bisected by the Euphrates River, the Awakening sheiks were united, perhaps for the first time in months, by the fraud allegations.
#2
How about we have 'accountability' in the Senate and House before trying to force it onto talk radio. (And you know this is aimed right at Talk Radio and that interweb thingy...)
Kind of a 'remove the beam from your own eye' kind of thing.....
#3
Of course, the answer to that question is No. The Dems know this is a dog that aint worth fighting. Besides, the only people in favor of reviving the FD are Liberal media hacks that cant make it on their on talent and the progressive Kooks that actually subscribe to their backwash. All they have to do is give them occasional lip service knowing their Useful fools always fall in line anyway.
#4
I have no doubt that they will try to bring back the fairness doctrine, in as underhanded a way as possible. But my hope is that a legal defense is being prepared that will utterly neuter it before it gets off the launching pad.
#5
It won't be called the Fairness Doctrine, but they will try. Especially now that Obama is getting his butt kicked over the stimulous bill. TAke note of his last 3 speaches, he responded pointedly and personally to criticism of himself and the bill. He absolutely cannot stand to be critized - so massive is his ego.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/06/2009 10:39
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#6
He absolutely cannot stand to be critized - so massive is his ego.
His performance last evening down in Williamsburg was very revealing. He was on the brink of losing it, very desperate. They'
ll be passing out Rush and Fox Network VooDoo dolls in their next outing I'm sure. Hopefully I can cheer him up a bit. I've been up in the attic going through old boxes, looking for some sprockets he can wear on his new Air Force One jacket. Lots of grins, teeth, and joking about the 149 mile flight down from Andrews. If the little people only knew what that hop cost them, wow!
As narcissism maturates, the narcissist becomes more demanding for respect and compliance and more intolerant of criticism. He becomes paranoid, and divides the world into us vs. them. He casts himself and his minions as victims and instills in them the distrust of the others.
An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:
Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
Is firmly convinced that he is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special, unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation, or failing that, wishes to be feared and notorious (narcissistic supply)
Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his expectations
Is interpersonally exploitative i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
Is devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Is constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
Is arrogant, has haughty behaviors or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted
The third and fourth editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of 1980 and 1994 and the European ICD-10 describe NPD in similar language
#8
He shows all the signs of having had no father and a doting, indulgent but distant mother.
My mamma loves me, she loves me,
She gets down her knees and hugs me.
She loves me like a rock,
Rocks me like the Rock of Ages ....
And if I was the President and the Congress call my name,
I'd say who do, who do you think you're foolin'?
I've got the Presidential seal up on the Presidential podium and
My mamma loves me, she loves me .....
#10
They would obviously love to shut down talk radio, but Obama's comments on Limbaugh is going to make it more difficult. That he dislikes talk radio is now public knowledge and undeniable.
Even hearings on the subject are likely to generate blowback.
#11
Both Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin are attached with barnacle-like tenacity to the Michigan legislature. With advances in medical care, they and their utterly predictable voting may be there forever.
#14
This is part of Obama's narcissism--the whole "I will eliminate ALL legitimate criticism of my greatness" thing. Obama is actually VERY DANGEROUS. Really. My DH grew up in Indonesia during the same time as Obama did, so naturally he can read "O" like a book. He says Obama has all the qualities of a very bad dictator. I'm not surprised. He's a real Dr. Jeykill-Mr. Hide type: one minute Mr. Boy Next Door, the next Hitler-esque. Creepy. He will get more and more scary as time goes by, and will gather more and more of his irrational worshipers to him, while excluding others who do not tow his line.
The article linked at post #7 is excellent. Also to be noted is that the narcissist (.le. Oama):
- Feels that he is above the law.
- Talks about himself in the 3rd person singluar or uses the regal "we" and craves to be the exclusive center of attention, even adulation
- Has a messianic-cosmic vision of himself and his life and his "mission".
- Sets ever more complex rules in a convoluted world of grandiose fantasies with its own language (jargon)
- Displays false modesty and unctuous "folksiness" but is unable to sustain these behaviors (the persona, or mask) for long. It slips and the true Obama is revealed: haughty, aloof, distant, and disdainful of simple folk and their lives.
- Sublimates aggression and holds grudges.
- Behaves as an eternal adolescent (e.g., his choice of language, youthful image he projects, demands indulgence and feels entitled to special treatment, even though his objective accomplishments do not justify it).
When he doesn't get his way with the Porkulus Bill, he will begin his descent into trantrum-land, and will vow "never again." This is when things will begin to truly go downhill. He will blame everyone who did not support him 100%, and continue to make accusations of Republicans.
Soros, the ex-Nazi is helping this, I'm sure.
Think about it.
The Nazis blamed the bankers and business men for Germany's economic crisis, took over the banks, nationalized major means of production, enlisted a civilian army to deal with the populace, silenced opposition, and eliminated freedom for anyone not 100% in line with Adolf.
Personally, I don't see much difference between the two.
(AKI) - Puthukkudiyiruppu Hospital in Sri Lanka's conflict-wracked Vanni region, has been shelled repeatedly in the last 24 hours, forcing hundreds of patients and staff to flee towards the north-eastern coast, the Red Cross said on Wednesday. Sri Lankan security forces are engaged in fierce conflict there with Tamil Tiger militants who are fighting for a separate homeland.
"We are shocked that a medical facility has again sustained direct hits. We have grave concerns for the well-being and safety of those who fled," said Paul Castella, head of the Red Cross delegation in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.
"We call upon both parties to meet their obligation under international humanitarian law to spare and protect at all times the sick and wounded as well as medical facilities and their personnel."
Over 300 patients and hospital staff fled Puthukkudiyiruppu Hospital and made their way to a community centre in Puttumatalan, in north-eastern Vanni, accompanied by 18 Red Cross staff.
The area lacks clean drinking water, which puts the displaced patients and medical staff at even greater risk.
The Red Cross has repeatedly asked both parties to grant safe passage so that patients and medical staff can be evacuated.
"Both sides have been reminded several times of their obligation to spare wounded and sick people, and medical facilities and their personnel," said Castella. "But this needs to be put into practice in the field."
The United Nations, the Red Cross and other local aid organisations have expressed concern that up to 250,000 civilians are trapped in the north-east of the country as the military offensive against Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels intensifies.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Must be LTTE doing the damage or they would be crying to the moon about the government forces.
Aswat al-Iraq: A civilian man was killed and two others injured when an improvised explosive device went off south of the district of Mandili, Diala province, on Thursday, a security source said. "An IED went off near a civilian vehicle in Ballour area, (10 km south of Mandili) killing a man and wounding two others," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
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South Korea on Thursday urged North Korea not to launch a long-range ballistic missile amid reports of North Korea's launch plans. ''It is a clear violation of (U.N.) Security Council resolutions if North Korea launches missiles despite resolute messages given by the international community,'' Foreign Ministry Spokesman Moon Tae Young told a press briefing. Yep. That oughta do it.
Posted by: Fred ||
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ION SOKOR, WORLD MIL FORUM > SOUTH KOREA WILL SET UP A JOINT US-SK AIR COMMAND AT OSAN, for US immediate utility by US Air Assets in case of war wid NOKOR, espec come Year 2012 after end of Combined Forces Command treatise and formal handover of wartime control by the US to SOKOR.
#2
ALso on WMF > IIRC/IIUC TAIWAN REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE NEW XTENDED PHILIPPINE SOVEREIGNTY OVER DISPUTED CHINA SEA ISLANDS, CLAIMING THAT ISLANDS BELONG TO "REPUBLIC OF CHINA"[ROC]; + PHILIPPINE LEGISLATURE IN INTERNAL DISPUTE OVER NEW PHILIPPINE SOVEREIGNTY CLAIMS ON DISPUTED CHINA SEA ISLANDS [A number of Philippine Pols want "softer" Bill language vee CHINA = PRC].
OTOH, SAME > CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY: JAPAN MUST IMMEDIATELY STOP ANY MILITARY-LED/ORIENTED ATTEMPTS TO STRENGTHEN ITS SOVEREIGNTY AND CONTROL OVER DISPUTED DIAOYU ISLANDS/JAPAN HAS NO RIGHT TO STOP CHINESE SURVEY SHIP OR PUT UNDER MILITARY [air]SURVEILLANCE.
Another heroic failure of Bambi's vetting operation ...
A Senate committee today abruptly canceled a session to consider President Obama's nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis to be labor secretary in the wake of a report saying that her husband yesterday paid about $6,400 to settle tax liens against his business -- including liens that had been outstanding for as long as 16 years.
The report, by USA Today, came just before the Senate's Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee was slated to meet to consider Solis's nomination, which had been delayed by questions over her role on the board of the pro-labor organization American Rights at Work. A source said that committee members did not learn about the tax issue until today.
I hear Blago is available ...
"Today's executive session was postponed to allow members additional time to review the documentation submitted in support of Representative Solis's nomination to serve in the important position of Labor Secretary," read a joint statement issued by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the panel's chairman, and Mike Enzi (Wyoming), the committee's ranking Republican. "There are no holds on her nomination and members on both sides of the aisle remain committed to giving her nomination the fair and thorough consideration that she deserves. We will continue to work together to move this nomination forward as soon as possible."
Every time Obama nominates someone for the Cabinet the IRS gets a check. He should keep this up ...
No new date has been set for the hearing. The disclosure about Solis's husband comes after tax problems caused trouble for three of Obama's top appointees, leading two of them -- HHS-nominee Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, who was to be chief performance officer -- to withdraw.
Asked about the USA Today report at the White House daily briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs emphasized that the nominee's tax returns are in order. "Well, I read the story in USA Today, and it quotes somebody that works here, so obviously we've -- we know about this story. I'll say this. We reviewed her tax returns, and her tax returns are in order," said Gibbs.
Gibbs makes me long for the days of Scott McClellan ...
