[Guardian] Senior Eurosceptic Conservatives have dismissed Barack Obama’s suggestion that the UK would be "at the back of the queue" in negotiations for a US trade agreement if it left the European Union.
Cabinet ministers accused the "lame duck" US president of making meaningless threats to blackmail the British people into voting to remain in Europe. Others pointed out that Europe and the US had never struck a free trade agreement anyway, and claimed Obama was being manipulated by Downing Street.
Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, said: "We should not give up our independence just because of what President Obama said."
The intervention by Obama, who is popular in Britain, delighted the remain camp, but has left the leave campaign furious. "Barack Obama was doing an old friend a political favour," said the justice minister Dominic Raab, referring to David Cameron.
#2
Note the butthurt he showed when Bibi came to talk to Congress to lobby against the Iran "Legacy" Deal. Now THAT was inappropriate in The One's World. Fuck that hypocrite
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2016 19:24
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[Wash Times] Jodie Foster said she’s tired of people oversimplifying the issue of gender equality in Hollywood, declaring that there isn’t some major plot in the industry "to keep women down."
The 53-year-old "Money Monster" director made the comments Wednesday during a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival with fellow director Julie Taymor, Variety reported.
"We were both talking about the woman thing and how we are both a little sick of it," Ms. Foster said.
"But we don’t want to ignore it either," Ms. Taymor added.
Ms. Foster said, "I feel like the issue is way more complicated than saying, ’Why aren’t women making big mainstream franchises?"
"There are so many reasons," she continued. "Some of them are about our psychology, some of them are about the financial world, some of them are about the global economy. There are so many answers to that go back hundreds of years. It would be nice to be able to have a more complex conversation and to be able to look at it more than just a quota or numbers.
"I don’t think there is a big plot to keep women down," she added. "It is neglect really, and a lot of people that weren’t thinking about it, and a lot of female executives who have risen to the top, who have not really made a dent of bringing many women into the mainstream world."
"And that's why I'm going to start voting for and campaigning for conservatives!"
....let me know.
Because she's just going to pull the lever for whomever the Democrats put up in November. So this story really isn't anything important.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/23/2016 14:52
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#5
Well, negative comments notwithstanding I was pleasantly surprised/shocked. Yup, there is probably a shelf life here, but it is an indication that not all such are on the lower half of average iq.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/23/2016 23:24
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[Daily Beast] Our bodies weren’t meant for this world we’ve built. That’s why your back hurts. The things you think are normal are not. The world around you is an alien landscape, a science fiction movie set.
This is not the matrix. This is our everyday, modern life. But if you'll take a step back with me, you might find that there is hardly anything ordinary about the world we've built. The very built-ness of our world is precisely what makes it so foreign to our bodies. In some ways the banal conveniences we seek out and enjoy are actually killing us by a thousand tiny cuts over decades and decades.
Of course, a thousand cuts over the course of a lifetime is a much better way to go than say, one big wound from a sabre tooth tiger taking a bite out of your head. Or finding yourself exposed with no shelter on a freezing tundra. We have eliminated some of the worst things that humans have experienced for most of our history on this planet. That’s quite the accomplishment. But we've traded these dangers for the perils of inactivity: heart disease, type II diabetes, some forms of cancer, back pain, joint pain, and possibly a smorgasbord of mental health issues.
Consider the kitchen counter. As you rinse your dishes, blend your smoothie, and grate your cheese, everything is within arms reach. At most you'll take a few steps to the fridge, bending or squatting for a few seconds to put the bologna back in the crisper. (You fool! Bologna doesn't go in the crisper!)
Contrast that with activities of daily life in say, rural Uganda. In Pajule, a small town where I spent a couple summers, it was typical for (mostly) women to get up before dawn to work in their fields planting, weeding or harvesting. They'd carry water for the day's chores and gather wood for the cook fire. The tasks of daily living were primarily performed on the ground--laundry, dishwashing, cooking dinner, or boiling water for tea. Children, adults, and the elderly moved throughout the day, squatting, carrying, walking, reaching, and bending at the hips.
These folks face plenty of hardships, but one thing they do not lack is movement. Those of us lucky enough to live in richer countries have managed to build and engineer movement out of our environment. That may make us comfortable in the short term, but this has serious consequences for our bodies.
#1
But we've traded these dangers for the perils of inactivity: heart disease, type II diabetes, some forms of cancer, back pain, joint pain, and possibly a smorgasbord of mental health issues.
If you don't survive beyond 45 most of that will not pop up and bother you. So what the man has identified as a problem is the extended life expectancy that has been achieved in the last hundred years. Give up all those advances in medicine and health care that got you past 45 and the problems disappear. [Why do I get a sense this is the rationalization for where the failed Obamacare program is headed?]
#2
[Why do I get a sense this is the rationalization for where the failed Obamacare program is headed?] Posted by Procopius2k
Tax technology, not .22 ammo. The old ways are best. Innovation and creativity are to blame. Those who embrace it must pay. The 'Off-Grid' community demands it.
[LI] A self-proclaimed environmental activist, Einhorn made a name for himself among ecological groups during the 1960s and ’70s by taking on the role of a tie-dye-wearing ecological guru and Philadelphia’s head hippie. With his long beard and gap-toothed smile, Einhorn -- who nicknamed himself "Unicorn" because his German-Jewish last name translates to "one horn" --advocated flower power, peace and free love to his fellow students at the University of Pennsylvania. He also claimed to have helped found Earth Day.
But the charismatic spokesman who helped bring awareness to environmental issues and preached against the Vietnam War -- and any violence -- had a secret dark side. When his girlfriend of five years, Helen "Holly" Maddux, moved to New York and broke up with him, Einhorn threatened that he would throw her left-behind personal belongings onto the street if she didn’t come back to pick them up.
And so on Sept. 9, 1977, Maddux went back to the apartment that she and Einhorn had shared in Philadelphia to collect her things, and was never seen again. When Philadelphia police questioned Einhorn about her mysterious disappearance several weeks later, he claimed that she had gone out to the neighborhood co-op to buy some tofu and sprouts and never returned.
[Daily Caller] Britain should regain its national independence from the European Union, according to former United Nations ambassador John Bolton and former UK cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith.
Bolton made the remarks at an event on economic reform held at the American Enterprise Institute with the United Kingdom’s former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and leading advocate of Britain's exit from the EU Iain Duncan Smith.
But Mayor of London and pro-Brexit supporter Boris Johnson had tough words for the president April 16 accusing him of hypocrisy. Americans "wouldn’t dream of sharing [their] sovereignty" in the same the UK has with the EU, Johnson argued. NYP article: Obama to Britain: Stay in the EU or forget about trade deals
#1
Americans "wouldn’t dream of sharing [their] sovereignty" in the same the UK has with the EU, Johnson argued.
Johnson is correct. Unfortunately however, when he's referencing the Champ and Americans, he's talking about two entirely different subject-verb relationships.
#2
Indeed,let the US open its borders to the free movement of Islamic jihadis and 4th world illiterates in the name of Trade deals, because we cant trade without free movement of the above. He is your fokkin Kenyan, not ours, he can shut his fokkin muslamic mouth.
[Daily Caller] Hillary Clinton's personal IT guru is still refusing to meet with Congress, his attorney recently told the chairmen of two Senate committees.
Last month, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Homeland Security chairman Ron Johnson asked Mark MacDougall, the attorney for Bryan Pagliano, if his client would be willing to testify about his work on Clinton’s server.
MacDougall said his client would "respectfully decline" the invitation, according to the letter, which was first obtained by the Associated Press.
Pagliano was recently granted immunity by the FBI in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation into Clinton's server. He was hired at the State Department in May 2009 to set up and maintain Clinton's email server, which has been found to contain classified information.
#1
Unless there is some unknown value in Congressional theater, we're beyond it Senator Grassley. Direct your questions to the FBI and demand answers !
[IsraelTimes] Security sources say suspect was planning to stage an attack on western targets this weekend in capital Bamako.
A Mauritanian man suspected of planning and carrying out deadly attacks on popular tourist venues in Mali last year has been incarcerated Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! in the Malian capital Bamako, security sources told AFP on Friday.
Detained on Thursday in a Bamako suburb, the man is believed to have taken part in attacks in March, August and November that left more than 30 people dead, including a deadly assault on the upmarket Radisson Blu hotel he allegedly criminal masterminded.
An image obtained by AFP on April 21, 2016 in Bamako shows Fawaz Ould Ahmeida from Mauritania, suspected of planning and carrying out a string of deadly attacks on sites popular with foreigners in Mali in 2015.
"He was planning to stage an attack on western targets this weekend in Bamako," said a source who asked not to be identified.
The suspected is believed to attacked a bar and restaurant in Bamako in March 2015 in which five people died, including two foreigners, the sources said.
He is also suspected of planning deadly assaults on the upmarket Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November that left 20 dead and the Byblos hotel in central Mali in August, where 13 people died.
A security source close to the investigation said the Mauritanian had also been involved in a failed attack in March 21 this year on the Azalai Nord-Sud hotel in Bamako, where the EU mission is based.
Code-named "Ibrahim number 10," the suspect was "the shooter at La Terrasse," and he planned the Radisson Blu, Sevare and Nord-Sud attacks, the source said.
"He quickly confessed after his arrest yesterday (Thursday) at around 8:00 p.m. (2000 GMT)," the source added.
"He had arrived in Bamako on April 16 to carry out more attacks, and he spent several days in Mali without being detected," he said.
Idle hands are the Devil's playground... but sometimes busy hands are the Devil's tools.
Another security source said weapons and grenades were found at the suspect’s home in Bamako.
The March 7, 2015 grenade and gun attack on La Terrasse bar left five people dead -- three Malians, a Belgian and a Frenchie. It was claimed by an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the jihadist group’s North African branch.
The November 20 attack on the Radisson Blu left 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners. AQIM also grabbed credit for the assault.
