African Union and Somali government forces have captured the town of Afmadow, a strategic militant base in the south of the country.
Commanders say the Islamist al-Shabab group abandoned the town without a fight as their troops approached.
Afmadow is the second largest town in the south and only 115km (71 miles) from Kismayo, al-Shabab's headquarters.
Despite facing pressure on a number of military fronts, the al-Qaeda group still controls much of the country.
"Hopefully the next target will be Kismayo and then we will proceed to other towns and cities," interim Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"Surely but slowly we're getting our country back from al-Shabab," he said.
#1
Axel-Slapped. Couldn't happen to a nicer person. Flop sweat much, David? I sense the undercarriage of teh O-Bus rolling over some lower level staffers. Smells like...sunshine
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 20:57
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If the euro fails, [Merkel] was told by those present, it will be Germanys fault. For the third time in a century, that nation stands accused of blowing up Europe.
Bingo. The guilt of German leaders is why they won't be rational about it. They think it is their duty to see this through to the bitter end, as recompense for past crimes. France exploits that maximally. Result: Germany is France's bitch.
Just one nit to pick: the reference to a "federal Europe." The EU is not a federalist system like the US, with some powers delegated to the federal government, and the rest reserved to the states. It's exactly the opposite.
The purpose of the EU is, and always has been, to abolish nation-states. So the EU's relationship with member states is governed by the concept of subsidiarity. Exactly what it sounds like: member states are subsidiaries of the EU. Vassals. Subject to. Subordinate to. The whole six-decade development of the EU has been premised on the gradual transfer of sovereign rights and powers from member states to Brussels. From elected national officials, to unelected technocrats, mainly the European Commission.
They've managed to convince people that, through their elected national officials, they've had meaningful input throughout this process, but that's a bunch of bull. Just to clarify that ordinary people did not make this mess - the EUrocrats did.
Wrong!! From the beginning monetary union was a large step in the over-all plan to do away with nations in Europe. See RJDs comment. This is all part of the plan to force the total subjugation of the various nations to the unelected, self-selected technocracy of by and for the elites.
#3
"The EU is NOT a Federalist System like the US" > apparently not for Germany's lack of trying ...
To wit,
* TOPIX > [Daily Mail.UK] FEDERAL EUROPE WOULD BE A GERMAN SUPERSTATE, BECAUSE NO OTHER POPULATION [in EU/EUZ] IS SO MOTIVATED TO SUCCEED.
"Greater Germany" = aka as Euroland.
Which IMO bears the question, AND THE RUSSO-GERMAN STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP + ALLIANCE - read, 1980's Gorbachevian, Pro-Russia "PAN-SLAVICISM" AKA EASTERN EUROPE + ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY???
Bill Jacobson at Legal Insurrection is all over the Warren story and has been from the beginning. Full disclosure: I've been commenting there a little on the story.
Legal Insurrection, by the way, is a superb blog and should be on your daily reading list.
Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi has denied she was paid more than $100 million to sleep with several powerful Chinese men.
The star of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha had sex with disgraced politician Bo Xilai - a Chongqing party chief being investigated for corruption - more than ten times between 2007 and last year, a report on the US-based Chinese news website Boxun.com claimed.
The 33-year-old was allegedly paid about $1.59 million by Mr Bo on each occasion.
Zhang was allegedly introduced to Mr Bo by Xu Ming, a Chinese businessman who is also being investigated for corruption.
Mr Xu allegedly paid $100,000 to sleep with the actress the first time and $28.7 million in total.
The claims made by Boxun.com, which were also published by the Chinese language media in China and Taiwan, allege Zhang made millions more from similar deals with other rich and powerful figures.
Note: this is from a report by Dan Rather. Let me say that again....Dan Rather. With only one source. It does identify the cancer though. Would like to get Dr. Steve's analysis
This reporter has been told that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that has "entered the end stage". The information and the quote come from a highly respected source close to Chavez and who is in a position to know his medical condition and history. This source says the prognosis is dire and that Chavez is now not expected to live "more than a couple of months at most."
Rolled over to Thursday.
This explains why the chemo and radiation aren't working: sarcomas laugh at those. However, this version is very, very rare in older adults, and so I wonder if Dashing Dan got the tumor type wrong in his report. One does sometimes see very undifferentiated sarcomas that have some hint of muscle markers in them, and that could get a pathologist to call it a 'rhabdomyosarcoma'.
A true rhabdomyosarcoma, as seen in children, has a good prognosis if not metastatic. That's another reason why I doubt the diagnosis here. Not saying it couldn't be, but my guess is that it's an undifferentiated, poorly organized sarcoma. Bad news for Oogo.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012
15:08 ||
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#1
Maybe if he goes to Libya for the care and treatment the Lockerbie bomber got - gave him several years...
#7
That's another reason why I doubt the diagnosis here.
How could you doubt it? Cuba claims to have the best medical resources in the world.
Further down in the article is this comment by Rather:
Reporter's note: There is only one source for identifying the cancer and for the prognosis quoted in the first part of the above story. This is a person whom your reporter has very good reason to trust, but you should know that there is only one source so far; no other immediate confirmation. All sources asked for and were granted anonymity because to reveal their names could place them in danger or, at the very least cost them their positions.
I wonder what Belafonte, Penn, Campbell, Spacey, Glover, Sarandon, et. al. would have to say about their hero now given that it is Rather himself who admitted it.
#8
He actually made a not admitting there was one source, and that he couldn't reveal it for fear of backlash against the source? You'd almost think he was a genuine journalist!
Posted by: Charles ||
05/31/2012 15:03
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#9
Rumor is that the source was named 'Hillary'. Backlash wouldn't be against the 'source', but from.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/31/2012 22:30
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Activists have released video footage showing alleged potential suicide bombers being presented at an auction in western Saudi Arabia before being shipped off to Syria.
Suicide bombers' auction The video, leaked in early May, shows the auction taking place in a hotel in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, according to Press TV.
It shows a father putting his would-be suicide bomber son up for auction in exchange for the compensation he expects to be offered by the highest bidder.
The father, Abu-Salah, receives 1.5 million Saudi riyals (roughly USD 400,000), for offering his son, Khaled, as sacrifice.
Some sources say that among the bidders were high-ranking officials from the ruling Al Saud clan.
Posted by: jack salami ||
05/31/2012 15:17
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#2
Israel's military skills are unrivaled in the region, but its predictions about geopolitical issues leave a lot to be desired, although it has to be said they're at least based on facts rather than the fantasies conjured up by the Arabs.
Security sources in Harad district said that Saudi Arabia deported over 900 Africans to Somalian Paradise Yemen last Saturday.
The security source said that all deported Africans had no passports or any documents that prove their identities or nationalities.
And they weren't members of the Master Race...
The source added that the Yemeni authorities have transferred the deported Africans to the center of the International Immigration Organization located in Harad so as to bring them back to their homelands. The source that talked under condition of being anonymous said that deporting African from Saudi Arabia to Yemen contradicts with the international law.
Don't worry, the French will understand...
"The Saudi authorities had better deported them to their countries rather than to Yemen," the source said.
Meanwhile some security sources from Sa'da province said that tens of Africans have been deported from Saudi Arabia to the Yemeni territories on daily bases.
He added that the Houthi rebels accuses Saudi Arabia of radicalizing some Africans and sending them to Yemen and to Sa'ada province in particular to launch terrorist attacks against Houthis. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula AQAP has launched two terrorist attacks against Houthis in Sa'ada and al-Jawf provinces in the past few days killing at least 40 people.
yria-based insurgents fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad on Thursday took to task their exiled leadership, in a stark show of divisions within the armed opposition.
"Nobody has the right to issue press releases, take decisions, or speak about operations in the Free Syrian Army's name, except for the FSA command inside Syria," the group's spokesman Colonel Kassem Saadeddine told AFP.
He was reacting to a statement by Turkey-based FSA chief Colonel Riyadh al-Asaad who earlier denied that armed rebels gave the Syrian regime an 0900 GMT Friday deadline to observe a UN-backed peace plan to end the violence.
A putative truce came into force on April 12, brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, but it has been systematically violated since.
"There is no ultimatum, but we hope Annan announces the plan's failure, so that we do not take the blame for any future operations against the regime," Asaad told Al-Jazeera television.
An FSA statement issued from inside Syria earlier had given the Syrian government until noon on Friday to observe the Annan plan.
"If the Syrian regime does not meet the deadline by Friday midday, the command of the Free Syrian Army announces that it will no longer be tied by any commitment to the Annan plan ... and our duty will be ... to defend civilians," a FSA statement said.
Saadeddine, speaking to AFP via Skype from Syria, said: "From now on, all decisions will be taken from inside Syria.
#1
UAV's have their place, but wars throughout history have been won by seizing terrain and vanquishing an enemy. Over relieance on armed UAV's as a strategy is misguided. Assasination just hardens people's resolve whilst the next fellow moves up to replace the last. Nothing much is really gained except headlines.
#4
The rep is, piss us off and we'll kill you and we won't even break a sweat. What's the problem?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/31/2012 8:22
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#5
So mebbe this only ends when enough of the right kind of conflict tourists show up to strangle / stab these types up close and personal. The horror...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/31/2012 8:24
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#6
Yes, one can use a Browning High-Power to take out a hill of fire ants. Just remember to bring plenty of ammo and plan on spending the day.
#7
Well the west's problem is its unwillingless to declare war on enemy pakistan, or pakistan to agree that land within its borders is out of the states control.
Until this is clarified we have a vietnam/cambodia situation.
#10
Still think we should have been quiet about the drones and let them wonder how bombs occasionally blew up people. Was it inside men? Targeted bombs? What? As it is, this is a militarily weak culture complaining that its unfair. The same culture I might add that lives by hit-and-run and terrorist attacks on the undefended instead of a stand-up fight so who cares.
#12
Besoeker #1 is totally correct. Aerial warfare also settles nothing on its own, unless you are ready to go nuclear. Clinton used the same no-boots-on-the-ground method with the Serbs and that situation was never really resolved and is getting ready to boil over again.
#16
I cannot recall anyone successfully defeating a counterinsurgency when a border sancuary was permitted to operate.
The Greeks defeated the Communist insurgency that had bases in Albania and Yugoslavia. The Philippines defeated the Huks who were being resupplied from China via the usual junks. South Vietnam defeated the Vietcong - with a lot of help from Uncle Sam - although that became moot when the North Vietnamese military invaded with conventional forces in 1975.
The difficulty for the Pashtuns is that they are a 40% minority that is hated by the other ethnic groups because of the Taliban. Our difficulty is that we could resolve the problem once and for all without getting directly involved by simply funding the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks to crush the Pashtuns with maximum force, but can't really operate that way because of Carter bright idea to use human rights as a stick against the Soviets, something that never worked because the liberal media had and has this laser-like focus on human rights violations among our allies.
#17
Or you could just redraw the border line and put all the Pashtuns on the Pak side. The 1893 Durand Line Agreement was supposed to be an agreement about spheres of influence, not a holy writ.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/31/2012 16:14
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#18
Put all the Pastuns on the Pak side? That means the next time they violate our human rights with another terrorist attack we declare war on the Paks. Works for me if we can do it without nation building. Just nuke 'em.
A German kidnapped in Nigeria in January, allegedly by Al Qaeda's north African branch, was killed by his captors Thursday during a military raid in the northern city of Kano.
A miliary official said, "The German abducted in January has been killed by his abductors early this morning. Following intelligence reports, men of (a military task force) raided a hideout where he was being held by his abductors."
Two other sources also confirmed Edgar Raupach's death. The victim was said to have been shot and stabbed by his captors. The sources also said a number of the abductors were killed in the raid. Differing figures were provided on the number of abductors killed, ranging between two and five.
The engineer was kidnapped on the outskirts of Kano in January.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in March said it was holding the German and that it wanted to swap him for a jailed Muslim woman.