"The story denotes that her husband had some issues with paying a business tax, and obviously that tax is -- should be paid. He's -- she's not a partner in that business, Gibbs continued. "So we're not going to penalize her for her husband's business mistakes. Obviously, her husband, I think, has and should pay any taxes that he owes. "
Posted by: Steve White ||
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OTOH ISRAELI MIL FORUM [paraph]> OBAMA CONSIDERS/BELIEVES A NEW TAX IMPOSED ON HIS OWN CABINET WOULD CREATE A FEDERAL BUDGET SURPLUS, as Obama Cabinet/Admin can owe under the Fed Tax Code and which may create an Obama-desired US
$18.0Bilyuhn+ Budget surplus [not yet attained]???
#3
The report, by USA Today, came just before the Senate's Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.
A bit ironic Id say that two of the liens are for unpaid county health and safety permit fees. That would be like appointing someone to head up the IRS even though he didnt pay his taxes. Oh thats right never mind.
#4
Don't you all see this is Bush's fault. If they did not have to spend every second of their time fighting Bush they certainly would have paid their taxes on time. Geezzee folks, the nasty Repubs are at fault here and now the Dems will know better how to spend the money anyway.
Oh god, will someone knock me out for the next four years!!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/06/2009 13:04
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#5
A small question ? Do any of these commie Dummocrats pay taxes ? Well, they wouldn't as they don't really consider themselves obligated to this republic. They're Citizens of the World, don't ya know. They're too busy on behalf of the World to worry about the peasants of the United States.
MALAYSIA is set to introduce a second round of spending in February or March and it will be far more wide-ranging than the first fiscal boost announced last November, a source familiar with government thinking said.
The Malaysian government, which is currently forecasting economic growth of 3.5 per cent this year, will also revise its forecasts in the light of weaker exports, lower commodity prices and an expected fall in foreign direct investment, the source said.
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ION WORLD AAFFAIRS BOARD > OBAMA STIMULUS PACKAGE WILL INCREASE UNEMPLOYMENT + HIGH HOME OWNERSHIP EXACERBATES UNEMPLOYMENT.
The rate of unemployment in the Middle East-North Africa region is the highest in the world compared to other regions, the director of the Arab Labor Organization said on Wednesday.
The global economic crisis has hit the Arab markets hard and may cause job losses to as many as five million people, Ahmad Luqman said, according to Al-Jazeera.
The rate of unemployment in Arab countries is one of the highest in the world compared to other regions and stands at around 14 percent, he said. Among young people, the numbers are even higher, at around 25%.
The ALO is a specialist organization of the 22-member Arab League,
If the economic situation remains in the current state, there will be around 21 million Arabs out of work by 2010, Luqman estimated.
In order to maintain the current rate of unemployment without it going up, there is a need to create some four million new jobs every year, he added.
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Kashmir's Fruit Growers, who organised massive protests for opening of the Srinagar-Muzuffarabad road for the trade activities, now have stopped sending their apple consignments to Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).
In Oct, 2008, cross LoC trade through Kaman Bridge on the Srinagar-Muzuffarabad road was started amid much fanfare. On the first day, 14 apple laden trucks crossed the bridge.
Three months later, the fruit trade had hit the road block as Valley growers have completely stopped dispatching their apples to Muzuffarabad.
General Manager, DIC Mohammad Ashraf Wani who also is custodian for the cross LoC trade confirmed that no apple truck was sent across the LoC in the latest cross LoC trading.
"On Tuesday, six trucks were dispatched from Kashmir to PoK. But, not a single apple box was in the consignment," he said.
Wani, however, said the trade on barter system, continues through Uri's Kaman Bridge on weekly basis. "So far, 6,000 apple boxes were dispatched by the growers. But, growers seem to have lost interest in the trade through LoC."
Before the start of cross LoC trade growers were curious to dispatch their apples to PoK. Now, they are not.
"We were eagerly waiting for the beginning of cross LoC trade, even dispatched thousands of apple boxes to PoK in the start. But, so far growers have not received a single penny in lieu of the apples," President Fruit Mandi Sopore, Bashir Beig said.
"After three months, we don't know what happened to apples in PoK," he said.
Beig said the growers have stopped sending their products to PoK. "This time, we only dispatch our apples to different mandies of the country as the market is good there," he said.
"The trade is useless unless government starts a permanent communication link between two parts of Kashmir," he said.
The growers who dispatched their apples on the first day of opening of the trade too are losing hope about future of the trade. "Unless growers are allowed to visit to Pok, this cross LoC business is meaningless," said Javid Ahmad, a trader who dispatched around 100 apple boxes on October 20, 2008.
"I don't know what happened to my apples in PoK. Government has to do more to sustain this trade, otherwise in coming months no trade will take place via Kaman bridge.
There is other reason that compelled growers not to dispatch their apples to PoK as the growers were offered lucrative rates by the Delhi based traders. "Soon after the cross LoC trade started, the rates of apples have gone up," said Beig, adding that this year all the losses got compensated by good rates.
Before the start of trade, the Union Ministry of Commerce has approved a list of 23 items from Kashmir. Pakistan, too, had sent a list of 26 items. The items from the Indian side include fruit (fresh and dry), spices, saffron, carpets, wall hangings, woolens, aromatic and medicinal plants, Cricket bats, black mushrooms, green tea, imli, dhania, rajmah.
Posted by: john frum ||
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Unless growers are allowed to visit to Pok, this cross LoC business is meaningless said Javid Ahmad.the shmock
A member of the Turkish police bomb squad has sustained serious injuries when the bomb he was attempting to defuse exploded in Izmir.
Police sources said that the officer was opening a suspicious package left outside a police station in the town of Aliaga near Izmir when it exploded. The officer, who is in critical condition, was rushed to a local hospital and is now on life support.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack and police have launched an investigation into the incident. Kurdish rebels, leftist militants as well as radicals have carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.
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Speaking at solidarity event organized by high-school students, father of captive soldier calls on Hamas leaders to 'stop holding us as hostages of the symbols of yesterday's wars in a world that has changed beyond recognition'
With his son nearing a thousand days in Hamas captivity, Noam Shalit continues his tireless mission to keep Gilad in the public consciousness.
Speaking at an all-night solidarity event organized by students of Blich High School in Ramat Gan on Thursday, Shalit sought to not only emphasize the government's responsibility to see Gilad released but also issued an emphatic plea to his captors.
"I call on the leaders of Hamas, in Damascus and elsewhere, I say loud and clear what many Palestinians in Gaza dare not and cannot say out loud -- stop holding us, the regular citizens, the uninvolved, the families of prisoners who could have been home by now -- stop holding us as political hostages, as hostages of an imaginary resistance," Shalit said.
"Resistance against what? Against whom? Hostages of symbols that at best belong to yesterday's wars, to yesterday's world, which has since changed beyond recognition."
Speaking with Ynet after the event Shalit said the family remained cautiously optimistic. "This is the third year that we are caught between hope and despair," he added.
Asked whether plans were in place to pressure the next government on his son's case, Shalit said: "This government has yet to end its term, and even next Tuesday it will still be the government of the State of Israel for all intents and purposes. Until a new government is sworn in. (And so) We are demanding Shalit's release from the current government."
Earlier in the evening students heard a series of speeches regarding Gilad, and later on they will stay up all night and attend lessons dedicated to both Shalit's particular situation and broader themes such as the right of protest and the redemption of prisoners. In a special literature class they will read from the book Gilad authored.
Chairman of the Blich student council, Dor Gotschel: "Gilad hasn't slept in 956 nights and we decided that tonight we too won't sleep. This isn't about making a political statement, we want to increase awareness of the issue."
'Gilad chose to be a combat soldier'
Prior to addressing Hamas, Noam Shalit first thanked those present for their warm tribute. "This wonderful support has swept those who support Gilad, who for three years has been rotting away in Hamas' captivity in Gaza, in this ongoing nightmare, in the dark, in total isolation from the outside world, with only the thunder of planes and tanks and bombs penetrating the deathly silence of the basement he's being held in for 956 days and 956 long sleepless nights.
"A few months before he was kidnapped to Gaza Gilad was a young boy, like any one of you, a regular boy with friends and hobbies, ambitions and dreams. A boy who was motivated to give, to make sure his military service was meaningful, who went to combat service even though he could have chosen a non-combat unit.
"Gilad was supposed to have been discharged over six months ago. Like all the young people his age, if he were with us, he'd be trekking with his friends in the East or in South America, or just studying for the psychometric exam. But instead he is 'serving time' for the third year now in Hamas' prison in Gaza, and the Israeli government and its leaders have failed to uphold their moral duty towards IDF soldiers sent by their government on a mission -- their duty, which is also a mitzvah, that of redeeming prisoners."
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Higgledy Piggledy,
President Jimmy
Decided Hamas is just misunderstood;
Thus showing symptoms
Of pure asinity,
Says, "Good is evil, and evil is good."
(AKI) - Forty-one suspected Al-Qaeda members wanted by Saudi authorities are currently in Iran, according to a report in pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq-al-Awsat. Quoting Saudi police investigations, the report says the suspects make up nearly half the 85 alleged terrorists wanted by authorities.
Saudi police believe they either choose to live in Iran or travel there on their way to Afghanistan or Pakistan. Authorities fear the suspects are plotting attacks on Saudi Arabia and Jordan from Iran. Some of the suspects may also move to Yemen, another Al-Qaeda stronghold in the region.
The Saudi interior ministry on Tuesday released a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects, all but two of them Saudis. One of the men on the list, Abdullah al-Qarawi, is a Saudi who has been operating from Iran for three years, the ministry claimed. Al-Qarawi, 35, is believed to have been behind some recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, said a Saudi security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Al-Qarawi leads Al-Qaeda's operations in the Persian Gulf and Iran and recruits jihadist fighters for Afghanistan, the official said. It is believed al-Qawari has more than 100 Saudis working for him in Iran, where they move about freely, the official added.
His current battle name is Najim, he has learnt to use sophisticated weapons, allegedly provides jihadists with cash and false IDs and has created a base in Iran that supports Al-Qaeda cells in Iraq and Lebanon. Al-Qarawi has allegedly been in Iran since 2006 and is reported to have helped several Saudi Al-Qaeda fugitives flee to Iraq and Lebanon where they have trained to carry out attacks.