The August attack on the Byblos hotel in Sevare killed four foreign employees of the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
As Alinsky wrote, force them to live up to their own standards.
[IsraelTimes] Plaintiffs in DC lawsuit say that American Studies Association’s ban violates organization’s charter -- and tax law
Four professors affiliated with the American Studies Association filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the District of Columbia’s Federal District Court, claiming that the association’s politicization of the organization through adopting an academic boycott of Israel violated laws governing nonprofit organizations.
"Until a handful of zealots appropriated our learned society, the ASA was the leading organization for the study of American culture," stated Simon Bronner, a professor at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg and one of the plaintiffs. "Yet in 2013, a handful of anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists aggressively steered the ASA to an organization of social change pushing a narrow political agenda."
Bronner is joined in the suit by Michael Rockland, Michael Barton and Charles Kupfer, all prominent professors in the field of American studies. Their academic society, the ASA, voted during its annual meeting in 2013 to adopt an academic boycott of Israel.
The plaintiffs said Wednesday that the decision to file the suit followed numerous unsuccessful attempts to address the matter within the Association, describing it in a statement as "a last resort to return the ASA to the academically-focused organization it has been for 60 years."
A similar argument was made when in 2014 the Royal Institute of British Architects endorsed an anti-Israel boycott. In that case, lawyers warned the institute’s action was outside its mission and therefore illegal ‐ and the policy was rescinded.
In the suit, the plaintiffs claim that the boycott resolution adopted by the organization during its December 2013 annual conference came following a concerted effort by a small number of BDS activists. These activists, the plaintiffs complain, abused their leadership positions in ASA to make anti-Israel activism the central focus of the Association ‐ a move that the plaintiffs claim violates the organization’s stated mission.
At the time the boycott was initiated, ASA’s constitution stated that "[t]he object of the association [is] the promotion of the study of American culture through the encouragement of research, teaching, publication... about American culture in all its diversity and complexity."
The suit charges that a boycott of another country is outside the scope of ASA’s charter and in fact contradicts its stated purpose of promoting knowledge.
The constitution also states that ASA’s goal is "the strengthening of relations among persons and institutions in this country and abroad devoted to such studies."
The complaint argues that the decision to pursue an academic boycott of Israel accomplishes the exact opposite.
In its IRS ...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies... documents that maintain its tax-exempt status, the Association continues to describe its mission as "the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history." It states that its tax-exemption derives from its purpose of "advancing the Study of American Culture." The plaintiffs allege that the academic boycott of Israel is clearly outside of this stated mission and purpose ‐ and that the tax documents are thus inaccurate.
The lawsuit alleges that ASA is in violation of the District of Columbia’s Non-Profit Corporation Act, which requires that an organization operate only within the provisions of its charter. According to legal experts, the charter is a contract intended to protect members from those who seek to co-opt a nonprofit for purposes outside the boundaries of its charter.
"This appears to be a clear example of a small group misappropriating assets raised for an agreed upon purpose and illegally using the organization to advance a completely separate and personal agenda," stated University of Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, Berkeley Law School professor Steven Davidoff Solomon, who served as an expert adviser to the plaintiffs.
Northwestern Pritzker Law School professor Eugene Kontorovich, who also served as an expert adviser to the litigation group emphasized that the suit "is not about silencing or stopping criticism of Israel, or in any way discouraging it. It is about nonprofit corporations abiding by their own rules."
The plaintiffs’ legal counsel noted that many ASA members, including 12 winners of the outstanding ASA Mary C. Turpie Award, raised objections regarding the boycott to ASA’s leadership, but were ignored.
As evidence that the organization’s standing has suffered, they cited cases in which ASA members resigned and stopped donating as well as the ringing condemnations of the ASA’s boycott leveled by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and 134 members of Congress.
A similar argument was made when in 2014 the Royal Institute of British Architects endorsed an anti-Israel boycott. In that case, lawyers warned the institute’s action was outside its mission and therefore illegal ‐ and the policy was rescinded.
"Academic associations should think twice before abusing their missions and betraying the lawful purposes for which they were established in favor of the personal political agendas of their noisiest and most politicized activist members," Kenneth L. Marcus, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and one of the attorneys on the case, emphasized in a written statement.
"This case stands for the simple proposition that nonprofit corporations must pursue the lawful purposes for which they are established, for which they receive nonprofit status and for which they raise charitable contributions," added Jerome Marcus of Marcus & Auerbach LLC, lead counsel to the plaintiffs.
[AnNahar] Two men who plotted drive-by shootings in London of targets including soldiers and police and were inspired by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group received life sentences at a British court Friday.
Ringleader Tarik Hassane, 22, will serve a minimum of 21 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to murder and preparation of terrorist acts.
Suhaib Majeed, also aged 22, will be in jail for at least 20 years after conviction on the same charges following a trial at the Old Bailey court last month.
The court heard that Hassane had identified potential targets including a cop shoppe and an army reserve barracks, both in west London, and had planned to carry out the shootings from a moped.
Passing sentence, Judge Alan Wilkie told them it was "shocking" that two men educated in Britannia "should be so influenced by the bloodthirsty version of Islam presented by ISIS (another acronym for IS) and other similarly minded groups, that you decided to take up arms against your fellow British citizens".
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2016
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#1
If I understand correctly, they didn't actually do anything yet?
#5
If I understand correctly, they didn't actually do anything yet?
That's how I read it too, g(ro)mgoru. It's a bit late, but does anyone remember what sentence that vicious idiot got who rammed that soldier with his car, then knifed him to death in front of the people walking by? Parents were Christian immigrants from Nigeria, as I recall, but the wastrel son converted. Or the Muslim rape gangs -- some of them have gone to trial, though not yet most, and the police and social workers, etc who did not believe the girls or did not speak up and act will likely never suffer for not doing their duty.
Some of us do live or have lived in London or elsewhere in Britain, Grealet Stalin3886, or have friends and relations there. And certainly Rantburg has been following local British news since early in the millennium. So yes, we do have a clue.
[IsraelTimes] Troops position concrete wall near Kibbutz Misgav Am; four years ago, similar protection was built at Metulla
Fearing plots by Hezbollah to send gunnies into Israel to attack soldiers and civilians, Israel is gradually walling off further parts of its northern border with Leb.
Israel’s Channel 2 news on Wednesday showed sections of concrete wall being installed near to Kibbutz Misgav Am, a border community in the Upper Galilee.
It noted that a project to bolster the border area had been underway for some time.
In 2012, a seven-meter (23-foot) high wall separating Israel from Leb near the border town of Metulla was completed. The 1,200-meter-long (3,937-foot) wall is outfitted with sophisticated cameras and sensory equipment aimed at preventing infiltration. The 2006 Second Leb War began with a cross-border attack by Hezbollah.
[AnNahar] A suicide kaboom claimed by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group killed at least eight people at a Shiite mosque on the southwestern edge of Baghdad on Friday, security and medical officials said.
The blast, which occurred shortly after Friday prayers, also maimed at least 33 people, the officials said.
Gunmen wearing military uniforms with patches identifying them as members of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia surrounded the site of the bombing and prevented media from taking photographs or video, the journalist said.
The Islamic State group issued a statement claiming the attack, saying it was carried out by two krazed killers.
An interior ministry official also said that two jacket wallahs were involved, but a police colonel put their number at one.
IS carries out frequent bombings and other attacks targeting members of Iraq's Shiite majority, whom it considers heretics.
Bombings in Baghdad have decreased since mid-2014, with the jihadists preoccupied by fighting in other areas.
IS overran swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes have since regained significant ground.
But IS still controls a large part of the country's west, and is able to carry out frequent bombings in government-held areas.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/23/2016
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[IsraelTimes] Washington announces $8.6m purchase despite GOP efforts to bar Tehran from any use of US dollar, financial system
The United States said Friday it would buy heavy water from Iran despite angry claims at home that it has already gone too far in granting Tehran nuclear sanctions relief.
Officials said the purchase would cost $8.6 million, even as Republican politicians pressed for Iran to be excluded from any use of the US dollar or financial system.
Continued on Page 49
#2
Don't believe we even use much Deuterium oxide in stuff other for medical radiology or lab process here in the states.
The Canadian CANDU nuke power systems uses a form of it, and they produce their own, but would the Persian product even work for that system without modification?
India uses the same form of Deuterium that Iran makes, but they make their own, and quite well I might add.
What are we going to do with this stuff other than launder money?
Of course the Sierra Club will remain silent.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/23/2016 12:56
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#3
D2O is D2O, as far as I know. Care to elaborate Mullah R? I am actually quite interested, and request enlightenment, please. Maybe Fred can be used as a non-public bridge?
This is is a real request, as I use it.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/23/2016 23:16
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[AnNahar] Air strikes on rebel-held neighborhoods in Syria's second city Aleppo on Friday killed at least 18 civilians and maimed more than a dozen, the local civil defense told AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime warplanes carried out the air strikes and gave a toll of 19 dead, up from its earlier toll of 10.
An AFP correspondent in the opposition-held eastern part of the city said several districts were targeted and that the wail of ambulances could be heard throughout the morning.
Seven non-combatants were killed and 10 maimed in Bustan al-Qasr, a civil defense member said, and four were killed in Al-Mashad.
The strikes killed five civilians in the opposition-held Salhin district and two more in other neighborhoods.
In Bustan al-Qasr, one of Aleppo's most heavily populated neighborhoods, a strike hit a five-storey apartment building, shearing off part of an entire floor.
The Britannia-based Observatory said a total of 14 air strikes had targeted Bustan al-Qasr and other Aleppo neighborhoods.
It said they killed 19 people and maimed dozens more.
"The number of deaders is expected to rise because many of those maimed are at death's door," said the monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its reports.
Once Syria's commercial hub, Aleppo has been divided between rebel control in the east and government forces in the west since 2012.
