Indonesian counter-terrorism forces have shot dead 5 suspected militants believed to have been planning a series of attacks in Bali.
Heavily armed officers from Indonesia's crack anti-terror unit stormed two separate addresses, in Denpasar and in Sanur, on Sunday night where they shot and killed 5 men.
Witnesses have told AAP that gunshots could be heard for several minutes as officers raided the Lhaksmi Hotel in the Sanur area. Yay. Excellent work!
#4
D *** NG IT, HOW CAN WE HAVE "BALI HAI" WIDOUT BALI???
[DOROTHY LAMOUR'S "FRUIT" HIGH HAT + "ROAD TO SINGAPORE/MANDALAY" Movies here].
As per TOPIX, maybe Indonesia could do a Thailand hwere the Govt-Army repor is "blacking out" + suppressing any + all Media reports of rampaging Jihad that is taking place???
The alleged attack on Afghans by an American soldier in Kandahar, where 91 soldiers have been murdered last year alone, is already receiving the full outrage treatment. Any outrage over the deaths of those 91 soldiers in the province will be completely absent.
There will be no mention of how many of them died because the Obama Administration decided that the lives of Afghan civilians counted for more than the lives of soldiers. No talk of what it is like to walk past houses with gunmen dressed in civilian clothing inside and if you are fired at from those houses, your orders are to retreat. Reminds me of Intifada I
#1
Looks like the poor guy got caught up in the big bush shopping trip and economic failure of housing and the programming he was getting just didn't go down the right neural network. Perhaps they should stick to movies and being fake instead of trying to run a country much less the world. From what i have read they don't give a shi about anything except money and little kids (naked) ones. Afghanistan was a failure by November the government was already compromised internally! Peace.
Posted by: Harry Bonaparte9992 ||
03/18/2012 10:32
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But the question is what value do we place on our lives? What value do we place on theirs?
Its one thing when Op/Ed pieces wander from thought-provoking into the provocative but this bigoted shit is well beneath Rantburgs standards. (IMO)
Several policemen have been arrested in Venezuela after the teenage daughter of a Chilean diplomat was gunned down in the western city of Maracaibo.
Karen Berendique, 19, died when police opened fire on the car in which she was a passenger. Police say the car - driven by the teenager's brother - did not stop at a police checkpoint.
Police said the officers had been looking for a gang involved in robberies and car thefts. The officer in charge of the investigation, Jose Humberto Ramirez, promised transparency and said a special commission had been set up.
Ms Berendique's father, Fernando Berendique, who is the Chilean consul in Maracaibo, said his son had been driving his sister to a birthday celebration. He said that they came across a police patrol who pointed guns at them, rather than asking them to stop. The consul said his son panicked and the officers opened fire.
Mr Berendique said the car had six bullet holes in it, and that his daughter had been hit three times.
#1
I spent some time in Maracay back in the '90's. The military rode around armed to the teeth and daring anybody to get in their way. Since then I've heard they are far worse than my time there. It is a beautiful country and the people, for the most part, are fine folks. I will say I'm glad I didn't leave anything there I needed to go back and get.
Posted by: past master of the obvious ||
03/18/2012 14:24
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A post at the AnimalPolitico.com blog by Catalina Perez Correa last week detailed the circumstances by which 44 inmates at a prison in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon were killed allegedly by Los Zetas operatives.
According to the post, the deaths were not a brawl, but rather a deliberate and calculated massacre planned by prison officials and executed by Los Zetas operatives, who were then allowed to escape. The new information emerged from what Ms Perez Correa described as bits of information gathered from disparate sources, electronic mostly which painted a mosaic of treachery by prison officials in collusion with criminals.
The official explanation of the Apodaca prison massacre, lamented Ms. Perez Correa, "seems sufficient to overlap the incompetence in the best-of-the authorities and at worst, complicity..."
Unwittingly, Ms. Perez Correa has provided an insight into the problem of the nexus between government officials in the pay of organized crime and government officials unwilling to entertain the possibility of criminal conduct. It is a strong match to the attitude of a Non-Government Organization report released last week.
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[Dawn] Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi on Friday gave custody of banned Hizbut Tahrir ...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate... (HuT) activists to police.
Industrial Area police produced the activists of HuT, who were placed in long-term storage from I-9/4 during a raid, in the ATC to seek their physical remand.
After hearing the argument the judicator gave them in police custody on three-day physical remand.
Earlier, Industrial Area police had booked the 19 HuT activists under anti-terrorism act.
During investigation it was revealed that the house on street 35 in I-9/4 was hired eight months back at Rs37,000 per month rent. It was owned by Raja Bashir, a resident of Sector I-9.
Although the police cordoned off the house and the area, one of the activists managed to escape and avoid arrest, the police added.
During the raid some maps were also recovered from the house, the sources said, adding, however, the nature of the maps was being kept secret.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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[An Nahar] Iran on Saturday formally protested against an accusation by Azerbaijan that it ordered "terrorist acts" in the neighboring republic against Western and Israeli targets.
Azerbaijan's ambassador to Tehran, Javanshir Akhundov, was summoned to the foreign ministry to hear an official denial that Iran was involved in plots Baku claimed were criminal masterminded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the state news agency IRNA reported, quoting a ministry statement.
Baku made the charge on Wednesday.
Its national security ministry said that 22 Azerbaijani citizens had been tossed in the calaboose on suspicion of cooperating with the Revolutionary Guards "to commit terrorist acts against the U.S., Israeli and other Western states' embassies and the embassies' employees."
The Azerbaijani ministry said a Revolutionary Guards officer named Akbar Pakravesh gave the Azerbaijani recruits equipment and money and met them in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... and Moscow to avoid suspicion.
IRNA said the Azerbaijani ambassador was "reminded" of efforts by Israel to discredit Iran through staged events.
Iranian officials, it said, "are not pleased and are extremely regretful that the brotherly and friendly government of the Azerbaijani republic has entered into such a game."
Tensions between Tehran and mainly Moslem but officially secular Azerbaijan have risen in recent months, with a series of arrests in Baku of attack plot suspects with alleged links to Tehran.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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Imran Khan party is another King's Party
Reported in Nawa-e-Waqt former PMLQ leader Marvi Memon said that Imran Khan's ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... Tehrik Insaf was nothing more than another PMLQ formed to serve its masters; only this time its leader was not Chaudhry Shujaat but Imran Khan. She said she was offered the post of Information secretary but she said no to it.
Balochistan trouble is of US making
Famous former army chief Aslam Beg told Nawa-e-Waqt that the current 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... trouble was started by America as its global fasad (anarchy) which targets Russia, China, Pakistain and Iran. He said allies of America were a part of this mischief.
Mansoor Ijaz fails to make his point
Daily Mashriq reported that Mansoor Ijaz had failed to make his point even after submitted an 83-page long deposition to the judicial Commission on Memogate. The records he gave simply showed friendly exchange between him and Haqqani but did not prove that Haqqani had framed the memo and then asked Ijaz to hand it over to the American army chief.
Continued on Page 49
[Dawn] A Pak court Saturday remanded family members of the late Osama bin Laden ... he's rotten though not quite forgotten... including his Yemeni wife in judicial custody for nine days, their lawyer said.
Bin Laden's youngest wife Amal Abdulfattah was with him in a compound in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... when he was killed in a US forces operation last year.
"The judge sent Abdulfattah along with her five children to judicial remand until March 26 after a preliminary hearing," Muhammad Aamir, who is going to represent Abdulfattah in the case, told AFP.
He said Abdulfattah's brother, Zakarya Ahmad Abd Al-Fattah, had hired him to represent his sister and her children in the case.
"I will file a power of attorney on behalf of my client, Abd Al-Fattah in the court on Monday to represent Abdulfattah in the case," Aamir said.
He added that he will also seek access to Abdulfattah, who has been in Pak custody since May last year and to the copy of the First Investigation Report (FIR) filed against her.
"I will also pray to the judge to allow Abdulfattah's brother to see her before the next hearing on March 26".
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
[An Nahar] The Terrorist Assets Report referred by the Department of Treasury to the Congress found that around $5 million in Hizbullah assets were blocked in the United States.
A chart in the report said exactly $4,882,893 were blocked as of 2011.
The 20th annual report to the Congress found $21.1 million in assets blocked from "specially designated global terrorists, cut-throats threatening the Middle East grinding of the peace processor and foreign terrorist organizations."
It described Hizbullah as a "terrorist organization threatening to disrupt" the Mideast grinding of the peace processor.
The U.S. has identified Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it identified a total of $520.1 million in assets from the four countries, blocking $398.6 million of it.
OFAC is the lead office responsible for implementing sanctions with respect to assets of "international terrorist organizations and terrorism-supporting countries."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
The State Department on Friday said the U.S. and other countries are consulting with Iraq about Iranian flights of weapons to Syria after Iraq's prime minister denied a report in The Washington Times saying Baghdad is allowing such flights. The best $1,000,000,000,000 of our money Iran ever spent.
#1
No offense, but posters who said President Bush was creating a Teheran colony in Iraq, weren't treated too friendly on the Patriot blogs.
Posted by: Boss Hupusorong4750 ||
03/18/2012 12:46
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#2
No offense, but posters who said President Bush was creating a Teheran colony in Iraq, weren't treated too friendly on the Patriot blogs.
No offense taken, Boss Hupusorong4750. When it comes to prophesying, most of us are likely to be wrong, many for reasons unnoticed or misunderstood at the time. The question that has to be asked in retrospect is, was it better to do what we did and obtain this undesirable result, or do nothing and have more of the situation that then obtained? Also, was there the political capital to do the things necessary to have avoided the current situation?