Iran has consistently denied accusations by Saudi Arabia and the United States that it is harbouring Al-Qaeda members. The Saudi interior ministry's most-wanted Al-Qaeda suspects are currently located in countries including Yemen, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, said Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday.
Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, is on the wanted list. His branch recently announced that it was merging with the Saudi branch to form a new cell.
Okaz quoted unnamed sources saying 11 former detainees from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who returned to home to Saudi Arabia in 2006 subsequently entered Yemen and joined local Al-Qaeda cells there. Over the past year or so, the Yemeni group appears to have expanded and brought in a number of Saudis, experts say.
This article starring:
ABDULLAH AL QARAWI
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
NAJIM
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
NASIR AL WUHAISHI
al-Qaeda in Yemen
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#1
The Saudi interior ministry's most-wanted Al-Qaeda suspects are currently located in countries including Yemen, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, said Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday
#5
Saudis are fine with their young men going a jihading outside Saudi. More 2nd, 3rd, 4th wives for the remaining fat asses. It's only trouble when the young want the overthrow the old Saudi order.
Posted by: ed ||
02/06/2009 16:00
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#6
ed's short and sweet description of arabian culture purdy much nails it all. If they didn't have jihad, they'd have to invent it, and they did.
Aswat al-Iraq: Joint forces killed a member of the Sadrist bloc, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and arrested 20 others in a raid on different areas of Diwaniya on Thursday, an official from Sadr's office in the province said. "A joint force from the Iraqi army and police and the U.S. forces raided houses in different areas of Diwaniya, killing a Sadr loyalist and arresting 20 others," Nidal al-No'mani told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
"The campaign came on a background of initial vote counting for the provincial council elections, which showed that we have garnered a large number of votes in Diwaniya," No'mani said. He urged the Iraqi prime minister and the local administration to investigate the arrest campaigns targeting the Sadrists.
Meanwhile, a U.S. source from the ECHO camp in Diwaniya told Aswat al-Iraq over the phone that that a raid by joint Iraqi army and police and U.S. forces resulted in the killing of a "terrorist" who declined to surrender despite warning shots. "The raiding force was planning to arrest him," the source said, adding "the killed man was carrying out armed operations against U.S. forces and is wanted on charges of murdering civilians in the province".
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WASHINGTON (AP) National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair has asked former CIA Director John Deutch, who was stripped of his security clearance nearly a decade ago for mishandling classified information, to sit on an advisory panel on spy satellites, a lawmaker said Thursday.
More evidence that the Obama vetting system is broken. Or worse ...
Deutch, CIA director from May 1995 to December 1996 in the Clinton administration, stored and processed hundreds of files of highly classified material on unprotected home computers that he and family members also used to connect to the Internet, according to an internal CIA investigation. The Defense Department's inspector general found similar conduct during Deutch's prior service at the Pentagon.
Deutch was stripped of his security clearances by CIA Director George Tenet in 1999. As a former deputy defense secretary, Deutch also had Pentagon clearances, but he voluntarily gave them up.
He had agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government secrets, but President Clinton pardoned him shortly before leaving office in January 2001 and before the Justice Department could file the case against him.
CIA Director Mike Hayden reinstated clearances for Deutch in 2007 so Hayden could consult with him, as well as with other ex-CIA directors, agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said Thursday.
Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee raised concerns about the appointment at the confirmation hearing Thursday of Leon Panetta to become CIA director. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., asked Panetta whether he was aware that Deutch had been asked to sit on an advisory panel that will make recommendations about the future of U.S. spy satellites. Panetta said no.
"Do you think that's appropriate?" Coburn asked.
"I think I'd have to sit down and talk with Adm. Blair about just exactly what he had in mind," Panetta responded.
"What kind of message do you think that appointment sends the men and women of the CIA, who work every day to collect and protect the most sensitive" information? Coburn asked.
Panetta said he "did not want to jump to any quick conclusions about what the admiral may or may not had in mind. Clearly this is something I need to talk to him about."
A spokeswoman for Blair, Wendy Morigi, said Blair "is seeking to benefit from the technical expertise of some national experts, and Mr. Deutch is among those who will be called on from time to time."
She said Blair will be consulting with Congress as he continues to recruit panel members and promised to address their concerns.
Panetta later said preventing leaks of classified information can be difficult to do but that he would work with the attorney general to ensure cases don't "fall into a black hole." "I consider leaking, particularly where it involves secrets that are important to this country, treasonous, and I think they have to be prosecuted," he said.
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Lefties: National security is a joke, anyway. Classified information would be better if everyone in the world could see it.
#2
> Deutch, CIA director from May 1995 to December 1996 in the Clinton administration, stored and processed hundreds of files of highly classified material on unprotected home computers that he and family members also used to connect to the Internet
Absolutely unforgivable! My mouth was open, jaw dropped when I read this.
There's "honest mistake", but this is wilfully ignoring risks. He shouldn't be allowed to read a press release let alone be invited back.
Please accept my best wishes on America surviving the Chicago Political "Machine".
#3
> Deutch, CIA director from May 1995 to December 1996 in the Clinton administration, stored and processed hundreds of files of highly classified material on unprotected home computers that he and family members also used to connect to the Internet
Absolutely unforgivable! My mouth was open, jaw dropped when I read this.
I agree, nearly. The fact is that at these times security consciousness about the internet (who was just starting a commercial place) was still about zero between the general public. Outside computer specialists few people knew about firewalls and similar. Windows 95 came without any firewall if my memory is any good.
We are allowed to expect that computer people in CIA lectured people about security but in those times before laptops, USB keys and ubiquitous internet connections it is not sure. If they did, he should have been sanctioned much more severely than loding his security clearance. If they didn't the computer people should have been tarred, feathered and shot.
The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus says that for every depth, there is one still lower. Ima feeling it's a long way to the bottom. Hang on tight and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle.
A Somali military official says that Sudanese forces may attempt to destroy a Ukrainian vessel which has just been released by pirates.
Somali rebels hijacked the MV Faina and its huge shipment of weaponry last September.
Pirate spokesman Sugule Ali later claimed that the vessel had been carrying arms for Sudanese Christian opposition groups and that they were intended for use the Muslim majority and President Omar al-Bashir's administration.
On Wednesday, following 19 weeks of fear over the misuse of the armament, pirates released Faina in exchange for a $3.2 million ransom. The ship then set sail for the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
After its arrival at the port city, Sudanese soldiers might attempt to blow the ship up in order to eliminate the possibility of the weapons falling into the wrong hands, Press TV's correspondent quoted military official Abdulle Hassan Amin as saying.
Wouldn't that be an act of war against Kenya?
Somali politicians believe Kenya was not the vessel's ultimate destination as Kenyan authorities had not taken necessary security measures to guarantee the cargo's safe arrival.
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North Korean officials have expressed their willingness to normalize relations between their country and the United States, a U.S. scholar who last month met them in North Korea said Wednesday. Selig Harrison, Asia Program director at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, made the revelation in a speech about his visit to the reclusive nation. "Abby Somebody!"
"Abby Who?"
"Abby... Normal!"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
Of course the North Koreans are willing to normalize relations, so long as they needn't give up anything... like their nuclear bomb program or their prison camps. That's always been their position, even a little housewife like me knows that.
#3
ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > USAF 13th FIGHTER SQUADRON [12 F-16's] TO DEPLOY TO KOREA [SOKOR]: ANOTHER US THREAT TO CHINA AND ITS ALLIES.
OTOH, also on PDF > PRESIDENT MA-JING-EOU: TAIWAN TO CONSIDER BULDING A CONNECTING BRIDGE TO MAINLAND [Feasibility Study].
* CHINESE MIL FORUM > WHAT IFF CHINA HAD LONG RANGE STRATEGIC BOMBERS, BUT WHAT FOR TO USE?/US B-52's CONDUCT GLOBAL STRIKE DEPLOYMENT [Oper CORONET DRAGON].
Lest we fergit, GUAM > just conducted GROUNDSBREAKING for new USAF-USN JOINT REGION MARIANAS HQ [former NIMITZ HILL USN NAVMAR-NAVACTSMAR/GUAM HIGH SCHOOL complex]. USDOD-USAF also repor desires to make Guam = Andersen AFB into a LONG-RANGE, UAV STRATEGIC/GLOBAL SRIKE AIR BASE???
Aswat al-Iraq: Casualties from Thursday's earlier attack by a female suicide bomber inside a restaurant in Khanaqin district rose to 15 death and 13 others wounded, a security source said. "A female suicide bomber blew herself up inside the Dilshad restaurant in Khanaqin district, (155 km) northeast of Baaquba, leaving 15 people killed and 13 others injured," the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. "The explosion caused damage to 10 stores and seven vehicles near the scene," the source noted. A security source had told Aswat al-Iraq that a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest inside a restaurant in central Khanaqin, killing 12 and wounding 11 others.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
A female suicide bomber blew herself up inside the Dilshad restaurant
CALI, Colombia (AFP) Colombia's FARC rebels Thursday freed their sixth hostage in five days, fulfilling a promise they made in December and leaving only 22 police and military among the hundreds of captives they are still holding. Former provincial lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, was lifted from a jungle location by Brazilian-loaned helicopters to an emotional welcome in Cali by his sons Lucas, 20, and Sergio, 18, after nearly five years in rebel captivity.
"Thank God, I'm alive and healthy," Lopez told reporters after landing.
He was the sixth hostage set free by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) since Sunday, after three policemen, a soldier and a former mayor.
The releases were promised by the FARC in December to Colombians for Peace, a mediating group headed by Senator Piedad Cordoba, who along with three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross accompanied Lopez on his journey to freedom. Cordoba told reporters she had with her a letter from FARC leader Alfonso Cano, but that she would not disclose its contents until later.