#5
It seems several terrorist "commanders" were in the area and may have been captured or killed. Five bad guys died it seems. I wonder if the German was killed before the raid even began, or after they figured out they were being attacked.
The divine law of unintended consequences in action.
Motorists face having to pay increased road tax as the Treasury considers plans to claw back hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue that will be lost as drivers opt for greener cars. The electric company and water works will employ the same philosophy...
The talks come as ministers try to prevent a fall in tax revenues as more motorists choose smaller, cleaner cars that incur a lower rate of duty. Labour has accused the Coalition of planning a "stealth tax" on drivers, effectively punishing them for going green.
Ministers say that while they have not finalised their plans, changes may be necessary to ensure the "sustainability of the public finances".
One option being considered would replace the annual tax on cars with a one-off up-front charge on new vehicles when they are sold.
Chloe Smith, a Treasury minister, told the Commons last week that ministers are "considering whether Vehicle Excise Duty should be reformed to support the sustainability of public finances and to reflect the improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency". As part of that process, motoring groups and other interested parties have been invited into the Treasury to discuss potential changes to VED.
#2
It's the same program to 'cut back' on anything [but government] like water, electricity, etc. As soon as the users cut back, revenue drops and 'suddenly' the powers to be must raise taxes/fees to cover the shortfall.
#3
It's quietly moving this way here too. Gas tax money pays for roads/bridges maintenance and construction (when it's not pilfered for other spending/earmarks). The rise in gas prices and increase in mileage/gallon has led to a general drop in revenues. What to do? I've attended programming seminars where they openly discuss getting the same revenue via other methods:
1) black boxes (for "accident reconstruction/safety" of course, that will have transponders that measure your position via GPS to charge you for miles travelled whether via hybrid/electric only/4x4 F-150 (rrrrrr)
2) Constructing only multi-user lanes in teh future - which single drivers can use - for a fee, of course, with premium pricing when the traffic is higher. I.E.: when most people are forced to commute via hours dictated by their employers
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 9:41
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#4
Tax our "seat", or the more likely to tax even our "sweat"???
Lest we fergit, TOPIX > MEDVEDEV: INFRINGEMENT ON NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY [by Foreign State(s)] COULD LEAD TO NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE, as well destruction of World Order.
AKA our future desired OWG-NWO that no American = Amerikan of the USA = USSA, USRoA has voted for, been asked to vote on, nor will be asked to vote on iff Politicos have their choice.
[OCCUPY MOVEMENT + GREECE, SPANISH RIOTS here].
US Civil War II as early as 2015, Breakup of the US into 20 or so sovereign polities after 2020???
and
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > THE SHEEPLE MUST SUFFER FOR WASHINGTON'S SINS. London's sins???
#5
Frank, be careful of what you speak, as ideas are coming from DC and the NHSTA that would require every 2014 model year car and light truck ( including the ever-popular F-150) to be equipped with the dreaded GPS. new cars already have, as part of OBD-II an 8 second or so 'track back' data recorder that has been used in several accident cases to show speeding that the time of the crash. once you accept that insurance check for a totaled car that data now belongs to the Good Hands People.
A NATO service member was killed in the southern region of the country following an explosion on Thursday.
A press release by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said, An International Security Assistance Force service member died following an improvised explosive device attack in southern Afghanistan today.
The statement did not disclose further information regarding the exact location of the incident and nationality of the deceased soldier.
A suicide car bomb attack and a separate bombing at a checkpost in Afghanistan killed at least seven policemen today. In the first, a suicide bomber rammed an Afghan police checkpost killing at least five policemen and injuring six others in Kandahar.
The attacker drove his explosives-laden car into the checkpoint at the district police headquarters of Arghistan district, according to provincial governor spokesman Jawed Faisal. He said, "Five policemen were martyred and six others injured in this cowardly attack."
In the second incident, an explosion at a police checkpost in the capital of eastern Nangarhar province killed at least two policemen. Provincial governor spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai confirmed the incident, but said security forces were still investigating the cause of the blast.
Armed Beduin tribesmen kidnapped two American tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian police said on Thursday.
Egypt still has tourists?
The perpetrators are demanding the release of a fellow tribesman recently arrested in a drug case.
The Palestinian Ma'an news agency identified the tourist as Jonathan Shizarlasky and Carter Brabon, both of whom are 31 years old. They were seized while driving near the resort of Dahab.
Sinai has resorts?
Israel built some beautiful hotels and such around the seacoast of Sharm el Sheikh the second time they captured the Sinai from Egypt. Heaven only knows what they'll do next time they take it back.
"There are negotiations now between the security forces and the armed gunmen to release the tourists," a police source said, adding that the Beduin were seeking the release of one of their tribe who has been jailed in a drugs case.
"We can confirm that there were two US citizens kidnapped May 30 on the Sinai Peninsula and we are working closely with the Egyptian authorities to resolve the situation," a US embassy official said, without giving further details.
#1
Release the tribesmen, AFTER you dose them with smallpox.
Be the last such Kidnapping/demand.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 7:14
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#2
say goodbye to Tourism income, Egypt. Islamo-hellhole, is your future. Devout starvation
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 7:47
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#3
Not saying it's the case here, cause I don't know, but some people just insist on going where they should not go, and I don't think their wellbeing when they do that should be the concern / cost of the State Dept. or the DOD. YMMV...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/31/2012 8:09
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#4
Unless I missed it, no Eqypt updates on the US State Department travel warning site.
Two soldiers were seriously wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Narathiwat province on Thursday morning.
Witnesses said that nine soldiers were patroling on foot on a local road when a 5 kg home-made bomb buried on the roadside was detonated by mobile phone. Sgt Rojana Kul-ampha, 45, and Pvt Wisan Kaewsithong, 23, were critically injured in the explosion and taken to the hospital.
1 and the biggest is that it thought property was a magic money tree and land inflation wasn't bad.
2 it's stuck in the EUSSR and the EURO and is double stuffed with regard to fixing its economy.
#9
Spain doesn't make anything the world just has to have.
No, but the weight of EU bureaucracy and the overvalued euro is crushing them. The eurozone is like a gainfully employed, financially prudent husband (Germany) with 16 wives who all share one credit card. Some of them have jobs, some of them are shopaholics, some not so much, but the EU wants to subject them all to the same one-size-fits-all rules. The sooner the PIIGS bug out (revert to national currencies), the better off everyone will be.
#10
"The unemployment rate in Norway was 3 per cent of the labor force in March 2012. This represents a decrease of 0.3 percentage points compared with December last year".
Even in the worst of times some do well. Even Brazil has had an influx of Spanish youth in the neighborhood of 300000 all together.
After weeks of hitting Mitt Romney for his tenure at Bain Capital, President Barack Obama's re-election team shifted focus to the Republican's record as governor of Massachusetts Wednesday, painting his time in the state house as overloaded with unfulfilled promises. Hmm. Sounds familiar. Now all we need is a bunch of outright lies, misdirection, and obfuscation and we've got ourselves a real campaign!
In a campaign memo, Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod wrote that Romney gave voters a misleading portrayal of his business background. Axelrod will hold a campaign press conference at the Boston State House Thursday, an Obama campaign source said. Yeah. Almost as bad as hiding ones college background.
"Ten years ago, Mitt Romney told the people of Massachusetts that his experience in business uniquely qualified him to strengthen the state's economy," Axelrod wrote. "Foreshadowing the message of his current campaign, Romney presented himself as a 'job creator,' whose experience as a corporate buyout specialist had given him special insight into how to grow the economy."
Axelrod continued, "It was a false representation. For, as even his colleagues have acknowledged, Romney's goal in business was never job creation. It was to maximize quick profits for himself and his investors." Gee. How do you create profits? By not having people working?
That mindset, Axelrod wrote, led to disappointing economic conditions for residents of Massachusetts. Nah. What screwed MA was when the economy for the whole country went south.
"Republicans and Democrats across the state were hopeful that he would deliver on his promises," Axelrod wrote. "When he left office, however, state debt had increased, the size of government had grown, and over his four years, Massachusetts' record of job creation was among the worst in the nation." I'm sure we'll see clear claims backed up by unbiased facts.
Axelrod cites a statistic in his memo that Massachusetts was ranked 47th out of 50 states in terms of job creation during Romney's tenure as governor -- a figure members of Obama's re-election team frequently use in criticizing their GOP rival.
The non-partisan PolitiFact characterized the Obama campaign's use of that statistic "half true," saying in June 2011 the numbers themselves are correct, but that it's a stretch to blame Romney (or any governor) for a state's jobs numbers. It may be a stretch, but it's not above the Obama campaign.
A Romney campaign spokeswoman portrayed the latest attacks from Obama's team as "desperate," saying they reflected a less-than-stellar jobs creation record on the president's part. I thought we were starting to turn the corner on job creation with Obama? Or is it because the oil states, Wisconsin, and Texas are working against his policies? Don't worry, Obean will get them back under control after this election cycle if he's voted back into office.
"This is another desperate attack from President Obama because he has no positive record to run on," Romney press secretary Andrea Saul wrote. "Mitt Romney created more jobs in the state of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation. President Obama has failed to meet his own goal of 6% unemployment and has a net negative record on job creation."
She continued, "If President Obama had even half the job creation record of Mitt Romney, then he would be running on it." He'll be stealing credit for the jobs created in Wisconsin for sure.
The figure Saul cites -- that Romney created more jobs in Massachusetts than Obama had created as president -- is another frequent line used on the campaign trail.
PolitiFact rated that fact as accurate, but pointed out "there were two national recessions that bookended Romney's four years in office." By Champ's logic, shouldn't the previous administrations be at fault?
Axelrod also took aim at Romney's record on taxes as governor, saying the Republican broke a promise to fight high taxes on working families. You mean he may have pushed everyone in the direction of a flat tax? Oh, the horror.
"In Massachusetts in 2002, Romney promised to fight against higher taxes on working families," Axelrod wrote. "But he raised taxes and fees on middle class families and small businesses that hit average taxpayers in the pocketbook, raised a gas tax, and the tax burden on Bay Staters was up more than $1,200 at the end of his term."
Romney's record on taxes was similarly hit by fellow Republicans during the GOP primaries. A CNNMoney analysis of his record determined he cut select taxes while in office, and proposed some new tax cuts that didn't pass the legislature - like a 0.3 percentage point reduction in the 5.3% state income tax rate.
But he also had an obligation to balance the state's budget every year, and when he came into office he was facing a big deficit that he plugged using a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases.
In his memo Wednesday, Axelrod also took Romney to task for his handling of Massachusetts' debt and deficit while governor, writing "Romney left a billion dollar deficit to his successor, having giving the public rosier projections than they were discussing internally."
Axelrod continued, "Now, Romney's promising eliminating the budget deficit and ensuring that children have a future free from the nation's debt. But his record shows that it didn't work in Massachusetts and it won't work now."
A Washington Post fact check of Romney's record on cutting the deficit in Massachusetts pointed out that "it doesn't make sense to mention Massachusetts's debt when it's not comparable to national debt in terms of its nature, or even in terms of its annual rate of growth."
The Washington Post also interviewed the non-partisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which said that Romney's record on debt in the state wasn't necessarily out of the ordinary.
"I didn't get the sense that he attacked the problem or that he exacerbated it," Michael Widmer, the group's president, is quoted as saying. "The increases weren't dramatic compared to state finances, but, nonetheless, debt did increase." This too will fail. But why should the Boneheaded One's election campaign be any more competant than the rest of his administration?
#1
Trial for Axelrod, you'd be amazed what a difference that'd male toward Honesty.
Posted by: Recneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 6:31
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#2
I live in MA and have for >40 years.
I didn't care for some of Romney's proposals but in this bright blue state he did not have a lot of room to maneuver. The entire crooked establishment is to blame.
And what the hell is DA complaining about that the size of government grew? That's the reason the Dems exist.