#3
do nothing and have more of the situation that then obtained? That may not be actual result of doing nothing. The other side has options other than "more of the same."
#4
If the base situation is that sooner or later a Democrat President will give up any advances won on the battlefield by a previous American one, is there any point to fighting any wars at all, or any point to having an army, or anyone enlisting, or even the US going on as a unified country?
[CBC] Bad things happen when a nation tries to fight too many wars with too few troops. The blunt fact about the U.S. army and Marines -- whose difficulties have become the stuff of headlines -- is that they are exhausted and at their wits' end.
Armies wear out rapidly under the unique stress of combat, and for a decade now U.S. ground troops have been rotated through three, four and five combat tours lasting up to a year in each case (15 months at the height of Iraq fighting).
This is not an excuse for the soldier who ran amok in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing 16 civilians, many of them children; nor for the recent burnings of the Qur'an or any of the other almost incomprehensible incidents we regularly hear about in Afghanistan or Iraq.
But at the same time we need to appreciate the high level of mental illness, substance abuse and severe depression that is ravaging American ranks and making such incidents a constant risk.
No other NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... units comes close to the length of time U.S. troops have spent in these wars, nor has anyone else taken anything like the grinding number of casualties.
The Canadian army was seriously tired when it withdrew from Afghanistan combat last year -- yet our ranks could only imagine the far greater strain on U.S. soldiers.
Since 2001, over 6,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; over 47,000 have been maimed.
What's more, almost three-quarters of these casualties have been borne by ground troops and, of these, over 30 per cent suffered serious brain and spine injuries.
'Trauma in the mind' To me it has always seemed shocking that Washington's current political class, relatively few of whom served in the military, have been so careless in allowing their military units to wear down like this. Perhaps because the generals constant "can do" mantra tends to blot out the reality of exhaustion.
Now, however, a few senior voices, such as former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former defence secretary Robert Gates, are speaking out about the human cost of these campaigns and of sending large land armies abroad.
And this week, a former commandant of the prestigious U.S. Army War College, retired Gen. Robert Scales, wrote in the Washington Post that if someone wants to place blame for the Kandahar shooting "it should be on a succession of national leaders who fail to recognize that combat units, particularly infantry, just wear out."
A Vietnam veteran, Scales believes today's vets suffer even more than his generation because "close fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was more pervasive and lasting, thus more likely to cause personal trauma in the mind."
As a news hound, who has covered wars, including Afghanistan, I have a sense of the trauma he is speaking of.
I was always struck by the constant level of tension that surrounded our soldiers whenever they left a main base. It seemed quite different from conventional wars where there were always areas away from the front lines where a soldier could relax a bit.
In Iraq, troops called it 360/365, for the stress came from not knowing from where or when the next firefight would come -- 360 degrees, 365 days a year.
A social time bomb President Barack Obama Because I won... clearly wants to bring the last big contingent of his Afghan troops home as soon as decently possible -- by 2014 at the latest.
But the statistics suggest that this will inevitably transfer the problems of an emotionally drained army to the home front, where many have already taken the brunt of the economic crisis.
Up to 30 per cent of returning soldiers develop serious mental health problems within three to four months of coming home. Up to 25 per cent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which many psychologists feel is an underestimation.
In recent years it has not been uncommon to have more than 300 suicides annually by U.S. veterans, with failed attempts running at over 1,500 a year.
The Pentagon has also been fighting an epidemic of sexual assault among troops. It reports an astonishing 19,000 military men and women were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers in 2010 alone.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... rates of domestic violence surged by over 30 per cent among military families between 2006 and 2011, along with drug and alcohol abuse, rates that Gen. Peter Chiarelli says has grown out of a length of combat "our nation has never experienced before."
And if that weren't enough, the growing fear of violence on U.S. bases has been heightened in recent years by a steady infiltration of street gang members into the military.
Every major gang in America is represented on domestic and foreign bases, according to the FBI. Some members are said to have joined up to try to escape gang life. But at least some seem intent on picking up military skills and more deadly weapons.
So I fear this latest crazed act of a deeply disturbed U.S. soldier is not going to be the last of its kind.
Too many tired and joyless men, who have been soldiering since they were teens, are still fighting for a cause that few understand, alongside fickle allies and among a population that partially despises them and their culture.
An exhausted army is prone to disasters, and this one has surely been pushed to the limit.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
An exhausted army is prone to disasters, and this one has surely been pushed to the limit.
This article presents what is surely a one-sided and not very well proven point of view.
I could just as easily write an article about how experienced and therefore deadly the American military has become through constant practice and need to think about tactics and present one or two tidbits that got me to that conclusion.
Confirmation bias is an ugly thing.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/18/2012 6:29
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#2
This is just the Left recycling its Vietnam War stereotypes of the crazed veterans coming home from Vietnam and butchering civilians both abroad and back home.
#3
[CBC] Bad things happen when a nation tries to fight too many wars with too few troops. The blunt fact about the U.S. army and Marines -- whose difficulties have become the stuff of headlines -- is that they are exhausted and at their wits' end.
Armies wear out rapidly under the unique stress of combat, and for a decade now U.S. ground troops have been rotated through three, four and five combat tours lasting up to a year in each case (15 months at the height of Iraq fighting).
Not surprising that the CBC has beclowned themselves: The blunt fact is that "too many wars with too few troops" is not the same as "two wars fought over a decade. Another proof that liberals have no functional ability to discern equality, and thus are unfit to be judges and legislators.
But what is pertinent to the point is that Americans (not just american soldiers) have had experience with this sort of 360/365 stress before, during western expansion into regions dominated by tribal peoples not unlike those in Afghanistan and Iraq when it came to combat scruples. The Jacksonian way of war, documented by Walter Russel Mead and Victor Davis Hanson, that advocates high intensity, short duration, "total war" combat operations oriented toward achieving "total victory" (as opposed to "partial" or "local" victory), overcomes the problems cited by the CBC.
Of course the CBC, and their fellow travelers, would scream to high heaven if we actually DID that, but I somehow doubt that they actually have the good health and condition of American troops, much less Americans as a whole, in heart.
#4
Oh, and nothing beats relieving the stress of combat on US ground troops than an ARCLIGHT strike.
If the miilitary has forgotten how to do those, I know we have a couple of Rantburg regulars who can come out of retirement to show them how it's done.
At "Cost Plus", it'd be cheaper than two assembly line jobs at Solyndra, and have a better Return On Investment to boot.
#5
It's also the cost of a PC military. For thousands of years grunts have had means to let off the stress. Most of those have been outlawed, prohibited, and banished in the name of correctness under the guise of discipline. We've thrown out our social rituals because they're too damn ancient. Instead we substitute analysis, psychotropic drugs, group therapy as modern alternatives. There are consequences. However, I'll assure you that like teaching professionals, the powers to be will not examine what used to provide some results before because, being professionals, they know better and will drive on with their existing programs. We'll have a military as effective as our education system.
#6
It's interesting that the author, writing from outside the US, doesn't suggest that American troops wouldn't be pulling four of five tours if America's allies would order their troops to march to the sound of the guns instead of the dining hall. (And I don't mean Canada or Britain --they've done their share.) Let's re-write one of the author's sentences a bit:
"To me it has always seemed shocking that Washington's Brussels' current political class have been so careless in allowing their American military units to wear down like this. Perhaps because the generals constant "can do" mantra tends to blot out the the Euros could care less about the reality of dead Americans."
Posted by: Matt ||
03/18/2012 11:54
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#7
Yah, Vietnam was the last winless war. We thought.
Posted by: Boss Hupusorong4750 ||
03/18/2012 12:52
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#8
Not having served in either Iraq or Afghanistan, I can't attack or confirm this story, although I'm forwarding it to my peeps that have been there recently.
But having seen Restrepo, that documentary seems to have summed up Patient Zero scenario for a lot of the behaviors/problems listed in this article. World War II, as bad as it was, lasted half as long, and there were exit points to look at - Berlin and Toyko.
Is that sexual assault number even close to accurate? If so, that's mind boggling.
#11
A study of more than 1,000 prisoners by the group Veterans in Prison put the figure at 9.1%, while Home Office research carried out between 2001 and 2003 concluded that 5% of the prison population were veterans.
[Dawn] A Swiss couple said to have beat feet after being held captive by the Pak Taliban for more than eight months arrived home Saturday, Switzerland's ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... foreign ministry said.
Policeman Olivier David Och, 31, and Daniela Widmer, 28, were welcomed at Zurich airport by family and friends, the ministry said, adding that they were in good health under the circumstances.
They also met members of the government team that had worked for their release in the eight months since they were kidnapped at gunpoint on July 1 last year in Pakistain's southwestern province of 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... , apparently on holiday.
They were quoted as saying they were happy to be free again and back in Switzerland, after an ordeal during which they feared for their lives.
They said they had decided to try to escape, despite the risks, after thinking about it for a long time.
Pak officials said Thursday they were found at a checkpoint in the tribal belt, a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold on the Afghan border, but exactly what happened was clouded in mystery.
Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said in Bern on Thursday they had shown "great courage." He said no ransom was paid for the couple as Switzerland does not pay to free hostages.
The Pak Taliban had claimed the abduction, demanding that the hostages be exchanged for Aafia Siddiqui ...American-educated Pak cognitive neuroscientist who was convicted of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. In September 2010, she was sentenced to 86 years in jug after a three-ring trial. Siddiqui, using the alias Fahrem or Feriel Shahin, was one of six alleged al-Qaeda members who bought $19 million worth of blood diamonds in Liberia immediately prior to 9-11-01. Since her incarceration Paks have taken her to their heart and periodically erupt into demonstrations, while the government tries to find somebody to swap for her... , a Pak neuroscientist placed in durance vile in 2010 in New York for the attempted murder of US government agents in Afghanistan.
