In a serious escalation of tension in Crimea, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest was kidnapped on Saturday.
Sources in Ukraine say Father Mykola Kvych, a pastor and a Ukrainian military chaplain, was abducted by pro-Russian forces after celebrating the liturgy. Reports Saturday evening suggest Father Kvych may have been released, but those reports have not yet been confirmed.
“Every abduction is a terrible event for everybody involved,” said Bishop Borys Gudziak, the Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy. “It’s a gross violation of human rights and God-given human dignity.” He expressed his grave concern about the repercussions of the kidnapping of Father Kvych.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests received oral and written threats warning them to leave Crimea. Many priests, however, have chosen to remain with their people.
The top Republican in the House said Americans should judge them not on how many laws they pass, but on how many they repeal. You got a quote or source for that, Champ, or are you prevaricating again?
The top Republican in the Senate said his top priority wasn't to create jobs or expand opportunity, but to beat me. Perhaps he did, but in what context, eh?
I want to work with Congress wherever I can to do the job the American people sent us here to do -- but it turns out Republicans and Democrats have some very different ideas about what that means. Indeed they do! The problem is, you think most of the American people sent you there to do what YOU want to do.
Let me level with you: The only way we're going to achieve our goals is by electing more Democrats in 2014. Level with me? How about this - you guys peaked in 2008 and all you could do was ram through a bill that everyone hates. You blew it, bud!
Add your name to help elect Democrats to a Congress we can all be proud of:
http://my.democrats.org/Join-Me
Thanks,
Barack Obama
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/15/2014
16:25 ||
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One proposal for US retaliation to punish Russia for its Ukraine actions is to send more US fighters into Poland. One proposal, fortunately rejected at least for now, was to send in nuclear weapons for the US fighters based there. One hopes that this was never taken seriously by anyone in command of those weapons. Younger readers will not recall, but when Khrushchev proposed much the same thing -- nuclear weapons into Cuba -- the result was that I was out in my back yard in Seattle filling bags with dirt to line the fallout shelter in the basement of my house in the Green Lake district. I cannot think that Putin would find the prospect of US nukes just across his border than Kennedy did when the Russians were sending them to Cuba.
Secretary Kerry continues to bluster about what Russia can and cannot do, as if that were up to us. That is not diplomacy as I understand it. Loud public threats are seldom effective between great powers, and are often not very useful when delivered from a great power to a client state. No one seems to see any similarity between Crimea and Texas.
[BOSTON] In his final address to Afghanistan's parliament Saturday, President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... told the United States its soldiers can leave at the end of the year because his military, which already protects 93 percent of the country, was ready to take over entirely.
He reiterated his stance that he would not sign a pact with the United States that would provide for a residual force of U.S. troops to remain behind after the final withdrawal, unless peace could first be established.
The Afghan president has come under heavy pressure to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, with a council of notables that he himself convened recommend that he sign the pact. The force would train and mentor Afghan troops, and some U.S. Special Forces would also be left behind to hunt down al-Qaeda.
All 10 candidates seeking the presidency in April 5 elections have said they would sign the security agreement. But Karzai himself does not appear to want his legacy to include a commitment to a longer foreign troop presence in his country.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
12:48 ||
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#1
As I understand it, before NATO arrived poppy production---Afghanistan's main source of income---was much lower.
#2
1. Pull ALL Americans and American equipment out (or sabotage the equipment so it won't work after a certain date), including embassy personnel. Suggest American civilians (if there are any) also leave.
2. Once all the Americans are out, send in planes with fighter escorts to spray ALL the poppy fields.
3. Hilarity ensues.
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/15/2014 14:59
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Barbara, to add to your list:
0. Pull Karzai's American security detail, including his escape plane
0.1 Hilarity ensues
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/15/2014 15:19
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#4
That's what Maliki thought. Of course, he had the Iranians...
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/15/2014 16:19
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#5
Good catch, Rambler. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/15/2014 16:56
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#6
Wonder if we could transplant some of those Nile Locusts over to their poppy fields?
Posted by: Charles ||
03/15/2014 17:54
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Two years ago, before she took the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination, Ms. Lerner was positively chatty in informal briefings with the committee staff.
She said emphatically that the IRS had not changed the criteria used to evaluate which organizations qualify for tax-exempt status. Tea Party groups had complained that their applications were being held in limbo while left-wing groups' applications sailed through easily.
The committee says that was Lie No. 1, citing the Treasury Department inspector general's documentation that Ms. Lerner ordered a change in criteria in June 2011.
When Tea Party groups angrily complained about IRS requests for information about their members, Ms. Lerner told investigators that it was "ordinary" for the IRS to ask such groups to provide a full list of the names of donors and how much they gave.
She put the assertion in writing in a letter to the committee. These were identified as Lie No. 2 and Lie No. 3. The IRS commissioner's chief of staff said this had never been done in the history of the agency. Strike Three, You're Out-a-here!
Ms. Lerner likely expected that "this, too, shall pass." Democrats repeatedly said that "there's no scandal here." Only a handful of reporters bothered to pursue the story.
#1
What dilemma? It was the warning of the Founders. Centralized powerful government believes you exit to serve it and its plans, not it to serve the people.
Their press is doing its job. Again we're confusing the 'press' with the means of communication long since OBE with wire and wireless. The institution hasn't been ours since the long march took over academia.
Islamic nations are again learning that the jihad is a volatile instrument of war that can easily backfire on those who preach it; that "holy war" is hardly limited to fighting and subjugating "infidels"--whether the West in general, Israel in particular, or the millions of non-Mohammedan minorities under Islam--but can also be used to fight "apostates," that is, Mohammedans accused of not being Islamic enough
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... since the Egyptian June 30 Revolution saw the ousting and subsequent banning of the Moslem Brüderbund, and ever since the Brotherhood's supporters--chief among them Qaradawi, through his Al Jazeera program--have been inciting violence in the region, especially in Egypt and Syria, the jihad is spinning out of control; and the Gulf monarchs know that, if not contained and directed, it can easily reach them.
For if jihadis are fighting fellow Mohammedans in Egypt and Syria--under the accusation that they are not "true" Mohammedans--what is to stop them from targeting the Gulf monarchies in the same context?
This is the great irony of Islam--one of the many balancing acts Mohammedan nations and leaders must live with. As Mohammedans, they must of course agree to the Islamic duty of jihad against enemies, real or imagined, and help promote it. In this sense, jihad can be a powerful and useful weapon. Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , for example, is not only a chief disseminator and supporter of the Salafi ideology most associated with jihad, but was forged in large measure by articulating and calling for holy war in the 19th-20th centuries, including against Turks and fellow Arab tribes (both Mohammedan).
The Saudi argument was, ironically, the same as the current argument made by the jihadi forces the Saudis are now trying to neutralize--that the Turks and Arab tribes were not "Islamic" enough.
Yet now it is the Moslem Brüderbund and its many allies who are accusing the Saudis of not being Islamic enough..
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] A Somali police officer says a suicide car bomber accidentally detonated his explosives near a popular hotel in the Somali capital. Capt. Mohamed Hussein said the bomber appeared to have prematurely detonated his explosives-laden car Saturday as he tried to park near a hotel. No others were hurt or killed in the blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
12:39 ||
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[Jihad Watch] Klingon director John Brennan is at it again--equivocating over the nature of jihad by evoking paradigms familiar to the West.
Last Tuesday, "during an event at the Council of Foreign Relations, Brennan was asked about the 'war of ideas' surrounding Islam, which the questioner said many Americans tend to equate with violence."
The Klingon chief responded by saying that al-Qaeda's ideology is "a perverse and very corrupt interpretation of the Crayon"; that "al-Qaeda has hijacked" Islam; that "they have really distorted the teachings of Mo."
Even so, "that ideology, that agenda of al-Qaeda," confirmed Brennan, "has gained resonance and following at the Agency, in Washington and many parts of the world." Agreement might certainly be found among the Richard Reid, Nidal Hasan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev crowd. No comments yet from Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens or his staff.
#1
What did the 'reestablishment' of the Caliphate have to do with "Injustices, Economics, and Ignorance"? They long for the submission of the world to their Word.
#3
I thought Senator Feinstein's recent row up with the agency was interesting. Evidently it's all gone away. Little more on it this week. She must have gotten her lollypop.
#4
Of course, Islamicism has NOTHING to do with it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/15/2014 13:15
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Perhaps Brennan bought into "it's a small precentage, maybe only 10% are militant". Too bad that's 120M raving lunatics, never mind the definition of 'ignorant islamists' approaches a Billion.
Posted by: Boss Lover of the Welsh8020 ||
03/15/2014 13:50
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Just come out and say it* John.
*None of it would be happening if it wasn't for evil Zionist entity etc.
#7
*None of it would be happening if it wasn't for evil Zionist entity
Sure, that's the cause du jour, but if the Juices all disappeared tomorrow, the Muslims would be back at each other's throats after a day of candy and gun sex Not to mention the ongoing Jihad vs Everyone.
#11
look at the teachings at saudi funded mosques worldwide to see what the problem is ie hatred of other religions something i was not taught as a youngster in my Roman Catholic days.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/15/2014 16:57
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The CIA has become politically subservient to the "Beltway" powers and the current regime (by extension). Thats the problem - they are more political and that prevents them from being capable of proper reporting (bias kills that), and effective practice covert operations (protecting the power structure undermines that).
This is an aberrant thought process that affects the leadership once they start believing their own bullshit, and are tucked comfortably inside their political bubble.
#2
The Saudi Gazette reported that a local inspection team, acting on a tip, confiscated approximately 300 pounds of persimmon that had Israel stickers.
Nineteen miles from the border, somebody is quite certain that the locals are not just willing, but eager for Israeli products. One wonders if the seller just hadn't got round to relabelling the stuff, or if that was -- very probably -- a selling point worth the risk of getting caught? I ask because the final sentence of the article is a bit of personal experience from the journalist:
When I worked at a kibbutz plastics factory years ago, we made sure that the product being shipped to Saudi Arabia was sent in a box marked “Made in Jordan.”
#3
When I worked at a kibbutz plastics factory years ago, we made sure that the product being shipped to Saudi Arabia was sent in a box marked "Made in Jordan." Posted by: trailing wife
Got to be a book or short story here somewhere :-)
ThereÂ’s a reason why only one out every thousand Americans can name all five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment And the poison been spreading around the world
#1
Sometime ago, George Will said "The Three Rs are now Racism, Recycling and Reproduction."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/15/2014 8:06
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..Stockholm Syndrome explains why most of the students who manage to graduate from a curricula parrot what they need to in order to get "good" grades. Parroting leads to internalization of the belief, and the cycle continues.
My empirical experience of late is that the elective "courses" available from our centralized education system, with rare exception, is a foundry of useless and cancerous groupthink..
#3
American educational system has been spinning out of control for decades - education is old school it isn't hip to be aware and a critical thinker, nah, you got to feel not think, accept the injustice mime of race, surrender yourself to gaia religion.
Look at the red dot and repeat after me
I am a servant, a follower of gaia, we are all brothers and sisters and I feel your pain.
#6
Too much of the professional educational establishment is caught up in their own lies. They claimed to be the 'professionals' and the only way to achieve knowledge and skills was through their tutelage. They thus acquired an inordinate amount of local and state tax revenues. However, as we all are witnesses to, they've fallen short on delivery of the quality they promised (you can keep your...). Some how back in the 60s, before tests and standards were dumb downed (as in yesterday's High School graduate diploma is today's BA), many kids did better. One of the key factors is the home. If the 'parents' don't give a care about education, then the kid generally won't succeed in the attainment of knowledge and skills. Given that there's nothing the 'professionals' can really do about reversing that big influence, they instead go for the soft and politically correct agenda over the basics. They've got to justify getting all those resources generated by all those people paying taxes, coerced by the power of government. Got to keep the game going. Throw in the dues-donation dependency between the unions and one political party, what's surprising? It's a racket. Farming the rubes.
Move reflects compromise between Sunni gov't, Shi'te Hezbollah fighters showing gov't support for Hezbollah to step up warfare, use weapons arsenal against Israel.