#5
I don't think any conservative could be pleased with Romney's record in MA. Weld did a better job, and Pawlenty governed as a genuine conservative (mostly) in deep blue Minnesota.
The irony of this is that it's Bammo making the attack. Bammo, who has openly admitted copying some of Romney's worst ideas and hired some of his worst staff.
So they'll scale it back to $70B and a third of the original service maybe?
Whatever the case, this is how the feds are redistributing taxpayer money from across the country into the zombie that is CA.
And nobody will ride it. And if they do, it will be because the ticket prices will heavily subsidized by the federal government until both the CA government and federal officials feel they can't hide it anymore. Then it will be dismantled amidst a $hitstorm of controversy and claims that ridership "just wasn't what it should be." And people will still barely be able to afford tickets on conventional rail. And the voters will continue to vote the same way. And business will continue to flee the state. Until home prices come down. And property and sales taxes get choked off. And CA collapses. And benefits for illegals finally disappear entirely. And the illegals all leave. Then we can start the whole cycle again as soon as CA's economy improves a bit.
#1
The voters agreed to $10B in bonding (backed by CA general rev). At the time the estimated cost was about $30B and the voters were told that the rail system would not require operating subsidies. The initial operating segment (about 120 mi from the vicinity of Bakersfield to the vicinity of Merced) is currently estimated to cost about $6B (about half US and half CA) and for construction to begin in Sept 2012 and be complete by about Sept 2017.
To some transportation folks, this is all nice because it will demonstrate, in obvious terms (low ridership, cost overruns, complaints about noise, etc.) the folly of the high speed rail vision in the US. In this reasoning, its better to let this proceed now than risk some 'big vision' leftist coming up with a $900B system commitment in the future.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/31/2012 9:17
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#2
You are, of course, assuming that Government learns from it's mistakes.
#3
KFI's John and Ken call it a Browndoggle. Moonbeam stubbornly refuses to kill it even though it's already violating all the business plan promises (no subsidy, all high-speed, San Diego/LA to SF, cost as noted above, etc.). Kill it now.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 9:49
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#4
Turning? I thought it was already a full blown BoonDoggle!
#6
They want to build it to zip up and down in The San Joaquin Valley. Why? Because it's flat and easier to build a railroad there. The fact that there's no USE for it there is not to be discussed.
This is like the old joke where the drunk is looking for his lost car keys under the street lamp. He didn't lose them there -- it's just that the light is better, ya see.
Kill it now. One third of the nation's welfare recipients are depending on you.
The long-running battle between a Tennessee Muslim community and its critics over a new mosque took a dramatic turn with a county judge's ruling that could bring construction to a halt.
"Everyone is really shocked, many people are crying about this," Imam Ossama Bahloul, leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM), said Wednesday.
"We did exactly what other churches in the county did," he said. "We followed the same process that other churches did. Why did this happen? Some people feel like it is discrimination."
Chancellor Robert Corlew ruled Tuesday that plans for the new mosque, previously approved by a planning commission, are now "void and of no effect."
He said the planning commission violated state law by not providing proper public notice. The ruling throws the date of the mosque's completion, scheduled for July, up in the air. Oh, dang, after they spent all that money. Well, maybe they can use it as a distribution center for bacon bits or something.
Rutherford County Attorney Jim Cope said Corlew did not address the issue of whether work on the mosque has to stop right away. County planners will discuss options and determine an appropriate course of action, he said. Maybe a storage center for fireworks on one side and a halfway house for pyromaniacs on the other.
Bahloul said construction will go on until the Islamic Center receives orders to stop.
"The ruling was a bit foggy," he said. "We will do what's right." Foggy, meaning it didn't comport with Islam?
Sally Wall, a critic of the decision to approve the mosque, said Corlew's opinion was correct "because there was no due process."
She told CNN's "AC360" on Wednesday evening that the public knew nothing until "it was a done deal."
"It's not a matter of Islamophobia with me," Wall said. "The county government is supposed to operate in a particular way ... People who live in an area where a mosque or anything else is going to be built are supposed to have a right to say something about it."
In his opinion, Corlew said he would allow attorneys for those who filed suit over the mosque approval process to prepare an order for his review.
Attorney Joe Brandon lodged such an order Wednesday. It will be held five business days, after which the judge can review and sign it.
The order says the May 2010 decision by planning commissioners to approve the center's plans failed to meet public notice requirements.
It decrees "a permanent injunction is entered against defendant county officials from taking any further actions or permitting any third party from taking any further actions inconsistent with this order."
Corlew did not order an immediate stop to construction, Cope argued.
"An order is not final for 30 days," the county attorney said. We can't go out there (and stop construction) and then be sued by the ICM. They can file suit against us."
The judge's opinion, according to Cope, also could be appealed. "We're very much premature in telling someone to stop something."
Corlew, in a statement Wednesday, said he could not comment and the case was still pending, without a final order.
Brandon told "AC360" that construction should stop because of the ruling.
During the trial, attorneys for the mosque's opposition argued that the county failed to alert the public about meetings before the mosque was approved, CNN affiliate WTVF reported.
Rutherford County attorneys said that the meetings were announced in the local free newspaper and on its website and that the notices clearly complied with Tennessee law.
The judge, however, said the announcements in a local paper were "in relatively small type near the bottom of a page which contained a number of advertisements and legal notices, most of which were provided by the city of Murfreesboro."
Corlew said his decision does not preclude the county from "again considering the same issues at a subsequent hearing when proper notice is given."
The Islamic Center has 30 days to appeal the ruling and plans to apply again for a permit, spokesman Saleh Sbenaty said.
"Hopefully, this time, the county will make it right," he said. "We followed the process according to the law. There is no question about it. We are singled out just because of our faith."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Justice Department to ensure the religious rights of Muslims in Tennessee.
"American Muslim constitutional rights should not be diminished merely because anti-Muslim bigots are able to manufacture a controversy about what would otherwise be normal religious activities," said Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the organization, which advocates for Muslim civil liberties.
"The judge's ruling is apparently based on a fictitious 'heightened standard' for public notice when Muslims are involved," he said.
The mosque expansion gained national attention, including a CNN documentary, because in some ways, it was similar to the proposal to build an Islamic center two blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York.
The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has existed for more than a decade, but the fight erupted when planning commissioners approved the 52,960-square-foot building on Veals Road.
The backlash was stinging and included intimidation, lawsuits and an August 2010 fire that destroyed construction equipment and damaged vehicles at the construction site for the mosque. Police said it was arson.
A sign announcing the mosque was spray-painted with the words "Not Welcome."
For months, mosque leaders searched for contractors willing and able to do the job. Because of the opposition and threats the project has provoked, the construction job became more complicated. The work now requires more layers of security, including cameras.
Some contractors weren't willing to take the job. Mosque leaders said contractors told them it had become too much of a hot-button issue and presented too much of a risk to their business and equipment. Several contractors began the bidding process but never finished.
Mosque officials said one contractor told them that he needed the work but that the leaders of his own church were against the new Islamic center.
In September, Corlew, the Rutherford County judge, ruled that the Muslim group had a right to build the larger facility.
In the opinion, Corlew said organizations must be treated equally under current land-use ordinances, but added that some of the county's land use laws are "in dire need of revision."
Corlew also wrote that the plaintiffs suing Rutherford County's planning commission can challenge whether the mosque's approval violated open meeting laws. That led to the lawsuit and trial that was decided this week.
Opponents of the mosque have also argued that Islam is not a real religion deserving of First Amendment protections and claimed that the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro has links to terrorism, WTVF reported.
The judge dismissed those allegations, the affiliate reported.
The congregation has outgrown its old facility and worshippers have to pray outside the crowded mosque, said Bahloul, the leader of the Islamic Center.
"I am confident that American values will prevail in this," the imam said. "What makes America so special is how it handles freedom. This decision does not seem like it reflects American values." This whole thing was set up to sneak by under the noses of the residents of the county. Something is wrong. Something else is going on. The folks there know what works best for them. Go away. Why not go to Saudi Arabia or Pakistain where you can experience some real muslim values, instead. Or maybe Detroit.
#1
The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers ~ Poem that landed Turkish PM Erdogan in jail
#5
"We followed the process according to the law. There is no question about it. We are singled out just because of our faith."
You've got it, NO murdering, terrorist supporters allowed.
(Under ANY name)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 7:00
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#6
If it 'accidently' burns down the day after it's 'finished' I wouldn't be surprised. And I suspect it wouldn't be locals upset with it doing it. The followers of the pedophile Allen would do it, blame 'racism' and collect the insurance. Til the TBI or FBI figures out it was them, which never gets reported outside of the state.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
05/31/2012 11:50
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#7
I seldom side with the Muslims, but I do in this instance. As far as I can tell from this story, THEY did things the way the law requires, but supposedly the planning commission either failed to give public notice, or the public notice wasn't prominent enough (it sounds like a pretty standard 'public notice' from my experience.) I did not see anything that said the planning commission approved a structure it should not have - if a 50,000 square foot Baptist church complex would be allowed on the site, then the mosque should be.
Hours after being released from jail, a man walked through an emergency door at San Diego International Airport, onto the tarmac and sat down on a United Express plane Tuesday, according to San Diego authorities.
"He completely bypassed TSA screening," San Diego Harbor Police Chief John Bolduc said. "He was in a public area and went out an emergency fire door, which gave him access to the tarmac."
Marc Duncan, 38, was paroled from jail Monday night, according to San Diego County Sheriff's Department records. He had been serving time for theft.
After it was opened, the emergency door alarm sounded, and Bolduc said police were on site in four minutes, but by then Duncan had blended in with other passengers.
He allegedly boarded a 30-seat United Express aircraft operated by SkyWest, which was heading to Los Angeles, according to airline spokesman Wes Horrocks.
The flight attendant realized she had too many passengers, Nicholas Blasgen, a passenger on the plane told CNN affiliate KGTV. "They said, 'What is your count?' She said this is my count, and they said that is wrong."
The passengers got off the plane and their luggage was searched.
"They had us put all the bags out, they separated the bags by enough distance and had the dog go over everything," Blasgen said.
Duncan was identified and arrested.
He is being held in the San Diego jail and is scheduled to be in court Thursday.
"I still can't, in the world, understand how this happened," Blasgen said. "It sounds like they just have lax security or not enough management. Something was going wrong." That's because they just push the buttons on the locks in full view of all the passengers in the lobby. Kinda stupid.
The Harbor Police chief said they will examine this incident and find out where to make security improvements.
"The guy did breach security, but he was caught," Bolduc said. "We have multiple layers of security built into our airports, as you know, and the backup systems were able to catch this guy."
"Security of airports is a shared responsibility, and airports and airlines are required to adhere to TSA-approved security standards." TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said in a statement. "TSA has initiated an investigation and if necessary, will take appropriate action."
#3
Just HOW long was he "In"?
He may have not known abour the airport security?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 7:20
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#4
The commuter terminal (completely different terminal than the rest) at SAN doesn't use the tunnel ramps due to the small-sized planes, small number of boarders. This idiot just hid, then mingled when the boarders walked out to the plane.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 7:50
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#5
No CCTV on the security doors?
Seems to me to be several basic security flaws at that terminal.
Give the guy a medal, and make him a full time security penetration tester.
#6
The problem with the story is pointed out in the comments here. He got back inside from the tarmac. Either they had a door that was open somewhere or the fire doors open from the outside.
#7
As far as I know there are no planes that you board from the tarmac (as opposed to the jetway) in San Diego Airport. Perhaps the commuter terminal is different.
#11
If your desire is to add genuine insult to injury, please avail yourself to the dwadling, surly, federally funded welfare scheme TSA security provided at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/31/2012 21:28
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#13
' "The guy did breach security, but he was caught," Bolduc said. "We have multiple layers of security built into our airports, as you know, and the backup systems were able to catch this guy" '
BULLSH!T!!!