A video emerged in October of the couple flanked by four masked gunnies pointing rifles at their heads.
Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, attracts few tourists because of separatist violence and Taliban activity.
Switzerland has advised against non-essential travel to Pakistain since 2008, citing risks including the threat of kidnapping.
Five foreigners remain kidnapped in Pakistain: an American, a Briton, a German, an Italian and a Kenyan, all aid and development workers.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour here on Friday claimed that terrorism in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... had declined by 40 per cent due to government efforts, but, he said, the situation was still precarious.
He added that the region had suffered a lot in the three decades of war imposed by others.
He was speaking at a function arranged by South Asian Free Media Association in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar Press Club on Friday in connection with launching of its report pertaining to different issues faced by journalists in the country.
Mr Bilour said that media had played a vital role for peace and elimination of terrorism.
He said that Death Eaters were using different tactics to target journalists and common people.
He reiterated that the government would continue fight against terrorism. "We have fought undeclared third world war in this region," he said. The minister said that common people, especially ANP activists, had paid sacrifices in fight against terrorism.
He said that the government had tried to resolve issues through dialogue, but the terrorists` intention wasn`t for bringing peace. He said that peaceful Afghanistan was vital to lasting calm in this region, particularly in the KP and Fata.
Other speakers at the function expressed grave concern over the insecurity of media persons in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas and urged the government and owners of media outlets to take appropriate measures for their protection.
Besides Mr Bilour, who was the chief guest on the occasion, Safma KP president Shamim Shahid, local press club president Saiful Islam Saifi, Khyber Union of Journalists president Arshad Aziz Malik, civil society member Idress Kamal and others also spoke on the occasion.
They said that journalists had been facing life threats while performing duties in the province and Fata. The participants acknowledged that journalists had rendered sacrifices for establishment of peace in the region and suggested that dialogue was the only solution to ending militancy and insurgency in this part of the region.
Mr Shahid said that over 17 journalists had fallen prey to terrorism throughout the world, of which 10 casualties were in this region. He said that the media persons were facing severe hardships while performing their duties.
Idrees Kamal said that people belonging to media groups and civil society in particular should support the government in the fight against militancy to restore peace in the country.
Mr Saifi urged the media people to remain careful concerning their professional assignments and routine duties, particularly in the field. Arshad Aziz said that journalists were in dire need of life and health insurance, and the media owners should take steps to protect their interests.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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From Genesis to Scandal, here is a round up of the latest and the historic politicking revolving around the ISI's most (in)famous cell
The Latest Claim
As the Mehran Bank Scandal unfolds and evolves into the finer trappings of the Asghar Khan Case, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, out of all the joes in the federal cabinet, has come up with a curve ball. The ISI has always had a political wing, claims the man who has kept a very low profile throughout the PPP government's tenure, even during the tense moments of the 'state within the state' speech/debacle caused by Memogate's fluttering this last winter and even after the May 2, 2011's Operation Neptune Spear. Thus, when a discrete man like Mukhtar speaks, assume the orders are from high, high up, and the strategy is long, drawn out.
The Latest Spin
Does Mukhtar's posturing mean that Gilani and Zardari, comfortably uninvolved with the Mehran Bank hearings, want to clamp down on the ISI during its 'vulnerable' transition phase?
Even though Mukhtar is the inheritor of a cabinet portfolio which has for long been jokingly referred to as the Ministry of Self-Defence, his timely reiteration has come with an interesting qualification: that the prime minister and the president will be informed about the agency's policies and requirements by newly-appointed ISI Director General Zahirul Islam ( Dawn March 12). This is critical. Does Mukhtar's posturing mean that the Gilani/Zardari, comfortably uninvolved with the Mehran Bank hearings, want to clamp down on the ISI during its 'vulnerable' transition phase (which it is already undergoing with full flow)?
One ISI higher-up (who preferred to remain anonymous as the ISI does not allow attribution) I spoke to played Mukhtar's comments down with some confidence: "There is no political wing any more. That's the end of that. And as for the Defence Minister, well, with due respect, he has had to chew his own words in the past too."
Much more at the link, for those readers interested in such things.
Can't do a "shame on you" if you didn't, 'cause you prolly don't know, when you click through to Amazon from our favorite 'Burg, Fred gets bucks. Doc Steve didn't know. And it seems Apple isn't into the graphic that is Fred's graphic for the click through to Amazon.
So, it looks like this:
Scroll down, paying attention to the right hand column, and you will find that Amazon click through. Trust it...
Support your Rantburg U --- you're gonna place that order anyway, so be sure to include our favorite Fred.
#1
That's what I always do, Sherry. Every little bit helps....
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/16/2012 0:11
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#2
For some reason Amazon has been tardy about opening an Australian operation. A pity because I would buy quite a lot of stuff from Amazon, if I didn't have to pay for shipping from the USA.
#8
Glad you brought this up, Sherry. I've wondered why Fred didn't have an Amazon link (other than the contrib) but never got around to asking. Apparently, Firefox config was hiding it. D'oh! Next time...
Australian attorney general Nicola Roxon has declared there is no place for Islamic law to settle family issues. Muslim leaders have defended the use of sharia law in Australia, particularly in the execution of wills that favor sons over daughters, contending that Australian courts should respect the wishes of Islamic citizens.
Roxon said, "There is no place for sharia law in Australian society and the government strongly rejects any proposal for its introduction, including in relation to wills and succession. The Australian government is committed to protecting the right of all people to practise their religion without intimidation or harassment, but always within the framework of Australian law."
A bitter dispute between siblings came before a court in Canberra last week, when a daughter of a devout Muslim woman demanded she receive the same inheritance as her brothers. Fatma Omari argued that Australian law, rather than Islamic law, should apply to her mother's will, despite it outlining her mother's wishes to follow sharia by giving her three sons full shares and her daughters half-shares of her estate. The case was complicated by the mother's state of mind when the will was drafted, because she was suffering from dementia.
Wearing a U.S. Army uniform and flanked by Iraqi lawmakers, an American citizen announced Saturday that he was being released from more than nine months of imprisonment by a Shiite militia that for years targeted U.S. troops. Anybody???
The man did not identify himself. But at a bizarre press conference outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, lawmakers showed U.S.-issued military and contractor ID cards that identified him as Randy Michael Hultz.
Photos at link. Do our readers have any thoughts on their probable validity?
Hultz said he deployed to Iraq in 2003 as an active-duty soldier but left the military after 15 months. At that point, he said, he worked in a "civilian capacity" until his kidnapping on June 18, 2011. He did not wear any patches on his Army green digitalized camouflage uniform that would identify his rank or what unit he may have served with. According to the two ID cards displayed at the press conference, he was active-duty military from January 2004 to February 2005, and a U.S. contractor from December 2005 to November 2007.
Even Iraqi security forces were taken aback at the announcement. A senior Iraqi security official said intelligence indicated that the Promised Day Brigade had captured an American, but did not have enough reliable information to confirm it.
[Yemen Post] General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division and the Northwestern military region, accused former President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... of trying to thwart the GCC-brokered deal by demanding to adhere to previous agreement, according to a source close to Mohsen.
These comments came as a response for Saleh's demand that elements of the one-year political impasse quit their posts and leave Yemen based on a deal struck at Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi's, the current President, house last year.
"If he wants us to abide by previous agreements then fine we will, but the immunity granted by the GCC deal would be invalid and nullified," said the source who considered Saleh's return to Yemen and the political scene is a breach of the deal singed in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in November last year.In May 2011, Saleh, Sadeq al-Ahmar, Mohsen and other top opposition figures held talks in Hadi house with the aim of resolving the crisis and they agreed that ten influential opposition leaders as well as Saleh quit their posts of authority and leave Yemen. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... Saleh has changed his mind hours later and withdrew from the deal, saying it was serving his opponents and that he was holding incumbent position unlike his foes who can be relieved from their posts by a republican decree.
In a statement released on Thursday, the former ruling General People Congress Party, whose head and founder is Saleh, said previous deal should be committed to by all sides, arguing Saleh had quit his post then his opponents must follow suit.The statement demanded the resignation of Gen. Mohsen, Abdu-Majeed al-Zandani, Abdu-Wahab al-Anasi, Hameed al-Hmar, Sadeq al-Hmar, Hasham al-Hmar, Mathahj al-Hmar, Hussein al-Hmar, Mansour al-Hanq, and Mohammed Ali Mohsen al-Hmar.
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03/18/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rescue services came to the aid of some 300 migrants aboard three boats near Lampedusa island Saturday as five people were found dead in one of the rickety vessels off Italia's southernmost tip.
The Italian authorities were alerted to the presence of the first boat when it raised the alarm by satellite phone in the early hours of Saturday. Of the 57 people aboard, five were found dead, a coastiesfront man said.
The migrants, who had set sail from Libya in a seven-metre (23-foot) dinghy, were in a poor condition after days at sea and were taken to Lampedusa for urgent medical care, he said.
"They appear to be from sub-Saharan Africa. There is a health emergency. Some of the immigrants are in a serious condition and there are two pregnant women," said Giuseppe Cannarile, a lieutenant with the island's coastguard.
One of the pregnant women was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Sicily.
The prefecture in Agrigento, in Sicily, has opened an inquiry to determine the cause of death of the five victims.