#1
What, your country isn't enough of a shambles? Now you want the Israelis to come and blow stuff up? Is there a Lebanese word for 'counter-battery fire'?
#2
A policy outcome resulting from the US Secretary of State and his 'no need for Israel recognition' statements. A policy others will no doubt, soon be rushing to embrace.
#6
With this feckless fumbler in the news daily, I'm beginning to wonder if he's actually a Democratic 2016 candidate back-up, or potential Hildebeast running mate.
[An Nahar] Russia has launched a criminal investigation into Ukrainian nationalist leader Oleg Tyagnybok for allegedly fighting Russian forces in Chechnya, the powerful Investigative Committee said Friday, in a largely symbolic move.
Tyagnybok, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the Svoboda (Freedom) party, is suspected of fighting "on the side of Chechen separatists from 1994 to 1995," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The agency, which investigates serious crime, named Tyagnybok as among a group of at least seven who are suspected of forming an "armed band" and taking part in attacks on Russians.
If they are convicted of being organizers of an armed band, they could face up to 15 years in prison.
"It is now becoming obvious that many radical Ukrainian activists calling for the destruction of Russian citizens and just (ethnic) Russians, have great experience not only in making calls but also in torturing and murdering Russian citizens, what's more on Russian soil," the Investigative Committee said.
The Investigative Committee said it suspected Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Pravy Sektor, or Right Sector, an ultra-nationalist movement, fought alongside Tyagnybok.
Last week, Russia said it was investigating Yarosh, whose supporters clashed with riot police at protests in Kiev, for allegedly inciting acts of "terror" in Russia.
Tyagnybok's biography on the party's website said he began serving as a local councilor in the western city of Lviv in 1994, aged 25.
The Kremlin waged a first war against separatist rebels in Chechnya in 1994-1996 and then a second in 1999.
The opening of such criminal cases seems to be aimed largely at discrediting Ukraine's new rulers in the eyes of Russians.
On February 21, Tyagnybok was one of the three opposition leaders to sign a deal with then-President Viktor Yanukovych aimed at ending the violence in Kiev.
He does not have a position in the new government but heads the party's faction in the Verkhovna Rada parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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#1
Two can play the lawfare game --- who'd guess it?
#5
Grom likes the jackboots, he preparedly posts so. Gtom you'd have fit right in with Soros and the SS boys, turning over Jews in order to be the one wearing the boots.
[MAGHAREBIA] Beautiful young women enter the popular "Miss Tunisia" pageant every year to win modelling contracts and other prizes. For promoters, the 2014 edition is also a chance to revive the country's troubled tourism sector.
Eighteen contestants, representing nearly all of Tunisia's governorates, will begin training on Saturday (March 15th) for the April 5th beauty pageant in Carthage.
"We have to send a clear message - to Tunisian men and women and the rest of world - that we're a life-loving people who seek to stop the intolerance and violence that has marred our daily lives in recent years," said Atf al-Marsani, one of the volunteer organisers.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[Dhaka Tribune] The government would take initiatives to ban Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... by June this year for the latter's involvement in crimes against humanity and massacre during the country's independence war, said Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq yesterday.
"There is no plan to ban religion-based political parties, but we have certainly a plan to impose ban on Jamaat's politics on the grounds that it committed crimes against humanity," he said.
"No matter what the final verdict comes, the Jamaat-e-Islami will be banned because of its war crimes. We hope to declare that by this June," Mozammel said in reply to a series of queries from journalists at a programme in the Dhaka University's central playground.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[MAGHAREBIA] Tunisian security forces apprehended eleven takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... st cell members in Monastir, Interior Ministry Spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui said on Thursday (March 13th). The suspects were jugged Please don't kill me! Wednesday in Menzel Nour on terrorism charges.
In other news, a court in Mateur gave controversial salafist imam Khamis Mejri a two-month suspended prison sentence for preaching at a mosque without permission, a judicial source told AFP Friday.
Mejri, who "is still being prosecuted in three separate cases", is due to appear in court on March 18th, said Mongi Boulares of the prosecutors' office in Bizerte.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] A United States surveillance drone has been intercepted above the Ukrainian region of Crimea, a Russian state arms and technology group said Friday.
"The drone was flying at about 4,000 meters (12,000 feet) and was virtually invisible from the ground. It was possible to break the link with U.S. operators with complex radio-electronic" technology, said Rostec in a statement.
The drone fell "almost intact into the hands of self-defense forces" added Rostec, which said it had manufactured the equipment used to down the aircraft, but did not specify who was operating it.
"Judging by its identification number, UAV MQ-5B belonged to the 66th American Reconnaissance Brigade, based in Bavaria," Rostec said on its website, which also carried a picture of what it said was the captured drone.
The photograph appeared to show an apparently armed drone in flight, rather than debris.
The Crimean port of Sevastopol is home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is believed to be equipped with detection equipment.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[An Nahar] Turkey warned on Friday that it would retaliate "in kind" if a historic memorial that it controls inside war-torn Syria comes under attack.
"Any kind of attack, be it from the regime or radical groups ... will face retaliation in kind and Turkey will take any measures to defend its homeland without any hesitation," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The Tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of Ottoman Empire founder Osman, is located in the province of Aleppo, the scene of major festivities between the Syrian government and several rebel groups.
The tomb sits 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Turkey-Syria border and remains Turkish territory under a 1921 treaty signed between Turkey and La Belle France, which was then the colonial power in Syria.
That agreement was renewed after Syria gained independence in 1936.
A Turkish flag flies over the tomb and a small garrison of around 25 troops is permanently stationed there, according to Turkish media reports. It is Turkey's only overseas territory.
The foreign minister's comments came after local media reported that Turkey had put its military on alert against any threat from jihadist groups to the tomb.
Davutoglu said the myrmidon Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was trying to take control of the area around the tomb, but said for now there was no direct threat to the Turkish enclave.
Nonetheless, the soldiers stationed at the tomb have been ordered to strike back against any attack, according to the Hurriyet newspaper.
"Turkey has the right to take any kind of measures for its security and stability," Davutoglu said.
"We hope that the security of our troops and territory there will not be infringed, but we are fully prepared for every possibility."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[An Nahar] A Mississippi farmer who made global headlines two weeks ago when he woke up in a body bag at a funeral home died on Thursday aged 78, local media said.
Walter "Snowball" Williams passed away in the early hours, the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in the state capital Jackson reported.
"Well, they came and got him again around 4:15 am," said Williams' nephew Eddie Hester, quoted by Jackson television station WAPT. "I think he's gone this time."
Williams, who entered a hospice in February because of congestive heart failure, was first pronounced dead on February 27 after nurses and a coroner detected no pulse.
He was transferred to a funeral home, only to start rustling inside a body bag -- prompting duly astonished staff to summon an ambulance to take him back to his hospice bed.
Williams, a father of 11 with six great-grandchildren, said he had merely fallen into a deep sleep, but family members felt God had given him extra time for a reason.
"You'd be surprised how many people this has touched in more ways than we can ever put our hands on," daughter Mary Williams told the Clarion-Ledger.
"This is a testimony that will live longer than we will."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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#1
I'd put off the burial for a little while, just in case...
#2
Makes me wonder, I've heard reports that many people exhumed bear signs of premature burial, In other words, scratching at the casket lid, I plan to be cremated, I DON'T plan to suffocate In my coffin.
Now to plan NOT to be burned alive?
I've instructed my daughter to BE SURE.
(In other words, cut off a finger or two, any blood, wait.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/15/2014 10:28
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#3
I've instructed my heirs to shoot my remains in the LaGrange 5 Garage. If they fail this minor damn request I swear to fuck to haunt their Porches wiring until the end of time.
#4
"you poke him...no, you do it. He's startin' to get gamey...no, he always smelled like that..."
Scenes played out at the local medical examiner's office.
There was one local worthy in Cut-and-Shoot, TX, that had this story play out TWICE. He was so funky nobody wanted to examine too close. He was finally done in by a UPS truck.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/15/2014 18:38
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#5
He can still vote right?
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
03/15/2014 18:58
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[An Nahar] Zim-bob-we's President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... on Friday vowed to crackdown on corruption involving high-profile officials at state institutions following recent damning exposures of graft, including at the national airline.
"If there was any corruption, people will answer for it, I tell you," Mugabe said at a belated party hosted by civil servants and security forces to celebrate his 90th birthday.
His warning came after media reports of alleged corruption involving bigwigs across a number of state-run bodies including the government pensions authority, power utilities and the national airline, Air Zim-bob-we.
"It has ruined the country," said Mugabe describing corruption as a "growing disease".
The media has also reported on grossly inflated salaries for bosses at the public broadcaster which failed to pay workers for more than six months.
And the CEO of a public service health insurance fund, which has been in arrears in its remittances to hospitals and practitioners, has reportedly been receiving a monthly salary of $230,000 (165,000 euros).
Mugabe also poked fun at the tensions in the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) saying the party's in-fighting was caused by their loss to his party in general elections last year.
"It's disorganized them as you can see," he said.
The MDC has been embroiled in squabbles following the suspension of deputy treasurer Elton Mangoma after he suggested Morgan Tsvangirai should step down as leader of the party following last year's defeat to Mugabe.
Mugabe, in power since 1980, turned 90 on February 21.
Birthday celebrations were held at a stadium in the small town of Marondera, east of the capital and attended by thousands of supporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[DAWN] A powerful kaboom killed at least 10 people and injured 35 other on Friday evening in Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province, police said.
Muhammad Jaffar, the Deputy Inspector General Police (Operations) said snuffies had planted kaboom inside a bicycle parked in the Science College Chowk area of Quetta.
He said the bomb went kaboom! when a local bus was passing through the spot.
Another police official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Dawn.com that target of the blast was a Frontier Corps' vehicle, which narrowly escaped the attack.
Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Quetta, Razaq Cheema confirmed that 10 people, including one security personnel, were killed in the blast. "Most of the victims are civilians," Cheema added.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[DAWN] AS people hoped for peace in the wake of a ceasefire announced by Taliban, a suicide kaboom on an armoured personnel carrier of police in a market near Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. and a powerful kaboom near a college in Quetta left at least 19 people dead and 60 others injured on Friday. The attacks dealt a fresh blow to the process initiated by the government for talks with the bully boys. The TTP distanced itself from the terrorist attacks but an increasingly active Taliban splinter group, Ahrarul Hind, grabbed credit for both the dastardly incidents. The attacks took place on the day a negotiating team nominated by the Taliban reported that TTP leaders had agreed to meet the government's representatives to present their demands.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[An Nahar] Iran's ambassador, Ghazanfar Roknabadi, said Friday that he delivered a letter to Lebanese authorities protesting a recent statement made by Interior Minister Nuhad al-Mashnouq against Tehran.
The diplomat told news hounds after meeting Premier Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail that the official letter of protest was made over al-Mashnouq's remarks against Tehran's regime at the meeting of Arab Interior Ministers in Morocco.
"PM Salam confirmed to me that his (al-Mashnouq's) stance against the Islamic Theocratic Republic does not express the position of the Lebanese government," Roknabadi said.
Salam stressed that he is keen on "the best of ties" with Iran, he added.
A Baabda Palace statement said that Roknabadi also briefed President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... on the content of the letter that he delivered to the foreign ministry.
The statement quoted Suleiman as telling the diplomat that Leb stressed mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries.
In his speech at the 31st Arab Interior Ministers conference held in Marrakesh on Wednesday, al-Mashnouq blamed Iran for the rise of terrorist activities in Leb.
"Despite the strong capabilities of the army and security forces, we have failed to" confront terrorism militarily, he said.
"The phenomenon of violence has its political and strategic reasons, resulting from the interference of Iran and Syria in Leb's internal affairs in the past three decades and more," he said.
"The bloodshed in Syria and Leb rose because the Syrian regime is confronting a rebellion and Iran is facing major fateful challenges," the minister added.
He also blamed Iran for the violence in Arab countries.
"The major part of this violence in several Arab states, including Leb, is the result of the unstable ties with Iran," he said.
"This should compel politicians, foreign ministers, leaders of major parties and heads of state ... to confront the challenge," al-Mashnouq added.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[An Nahar] A Pak teenager died Friday after setting herself on fire after a court dropped charges against four men accused of raping her, police said.