The flight attendant caught him because she had the ticket count and head count didn't match. if the plane had been less than full, late push back or any other of a number of reasons i can think of, this guy just might have got away with it.
Multiple Layers, my arse! fire the TSA and their wicked witch in DC! ( do i need to add that she is so ugly she makes a freight train take a dirt road?)
Could someone from the Burg here please take a few minutes to call these guys and tell them what they will find after $10M of "research"? Me relaxing on an undisclosed beach...
Canadian researchers will get more than $1 million to plug gaps in this country's knowledge of the terrorist threats it faces.
On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews announced the first round of $10 million worth of funding over five years under the government's counterterrorism project. The money will go to six research projects at universities and think-tanks across Canada.
"Many of us do not understand really what causes terrorism, what causes individuals, Canadian citizens, to involve themselves in inappropriate acts against the state and their fellow citizens," Toews said. That's because you're liberals. You are genetically incapable of understanding conflict until after you've been mugged personally.
"It's very important that we build a base of understanding for that type of knowledge because I think it will help police and security agencies on the ground in dealing with this particular issue."
The goal of the research is to provide tools to police officers, judges, lawyers and the intelligence community working on the front lines of the fight against terrorism.
The focus will be on ideological extremism, perceptions around terrorism and security, and effective counterterrorism.
Lorne Dawson, a professor at the University of Waterloo, has done in-depth research in the so-called Toronto 18 terrorist cell.
Along with colleagues at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, he received $460,000 over two years to set up a national network of experts.
This funding will help break down the "silos" terrorist experts in Canada have been working in since research was ramped up in the wake of 9/11, Dawson said.
"Many people are tackling from all different directions," he said. "The trouble is no one is speaking to each other." The money comes from the federal Kanishka project, unveiled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year on the 26th anniversary of the Air India bombing. On second thought, don't bother to tell them how this works. I'll go collect the money, wait a year, and then give them some vague conclusion that makes them feel good about having spent the money, and excited to spend more to learn about the next fuzzy conclusion that might or might not be one step closer to understanding the mechanism specifically designed to nurture and perpetuate the terrorist mindset.
In 1814 we took a little trip, down a famous river called the Mighty Mississip' - Oh wait, 'tis NOT Canada.
* ION WAFF [old] > CANADA NOT CONSIDERED TO BE A RELEVANT POWER, in NATO.
Fear not, Mackenzians, the AUS Ozzies + NZ Kiwis have your six covered???
AFAIK the only OWG-NWO "Union" thats up-n-running, or trying to, is the EUROZONE, AKA THE "EUROPEAN UNION/EU". Canada must change iff it hopes for proposed "NAU", or even the lessor "Great Lakes FTZ" or "NEA FTZ", etc. + its Membership therein, to work.
The Pentagon says al-Qaida still enjoys safe haven in some areas of eastern Afghanistan, and even though its numbers are small, its presence worries the top American commander there. Great. Go get 'em and be done with it.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby says Wednesday that al-Qaida has found places it can plan and train, but he was not specific about its locations. He said elements of the terrorist group move back and forth from Pakistan. Gee. I wonder where they're planning and training.
Kirby was responding to questions about Tuesdays announcement that the U.S.-led NATO force had killed al-Qaidas second-ranking leader in Afghanistan in an airstrike in eastern Kunar province, which borders Pakistan. He says any number of al-Qaida in Afghanistan is a matter of concern for Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there. Which to me means that there are a bunch of terrorists in Pakistain, and so far only a few at a time dare venture across the border into Afghanistan just to keep things stirred up.
#1
Yes, safe houses in Afghan populated areas. At least Capt. Kirby has been reading the traffic on the cities of Taliban lairs of Chaman and Quetta. Yes, the "places to train" are found in Pakistan as well, near.... you've got it, the mosques and madrassa of Chaman and Quetta. The caveat of "small numbers" is a meaningless tribute to a ten year failed effort.
First missile defense, now this. Don't worry, Poland, he fooled a lot of folks here, too.
The White House on Wednesday shrugged off Polish demands to express more than mere 'regret' after President Barack Obama mistakenly referred to a Nazi Holocaust site as a "Polish death camp."
"We regret the misstatement, but that is what it was," said Obama spokesman Jay Carney, reiterating that the president "misspoke" during a ceremony awarding the highest US civilian honor to late Holocaust hero Jan Karski.
"He was referring to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland."
Poland had earlier insisted that Washington must do more than simply express the "regret" offered by another White House spokesman late on Tuesday, hours after Obama's use of words deemed offensive by Warsaw.
Obama's verbal slip overshadowed his posthumous award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Karski, a Polish underground officer who provided the Allies with early eyewitness accounts of Nazi genocide against European Jews.
Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Obama's words had hurt all Poles and he expected more from Washington than just regret.
"I am convinced that our American friends can today allow themselves a stronger reaction than a simple expression of regret from the White House spokesman -- a reaction more inclined to eliminate once and for all these kinds of errors," Tusk told reporters in Warsaw.
"Today, this is a problem for the reputation of the United States," the prime minister said. No, it's Obama's megalomania getting in the way. Blame him. And anyone who votes for him again or contributes to his campaign.
Members of Poland's Jewish community -- including the country's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich -- said in a statement that: "We expect President Barack Obama to personally correct his words." He won't. Unless, of course, he thinks it will help him win the upcoming election. For that, he might go so far as to admit that he was ... misunderstood?
Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski said meanwhile he had sent a letter to Obama "counting on (...) cooperation in correcting this unfortunate error" which "I am certain in no way reflects the thoughts or views of our American friend."
US officials reiterated Wednesday that Obama had visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial during his visit to Poland last year and had repeatedly paid tribute to the bravery of Poles during World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945, nearly six million Polish citizens perished under Nazi Germany's brutal World War II occupation of their country.
More than half of Poland's victims were of Jewish origin and they, in turn, accounted for half of the six million European Jews who perished during the Holocaust.
Many were killed in death camps set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland -- including the most notorious, Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Poland's government keenly watches the global media for descriptions of former Nazi German death camps as "Polish" because it says the term -- even if used simply as a geographical indicator -- can give the impression that Poland bore responsibility for Nazi Germany's World War II genocide.
Karski, who was a clandestine officer of the Polish government-in-exile in London, witnessed scenes of starvation and death after infiltrating Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto and visiting a Nazi transit camp sending Jews to death chambers.
Karski took his eye witness testimony to wartime US president Franklin Roosevelt. He later became a professor of history at Georgetown University and died in Washington aged 86 in 2000.
#1
Talk about having a tin ear politically! Even if that was the speech as written, the polite thing to do is blush, feign total mortification and say "I can't believe I said that". For anyone with the slightest grasp of history anyway.
#7
The man is incapable of admitting he flubbed it.
Just issue the press statement that he made a regrettable error and he meant Nazi occupied Poland. Sounds simple, but for a narcissist....
MoveOn, a giant in the progressive political world and an early endorser of Barack Obama in 2008, warns that it might have to pull the plug on key campaigns to help Obama and Senate Democrats if its 7 million members dont pony up with at least $5. MoveOn wouldn't just blindly help any candidate with a (D) after their name, would they?
Without a rush of new cash, MoveOn says it will have to give up efforts to elect Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, help the recall fight against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and energize younger voters whove soured on Washington. You mean they would have to stop fighting the tide?
It's like picking which of your kids you love the most. I just can't do it, said MoveOn in an email plea. If we cant increase our budget, we might have to dramatically scale back or pull the plug on some of MoveOns most important election efforts this year. And our officers might have to (gasp) get a job!
The homepage of MoveOn, which helped organize the 2004 anti-war movement, includes a chip in button preset at $8.
Dont discount the importance of MoveOn to keeping the Democrats in charge of the Senate and Obama in office, said the email, which provided a little history of the successes of the group:
MoveOn has an incredible track record in past electionswhen we take on a campaign, we get results.
In 2008, MoveOn was one of the first groups to endorse President Obama, and we then recruited 1 million volunteers who went door to door, made phone calls, and helped provide the surge of grassroots support necessary to elect Obama.
In 2006, before anyone else was even talking about it, we announced plans to take back Congress from the Republicans. We made over 7 million phone calls to occasional voters to help fuel the Democratic takeover of Congress.
And in 2004 we organized a neighborhood get-out-the-vote program that knocked on over 4.6 million doors in 10,000 swing-state precincts.
If we can finish this quarter with a bang, that will give us enough confidence to go forward with campaigns that we'd otherwise have to cut right now. Fearmongering? Isn't that a Trunk tactic?
I couldn't find a picture of King Louis XVII, so here's one of King Louis XVI, instead.
Every single menu in New York City could soon be getting a major overhaul if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way. Because as every good liberal knows, it's the same logic as it's not people that kill people, it's guns that kill people.
The man behind calorie counts is set to announce a new public health initiative to battle obesity, taking aim at super-sized sugary drinks. Was this voted on? How did they enact this decree? Is there anything that they cannot enact in the name of the common "good"?
In other words, it may soon be time to say goodbye to those Big Gulps, those Slurpees or even Venti at Starbucks, CBS 2s Derricke Dennis reported.
Thats okay, one good socialist person said.
No its not, according to Mayor Bloomberg, who is set to propose a ban on sugary drinks over 16 ounces everywhere, all across the city.
I disagree with it, because its the right to choose. If you want to drink a Slurpee, you should be allowed to drink a Slurpee, said Jamie Sawyer, a tourist from Oklahoma. Allowed?
Stupid, he did a lot of good things, but this he shouldnt do, added Art Lensvelt, a tourist from Amsterdam, Holland. The guys a megalomaniac. When he took over from Mayor Giuliani before the cleanup efforts had stabilized, that said plenty to me.
Dennis found Lensvelt enjoying his sugary iced coffee. He then found police officers actually fighting over Slurpees. Other items that figure to be banned are Gatorade, those fountain drinks at the movies, and, yes, the popular Big Gulp.
Thats a good idea. A lot of obese people are in New York, Canarsie resident Jillian Russell said. Better hope you don't develop any habits others may decide not to approve of, Jillian.
And the mayor apparently agrees, taking aim at the sugar in sodas and some juices in an effort to reduce New Yorkers waistlines.
However, the NYC Beverage Association is opposed, saying in a statement: The city is not going to address the obesity issue by attacking soda, because soda is not driving the obesity rates. The overall American diet is. Diet and lifestyle. They forgot they weren't farmers and laborers anymore. And as long as the price of vegetables is through the roof, it's going to stay that way. It's all about the prosperity, man.
Either way, lovers of sugary drinks said Bloomberg should take a dip.
Mayor Bloomberg, let us have our Slurpees, please, one resident said. Groveling sub. Grow some balls for godsakes and buy two Slurpees. On the same credit card! Harumph!
#7
I see a future thriving market for my side-by-side taped-together dual (but still separate containers) 15.8 ounce cups. I call it the "double barrel".
That would be quite the rebel's product in a gun-controlled (and now, soda-controlled) big city, eh?!
#8
There's ALWAYS a way around ANY Oppressive law.
You'd think the Officials would recognize it and repeal these laws?
But NOOOO.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 16:33
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#9
I can't imagine the people of New York like Bloomberg. A tyrant who thinks he knows what is best for everyone--no one is that smart. NYC needs the light of democracy to shine there.
#10
So...you get a smaller cup and just keep refilling it. 32=16x2=8x4
But don't let conflicting studies [just like MMGW, the science is settled] stop you from imposing the New Age Big Brother Socialism Puritanism.
Xinhua quoting Haaretz: Geneticists at an Israeli hospital said they have found a unique Jewish genetic mutation among an American Indian tribe, indicating that they are descendants of Jews expelled from Spain 600 years ago, local Haaretz daily reported on Wednesday.
The findings of the study, conducted at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, show that a group of Indians from the State of Colorado bear the so-called "Ashkenazi mutation," on the BRCA1 gene - a marker unique to European Jews.