Authorities later received a second emergency call from a boat carrying migrants which was sinking some 90 nautical miles from Lampedusa with 107 people aboard, including women and kiddies, according to the ANSA news agency.
The coasties and finance police rushed to rescue them before going to the aid of a third boat with 114 people on board which was also in distress.
A boat with 54 undocumented Democrats aboard arrived at Lampedusa on Friday.
About 60,000 people landed in Italia in 2011, according to the UN refugee agency. Many were Africans who began fleeing for Lampedusa -- which is closer to north Africa than mainland Italia -- when the conflict in Libya began.
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[An Nahar] Iraq's deputy foreign minister voiced support on Saturday for the idea of peacekeeping forces manned exclusively by Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... troops but stopped short of backing a Qatari proposal to deploy one in Syria.
Labid Abbawi's remarks come ahead of an Arab summit due in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... on March 29, the first meeting of the 22-nation bloc in the Iraqi capital since the late dictator Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"We do support the idea, but of course there are a lot of details which have to be discussed," Abbawi told Agence La Belle France Presse when asked if Iraq backed an Arab League peacekeeping force.
"But the idea is supported by us."
He said he was not sure if the idea would be agreed at the upcoming summit, but said it was "a time to look at it again".
Qatar has most forcefully advocated the idea of an Arab force, to be used particularly in Syria, and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Saturday it was time to send Arab and other foreign troops to Syria.
"The time has come to apply the proposal to send Arab and international troops to Syria," Sheikh Hamad said during a meeting of top diplomats that was to be joined by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later on Saturday.
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03/18/2012
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#1
Ya know, many ME Govts-States = Arab League like the idea of a OWG "Islamic Union", + even OWG "Mediterranean Union", that doesn't have to rely on the US-NATO andor UNSC all the time to enforce Mandates = will of UNO + International Community, espec vee Muslim Countries, yet fail to do so because the Islamic tenet that no Muslim may fight or kill another Muslim.
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE.
Lest we fergit, 9-11/GWOT + WAR FOR OWG-NWO = ANTI-STATUS QUO = OLD WAYS M-U-S-T CHANGE, NOT "SHOULD" OR "MIGHT" CHANGE.
[Dawn] Iran's parliament speaker on Saturday compared Israel to a barking dog that won't dare attack the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear program. They usually say something like that about a week before the bunker busters start busting...
"They make a lot of fuss about it but don't dare to attack Iran," Ali Larijani said of Israel. His comments were posted on the parliament's website. "They are like dogs that keep barking but are not for attacks."
"Israel won't make the mistake of attacking Iran because it's not prepared to play with its own destiny," said Larijani.
Larijani is Iran's former top nuclear negotiator and intensely loyal to the country's holy man-led regime. His barbed comments are sure to ratchet up tension over Iran's nuclear program.
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#1
Well 'Bama won't allow it.
Posted by: Boss Hupusorong4750 ||
03/18/2012 12:53
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Egypt's Coptic Pope Shenuda III, spiritual leader of the Middle East's largest Christian minority, died on Saturday at the age of 88, state media and cathedral sources said.
He had suffered health problems for years and recently stopped receiving treatment for liver failure and tumours or swelling in his lungs because he was too feeble, the Coptic Church said.
"The last days were the hardest in the Pope's life, as he was unable to walk," said a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.
Shenuda was forced to cancel a weekly sermon last week over health concerns.
There was no immediate official word on when the funeral will be held for Shenuda, who was named pope of Alexandria in 1971, but there were unconfirmed reports it will be held on Tuesday.
There was also no word on when clergy and laity would convene to begin the process of choosing a successor.
Shenuda led the Copts, estimated at 10 percent of Egypt's population of more than 80 million, for the best part of a generation, in which Egypt was hit by a wave of Islamic militancy from which he sought to protect his people.
Shortly after the announcement of his death, thousands of Copts flocked to the Abassiya Cathedral in central Cairo to mourn their spiritual leader.
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#1
I do not think much of his policies but he was certainly in a very difficult position as the Coptics have a reducing future in Egypt.
[Dawn] WHEN long-forgotten skeletons start emerging from the basement into the glare of publicity, those who hid them have good reason to be embarrassed.
So when Younus Habib was wheeled into the Supreme Court, many people were shocked to see him.
But clearly, those who bankroll our spymasters are made of durable stuff. In Habib's case, while his revelations had the power to titillate, they were hardly surprising. After all, Asad Durrani had already deposed before the Supreme Court that he had doled out millions to sundry seedy politicians in a signed affidavit in 1996.
The retired general and ex-director of the ISI now says that he paid off anti-PPP politicians in his personal capacity at the behest of Aslam Beg, then army chief, and Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the powerful president of the day. This, of course, is rubbish. Would Younus Habib have obliged Durrani with large amounts of cash if he had not been the head of the ISI?
While this latest political scandal will no doubt keep our TV channels in a high state of excitement until the next one comes along, it has reopened long-simmering questions about civil-military relations. The National Assembly's unanimous resolution to frame a law that will rein in our intelligence agencies is a foretaste of things to come.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... simply passing laws is not enough to control our spooks. After all, forming political groupings, buying and bullying politicians and rigging elections is hardly in the ISI's remit. And yet, all our principal intelligence agencies, including MI and IB, have been dabbling in politics for decades. Naturally, all this skulduggery goes on in the name of national security.
Indeed, the number of crimes committed in the name of this elusive security would fill several volumes. All countries have intelligence agencies, but few intelligence agencies have countries. In Pakistain, the ISI in particular has acquired such a fearsome image that the imminent change at the top has made headlines the world over.
However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... the agency's reputation has taken several huge knocks of late. The year 2011 began badly for the ISI: Raymond Davis bumped off two would-be robbers in broad daylight in Lahore, and we thus learned that CIA contractors and agents were operating in the country without the ISI's knowledge.
The ISI was caught in a cleft stick when the late Osama bin Laden ... who has left the building... was found to be living in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... for over five years -- and in Pakistain for even longer. The May 2 American commando raid placed the ISI in an untenable position: either it knew about the Al Qaeda chief's presence and had concealed it from the Americans, or it had no idea about it. So it was either complicit or inept.
In the event, the ISI pleaded ignorance, but such is its reputation for duplicity abroad that to this day, many people continue to believe that it had sheltered Bin Laden all along. Personally, knowing the agency's abysmal track record in its primary function of intelligence-gathering and analysis, I was sure that it genuinely had no idea that the world's most-wanted terrorist was living in the shadow of the country's premier military academy in Abbottabad, a major garrison town.
Then there was the kidnapping, torture and murder of Saleem Shahzad. Although the intelligence apparatus has always denied any involvement, the journalist's earlier allegations about threats he had received have made it suspect. Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... allegations of double dealing with jihad boy groups have further tarnished its image.
Currently, the bizarre memogate scandal in which Mansoor Ijaz, once the ISI's fiercest critic, has made allegations implicating the president in a bid to seek American support to block a feared army coup is occupying the limelight.
Both the army chief and the head of the ISI, Gen Pasha, insisted on a very public enquiry, aided and abetted by Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... who filed a petition before the Supreme Court, asking for a judicial probe. The resultant commission has not exactly set the Indus on fire with its findings thus far.
Indeed, the early enthusiasm seems to have faded, together with whatever credibility Mansoor Ijaz had to begin with.
Increasingly, the whole thing smacked of a deliberate attempt to destabilise the government before the recent Senate elections.
In any case, the ISI has not emerged with much glory from this latest confrontation with an elected government.
By the very nature of their work, intelligence agencies generally stay out of the spotlight. However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... by constantly dabbling in domestic politics, it was inevitable that the ISI would feature largely in the media, and now finds itself in the dock. The days
when it could bully and bribe the media into silence are long gone.
But perhaps some good will come from this series of disasters that have befallen the ISI. Maybe there will be an internal review of the agency's role. There needs to be a realisation that it cannot simultaneously be a covert organization devoted to internal
and external military intelligence, as well as a political player.
More important is the need to establish political control over the ISI. When this government tried to place the ISI under the interior ministry, its ill-judged attempt was quickly rebuffed. But now, the top military and civilian leadership ought to sit down, out of the glare of publicity, and hammer out a new charter for the ISI, MI and IB.
Currently, there is no oversight over the ISI's budget. Similarly, there is minimum information on military expenditure in the national budget. There is no parliamentary debate on the country's largest single expenditure. Clearly, this needs to change, and our defence forces ought to justify their budgetary proposals to our elected representatives.
These suggestions need not alarm our generals. Given the propensity of our politicians to roll over before them, it is unlikely that their budgetary requests will be denied by the National Assembly. Let us not forget that when the ISI chief appeared before parliament in the wake of the Abbottabad raid, no politician had any words of criticism.
In an act of rage and frustration, the ISI has levelled Osama bin Laden's house as if its demolition will erase its shame. And bizarrely, it has charged the dead terrorist's widows and children with illegal entry into Pakistain. It's a pity they couldn't have included Bin Laden in this charge while he was still alive.
Small Wars Journal's Kip Whittington discusses the implications of the changes since Israel went into Lebanon in 2006. A taste:
In the middle of a region experiencing unprecedented change, a question lingers: Will Israel attack Iran? As a result, a flurry of writings have appeared attempting to answer this pertinent question. A "yes" comes with a list of consequences of which the most troubling is the threat of an escalating regional conflict. In the middle of this regional war it is said that the most powerful non-state actor in the Middle East, Lebanon's Hezbollah, would be a key player.