Lopez was the only survivor of a group of 12 Valle department lawmakers who were killed after they were kidnapped by FARC rebels disguised as soldiers in April 2002. The rebels later admitted killing the captives when they mistakenly thought the army was about to close in. "They did not deserve to be murdered like they were by FARC," said Lopez, who survived the massacre because he took ill and was separated from the other captives.
"My suffering isn't worth a damn compared to the pain the massacre inflicted not only on the families (of the victims) but on Colombia's democracy," he added.
Lopez was the last politician in FARC custody, but the rebels are still holding 22 military and police they are seeking to swap for some 500 guerrillas held in Colombian and US jails. The group also holds hundreds of lower-level hostages.
Cordoba said the letter from Cano was a response to a message she sent FARC on Wednesday, when she received from the rebels the fifth hostage, former Meta governor Alan Jara, asking them to set more flexible conditions for the prisoner swap.
President Alvaro Uribe has so far rejected a FARC demand for an extensive demilitarized area where the swap talks can take place.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/06/2009
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#2
This article claims that Spain's unemployment rate is 14.4%. This puts it in line with the unemployment rate in Arab countries. (see the article on Arab unemployment rates)
Congratulations Spain! you've just joined the Arab world. Please send all comments to Prime Minister Zapatero.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/06/2009 11:30
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A Lebanese ship bound for the Gaza Strip was boarded by the Israeli navy and was being escorted to the Mediterranean port of Ashdod, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday.
"The navy boarded the vessel, stopped it and it is now bringing it to Ashdod," Barak said in broadcast remarks.
Doha-based Al-Jazeera television said earlier one of its correspondents was aboard the vessel carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza and quoted him as saying Israeli sailors had boarded it.
"They (the Israeli navy) are opening fire towards the vessel ... there are Israeli soldiers who have actually boarded the vessel," said correspondent Salam Khoder.
"Three of them are pointing their weapons at us ... They are beating those on the vessel, they are beating and kicking us," Khoder said in a frantic voice before the line dropped.
It did not say how many people were on board the boat but reported that it was carrying humanitarian aid from mainly Lebanese and Arab charities, destined for those made homeless by Israel's offensive.
The shipment was organised by the Palestinian National Committee Against the Siege in cooperation with the US-based Free Gaza Movement.
Two gunboats were visible about a mile (two kms) offshore from Gaza city, escorting the ship northwards.
It appeared to be the first attempt to reach Gaza by a foreign vessel since the 22-day war with Israel ended on Jan. 18 when Israel and Hamas declared separate ceasefires.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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The eighteen crew members from a Lebanese cargo ship that was intercepted and commandeered by the navy on Thursday after the vessel tried to break the Gaza sea blockade were deported from Israel on Friday morning. Three of them - two Indian nationals and one Briton - were taken to Ben Gurion Airport, while the remainder of the crew, from Lebanon and Syria, were transferred to their countries via the Kuneitra border terminal.
On Thursday night, the IDF coordinator of military activities in the Palestinian territories ordered the transfer to Gaza of some 1,000 units of donated blood that was carried on the ship in order to ease the humanitarian situation in the Strip. The blood was transferred via the Erez border crossing. IDF spokesman Peter Lerner said that the rest of the supplies on board were being examined and would also be sent to Gaza.
Oh, those evil Israelis! Such war criminals they are!!
The Togo-flagged Tali left Lebanon on Tuesday, carrying some 60 tons of water, food and medicine, as well as 18 people, including Syrian and Lebanese nationals. On Wednesday, the navy contacted the ship and told the captain that it would not be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. The captain told the navy that the vessel would sail to El-Arish in Egypt.
On Thursday morning, though, after the ship was already in Egyptian waters, it tried to break the blockade and sail into Gaza. The navy again contacted the ship and warned it to turn around. "They told us that they're determined to get to Gaza and that they do not plan to stop," explained a senior naval officer involved in the operation. "We told them that we plan to stop them if they break the blockade. They explained that they don't plan to stop. They continued, and we stopped them."
Naval commandos took control of the vessel and ordered the captain to sail into the Ashdod Port. The passengers were transferred to police custody. During the takeover, the officer said, the soldiers encountered light resistance, and shots were fired in the air during the operation.
No weaponry was discovered on the vessel.
Reporters from Arab TV stations Al-Jadeed and Al-Jazeera who were aboard the Tali claimed the soldiers had fired at the ship before boarding it and beaten those on board.
Among the passengers was 86-year-old Greek Catholic priest Hillarion Capucci, who, while serving as an archbishop in Jerusalem, was convicted in 1974 by an Israeli court for using his diplomatic status to smuggle arms to Palestinian terrorists. The Syrian-born Capucci was jailed but released three years later at the intervention of the Vatican and deported.
#2
TOPIX > NASRALLAH: ISRAEL STILL HOLDS FOUR IRANIAN DIPLOMATS [since 1982]; + NO GAZA PEACE PLAN [or Middle East Plan]WILL WORK WITHOUT IRAN'S BLESSING???
* WAFF > VIDEO - SYRIANS SOCIAL NATIONALIST PARTY Ideology > Dedicated Pro-Islamist TALIBANISM had sex wid FASCIST NAZISM + SECUL SOCIALISM to procue Baby ISLAMIST SECULAR NATIONALIST SOCIALISTS = TURBANNED/BURQUA'ed SECULAR SOCIALISTS???
BAGHDAD | Results from weekend elections released Thursday showed broad backing for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Basra and in Shi'ite provinces of the south, but it remains unclear how other candidates will accept defeat.
Ethnic and sectarian tensions continued to beset the country in the aftermath of the vote, with a suicide bomber killing at least 15 people in the Kurdish town of Khanaqin, about 90 miles northeast of Baghdad. At least 15 were injured, Reuters reported. Khanaqin lies in the Diyala province, which stretches from the outskirts of Baghdad to the Iranian border. Its 1.8 million people reflect an explosive mix of Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds.
The real test for Iraq's fledgling democracy depends on how the candidates handle the shifts in provincial power, Lt. Col. Kareem Jadoi Hussein said. "Those are problems that come after the results. There will be anger and shouting. We're prepared for trouble," said Lt. Col. Hussein, deputy commander of the 19th Brigade, 5th Iraq Army, in Diyala province.
Results on Thursday showed that the main Sunni bloc's voting list won in Diyala with 21.1 percent, while the Kurds came in second with 17.2 percent, the Associated Press reported.
Sunnis claim to be a majority in Diyala, but Shi'ites dominate the outgoing Provincial Council, which appoints the governor and has influence on the appointment or firing of the provincial police chief, who in turn has say over the hiring of local police officers. Through patronage, council members also fill provincial government agency posts and thus have influence over how money is spent, what projects go forward and who gets contracts for those projects.
Iraqi Security Forces reported little violence in Diyala during Saturday's election. A Shi'ite lawmaker in the provincial capital, Baqouba, survived an assassination attempt Thursday. Salim al-Zeidi escaped injury when a bomb exploded outside his house, a police officer told AP on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Nationwide, more than 14,000 candidates vied for 440 Provincial Council seats in 14 of 18 provinces.
In Diyala, 29 seats were up for grabs. Candidates included Awakening Council members -- Sunnis who joined forces with U.S. troops and formed the Sons of Iraq (also known as Concerned Local Citizens) - security volunteers who helped fight terrorists.
"We came here to vote for someone to lead us in a good way, someone honorable," said Yayah Genei, a Sunni, outside a voting place in the village of Hebheb. "We chose the wrong people last time and got nothing.
"We hope everybody understands Iraq is for everybody," Iraqi police Maj. Amad Ahmed Mohammed, who is of mixed sectarian heritage, said before the voting.
Mr. al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, campaigned for local candidates under his State of Law coalition - an effort that was unique because it included almost no references to religion. His candidates won in Baghdad and Basra with 38 percent and 37 percent of the vote respectively. His coalition also won the most votes in eight of 10 predominantly Shi'ite provinces in the south, besting the Iran-backed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
In predominantly Sunni Anbar province west of Baghdad, tensions between rival parties and tribes have surged since the weekend, with some Sunni tribesmen charging that rival Sunnis stole the election. A Sunni party led by Saleh al-Mutlaq won in Anbar with 17.6 percent. The Awakening Council list finished close behind at 17.1 percent.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/06/2009
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DNA samples drawn from Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, have matched with imprints on a lifejacket found on MV Kuber, the fishing trawler that brought the 26/11 gunmen to Mumbai.
The sweat analysis from a lifejacket found on the Kuber matched with the DNA samples of Kasab, a top forensic official said. Kasab and nine others boarded the Gujarat-based fishing vessel in international waters sailed to within a few nautical miles off Mumbai.
DNA analysis of another five terrorists involved in the carnage is being conducted in the Kalina For-ensic Science Laboratory.
In another development, the National Security Adv-iser, Mr M.K. Narayanan was contradicted for a second time in three days on Thursday by the home minister, Mr P. Chidamba-ram, who said that India had not received any response on the dossier given to Pakistan on the Mumbai attacks.
There is no confusion. Both the external affairs minister and I have said that we have not received any response to the dossier given to Pakistan as yet, Mr Chidambaram said.
This was in response to Mr Narayanans remarks in an interview to a private television channel that Pakistan had asked twice for more details on the dossier.
Meanwhile, a report in the Pakistan newspaper Dawn said that Pakistani investigators probing the Mumbai attacks are closing in on a Bangladeshi connection to the terrorist strike.
They are said to have evidence of not only the involvement of a banned militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI-B), but also of its role in planning the attack and training the terrorists.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/06/2009
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(AKI) - The European parliament has endorsed President Barack Obama's decision to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and called on member states to accept detainees for resettlement. Bruxelles sounds like a odd destination.
Last week European Union foreign ministers said they wanted to help on humanitarian grounds, but would not respond until the US could show that the prisoners were not a security risk. If they at Gitmo they're security risks by definition.