The incident occurred in Muzaffargarh district of Punjab province, where the horrific 2002 gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, an illiterate women, made headlines around the world.
Amina Bibi, aged 18 according to police, doused herself with petrol and set herself alight on Thursday in front of a cop shoppe in the village of Beet Meer Hazar.
Pak news channels aired horrifying footage showing the self-immolation and desperate attempts by onlookers to put the flames out.
She was taken to a nearby government-run hospital where the doctors tried to save her but succumbed to her injuries early on Friday, police said.
She was allegedly assaulted by four men, including a family member, in early January and reported the incident to police.
But a local court in Muzaffargarh dropped the case on Thursday following a police report which said she had not been raped, prompting Bibi to take the desperate measure.
"Nadir, the main accused in the case was a relative of the victim and they had a family dispute," senior local police official Chaudhry Asghar Ali told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The case was investigated twice and Sherlocks discovered that the victim had not been raped."
Pakistain's Supreme Court on Friday demanded an explanation for the incident, ordering the provincial police chief and district police chief to appear in the court in person.
The court ordered police to file a written report explaining how the case was investigated and why the accused men were cleared.
The Punjab police chief's spokeswoman said an investigation team had been sent to the area to investigate.
"We have sent an inquiry team to the area and have suspended the police officials who were investigating the case", Nabeela Ghazanfar, spokeswomen of the Punjab police chief told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistain demanded the government take steps to ensure rapists are brought to justice.
"Her sacrifice has exposed the ordeals that rape victims in the country face when they try to bring their tormentors to justice," the group said.
"It is common knowledge that only the courageous rape victims in Pakistain take the matter to the police or court."
Physical and sexual violence against women are widespread in Pakistain, a deeply conservative, patriarchal Mohammedan country.
One of Pakistain's most infamous sex crimes against women, Mukhtar Mai's 2002 rape and survival transformed her into an international rights icon.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[An Nahar] Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... leader Samir Geagea ... Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005 ... stressed during a rally marking the ninth anniversary of the March 14 "Independence Uprising" on Friday that "any resistance outside state's authority" is "illegitimate," calling on his coalition to endorse a "strong" March 14 presidential nominee even if there are "several candidates."
"The previous and current experiences of the Lebanese with Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... and its allies have proven that they do not have any consideration for the Lebanese state and the future of the Lebanese and their security, neither for their own commitments and pledges," Geagea said via video link from Maarab, addressing the rally that was held at the BIEL exhibition center in Beirut.
And as he noted that Hizbullah and its allies "closed the doors of discussions over the policy statement ... from the very first moment, when they rejected any debate over their arms and declared the death of the Baabda Declaration," Geagea underlined that "any resistance outside the state's authority, decision and arms is illegitimate."
"Hizbullah cannot go fight the Syrians then try to convince the Lebanese that the Syrians were going to attack them anyway under the pretext of the presence of takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... s," Geagea said.
"Does Hizbullah understand the threat this involvement poses to the existence of the Lebanese entity itself? Should what was written in Iran be carefully implemented even if that was at Leb's expense?" Geagea asked.
"Hizbullah did not consult the Lebanese when it got involved in Syria but its acts make them bear the consequences of this involvement. Hizbullah cannot continue its involvement and then ask the Lebanese to form 'Sahwa' gangs to defend it," he stressed.
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03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[Dhaka Tribune] The two leaders of the banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who beat feet from a prison van while being transferred have slipped out of the country immediately through the border in northern region.
Intelligence officials of the Detective Branch of police have said they have reached the suspicion after analysing information gleaned from the tossed in the clink Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! faceless myrmidons involved with the daring escape of three JMB leaders.
The DB officials also say they have information that the JMB has a strong hold in the West Bengal, India, where the two faceless myrmidons -- Salauddin alias Salehin alias Sajeeb and Zahidul Islam alias "Boma" Mizan -- remain holed up.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the DB, yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune: "We suspect that JMB leaders Salehin and Mizan illegally crossed the border as per their plan along with their guide Faruk.
"We have scrutinised some information and clues extracted from the interrogation of JMB activists arrested soon after the incident, and also the laptops, computers and diaries seized from those JMB cadres."
Shafiqul Islam, deputy inspector general (crime) of police, said the faceless myrmidons had used the Mymensingh-Gazipur-Tangail road to reach the North Bengal region.
In reply to a query, he said the investigation into the incident of snatching of three JMB leaders was on but the information they put out could be considered as the conclusion on the escape of the myrmidons.
On February 23, a gang of JMB activists snatched top three JMB leaders Salehin, Mizan and Rakib from Trishal of Mymensingh from a prison van during transport from Kashimpur Jail in Gazipur. The JMB men also killed a police constable.
One of the runaway JMB men, Rakib, was recaptured by police and was killed in a "shootout" with police the next day.
The intelligence officials are now investigating the funding of the outfit. The officials said the JMB had not only link with West Bengal but also with several countries of the Middle East and Europe.
The West Bengal chapter of the JMB developed its base in Murshidabad, Maldah and Nadia districts during the stint of the 18-party alliance government.
JMB leader Sohel Mahfuz is leading the outfit in those districts. Intelligence officials came to learn about it in 2010 after the arrest of JMB leader Saidur Rahman.
JMB founder Abdur Rahman in a statement in 2006 mentioned the West Bengal chapter, saying West Bengal was the 65th branch of the myrmidon outfit.
Sources say that JMB leaders are involved in fake Indian currency business in West Bengal.
The intelligence officials identified two persons who had funded the myrmidons' escape from the prison van in Trishal. They are Mohammad Rahath and Azmir Sharif.
Officials at the Criminal Investigation Department have already tracked down their mobile phones and found several phone calls made to West Bengal and other parts of India.
Ashraful Islam, superintendent of police of a CID special team, said they were investigating the cases with the help of the Rapid Action Battalion and police.
He said they had also got some important clues about the JMB's activities but denied to divulge any of it in the interest of investigation.
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!... police arrested two more JMB leaders -- Alamin, 25, and Tito, 28 -- from Trishal's Saudkandi area on Thursday for their alleged involvement in snatching the three JMB leaders.
Majedur Rahman, officer-in-charge of the DB in Mymensingh, said detectives from Mymensingh and Dhaka had conducted drives in different places of Bhaluka to arrest the two JMB leaders.
They were now in jug of the DB police in Dhaka, he said.
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
[Egypt Independent] Dozens of Saudi Islamist hard boyz have left the battlefields of Syria and Iraq for Yemen, where their experience appears to have contributed to a spate of lethal al Qaeda attacks, a senior Yemeni security official said.
The influx detected in the last few months is worrying for Yemen, a turbulent country where several hundred Saudi hard boyz are already thought to be fighting alongside their Yemeni counterparts in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The initial core of Saudis fled to Yemen after the kingdom defeated a violent al Qaeda campaign between 2003 and 2006, helping to create AQAP with their Yemeni comrades in 2009.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
#1
Saudis love looking for jihad/early death.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/15/2014 6:08
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#2
It is not like you can get a job as a "prince" that easy.
Posted by: Steven ||
03/15/2014 18:54
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[An Nahar] The Lebanese army heavily deployed on Friday in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... as intermittent gunfire injure three people, including a soldier, in the area a day after festivities erupted between rival neighborhoods.
The state-run National News Agency reported that the army fortified its posts and deployed heavily in various areas in Tripoli, in particular, in Syria street that separates the rival districts of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.
The NNA said that sporadic sniper gunfire injured Fouad al-Saytari and Walid Daher in al-Qobbeh square.
Voice of Leb radio (100.5) reported that soldier Rony Haddad was also maimed.
LBCI reported that another soldier was injured by sniper fire.
Arab Democratic Party media official Abdul Latif Saleh told LBCI that the party announced ceasefire and kicked off negotiations with the families of the victims who were killed in Tripoli's twin blasts in August to restore calm in the city.
The army later on blocked the Abou Ali roundabout -- al-Mallouleh highway and al-Beddawi, keeping the sea road open for traffic.
Media reports said that the military also placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! four gunnies, including a Syrian national, in al-Qobbeh area.
Until Friday, at least three people were killed and 36 others injured in the festivities that broke out a day before, the NNA reported.
"We reject attempts to spread violence in the city," al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... bloc MP Mohammed Kabbara told news hounds after a meeting for Tripoli figures at his house.
He stressed that "suspects don't have any political cover," demanding "the state to arrest those who are involved in city's the security incidents."
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03/15/2014
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Top|| File under:
...what did they heave? Pies? Manhole covers? Grenades?...
causing casualties broke out last night in Yaaqshiid and Heliwaa districts of Benadir regionÂ’s Mogadishu.
These intense clashes erupted after Al-Shabaab fighters ambushed a military base belonging to AMISOM in both of the districts. Some of the places where the fighting took place include ex-Perfume Factory in Heliwaa districts although number of casualties have not been specified yet.
Mogadishu had a perfume factory?
On the other hand, bombs were thrown last night in the ‘Khat Garden’ of the Hodan district where Somali Government soldiers were stationed and it was confirmed that 5 officers were injured in the attack.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
They HAD a perfume factory, but somehow their fragrance line of BO & garbage never caught on.
#2
Heaving bosoms and batting their eyes,
Damsels peek out at battling guys.
Perfume's too alcoholic,
So the plant (this is comic!)
Now makes candy, which draws 'em like flies.
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... has criticized Israel's insistence that the Paleostinians publicly declare Israel to be a Jewish state.
Kerry said Thursday that recognition had already been made in U.N. resolutions and by the late Paleostinian president Yasser Arafat and it is a mistake for Israel to keep insisting on it as the two sides work towards a two-state peace agreement.
"'Jewish state' was resolved in 1947 in (U.N.) Resolution 181 where there are more than 40-- 30 mentions of 'Jewish state,'" Kerry testified at a Congressional hearing.
"In addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of mentions," he added.
"I think it's a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state and peace, and we've obviously made that clear," Kerry said in a session of testimony on the State Department budget.
Israeli public radio on Friday broadcast Kerry's comments, followed by what it said was a recording of Arafat commenting on a 1988 decision by the Paleostinian National Council, the Paleostine Liberation Organization's parliament-in-exile at the time.
"The PNC had accepted two states, a Paleostine state and Jewish state," Arafat says in English.
There was no official Israeli response to Kerry's comments, but the radio quoted an unidentified political source as saying that it was "easier for the Americans to pressure Israel to give up on the demand for recognition of a Jewish state than to deal with the Paleostinians."
Israel and the Paleostinians have been locked in talks that Kerry fought hard to kick-start in July after a three-year hiatus, but the negotiations have faltered over key issues.
After a meeting chaired by Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... on Wednesday, the PLO Executive Committee blasted "attempts to extract recognition of the Jewishness of the State of Israel in order to erase Paleostinian history and rights in one sentence."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
Of course the 'Paleostinians' didn't even exist in 1947 so I don't think they feel that they are bound by any U.N. Resolutions.
And in case Frenchie-boy didn't notice. Arafat, the old murderer, is dead. It doesn't matter what he said back then.
#4
so if it's already accepted by Arafat, the current Paleos should have no issue with it, right, Jahn? Those pesky Juice self-protection instincts keep interfering with his Nobel Prize
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2014 10:19
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#5
Kerry - His LEGACY is to make Retarded people look like geniuses compared to US Sec of States.
#8
There's a young Senator from New Jersey. Although given all the holes in his story I wouldn't think Booker would get far. Obama had the presence of mind to at least HIDE his past.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/15/2014 17:57
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[Dhaka Tribune] Malaysian authorities yesterday said there was no evidence that a jetliner missing for almost six days flew for hours after losing contact with air traffic controllers and continued to transmit technical data.
The Wall Street Journal said US aviation Sherlocks and national security officials believed the Boeing 777 flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from its Rolls-Royce Trent engines as part of a standard monitoring programme.
"Those reports are inaccurate," Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told a news conference. "As far as both Rolls-Royce and Boeing are concerned, those reports are inaccurate. The last (data) transmission from the aircraft was at 1:07am (local time) which indicated that everything was normal." Boeing and Rolls-Royce have yet to comment.