While such so-called "secret Jews," or "Anusim" in Hebrew, whose families assimilated into various north and south American cultures hundreds of years ago after journeying to the New World are more and more known, this is the first time an Indian tribe has shown the gene.
#5
These things happen. Tay-Sachs disease occurs mainly in three populations: Ashkenazi Jews, Louisiana Cajuns, and French Canadians. The first two groups show the same mutation, while the third has a different one. Was a "secret Jew" the reason for the Cajun incidence? Who knows?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
05/31/2012 8:14
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#7
So. Six hundred years ago was 1412. Okay. They got expelled and one shipload ended up further west than they intended when they'd set off for...England? Or someplace. And there they were, on Cape Cod.
Then they went to Colorado?
Or the band with whom they intermarried went to Colorado?
Stranger things have happened. But you need to account for getting to Colorado somehow.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/31/2012 8:20
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#8
Any American Indian with French or Spanish ancestry could fall into this category. Some of the "expelled" Jews moved to the Western hemisphere with other Spanish migrants after 1492, and some escaped north into France, went 'native' there (some even became Huguenots) and then sailed to New France with other French migrants. Theoretically both the Spanish and French governments of the time prohibited Jews from becoming colonists, but they went anyway. We already know many of the early Spanish & French male arrivals in the western hemisphere took Indian wives. And there you have it.
#9
The first thoroughly documented Jewish settler in Michigan was Ezekiel Solomon, born about 1740, who moved to British North America and became a fur trader. He was taken captive by Indians when Fort Michilimackinac was sacked 2 June 1763, then turned over to more friendly Ottawas, who got him back to Montreal. Ezekiel married a part-Ojibwe woman, had many children, who also had many children. There are most likely descendants of his in several of the tribes around the Great Lakes, although I don't have their names. They still have reunions at the Straits of Mackinac.
#11
Interesting. There have been some unusual archaeolgical finds over the years: the Paraibo inscription in Phoenician claiming to have sailed for Hiram, King of Tyre and Solomon's mariner, and blown off course while circumnavigating the Land of Ham (Africa) and a bracelet from an indigenous grave in TN made of a copper alloy from the ME and inscribed in paleoHebrew. The ancient houses in Pueblo CO also resemble the old square mudbrick houses and storage rooms of the Israelites and cliff dwellings not unlike those used when under siege. More recently, many of the sailors and the financiers of Columbus' journeys were Jewish conversos, fleeing the Inquisition. They were granted freedom and 80% of the booty for sailing when banned in most of Europe, so even though they adopted an acceptable Catholic name, they may have been hiding from persecution. My ancestors came from France to Canada over 300 years ago, noting a name change in genealogy research; an old document mentioned "the Iron-fisted" rule of Catholicism behind the 'dit' change. I also received a letter from the FtDNA project I was part of that I carried the BRCA1 gene, alerting me it was sometimes associated with breast cancer. Also some of my genetic matches were also of Ashkenazi and Sepphardic traditions but we have no immediate family histories that would be Jewish, although the line came through Northern Europe. This study was to trace human migration out of Afrrica and goes back millennia, so it may support this idea. Israel was deported around 722 BC, leaving Judah to the captivity in Babylon in 586 BC. The Sea Peoples were renowned sailors--and the old name of Denmark is "Dan-mark", one of the lost tribes associated with them on the Phoenician coast. Maybe the Vikings are a lost tribe?
#13
But you need to account for getting to Colorado somehow. Not really. Individual natives & whole tribes traveled long distances regularly. The Cheyenne language is Algonquin, related to languages spoken around the Great Lakes & the east coast of North America. Languages spoken by the Navajos and Apaches of the southwestern deserts are very similar to languages spoken by Athabaskan Indians in northwest Canada and eastern Alaska. The origin myths of several tribes indicated they have moved from other parts of North America centuries back. Santa Fe NM was founded in 1598, and trade links were established with tribes in what is now southern Colorado, although the first permanent Euro settlement there was as late as 1851.
Jewish-related genetic markers have already been established in descendants of Spanish colonists in southern CO (particularly the BRCA1 gene) and French Canadians in the north, so finding the same in Indian tribes is not remarkable. See "Secret Jews of the San Luis Valley"
-- French Canadian families with surnames Gelinas and Bellemare claim to descend from a Jewish ancestor who arrived in New France in 1658 -- many of his descendants are now members of various American Indian tribes.
#14
Well, most of the Sephardic Jews were expelled some 500 years ago, and a lot are thought to have settled in what is now Northern Mexico and New Mexico; that's probably the proximate source of the mutation.
(It's either that or Mel Brooks has been around for thousands of years or something like that).
#16
Anguper. I know about tribal movements. It's been said the Apaches were chased out of the northern plains by the Lakota, went south, were chased out of Texas by the Cheyenne and ended up in the SW deserts. The Aztecs spoke a Uto-Aztecan language, possibly related to language groups in ....Utah. The Lakota got run out of the pretty fat Great Lakes basin by, iirc, the Ottawa.
All good. But nobody went TO the intermontane west.
See droughts beginning about the thirteenth century.
For some reason, the Anasazi, or their descendants, decided to live in really neat cliff houses, which were a pain to build and to live in if you don't get a cut from the tourist gawkers. Beats being down where you don't have to sweat a climb with a bucket of water. Not. Why?
Nope. Not seeing CO as a destination.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
05/31/2012 20:48
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#17
Steve Berry's new novel claims Colombus and crew were Jewish, given Letters of Marque, and other documents claim he willed his gold and fortune to future descendents "in perpetuity"...the Judeo-Christian heritage of America is reinforced it appears.
[Bangla Daily Star] A conservative senator called on Tuesday for the United States to suspend all aid to Pakistain and grant citizenship to a doctor who was placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... for helping hunt down the late Osama bin Laden. ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... American politicians have already sought to cut or freeze some assistance to Pakistain, the third largest recipient of US aid, after a tribal court last week sentenced CIA recruit Shakeel Afridi to 33 years in prison on treason charges.
Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky and leader of the Tea Party movement, proposed going further by ending all aid to Pakistain until Afridi's sentence is overturned and also granting the doctor US citizenship.
"Pakistain must understand that they are choosing the wrong side," said Paul, who pledged to introduce the bill when the Senate returns to session next week.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/31/2012
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#1
"Pakistain must understand that they are choosing the wrong side,"
Not so much choosing the wrong side but wanting to choose all sides simultaneously. But choices have consequences. Just how badly do you want the cash?
Perhaps we could offer the good doctor a SEAL-flavored escort.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/31/2012 1:32
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#3
Doesn't the US realize the terrible consequence of cutting aid to Pakistan?
Think about all those rapidly emptying Swiss bank a/c's and what about the ISI sponsored Ramadan bonuses for the Taliban?
#4
Foreign Aid should be discontinued across the board. Borrowing money to give it away is insane. Doubly insane is giving foreign aid money to Pakistan.
#5
since when was he appointed "leader of the Tea Party movement"? Nice biased reporting, slipping that in
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 8:27
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#6
Let them beg to China or Saudi as they do feck all for Western aid.Dosent even reach their poor people does it because they might eventually rise against their leaders and work out the problem is in house not the West!
[Iran Press TV] Willard Mitt Romney ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O... has clinched the US Republican presidential nomination after amassing enough votes in the Texas primary to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... in November's election.
Voters in the US second most populous state casted their ballots on Tuesday, with Romney winning 71 percent of the votes. He is now facing five-month sprint to persuade the people to throw their support behind him in the November 6 election.
Texas' primary offered 152 delegates while Romney was only 58 delegates shy of the 1,144 he needed to become the Republican's presidential candidate.
"Our party has come together with the goal of putting the failures of the last three and a half years behind us," Romney said in a statement after his victory in Texas.
"I have no illusions about the difficulties of the task before us. But whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to full employment and prosperity," he added.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, will formally be appointed as the GOP nominee in August at the Republican National Convention in Florida.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
See also RUSSIA TODAY > ROMNEY-PAUL TICKET A REALITY?
Thats Rand Paul, Ron Paul's sonny-boy, whom unlike Marc Rubio has been getting kudos from Perts + GOP-Right Pundits for NOT openly calling for war agz Iran.
All signs, directly or indirectly, are still pointing to a real threat of a brokered = split GOP convention for "Mittens" this summer -"Mittens" has the entire month of June to make sure that such doesn't happen.
#2
Who else can the GOP put up that both stands a chance of being elected and didn't make an idiot of himself during the primaries? I like Perry, I think he'd do a great job, but the closest he'll get will be VP.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... sons, already on trial for corruption with their father, will face a new separate case for alleged corrupt stock market dealings, state media has reported.
The official Nile Television reported that Alaa and Gamal Mubarak would go on trial in a criminal court with seven other defendants. They and their father are facing a verdict on June 2 on corruption charges in the first trial.
The ex-president, who was toppled in an early 2011 revolt, also faces murder charges with seven security commanders for killings of protesters during the 18-day uprising that ended his three-decade rule.
The official MENA news agency reported the charges stem from the sale of Al-Watany Bank of Egypt.
The defendants had agreed on acquiring a majority of the bank's shares by buying out small shareholders through front companies without revealing it on the stock market, the agency reported.
They made more than two billion pounds (about $300 million) from the deal which they transferred abroad, the agency reported.
Gamal, 48, headed a powerful policy committee in the ruling party under his father and was widely seen as the heir apparent, a perception that helped fuel the uprising.
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[Iran Press TV] At least six people, including three civilians, have been killed in Somalia's northern Puntland ...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion... region after a roadside kaboomwent kaboom! as security forces tried to defuse it.
The Wednesday blast occurred in Galkayo, a town separating the semi-autonomous Puntland from the self-proclaimed separate region of Galmudug. ...a semiautonomous region in central Somalia, bordering Puntland on the north. Galmudug is not trying to obtain international recognition as a separate nation, but rather considers itself autonomous within the larger Somali federalism, for what that's worth... "Three members of the security forces and three non-combatants were killed in the kaboom," security official Mahdi Abdulahi said.
No group has grabbed credit for the blast, which is the latest in a series of attacks in the restive region controlled by various militia forces.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The weak Western-backed transition government in Mogadishu has been battling the al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... fighters for the past five years, and is propped up by a 12,000-strong African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... force from Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti.
Somalia is one of the countries generating the highest number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Agitated fishermen damaged the eyes of eight suspected robbers in two chars (islands) of Bhola district yesterday.
On Tuesday, fishermen beat up five robbers to death in Char Bhashan of the same district. Three robbers were also incarcerated I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! while 12-13 others managed to get away.
Police confirmed the incidents and said the bodies of the five killed had been sent to Bhola sadar hospital for an appointment with Dr. Quincy while the three tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... had been produced before a court.
Three cases were lodged Tuesday night with Char Fashion Police Station in connection with possession of illegal arms, robbery and killing. More than 500 people were made accused in the cases, said Reaz Hossain, officer-in-charge (OC) of the cop shoppe.
According to Abul Kalam Patwari, chairman of Dhalchar union, and the fishermen of the area, fishermen raided the woods of Bhasan Char yesterday around 11:00am in search of the robbers who fled on Tuesday. They caught four people from the western side of the char suspecting them as robbers and beat them up and damaged their eyes.
Police later recovered the injured.
OC Mizanur Rahman of Monpura Police Station told The Daily Star that the fishermen caught five people from the jungle of Char Kalkini yesterday around 8:00am. Suspecting that the five might be among the robbers who beat feet from Char Bhasan on Tuesday, the fishermen beat them up and damaged the eyes of four.
The victims who lost their eyes in this incident were identified as Kabir, Russell, Shahjahan and Belal. Their company Mohiuddin proved to be lucky as by the time the agitated fishermen could damage his eyes police appeared on the spot.