The European parliament on Wednesday adopted a resolution welcoming Obama's decision to close the prison within a year saying that the US bore the prime responsibility for the future of the detainees held there. "The inmates have been denied their fundamental human rights, notably the right of fair trial, and have been subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which amount to torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment," the resolution noted. "Those who are not to be charged and cannot be repatriated - (due to the) real risk of torture or persecution in his home country - should be given the opportunity to be admitted to the United States and afforded redress."
However the parliament called on member states to "be prepared" to accept Guantanamo inmates. The resolution was endorsed with 542 in favour, 55 against and 51 abstentions.
"MEPs also call on the member states, should the United States administration so request, to cooperate in finding solutions, to be prepared to accept Guantanamo inmates in the EU," it said. "Member states have a duty of loyal cooperation to consult each other on possible repercussions on public security throughout the EU," the resolution said.
A US task force has been given 30 days to recommend where the 242 detainees should go - so far no formal request have come from the European Union.
Albania is the only country to have so far accepted Guantanamo detainees on humanitarian grounds, taking in five members of China's Uighur ethnic minority in 2006. Portugal and Ireland are among the countries believed to be considering the prospect of accepting former Guantanamo prisoners.
The controversial prison camp was set up in January 2002 to hold terrorism suspects captured after the 9/11 attacks. Many of the prisoners have been held for years without trial and the US wants to try about 80 of the prisoners on terrorism charges.
Fifty other Guantanamo detainees have been cleared of charges but cannot be returned to their home countries as there are fears they could be persecuted there.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
If I had a vote in this, then I suggest 6 foot under.
#2
should be given the opportunity to be admitted to the United States
I will campaign against Democrats full-time in 2012 if this even almost happens. Regardless, it will be a cold day in hell before I visit Europe again.
#3
I vote that they all be released in the EU Parliament building. Since they are all just misunderstood youths, who happened to be caught firing weapons on a battlefield, the US has no reason to prosecute them. Therefore, the EUniks should be happy to welcome them.
BTW, I second AA5839's motion. All in accordance with the Geneva Convention as it is actually written.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/06/2009 22:25
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The name-only newspapers received a huge chunk of public money allocated for publishing government advertisements and supplementary during the tenure of the last BNP-Jamaat alliance government.
Information Minister Abul Kalam Azad disclosed it in the parliament yesterday while replying to a query of a lawmaker.
The information minister placed a list before the House that showed that the BNP-led government spent over TK 104 crore during its five-year tenure over the purpose of advertisements in as many as 177 daily newspapers published from Dhaka.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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(AKI/DAWN) - Pakistani investigators probing the Mumbai terror attacks are investigating a link to the banned Bangladeshi militant group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), and its possible involvement in training terrorists and planning the three-day assault.
Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency is expected to present a report soon and share its findings with India.
The report is likely to indicate that the Mumbai attack was conducted by an 'international network of Muslim fundamentalists' that spread from South Asia and to the Middle East and build the case for greater regional anti-terror cooperation.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, which translates as The Islamic Struggle Movement, is a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist paramilitary organisation active in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005.
Although the contents of the intelligence report are being kept a tightly-guarded secret by Pakistan's interior ministry, sources have told Pakistani daily Dawn it will reveal the Mumbai incident is not strictly an issue for Pakistan and India.
Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Wajid Shamsul Hassan indicated in a recent interview that investigations had revealed the terrorist attack was not planned in Pakistan.
"Pakistani territory was not used so far as the investigators have made their conclusions," Hassan said in the interview. "It could have been some other place," he added.
He did not identify the "other place" to which he referred. However, his remarks were dismissed by both prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi as "hasty".
The investigators were intensely probing, the sources said, if at least one of the Mumbai attackers was of Bangladeshi origin.
A senior western diplomat confirmed the investigation and told Dawn that there was a strong possibility that one of the attackers was a Bangladeshi national.
The Mumbai attacks targeted two luxury hotels and other city landmarks in November last year.
A total 173 people died and hundreds of others were injured. One of the ten gunman survived the attacks and Islamabad later admitted he was a Pakistani citizen.
In January Pakistan bowed to international pressure and arrested 124 militants suspected of involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks.
The government said it had closed five training camps and 20 offices belonging to banned charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the outlawed Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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At least 12 policemen were injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a police station in Mangora on Thursday. Out of 12 injured, six are said to be in critical condition, sources said. According to sources, three rockets were also fired at the police station. On the other hand, the administration of Saidu Sharif Hospital has refused to send the ambulance to the blast place.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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Iran's president says world powers should learn how to speak the language of logic and to drop the language of threat and enticement. That makes sense. I guess.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
ISRAELI MILITARY FORUM > WSJ: GERMANY PROVIDING MASSIVE ASSISTANCE TO IRAN FOR A [nuclear] BOMB, and to a lessor extent AUSTRIA???
So you have a former Weather Underground member who now is pro-military, throwing shoes at the anti-military Socialist Mayor, in a protest that would fall under the "community of sanctuary" protection if the protester still was a member of the Weather Underground and protesting against the Iraq war. Only in Ithaca.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer today. The court said the cancer, which is one of the most lethal of diseases, was in its early stages. In a statement, the court said the cancer was discovered during a routine scan in late January. The scan revealed a small tumor, about 0.4 inches across, in the center of the pancreas. Ginsburg, 75, had experienced no symptoms before the discovery of the cancer, the court said.
She underwent surgery today at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She is expected to remain in the hospital for seven to 10 days.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama's "thoughts and prayers are with her and her family right now, and we hope for and wish her a speedy recovery right now."
Ginsburg, who was appointed to the court in 1993 by President Clinton, is a survivor of colon cancer and underwent months of radiation and chemotherapy treatments in 1999. She never missed a day on the court during her recovery.
Best wishes and hopes for a full recovery. Pancreatic cancer is always grim news.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/06/2009
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Justice Ginsburg undergoes surgery for pancreatic cancer
OF course the Demo'Krap Leadership will nominate a Supreme Court replacement that will meet and surpass every LEFT WING LITMUS TEST JOE STALIN DREAMED ABOUT. . (spit)
Our one and only faint hope is, is that whomever the LEFT-WING IDEOLOGUE is who is nominated will gradually CONVERT to SANITY while on the job.
It's just too G Damn bad that almost every LEFTY who haz ever been nominated for any office IS a dyed in the wool LEFT-WING IDEOLOGUE for life.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
02/06/2009 1:55
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#2
LEFT WING LITMUS TEST JOE STALIN DREAMED ABOUT
Now, that's just a bit unfair RD: Stalin killed more Socialists than anybody else in the World.
#3
Pancreatic cancer is grim news, but it seldom causes symptoms until quite advanced, and so is almost never discovered at only 0.4 inches. She could well be one of the rare lucky ones.
Controversial former ministers and lawmakers, dwindling organisational strength and alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami were responsible for BNP's rout in December 29 general election, observed the party's grassroots-level leaders yesterday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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Organizers of a university seminar say someone hurled a shoe at the Israeli ambassador to Sweden during a discussion about Israel's upcoming elections. It's getting pretty old now, isn't it?
It was not immediately clear if Ambassador Benjamin Dagan was hit in the attack at Stockholm University.
Organizers said Thursday a person in the crowd threw a shoe at Dagan at the seminar Wednesday night. Swedish radio reported a second person threw a book at the ambassador and that both attackers were detained by police.
Stockholm police could not immediately confirm the report and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
The incident echoed similar shoe-throwing attacks against former President George W. Bush in December and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
I've a closet full of old shoes belonging to wife & dau - perhaps some protesters would like to make bids? 50 cents to start?
#4
#3 A paintball? You're too kind, tw.
Posted by: Darrell
I'm not so sure, Darrell. Those paintballs can raise a nasty whelt. The paint doesn't wear off very easily, either. Just grab the marked shoe-throwers, and toss 'em in a cage of half-starved, badly-beaten, rabid Rottweilers. You know you've got the right person by the blue paint all over his face. The dogs will take care of the rest.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2009 13:06
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#5
That paintball idea is fine, he'll think again before trying this shit again.
(It could have just as easily been .40 Caliber Lead)
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/06/2009 13:07
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#6
Thank you for making my point better than I did, Rednek Jim. By the way, what happened to the c you used to have?
#8
Btw, the original shoe-throwing idiot had a cultural background to motivate him doing so... forget the whole "he thew a shoe because iraq is being crushed under the heel of the occupiers" thing, IIUC, judging for example from the falling of the saddam statue, or from shoes-throwing at US troops in demos turning into riots, arabs seem to believe hitting something with the sole of one's shoe is particularly insulting and demeaning. Shoes are UNCLEAN - shoes cooties!
So, all those copycats are actually copying without any idea about its meaning, a pretty generic yet culturally-specific arabic meme, because, well, it's BEEN DONE ON TEEVEE. Next thing you'll know, they'll be cursing moustaches.
#10
Thank you for making my point better than I did, Rednek Jim. By the way, what happened to the c you used to have?
I had an cookie vanish, and retyping had a typo, after looking at it a second I decided to let it stand, after all us Rednex kan't spel nohow.;-)
Posted by: Rednek Jim ||
02/06/2009 19:50
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#11
Before I went to Morocco in 1973 with the Navy, our cultural briefer told us that in Arab countries, the soles of the shoes were considered to be (and probably actually are) unclean because they are often covered with camel and other dung.
Even showing someone the soles of your shoes is considered an insult.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/06/2009 22:21
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The mandate of the UN commission that will probe the 2007 slaying of former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto will not exceed six months and will not extend to conducting a criminal investigation, according to a UN letter released Thursday. In a letter to the UN Security Council, UN chief Ban Ki-moon, said that after extensive discussions with Pakistani authorities and members of the Security Council, "it has been agreed that the international commission should be fact-finding in nature and that its mandate would be to determine the facts and circumstances of the assassination." "The duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination would remain with the Pakistani authorities," Ban''s letter said. The UN secretary general made the announcement on the independent panel Wednesday at a banquet hosted by President Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto''s widower, during his first visit to the Islamabad since taking office two years ago. Pakistan had called for a UN commission to probe the assassination of the two-time prime minister who was killed at a campaign rally, after her supporters were angered by conflicting accounts from the then-government of how she died. UN sources said the UN enquiry panel was likely to be headed by Chile''s UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#2
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > VARIOUS GLOBALRESAERCH.CA Articles > AMERICA'S PLAN FOR THE BREAKING UP OF PAKISTAN CITED IN US SENATE/US-BRITISH "SURGE" IN AFGHANISTAN IS ACTUALLY COVERT WAR AGZ PAKISTAN/ANGLO-AMERICAN AMBITION BEHIND THE DEATH AND ASSASSINATION OF PM BENAZIR BHUTO AND THE DESTABILIZATION OF PAKISTAN.