Rooters has previously reported that the plane's transmission of the so-called ACARS technical data ceased after it lost contact with air traffic control.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, with 239 people on board, dropped off air traffic control screens at about 1:30am on Saturday, less than an hour into a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were no reports of bad weather or mechanical problems.
It is one of the most baffling mysteries in the history of modern aviation - there has been no trace of the plane since nor any sign of wreckage despite a search by the navies and military aircraft of over a dozen countries across Southeast Asia.
"It's extraordinary that with all the (satellite and telecommunication) technology that we have got that an aircraft can disappear like this," Tony Tyler, the head of the International Air Transport Association that links over 90% of the world's airlines, told news hounds in London.
"It will trigger a desire to see how can we avoid this from happening again... I would not be surprised that the technology did not exist already but is not being used."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under:
#2
Is anyone else getting an ever-stronger impression that Malaysia has been holding back data / evidence of what happened? Sure looks like that from here.
#4
I'm watching Malaysian PM on live TV admitting someone took the missing plane west, although just where is not known from available data.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/special-live-1-14476486
When does "improvised itinerary" join "man-made catastrophe" and "workplace violence" in the euphemisticon of the professional political weasel-word class?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/15/2014 9:39
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#7
So.. When does ... China ... MAKE .. Malaysia ... it's .. B I T C H ?
#13
In a stinging commentary on Saturday, the Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency said the Malaysian information was “painfully belated,” resulting in wasted efforts and straining the nerves of relatives.
“Given today’s technology, the delay smacks of either dereliction of duty or reluctance to share information in a full and timely manner,” Xinhua said. “That would be intolerable.”
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140315/NATION/303150027#ixzz2w5TB5ZYe
[An Nahar] Around 1,000 people demonstrated Friday near the Israeli embassy in Amman to protest the killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers, demanding a peace deal between the countries be annulled.
Israeli troops shot 38-year-old Raed Zeiter, a Paleostinian-Jordanian, at a border crossing on Monday, saying he attacked them and igniting a diplomatic row between Israel and Jordan.
Opposition Islamists, youth groups, leftists and nationalists took part in the demonstration that started after Friday prayers in Kaluti mosque, near the Israeli embassy in the Rabia neighborhood in West Amman.
Amid tight security, protesters waved Jordanian flags and banners reading "the people want to cancel the (1994) peace treaty," and "shut down the Zionist entity's embassy and kick the ambassador out for the sake of the martyr's blood."
"Zeiter you are a martyr and our rulers are slaves. We will not forget you," demonstrators chanted.
They tried to approach the Israeli embassy, but police prevented them.
On Wednesday, the lower house of Jordan's parliament, incensed by Zeiter's killing, demanded in a non-binding resolution the government free Jordanian soldier Ahmad Dakamseh, who was placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! after he opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls in 1997, killing seven.
Lawmakers have also demanded the government expel the Israeli envoy in Amman and recall the Jordanian ambassador in Israel.
It gave the government until Tuesday to meet its demands, threatening a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur if he failed to meet the deadline.
Nsur has held Israel "completely responsible" for Zeiter's death and demanded an apology for the "hideous" killing.
Israel has expressed regret for the shooting but stopped short of apologizing to Jordan, which is the only Arab country besides Egypt to have made peace with the Jewish state.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under:
#1
consider the rabble "roused"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2014 10:17
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[An Nahar] Thousands of Zaidi Iranian catspaws marched through a picturesque provincial capital in northern Yemen on Friday to demand the resignation of the central government, which they accused of corruption, witnesses said.
With many toting assault rifles and accompanied by vehicles mounted with rocket launchers, they chanted "down with the corrupt government," as they paraded on the streets of Omran.
They were closely watched by a large number of troops and security forces, backed up by tanks and other armored vehicles.
They also demanded the sacking of provincial governor Mohammed Hassan Dammaj, a member of the Al-Islah party, an alliance of Zaidi tribal notables and Sunni Islamists, as well as of General Hamid al-Qushaiby, commander of the army's 310th Armoured Brigade.
Last month, President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and party leaders in Sanaa agreed to transform the restive country into a six-region federation as part of a political transition.
The rebels, who complain that Yemen would be divided into rich and poor regions under the plan, have been trying to enlarge their zone of influence by pushing out from their mountain strongholds in the far north to areas closer to the capital.
In early February, they seized areas in Omran province, leaving more than 150 people dead and overrunning the home base of the Al-Ahmar clan, traditional leaders of the powerful Hashid tribal confederation and of the Islah party.
Military sources said their objective is to seize Omran city and, from there, lay siege to Sanaa.
Ironically, an army officer in Omran told AFP Friday that the rebels had been allowed in to the city to demonstrate after giving assurances that there would be no violence.
Friday's demonstration, which passed off peacefully, came a day after six rebels and two soldiers were killed in a firefight near Sanaa, as the rebels pressed southward.
That exchange came after days of festivities between the rebels, known as Ansarullah (Partisans of God), and rustics loyal to the Al-Ahmar clan, in which at least 22 people have been reported killed since the weekend.
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Top|| File under: Houthis
[An Nahar] Bombings in and around Storied Baghdad on Friday, including blasts near two markets, killed seven people, the latest in a year-long surge in violence that authorities have failed to quell.
The bloodshed, at its highest level since 2008, came a day after a suicide boom-mobile went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy in the western town of Rawa, killing 15 people, including women and kiddies.
The unrest, which comes barely six weeks before parliamentary elections, is driven principally by widespread discontent among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighboring Syria.
A boom-mobile Friday at a market in Storied Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shuala killed three people, while another blast near a market in Rashid left one dead, security and medical officials said.
Bombings in Taji and Tarmiyah, just north of the capital, killed three others, including two soldiers.
On Thursday evening, a suicide boom-mobile that went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy killed 15 people and maimed 17 others in the town of Rawa, in the Sunni desert province of Anbar.
Anbar has been roiled in recent months by unrest that has seen anti-government fighters take control of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids... a city on Storied Baghdad's doorstep, as well as shifting areas of placid provincial capital Ramadi.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] A Tunisian court has given a controversial hardline Salafist a three-month suspended prison sentence for preaching at a mosque without permission, a judicial source said Friday.
The ruling comes as authorities seek to regain control of certain mosques they say have fallen under the influence of radical Islamists.
The district court in Mateur, in northern Bizerte province, "gave Khamis Mejri a three-month suspended jail sentence, and he is still being prosecuted in three separate cases," said Mongi Boulares, front man for the public prosecutor in Bizerte.
Khamis Mejri, who does not hide his admiration for slain al-Qaeda criminal mastermindthe late Osama bin Laden ... who has left the building... , is due to appear at a court in Bizerte on March 18, he added.
Known for his controversial appearances on television, Mejri was jugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! Tuesday after preaching without authorization.
A 1988 law bans "any activity in mosques, in the form of speeches, meetings or writings, by people not belonging to the institution that oversees their work, unless authorized by the prime minister."
The ministry of religious affairs announced on Monday that it had decided to fix the opening hours of mosques in Tunisia, to prevent them from "being used for reasons that are at odds with their religious nature."
According to senior ministry official Abdessattar Badr, around 150 of Tunisia's 5,100 mosques are outside the state's control, including some 50 under the influence of radical imams, or prayer leaders. Others say the real number is higher.
Some fear that the intention behind the authorities' decision to tighten their control of mosques is to silence dissent on the pretext of combating terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Salafists
[DAWN] Taliban negotiators on Friday said the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) leadership was ready to hold direct talks with the Pakistain government and condemned today's terrorist incidents in Quetta and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. calling them a conspiracy being hatched to derail the grinding of the peace processor, DawnNews reported.
At least 19 people were killed and more than 80 others injured in two separate incidents of terrorism in the capitals of Balochistan Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Paris Hilton unveiled her first real estate project Thursday in metropolitan Manila and said she wants to follow in the footsteps of her great-grandfather and grandfather, who created and led a luxury hotel empire. She's still around, huh?
Hilton inaugurated the urban Gay Paree Beach Club, which she designed in collaboration with Philippine developer Century Properties. The bean-shaped, three-story club fronting a man-made beach is within the resort-themed Azure condominium community in Paranaque City.
The 33-year-old businesswoman has acted in television and films and worked on perfumes and other projects, but she said the new project is just a start to more property ventures.
"This is probably the one project I'm most proud about because real estate is something that runs in my blood," Hilton said.
She told news hounds that ever since she was a little girl she had looked up to her great-grandfather and grandfather and she had "incredible mentors." Conrad Hilton bought his first hotel in Texas in 1919, and his son, Barron Hilton, later led the family business.
"So I always really admired them and want to follow their footsteps," Hilton added. "This is my first step towards it and I'm so proud and honored to be doing this with Century Properties."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under:
#1
I thought videomaking in low-light conditions was the something that ran in her blood.
[An Nahar] Turkish prosecutors have completed a first batch of indictments in a graft scandal that has rocked the 11-year rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet... , overcoming intense pressure from his conservative government, local media reported Friday.
Mustafa Demir, the mayor of Istanbul's Fatih district, a stronghold of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), is among 21 people in the indictment, the reports said, without naming the others.
They were among dozens of key allies of the prime minister, including the sons of three cabinet ministers, who were detained in police raids in December when the corruption scandal first erupted. The ministers have since resigned.
Prosecutor Ekrem Aydiner has completed the first tranche of allegations, which will now be sent to the courts for formal approval, the private Dogan news agency reported.
The indictments accuse the 21 of "bribery", "forgery" and "violating a law on the conservation of cultural and natural property", Dogan said.
The graft probe has become one of the biggest challenges facing Erdogan and his AKP, and comes ahead of pivotal municipal elections on March 30.
Violent protests against what rights groups claim are heavy-handed police tactics against demonstrators have also piled pressure on Erdogan's administration.
Riots erupted Wednesday that left at least two people dead as tens of thousands turned out to mourn the death of a teenage boy who was hurt during violent festivities with police last year.
Also Friday, parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek said the body would hold an emergency meeting next Wednesday on the corruption allegations at the request of the opposition at a time when campaigning for the municipal polls is in full swing.
Parliament is currently in recess in the run-up to the polls, the first since the corruption scandal erupted.
The scandal has widened to implicate Erdogan himself, after recordings were leaked in which the prime minister could allegedly be heard discussing hiding large sums of cash and conspiring to extort a bribe from a business associate.
Erdogan has retaliated by sacking hundreds of police and prosecutors believed to be linked to a former ally turned arch-rival, U.S.-based Moslemholy man Fethullah Gulen.
The prime minister says Gulen is using his influence over the police and the judiciary to destabilize the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Hell, I thought we were talking Butterball here.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/15/2014 18:32
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[DAWN] "It was one of the most saddening experiences when I saw her lying on the hospital bed, most of her body burnt," says Mukhtaran Mai, in an interview with Dawn. Her voice thickens with tears but she swallows them back.
'A' was a student of first year and a resident of Meerwala as is Mukhtaran. After she had filed the FIR, she found out that one of her 'rapists' were set free on bail. Mukhtaran alleges the investigating officer was bought for Rs70,000.
"She first came to me two days after the incident, asking for help. I offered her shelter at my home for survivors of sexual harassment but she refused the offer, saying she wanted to stay with her family.
My team and I were with her throughout but after learning what the police had done, she was shocked."
Mukhtaran said her team's psychologist kept explaining to her not to lose heart because these things took time and that the case was yet to go to court. But like many other young women who are left confused, depressed and angry, 'A' was impatient.
And when she went to the cop shoppe again, the officer involved hid himself in his room, not appearing and she doused herself with a bottle of petrol and set herself on fire.
The Nishtar Hospital in Multan where she was admitted announced her to be in a precarious condition with 80pc burns and she succumbed to the burns on Friday. But was it really burn injuries that killed her or it was the level of injustice that women in the country have to face everyday?
Even the Punjab government seems to have taken its time to respond.
On Friday, women's rights activists protested in front of the Punjab Assembly to show their anger at the Muzaffargarh police and insisted that the Punjab government should itself take action and do some research as to why number of crimes against women was on the rise in the province. They demanded that the accused, including police officer involved, must be dealt with strictly.