Nearly all warring parties in Syria -- the regime, rebels, jihadists and Kurds -- have carved out zones of control in war-torn Aleppo province.
A ceasefire took effect in Syria at the end of February, but the country has been rocked by fighting in recent weeks, particularly around Aleppo.
For those who are not familiar with Vanderboegh, he was one of the two bloggers, the other being David Cordrea to uncover the Fast and Furious government sponsored gun running operation, which sold firearms to drug cartels, and then did not track them. At least one of the guns sold to the cartels (mostly the Sinaloa Cartel) was used to kill a US government agent.
It's good to be a US government agent, to conceive of operations that kill another US citizen, yet you and all who conspired get to walk away scot free. Had you or I run guns to "El Chapo", we would be spending time in federal prison. Sonsabitches will probably get an award for Fast and Furious.
The only redeeming news regarding Vanderboegh is that his son has taken over Vanderboegh's Sipsey Street Irregulars (SSI), and has a Facebook page.
Her statement presumes that gun control passes Congress, at the moment a long shot, that the law will be universally obeyed, and that any further laws passed by Congress will be obeyed. Laws, in my view, must have at their base consent of the governed, and firearms laws in their entirety do not. Even the Australians, who were beaten into accepting gun seizures, only gave up about 20 percent of their firearms. The law was a massive failure, being virtually ignored by the owners of the other 80 percent.
Connecticut, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, with the political will to register AR semiautomatic guns, could not get more than 18 percent of firearms registered. The law was a massive failure. That failure should have been an embarrassment to the political leadership, but it is not. The last I heard, Connecticut government officials are still trying to figure out how to begin seizing unregistered firearms in the state.
As I have written elsewhere, there is a yawning gap between passing laws that 80 percent plus will ignore, and "gun control."
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol ammunition were steady. Prices for rifle ammunition were mixed.
Prices for used pistols were lower across the board while used rifles were mostly higher.
New Lows:
None
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Cased, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Reloads, .24 per round (From Last week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Freedom Munitions, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
9mm Parabellum, 115 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Bud's Gun Shop, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .17 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: J&G Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .16 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (7 weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .25 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel cased, .25 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2015))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .21 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Hot Shot, FMJ, steel casing, .21 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each)
.308 NATO 150 Grain, From Last Week: +.03 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammunition Supply Company, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Casing, .37 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: J&G Sales, Tulammo, steel casing, FMJ, .34 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (6 Weeks))
7.62x39 AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: AmmoFast, Wolf WPA, steel case, FMJ, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammunition Supply Company, Wolf WPA, steel case, FMJ, .22 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (7 weeks))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ammomen, Aguila, RNL .07 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds (2 Cases Max): US Armorment, Federal Automatch, RNL, .07 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
Shipping companies, particularly the smaller ones, are breathing easier eespecially as the freight market reflected in Benchmark Baltic indices has more than doubled in last two months and is expected to rise. Consequently, shipping firms are now hoping to achieve operational equilibrium if freight rates remain firm.
The spike in Baltic Dry Index (BDI), the benchmark for dry bulk shipping freight, in the past month is expected to continue on the back of scrapping of vessels which has pulled down the supply to some extent and rise in front-haul due to the ongoing harvest season in South America.
BDI has jumped 67% in the last one month to 659 level and is seen touching 900 levels by end of May, industry officials said. The index was below 300 points barely two months ago.
Continued on Page 49
Houthi militias and forces loyal to the deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh continue to attack and shell residential neighbourhoods, sites where resistance fighters are located and the national army on various battlefronts in the Taiz province. This is despite the arrival of its delegation in Kuwait to begin peaceful negotiations. Violations of agreements and covenants continue and this includes the most recent agreement concerning Taiz which was signed by all parties six days ago. The agreement stipulates the maintenance of the ceasefire and opening the ports and roads leading to the city of Taiz.
Legitimate forces, the national army and the People’s Resistance managed to prevent an escalation of the Houthi attacks in various locations including the central prison in Dhubab and the armoured camp of Brigade 35 in the old airport, west of Taiz.
Brigadier Sadiq Ali Sarhan, the Head of the Military Council of the Yemeni Province of Taiz, said that the province “will achieve all the goals that so much has been sacrificed for”.
In a speech that he gave commemorating the first anniversary of the death of Captain Ahmed Mohamed Noman Al- Mikhlafi who died on the 20th of April last year, Brigadier Sadiq Ali Sarhan praised Al-Mikhlafi and all the heroes of the national army and the Popular Resistance .
On his part, Dr Abdu Al-Bahash who is a writer, researcher and university professor, told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the facts and events have proved that the rebels are using policies of lies, deception and misinformation in the same way that the German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany Joseph Goebbels established a new principle in psychological war; lie, lie and lie until people believe you. The rebels are dealing with the international community in the same way.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the number of migrants crossing the Aegean Sea into Europe is “significantly down,” one day after news emerged that as many as 500 of them may have drowned last week in the sea between Libya and Italy.
Stoltenberg, speaking at a joint press news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankrara, said international coordination had helped push the numbers down, but he urged authorities not to abandon efforts prematurely as human smugglers can easily change routes and tactics.
He said human smugglers were still actively trying to ship migrants across the Aegean Sea into Europe. Stoltenberg said, however, that the numbers were “significantly down,” which he added “confirms our collective efforts are making a difference.”
Under a recent EU-Turkey deal, migrants arriving on Greek islands from the Turkish coast from March 20 onwards face deportation back to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. The International Organization for Migration says Greece has seen fewer than 70 migrant arrivals a day over the past 10 days, down from a staggering nearly 1,500 of arrivals a day before the deal was struck in March.
Warships from the NATO military alliance began patrolling the Aegean Sea in February to help stop the overwhelming surge of migrants arriving on the shores of Europe.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2016
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Today, Thursday, April 21 2016, the Baltic Dry Index climbed by 1 points, reaching 670 points.
Baltic Dry Index is compiled by the London-based Baltic Exchange and covers prices for transported cargo such as coal, grain and iron ore.
The index is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. Baltic Dry hit a temporary peak on May 20, 2008, when the index hit 11,793. The lowest level ever reached was on Wednesday the 10th of February 2016, when the index dropped to 290 points.
[ARA News] DAMASCUS – Around 90% of the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees south of Syria’s capital Damascus was captured by the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) after battles with fighters from the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda branch in Syria, leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said on Friday.
Anwar Abdul Hadi, a leading member of the PLO, confirmed Friday that the renewed clashes between ISIS and al-Qaeda offshoot Nusra led to the death of at least five civilians and the injury of twenty others.
Speaking to ARA News in Damascus, media activist Wael al-Shami said: “The Syrian regime is providing light weapons and ammunition to both sides to continue the fighting.”
According to al-Shami, “there are pro-Assad security officers in the ranks of the Nusra and ISIS as well, and they work on decreasing the power of both sides in favor of the regime.”
ISIS has also been engaged in heavy fighting with Syrian rebel factions on different fighting fronts across Syria, “which weakens rebels’ power in front of the regime’s army,” according to a rebel spokesman.
“Draining the power of both terrorist groups [ISIS and Nusra] is fine in all cases, but the conflict in the areas crowded with civilians is a critical issue,” rebel spokesman Slaeh Zein told ARA News on the phone.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/23/2016
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The accompanying article is full of hyperbole, bywords and propaganda. The game can be found on Steam, and has received very positive reviews.
An example: You kill rapefugees and terrorists, whats not to like?
He created an ultra-violent video game that encouraged players to act out genocidal maniac fantasies and boasts about his anti-Islamic views.
Now computer games boss Jaroslaw Zieliniski has released a savage new video game that allows players to slay invading Isis jihadis - but also carries insulting messages to Muslims. I would bet more than half of the Muslim kids who play this game love it.
The game, IS Defense, is set 2020 and its aim is to protect Europe from fanatics who have taken over north Africa and are now launching an invasion on the West. The game is $7.99 and requires a 64-bit Windows OS
But the Isis flag has been altered to apparently represent Allah as a dog, and the Prophet Mohammed has been changed into a smiley face in another.
Campaigners warned that as well as inflaming hatred against Muslims, the game could in fact encourage pro-jihadi views.
Everything and nothing encourages pro-jihadi views in the susceptible. Might as well identify them early, and fix the problematic.
#1
...I'd point out that those who serve any god who gets all butthurt about a smiley face being placed on one of his prophets might want to reconsider their choice of deities.
But if I did that I'd be Islamaphobic.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/23/2016 10:12
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The spokesman from the Libyan National Army (LNA) chief of staff, Colonel Ahmed Mismari, says that LNA planes hit the convoy of Islamic State vehicles as it retreated from Derna yesterday and had killed “many” IS fighters.
The attack supposedly happened after the IS convoy, put at 32 vehicles, had arrived at Al-Mekhili, some 100 kilometres south west of Derna. There, he said, IS had found the petrol station closed and, desperate for fuel, had started shooting at it. They then continued further south. At this point, however, LNA aircraft were mobilised and bombed the vehicles.
Mismari did not say how many had been hit or how many casualties there had been other than “many”.
Following the IS pullout, the commander of the LNA’s 102 Brigade, Colonel Idris Eljali, was now in charge of Derna’s Fatiaeh area and District 400, Mismari added.
Asked whether the LNA was now going to try and take over the whole town, he said that Derna was not an immediate strategic objective. The objective now was Sirte.
However, there were negotiations by mediators with the Derna Revolutionaries Shoura Council (DRSC), he disclosed. It was being given a deadline by the army to hand over the town. He did not, however, disclose when the deadline was.
The DRSC is dominated by the local Abu Sleem Martyrs Brigade. This, Mismari claimed, was divided over dealing with the army. One part, he said, was totally opposed to the LNA. It regarded the army as “kuffar” (infidels). It and IS were, he stated, two sides of the same coin.