#1
today's Hezbollah is fundamentally different from the one that fought Israel for 34-days during the summer of 2006
More importantly, today's Israel is fundamentally different from the one that let savages & degenerates World Community dictate its actions for 60 years.
#2
The Hezbys took out 29 of the world's best battle tanks during the 2008 intervention. IEDs have escalated the conflict. The next conflict won't be so dainty.
Posted by: Boss Hupusorong4750 ||
03/18/2012 12:51
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Hezbollah may well attack Israel if their last supporter after Syria fails is attacked. They would be responsible for answering what all the funds and arms were for if not for this particular case. On the other hand, commentors talking about 40,000 missiles swamping Israel's ability to defend itself is just wishful thinking from the Hezbo wing. Israel tries to prevent civilian casualties and if that factor is removed due to a massive rain of missiles then all bets are off on how long the last Hesbo lives. Swarming UAVs, day and night, will make life unbearable for any launch site capable of hitting Israel and if that's in northern Lebanon then the entire Lebanese population will get to watch this one. NEVER again!
[Dawn] Continuing to do violence to child education in the province, Death Eaters blew up four government-run schools in Lakki Marwat, Swabi and Kohat districts early on Friday.
In Lakki Marwat, two schools for boys were destroyed by bombs in Dhoda and Zer Janu villages, which are 15 to 20 kilometres away from Lakki city.
An official of the education department told Dawn that over 115 children were enrolled in Dhoda primary school, while Zer Janu middle school had over 160 students.
Villagers said the bombing of schools, which were the only sign of development in their areas, had instilled fear into their children, who were reluctant to go to the destroyed buildings to continue with their studies.
In Swabi, a government high school was destroyed in Kaddi village after two bombs went off.
The incident occurred only a day after district police officer Abdul Rashid announced during a function of station house officers that police would ensure peace in the district at all costs.
Watchman Haroon Mohammad was present on the premises when bombs went kaboom!. He, however, remained unhurt.
Soon after the incident, officials of Zaida cop shoppe reached the schools and began investigation.
Executive district officer (education) Abdul Salam, provincial president of Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... Asad Qaisar and politicians visited the place and inspected the destroyed building.
In Kohat, Death Eaters blew up a primary school for boys in remote area of Kotangi Marchoongi.
Sub inspector of the bomb disposal squad Akbar Khan told Dawn over the telephone that a time bomb of high intensity was used in the incident, which caused complete destruction to two classrooms and partial damage to one.
He said four more rooms of the buildings developed cracks and that more than 20kg kaboom was used in the blast.
The administration announced indefinite holidays in the school and said classes would resume once rooms were repaired.
The Bilitang cop shoppestarted the paperwork but haven't done much else against unidentified Death Eaters and began investigation. However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... no arrests could be made until the last reports came in Friday night.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... a former peace committee member`s perforated carcass was found in the fields near a tube well in Shiekhabad village in Tank district early on Friday.
Wife of the dead person, Nasrullah, told Gomal police that unidentified people knocked at the main door of their house Thursday night and took away her husband and later locals found his body at a deserted place near a Shiekhabad tube well.
Gomal police seized the body, fulfilled legal formalities and handed it over the dead person`s family.
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[Dawn] Additional IG Akhtar Ghorchani has said that so far 15 extortion complaints have been reported at the newly established Anti-Extortion Cell headed by a DSP. Speaking at a press conference at the CIA Centre here on Friday, he said that eight of these complaints had been addressed and two suspects had been arrested. So they're actually 2 for 15. That's a .133 average. Never make it to the majors that way...
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Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
Mandy def had staying power.
Posted by: Titus Bluetooth7929 ||
03/18/2012 1:02
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#2
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Danneel Harris (Ackles) aka Tish in "Ten Inch Hero (2007)" aka Vanessa in "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) & A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)" aka Bianca in "Fired Up! (2009)" aka Sara Maxwell in "Friends with Benefits (TV Series 2011)" aka Erica in "Mardi Gras: Spring Break (2011)" (age 33)
[Dawn] President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... addressed a joint sitting of the National Assembly and Senate on Saturday amid shouts of protest from opposition members of the house.
The president, who chose to speak in English rather than in Urdu, said Pakistain had achieved a new milestone in democracy. He was referring to his fifth address to a joint sitting of the National Assembly and Senate.
"The world can see that the march of democracy goes on," said Zardari.
Amid shouts of slogans by the opposition benches, the president praised the government's achievements. Opposition politicians shouted insults through much of the first half of the address, accusing the government of "looting and plundering".
"Please maintain the sanctity of the House," pleaded speaker Fehmida Mirza, as her cries fell on deaf ears.
Opposition members shortly walked out of the House as President Zardari detailed the milestones his administration had achieved.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
D*mn, I have a stomach cramp from laughing too much.
[Dawn] Three people were killed in exchange of fire between two families over ownership of a rainwater-fed nullah in Dhaki area of Mandani town in Charsadda district on Friday.
Locals said members of two families opened fire on each other, killing Ismail, Irshad and Nizar. They said Ismail and Irshad belonged to one group and Nizar to the other.
Also in the day, people of Charsadda city protested prolonged and unscheduled power loadshedding and threatened agitation against it.
Protesters, including students and traders, said Beautiful Downtown Peshawar Electric Supply Company had subjected them to power cuts up to 18 hours a day.
They said students were the worst affected by prolonged and unscheduled loadshedding as they were preparing for the ongoing matriculation and imminent intermediate examinations.
Protesters threatened to boycott examinations and agitate if smooth electric supply to the area wasn`t restored without delay.
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[An Nahar] A U.N. team mandated by international envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... will leave for Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... on Monday, the former U.N. secretary general's front man said.
U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Annan said Friday the team would discuss setting up an international monitoring mission for Syria.
"I hope they will have all the access that is necessary," he added at a presser in Geneva after a video briefing of the U.N. Security Council.
He told a closed meeting of the council that he was sending the team even though he has had a "disappointing response" so far to his proposals to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes...
He said his "six-point proposals" to Assad remain on the table and that he had "no illusions" over the scale of his mission to try to end the year-old military assault on protest cities that the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... says has left more than 8,000 dead.
Annan also said he feared that the fallout from the Syria crisis could affect the whole of the Middle East.
"The talking continues," he said in Geneva, urging caution because the whole region is concerned.
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#1
OTOH CHINA DAILY FORUM > {Wayne Madsen Report = WMR] GULF ARABS [Govts-States] OFFERED BRIBE [US$5.0Bilyuhn] TO RUSSIA FOR "YES" VOTE ON SYRIA, i.e. in support of UN Resolution calling for Baby Assad to step down from power.
* TOPIX > TURKISH OFFICIALS: NO [Turkish = unilateral?]INTERVENTION AS LONG AS RUSSIA + IRAN BACK SYRIA.
* SAME > SYRIA, CYPRUS, ARMENIA RELATIONS CRITICAL TESTS FOR TURKEY.
A federal judge in Mexico City has issued four new warrants for the arrest of Coahuila state officials involved in a massive bank loan scam, according to Mexican news reports.
Jaime Rene Jimenez Flores, Jorge Lopez Alarcon, Hector Javier Villarreal Hernandez and Sergio Ricardo Fuentes Flores are the four officials named in the warrants by the unidentified judge. Two of the disgraced public officials, Senors Jimenez Flores and Lopez Alarcón, are already in a federal prison in Distrito Federal waiting trial.
An arrest warrant was stayed by another federal judge earlier in favor of a fifth official, Juan Manuel Delgado. Apparently, the new detention orders were released to keep the two officials currently facing trial in prison, and to maintain warrants against the other two officials still at large, based on the legal reasoning for the stay in favor of Senor Manuel Delgado.
All five officials are facing charges under a federal law dating only to 2005 that forbids fraud in acquiring loans from any credit institution, even if the money will be or has been repaid. The acts that enabled the government of Coahuila state to amass the heaviest debt load per capita in Mexico are themselves relatively minor charges.
Villarreal Hernandez, head of the Coahuila state tax collection service, had earlier been charged in state court with falsifying documents. He spent a weekend in jail before he was released on bail. He was later caught attempting to board a private aircraft bound for Texas by Coahuila state ministerial police agents.
After Villareal Hernandez was re-apprehended he was released with the new bail conditions that he periodically check in with the local court in Saltillo, something he has to date never done.
Villarreal Hernandez has been on the run since the last time he was released. At first, speculation was he went to Cuba.
Last month Villarreal Hernandez was arrested on money laundering charges related to the discovery of USD $67,000 in cash in his possession in Smith County, Texas incident to a traffic stop by sheriff deputies. He spent a week in county jail before his USD $20,000 bail was posted. Villarreal Hernandez's wife, Maria Botella, two unidentified children and an unidentified passenger were also in the car with Villarreal Hernandez when he was arrested.
The Coahula public debt scandal was so massive that it cost the central figure in the state government at the time the loans were illegally acquired, Humberto Moreira Valdes, his job as president of the Mexican Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) after only nine months in office, and an unexpectedly narrow electoral win in Michoacan state.
Despite being the head of state of Coahuila and having direct contact with at least one of the officials charges during the scandal, Moreira has always claimed his innocence in the scandal.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
That's 11k updated through March 15, 2012. The date of the beginning of the death count of the current uprising was March 15, 2011 (although anti Assad protests began in late Jan 2011).
In comparison, the Hama Massacre is estimated at 10k to 40k deaths but was in only a single month (Feb 1982)
The Black September Massacre is estimated at 3k to 10k deaths with most of the fatalities in Sept 1970 but others up until July 1971.
Of course, these are all 'internal'. The Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988 produced 500k to 1M deaths.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
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#1
His dada would do it in a week---assuring 40 years of peace & quiet.