In a press statement, Zohra Yousuf of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain (HRCP) said it was common knowledge that only the courageous rape survivors in the country took the matter to police or court.
"It leads to only one conclusion: she had become convinced that she would not get justice. It is sad and ironic that only a week after celebrating the International Women's Day with such fanfare the state and its justice system have let a woman down so brazenly."
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, the spittle had reached unprecedented levels... Mukhtaran Mai, who herself is a rape survivor, says that problems are deep rooted and many.
"The problem starts with the government and police and ends with the judiciary but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The concept of sexual harassment does not seem to exist in Pak society. Men look at women as mere commodities."
Referring to her own case, she says: "It takes a lot of consistent courage to face the men who have assaulted you.
Sometimes when I get out of the school, I see those men in front of it, sitting under a tree and when I go past them, they comment and whistle at me. But women cannot go on living in fear."
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03/15/2014
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[An Nahar] recent meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a source close to someone who attended the talks told AFP Friday.
Riyadh demanded the closure of the pan-Arab broadcaster as well as the Brookings Doha Center and the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, the source said on condition of anonymity.
After the reportedly heated March 5 GCC meeting, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from fellow member Qatar, which they accuse of interfering in their internal affairs and supporting the Moslem Brüderbund.
The source said Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal had demanded three things of Doha -- "to close the (Qatari-owned) Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... network, which stirs sedition; close the research centers in Doha, and turn over all outlaws" on its territory.
Doha's foreign minister replied that the demand constituted "interference in Qatar's internal affairs," the same source said.
Gulf officials do not usually comment on closed-door meetings.
Qatar is seen as a supporter of the Moslem Brüderbund and its affiliates across the region, which are banned in most Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile toward the Brotherhood, fearing that its brand of grass-roots activism and political Islam could undermine their authority.
Saudi Arabia and the other two states accused Doha of giving refuge to opposition figures and of even giving some of them citizenship.
Critics have long accused the influential pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera of biased coverage in favor of the Brotherhood, and several of its journalists are on trial in Egypt for allegedly supporting the group.
Most Gulf states hailed the Egyptian military's July overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... -- a former senior member of the Moslem Brüderbund -- and pledged billions in aid. Qatar, which had strongly supported him, has seen its influence in Cairo evaporate.
The Gulf Cooperation Council includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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#1
With Arab countries i dont know who are the good guys from the bad guys?
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/15/2014 6:12
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[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... on Friday gave approval to the law enforcement agencies to take action against the patrons of criminals without taking into account their political affiliation in the next phase of the ongoing targeted operation in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... .
Informed sources told Dawn that the next phase would be known as 'fast-track operation' and the PM gave the go-ahead to proceed against influential patrons of criminals while chairing a high-level meeting to review the overall law and order situation.
The PM directed the authorities to relocate the anti-terrorism courts to the Malir Cantonment area for the protection of judges, witnesses, Sherlocks and prosecutors.
He asked the Sindh government to expedite establishment of isolated high-security prisons in the province to confine terrorists.
The PM was briefed on law and order by Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad and Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah. It was followed by a briefing session with the chief secretary, director general of the Intelligence Bureau, Rangers DG and Sindh police chief regarding the operation in Karachi. Federal ministers Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Ishaq Dar and Khurram Dastgir were also present.
PM Sharif directed the Sindh government to lift a ban on recruitment in all civil armed forces.
He asked the authorities to use army recruitment centres for fresh recruitment and ensure transparency and merit in the process.
He and also asked the interior ministry to expedite the process to block illegal mobile phone SIMs and ensure issuance of the SIMs through a biometric system.
The prime minister agreed to set up more cop shoppes in the strife-hit Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... area.
During the meeting the matter of illegal Afghans and Bengalis in the metropolis also came under discussion and the prime minister assured the provincial government that it would get all-out support from the federal government for the success of the operation, which he said would continue till achieving its objectives.
He asked the provincial government and the Rangers to remove operational flaws to make the targeted action more effective against criminals and against the land mafia to protect government land.
"The Karachi operation will continue until its objectives are achieved," he said and termed the sacrifices of security personnel invaluable.
He said the Karachi operation was not a matter of routine but of immense importance and he would continue to regularly monitor and supervise the operation and would help the provincial government to resolve its all related issues.
He said that a high-level meeting would be held during the next week to review the overall security situation of the country.
The PM said: "We will also discuss coordination mechanism regarding border control, intelligence sharing and combating terrorism."
He said the police and Rangers should use new anti-terrorism laws to combat terrorism, extortion and land-grabbing.
Earlier, the chief secretary briefed the PM on the law and order situation and apprised him that 393 cases of heinous crimes had been registered.
The PM was informed that illegal migration of foreign nationals was also causing the law and order problem.
He was also informed that fresh inductions in the police force were needed in order to strengthen the force.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[MAGHAREBIA] Al-Qaeda's breakaway bandit has found himself in real trouble.
The French and African military offensive against armed terrorist groups in northern Mali, the crackdown on the Algerian-Tunisian border, tough security measures along the Mauritania-Mali frontier and in Niger have all hampered al-Qaeda's ability to execute attacks.
And for former al-Qaeda emir turned independent terrorist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Mali is becoming a dangerous place to base his fledgling Mourabitounes.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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The atmosphere in Buulobarde district in the Hiiraan region was reported to be serene this morning after it was seized from Al-Shabaab by AMISOM and the Somali National Army.
According to news reports from Buulobarde add that within the district yesterday, many bombs were detonated including at the Police Station although casualties are unknown.
This morning, the community spirit was said to be thriving in the Buulobarde district of the Hiiraan region.
You can hear "The Sound of Music" in the hills if you really try...
The Buulobarde district was a strategic key district for Al-ShabaabÂ’s leaders and is now among the many territories liberated from Al-Shabaab.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014
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[Dhaka Tribune] Bangladesh is set to start search operation in the Bay of Bengal from today to look for the missing Malaysian plane, joining an ongoing international effort by several countries.
Mahbubul Hoque Shakil, special assistant to Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. , told the Dhaka Tribune that the prime minister had issued directives to begin the search operation.
"Two frigates and two patrol aircraft will conduct search operation in the Bay of Bengal," he said. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared last Saturday (March 8) with 239 people on board.
Bangladesh will join the search at a time when the search area had been expanded following reports that the plane had been "deliberately flown across" the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands. The disappearance of the airliner remains a "mystery" as there is still no trace of its wreckage.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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#1
Upon sensing the search party's presence,
the pax opened fire with a vengeance
on our brave personnel,
but all's well that ends well:
the survivors have made full confessions.
[An Nahar] Syrian forces entered the key rebel bastion of Yabrud on Friday, one of the last opposition-held areas near the border with Leb, a military source told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The Syrian army on Friday entered the town of Yabrud north of Damascus from the east, and advanced along the town's main street," the source said.
"The rebels are fleeing towards Rankus village" to the south. "If their flight continues, the capture of the city is only a matter of days."
Earlier, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported Syrian army units advancing in the Yabrud area, saying they "now control its eastern approaches and northeastern boundary."
The broadcaster said the assault had caused a "breakdown in the ranks of terrorist groups," the government term for rebels battling Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... was spearheading the fight to dislodge gunnies from Yabrud.
The Britannia-based monitor, which relies on civilian, medical and military sources for its information, said earlier Syrian forces "drove the rebels off the hill of Aqaba" outside the town.
"Fierce fighting is also taking place on the northern edge, between the town of Sahel and Yabrud," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
"They want to completely encircle the Yabrud rebels to dislodge them."
The al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group Al-Nusra Front admitted "one position at Aqaba has fallen... causing brother fighters to fall back to rear bases."
But it denied rebels were retreating, insisting that reinforcements were on the way.
The battle for Yabrud is vital for Hizbullah, which first admitted its fighters were fighting alongside Assad's forces in spring 2013.
Hizbullah wants to sever a key rebel supply line to the Bekaa town of Arsal across the border in eastern Leb.
It says boom-mobiles that have been used to attack its strongholds inside Leb were loaded with explosives in Yabrud and then driven via Arsal to their targets.
On another front in the complex struggle pitting regime loyalists against mainstream rebels and rebels against jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... , ISIL on Friday withdrew its fighters from Idlib province in the northwest and Latakia in the west, the Observatory said.
"ISIL is no longer able to defend his fighters" in these areas because of festivities with other rebel factions, it said, adding the withdrawal began a week ago.
"Rebel brigades were about to engage them," it added.
Spurned because of its abuses of civilians and extreme interpretation of Islam, ISIL had already pulled out of several areas in the northern province of Aleppo since January.
It is now entrenched in Raqa province east of Aleppo.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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[MAGHAREBIA] A joint police operation by Spain and Morocco netted an international terror ring that recruited jihadist fighters for Syria, the Spanish interior ministry announced on Friday (March 14th). Seven suspects were placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in the two countries. Additional arrests are expected to follow as the investigation proceeds.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Founding leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), known as the Top 90 batch, have declared MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari a "persona non grata" for leadership blunders, including the three-week attack in Zamboanga City in September last year.
Hadji Abul Khayr Alonto announced the new development in a public forum before thousands of residents in Lanao del Sur earlier this week. He said, "We have declared Nur Misuari a persona non grata with the MNLF. There is no other MNLF now but us.
Alonto added, "In the same manner, we invite all factions within the Misuari faction, including the MNLF Council of 15, to join us."
Alonto said the 32 surviving members of the Top 90 agreed to declare Misuari a persona non grata for his "leadership blunders that put the organization into disarray."
Presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles said, "After 17 long years of arduous negotiations, we are finally arriving at a political settlement that will seal enduring peace and progress in Mindanao. The signing of the CAB is expected to benefit not only the Bangsamoro but the entire country, and will radiate beyond our borders to the regional community, and perhaps the whole world."
Sure, why not?
The CAB will prepare the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro - a political entity that would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Posted by: ryuge ||
03/15/2014
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#1
Put lipstick on a pig and its still a pig. The ARMM will now be replaced by the CAB, Same thing different leaders, same poor people, no economy, Muslim leaders that got rich and corrupt are now being replaced with new ones that will get rich and corrupt. I was in Nur Misuari's mansion in Zamboanga the day after the uprising in 2001. Red carpet, a hot tub in his bed room, the place was a brothel, a bit shot up, but a brothel. Paruok Hussain took over the ARMM after Nur was imprisoned. Parouk move his family to Switzerland and his kids went to private school. He would travel back and forth staying in hotels while the Bangasomoro people starved. He is now very wealthy. My wife did more to help the starving and poor people and orphans there than this ass clown. Now we have a new set of leaders who have probably never set foot on Jolo or Basilan island. But they will certainly get their 10% of all relief efforts, and yes they charge people to bring relief to the starving and poor, it an administration fee. That is if they don't require you to give it to them so they can distribute it, read sell it. What a sham.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
03/15/2014 12:51
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#2
Strategies within strategies. Isolate Russia in the international community by allowing the Russians to come off as be bad boys on the block. Nice resource areas there in Siberia populated mostly by ethnic Asians you have there neighbor.
were yesterday repatriated to Belgium to answer charges of terrorism.
You're doing it wrong, folks: they're only supposed to make it part of the way back...
Mohamed Said alias Ben Abdellah Smail (Belgian) and Rachid Benomari (French) were repatriated by Principal Magistrate Joseph Karanja after they appeared before him at Milimani courts, Nairobi. The two together with another third one, Bouyahbaren Mustapha, who was not produced in court were found in Kenya illegally after entering the country from Somalia without any valid documents. They were arrested in Malindi.
The two admitted being in the country illegally before a Mombasa court and were imprisoned to one year. Two other Kenyans, Hussein Omar and Ahmed Omar, who were hosting the three denied terrorism charges.
In a letter produced in court written to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, Anti-Terrorism Police Unit boss Njeru Mwaniki said the three who were arrested on July 4, 2013 confessed that they were in the country illegally. He said during interrogation, they were found to be illegally present in Kenya and confessed to have come from Somalia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014
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Unknown attackers shot and set on fire a female teacher in Pattani province while she was traveling alone to school yesterday morning. Siriporn Srichai is the 170th teacher killed since the latest unrest in the deep South began in 2003.