Nayek Mahbubur Rahman of Dhalchar police outpost in Char Fashion upazila said when the robbers took shelter in the jungle of Bhashan Char on Tuesday they had a two-hour exchange of bullets with law enforcers. After the shootout, mob had beat up five robbers to death while police tossed in the calaboose Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! three.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A British aid worker freed after a kidnap "ordeal" of nearly three months in Sudan's Darfur region has arrived in the capital Khartoum following his release.
Patrick Noonan stood silently on the steps of a VIP airport terminal, flanked by officials, after a flight from conflict-plagued Darfur.
"He's been through an ordeal. We were told how strong a man he was and I think that's true," Tony Brennan, charge d'affaires of the British embassy, told news hounds in a brief airport presser.
He added that Noonan had come through with "his head held high." Asked how he had been treated in captivity, Noonan looked at a news hound and said nothing before he was driven away.
He wore a white collarless shirt, and his face was marked with red blotches.
"After 86 days in captivity in the South Darfur region of Sudan, British aid worker Patrick Noonan, who was working for the World Food Programme, has been released," the UN agency said in an earlier statement.
Noonan had been in Sudan for about two years and was working as a logistician in Nyala town when he was kidnapped by "gunnies" on March 6, the statement said.
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#1
But why was he released?
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/31/2012 18:14
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[Tripoli Post] Judges at an international a UN-backed war crimes court in The Hague have sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor The former President-for-Life of Liberia, of whom the best that could be said was that he wasn't quite as horrible as Prince Johnson, at least not usually. to 50 years prison following his landmark conviction for supporting rebels in Sierra Leone who murdered and mutilated thousands during their country's brutal civil war. He has always insisted he is innocent of the crimes.
The sentence follows last month's verdict that found Taylor guilty on 11 counts, relating to atrocities that included rape and murder. He was charged with aiding and abetting rebels in Sierra Leone during the 1991-2002 civil war. The prosecution at the Special Court for Sierra Leone wanted an 80-year prison term, which the defence said was excessive.
Taylor, 64, insists he is innocent of the crimes that during the sentencing Judge Richard Lussick said were the most heinous in human history. He likely to appeal the sentence. An appeal process could last up to six months.
Charles Taylor a great friend of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Qadaffy, ...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest... is the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes by an international court since the Nuremburg trials of Nazis after World War II.
His trial, that eventually convicted him of the crimes he was charged with, opened five years ago, in June 2007 in The Hague. He had become President in 1995 after a rebellion and in 2003 an arrest warrant was issued for him. Two months later he stepped down and went into exile to Nigeria. He was tossed in the calaboose You have the right to remain silent... in March 2006.
Taylor reportedly accused the prosecution of paying and threatening witnesses in his war crimes trial, and also told the judges to consider his age when making their decision, saying he was "no threat to society".
When requesting a sentence of 80 years jail for him, the prosecution said such a sentence would reflect the severity of the crimes and the central role that Taylor.
Prosecutor Brenda Hollis had said that, "the purposely cruel and savage crimes committed (by Taylor) included public executions and amputations of civilians, the display of decapitated heads at checkpoints... public rapes of women and girls, and people burned alive in their homes," wrote.
During the Sierra Leone civil war, Taylor supported Revolutionary United Front rebels who killed tens of thousands of people. The war crimes included murder, rape, the use of child soldiers and the amputation of limbs.
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Posted by: Recneck Jim ||
05/31/2012 6:20
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#4
He'll write a book, be out in 5, and running for president of Liberia or some other Afri hell hole soon thereafter. There really is a pattern by the way.
[Jerusalem Post] Istanbul's Seventh Criminal Court to seek prison terms totaling over 18,000 years for four former IDF commanders.
The decision this week by Istanbul's Seventh Criminal Court to seek prison terms totaling over 18,000 years for four former IDF commanders may or may not have been timed to coincide with the second anniversary of the May 31 Mavi Marmara debacle. But many have used the occasion of the indictment -- and the anniversary of the incident -- to argue that the time has come to apology to the Turks.
New York University's Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations and a regular columnist for The Jerusalem Post, made such a recommendation in an oped that appeared in the Turkish daily Hurriyet. Ben-Meir claimed that "Turkey has repeatedly reaffirmed that once Israel apologizes, Ankara will resume full diplomatic relations."
In addition, according to a Channel 10 news report, Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz supports apologizing to the Turks, thus strengthening the position held by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor.
The US has reportedly relaunched an effort to convince Israel to reconsider apologizing to Turkey, encouraged by Mofaz's strengthening of the apologist camp in the government and by the fact that the broad government coalition cannot be toppled by Yisrael Beytenu's Avigdor Liberman, a strong opponent of apologizing to Turkey.
But will an apology truly improve Israel's relations with Turkey? Last July ahead of the release of the UN-appointed Palmer Commission's report -- which found that Israel had every legal justification for enforcing a naval blockade on the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-controlled Gazoo Strip, though the IDF was taken to task for using excessive force -- a concerted effort spearheaded by the US, attempted to resolve the tension between Jerusalem and Ankara.
To pacify the Turks, the US would see to it that the Palmer report would be buried. In addition, the Turks demanded that Israel apologize for the incident and pay compensation to the families of the nine people who were killed when IDF commandos raided the Mavi Marmara.
Israel also was expected to lift its blockade of Gazoo.
In exchange, the Turks agreed to refrain from bringing legal claims against the commandos who boarded the Mavi Marmara or against the officers and politicians who sent them, and resolve the conflict with Israel.
For its part, Israel was willing to express "regret" over the incident and provide monetary compensation. But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Liberman refused to issue an official apology or lift the naval blockade.
As a result, the deal fell through and the Palmer report was published. In response, Ankara downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel.
At the time, this paper supported the government's decision not to cave in to Turkish demands. Doing so would have been interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Agreeing to lift the blockade would only encourage future attempts to use diplomatic pressure to influence Israeli policies. And a full apology would also be a disservice to IDF soldiers and military commanders.
Finally, an Israeli apology -- without any recognition on the part of the Turks that by allowing the Mavi Marmara to set sail from their shores, they were also responsible for the debacle -- might be interpreted as an admission of guilt.
Obviously, if the Turks had really been interested in improving relations with Israel they would have -- "If you don't want to marry, ask for a large dowry," says a Ladino expression.
And even if Israel had apologized, it is highly unlikely that Ankara would fully normalize relations. Doing so would hurt its standing in the Mohammedan world. In contrast, taking a tough stand against Israel is an easy way of currying Mohammedan favor, both inside Turkey and throughout the region.
It is naïve to believe that if only Israel were to apologize for the Mavi Marmara raid, relations with Turkey would return to normal.
True, Israel might score a small diplomatic victory by apologizing and proving to the world that it is Turkish intransigence and radicalism -- not an Israeli refusal to apologize -- that are the real obstacles to normalization.
But Israel also has an obligation to itself to maintain a modicum of self-respect and deterrence power.
#1
ION TURKEY, BHARAT RAKSHAK > a KURDISH MAJORITY IN TURKEY WIDIN ONE GENERATION.
and
* WAFF > ERDOGAN'S CALLS FOR MORE BIRTHS TO INCREASE TURKEY'S WORLD POWER. Ethnic Turks facing a Kurd-led demographic bomb that can explode at any time.
Erdogan feeling the heat from Turkish Womens' Groups to "hands off" their bodies.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 8:42
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#4
How about after the Turks apologize to the Armenians?
How about after the Turks apologize to Israel for forcing them to kill the vicious miscreants Turkey had sent their way?
[Iran Press TV] The United States' Tea Party Movement has reportedly said that its supporters will not cast their ballots in the November presidential vote in a bid to protest the election process in their country. Best way to lose an election is not to vote. Axelrod is getting desperate, he has Iran Press TV pushing his stuff now...
Revelations of the planned boycott come as US media reported Tuesday that the Republican choice for the White House, Willard Mitt Romney, ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O... held a private meeting on the same day with Ron Paul's son to gain the movement's popular politician's favors.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... Tea Party supporters, who comprise a considerable percentage of voters, emphasized they would boycott the coming presidential election to show their opposition to the election process.
Paul, known as a peace-seeking candidate, is popular with the American youths and educated individuals, is also called the online president of the US.
During the Republican election campaign, Paul several times denounced the US military presence in the Middle East and urged the government to withdraw all American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
He believed the current US-led wars and military involvement in the Middle East run counter to the American constitution.
The Texan politician has also criticized Washington's pressure on Iran over its nuclear energy program, and considered the US sanctions against Tehran as "acts of war." He has pushed for a peaceful settlement of the Western dispute with the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Paul, who has become the last Republican presidential candidate to drop out of the country's presidential race, is one of the most influential Republican figures in the Tea Party movement.
The Tea Party movement is a populist political movement and recognized as conservative and libertarian. It backs reduced government spending, slashing taxes and reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Iranian news. Thought it would be WAPO or NYT.
Anyway, I'm not voting for Romney. Held my nose in too many elections. No more.
Plenty of interesting down ticket races to get involved with. Good times.
#2
No way Jose!. Tea party is alive and well. Vote to get Obama out is the best chance to turn things around. Cutting spending will be a bitter pill. Obama might come back with hope and change in four years.
"Axelrod is getting desperate, he has Iran Press TV pushing his stuff now..." ditto that.
#3
The United States' Tea Party Movement has reportedly said that its supporters will not cast their ballots in the November presidential vote in a bid to protest the election process in their country.
Seems to me that the Iranian government might be using their press to suggest to the masses that if the US electorate behaves this way, then they should too if they don't like the theocracy-approved candidate. Makes things all that much easier, you see. The ignoramuses will fall right into the mullah's hands at this rate.
Dale: Hitler won by one vote. Better hold your nose again because worst case is that Romney is the lesser of two evils. No complaining if Obama wins if you didn't vote. We don't need Obama appointing any more Supreme Court justices, either, which is the best way for him to continue his jihad that is resulting in long-term damage to the US.
#4
I'm not voting for Romney. Held my nose in too many elections. No more.
I don't remember the last time I voted for someone. It was always *against* the other guy.
We had an O-Club discussion about voting a few years back where someone said they were not going to eat a sh*t sandwich. Well, here's news for you: the entire country is going to be eating at one of two cafeterias for four years. Do you want four more years of what Obama has been serving up? Remember it is not just the guy at the top, but also the people he appoints.
And yeah, the down-ticket races are important too.
#8
Playing into the hand of Obama and the communists. The Dems only want die hard democrats voting, they'd be delighted to see everyone else stay home.
"If Mitt wins the nomination, I will enthusiastically support his candidacy for president. For my friends who have hesitation on that score, I'd just ask you to keep four things in mind: Justice Scalia just turned 78, Justice Kennedy will turn 78 later this year, Justice Breyer will be 76 in August, and Justice Ginsburg turned 81 about a week ago. We wish them all well, of course, but the brute fact is that whoever we elect as president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least two and maybe more new members of the Supreme Court -- in addition to hundreds of other life-tenured federal judges, all of whom will be making momentous decisions about our lives for decades to come. If you don't think it matters whether the guy making those calls is Mitt Romney or Barack Hussien Obama, I think you're smokin' something funky." --columnist Andrew McCarthy
#10
Boycott. hell. I'd crawl over broken glass to vote against SCOAMF Zero. As I suspect would most of the Tea Party. It's also essential to fill the House & Senate with enough true conservatives & (small-l) libertarians to finally begin the rollback of 100+ years of "progressive" (aka Constitutionally destructive) laws & policies.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/31/2012 10:07
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#14
So what are the odds that if elected and Mitt doesn't get what he wants from Congress/Courts, he'll RULE by fiat and dictate via the bureaucracy?
What are the odds that if re-elected and Obama doesn't get what he wants from Congress/Courts, he'll RULE by fiat and dictate via the bureaucracy?