However, others in the brigade were more amenable, he said. They wanted to work with the army, but they were still extremists and were making demands about the army – for example, that it must contain no one deemed to be a Qaddafist.
Such demands were unacceptable, he said.
For his part, Abdulkarim Sabra, spokesman for the LNA’s Omar Mukhtar Operations Room which covers Derna and the surrounding region, is reported to have said that LNA aircraft had attacked DRSC positions at the town’s prison and its Sayida Khadija district on Wednesday evening.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/23/2016
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#1
IShad found the petrol station closed and, desperate for fuel, had started shooting at it.
Well, that worked out well, didn't it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2016 10:37
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[ARA News] DUHOK ــ Iraqi air force on Friday targeted a convoy of 20 tankers loaded with crude oil for the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Qayyarah oil field to the south of Nineveh province, Nineveh operations command in the Iraqi army said in an official statement.
The ISIS convoy was completely destroyed in Friday’s airstrikes.
Iraqi army confirmed in a statement, obtained by ARA News, that a large number of ISIS terrorists were also killed during the operation, who were apparently smuggling crude oil to their areas of control in Syria.
Speaking to ARA News in Nineveh, rights activist Osama Khamis said that ISIS still depends on the sale of crude oil and smuggling between Iraq and Syria, despite the US-led airstrikes.
“The terror group has been using new ways for smuggling oil,” he argued, pointing out that ISIS still depends on the manufacturing of petroleum products though primitive ways in a bid to secure its needs of oil.
Khamis stressed that Iraqi warplanes intensified airstrikes on the vicinity of the oil wells in Nineveh, causing a huge fire covered with a dark smoke.
In a related development, leadership of the 7th division of the Iraqi army in Anbar province issued an official statement, saying: “The US-led coalition forces targeted four ISIS-led vehicles near the al-Baghdadi township west of Ramadi, resulting in their destruction and the death of their entire crew.”
In the meantime, official sources in the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Kirkuk province reported that they launched Friday an offensive on ISIS positions northwest of the province, and were able to kill and wound 23 ISIS militants in the Atshana village in the district of Dibs [45 km north west of Kirkuk].
“The Peshmerga-led attack on ISIS positions in Kirkuk came to prevent the terrorists from using this area for targeting our forces bastions in the region,” Lt. Izzedin Wanki from the Peshmerga forces told ARA News.
This comes amid preparations for launching a wide-scale military operation by the 7th Division of the Iraqi Army, backed by the US-led coalition’s air force, in a bid to liberate the Jezirat al-Baghdadi district from the radical group.
The Iraqi air force, supported by the US-led coalition warplanes, have been targeting ISIS-linked headquarters, tactical units, oil tankers and arms storehouses for months, according to local sources.
Experts believe that ISIS strength has remarkably declined over the past few months, especially after dozens of vital positions and command centers were destroyed by the US-led coalition forces.
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04/23/2016
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[IN.REUTERS] Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff denounced her impeachment as a "coup" to an international audience on Friday, and said she would appeal to the Mercosur bloc of South American nations for Brazil to be suspended if democratic process is broken.
"I would appeal to the democracy clause if there were, from now on, a rupture of what I consider democratic process," she told news hounds in New York.
Mercosur has a democratic clause that can be triggered when an elected government is tossed in any of its member states, as happened in Paraguay in 2012. A breach results in suspension from meetings and can lead to the country losing its trade benefits.
Rousseff's comments were the strongest signal yet that she could continue fighting her ouster if the Senate removes her from office.
The impeachment process has "all the characteristics of a coup" as it has no legal basis, she said, in an attempt to rally international support for her political narrative.
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04/23/2016
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[IN.REUTERS] Pak Taliban gunniesrubbed out a prominent Sikh figure and opposition party worker on Friday, authorities and the bandidossnuffies said, in the latest attack on a religious minority in the majority-Muslim nation.
Soran Singh was a leading figure in Pakistain's tiny Sikh community and an adviser to a provincial chief minister, representing cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... 's opposition 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.... (PTI) party.
Singh was attacked by gunnies in his native village in the Buner valley in northwest Pakistain, local police officer Shaukat Khan said.
Pak Taliban front man Mohammad Khurasani said the Taliban carried out the killing, and would continue attacks until their version of strict Islamic law was established in Pakistain.
The PTI said Islam's laws and the Pak constitution provided for the protection of religious minorities.
"The brutal killing of Soran Singh is extremely saddening," Khan said in a statement, describing Singh as a patriotic Pak and loyal party worker.
Sikhs make up less than 1 percent of Pakistain's 190 million people. Many see Pakistain as the place where their religion began.
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[THELOCAL.DE] The battle over TV satirist Jan Böhmermann continues to divide Germany's governing coalition in Berlin, a newspaper report suggested on Thursday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... had announced last Friday that the law dating back to the 19th Century would be abolished by 2018 ‐ and that satirist Jan Böhmermann could face prosecution under the law in the meantime.
It's not certain that Böhmermann will have a day in court, as prosecutors must first decide whether there is a case to answer for the "smear poem" he read out against Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... on public television.
But the Social Democratic Party (SPD) ‐ the junior coalition partner to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ‐ were unhappy with the Chancellor's decision.
Now SPD Justice Minister Heiko Maas plans to have a draft bill to abolish the law on "insulting a foreign heads of state" in front of MPs in the Bundestag (German parliament) within a week, the Rheinische Post reported on Thursday, citing government sources.
Many political commentators and two-thirds of the public were also against Merkel's choice to allow the prosecution to go ahead.
It was seen by many as a bid to appease Erdogan's anger and keep alive a controversial refugee exchange deal struck by the EU with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... .
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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#1
Law against saying sh*t stinks still safe, for now...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/23/2016 17:28
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[THELOCAL.DE] Police said on Thursday that two teenagers they have incarcerated Book 'im, Mahmoud! in connection with a kaboom on a Sikh temple in the western German city of Essen are linked to the Islamic fundamentalist scene there.
Officers received large numbers of tip-offs during their investigation that allowed them to identify the two 16-year-olds believed to behind the attack, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) reported.
"The accused have clear links to the terrorist scene," Essen police chief Frank Richter told journalists at a presser, saying that both teenagers had made partial confessions.
Richter added that there was no evidence so far of a link to the Isis terrorist group, but said police expect to make further arrests in the coming days.
ARD public television reported that the two youths arrested were well-known to the police for their links to the Salafist scene in the densely populated Rhine-Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, something Richter refused to confirm at the presser.
Three hurt in bomb kaboom
The bomb went kaboom! at a temple belonging to the Sikh Gurdwara Nanaksar congregation on Saturday at around 7 pm, wounding three people ‐ one of them, a Sikh priest, seriously.
Hundreds of worshippers regularly visit the temple at weekends to pray and meet other members of the community, and a wedding with dozens of guests had taken place earlier that same day.
Fortunately, only a few people were in the hall at the time of the kaboom. Windowpanes shattered with the force of the blast and the door was ripped from its hinges, while parts of the slate facade were also torn away.
An audio recording from the moment of the crash features a loud kaboom and then shouts from the people gathered inside.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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[DAILYCALLER] The University of Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, Los Angeles has been graced with chalk writings speaking out against transgenderism, ISIS, and college education.
Images posted to the UCLA Transfer Students Facebook page show chalk writings of the words "ISIS Is Islamic," "Transgenderism is a mental disorder", and "Higher Education Is A Privilege Not a Right."
Near Murphy Hall, home UCLA’s Registrar, a chalk writing denouncing law professor Jerry Kang, who also serves the vice chancellor of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, appeared.
On another sidewalk, the chalk writing said, "Stop the jihad on campus."
Pardees Fassihi, the student who posted some of the images on Facebook wrote in her post, "This is disgusting to see at UCLA. On top of that, the janitors are now cleaning after whoever did it and it just wastes water."
Editor in Chief of The Bruin Standard, Julia Nista told The Daily Caller, "They wasted so much water washing it off."
In a departure from other Universities that had pro-Donald Trump chalkings, UCLA has some pro-Ted Cruz chalk writing. This week, "#Cruz2016" has appeared in various parts of the campus.
Last week, DePaul University banned the use of sidewalk chalk on campus. In a statement, vice president of student affairs Eugene Zdziarski said, "DePaul University will no longer allow students to chalk political messages on the sidewalks of its campus because of the "offensive, hurtful, and divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... " nature of pro-Trump chalking found on campus last week."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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#1
Higher education is a product. Sometimes a working person's tool (STEM degree, law degree, medical degree, so on) sometimes a frivolous luxury (queer studies, journalism, so on) So when do other products get declared to be a right? Free cars? Free booze? Free guns?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/23/2016 14:52
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[DAWN] KARACHI: Police claimed to have killed three suspected murderous Moslems in an ’encounter’ in an area on the outskirts of the city on Thursday evening.
According to Malir SSP Rao Anwar, acting on a tip-off police raided an alleged hideout of the murderous Moslems in Faqira Goth off the Superhighway. When police personnel were moving closer to the hideout, the murderous Moslems opened fire on them. The police personnel returned fire, leaving three murderous Moslems dead, he added.
According to police, the murderous Moslems belonged to the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and they were allegedly involved in killings of coppers and Rangers personnel in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and attacks on security forces in Wazoo. They were also involved in cases of kidnapping for ransom and extortion.
The SSP identified two of the dear departed as Saeed Badshah alias Munshi ’Commander’ and Badar alias China. The identity of the third one could not be ascertained immediately.
Bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... , in his address to the nation on Friday, said he will resign and go home if proven guilty by the Panama Papers probe.
"I challenge all those who allege tax fraud to come forward and present evidence. If charges are proved against me, I will resign immediately," vowed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The prime minister stated that a decision has been taken by him to write a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistain, for the formation of a commission to probe the allegations levelled against his family and him.
We will accept the recommendations presented forth by the commission, added Nawaz.
"Once again certain elements are attempting to destabilise Pakistain in the wake of Panama Papers."