[An Nahar] Five Syrian opposition groups on Saturday announced the formation of a new coalition, a sign of how difficult opponents of the Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... regime find it to cooperate, a year after the start of the protest movement.
The five groups, meeting here, said their yet unnamed coalition would act independently from the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition coalition which was set up in August to fight Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Light of the Alawites... regime.
The new group is made up of the liberal National Movement for Change, the Islamist Movement for the Fatherland, the Bloc for Liberation and Development, led by Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal chief, the Turkmen National Bloc, and the Kurdish Movement for a New Life.
Asked about relations between the new coalition and the SNC, Ammar al-Qurabi, leader of the National Movement for Change, told Agence La Belle France Presse his "coalition was not set up in opposition to anyone, other than Assad's regime, but rather to unite the opposition outside the SNC."
"We see the SNC as a temporary structure which will disappear with time, while our own coalition is a more long-term entity that will be there after liberation" in Syria, according to Imamduddin al-Rashid, head of the Movement for the Fatherland.
The SNC has emerged as one of the main voices of the opposition, but is often criticized by activists inside Syria who say the mostly exiled leadership has little connection to protesters on the ground.
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[An Nahar] Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq has claimed a suicide car booming at a Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... police academy a month ago that killed 15 people and maimed 21 others, a U.S. monitoring group said on Saturday.
The February 19 bombing was the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in weeks, and was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in a statement posted on a jihadist forum on Friday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors bad boy websites.
"The operation targeted the headquarters of the general police academy... where tens of the graduates of the officer training program were gathered," the forum post said, according to a translation provided by SITE.
"These graduates are qualified by the Safavid government to periodically control land in the Sunni areas and impose the reality of the situation in strengthening the rule of the (Shiites) in the land," it said.
Sunni forces of Evil often invoke Iran's Safavid past, referring to the Shiite dynasty that ruled Persia between the 16th and 18th centuries and conquered part of Iraq, when denouncing the Storied Baghdad government, which they say is controlled by Iran.
The posting also included a list of 29 operations carried out by the ISI in Storied Baghdad between February 13 and February 29.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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[Yemen Post] Yemeni government confirmed on Saturday that it had taken precautionary measures to protect its security and army troops from the suicide kabooms, which has sharply increased lately.
Ministry of Interior said it had instructed security and army personnel across the country to take precautionary measures and to be on the highest level of alertness of potential suicide kabooms.
The soldiers were deployed in a way that will help foil any attack and minimize the losses in case a bombing occurs, according to the statement.
Since February last year, al-Qaeda, which has taken over some swathes of land in the south of the country, has carried out several car boomings, targeting army and security troops in southern and southeastern provinces. The attacks left hundreds of soldiers killed and hundreds others maimed.
The ministry raising level of vigilance coincided with media reports that gang suspected to be linked with the transnational terror network in the southern Yemeni province of Taiz, the cradle of the uprising against the 33-year-rule of President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... . Local media outlets reported that gangs believed to be linked with al-Qaeda are increasingly noticed in Al-Rahda area of Taiz, which is a province in the former north Yemen.
Residents of Taiz voiced their concerns that the same scenario of Abyan, al-Qaeda stronghold, would be repeated in their city, calling on the authorities to shoulder its responsibility and force the beturbanned goons out of Taiz.The interim government announced on Friday that the police had managed to arrest some dozens of Africans suspected of being al-Qaeda recruits in the central province of Dhamar, some 90km south Sana'a, the Yemeni capital.
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03/18/2012
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[Yemen Post] A Swiss language teacher I've always wanted to learn to speak Swiss...
was kidnapped on Thursday by gunnies in the Red city of al-Hodieda.
The English language That's not Swiss!
teacher was moved to the southeastern province of Shabwa, an AQAP stronghold, security sources told Yemen Post on condition of anonymity.
Sources close to AQAP denied their responsibility for the incident, saying the krazed killer group had nothing to do with it.
The Swiss government confirmed the kidnapping on Friday and said it was contacting with the Yemeni authorities in order to negotiate a safe release of the Swiss hostage.
Kidnapping incidents have increased in the last ten years, with rustics resorting to abduct foreigners to force the government to release their imprisoned relatives, or blackmail it for money.
Earlier the year, a UN Norwegian worker was snatched by rustics from central province of Marib in one of the busiest streets at al-Musbahi roundabout,about two blocks away from the Presidential Palace where there is constant heavy security presence, in the Yemeni capital of Sana.
As usual, the Norwegian was freed unharmed after the rustics had struck a deal with the government, which has agreed to release some of thier prisoners.
Ahmed al-Alfi, a senior employer in the Ministry of Tourism, attributed the low revenues from the tourism sector in the country, where there is many historic, old , beautiful, and natural places to visit and enjoy, to the frequent kidnappings of westerners.
"Such incidents shows ignorance, indifference, and stupidity, as well as negligence on the part of authorities which should have raised awareness among the people of the danger and bad effects on the national economy by such reckless, uncalled for acts." He said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
I've always wanted to learn to speak Swiss...
It is quite similar to Austrian, I understand.
Personally, I've never understood why all these foreigners just don't speak English like everyone else.
#2
"Swiss" can mean many things. Some Swiss speak Italian, others French, whilst most speak Swiss German. And, of course, a very high proportion of Swiss speak English. Almost every person in Switzerland speaks more than one language, and it is not uncommon for educated Swiss to speak fluent French, Italian, German, English and one other language of their choice. They have a pretty badass reputation, man-for-man, in the world of linguistics/foreign languages.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Libya wants Mauritania to extradite Abdullah al-Senussi, the locked away spymaster of slain dictator Moamer Qadaffy who is wanted by the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... , the government said on Saturday.
"Telephone calls are underway by Libyan authorities to request his extradition," front man Nasser al-Manaa told a news conference in Tripoli. ...a confusing city, one end of thich 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... He added that the prosecutor general had also sent an extradition request to the Mauritanian government through Interpol.
The government "is ready to receive Abdullah al-Senussi and to detain him in a Libyan prison and to give him a fair trial in Libya," Manaa said, adding that the spymaster was accompanied at the time of his arrest "by someone who is believed to be his son."
Senussi was locked away overnight at Nouakchott airport after arriving on a regular flight from Casablanca in Morocco carrying a fake Malian passport, a Mauritanian security official said.
He was taken to the national intelligence agency's office in Nouakchott but it was unclear what the Mauritanian government planned to do with him, said the official.
Meanwhile, ...back at the the conspirators' cleverly concealed hideout the long-awaited message arrived. They quickly got to work with their decoder rings... French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... Saturday hailed the arrest and also called for Senussi's extradition to La Belle France, his office said.
National Transitional Council front man Mohammed al-Harizi acknowledged La Belle France's extradition request but insisted Senussi should be tried in Libya for the crimes he committed there.
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03/18/2012
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[Bangla Daily Star] The BNP has never taken any funds from abroad to contest polls, the party's acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said yesterday. "No, no! Certainly not!"
Rather, he alleged, it was the Awami League that won the 2008 general election by dint of "bags of cash" from India. "It wuz them! They dunnit!"
His comments came three days after a former chief of Pakistain's Inter Services Intelligence told the Pakistain Supreme Court that the ISI had funded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's campaign for the polls in 1991. Daily Mail Online reported the ex-ISI chief's court statement. So far precisely no former chiefs of RAW have come forward to confess to funding the Awami League. Anywhere outside Bangladesh this would point the finger at BNP. Within Bangla the waters are sufficiently muddy to leave the next election, if any, in doubt.
Fakhrul was addressing a programme arranged in the capital by Jatiyatabadi Swechhasebak Dal ...the wardheelers' volunteer wing of the BNP... on the first death anniversary of BNP leader Khandaker Delwar Hossain.
The acting secretary general said, "We want to state categorically that our party never takes anyone's money to contest elections. Rather, there are allegations that it's you [ruling Awami League] who take money and other favours from foreigners. You are alleged to have taken money from Pakistain in 1996 to help pro-Paks." "But it's been hushed up. Nobody's heard about it but us..." Fakhrul alleged that the government had been using Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the state-owned news agency, to spread propaganda. The BNP would soon make a formal protest against it.
Speaking at the programme, Opposition Chief Whip Zainul Abdin Farroque said, "If we join parliament, the ruling party has got to be cordial."
The BNP may discontinue attending the session if the treasury bench's behaviour towards the opposition spoils the environment of the House.
On March 3, the UAE-based daily Khaleej Times reported that Air Marshal Asghar Khan, former commander-in-chief of Pakistain Air Force and veteran politican, in a petition filed with the Pak apex court said the ISI had paid Rs 50 million to BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... ahead of the 1991 elections, which the party won.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
ISI money is trickle-down US aid.
Posted by: Boss Hupusorong4750 ||
03/18/2012 12:49
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For a map, click here. For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of five armed suspects were killed by units of the Mexican Army in separate encounters in Zacatecas state since Wednesday, according to Mexican news accounts.
Saturday morning around 0900 hrs armed suspects attacked an army patrol detachment with the Mexican 11th Military Zone in Concepcion del Oro municipality.
Two suspects were killed and one was wounded. The wounded suspect along with two other male suspects and two woman were detained following the encounter.
Soldiers seized four rifles and two vehicles as well as an undisclosed quantity of contraband.
In Valparaiso municipality, another army unit came under small arms fire near the Hotel La Laguna early Wednesday morning.
The unit was apparently on road patrol around 0300 hrs when the encounter took place. Army return fire killed three armed suspects.