Her brutal slaying has shocked the public and has deeply demoralized teachers in the southernmost provinces. Kirinee Promjan said, "Teachers here feel frightened."
Boonsom Thongsri-plai, of the Confederation of Teachers in the Three Southern Border Provinces,"We are so saddened by what happened. This is a heartlessly cruel attack."
Siriporn had lived in Yala province with her mother. Her death means the elderly woman will lose the support she needs. A neighbor said, "Siriporn woke up early and cared for her mother before rushing out to her school every day."
An investigation indicates that while Siriporn was driving along her familiar route yesterday, two men on a motorcycle chased after her. The passenger then shot at her and after Siriporn crashed, he fired more shots. He then poured gasoline over her and set her on fire.
When police arrived at the scene, Siriporn's body was charred and her crash helmet was still on. Police said they found gunshot wounds in her body and head.
U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.
Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.
The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.
“We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,” Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement.
The announcement received a passionate response, with some groups quickly embracing the change and others blasting it.
In a statement, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) called the move “consistent with other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”
But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”
Risks? It virtually guarantees it. Remember this is the same global community that put Zimbabwe, Iran and Syria on the 'Human Rights' Council...
The practical consequences of the decision were harder to immediately discern, especially with the details of the transition not yet clear. Politically, the move could alleviate rising global concerns that the United States essentially controls the Web and takes advantage of its oversight position to help spy on the rest of the world.
U.S. officials set several conditions and an indeterminate timeline for the transition from federal government authority, saying a new oversight system must be developed and win the trust of crucial stakeholders around the world.
Which will be run as well as ObamaCare has been...
The moveÂ’s critics called the decision hasty and politically tinged, and voiced significant doubts about the fitness of ICANN to operate without U.S. oversight and beyond the bounds of U.S. law.
“This is a purely political bone that the U.S. is throwing,” said Garth Bruen, a security fellow at the Digital Citizens Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group that combats online crime. “ICANN has made a lot of mistakes, and ICANN has not really been a good steward.”
Beats whatever the Syrians, Zimbabweans and Iranians could do...
“It’s inconceivable that ICANN can be accountable to the whole world. That’s the equivalent of being accountable to no one,” said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, a trade group representing major Internet commerce businesses.
U.S. officials said their decision had nothing to do with the NSA spying revelations and the worldwide controversy they sparked, saying there had been plans since ICANNÂ’s creation in 1998 to eventually migrate it to international control.
“The timing is now right to start this transition both because ICANN as an organization has matured, and international support continues to grow for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” Strickling said in a statement.
Although ICANN is based in Southern California, governments worldwide have a say in the group’s decisions through an oversight body. ICANN in 2009 made an “Affirmation of Commitments” to the Commerce Department that covers several key issues.
Fadi Chehade, president of ICANN, disputed many of the complaints about the transition plan and promised an open, inclusive process to find a new international oversight structure for the group.
“Nothing will be done in any way to jeopardize the security and stability of the Internet,” he said.
The United States has long maintained authority over elements of the Internet, which grew from a Defense Department program that started in the 1960s. The relationship between the United States and ICANN has drawn wider international criticism in recent years, in part because big American companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft play such a central role in the InternetÂ’s worldwide functioning. The NSA revelations exacerbated those concerns.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014
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#1
Risks? It virtually guarantees it. Remember this is the same global community that put Zimbabwe, Iran and Syria on the 'Human Rights' Council
An thus the tower of Babel doth fall. At one time the human specie spoke one language. Then we went our separate ways. The walls will go up.
File under - Lessons Unlearned - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The State Department is offering bounties of up to $3 million each for three members of a Somalia-based extremist group with ties to al-Qaida. The group is al-Shabab, and it claims responsibility for last yearÂ’s deadly attack on a Kenyan shopping mall.
The department says rewards are being offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, Yasin Kilwe and Jafar, who goes by one name.
The three men hold senior roles in al-Shabab, which has launched attacks in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda. The bounties are part of the “Rewards for Justice” program that offers cash for information about terror suspects.
The department says Abdikadir coordinates al-ShababÂ’s recruitment in Kenya, and Jafar is his deputy. Officials say Kilwe is al-ShabaabÂ’s emir for SomaliaÂ’s Puntland region.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
$4 Million for their heads
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2014 9:31
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[An Nahar] Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... voiced hope on Friday that the next Lebanese president would support the resistance axis, considering that his country and Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... are united and share the same fate.
"We are interested in the opinions of the upcoming Lebanese president and to what he could offer the axis of the resistance, which is the basic criterion for us," Assad was quoted as saying by his visitors.
The visitors told As Safir newspaper that Assad considers the Lebanese presidential elections as a local affair, whoever who the candidates were.
President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... 's tenure ends in May 2014, but the constitutional period to elect a new head of state begins on March 25, two months prior to the expiration of Suleiman's mandate.
Suleiman on Wednesday said he hoped the adoption of a national defense strategy under which the resistance would assist the Lebanese Army.
Asked about Prime Minister Tammam Salam, the Syrian president considered him as a "man of morals," urging the political arch-foes to aid him in his endeavors.
Assad also called on the Lebanese to unite "in order to confront the challenges facing their country, warning that "the sharp rift would allow the takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... s to spread in their country."
He stressed that Leb and Syria share the same security.
His visitors quoted him as saying that "there are men in Leb that held onto their stances and choices unlike those who are never persistent."
Assad described Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... as "loyal," pointing out that they "are in the same boat."
Hizbullah has dispatched fighters to battle alongside the Syrian regime against rebels seeking the overthrow of President Assad.
The conflict, pitting a Sunni-dominated rebel movement against Assad, has raised sectarian tensions in Leb and Lebanese Sunni fighters have also been killed while fighting alongside Syrian rebels.
Suleiman had continuously urged Hizbullah to withdraw its fighters from Syria immediately to disassociate Leb from the regional conflicts and to maintain Leb's best interest.
The embattled Syrian president expressed resentment over the stance of some Arab countries towards his country, warning that "all those who did Syria wrong and conspired against it will pay the price."
He revealed that several Gulf countries have "secret contacts with Damascus," noting that "European countries are extending aid to coordinate security and intelligence cooperation to confront the takfiri terrorism."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Dhaka Tribune] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... has agreed on a framework for its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, a stronger response to the Ukraine crisis.
The move was forwarded as a mark of solidarity with Washington in the drive to make Moscow pay for seizing Crimea, reports Rooters.
US President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... warned Russia it faced costs from the West unless it changed course in Ukraine, and pledged to "stand with Ukraine" as he met with the country's new prime minister in Washington.
"We will never surrender," Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk vowed as he and Obama met in a White House show of support for the embattled leader.
"Mr Putin - tear down this wall - the wall of more intimidation and military aggression," Yatseniuk told news hounds in remarks aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... and a reference to then-President Ronald Reagan's challenge to the Soviet Union in a 1987 speech at the Berlin Wall.
But Obama and Yatseniuk outlined a potential diplomatic opening that could give Russians a greater voice in the disputed Crimean region, where a referendum is scheduled for Sunday on whether it should become part of Russia.
Yatseniuk told a forum in Washington after his White House meeting that his interim government was ready to have a dialogue and negotiations with Russia about Moscow's concerns for the rights of ethnic Russians in Crimea.
The EU sanctions, outlined in a document seen by Rooters, would slap travel bans and asset freezes on an as-yet-undecided list of people and firms accused by Brussels of violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... said the measures would be imposed on Monday unless diplomatic progress was made.
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[DAWN] I DON'T understand why the Taliban are killing and maiming thousands in their quest to impose their version of the Sharia on us when the Council of Islamic Ideology is doing their job without firing a shot.
In a spate of rulings, the venerable Council has done more to push Pakistain back to the sixth century than all the TTP jacket wallahs put together. Just recently, it decreed that there should be no minimum age for girls to get married as long as they waited until the onset of puberty before being handed over to their husbands.
This means that a girl of, say, eight can be bound in matrimony to a man four or five times her age, and be forced into his bed at around 13. The point here is that she has obviously no say in the matter as a child cannot make such an important decision.
Physical maturity is not so much an issue as is the ability to choose her life partner for herself. A child bride is clearly unable to exercise this right granted to her in Islam.
In another retrograde ruling, the CII has challenged the current law requiring the first wife to give written permission before her husband can take another spouse.
This law has been continuously flouted in spirit as the senior wife is often coerced into giving her written agreement to bigamy. Nevertheless, this Ayub-era provision in the Family Laws Ordinance did provide a theoretical safeguard to women, and was a progressive, pro-women piece of legislation.
A few months ago, the CII ruled that DNA tests could not be used as primary evidence to convict rapists.
Apparently, the learned holy men of the Council continue to insist on the scriptural requirement of four male witnesses to the act. As the vast majority of rapes take place away from prying eyes, it is small wonder that rapists are seldom tried, leave alone convicted.
When public outcry against the increasing tendency to accuse members of religious minorities of blasphemy resulted in a proposal to give false accusers the death penalty, some learned members of the CII opposed it tooth and nail.
One can only hope that this new respect for human life will also be reflected in greater compassion among our learned Learned Elders of Islam for those unjustly accused of blasphemy, and who thus face the death penalty.
Then the CII has opposed the Women's Protection Act of 2006. This progressive legislation had sought to protect women from the horrors of the Zia-era Zina Ordinance under which they could be -- and were -- accused of fornication when they had actually been raped.
We all recall the dreadful case of the young blind woman who became pregnant after being raped in the Zia period, and was actually found guilty of fornication as she could not identify her rapists.
The Domestic Violence Bill, passed by the National Assembly, has been shelved in the Senate, partly due to criticism by the learned Council. All these religious interventions and opinions reinforce the impression that the CII is an anti-woman body of poorly educated men with little knowledge of anything but the literal rendering of the scriptures.
Consider their ruling on underage marriage as an example. By reducing the legal age of marriage from 16 years, where it is currently, to around 13, they are effectively increasing the child-bearing years of women.
The world over, the trend is for women to marry later, thus lowering the birth rate. Pakistain, with its high population growth rate, hardly needs more children.
This, of course, is quite apart from the cruelty inherent in depriving young women of the right to choose their husbands, or, indeed, the right to pursue an education and a career. Who gave these holy mans the authority to snatch away the right to choose given to women by Islam?
Bigamy was permitted in a period when perpetual warfare created many widows, and so it made sense to permit four marriages as a means of providing single women protection and shelter. But surely, this is scarcely the situation today. To insist on a return to a medieval era shows just where the CII stands on the issue of women's rights.
In world rankings, Pakistain is rated at just about the bottom in terms of how difficult it is to be a woman. Half our population is denied the most fundamental facilities and rights. In the same family, girls are at a disadvantage when it comes to food, medicines and education, with boys being given preference.
Given all the discrimination women face in a very brutal, male-dominated society, should we not do away with a body that makes their lives even more miserable?
Posted by: Fred ||
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[MAGHAREBIA] Algeria's constitutional council on Thursday (March 13th) approved six candidates to run in the April 17th presidential elections, APS reported.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third or fourth term, who will probably die in office of old age... will compete with former premier Ali Benflis, Algerian National Front (FNA) chairman Moussa Touati, Workers Party leader Louisa Hanoune, Abdelaziz Belaid of the El-Moustakbel Front (FM), and Ahd 54 leader Ali Fawzi Rebaine.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... Bouteflika appointed Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi as interim premier after Abdelmalik Sellal resigned the post to run the president's campaign.
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[Dhaka Tribune] Military radar-tracking evidence suggests the Malaysia Airlines jetliner, which has been missing for nearly a week, was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation have said.
Two sources told Rooters yesterday that an unidentified aircraft, which Sherlocks believe was Flight MH370, was following a route between navigational waypoints - indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.
The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors.
A third source familiar with the investigation said inquiries were focusing increasingly on the theory that someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight, with 239 people on board, hundreds of miles off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
"What we can say is we are looking at sabotage, with hijack still on the cards," said that source, a senior Malaysian police official.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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#2
A former 777 pilot on the news last night [Hank somebody], opined that...paraphrasing here, the route taken and wild altitude deviations indicated a less than fully 777 familiar pilot fighting with the auto-pilot.