You really want a political show down that leads to actual impeachment [assuming the Beltway has the guts and will to do it, which is doubtful given their record] when you can avoid the process now? And if you fail in the impeachment process will it not only encourage future overreach of power?
Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word from Coruscant that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away forever.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Khartoum, in an apparent peace gesture, has reported that it has pulled out troops from the contested Abyei region to end a year-long occupation, a Leb-sized area whose ownership is key.
A UN front man confirmed the pullout, which was in line with a UN Security Council demand for both sides to demilitarise the territory.
Abyei is one of the key disputes between Sudan and South Sudan, which have been fighting each other along their uncharted border.
Sudanese troops stormed the region in May 2011, forcing some 110,000 people to flee southwards, where the majority remains in impoverished camps.
"SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) deployed out of Abyei area this evening and they gave the military compound there to UN peacekeepers," said the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC), which is close to the security apparatus.
Diplomatic sources said the pullout involved about 300 troops. "We declared yesterday that we're going to redeploy so we are going to do whatever we declared," Khartoum's negotiator Qadir said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, the water was up to Jack's neck and still rising... top negotiators for Sudan and South Sudan have held their first talks since deadly border fighting last month took them to the brink of war, even as Juba accused Khartoum of fresh air strikes.
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[Yemen Post] Yemeni Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwah said on Wednesday that his country is ready for a new era as the ball of change started rolling.
In the launch of the First Yemeni-Turkish Medical Conference for general surgeries, telescopic surgeries and emergency surgeries hosted in Science and Technology Hospital, Basindwah, urged all sides not to give up to despair and frustrations no matter what the others say or predict, stressing that Yemen is heading towards a comprehensive change.
"Threats will not make us back down on what we believe in, and we will work to bring out the comprehensive change in order to meet the expectations of the Yemeni people," said Basindwah, according to the official Saba news agency. He pointed out that the donations, which Yemen's friends pledged to provide the country with, will be put in an international support fund, noting that the role of the National Unity Government will only stick to drawing the projects needed according to their priority.
Basindwah further stressed the importance of providing a conductive and suitable environment for the investment in Yemen, saying what some officials used to do in the former era of sharing the profits with the investors is completely unacceptable.
Although the former regime used to say that it's encouraging investment in the country, some high ranking military commanders, powerful tribal chiefs or members of Saleh's family used to ask the investors for the half of their profits in exchange for providing them and their projects with security.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Three alleged robbers were killed in a shootout with Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) personnel in the Sundarbans at Sharankhola upazila in Bagerhat yesterday morning.
The dear departed -- Nobokumar Halder, 35, Mihir Roy, 22, and Fakhrul Sheikh, 25, -- were members of a gang locally known as Akash Bahini, said Major Sabbir Rahman Osmani, deputy commanding officer of Rab-8.
He said on secret information, "Hello? Is dis da Rab? Lissen, dis is Mahmoud da Weasel..."
they raided a den of the robbers on the bank of Shapla canal around 10:00am. "Boss? What're we doin' out at 10:00am? We jus' got to bed! Nobody holds secret meetings at 10:00am!" Spider senses tingling at the proximity of the law enforcers, "It's da Rab!"
"I knew I shoulda stayed in bed!"
the criminals opened fire "Open fire, men!"
on them prompting the Rab officials to fire back, Osmani said. "Sergeant Shafiq!"
"Sir!"
"We will return fire!"
"Yes sir, sir!"
After the robbers expeditiously departed at a goodly pace, Rab officials recovered the three bullet-riddled bodies, he added. "Jeez! You can see light right through his brisket!"
"Shuddup and mop."
The elite force also recovered nine firearms, 94 bullets and a trawler from the spot. "Sir, this trawler ain't gonna fit in the evidence locker!"
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#2
Ninety round of bullet is a veritable ammo dump. And no, I can't begin to imagine what a trawler might be. Unless these are robbers/shrimp fishermen.
#3
A trawler is certainly not a boat in this context. It's just another puzzling Bangla English term, like shutter gun. Maybe they actually confiscated something this time instead of just hauling the same old guns out of the evidence locker.
[Dawn] Twelve gun-hung tough guys were killed and eight others received injuries when jetfighters pounded their hideouts in various areas of Orakzai tribal agency on Tuesday.
Sources said that jetfighters targeted Death Eater positions in Jandarkhel and Sama Bazaar areas of Mamozai early in the morning. Four hideouts of gun-hung tough guys were destroyed in the bombardment, they said.
Sources said that 12 gun-hung tough guys were killed and eight others sustained injuries in those areas.
The residents of the areas have vacated their houses and migrated to safer places owing to heavy shelling and bombing by jetfighters. Security forces also conducted search operation in Krolchai, Akhunkot and Barlas areas and recovered huge quantity of weapons, dumped at secret
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[Dawn] Rejecting documents submitted by Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. in the dual nationality case, the Supreme Court directed the minister's counsel to submit a certificate usually issued by the British government at the time of renouncing citizenship, DawnNews reported.
A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Jawwad S. Khwaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain was hearing the case on a petition filed by Syed Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi.
During the hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar said that Farahnaz Ispahani's National Assembly membership had been cancelled for holding dual citizenship and that the court could not provide the minister with special treatment.
Malik's counsel Azhar Chaudhry submitted documents pertaining to the minister renouncing his British citizenship.
The documents were rejected by the bench and Chief Justice Iftikhar asked the counsel why the paperwork that the court had ordered submitted was not produced.
Justice Khwaja said the court's orders were not being implemented upon and were in turn being ridiculed.
Chief Justice Iftikhar reiterated that the Constitution did not allow dual nationals to become members of parliament.
The court was informed that MNA Zahid Iqbal was a dual passport holder responding to which the chief justice said that one could be sentenced to six months in prison for that reason.
In this regard, the court directed authorities to produce details at the upcoming hearing of the case.
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[Dawn] Nine people, including a political activist, were killed on Tuesday and at least eight others were maimed amid incidents of violence and firing in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , DawnNews reported.
The renewed wave of violence and assassinations continued in the metropolis as member of a political party Imran Baig was killed in Shah Faisal Colony. The incident sparked chaos and panic in the locality and normal business activity was suspended.
A man was killed by sporadic firing by unidentified myrmidons in Korangi's Zaman Town area. Four people were maimed after a firing incident reported from Tariq Road neighbourhood.
Mehdi Raza and Ahmer Raza were killed by unidentified armed assailants in Orangi Town number 10 near Aslam Shaheed Roundabout.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart... a tortured dead-body was recovered from Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... River and two other dead-bodies were found from Lyari Timber Market area. The dead were identified as residents of Liaquatabad's Angara Goth.
Earlier, a man, identified as Abdul Ghafar, who was injured by unidentified attackers' firing, departed this vale of tears during medical treatment.
On the other hand, Civil Judge Syed Zaheer Ahmed Naqvi sustained severe injuries when he was attacked in Federal B. Area block-17. Lawyers and judicial staff boycotted the courts in protest against the incident.
Moreover, Commander Shaukat had been replaced with Mushtaq Meher as DIG South.
The law and order situation remained tense and shop keepers were forced to keep their small businesses shut in different areas of the violence-ridden capital of Sindh.
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[Tolo News] Tribal elders competed in offering praises to militia chieftain Nabi Gechi as they gathered last week in the remote Afghan village of Qala e Zal, which until a year ago teemed with Taliban fighters.
"We are so confident of our security that I no longer even lock my door at night," gray-bearded Ghulam Sarwar said.
"If Commander Nabi were to leave, the Taliban would be back here in no time," echoed Hajji Walid Mohammed.
As US-led coalition forces withdraw from Afghanistan and transition to an advisory mission next year, they hold up the successes of Gechi's militia and others like it in the northern Kunduz province as a model to secure the country.
"So far, this works pretty well," said German Army Lt. Col. Heiko Bohnsack, commander of the coalition's Task Force Kunduz, which helps oversee the militias.
"If you look into Afghanistan's past, there have always been gunnies providing security -- and seldom have the Afghans accepted the central power to provide this," he added.
This is what worries the government of President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... . Wary of how warlord militias plunged Afghanistan into a civil war after the Soviet-backed regime collapsed in 1992, Karzai has ordered the dissolution of independent village militias that, though funded by the US, operate outside Kabul's control.
A 50-year-old former owner of a fish and kebab restaurant, Gechi has emerged as the only real authority in Qala e Zal, a district of rolling wheat fields and orchards nestled along the Tajikistan border.
"Whenever any Taliban are sighted here," he said as he held court last week, "the people and the elders come right away to inform me, and we take care of them."
Gechi's militia counts 240 gunnies -- some of them former Islamic fascisti-- in a district with fewer than 20 regular coppers. Dozens of commanders have raised militias elsewhere in Kunduz since late 2010, chasing the Taliban away from much of this strategic province, which straddles the coalition's main supply routes.
Some irregulars in Kunduz belong to the Afghan Local Police, a village-self defense program established by US Special Forces, whose men receive three weeks of training and are paid through the Afghan government.
Karzai reluctantly acquiesced to the ALP initiative in 2010, after receiving guarantees of government control.
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#1
DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > REVEALED: BRITAIN TO SET UP, TRAIN OWN AFGHAN MILITIA AFTER [2014] TROOP WITHDRAWAL, as separate from the US andor other NATO Members.
Artic is actually from a couple of years ago, but Pak Bloggers think the Brit plan is still a go???
[Nigerian Tribune] The Ijaw national leader, Chief Edwin Clark, has called on the Northern leaders to identify the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect, who have being killing innocent Nigerians and dialogue with them.
Chief Clark made this comment on Tuesday, in Abuja, during an interview, at a celebration to mark President Goodluck Jonathan's ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... one year in office.
He said, "we do hope that the 19 states governors in the North will identify these people, know their grievances and make peace with them."
Chief clark also recalled how the Southern leaders resolved the jihad boy issue through dialogue and persuasion. He, therefore, called on the Northern leaders to do the same.
He also called on Nigerians to support President Jonathan, by allowing him to rule peacefully in the next three years. He added that, Nigerians should be patient, stressing that he would deliver.
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#1
Clarifications need to be made. Confusing a political organization with terrors? I think there is more to it than just this.
[Tolo News] The Taliban are positioning themselves in several areas in Afghanistan's north in preparation for an offensive against the Afghan government after foreign troops leave the country, General Abdul Rashid Dostum ...ethnic Uzbek warlord who distinguished himself fighting the Soviets and the Taliban. The story that he had a bad guy run over with a tank is an exaggeration. It was an armored personnel carrier... said Wednesday.
Speaking at a large gathering in northern Takhar province, Dostum, a founding member of one of Afghanistan's major opposition parties the National Front, said that the Taliban are human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... violators and anti-democracy, and they will never join grinding of the peace processor.
"The Taliban have taken control of some places in areas of Samangan, Shadyan Valley, and Ghormach Mountains and they are preparing for a battle after 2014," he said. "They don't believe in peace. We will not allow them once again to act brutally against women and burn schools."
He stressed that the country needed to ensure transparent and fair elections.
Other National Front representatives present at the Taluqan city gathering said that the party will have an independent candidate for the upcoming presidential election and also emphasised their hopes for a transparent and fair election.
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You knew they would.
On another note, is the General any relation to DOSTUM brand instant coffee???
[Tolo News] A Taliban leader was killed in an Afghan cops operation in Maidan Wardak province on Wednesday morning, local officials said.
The operation launched in the Sayed Abad district killed the Taliban leader Farid Sulan and three others turbans, provincial police chief front man Abdul Wali said.
One other turban was captured and many weapons were seized by the security forces, he said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... Isaf said in a statement Wednesday that a Taliban controller was captured in a joint Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... forces operation in Sayed district of Maidan Wardak.
The Taliban controller worked directly for the senior Taliban leader in the district and also supplied weapons, ammunition and equipment to Death Eaters for attacks against Afghan and coalition troops, it said.