"Soon after the issue surfaced, I took the nation into confidence and ordered the formation of a judicial commission under the supervision of a retired supreme court judge," said the premier.
We have answered such allegations in the past and we will do it again, because we believe that as a democratic government and representatives of the people, it is our duty to answer these allegations, said Nawaz.
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A deadly suicide kaboom plot by the anti-government armed murderous Moslem groups was foiled by the Afghan intelligence operatives in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province.
The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS), said a jacket wallah was jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! before he manage to carry out a coordinated attack in Lashkargah city, the lovely provincial capital of Helmand.
A statement by NDS said the suicide bomber was looking to initially detonate a vehicle packed with explosives and then carry out more attack using a suicide attack vest.
The detained would-be bomber has been identified as Qudratullah but the target of the attack has not been ascertained.
In a separate operation, the Afgahn intelligence operatives seized 10 rockets before the turbans manage to fire them on Lashkargah city.
The anti-government armed murderous Moslem groups including the Taliban snuffies have not commented regarding the report so far.
Helmand is among the volatile provinces in southern Afghanistan where anti-government armed murderous Moslem groups are actively operating and frequently carry out insurgency activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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[CSMONITOR] The Nigerian military is again under scrutiny for allegations that it carried out systematic killings of hundreds of civilians, following a similar report in March.
A new report by Amnesia Amnesty International sheds light into the killings of some 350 minority Shiite Muslims ‐ men, women, and children ‐ in Zaria, a town in northern Nigeria. The human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. group released a report based on eyewitness accounts and satellite images detailing large-scale killings and a mass grave.
Between Dec. 12 and 14, 2015, the Nigerian Army clashed with members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had gathered for a religious meeting. Some of the IMN members were armed with batons, knives, and machetes, and closed a section of road in front of the IMN headquarters in Zaria, blocking the Army chief's convoy. The military said they raided the city after the members of IMN attempted to assassinate the Army chief.
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04/23/2016
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[IN.REUTERS] The top U.N. human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... official called on Thailand on Friday to suspend "dangerously sweeping" powers handed to the military and he encouraged dialogue on a draft constitution the military hopes will win approval in an August referendum.
The military has ruled since a May 2014 coup and has banned political gatherings, censored media and tried dissenters in military courts.
Junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has stressed the need to restore political stability after year of fractious and at times violent politics and he has promised to hold an election in mid-2017.
Last month, the junta gave soldiers powers of arrest and detention, including the authority to seize assets and search premises, a move rights groups say would only help strengthen the crackdown on critics.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement extending the military's powers was not the answer to "rebuilding Thailand's political landscape".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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"Your turn!"
"No, it's yours!"
"No, u!"
"No. u!"
[ARA News] ERBIL ــ A top leader from the radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) carried out a suicide operation against rebel groups in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, local and pro-ISIS sources reported on Friday.
Local activists confirmed that the prominent ISIS leader was from the ISIS-held city of Manbij in northern Aleppo.
Speaking to ARA News in Manbij, media activist Nasser Taljbini said that ISIS prince of Manbij Abu Salah al-Makki carried out a car bomb attack targeting a gathering for Syrian rebel fighters in the vicinity of Marea city.
“Al-Makki, holds a Saudi national, conducted Thursday a car bomb attack against a gathering of Syria opposition fighters on the outskirts of Marea [25 kilometers north of Aleppo in northern Syria],” Taljbini reported, citing sources close to ISIS.
In the meantime, ISIS supporters circulated on social media supportive comments and tweets about al-Makki. “Our princes are in the forefront .. God bless their souls,” pro-ISIS activists twitted.
On the other hand, pro-opposition sources reported that al-Makki was killed during clashes on the outskirts of Marea, without confirming or denying the news of the suicide bombing led by the top jihadi.
Noteworthy, it is the first time that a senior ISIS jihadi carries out a suicide bombing since the emergence of the terror group in Syria and Iraq.
The critically injured son of Army Commander-in-Chief Major General Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri died today when the helicopter bringing him to Labraq for a Jordan flight, exploded on landing at the airport this evening.
Inshallah -- why do the maintenance when it is Allah's will from moment to moment whether the thing explodes, killing all aboard? Or it could have been enemy action -- enemies are like that sometimes.
Mohammed Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri was killed this evening along with the pilot of the Mil-17 helicopter, army spokesman Amed Al-Mismari told the Libya Herald.
The 22 year-old Mohammed had been seriously injured yesterday in a car smash on the road between Marj and Tobruk in which a brother and a cousin were also hurt. Mohammed sustained serious pelvic injuries and was taken to Marj hospital. This afternoon he was transferred by helicopter to Labraq to be flown on to Jordan for specialist treatment.
It is not clear why the helicopter exploded on landing. A nurse and three other people on the flight were injured in the crash and are now in hospital. The identity of the other survivors is not clear but it is not believed that the general was on the flight.
Mohammed is the second of General Nazhuri’s sons to die. His 35 year-old son Ramzi was killed fighting in Benghazi in May 2014.
[DAWN] An antiterrorism court on Friday rejected the request of General retired Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... for temporary exemption from court appearances and termed his April 6 medical report ’fake’.
The ruling regarding the former military ruler's certificate came during the hearing of the judges' detention case
Gen Musharraf’s lawyer Akhtar Shah submitted the former army chief’s medical report along with a request to grant his client temporary exemption from appearing in court in the judges’ detention case, but the judge rejected both and upheld his non-bailable arrest warrants, DawnNews reported.
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[THELOCAL.DE] An ostrich at a circus in Munich was hit by a car and died shortly after animal rights activists opened its cage.
It was around 9pm on Monday evening when as yet unknown people snuck onto the land that Kaiser Circus - along with its 80 animals - was encamped on..
Finding a trailer where the ostriches Nala and Zawo were held along with a goose called Fred, the culprits managed to unscrew the hinges and open the door.
The animals then escaped and ran out into the night, according to local police.
But, at least for Nala, new-found freedom was to have fatal consequences.
Running through the streets in the southwestern area of the city, she was hit by a car and died. The driver drove off and has still not been identified.
The other two birds were later captured, although Zawo might have to be put down, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, because German regulations on animal husbandry state that ostriches must be kept in pairs.
Police believe that three men and one woman were behind the incident.
“It’s really affected me, I live with my animals,” the circus director André Kaiser told Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Kaiser, whose family have run the circus for more than 200 years, said that he had been tending to his camels and had not noticed the break-in.
The attack seems to have been the culmination of a barrage of intimidation which animal rights activists have hurled at the circus in recent weeks.
When the circus moved to the northwest of Munich, activists smeared almost all the posters advertising the event with slogans like “Animal torturers. Free all animals”.
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Three Turkish soldiers were killed and others wounded on Friday by a roadside bomb in the Kurdish majority southeast of the country, medical and military sources told AFP.
The explosion was caused by a home-made bomb on the side of a road between Tunceli and Elazig in a region caught up in bloody reprisals between the army and rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The attack prompted a swift response from the Turkish army, with helicopters dropping bombs on the rebels' escape routes in the region, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.
Security forces blocked the road to traffic.
Fierce clashes between the Turkish state and the PKK resumed in late July, upending a two-year ceasefire that had nurtured hopes of an end to a three-decade insurgency which has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of establishing an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority, although in recent years its demands have focused on greater autonomy and cultural rights.
Turkey has waged an offensive against the PKK after the collapse of the fragile truce. The renewed conflict has also struck at the heart of the country, with two attacks that killed dozens of people in the capital Ankara claimed by Kurdish rebels.
A radical PKK splinter group, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), claimed responsibility for the two suicide car bombings in Ankara on February 17 and March 13
[IN.REUTERS] Yemen's warring factions held their first direct talks in a U.N.-backed grinding of the peace processor on Friday and will meet again despite failing to agree on an agenda, participants said.
The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the meetings in Kuwait had been constructive and the positive atmosphere was a step forward in efforts to end the conflict.
They discussed a more permanent ceasefire in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... and how it would be implemented, he said.
The talks, which opened late on Thursday, seek a solution to a war which has killed more than 6,200 people, triggered a humanitarian crisis and enabled al Qaeda and Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... Lions of Islam to consolidate their presence in the country.
They bring together the Iran-allied Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews ... movement, who control the capital Sanaa, and its General People's Congress (GPC) allies with the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, based in the southern port city of Aden.
"The meetings held today were constructive and the atmosphere is an important advancement," Ould Cheikh Ahmed told a news conference. "We will intensify our efforts."
But sources present at the talks, delayed since Monday due to the late arrival of the Houthi delegation and its allies, said the two sides continue to be divided on the priorities.
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04/23/2016
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[IN.REUTERS] Russian forces in Syria have fired at least twice on Israeli military aircraft, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seek improved operational coordination with Moscow, Israel's top-selling newspaper said on Friday.
Asked about the alleged incidents, however, Kremlin front man Dmitry Peskov said: "In this case, Israeli press reports are far from reality."
But Netanyahu, in remarks published by Israeli news hounds whom he briefed by phone on his talks on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin ...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead... , said "there have been problems" regarding Israeli military freedom of operation in Syria.
He gave no details, but said: "If you don't deal with the friction, it could develop into something more serious."
The unsourced report in Yedioth Ahronoth made no mention of dates or locations for the two reported incidents, nor did it give any indication of whether the Israeli planes were hit.
Russia mounted its military intervention in Syria in September to shore Damascus up amid a now 5-year-old rebellion.
Separately, Israel's Channel 10 TV said a Russian warplane approached an Israeli warplane off the Mediterranean coast of Syria last week but that there was no contact between them.
An Israeli military front man declined comment. Netanyahu's office and the Russian embassy in Israel did not immediately respond.
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04/23/2016
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[ARA News ] QAMISHLO – A ceasefire was reached on Friday between the Syrian government and Kurdish forces after three days of heavy fighting in the northeastern city of Qamishlo (Qamishli), the Kurdish security police officially announced.