Artic(s) - USA supports and arms MULTIPLE, LOCAL PROXY "ARMIES/FORCES OF LIBERATION" AGZ LOCAL + REGIONAL SOVEREIGN GOVTS UNDER THE BROAD = SURREAL/SUBJECTIVE LABEL OF FIGHTING AQ + ISLAMIST ANTI-TERROR???
Thailand's opposition Puea Thai party has embarked on a new strategy to strengthen internal solidarity, appointing members of the Shinawatra family to lead members in each of the three regions where the party has influence.
An executive from the party told the Bangkok Post that the party wanted a Shinawatra family member to lead each of the three regions as a symbol of the party's close connections with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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(RIA Novosti) - Four militants were killed on Thursday in a special operation in the southern Russian republic of Daghestan, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said. "According to a recent update, four militants have been killed," the source said. "The last member of the criminal group was found injured in a shed near the house where the other militants were hiding. He died on the way to hospital."
The operation was completed by 18:00 Moscow time (15:00 GMT).
"No civilian casualties have been reported. Two Interior Ministry officers were slightly injured," the FSB said in a statement.
The antiterrorism operation was conducted in Leninkent, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the republic's capital of Makhachkala, in an effort to trace gunmen believed to be involved in terrorist attacks and attempts to kill Russian security officers.
Interior Ministry and FSB forces converged on the village around 6 a.m. (03:00 GMT) and by about 8:30 a.m. they had surrounded two private houses near a school. A militant threw a grenade, injuring one police officer, before being shot dead. Two other members of the group later opened gunfire, injuring another officer, and were killed when police returned fire.
Police later said they had identified all of the militants. One of the dead was Omar Sheikhulayev, known as the "Emir of Daghestan." Sheikhulayev, who was on an international wanted list, is believed to have been among terrorists who seized a school in the North Caucasus town of Beslan in 2004. The attack led to the deaths of 331 people, including 186 children.
The other three members of the group were also on the federal wanted list for attacks on police in Makhachkala.
"Sheikhulayev and his group are responsible for a number of serious crimes - in the past three months alone the group has killed five Interior Ministry officers, including the deputy head of the North Caucasus Military District, Maj. Gen [Valery] Lipinsky ", FSB said. Lipinsky was fatally injured in an attack on his car in Makhachkala in late December.
This article starring:
Omar Sheikhulayev
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
ION RUSSIA, WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD > RUSSIA TO FIRE UP IRANIAN REACTOR [by EOY 2009].
#2
"The last member of the criminal group was found injured in a shed near the house where the other militants were hiding. He died on the way to hospital."
Fancy somebody with a head wound surviving so long.
(IsraelNN.com) Moshe Avitan of Shvut Rachel in Samaria was very critically wounded by a terrorist bullet in his head 17 days ago -- and has returned to his daily Talmud class.
Moshe, father of five, spoke with Arutz-7's Uzi Baruch on Thursday and recounted what happened:
"We -- my wife and I -- drove out of Shvut Rachel southward towards Kokhav HaShachar. At one point, a car came close to us and passed us; he had no lights on, because we didn't see a thing. They opened fire at us, and the first shot hit me in the head.
"I immediately became blinded - but miraculously, I was able to stop the car on the side of the road, without overturning; my wife even thought I was able to see... My wife was afraid that the terrorists would come back and 'confirm the kill,' so she said we should run away; but I explained that I was in no condition to do that...
"So she got out to take over the driving, and I pushed myself over to the passenger seat. Then another miracle happened, because usually there is no reception in those areas, but she was able to call for help, and ask the emergency medical crew to meet us at Kokhav HaShachar...
Said Goodbye to Wife
"I realized how much blood there was, and I began to realize the situation -- so I said parting words to my wife, and I said Shma Yisrael [the prayer proclaiming the oneness of the G-d of Israel], and -- well, I prayed to G-d that if there is to be a miracle, then He should perform it. My wife drove, pressing on my wound and keeping contact with me, as they had told her over the phone to do, and we got to Kokhav. I was losing consciousness, then I remember the medics started treating me, and the next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital."
An incredulous Uzi Baruch asked, "What were you thinking at that moment when you seemed to think that you would not make it?"
All is Up to G-d
Avitan: "It's like, you realize that you have maybe another minute or two, and my wife is saying, 'Hold on, we have five daughters,' and the like, but really you understand that that's it, you're leaving this world. I really realized that everything is up to G-d; exactly that. You know that you are totally helpless and that you can do nothing at all. So I told Him, 'Do what You think.'"
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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The Sri Lankan government today offered an amnesty to Tamil Tiger rebels who surrender, but rejected international appeals for ceasefire talks and vowed to crush those who fight on. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake told parliament that some rebels were ready to lay down their arms as they face imminent defeat in their decades-long battle for an independent ethnic Tamil homeland. "It is a wise decision and we are ready to welcome them," Wickremanayake said.
The government, however, at the same time rejected international calls for negotiations to end the fighting, which has triggered global concern for the tens of thousands of civilians caught up in war.
The United States, European Union, Japan and Norway asked the rebels to lay down their arms and take part in a political dialogue to end Sri Lanka's vicious unrest which has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives since 1972. But Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse told the Island newspaper that "Nothing could be as ridiculous as this."
"Nothing short of unconditional surrender of arms and cadres could bring an end to the offensive," he said.
According to the newspaper, Rajapakse believes Tiger leaders must be "tried and hanged" but low level rebel cadres could be "rehabilitated".
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Oh yeah, a ceasefire. That would work great, with the Tigers on the ropes and all.
Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) coalition dominated the results of the local council elections in nine out of 14 Iraqi provinces, according to Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission.
"Dawlat al-Qanoon garnered 38% of the votes in Baghdad, 37% in Basra, 23.1% in Thi-Qar, 23.1% in al-Qadissiya, 15.3% in Wassit, 16.2% in Najaf, 17.7% in Missan, 10.9% in Muthanna and 12.5% in Babel," the IHEC said in a statement announcing the results of the provincial council elections on Thursday (Feb. 5).
"Maliki's coalition also ranked 3rd in Kabral with 8.5% of the votes, 5th in Diala with 5% and achieved insignificant results in the provinces of al-Anbar, Salah al-Din and Ninewa," the IHEC said.
The results should allow the coalition to enter into alliances to form provincial councils, which was expected based on the initial results announced by independent observers and organizations.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
"..according to Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission."
Dawlat qanoun dial zabbi!
You keep talking about independance of Iraq while US servicemen are still killing people there!
#2
Curiously, the Iraqis themselves think they are independent and even keep acting that way.
And here our silly Moroccan commenter asserts that the Iraqis are stupid and ignorant, unable to tell for themselves if they are free.
He should take his north African dialect of Arabic, polish it up for use in the Gulf and go tell this to the Iraqis themselves. The evidence is great that most of them would laugh scornfully at his childishness, as they have done in response to similar claims on many Arabic language websites.
#3
January:
191 Iraqis killed by terrorists.
29 terrorists killed. In the lowest death toll since five years, Iraq Defense, Interior and Health Ministries reported that a total of 191 Iraqis were killed including 140 civilians, 27 soldiers and 24 policemen due to violence marked in January 2009. Meanwhile, 300 civilians, 71 policemen and 35 soldiers were wounded.
On the other hand, Iraqi Forces and international coalition troops killed in one month 29 terrorists and arrested 482 others.
Details here.
It's a new day, but you're still full of crap, Midoman.
#4
Oh ouch, lotp. But perhaps Ms. Fiona stamboli is a friend of Mr. Midoman's, equally determined to demonstrate to us Westerners her knowledge and insight about the issues of the day... or is it the same IP address displayed by Mr. Midoman's computer? No worries; Ms. Stamboli clearly will take just as "not that long" as poor Mr. Midoman did. Hopefully she is clever enough to learn from the experience.
but please move quickly, the animals don't like the smell
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/06/2009 19:30
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#8
As if a nation can't be independent if a furrinner kills someone. I'm pretty sure the US was independent while a bunch of Saudis were killing 3,000 of us.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2009 19:36
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(IsraelNN.com) Brothers Yusef and Basel Abu-Tiya of the Mei Shiloach (Silwan) neighborhood of Jerusalem were arrested last month for taking part in violent anti-Israel riots during the Cast Lead operation in Gaza. On Thursday they were indicted by the Jerusalem District Court for a 2000 terrorist bombing.
The brothers, now 30 and 32, confessed to the 2000 bombing during their interrogation regarding the 2009 riot.
The bombing took place at the entrance to a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem and wounded three soldiers. The two alleged terrorists are accused of assembling the bomb and planting it near the cemetery, then setting a timer so the device would detonate as Israeli troops patrolled the area.
The two allegedly packed the bomb with the metal tips of nails and pesticide in order to increase the chance of causing death or serious injury.
The bomb exploded as a Border Police patrol passed by. The officers were wounded by the blast, and one required surgery.
Yusef and Basel have been charged with attempted murder, and Yusef has been charged with illegally obtaining and then selling a weapon as well.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I thought you weren't supposed to ask anything but name, rank and serial number. /s
Benjamin Netanyahu, widely tipped to become Israel's prime minister after next week's election, said on Thursday he would offer a top ministry to ultra-nationalist hawk Avigdor Lieberman if he takes office. Lieberman's party Yisrael Beitenu has emerged as a force in the February 10 election, tipped to become the third largest party in Parliament.