Three women were detained who were apparently prostitutes. Three rifles were also seized by elements of the army patrol.
A relief element with the Mexican 52nd Infantry Battalion had apparently been dispatched from its base near Fresnillo, which was attacked by an unknown number of armed suspects. Reports say the attack was intended to prevent the relief element from reinforcing the fight of the unit in Valparaiso.
The attackers apparently fled into the night, ending the battle. No casualties from either side were reported in the second encounter. It is unclear from report exactly where the relief element was attacked since Fresnillo is more than 80 kilometers from Valparaiso to the southwest.
The Mexican Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army has not to date released any information on its website about any of the armed encounters.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[An Nahar] A U.S.-born Islamist fighter viewed as a key foreign leader within Somalia's al-Qaeda allied Shebab militia has said he fears his life is now in danger from fellow krazed killers.
Omar Hamami -- better known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki -- gave the warning in an undated video posted on several Somali websites and YouTube Saturday.
"To whomever it may reach from the Moslems, from Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, I record this message today because I feel that my life may be endangered by Harakat Shebab Al-Mujahedeen due to some differences that occurred between us regarding matters of the Sharia (Islamic law) and matters of the strategy," he said, speaking in English.
Dang, the chili I had for dinner must really be getting to me...
The bearded Amriki, dressed in a black top and with a checked scarf, posed in front of the Shebab's black flag and beside an automatic rifle in the minute-long video, but did not provide a location.
He provided no further details about the threats or differences with other Shebab commanders, who have been battling to topple the weak Western-backed government, which is propped up by over 10,000 African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops.
The video adds weight to reports of growing divisions within the Shehab, who face pressure on three fronts by regional forces and pro-government forces.
Amriki had previously been seen as a key leader for imported muscle in the Shebab, alongside top Somali commanders Muktar Robow and Sheikh Hasan Dahir Aweys.
Some suggest Somali Shebab fighters view the foreign gunnies as a liability -- even as potential spies -- while missile strikes have targeted the foreign krazed killers.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... the Shebab dismissed the Amriki's concerns in messages posted Saturday on Twitter.
"We assure our Moslem brothers that al-Amriki is not endangered by the mujahedeen, and our brother still enjoys all the privileges of brotherhood," the Shebab said.
Including the right to an Islamic death either by his brother Muslims or by an American drone...
"A formal investigation is just underway and HSM (Shebab) is still attempting to verify the authenticity as well as the motivations behind the video," it added.
Alabama-born Amriki, who has reportedly been based in anarchic Somalia since late 2006 and is wanted by the United States on terrorism charges, has issued previous videos calling for foreign recruits, including singing rap songs praising jihad.
Britannia's security think tank, the Royal United Services Institution, estimates the total number of imported muscle within the Shebab to be around 200.
AU military commanders say they have reports some imported muscle are fleeing Somalia for Yemen.
The hardline Shehab last month lost control of their strategic base of Baidoa to Ethiopian troops and pro-government Somali forces, the second major loss for the rebels in six months after the majority pulled out of the capital Mogadishu.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... experts warn the Shebab are far from defeated and remain a major threat, especially now they have switched to guerrilla tactics in many areas after leaving fixed fighting positions.
This article starring:
Abu Mansoor al-Amriki
Omar Hamami
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#2
Well,he went to Somalia seeking martyrdom. Looks like he may get it, although not in the way he hoped for.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/18/2012 0:18
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#3
Doing a helluva job, Omar. Next time you want the drones, just give us a yell on the special freq. We'll be monitoring as usual.
Posted by: Super Secret US Govt Agency Beginning With "C" ||
03/18/2012 0:24
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#4
Dude, that town Baidoa has changed hands probably 40 times since 1991. I'll bet the Baidoan roadside fruit vendors have seen some shit in their days (and fruit is probably not one of them...)
All schools in South set to reopen; IDF impressed by Islamic Jihad's ability to launch more than 300 rockets during five main days of hostility; Israel satisfied with Egypt's role in cease-fire.
Gazooks fired a few rockets at Israel on Friday, but none on Saturday as of press time. IDF sources said that Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... was severely beaten in the recent round of violence and that it would need time to rebuild its capabilities.
The air force bombed more than 40 targets throughout the Gazoo Strip over the past week, including nearly 20 rocket squads, and several weapons storage centers and underground long-range rocket launchers.
On Friday, one of the Kassam rockets hit in the Eshkol regional. No one was maimed.
After a week when many schools in the South were closed, all classes were expected to return to normal on Sunday.
"Islamic Jihad was hit hard in the recent round of violence but the rocket fire continued since it needs to be able to have the last word," a senior IDF source said over the weekend.
On the other hand, the source said that the IDF was impressed by Islamic Jihad's ability to fire more than 300 rockets during the main five days of hostilities, even though a significant number hit in Gazoo
Something like a third did not hit Israel, though where they landed is not clear...
and close to 60 were intercepted by the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system.
The IDF source said that by last Tuesday, Islamic Jihad was "begging" Egypt to convince Israel to accept a ceasefire.
The source also said that Israel was satisfied with Egypt's role in brokering the truce, an indication that Cairo still had influence in the Gazoo Strip.
The IDF believes that Islamic Jihad refrained from firing its long-range Iranian-supplied Fajr-5 artillery rockets that have the capability to hit Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile on Friday, IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai accused Tehran of "pulling the strings" behind the rocket fire against Israel from the Gazoo Strip. As reported last week in The Jerusalem Post, IDF Military Intelligence said that Iran was actively encouraging Islamic Jihad to continue and even escalate its rocket attacks against Israel.
"The regime of ayatollahs in Iran continues to operate proxies in Leb and Gazoo and to support them with weapons and funds," Mordechai wrote on his Facebook wall. Next to the comment, Mordechai has posted a cartoon of Iran's diminutive PresidentMahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad holding puppets of Hezbullies leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... .
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] North Korea said Saturday it would invite foreign experts and journalists to observe a satellite launch which has sparked widespread condemnation and US threats that it could jeopardise food aid.
The Korean Committee for Space Technology "will invite experienced foreign experts on space science and technology and journalists" to observe the blast-off next month, the official news agency said.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Some 200 Moroccan women staged an angry protest outside parliament Saturday, a week after the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry the man who had raped her.
The protesters shouted "Martyr Amina," "The Law Killed Me," and "We Are All Aminas," and called for changes to a penal code that allows a rapist to stay out of jail if he marries his victim with the consent of her parents.
The suicide last Saturday of Amina al-Filali, who drank a lethal amount of rat poison, sent shockwaves through Morocco and sparked widespread calls for reform of a law that ostensibly defends family values.
Families of rape victims who are under 18 often agree to such a union because the loss of a woman's virginity outside of marriage is considered a dishonour to her family.
Amina's father Lahcen al-Filali said at a protest on Thursday that he had opposed the union but that his wife had insisted. "She said we had to do it so people would stop deriding us, to remove the shame," he told AFP.
"Can you imagine that a man who has forced a girl to follow him with a knife, and who rapes her, could then want to marry her?"
At Saturday's protest, a giant banner written in Arabic, Amazigh (a Berber language) and French read: "Women's Dignity. End Sexual Harassment."
Houda Bouzil of the Democratic Association of the Women of Morocco told AFP: "In 2008, the government introduced a bill, which has since been shelved, to demand an overhaul of the penal code in order to end discrimination and violence."
The affair has provoked an kaboom of outrage in the news media and on the Internet, where an online petition calling for the law to be changed attracted hundreds of signatures within hours.
"I did not know Amina, but I imagine the colossal number of these 'Aminas' who live, or lived, among us," the independent newspaper Al Sabah wrote in a lengthy editorial.
"It's the law, an absurd, grotesque social rule, that tries to remedy an evil -- rape -- with another even more repugnant one, marrying the rapist. ... Whom are we punishing in the end, the victim or her tormentor?" it asked.
The government has pledged to re-examine the law, while police summoned and released the rapist after Amina's suicide.
Under Moroccan law, rape is punishable by five to 10 years in prison -- or between 10 and 20 years if the victim is a minor, which also entails a fine of 200 to 500 dirhams (18-45 euros, $24-60).
If the rapist marries his victim he cannot be pursued legally unless she manages to obtain a divorce.
But under the family code the decision of the judge authorising such a marriage cannot be reversed.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
And here I thought Morocco was a civilized nation. Fool me again, fouk me.
[An Nahar] Soddy Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Light of the Alawites... regime, a top Arab diplomat said on Saturday.
"Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army," the diplomat told Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity.
"This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria," he added saying further "details will follow at a later time."
The announcement came two days after the kingdom said it had shut down its embassy in Syria and withdrawn its entire staff.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... Jordan rejected the report.
"Jordan categorically denies the report," government front man and Information Minister Rakan Majali told AFP. "This is completely baseless."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
Soddy Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed
Somebody, sometime, will have to teach logic to Arabs.
#2
This has nothing to do with stopping bloodshed, and everything to do with Pencilneck rejecting the last Saudi offer to get him and his family out of Syria to some place safe with a couple of hundred million dollars in hand. Then, the correct Syrian generals were to stage a coup and create a "National Reconciliation Government" that would evict the Iranians and their terrorist proxies. But since Pencilneck is sticking with the Shi'ite Persians and their Arab rent-a-thugs, the Saudis are ratcheting up the pressure on the regime.