The General Command of the Kurdish Security Police –also known as Asayish in Kurdish– announced on Friday that the Syrian government and the Kurdish forces have reached an agreement on the request of Arab tribal leaders for a ceasefire.
The Kurdish security police said in a public statement that at least 31 regime fighters were killed and 102 captured. Moreover, in total 13 fighters on the Kurdish side were killed in the fight with the Syrian government. The Kurdish leadership added that the Islamic State (ISIS) carried out suicide attacks in the al-Wusta neighborhood in Qamishlo.
The casualty numbers could not be confirmed from the regime side.
“For nearly four years Qamishlo enjoyed relative calmness and peace, and they [pro-regime forces] wanted to destroy this, while people were living peacefully in the city of Qamislo,” said Moaz Abdulkarim (34), the co-president of the city council of Qamishli, who was carrying a gun.
“They fired randomly with heavy weapons, and the civilians suffered from this, and paid the bill” he told ARA News.
“Their [government] plan did not succeed,” Abdulkarim added.
Speaking to ARA News in Qamishlo, YPG fighter Ciwan (33) said that on Frida morning there was already a ceasefire. “There is a ceasefire until now, and no fighting. They have snipers ready to shoot, but the market is empty of civilians,” he added.
Close to the Allaya regime prison that was captured by Kurdish forces on Thursday, the sound of gunfire could still be heard, especially in Arab villages near Qamislo city.
“There is still gunfire coming from Khirbat Amo [Arab village],” said Heval Redur, the leading Asayish officer for the captured regime prison. “It’s in the hand of civilian Arabs, but the regime entered the area, and told them to evacuate the area,” he told ARA News.
“But we have kicked them out from this area [prison] and pushed them forward from Allaya,” he added.
“I don’t know if the fighting will continue, but I want it to end soon. I have a child who is sick,” said Majid Mahmoud (40), a civilian who was trying to bring his family to safety in a village close to the city.
“I am not going to the border, I am going to a nearby village. Once the war ends, I will return home with my family,” he added.
Analysts previously told ARA News the ceasefire would be expected.
“PYD [Kurdish part] told me they believe the regime had begun to push its weight around, and were not respecting the informal arrangements which exist in the city,” Michael Stephens, head of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in Qatar told ARA News.
“As a result the YPG and Asayish were told to push back and force the regime to understand it had no ability to escalate and that it should not use its strengthened position to try and get advantage in Kurdish controlled area,” he added.
“My view is that both sides will want to calm this down quickly, it would be extremely difficult for the regime to open a new front in Qamishlo against the Kurds,” he suggested
“At the same time, for PYD there would be a lot to lose; the airport would shut down and they would lose their last link to the outside world. They are under a lot of pressure from KRG [government of Iraqi Kurdistan], and resources are tighter than normal. I expect there will be some sort of deal fairly quickly, with prisoner swaps,” Stephens added.
So far, it is not clear if the two sides will also withdraw from certain areas, after the Kurds took the regime-prison in Allaya, positions in the al-Wusta neighbourhood and the regime bakery. Video report at the link
[IsraelTimes] Najim Laachraoui, one of the Brussels airport jacket wallahs, has been identified by several Frenchies held hostage by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Syria as one of their prison guards, sources close to the investigation said.
According to one of the sources, four French journalists kidnapped in Syria in 2013 and 2014 had identified a guard known as "Abou Idriss."
One of these journalists, Nicolas Henin, "formally identified" Abou Idriss as Najim Laachraoui, said his lawyer Marie-Laure Ingouf, confirming reports in French newspapers.
Laachraoui also briefly worked as a cleaner at the European Parliament several years ago.
He was one of two suicide bombers at Brussels airport on March 22 in coordinated attacks that also struck a metro station in the city, killing 32 people overall.
For five years until 2012, Laachraoui "worked... at Brussels airport", Phlegmish-language VTM reported, adding that he had been recruited by a temp agency. It did not provide details about the kind of work Laachraoui was to have carried out there, but said that airport staff are usually subject to a security check before being given access badges. There has been no official confirmation of the report.
Traces of Laachraoui’s DNA have been found at a Brussels apartment where the suicide belts for the Brussels attacks were made.
The 24-year-old one-time electrical engineering student is also suspected of being the bomb-maker for last November’s Gay Paree attacks that left 130 people dead.
Both attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State group.
On April 6, the European Parliament said one of the bombers had held a summer cleaning job at its Brussels headquarters in 2009 and 2010. Speaking to AFP, a source close to the inquiry named that person as Laachraoui.
Belgian prosecutors believe Laachraoui went to Syria in February 2013 where he joined IS. He resurfaced last September, two months before the Gay Paree carnage, when he was stopped by police on the Austria-Hungary border. He was using the false identity of Soufiane Kayal and was travelling with Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving Gay Paree attacks suspect.
Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... itself has also identified Laachraoui as Abou Idriss in the latest edition of its magazine, Dabiq, saying he "prepared the explosives for the two raids in Gay Paree and Brussels".
The former kidnapped Frenchies have already identified two Frenchies as being among their jailers when they were held in Syria.
One, Mehdi Nemmouche, is in jug accused of killing four people in an attack on the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014.
The other is Salim Benghalem, who has been sentenced in absentia in La Belle France for recruiting for IS and is listed as a "foreign terrorist combatant" by the United States.
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[IN.REUTERS] The corpse count from Ecuador's devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake rose to 602 people on Friday, as dozens of aftershocks shook cities and towns around the country, spooking residents but causing no further damage.
Saturday's quake, the worst in nearly seven decades, injured 12,492 people and left 130 missing, emergency management authorities said in a bulletin.
Survivors were shaken again late on Thursday night when a powerful 6.0 magnitude quake struck off Ecuador's coast about 100 km (62 miles) north-northwest of Portoviejo and at a depth of 10 km (six miles).
"When it started to shake last night we started to pray," said Alex Bachon, 43, a construction worker repairing damage from Saturday's quake at a hotel in Guayaquil. "I have never seen anything like this, it's been so bad."
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[Guardian] About 600 US-bound Africans are stranded in Costa Rica after officials blocked a major migration route to America, leading local aid workers to warn of a humanitarian crisis if their number continues to rise.
African and Latin American migrants have long passed through Costa Rica on their way to the US, but their passage has been blocked by the authorities in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the next country on the route north.
This has led to a buildup of people in the border town of Paso Canoas, where they are now sleeping rough in a makeshift detention camp.
The Costa Rican government says it has not decided what to do with them, and in the meantime they are being tended to by local Red Cross workers. Speaking to Al Jazeera, the medics said they feared an escalation of the crisis, should these 600 people turn out to be the first of a new wave of African migrants.
"They could be changing their route from Europe and going to America and so we could have a humanitarian crisis if we don't manage this right," Luis JimĂŠnez, a Red Cross representative in Paso Canoas, told the TV channel.
But migration experts said that the route was not new, and has long been trod by Africans hoping to reach America.
"It's nothing to do with the Balkan route becoming harder to take," Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, said in an interview with the Guardian.
"This phenomenon has been building for years," Millman added. "The number of Africans making this trip and asking for asylum every year at the US border is in the thousands, so this 600 is just a traffic jam. You see these kind of agglomerations every now and again."
Africans typically take planes to Ecuador or Brazil, or occasionally stow away inside cargo ships, before making their way up through several countries in Latin America to the US border, where they claim asylum, Millman said.
Members of the stranded group told Al Jazeera they had been travelling for four months and had reached South America by boat. Youleyni, a pregnant woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said: "It's been bad, a lot of police in Colombia, Panama asking for money."
Costa Rica has typically taken a laissez-faire attitude to migrants crossing its territory, but may have now decided to shift policy because Nicaragua recently began to send people back to Costa Rican soil.
In December, regional authorities organised an airlift of about 6,000 Cubans who had been held up in Costa Rica and Panama after Nicaragua closed its southern border to migrants on 15 November.
[Bus Insider] Eight years ago, two US Marines from two different walks of life who had literally just met were told to stand guard in front of their outpost's entry-control point.
Minutes later, they were staring down a big blue truck packed with explosives. With this particular shred of hell bearing down on them, they stood their ground.
Heck, they even leaned in.
I had heard the story many times, personally. But until today, I had never heard then Marine Lt. Gen. John Kelly's telling of it to a packed house in 2010. Just four days following the death of his own son in combat, Kelly eulogized two other sons in an unforgettable manner.
At least they think they did...
Japan's first stealth fighter jet successfully took to the skies on Friday as the country joins a select group of world military powers wielding the radar-dodging technology.
Should have sold them the F-22 when we had the chance...
Technological super power Japan, despite strict constitutional constraints on the use of military force imposed after World War II, has one of the world's most advanced defence forces and the development of the stealth fighter comes as it faces new security challenges in the form of China's expanding force posture.
The domestically developed X-2 jet took off from Nagoya airport in central Japan on its maiden test flight as dozens of aviation enthusiasts watching the event erupted in applause as it lifted off into the clear morning sky. The single-pilot prototype safely landed at Gifu air base, north of Nagoya airport, after a 25-minute flight with "no particular problems," said an official at the defence ministry's acquisition agency.
It was an "extremely stable" flight, the pilot was quoted as saying by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the main contractor.
"The first flight has a very significant meaning that can secure technologies needed for future fighter development," Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters.
"We also expect it can be applied to other fields and technological innovation in the entire aviation industry," Nakatani added.
The X-2, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and 200 other firms, measures 14.2 metres (47 feet) long and 9.1 metres wide and was built as a successor to F-2 fighter jets developed jointly with the United States. Its delivery to the defence ministry is expected as early as next month and the acquisition agency "will continue analysing data and check its stealth technology capability," the agency official told AFP.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2016
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#1
I wonder if they will sell some to us after the F-35 fails so badly that it gets cancelled, and we cannot get the F22 production restarted?