"When I become prime minister, I will reach out to Yisrael Beitenu and I will propose an important ministry to Avigdor Lieberman," Netanyahu told Army Radio.
"I intend to form a government by first of all reaching out to our traditional partners in the national camp, including Yisrael Beitenu," the hawkish politician said.
According to the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, Lieberman is seeking the defense portfolio but Netanyahu is unlikely to meet his demand.
The 50-year-old Lieberman is one of Israel's most controversial politicians whose extremist rhetoric about the nation's indigenous Palestian-Israeli population earns him regular charges of racism.
Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home) is projected to win up to 18 seats in Parliament to become the third-largest party, nudging out center-left Labor.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2009
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#1
So it is racist to want to expel "people"
whose sole aim in life is to kill you.
We sure would not bother with the expulsion part,
we would just kill them...double tap please!!!
Posted by: Ming the Merciless ||
02/06/2009 20:48
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A frequent cause of the human animal's capacity for self-deception is arrogance coupled with wishful thinking. When Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, said recently something to the effect that America could not afford the money or time to create some sort of Valhalla in the NWFP, if that was what was required to defeat the militancy there, he was deluded by arrogance. Does he think it can be done on the cheap, according to America's timetable? Probably it can't be done at all. Ignorance and misplaced arrogance are considered virtues in the NWFP. The locals don't take kindly to outsiders trying to tinker with their age-old culture. For that matter, they don't take kindly to insiders doing so.
Valhalla, in Norse mythology, is a great hall to which half of those who die in battle go and where they then live in peace. I doubt that Gates had read up on his Norse mythology. What he intended to say was that America could not afford to create an ideal land in the NWFP just to put an end to the militancy there. But what Mr Gates failed to realise is that, in the troubled areas of Pakistan, paradise is having something to eat, is not freezing to death, is not having one's family killed and injured, is not having one's home destroyed; in short, is not being terrorised. And Mr Gates seems to have overlooked the fact that this tragedy is a direct consequence of American foreign policy since 1977. Since the Americans made the dreadful mess, they should pay to have it cleaned up. What if we say we can't afford it, and the locals don't want the mess cleaned up, and we walk away from it?
Mr Gates should make up his mind whether or not the present American administration wants seriously to help defeat the militants. Killing them actually does defeat them. Ask Sri Lanka.
Successive US administrations have claimed that defeating the militants is vital for the security of the rest of the world, so presumably they should be deeply committed to that end. Pakistan can certainly not afford to do what is necessary alone. If the Americans really do want victory over the militants, then they must do whatever it takes. That would ideally involve killing the bad guyz where they're found, which would include Chitral and Miran Shah and even Quetta, if necessary.
Here is what I think is the minimum that must be done in order to defeat the militants: Oh, pray tell on...
-- The Americans should guarantee Pakistan against any first attack from India, so that the Pakistani Army can concentrate fully on the troubles on its western border. Let us count the number of times India has attacked Pakistain.
In 1947 Pak forces attacked and occupied approximately 33 percent of Kashmire and Jammu. This resulted in the local maharajah acceding his principality to India, the creation of the line of control, and Pak keeping Pak-occupied Kashmire.
In 1965, Pak forces tried to infiltrate Jammu and Kashmire. The Indians beat them up, taking their own lumps in the process, and the Treaty of Tashkent reestablished the status quo ante.
In 1971 Pakistain so oppressed its Bengali-speaking population in East Pakistain that they allied themselves with India in their liberation war.
And in 1999 the Paks tried swarming across the Line of Control and shelling Indian positions, initiating the Kargil War.
A quick analysis of these four wars reveals that 1.) in no case has India attacked Pakistain and 2.) in no case has Pakistain won.
-- The militants' sources of finance should be discovered and stopped. No insurgency can survive without a continuous supply of money. If, as many Pakistanis believe, a major source of funds is the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, then America must make India an offer they cannot refuse. Every time somebody goes "kaboom" in Pakistain the government whips out the "hidden hand" story. Within a day or two it comes out that it wasn't insidious (Subcontinental) foreigners, but Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is an al-Qaeda front, or one of its taste-alikes. When there's been an open-source money trace discussed, it's originated in the UAE or thereabouts -- let's just politely say "the Arabian peninsula." No doubt the masterminds at RAW are operating through Arab frontmen and disguising the money as the donations of The Faithful.
-- The resupply of arms must be stopped by whatever means it takes. I've always found that arms supply question really interesting. Afghanistan's a landlocked country and yet its southern third has more arms per square foot than anyplace in the world, with the exception of the western third of Pakistain. How does all that armament get in without anybody noticing? Once it's in, do Pashtun children file off all the serial numbers and other identifying data so that the hardware becomes untraceable?If I was still in the intel bidniz, which regrettably I'm not, I'd have a big map on the wall in my office with the paths of all those guns and ammo traced out in different colors, showing where they came from, when, and who paid for them -- and who waved them through customs.
-- Anyone who has studied guerrilla warfare will know that the single most powerful weapon that can be used against insurgents is inside knowledge, so the militants must be infiltrated. They are too smart and too closed a society to be infiltrated from outside, so their own people should be induced by whatever means it takes--one of which is money--to inform on their colleagues. We're doing that. Every once in awhile somebody's head's chopped off in one of the Wazoos.
-- Whatever information is gained from infiltration of the insurgents must not be allowed to leak back to the insurgents, which, given the supposed sympathy for militancy within the ISI, cannot be guaranteed except by setting up sealed cells within the intelligence services. Thank you, Captain Obvious. This is why ISI doesn't get advance notification of dronezaps or special operations raids.
-- A study of successful counter-insurgencies shows that conventional armies do not do well against insurgents. Depends on the situation. Lanka's doing just fine at the moment, thankew. The Ethiops did find against the Islamic Courts. The Northern Alliance did just fine against the Talibs. And the Russers, using an army of draftees with some fairly incompetent officers, did pretty well against the Chechens once they'd leveled most of Grozny (which is Russian for Terrible).
What is needed is undercover special forces who are as hard to detect as are the insurgents. Those'd be the hunter-killer teams I've talked about a time or two here. They have a definite place within a combined arms scenario.
The Pakistani Army has little experience in this type of warfare, ... and they don't do real well at the warfare they have experience with...
so they should find those who do and get them to train the Pakhtuns as a counter-insurgency guerrilla force. I think we're setting similar things up on the other side of the border, modeled on the Iraqi experience. However, they're not a cure-all. The Paks have lots of experience with tribal lashkars, which have become a running joke on the 'Burg. Going back to the Vietnam experience, there were village defense forces that did okay against Viet Cong, but which folded in the face of North Vietnamese regulars.
The trainers could be sympathetic Mujahideen who fought the Russians, Vietnamese who defeated the Americans, the mountain warfare sections of the British Marines and the British SAS, the Canadians, and so on. The sympathetic mujaheddin who fought the Russers were mostly the Northern Alliance. The "Vietnamese who defeated the Americans" are now pushing 60 and live in an entirely different climate and society. The Brits have done okay when their government hasn't put their feet in buckets, but that's happened in almost every operation they've been on. Basra's not going in the books next to Torres Vedras, by any means. And the Canucks, while fine soldiers, could really give a crap. What the writer's left out is the Americans, who're now possessed of the world's best military, bar none.
-- Chairman Mao, the great Chinese insurgent, said that guerrilla fighters are fish that swim in the sea of the people. Take away the cover of the people among whom they hide and they become fish out of water. Yeah, yeah. "The guerilla is the fish, the people are the sea, and the party's the hook." Got any other good quotes?
The only effective way to do this is to take back and secure, permanently against re-incursion, every village and town in which the insurgents seek cover, food, medical care and resupply. America's record in Vietnam for successfully doing this was bad; maybe the Pakistanis, especially well trained Pakhtuns, can do a better job because they are of the people. The Pakhtuns are the problem, not the solution. They're the ones chopping people's heads off. The bad boyz originate in the villages and towns -- they're not seeking cover there. The solution's not the cannon fodder, but the leadership, and the leadership appears to be sacrosanct. The Paks won't even take out an idiot like Mangal Bagh, which would decapitate Lashkar-e-Islami and relieve the pressure on Peshawar. Mullah Fazlullah drives around in a mobile FM transmitter, but no one's taken an RDF fix on him, followed by about 40 rounds of HE Frag. His father-in-law, Sufi Mohammad, hasn't met with an unfortunate accident since being released from jug. And despite having Mullah Omar's address in Quetta, there hasn't been one more unexplained explosion in that fair city.
Furthermore, with the number of Arabs and Chechens wandering around NWFP and FATA, it should be fairly easy to pick the Qaeda fish out of the Pashtun sea. They don't even speak the same languages fergawdsake. The Arabs are the ones with the gutterals, the Chechens and Uzbeks the guys with the cedillas. And the Uighurs are the short guys that look like Chinamen. Shoot them.
-- With villages and towns permanently secured, ... which means the head cheeses have been Swissed ...
the damage done by the army and militants can be undone, and people can return to nearly normal life Normal life in the NWFP is enough to make a strong but civilized man shudder...
in the sure knowledge that they will not be killed by the army or militants later. Putting guards on schools so as to lure back girl students is a hopeless idea unless the area is permanently secured. The smaller the area the easier this strategy should be. So start in the small villages and broadcast successes. Good idea. This will lure the turbans back like bees to honey...
The people of the towns and villages should also be armed and trained by Pakhtuns already armed and trained in counter-insurgency. They can form tribal lashkars or village defense councils...
Having broadcast the successful freeing of a village from militants, these guerrilla counter-insurgents should lie in wait for militants returning to take revenge on the newly freed village. Ah, yes. The old flypaper technique.
-- To guard against arrogant and indifferent abuses of power by the army, as many Pakhtun commanders as possible should lead the conventional army in the NWFP operations. Special operations should be largely made up of Pakhtuns from the areas in which they fight. You're making the assumption they're good at that sort of thing and that they're immune to arrogance and abuse of power.