[Dawn] AS if prospects for an orderly American pull-out from Afghanistan weren't already bleak, the latest news coming out of that country reveals just how messy it's going to be. The Koran burning ...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, featuring long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead, which is a holdover from the days of Moloch worship... and the Panjwai massacre had already raised urgent questions about the viability of the American presence, but developments in the following days have shown how complicated it will be to determine how and when to unwind that presence. At one end are a war-weary American public about to go to the polls and disagreements within the US administration and military about the timing and scale of the troops' departure. At the other is an Afghan president demanding an early withdrawal. While officials try to conceal the dissonance in public by fudging the specifics, this only confirms the lack of clarity within and between the Obama and Karzai administrations on what the process should look like.
Then there are the Taliban claiming to have suspended American-led talks, now widely seen as a necessary component of the winding down of this war. The talks had always been an opaque affair, and very few people other than those directly involved know how they were progressing, which Taliban were at the table, how involved Afghanistan and Pakistain have been, or even what exactly is being negotiated. It's also unclear to what extent this supposed Taliban suspension has the buy-in of various factions, or what the motivation behind it really was. The Taliban have linked it to an inability to agree on preconditions and the prisoner-swap issue. But given the questions about the American presence that have been asked across the world in the last week, this could just as well be posturing from a perceived position of strength. Given all these unknowns, it is difficult to say that the talks have come to an end. But what the announcement does indicate is that the recent conduct of American troops has given the Taliban more chips to play with even as the US tries to clarify an increasingly fraught exit strategy.
There is also the knotty but sometimes over-looked question of what happens post-2014. The Americans want a scaled-down long-term presence to keep out Al Qaeda but also presumably for geopolitical reasons, and negotiations with Mr Karzai on the issue had made progress before recent events. But it remains unclear how America expects to maintain its presence for another decade and still reach a settlement with an enemy opposed to its presence on Afghan soil. Along with many other uncertainties, it is a question that makes the next few years of Afghanistan's future look increasingly grim.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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#1
Just hurt them really bad, to discourage "harrastment of retreating enemy", then leave. Let Russia worry about Afghan heroin.
#2
It would only take about three ARCLIGHT strikes down through the heart of Kabul, followed by a dozen villages napalmed into nonexistence for this sh$$ to cease. I have no love for Afghanistan. It's demise would mean nothing to me. If there were another attempt to harm the United States from Afghan soil, I would expect whoever is in the Oval Office to nuke them and Pakistan back to primordial sludge.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/18/2012 19:03
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[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... held a meeting with the out-going Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
During the meeting, the prime minister praised Pasha's efforts in the war against terrorism.
The ISI chief told Gilani that his services will always be available for the country in future.
Gen Pasha will retire after heading the spy agency for over three years on March 18.
The government has appointed Lt Gen Zahir ul Islam as the next head of the agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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HOW would you react to an advertisement offering employment to 'an ordinary man of normal temperament'? Would you apply for the job? It may sound dull but it could be exciting.
Why? Well, the advertiser may be the Pakistain Electronic Media Authority (Pemra) whose proposed rules for the electronic media include a paragraph which offers a unique and brand new definition/interpretation of the word 'indecent'.
"...[W]hatsoever may amount to any incentive, sensuality and excitement of impure thoughts in the mind of an ordinary man of normal temperament, and has the tendency to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influence, and which are deemed to be to such immoral influence, and which are deemed to be detrimental to public morals and calculated to produce a pernicious effect, in depraving and debauching the mind o[f] persons ..."
So, to judge whether a media organization is guilty of carrying indecent content, wouldn't Pemra have to employ an ordinary man (what about ordinary women?) of normal temperament who'd have to watch TV and in turn experience some of the listed emotions for a case to be made?
This isn't an attempt to be facetious about a serious issue but just to give you a flavour of what may be on the regulator's mind as media owners and professionals have so far failed to agree to a code of conduct/rules to cover the content of their 24/7 channels.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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[An Nahar] An Indian court issued on Saturday an arrest warrant against another Iranian suspect in an attack last month on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi, a report said.
Israel has accused Iran of criminal masterminding the attack.
But India has held back from blaming traditional ally Tehran although the Indian police's probe appears to be focused on Iranian nationals and those with ties to the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Delhi Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav issued the warrant against Masod Sedaghatzadeh, an Iranian who has been jugged in Malaysia, after police alleged he was also involved in the Delhi blast conspiracy, the Press Trust of India said.
"You (police) are hereby directed to arrest him," Yadav was quoted by the news agency as saying.
The warrant was issued a day after Indian police said arrest warrants were being drawn up for three men of Iranian origin identified as suspects in the New Delhi attack that severely injured the Israeli diplomat.
Delhi police commissioner Brijesh Kumar Gupta also said Friday investigations had established a clear link between the February 13 attack and a similar alleged plot targeting Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.
Gupta said the arrest warrants would be issued soon against the three suspects named as Houshang Ashfar Irani, Sayed Ali Sadr Mehdian and Abolghasemi Mohammed Reza. They are all now believed to be in Iran, police said.
In the Delhi attack, a hitman on a cycle of violence attached a magnetic bomb to the back of an Israeli embassy car carrying the 42-year-old diplomat, who was also the wife of the defense attache at the embassy.
Last week, a veteran Indian freelance journalist called Syed Mohammed Kazmi who worked part-time for Iran's news agency IRNA became the first person to be tossed in the calaboose in connection with the attack.
Gupta said interrogation of Kazmi, who denies involvement, had led to the "unraveling of the conspiracy."
The Delhi bombing came on the same day as another attempted attack on an Israeli embassy car in Georgia.
Thai police have tossed in the calaboose two Iranian men in Bangkok who are suspected of planning the separate attack on Israeli diplomats.
Delhi police commissioner Gupta said one of the three named in the Delhi attack, Irani, had been in touch with Sedaghatzadeh, "thus establishing his links with the terror module in Bangkok."
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03/18/2012
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[An Nahar] Gunmen raided a mainly Christian village in Nigeria's restive Kaduna State, killing 10 people, including a pastor and injuring four others, police said Saturday.
"Ten people were killed in an attack on Nayi village in Chikun local government by unknown gunnies," state police front man Aminu Lawan told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Four other people were maimed in the attack. The gunnies raided homes of their victims on Thursday night. A pastor was among the dead," he said.
He said police had deployed to Nayi outside the town of Zonkwa in the mainly Christian-dominated southern Kaduna where hundreds were killed in violence which erupted following the April 2011 election victory of President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... The violence turned sectarian with fighting between Christian and Moslem youths. Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... says at least 800 people were killed in the unrest that gripped several of Nigeria's northern states.
Since then, there have been spates of sporadic nocturnal attacks on Christian villages in the area in what seemed to be reprisals for the post-election mayhem.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2012
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Top|| File under: Boko Haram
#1
Kaduna State is the state directly north of Abuja. It's pretty far from Maiduguri. I don't know that I can, in good conscience, call Kaduna "Northern Nigeria." Kaduna is central Nigeria. So, Bokoboys are striking pretty damn far from Maiduguri. 486 miles, according to Google Maps. That's a long drive on shitty African roads.
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.
[Dawn] A Pak court Saturday remanded family members of 
[Dawn] A Swiss couple said to have 
Aafia Siddiqui
[Dawn] Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour here on Friday claimed that terrorism in 
General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, the commander of the First Armored Division and the Northwestern military region, accused former President 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Rescue services came to the aid of some 300 migrants aboard three boats near Lampedusa island Saturday as five people were found dead in one of the rickety vessels off 
Iran's parliament speaker on Saturday compared Israel to a barking dog that won't dare attack the Islamic republic over its controversial nuclear program.
[Dawn] WHEN long-forgotten skeletons start emerging from the basement into the glare of publicity, those who hid them have good reason to be embarrassed.
Nawaz Sharif
[Dawn] Continuing to do violence to child education in the province, 
Additional IG Akhtar Ghorchani has said that so far 15 extortion complaints have been reported at the newly established Anti-Extortion Cell headed by a DSP. Speaking at a press conference at the CIA Centre here on Friday, he said that eight of these complaints had been addressed and two suspects had been arrested. 
Asif Ali 
Three people were killed in exchange of fire between two families over ownership of a rainwater-fed nullah in Dhaki area of Mandani town in Charsadda district on Friday.
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Yemeni government confirmed on Saturday that it had taken precautionary measures to protect its security and army troops from the 
A Swiss language teacher
International Criminal Court
Fakhrul alleged that the government had been using Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the state-owned news agency, to spread propaganda. The BNP would soon make a formal protest against it.
[An Nahar] A U.S.-born Islamist fighter viewed as a key foreign leader within Somalia's al-Qaeda allied Shebab militia has said he fears his life is now in danger from fellow
Mahmoud 
North Korea
Some 200 Moroccan women staged an angry protest outside parliament Saturday, a week after the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry the man who had raped her.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...One of the basic tenets of Islam is that once a Koran has been printed it is expected to last for all time, no matter how old, ratty, and smelly other, lesser holy books may become. Should it actually become necessary to put a Koran out of its misery there is a ritual that includes extensive charivari, featuring long drawn-wailing and head bonking, ritual wife beating, and the sacrifice of dozens of women's noses and pubic lips. When the actual disposal has been completed there is a prescribed period of celebratory gun sex with the expectation of a minimum of two hundred casualties. Should actual infidels dispose of a Koran, Islamic custom calls for three weeks of rioting and a minimum of three dozen dead, which is a holdover from the days of Moloch worship...
Prime Minister 
HOW would you react to an advertisement offering employment to 'an ordinary man of normal temperament'? Would you apply for the job? It may sound dull but it could be exciting.
An Indian court issued on Saturday an arrest warrant against another Iranian suspect in an attack last month on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi, a report said.
cycle of violence
Goodluck Jonathan