Looks like we may be back to box cutters and hijacking.
#5
..re route and altitude excursions:
Route: "Red Herring" attempt to disguise true destination?
Altitude: Climb while depressurizing a/c? Somebody controlling the a/c demonstrated familiarity to the extent that O2 system could have been disabled to pax only. Hypoxia->sleep->death = "clean" removal of potential pax resistance.
The "PIC" was familiar w/systems, but my experience is that, although MS FlightSim has some conceptual use, limitations exist..who knows..
[An Nahar] Spanish campaigners accuse the country's Catholic Church of trying to cover up the Islamic history of Cordoba Cathedral, a world heritage site that was originally a mosque.
It is one of the most famous Islamic sites in Europe, but those coming to learn about that are left none the wiser by the information leaflets given out to tourists, critics say.
"For the citizens of Cordoba, what has hurt our feelings is that they have cut off the name and the memory of the monument," said Antonio Manuel Rodriguez, a law professor at Cordoba University.
He is a member of a secular group of local campaigners who have gathered 146,000 signatures on a petition demanding that the common Islamic and Christian heritage of the site be recognized.
The acclaimed British architect Norman Foster is among the signatories, as well as many Spanish writers and scientists and moderate Catholics.
A historical jewel in the southern city that was a capital of Islamic Spain in the Middle Ages, the building with its cobbled patios and minaret draws more than a million visitors each year.
The entry ticket visitors receive bids them "welcome to the Santa Iglesia Cathedral", but does not mention that the building, now administered by the church, was a mosque for centuries.
"Over the past few years, the Diocese of Cordoba has erased the term 'mosque' from all the information leaflets of what is recognized worldwide as a symbol of cultural harmony," the "Save the Cordoba Mosque" petition says.
This "offers millions of tourists a distorted historical account, which crudely adulterates the essence of a complex building and an emblem of diversity."
- Andalusia's golden age -
The visitors' leaflets point out that a mosque was built on the site of a Visigoth church in the eighth century, but skims over its next 500 years as a place of worship for Moslems at the height of the Islamic rule in southern Spain.
UNESCO, in its listing of Cordoba's historic center as a world heritage site, highlighted its place in the Andalusia region's golden age, which began with its conquest by the Moors in the eighth century.
Under the Islamic Umayyad rulers, Cordoba flourished with mosques and palaces that rivaled Constantinople, Damascus and Storied Baghdad for splendor, UNESCO said.
Construction of the mosque, with its grand prayer room and marble columns, began in 766. It was transformed to a cathedral in the 13th century after a Christian ruler conquered the city.
In 2006, the campaigners say, the Cordoba bishopric registered the cathedral as its own property without informing the regional government which had allowed the Church to run the site.
Until that point, the site "was in legal limbo -- it was neither public nor private property", said Rodriguez.
"The problem arises when the Church hierarchy thinks it belongs to them," he added.
Andalusia's Socialist regional government said last week it was considering legal action "to protect the public ownership of this cultural asset".
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#4
It's the Hagia Sophia, Sgt. D.T., once upon a time one of the grandest Romanesque churches in Christendom, since the Turkish conquest of Constantinople made into a mosque -- note the much later minarets at the corners. After the Ottomans were unseated, it was made into a museum, but there is talk of returning it to religious Muslim use.
#6
Oh, and then there's this key bit, with no explanation by the protestors of how that happened to be, nor why that would effect the behaviour of those currently in charge of the thing:
The visitors' leaflets point out that a mosque was built on the site of a Visigoth church in the eighth century
[An Nahar] Around 500 Crimean Tatars erupted into the streets after prayers on Islam's holy day Friday to protest against an "illegal" referendum on closer ties with Russia which they plan to boycott.
Waving Ukrainian flags and chanting "Go away Putin" and "Russian soldiers go home", the protestors lined one of the main roads in Bakhchysaray, the biggest Tatar settlement in Crimea.
The rally was held under the slogan "No to the illegal referendum!" to be held on Sunday following a decision by the Medzhlis, the Tatar parliament.
Earlier, the Tatars were urged to resist "provocations" at Friday prayers at the 16th century Big Khan mosque, the town's largest.
The demonstration was peaceful but watched from the other side of the road by around half a dozen pro-Moscow self-defense forces.
One protestor, Fatima Suittarova, 40, came to the rally with her young daughter.
"We don't even want to think about the possibility of joining Russia," she told AFP.
"We see the future of our nation only with Ukraine."
Another protestor, 63-year-old Said Umir, said he feared the prospect of Crimea -- currently an autonomous peninsula which is part of Ukraine -- joining Russia.
"Every five years, Russia has war and we don't want our children to be fighting for them," he said.
A few trucks carrying Russian forces were stationed on Bakhchysaray's main road out of the town on Friday morning, an AFP news hound saw, but they did not appear at the demonstration.
A convoy of dozens of cars waving Russian flags and tooting their horns did drive by, drawing loud chants from the crowd.
The Tatars are native to Crimea and were the main ethnic group on the peninsula until they were deported en masse by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during World War II.
They only started returning as the Cold War was ending in the late 1980s and currently make up some 12 percent of Crimea's mostly Russian-speaking population of two million people.
Worshipers outside the mosque after Friday prayers spoke of their fears about the future.
"Only Allah knows what will happen -- we just want there to be peace," said Haji Rasim Islam Settar Ogoli, 79.
"Ukrainians, Tatars, Russians are brothers here. We already saw a lot of things because we are old and we want to live in peace."
Another man, 83-year-old Rasim, said he felt unsafe due to the presence of Russian forces around the town.
"How can you feel with armed people around? You don't expect something good," he said.
"We're surrounded by the army so what can we do about it?"
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I await Russian response with bated breath---and more than a little envy.
[MAGHAREBIA] A terrorist with an international bounty on his head was among the al-Qaeda gunnies killed last week by French Arclight airstrikes in Mali, AFP reported Friday (March 14th).
Oumar Ould Hamaha, the front man for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO ...Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, another offshoot of Qaeda in North Africa. Currently active in Mali and southern Algeria, the idea is to do as much good in West Africa as AQIM has done in North Africa... ) and a former lieutenant to terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was killed "with weapons in hand", a regional security source confirmed.
Reaper drones, along with Chad-based Mirage 2000 fighters and Tiger helicopters from Mali "made it possible to neutralise" at least 10 Death Eaters in the March 4th operation, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Le Figaro last week.
The AQIM fighters were spotted in the Amettetai Valley, in the Kidal region, by French forces operating the drones, Drian said.
Ould Hamaha, nicknamed "Red Beard" because he regularly died his facial hair with henna, was implicated in the April 2012 abduction of Algerian diplomats in Gao.
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[An Nahar] In the heart of Syria's devastated city of Homs, once hailed as the "capital of the revolution," Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... looks down from a banner calling for his reelection.
"Because you are a symbol of our victory and our resistance, we implore you to be a candidate for the presidency," reads the caption beneath the smiling Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades.
In the early months of Syria's uprising, Homs was the epicenter of peaceful mass protests sweeping the country. Three years on much of it lies in ruin, with small pockets of rebels clinging to a few besieged neighborhoods.
But in pro-regime neighborhoods the campaign for Assad's reelection has begun, despite the fact that he has not yet announced his candidacy.
A constitution adopted in 2012 for the first time opened the door for candidates to challenge Assad in the election, scheduled to be held before June.
But a law adopted by parliament on Thursday requires candidates to have lived in Syria for the past 10 years, thereby excluding the exiled Western- and Arab-backed opposition.
It's unclear how an election can be held in the middle of a raging civil war that has killed 146,000 people and displaced an estimated 40 percent of Syrians from their homes.
But a few blocks away from the Assad banner, signed "Family Restaurant," another banner announces that the employees of al-Waari digital printing and its calligrapher, Fadi Hassan, implore Assad to run.
"We promise with our blood to be loyal to you," it proclaims.
The authors of the banners insist they are acting on their own without government pressure.
"When we heard the president say he will run in the election if the people want it, we decided to hang these posters, because he is a symbol of our glory, our pride and our victory," says Samer Johar, 43, of the Family Restaurant.
"They called Homs the capital of the revolution. Well, I tell you Homs is the capital of the campaign for Bashir al-Assad to seek a new term," says Johar, a member of Assad's minority Alawite faith.
Assad still enjoys support among a significant part of the population fearful of the rebels, who count powerful jihadist groups among their ranks.
Samer, who arranged the hanging of 15 banners throughout pro-regime neighborhoods, says Assad is the only candidate who can bring stability to Syria after three years of war.
"If he leaves his post there will be chaos," he says, adding that seven of his cousins have been killed in the war and an eighth has disappeared.
His views are shared by Issa Youssef, a Christian from Mechref, a village near the Lebanese border.
"All of us, men, women and kiddies, have lived in security under the authority of President Assad and we hope he will be reelected another two or three times," the 50-year-old driver says.
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#1
But in pro-regime neighborhoods the campaign for Assad's reelection has begun, despite the fact that he has not yet announced his candidacy.
Likely the Ready for Pencil-Neck Committee. Altho I guess it could be the work of (yeah wait for it) Committee to Re-Elect the Pencil-Neck.
[MAGHAREBIA] The Council of Arab Interior Ministers on Thursday (March 13th) wrapped up a two-day session in Morocco with a call for member states to co-operate in the investigation, prosecution and extradition of terrorists.
The Marrakech Anti-Terror Declaration included a condemnation of sectarian discourse and called for reinforcing border surveillance in order to deal with weapons trafficking and terrorist infiltration.
All undertakings, the council agreed, are to uphold human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and reinforce co-operation between security services, citizens, and civil society in the fight against terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[MAGHAREBIA] Negotiations will start on Friday (March 14th) between Libya and Tunisia to restore commercial activity at the Ras Jedir border crossing.
The talks follow weeks of mounting tension in southern Tunisian cities along the border where trade is an economic lifeline. The most recent closure began March 9th, according to Libya Herald.
Clashes erupted Tuesday after a visit by Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa to Ras Jedir and his failure to find a solution with the Libyan side to hasten the re-opening.
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[An Nahar] Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... -based Salafist leader Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi stressed Friday that the northern city's Islamists will not hesitate to go to jihad, or holy war, in support of the regime-besieged Syrian town of Yabrud.
"A lot of those who are collecting extortions in the city are still on the loose and a lot of criminals are still on the lam, while the free men were locked away Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! , such as Omar al-Homsi, Sheikh Omar al-Atrash, Dr. Abdul Nasser Shatah and others," Rafehi said outside al-Salam Mosque in Tripoli, after the director of his office Jalal Kalash was arrested at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.
According to state-run National News Agency, Kalash was released prior to the holy man's televised address. Rafehi said the man was freed due to "popular pressure."
"Why are our young men being arrested when they go to Syria and when they return? Why doesn't this apply to Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... 's fighters?" the holy man asked.
"If they (Lebanese authorities) are afraid of the West, they can rely on the remarks of (Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan) Nasrallah, who had said 'let us go fight in Syria'," Rafehi added.
"We say it loud and clear: we won't back down from supporting our people in Syria, whatever that may cost us. When our people in (Syria's) Qusayr pleaded to us, we heeded their call, and today if Yabrud's people urge us to act, we won't hesitate to wage jihad with them," the Islamist leader vowed.
He called on "Leb's rulers" to "draw lessons," stressing that Syrian President "Bashir al-Assad's rule will not last for long."
"Do not stand by the tyrant," Rafehi went on to say.
He voiced surprise that "an army force is still protecting (Arab Democratic Party leader) Ali Eid's house in Hikr al-Daheri until the moment."
Rafehi revealed that Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji had allegedly promised him to capture Eid once an arrest warrant is issued for him in the case of the deadly bombings that hit Tripoli's al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques.
"When the policy statement faced a deadlock, the Arab Democratic Party was ordered to bombard Tripoli and it is unacceptable that an entire city be punished over the behavior of one young man," Rafehi said, referring to the deadly festivities that erupted Thursday in Tripoli in the wake of the killing of a Jabal Mohsen man.