-- Stop killing non-combatants in the areas affected by insurgency. Sounds good. What should you do about human shields, though? Seriously? If Paw's a head-chopping fishy in the great sea of the Pashtun people, and he bravely keeps Maw and the kiddies around him at all times for his safety, what're y'gonna do? Think fast now, 'cause he's planning on sending faceless minions to chop off your head.
The present curfew policy--shooting curfew-breakers on sight--is an obscenity. Are the curfew breakers armed? Then it's not.
Anyone who is not an insurgent and is willing to risk life by breaking the curfew is clearly in urgent need of help, which they should be given. But how do you know they're not insurgents? How do you know they're not myrmidons, skulking about and up to no good? How do yo know they're not coming to chop your head off?
The Punjabi dominated army should be reminded that it is their job to protect, not to kill, non-combatants. Oh. Yeah. That'll work. Why didn't we think of that before?
This is something the Americans have never understood, ... because Americans are dumb, unlike the writer...
for the simple reason that all the wars they have fought in the last 63 years have been in other people's countries, where they have shown indifference to the deaths and injuries they have inflicted upon the indigenous people. The Pakistani army often behaves as if the NWFP were a foreign country. But they're not good at killing people who speak languages other than native tongues. How much effort does it take for a Punjabi to pot an Arab, anyway?
-- Deprive the insurgents of their means of communication, both in military and in propaganda terms. Why the army has not jammed the militants' FM radio, or bombed it out of existence, is beyond me. Radio triangulation is not rocket science. I've mentioned that a time or two in the past, right in these pages. Neither is artillery rocket science. Unless you're firing rockets, of course.
-- Launch effective and honest information services (radio and television) to counter the propaganda put out by the insurgents, and to inform people isolated by war of what is going on around them (set up a Tribal Broadcasting Network). The holy men will then shut it down or take it over...
Set up communication systems so that people within range can call in rapid assistance teams (medical, military, food, information). The people whom the militants terrorise must have good reason not to feel abandoned by the government and the militants must know that their attacks on those people will cost them their lives. The supply of personnel to the militants will dry up if non-combatants feel safe and are not enraged by suffering they perceive to have been caused by the central government. You've got a multiple set of problems, Chuck, and you're trying to solve it as one. If you set the hunter-killer teams on the Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks (and any Avars, Huns, Goths or Gepids who're included in their number) then you're decapitating the bad guy network. The supply of militants includes places like Mosul and Jeddah, so it's not gonna be an overnight process, but if you make NWFP unhealthy for furriners, you'll kill the insurgency there. Coupled with that, you've got to cut off the supply of heavy armaments and trace them back to their points of origin, where terrible accidents should occur. And if you trace the money flow, no doubt "hackers" will be happy to divert all that cash to their own accounts. Pashtuns represent mostly cheap and easily replaced muscle, with the exception of people like Sami ul-Haq, who should have met with unfortunate accidents years ago. They're the middle men between the Arabs and their henchmen and the locals.
-- Within the secured areas, undertake intensive, effective, projects that will employ the people and make them self-sufficient. Almost universal literacy could be accomplished within a year at most (in Nicaragua, the Sandanistas changed 85 percent illiteracy to 5 percent in six months, though their population and area was larger). Set up clinics, schools, agricultural advice centres, technical colleges, markets and especially agencies whose job it is to listen to people's grievances and to seek honest solutions to their problems. Perhaps they should hire Sandinistas. The Paks aren't even competent to set up elementary schools throughout the country. People send their kids to madrassahs because they're free and (mostly) clean.
-- Address all the grievances of the local people with impartial courts and jirgas comprised of only trustworthy indigenous people and deprive the bullying intruders of all power and, if necessary, of their ill-gotten property too. Ohfergawdsake. The reason the locals are supportive of shariah courts in places like Swat is because the legal system is so riddled with corruption and incompetence they can't get anything resembling "justice." Cases drag on for years. You can murder somebody and unless somebody else files a FIR nothing will happen to you. "State vs. Mahmoud" doesn't appear to exist in Pak jurisprudence. It's all civil unless you're a big cheese -- and even then probably not. Witness how many people have been hung for killing Benazir.
In my view, these are the necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for a successful reversal in the NWFP of the present militant terror. Of course, if they were implemented, it would mean that the NWFP would become an area in which social justice would truly exist, for the first time in Pakistan. That would not be Valhalla, it would be a miracle.
The writer has degrees from the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He divides his time between the UK and Pakistan
Posted by: john frum ||
02/06/2009
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#1
AFGHANISTAN reportedly has 1.5Milyuhn Taliban of which 60% are foreigners [ e.g. PRO-TALIB IRAQIS], versus only 80,000 Afghan Govt troops at the moment [US hopes to raise to 134,000 by 2012].
IOW, YEAR 2012 > AFGHAN PRO-US NEW GOVT MAY STILL BE SHORT 1.3MILYUHN TROOPS JUST TO PAR WID THE LOCAL TALIBUNIES???
#3
-- The Americans should guarantee Pakistan against any first attack from India, so that the Pakistani Army can concentrate fully on the troubles on its western border.
No guarantee for India against terrorist attacks from Pakistan?
Posted by: john frum ||
02/06/2009 5:30
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#4
Just because Ferndale's 14 point boilerplate is working effectively for the Muslim domination of the UK does not necessarily mean it will work in Pakistan.
#6
What a hoser. The situation in Afghanistan is similar to the situation in Vietnam, because of the border with Pakistan. Until Pakistan is stable, Afghanistan cannot be stable. It is the Laos and Cambodia of Afghanistan.
W. Bush had a good idea, to make the Pakistani government strong enough to rule all of Pakistan, under Perv. But the reality was that Perv was far weaker than we imagined, and though Pakistan is far more unified than it once was, it is still a collection of enclaves.
Since the Pak army cannot muster the will to occupy and control the NWFP, the best possible thing would be for the Indian army to follow through with its offer to station a large number of personnel on the Afghan border. This would compel the Pak army to occupy the NWFP, and their presence alone would subdue much of the nonsense.
But other than holding down the fort in Afghanistan, and helping in redevelopment, the best thing the US can do is to severely undermine the leadership of the al-Qaeda and Taliban, which is what we are doing.
If I had my druthers, I would throw in a covert program to take out the instigators in Pakistan as well. Starting with the most radical, take out big batches of them and their lieutenants, in what amounts to a counter-terrorism program.
See how they like having a cement truck full of high explosives blown up in the middle of their Madrassa.
TWO communist guerrillas have been killed in a firefight with Philippine government forces in the Bicol region southeast of Manila, the military said on Thursday.
An army patrol clashed with around 10 gunmen from the New People's Army near Tabaco city on Wednesday, a military report said.
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Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin on Thursday called on the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) to exercise restraint in its issuance of fatwas. "I feel that the MUI doesn't know how to prioritize, issues like vote abstaining don't require a fatwa but, rather, a general encouragement for the public to participate in the general election," Syamsuddin told tempointeraktif.com. "That fatwa isn't based on sound judgment, and it's clear the MUI has erred in terms of legal priority," he added.
Syamsuddin, who is also the deputy chairman of MUI's central committee, reiterated that he had not been involved in the issuance of the Council's recent edicts. "The fatwa commission contained more members from the Nahdlatul Ulama," he explained, naming a dominant conservative Sunni Islam organization in Indonesia.
He urged the Council to issue edicts of real importance, such as the need for improvement of human resources, the urgency of fighting corruption by public officials and other more fundamental concerns.
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.
BOSTON (AP) -- Two Massachusetts lawmakers have filed legislation to bar new high-rise development that would cast midday shadows over a half dozen of Boston's public parks.
Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, urged Thailand on Thursday to welcome Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar. Thailand's treatment of the Rohingyas, an oppressed Muslim minority from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, has been widely condemned as evidence emerges that hundreds were rounded up by the Thai military and towed out to sea.
Islamabad High Court on Friday declared disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan a free citizen and abolished his house arrest. Chief Justice of the high court Sardar Muhammad Aslam while announcing a verdict on several petitions filed against house arrest of Dr AQ Khan declared him a free citizen and said that he is free to move across the country, Pakistan's The News said.
KABUL (AP) No one knows who brought the book to the mosque, or at least no one dares say.
NAIROBI, Kenya -- As U.S. Navy ships looked on, Somali pirates sped away Thursday with $3.2 million in ransom after releasing an arms-laden Ukrainian freighter -- ending a four-month standoff that focused world attention on piracy off Somalia's lawless coast.
BAGHDAD Voter turnout in Iraq's provincial elections Saturday was the lowest in the nation's short history as a new democracy despite a relative calm across the nation. Only about 7.5 million of more than 14 million registered voters went to the polls.
In a palatial house replete with guns, flags and other manifestations of tribal power, America's key ally in once-volatile Anbar province explained what he would do if the counting of votes in Saturday's election failed to show his party as the victor. 
North Korean officials have expressed their willingness to normalize relations between their country and the United States, a U.S. scholar who last month met them in North Korea said Wednesday. Selig Harrison, Asia Program director at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, made the revelation in a speech about his visit to the reclusive nation.
BAGHDAD | Results from weekend elections released Thursday showed broad backing for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Basra and in Shi'ite provinces of the south, but it remains unclear how other candidates will accept defeat.
(AKI) - The European parliament has endorsed President Barack Obama's decision to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and called on member states to accept detainees for resettlement.
The name-only newspapers received a huge chunk of public money allocated for publishing government advertisements and supplementary during the tenure of the last BNP-Jamaat alliance government. 
(RIA Novosti) - Four militants were killed on Thursday in a special operation in the southern Russian republic of Daghestan, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said. "According to a recent update, four militants have been killed," the source said. "The last member of the criminal group was found injured in a shed near the house where the other militants were hiding. He died on the way to hospital." 
TWO communist guerrillas have been killed in a firefight with Philippine government forces in the Bicol region southeast of Manila, the military said on Thursday.