Posted by: Squinty Spawn of the Sith1354 ||
04/23/2016 0:16
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[IN.REUTERS] Police in the Pak city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... have incarcerated Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! an al Qaeda operative who is on the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... sanctions list, a police official said on Friday.
Pakistain has been under pressure to crack down on Islamist bad boy groups and launched a renewed operation against many of them in 2014, when al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri announced the formation of a new wing, al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent.
The region, stretching across countries including Pakistain, India and Bangladesh, is home to more than 400 million Muslims.
Muqadas Haider, a police brass hat, said Abdul Rehman Sindhi was arrested in a joint operation between police and intelligence agencies late on Thursday.
"Abdul Rehman Sindhi is an old veteran of al Qaeda," Haider said. "He had stayed in touch with the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now beyond all cares and woe... and Ayman al- Zawahri and has worked with Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, Jaish-e-Mohammad ...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf banned the group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat... and Al Akhtar Trust," he said.
Sindhi was put on a U.N. Security Council sanctions list in 2012 for providing "facilitation and financial services to al Qaeda".
Posted by: Fred ||
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#3
'That's the key idea,' said Hoffman. 'Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive.
'They guide adaptive behaviours. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don't need to know.
Hardly a new idea. Most mammals don't see colours or see them poorly. Primates co-evolved colour vision with trees that produced fruits that changed colour when ripe.
Doesn't mean the world is an illusion. It's just that we perceive it selectively.
#14
I guess they skipped William of Ockham in his class.
Posted by: james ||
04/23/2016 15:31
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#15
Dark spooks on the wall of a cavern:
Poor penitents hoods. "It's a klavern!"
And pale shadows, turning
From Christendom's burning,
All face the idealist blatherin'.
Some of the four Minnesota men facing trial next month for conspiring to join the Islamic State group had discussed the possibility of attacks in the United States, according to a document filed by prosecutors.
Prosecutors said one defendant, Guled Ali Omar, talked about establishing a route from the U.S. to Syria through Mexico, then telling the Islamic State group about the route so it could be used to send fighters into America to carry out attacks.
A little slow off the mark there, guys -- Hezbollah has been coming to the U.S. via Mexico with their drug cartel friends for decades. No doubt someone in ISIS is aware of this, simce we've been discussing it here at Rantburg for years.
The document, filed Wednesday, is one of many filed in recent weeks as prosecutors and defense attorneys argue about which evidence should be allowed at the men’s trial, which starts May 9.
The men — Omar, 21; Hamza Naj Ahmed, 21; Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 22; and Abdirahman Yasin Daud, 22 — have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S. Prosecutors have said they were part of a group of friends in Minnesota’s Somali community who held secret meetings and plotted to join the Islamic State group.
Five other men have pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organization. A tenth man charged in the case is at-large, believed to be in Syria.
The government’s document was filed in response to a defense request that prosecutors be barred from introducing evidence about possible attacks in the U.S.
Last week, Daud’s attorney wrote that, absent any specific evidence that his client threatened the United States, any references to discussions about attacks would be prejudicial. To permit such references, as well as references to the Sept. 11 attacks or exhibits that show violent images of war crimes, “would cause the jurors to decide out of fear and contempt alone,” defense attorney Bruce Nestor wrote.
But prosecutors said audio recordings obtained during the investigation show the defendants spoke multiple times about the possibility of attacks in the U.S. Among them, Omar spoke of establishing a route for fighters, Farah spoke of killing an FBI agent and another man who pleaded guilty talked about shooting a homemade rocket at an airplane.
Prosecutors wrote that they should be allowed to “play for the jury the defendants’ own words, in which they discuss the possibility of returning to attack the United States.” They also said the defendants watched videos and gruesome images, which they also want to play for the jury, and that a blanket ban on mentioning the 2001 attacks is inappropriate, noting that Omar had pictures of the burning World Trade Center towers and Osama bin Laden on his cellphone.
A phone message left with Omar’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.
The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups fighting in Syria in recent years. In addition, since 2007 more than 22 men have joined al-Shabab in Somalia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2016
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[DAWN] Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... has no assets abroad, but continues to receive colossal amounts from his son, Hussain Nawaz, who is settled in the UK, reveal the statements of MNAs’ assets released by the Election Commission of Pakistain (ECP) on Thursday.
According to the statements of assets for 2015, released amidst the ongoing controversy around the Panama Papers leak, which linked politicians with offshore companies, the value of the assets owned by the prime minister and his spouse comes to around Rs2 billion -- an increase of over a billion in just four years.
The value of his assets in 2011 was Rs166 million, which swelled to Rs261.6 million in 2012 and then to Rs1.82 billion in 2013, making him a declared billionaire. Then, in 2014, the declared value of his assets rose to around Rs2 billion.
Mr Sharif received over Rs215 million from his son Hussain Nawaz in 2015. He had previously received remittances from his son, worth Rs239 million and Rs197. 5 million in 2014 and 2013, respectively.
The prime minister is among the few billionaires in the National Assembly, the others being Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... MNAs Khayal Zaman and Sajid Hussain Toori.
Mr Sharif owns a Toyota Land Cruiser, gifted to him by an unspecified individual, as well as two Mercedes vehicles. The house he lives in is owned by his mother. He also has multiple foreign and local currency accounts, huge swathes of agricultural land and investments in industrial units such as sugar, textile and paper mills. Mr Sharif has also declared, for the first time, ownership of birds and animals worth Rs2 million.
The PM’s wife, Kulsoom Nawaz, has land and a house in Changa Gali, 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.... , that is worth Rs80 million, a bungalow on The Mall in Murree, worth Rs100 million, as well as shares in the family business.
Their son-in-law, retired Capt Mohammad Safdar, has only listed one property and 550 grams of jewellery in the name of his wife, the PM’s daughter, Maryam Safdar.
Property owned by Maryam Safdar, according to the ECP statement, is a 2006 BMW 4800CC car, which was gifted to her by someone in the United Arab Emirates, while her jewellery is worth Rs1 million.
According to the statement filed by Mr Safdar, there is no mention of his wife owning any property, investments or bank accounts inside or outside the country.
The net worth of the prime minister’s son-in-law is only Rs5 million, aside from some 20 acres of land in Mansehra ...a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south... district and around 215 acres of barren land in Rajanpur, Punjab.
Another wealthy MNA from the Sharif family is Hamza Shahbaz Sharif ...Pak dynastic politician, brother of PM Nawaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab... , the prime minister’s nephew and son of Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. His net worth is Rs342.6 million, which includes 10 non-agricultural properties and he has significant investments in the Sharif Feed Mills, Ramzan Sugar Mills and Crystal Plastics.
He has not declared any investments or property outside the country and his bank balance is around Rs10.8 million.
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[FOREIGNPOLICY] After Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... murderous Moslems fired mortars this week at Kurdish military posts in northern Iraq, the Peshmerga fighters complained of nausea, vomiting, and a burning sensation in their eyes. Their symptoms reflected telltale reactions to sulfur mustard gas, a blistering agent that the Islamic State has been employing with increasing and alarming frequency on the battlefield.
The rise in chemical attacks by the Islamic State has prompted the Kurdish regional government to issue an urgent request to Washington and other Western capitals for thousands of gas masks. But Erbil is still waiting for most of the protective masks to arrive.
As America’s most effective ally in the campaign against the Islamic State group, Kurdish officials say privately they are puzzled by the delay, especially given the Kurdish people’s tragic experience as victims of chemical weapons.
On March 16, 1988, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s military targeted the Kurdish town of Halabja near the Iranian border with the deadly nerve agent sarin and mustard gas, killing about 5,000 people and injuring thousands more. It remains the single worst chemical weapons attack on a civilian population in history.
Over the past year, Kurds have become reaquainted with the acrid smell of mustard gas. Hundreds of Kurdish troops and civilians have been injured in chemical attacks by the Islamic State and one 3-year-old child was killed in Taza in March, according to regional authorities.
Kurdish leaders and military officers say they need tens of thousands of gas masks for the 65,000 troops that are deployed in the fight against the Islamic State. So far, the Kurdish forces have 6,000 gas masks, including about 4,000 from the United States for two brigades being trained by American military advisers, said Brig. Gen. Hazhar Ismail of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
But the United States has promised an additional 5,000 masks and it’s not clear when those will be delivered, the general told Foreign Policy in an email.
Kurdish leaders believe the threat is mounting, especially as the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi government draws up plans for a crucial offensive this year to recapture the city of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , where they fear the Islamic State could be prepared to launch larger-scale chemical weapons attacks.
"We are very concerned about ISIS using chemical weapons," Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the representative for the Kurdish Regional Government in Washington, told Foreign Policy.
"They’re using them with increasing frequency, and increasing sophistication," she said. The rising number of attacks represents "a clear warning that they intend to use them in the fight to liberate Mosul."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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#1
Answer to headline question: Obama kissing Erdogan and MB's ass under the instruction of Iranian mole Valerie Jarret.
#5
Why complicate matters? It has been known for years that Obama is a captive of both the Muslim Brotherhood (thanks to a half-brother who is a high official in an Ikwan organization), and the Iranian Shiites (thanks to Iranophile V. Jarett). His inferiority complex is abetted by a State Department that is top-heavy with anti-Semites. He is himself captive of a questionable birth (the true birth cirtificate will never emerge because the box indicating "father" is left blank), and a mythic Kikuyu parentage that leads him to denegrate Western civilization. Othello was a tragic figure; In contrast, Obama is a modern Emperor Jones.
Posted by: Herb Thutch1185 ||
04/23/2016 15:09
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#6
How can you call him a traitor when he never was on your side to begin with? Let us be clear, he is the enemy, NFSE.