"When this cabinet was formed, we were surprised by the raids and Tripoli was turned into a military barracks and people became afraid to be on the streets," Rafehi noted.
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A Connecticut police officer commented on a Facebook page a few days ago, saying he would "give my left nut to bang down your door and come for your gun...", and now the Branford, Connecticut Police department is trying to tamp down on the reaction by talking with a known Connecticut pro RKBA man.
As I have said before, patriot and pro-gun blogs have been outraged, expressing in stark and bellicose terms about Connecticut's experiment in fascist police work, and now one of their henchmen, identified as Joseph Peterson, has given the game away.
Now the police chief of Branford, Kevin Halloran, is "investigating" the officer and is willing to make an apology.
I don't live in Connecticut, but it seems to me apologies are a little late at this point. Connecticut police have gone over the side with Connecticut politicians with this unconstitutional power grab, and now they are dealing with threats that would make any thug with a badge think twice about banging "down your door and come for your gun..."
Molon Labe is not just a fine sentiment any more, and as was pointed out earlier, the Wacos and Ruby Ridges of yesteryear won't be met with silence in the night. There will be real consequences.
Meanwhile at the federal level, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided a shop in California which sells 80 percent receivers on spurious suspicions that the company, Armes Armor, was illegally selling firearms. The JBTs demanded a customer list and other business records. The company, to their everlasting credit refused to comply, gaining a temporary restraining order pending a hearing next week.
As the people at Western Rifle Shooters remind us constantly, the Bad People are coming first for your guns, and then your life.
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol and rifle ammunition were mostly higher. Prices for rimfire ammunition have absolutely jumped higher.
Prices for used pistols and used rifles were mixed.
Pistol Ammo
.45 Caliber, 230 grain, From Last Week: -.01 each (After unchanged previous two weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, steel cased, .33 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LV Ammo, RN, reloaded, .34 per round (Unchanged three of last four weeks)
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (Unchanged 5 of 9 previous weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Selway Armory, BVAC, reloaded, .28 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 250 rounds: Freedom Munitions, Store Brand, reloaded, .27 per round (Unchanged from last week)
9mm Parabellum, 115 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (+.07 over previous four weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Freedom Munitions, Store Brand, RN, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: SG Ammo, Brown Bear, reloaded, .22 per round (-.02 each after unchanged previous 2 weeks)
.357 Magnum, 158 grain, From Last Week: +.04 Each (!)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Bud's Gun Shop, Geco, HP, .49 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 250 Rounds: LAX Ammo, Store Brand, .39 per round (Unchanged from previous week)
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 grain, From Last Week: +.04 Each (!)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: LG Outdoors, Wolf Ammo, steel cased, .29 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf, steel cased, .30 per round (+.01 from the previous week )
.308 NATO 145 grain, From Last Week: -.03 Each (-.10 over previous six weeks (!))
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Selway Armory, MFS, steel cased, .55 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: The Sportsman Guide, MFS, steel cased, .56 per round (Unchanged (three weeks))
7.62x39 AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: +.01 Each
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammunition to go, Wolf, steel core and case, .26 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf, steel core and case, .23 per round (-.01 Each (After +.03 Each over two weeks))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: -.06 Each (!)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Munire USA, Blazer, .13 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Outdoor Limited, Federal, .17 per round (-.01 from previous week )
Guns for Private Sale
Rifles
.223/5.56mm (AR Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $734 Last Week Avg: $810 (-)
California: Palmetto State Armory: $800
Texas: Del-ton: $700
New York: Del-ton: $795
Virgina: American Tactical Imports: $675
Florida: Ruger AR: $699
.308 NATO (AR-10 Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $1,125 Last Week Avg: $1,344 (-)
California: DPMS LR308: $1,200 (Same Gun)
Texas: DPMS LR308: $1,200
New York: None Available
Virginia: FN Defender 2000 SPM16: $1,100 (Same Gun)
Florida: Ruger SR-762/308: $1,000
7.62x39mm (AK Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $794 Last Week Avg: $678 (+)
California: M&M: $875
Texas: Wil-Mor: $800
New York: Unknown brand: $1,000
Virginia: Zastava (Synthetic Stock): $600
Florida: IO : $695
Hmmm, with the right accessories, you can turn an M1 into a Scary Black Rifle.
Looks like Connecticut has bitten off more than it can chew. Nice to see the push-back. Yeah, we actually do believe in the Constitution. It is what makes us Americans.
#3
those same LEO's and Politicos have homes, family, and friends. Threaten law abiding citizens with unconstitutional laws and illegal raids and the angry peons might just decide other laws are just as ignorable
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2014 10:53
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#4
That's how society comes apart.
The alternative is that we vote out each and every legislator who voted for this law. We'll see.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/15/2014 11:08
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#8
Cops got to go home at night. Just saying. Until they start living in barracks and controlled access facilities, they'll be like a lot of cops around the world, who want to get up the next morning and go to work.
[ALLAFRICA] Abuja -- Senate President, David Mark, has called on Nigerians to rise against the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect, saying there was an orchestrated plot by the bully boyz to destabilise the country.
His call came on a day Deputy Senate President and Speaker of the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS Parliament, Ike Ekweremadu, solicited greater sub-regional synergy to tame the menace of insurgency in West Africa.
Senator Mark, who bemoaned the gruesome murder and destruction by Boko Haram, said now the group had refused to follow that the part of dialogue in expressing its grievances; there was no other option left with the government than to deploy its might to face the problem head-on.
According to the Senate President, "if the perpetrators of these violent crimes would not come to the negotiating table to dialogue with authorities in order to address whatever grievances they may have, government would be left with no option than to deploy its might to deal with the situation."
Mark, who spoke while decorating the newly promoted coppers attached to his office with their new ranks, stated that government would no longer tolerate a situation where bully boyz and gunnies continued to hold it and the citizens hostage.
He said: "No matter how disgruntled or angry they may be, they cannot continue to kill our citizens and destroy property at will as way of life.
"It is a high time wise counsel prevailed among these bully boyz to drop their arms and embrace peace."
While expressing worry over the high rate of attacks by the bully boys, he said, "Nigeria is passing through very difficult times and challenges and certainly does not need these wars and destructions .
"We need to live and work together as free people. We need a country where all citizens have equal opportunities, where no one is oppressed or molested."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
#1
solicited greater sub-regional synergy to tame the menace of insurgency in West Africa.
bet there was a powerpoint presentation involved
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2014 10:11
Comments ||
Top||
#3
When a greater sub-regional synergy
Leads to harnessing free buzzword energy,
We'll accelerate sentiments
'Round a axis of excellence
And a breath ray will zap the insurgency!
[An Nahar] The Israeli army said it shelled a Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... position in southern Leb on Friday after an kaboom targeted an Israeli patrol on the border, as the Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... reportedly grabbed credit for the kaboom.
Agence La Belle France Presse quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that Israel shelled southern Leb after an kaboom on the Lebanese-Israeli border.
The Israeli army confirmed that report, saying that it had acted after a border patrol was attacked with explosives.
The Lebanese source said "10 Israeli rockets hit an uninhabited border area" and that "there were no casualties."
"In response to the bomb activated against IDF (Israeli army) soldiers, the IDF fired towards a Hizbullah terror infrastructure in southern Leb. A hit was confirmed," the Israeli army said in statement.
Earlier, the Israeli army radio said "artillery fired at southern Leb in retaliation for the kaboom of a concealed device targeting a patrol."
"The device went kaboom! near soldiers on the border in the Har Dov area," the statement added, using Israel's term for the occupied Shebaa Farms.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter wished he had a cup of coffee. Even instant would do... Leb's state-run National News Agency said "a 107 mm rocket struck an Israeli army post on the al-Ramta Hill inside the occupied Shebaa Farms." It did not elaborate and it was not immediately clear if it was referring to the same attack on Israeli forces.
Media reports later said that the Qaeda-inspired ISIL grabbed credit for the kaboom on the Israeli patrol.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
[DAWN] The corpse count from a suicide kaboom targeting police in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. earlier on Friday has now risen to 11, hospital officials said.
Jamil Shah, a front man for the Lady Reading Hospital in the scenic provincial capital, confirmed that two more people had shuffled off the mortal coil while being treated for injuries from the powerful kaboom that struck Sarband, an area in the suburbs of Peshawar.
The victims included women, children and coppers. At least 45 others were maimed from the attack, the latest violence to hit Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... .
DSP (city) Banaras Khan said the blast appeared to have targeted a police mobile van and was carried out by a jacket wallah.
SP Cantt Faisal Kamran said that due to the sensitive nature of the area, which is situated on the border of the tribal areas, police personnel were using armoured personnel carriers (APC) to conduct routine patrolling when they were targeted by the suicide bomber who was on foot.
The victims were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) where an emergency was imposed. Casualties were also shifted to the Hayatabad Medical complex.
Six bodies were received at the LRH while three were received at the Hayatababad Medical Complex.
Security personnel cordoned off the area as a probe into the incident went underway.
According to Shafqat Malik, AIG of the Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS), at least eight kilograms of explosives were used in the blast.
According to foreign news agency Rooters, Taliban splinter group Ahrarul Hind grabbed credit for the attack. "We claim both Peshawar and Quetta attacks," Rooters quoted their chief Umar Qasmi as saying. "We don't abide by these talks and will continue to stage attacks."
The leadership of bully boy group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), which the Pak government has engaged in peace talks to end a seven-year insurgency, immediately distanced itself from the Friday attacks.
Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, lies on the edge of Pakistain's tribal areas which have been labelled by Washington as the main sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Talibs in the country.
The city has seen frequent attacks by snuffies in the past few years, with targets ranging from civilians to coppers and other law enforcement personnel.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: TTP
[An Nahar] The army tossed in the calaboose Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on Friday a Lebanese national on charges of smuggling Syrians into Leb, reported the National News Agency.
It said that it arrested Ahmed H. at the Ain al-Shaab checkpoint in the Bekaa town of Arsal.
LBCI television later identified him as Ahmed al-Hallani.
He is charged of smuggling Syrians from al-Qalamoun into Leb through Arsal.
NNA added that eight Syrians riding in a van were also detained.
It did not disclose the reasons for their arrest.
Arsal, a predominantly Sunni area, backs the uprising against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
The town lies 12 kilometers from the border with Syria and has been used as a conduit for weapons and rebels to enter Syria, while also serving as a refuge for people fleeing the conflict.
The town has seen a massive influx of refugees in the past weeks as a result of the heavy fighting in Syria's al-Qalamoun.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/15/2014
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
What, they had run out of cerealians.
Posted by: Steven ||
03/15/2014 18:46
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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.
The top Republican in the House said Americans should judge them not on how many laws they pass, but on how many they repeal.
Two years ago, before she took the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination, Ms. Lerner was positively chatty in informal briefings with the committee staff.
[HOSTED.AP.ORG] A Somali police officer says a suicide car bomber accidentally detonated his explosives near a popular hotel in the Somali capital. Capt. Mohamed Hussein said the bomber appeared to have prematurely detonated his explosives-laden car Saturday as he tried to park near a hotel. No others were hurt or killed in the blast.
[Dhaka Tribune] The government would take initiatives to ban 
[An Nahar] A Pak teenager died Friday after setting herself on fire after a court dropped charges against four men accused of raping her, police said.
Samir Geagea
[An Nahar] U.S. Secretary of State 
[An Nahar] 
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
Nawaz Sharif
[MAGHAREBIA] Al-Qaeda's breakaway bandit has found himself in real trouble.
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[An Nahar] Syrian forces entered the key rebel bastion of Yabrud on Friday, one of the last opposition-held areas near the border with 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Founding leaders of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), known as the Top 90 batch, have declared MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari a "persona non grata" for leadership blunders, including the three-week attack in Zamboanga City in September last year.
A Belgian and a French 
Unknown attackers shot and set on fire a female teacher in Pattani province while she was traveling alone to school yesterday morning. Siriporn Srichai is the 170th teacher killed since the latest unrest in the deep South began in 2003. 
U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dhaka Tribune] The 
Bouteflika
[MAGHAREBIA] A terrorist with an international bounty on his head was among the al-
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] The army 