[GMA News] Seven Philippine soldiers were injured in an hour-long clash with Abu Sayyaf terrorists in Patikul town in Sulu province on Friday. Military spokesman Filemon Tan said the troops were on patrol when they battled an undetermined number of Abu Sayyaf militants. He said the rebels were under Abu Sayyaf sub-leader Hairullah Asbang.
Posted by: ryuge ||
04/23/2016
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[Ynet] Two New England men accused of plotting to behead Massachusetts coppers in support of the bad boy group Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... were receiving instructions from one of the group's cyber experts, according to a new indictment released on Thursday.
A grand jury in federal court in Massachusetts added conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries to the charges against David Wright, 26, of Massachusetts, and Nicholas Rovinski, 25, of Rhode Island.
According to the new indictment, Rovinski has continued to support Islamic State while in jail by trying to recruit others to "decapitate non-believers" and take down the US government and by writing a new pledge of support to the group's leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... , on the back of his own criminal complaint.
Rovinski and Wright pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to the original charge of conspiring to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization after they were placed in durance vile Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! in June, and they were due to face trial in February 2017.
See here for Rantburg's archive on the gentlemen, though only the most recent three articles. Apparently David Wright has been a popular name around the world.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[THEHILL] Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Thursday proposed allowing marijuana users to possess larger amounts of the drug, and releasing those convicted of low-level drug offenses. "If you can't lick 'em, light up!"
Peña sent the bill to the Mexican senate, where the body's president, Roberto Gil Zuarth, praised the move toward liberalization of drug policy but criticized the measure.
"To move the threshold from 5 to 28 grams isn't enough if one has to go to the black market now to get the 28 grams," said Gil, of the opposition center-right National Action Party.
Peña, known for his personal opposition to full legalization of drugs, said his measure is a step "toward a new paradigm that views drugs from a perspective of prevention, health and human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... ."
Sen. Agustín Basave Benítez of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution similarly called it a step in the right direction, but added that the measure did not go far enough.
Basave said he supported a legal approach of hurting organized crime syndicates financially, instead of taking down drug kingpins who could easily be replaced.
"Let’s hit them where it hurts, and we’ll let informed adults decide and addicts to be treated because it’s a health problem," Basave said.
Gil, who last month introduced a much more aggressive drug proposal, worried about what would happen if U.S. border states legalized local marijuana production.
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04/23/2016
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[Bangkok Post] A combined military force searched an area on Khao Tawe mountain range in Narathiwat province on Wednesday and found a cache of bomb-making materials and medical supplies. The force, comprising troops, an explosive ordnance disposal unit and sniffing dogs, examined the area after getting information about where the RKK separatist group had assembled mines and bombs for use in insurgency operations.
Equipped with bomb detectors, the force found four large fertilizer bags hidden at near trees and in rock crevices, covered with plastic sheets. The bags contained clothing, medicine, medical equipment, nails, ball bearings, electric wire, plugs, electronic circuit panels, drills, gas stoves and many other items.
CSX workers realized about 500 pounds of the explosives were missing when the train arrived on Wednesday near Central Avenue, said Donald Dawkins, spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Dawkins compared the aerial shells ‐ between 2 1/2 to 5 inches in length ‐ to commercial fireworks that a municipality might set off at a fireworks show. But he stressed they are not for consumers, are filled with pyrotechnic explosives and can be dangerous.
A Michigan TV separately reported "Sources say the theft was reported two days ago but the case has not gone public."
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] While campaigning for her mother recently, Princess Chelsea Clinton admitted that the left is planning to use the Supreme Court to enact greater gun control if a Democrat wins the presidency this fall.
The Washington Free Beacon reported: "It matters to me that my mom also recognizes the role the Supreme Court has when it comes to gun control. With Justice Scalia on the bench, one of the few areas where the Court actually had an inconsistent record relates to gun control," Clinton said. "Sometimes the Court upheld local and state gun control measures as being compliant with the Second Amendment and sometimes the Court struck them down."
Quickest way I know to incite a new civil war in this country is to do what Chelsea proposes. And one side has all the guns...
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04/23/2016
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[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The Afghan Air Force (AAF) pounded the holy warriors in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. and southeastern Paktia provinces in the past 24 hours, leaving at least 25 dead.
The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said at least 6 holy warriors loyal to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group were among those killed.
A statement by MoD said the Arclight airstrikes were carried out in Achin, Mamand Dara and Ghani Khel districts of Nangarhar province and Zurmat district of Paktia province.
The anti-government armed krazed killer groups have not commented regarding the report so far.
The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have stepped up counter-terrorism operations with improved close-air support to suppress the insurgency activities of the anti-government armed krazed killer groups.
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) has so far received 8 A-29 Super Tucano Light Attack Aircraft along with some MD-530 warrior helicopters that have significantly increased the airpower of the Afghan forces.
A-29 is a multi-role, fixed-wing aircraft that will provide the Afghan air force with an indigenous air-to-ground capability and aerial reconnaissance capabilities to support the country’s counterinsurgency operations.
Afghanistan also received 3 Mi-25 gunship helicopters from India late last year and officially started service with the Afghan Air Force (AAF) earlier this year.
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04/23/2016
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[DAWN] Former Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... mayor Mustafa Kamal on Friday pulled Syed Hafeezuddin, politician 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.... (PTI) in Sindh Assembly, into his newly-launched Pak Sarzameen Party.
Kamal announced this while addressing a presser at Bagh-e-Jinnah -- the place where his party is planning to hold a public gathering on April 24.
At the start of the presser Kamal welcomed Hafeezuddin to his political party.
Speaking at the occasion, Hafeezuddin said "The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... ’s current president was once the mayor of Istanbul and he turned it into an economic centre -- not just for the Muslim world but also for Europe."
"That is how I want Mustafa Kamal to lead this nation," he maintained.
Talking about why he resigned from PTI, Hafeezuddin said PTI was established in Karachi after a lot of struggle, but the party didn’t do anything despite registering internal complaints.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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[DAWN] RAHIM YAR KHAN: An influential landlord made four villagers, including a woman, to walk on boiled oil as punishment on theft allegation in Chak 153-P, some 34kms from here, on Thursday.
Reports said some jewellery and money were stolen from the house of landlord Mohsin a few days back. The landlord suspected that four villagers Sadia (14), Kashif (24), Shehzad (21) and Asim (19) were involved in the theft.
On the advice of fake faith healer Shaukat, the landlord summoned the four at his house and forced them to prove their innocence by walking on boiled oil.
The landlord told the four villagers that the boiled oil would not burn the feet of those who were not involved in theft.
As it was not enough, the landlord told the scared villagers that those whose feet were found burnt would have to return the stolen jewellery and cash.
Since feet of all the four villagers were burnt, the landlord called their elders and demanded the stolen jewellery and cash.
Their elders informed the police who raided Mohsin’s house, but he managed to escape along with the faith healer and accomplices.
Sadiqabad police have started the paperwork but haven't done much else against Mohsin, Shaukat, Mukaram, Muddasar, Atif and Riaz under sections 324, 148 and 149.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2016
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Iran has a capacity to increase oil production to even 5.5-6 million barrels per day (mb/d), but not under the current situations, Fereydoun Barkeshli, former general manager at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in OPEC and international affairs, told Trend April 21.
Iran's oil output plunged by more than one million barrels to 2.8 mb/d during a 3-year sanctions, imposed by western countries in 2012. Iran had to shut down some fields, but resumed the output to around 3.3 mb/d in March, three months after lifting sanctions.
Tehran says it would increase this figure to the pre-sanctions level, but most of international organization, including the Energy Information Administration believes that the country can add only around 0.5 mb/d to its output in 2016 due to the delays in developing new fields and technical problems for resuming output from old fields.
About 80 percent of Iran's active fields are in their second half-life and their production decrease by 8-13 percent annually. For now Iran re-injects about 93 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) to maintain the output level, but the figure should have been three times more than this level.
Barkeshli says that Iran needs a lot of gas injection to brown fields (active oil fields). "Currently oil and gas must move hand in hand in order to make raising crude oil production more sustainable and meaningful".
For now, Iran has increased oil exports by 750,000 b/d to 1.7 mb/d since January mostly thanking to the 30-50 million barrels of stored oil on water, but the figure is more much than the production growth. Keeping exports sustainable incoming months or increasing that to the pre-sanctions level (2.2mb/d) is not possible with the current output.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2016
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Beast] Our bodies weren’t meant for this world we’ve built. That’s why your back hurts. The things you think are normal are not. The world around you is an alien landscape, a science fiction movie set.
[Daily Caller] Britain should regain its national independence from the European Union, according to former United Nations ambassador John Bolton and former UK cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith.
[Daily Caller] Hillary Clinton's personal IT guru is still refusing to meet with Congress, his attorney recently told the chairmen of two Senate committees.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the number of migrants crossing the Aegean Sea into Europe is “significantly down,” one day after news emerged that as many as 500 of them may have drowned last week in the sea between Libya and Italy.
[DAILYCALLER] The University of .png)
Wazoo
Pervez 
[THELOCAL.DE] An ostrich at a circus in Munich was hit by a car and died shortly after animal rights activists opened its cage.
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
[Bus Insider] Eight years ago, two US Marines from two different walks of life who had literally just met were told to stand guard in front of their outpost's entry-control point.
a city and an eponymous district in eastern Khyber-Pakthunwa, nestled snug up against Pak Kashmir, with Kohistan and Diamir to the north and Abbottabad to the south...
[FOREIGNPOLICY] After 
[Bangkok Post] A combined military force searched an area on Khao Tawe mountain range in Narathiwat province on Wednesday and found a cache of bomb-making materials and medical supplies. The force, comprising troops, an explosive ordnance disposal unit and sniffing dogs, examined the area after getting information about where the RKK separatist group had assembled mines and bombs for use in insurgency operations. 
Iran has a capacity to increase oil production to even 5.5-6 million barrels per day (mb/d), but not under the current situations, Fereydoun Barkeshli, former general manager at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in OPEC and international affairs, told Trend April 21.