As the combined force approached the leader's suspected location, multiple Death Eaters fired on the Afghan and coalition troops from within a building, which was later determined to be a mosque, it added.
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[An Nahar] Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20 percent "is our right" and "is not a step towards a bomb," President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in an interview with the satellite television network La Belle France 24.
The enrichment activity, which world powers are trying to curb in fraught talks with Iran, "is one of our rights in terms of international law," Ahmadinejad said.
"There have been lies about our program... Enriching uranium to 20 percent is not a step towards a bomb," he said, speaking Farsi through translators.
Ahmadinejad added that the heads of the U.N. nuclear watchdog should make world powers "provide us with uranium at a 20 percent enrichment level, but so far they have not done so."
As a result, he said, Iran "decided to move forward on our own" with enrichment.
His remark in Farsi on Iran being supplied with 20 percent enriched uranium was rendered differently when translated into English for the channel.
Ahmadinejad hinted, however, that Iran could be open to stopping 20 percent enrichment -- if world powers offered significant concessions.
"If others do not wish for us to fully benefit from this right, they need to explain to us why. And also they have to say what they are willing to give to the Iranian people in exchange."
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#1
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > UN FINDS 27% URANIUM ENRICHMENT IN IRAN | IRAN HAS ENRICHED URANIUM CLOSER TO TO THE LEVEL REQUIRED TO MAKE ITS OWN NUCLEAR MISSLES, ACCORDING TO UNDERGROUND DISCOVERIES AT FORDO BY THE UN'S ATOMIC AGENCY.
and
* SAME, TOPIX > ROSATOM TO BUILD NEW IRAN NUCLEAR FACILITY AT BUSHESHR.
Again, be it so-called IRAN-LED "NEO-PERSIANISM", OR SHIA-LED OWG ISLAMIST CALIPHATE, OR SIMPLE POLITICAL-GEOPOL "DIALECTICISM", the premises or underlying concepts of such says AMBITIOUS = RISING IRAN CANNOT NOT HAVE NUKE BOMBS, JUST TO PAR WID EITHER MUSLIM [Sunni] OR NON-MUSLIM NUCLEAR POWERS.
#2
TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > IRAN NUKE CHIEF [Abbassi]: NO REASON TO STOP 20% ENRICHMENT.
and
* SAME > IRAN REVERSES ITS POSITION, PROMISES TWO NEW NUCLEAR PLANTS, HIGHER URANIUM ENRICHMENT LEVELS.
* WORLD NEWS > IRAN TO SIDESTEP STRAIT OF HORMUZ, vee Oil Export Terminal at Bandar Jask outside the SoH in Southern Iran, + new pipeline to Port of Neka/Nekha in Caspian Sea.
IIMO, more Iran "prepping the battlefield" vee US-led ground war/campaign. SUB-IMO SHOWS THAT iRAN DOES CARE ABOUT DETONATING NUKES-WMDS ON THIER OWN SOIL TO DEFEAT AN ANTI-NUCPROG, US-LED INVASION, OCCUPATION FORCE.
OUTSIDE THE SoH AMAP AFAP ALAP = IRAN CAN BETTER USE ITS [Nuclear? WMDS] LR MISSLE, TACAIR FIREPOWER [defense-in-depth] AGZ THE US OR US-LED STRIKE COALITION.
* IIRC DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > WHETHER THE US LIKES IT OR NOT, IRAN TO BE NEW HUB FOR NORTH-SOUTH CORRIDOR. Central-West Asia into INDOPAK/PAKIND.
versus
* TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > PANETTA: US READY TO STOP IRAN FROM CREATING NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
[Iran Press TV] A new report says the Qatari intelligence chief was held by security forces at the Cairo Airport while carrying bags of cash a few days before the first round of Egypt's presidential election.
The incident occurred on Saturday night when the Qatari ambassador to Cairo, who had appeared at the airport to receive a guest, attempted to get large baggage passed through without allowing inspection on it, citing the exigencies of a "diplomatic mission."
The security forces at the Cairo Airport, though, insisted that the baggage be inspected since the matter had not been coordinated with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
When the bags were inspected, millions of dollars were found in them. Upon the disclosure, the Qatari ambassador had to disclose the identity of his guest, which had until then not been provided to the security forces.
The individual was identified as the Qatari intelligence chief, Ahmed Zaif, who had personally delivered the cash.
The incident is now widely believed to be an attempt on the part of Qatar to interfere in Egypt's presidential election. The large number of votes announced to have been cast in favor of presidential hopeful Ahmad Shafiq implicate that huge campaign expenses, mostly allocated by Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... and Egypt, have been spent to secure Shafiq's victory in the election.
Mustafa al-Qanimi, a member of the Moslem Brüderbund party, said in an interview recently that the election results have left no doubt that a huge sum of money has been spent in the course of the election with the aim of securing Shafiq's victory.
Thousands of people erupted into the streets of the capital, Cairo, after the electoral commission confirmed that the Moslem Brüderbund's Mohamed Mursi and former Egyptian Premier Ahmed Shafiq will face off in the country's presidential runoff next month.
Revolutionaries in more than ten cities and governorates erupted into the streets, protesting the result and demanding Shafiq's exclusion from the election. They also demanded the application of his political isolation, as the ex-premier was a prominent figure of the country's deposed ruler, Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... .
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[Dawn] A tribal physician who helped the CIA track down the late Osama bin Laden ... who no longer has to waste time and energy breathing... was convicted on charges of colluding with the banned Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and its chief, Mangal Bagh, ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... court documents reveal. So, really, it had nothing to do with fingering bin Laden...
The four-member tribal court did not entertain evidence relating to Dr Shakil Afridi's involvement with the CIA, citing lack of jurisdiction as the main reason and recommended that he be produced before the relevant court for further proceedings under the law, leaving the option open for his trial under treason law.
However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... he was sentenced to 33 years in prison and fined Rs320,000 under various clauses of the British-era Frontier Crimes Regulation.
His long conviction prompted a strong reaction from human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... activists and his brother Jamil Afridi and a panel of lawyers said they intended to appeal and challenge the conviction in a court of law.
In a militancy infested tribal region it's rare to see a member of an outlawed group or terrorist organization being tried or convicted. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... Dr Afridi was sentenced to such a harsh jail term not for involvement in any act of terrorism but on the charge of having links with Mangal Bagh.
Until now officials have been vaguely saying that Afridi was convicted on charges of involvement in anti-state activities that was taken to believe that he had been sentenced for helping the CIA in its 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.... raid.
The five-page court document, available with Dawn, reveals that Mr Afridi was cooled for a few years ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... for his "involvement in anti-state activities" on May 23, 2011, following reports that he was in league with Lashkar-e-Islam.
Lashkar-e-Islam -- a Bara-based Death Eater organization in Khyber tribal region led by Mangal Bagh -- was banned in June, 2008.
"Though the JIT (joint investigation team) contains evidence of the involvement of accused in activities wherein he has been shown acting with other foreign intelligence agencies, all this evidence could not be taken into account for the lack of jurisdiction," the court said in its short order.
It recommended that Dr Afridi be produced before the relevant court for further proceedings under the law, thus leaving the option open for the government to try him under the treason law that entails death penalty.
A judicial commission headed by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal has already recommended Dr Afridi's trial under the treason law, though no formal charge has so far been brought against him for helping the CIA in a fake vaccination campaign to nail down Bin Laden to his abode in the scenic northern city of Abbottabad.
The court order reveals that various intelligence agencies and people in general had complained against activities of the accused. It said Dr Afridi had been handed over to a joint interrogation team on May 24, 2011 for five days. On May 29, 2011, it said, the accused had been handed over to an intelligence agency under proper receipt for further probe.
The accused was produced before the tribal court on May 11, 2012, on the directives of the Ministry of Interior. Charges were framed against him and the case was referred to a council of elders for inquiry on May 12, 2012.
The order said intelligence reports had indicated that the accused had close links with the defunct LI and "his love for Mangal Bagh, Amir of Lashkar-e-Islam, and his association with him was an open secret". Well, if it was an open secret justice was done, right?
Referring to the report submitted by the JIT, it said the accused had paid Rs2 million to LI when he was serving at the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Dogra, Bara, Khyber tribal region.
The court also accused Mr Afridi of providing medical assistance to Death Eater commanders like Said Noor Malikdinkhel, Hazrat Sepah, Wahid Shaloberkhel and others at the hospital which he headed.
It also referred to statements by some people that Death Eater commanders used to visit the hospital and hold private meetings with the accused. "These meetings were usually of longer duration and most often those meetings were followed by attacks by Orcs and similar vermin on security forces' checkposts and other places at night," the order read.
It said LI's design to wage war against the state of Pakistain was a reality known to all and that those attacks were planned in the office of the accused. Being a public servant, the involvement of the accused in subversive activities and his role in facilitating the waging of war and attacks on security forces made him liable to be proceeded against, it added.
The court held that the LI had sought the support of foreign intelligence agencies across the border in Afghanistan to wage war against the state of Pakistain and that Mr Afridi's association with the Death Eater outfit proved his involvement in activities inimical to the state of Pakistain.
It further convicted Mr Afridi of preaching the ideology of Lashkar-e-Islam, based on hatred arousing contempt against the people and the government of Pakistain.
"His demeanour as a public servant proves his disloyalty and feeling of enmity towards the state and government of Pakistain," the court order said.
The court thus tried and convicted Dr Shakil Afridi under four different clauses of the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulation. The sentences, the court document said, would run simultaneously, also granting him the benefit to commence his sentence with retrospective effect from May 23, 2011.
The FCR amended in 2011 gives him the right to appeal his conviction in an appellate tribunal.
Jamil Afridi told a news conference that his brother was innocent and being made a scapegoat.
A panel of lawyers has already sent the power of attorney to the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar Central Prison for Afridi's signature to fight his case. So far he has been denied any visitation on security ground.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > BIN LADEN CASE DOCTOR JAILED FOR MILITANT LINK, NOT TREASON.
US Senator Rand Paul would like the US to suspend any + all aid to Pakistan until Dr. Afridi is released from Pak Prison + allowed to come to the US, where he Afridi can then be allowed to become a US Citizen.
[Yemen Post] Fierce festivities between the army troops assisted by tribal militias and al-Qaeda linked gunnies continued on Wednesday morning in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan, ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... leaving at least 20 forces of Evil and 7 soldiers killed, according to local sources.Sources said that fierce festivities erupted in the early hours of Wednesday morning between the two warning sides in the outskirts of Ja'ar town, the second biggest city in Abyan and al-Qaeda stronghold.
The army has been imposing siege on Ja'ar as a part of an effort to push the forces of Evil out.Military operations intensified at the behest of President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi ...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... who ordered the troops to storm the al-Qaeda-controlled towns and kick the forces of Evil out of them.According to the sources, al-Qaeda carried out a counter attack on military troops stationed around Ja'ar but the army troops and the rustics managed to repel the attack, and kill 20 bully boys. After the foiled al-Qaeda attack, the army troops have tightened their siege on the bully boys.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact... the local news website said government troops from 135 and 201 Brigades managed to foil some bully boys' attempts to infiltrate into army positions.Ansar al-Sharia ...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends... infiltrated into some army outposts in the past few months, killing dozens soldiers and wounding dozens of others.
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[An Nahar] Fierce fighting erupted on Wednesday between regime troops and rebels near Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... and in Homs province, a watchdog said, while reporting 39 more people killed across Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five people were killed in the Damascus suburb of Douma, a hotbed of anti-regime sentiment, while a civilian was rubbed out in Daraya, in the same province.
Also in Damascus province, government troops opened fire on mourners attending a mass funeral in Al-Diabiya, killing four, said the Britannia-based watchdog.
In central Homs province, four people died at Qusayr, scene of earlier kabooms, while another five people, including a regular soldier, were killed in the city of Homs, it said.
Two people were killed in the region of Hama when fighting took place in the town of Kafarzita between troops and rebels. Later, in Hama city, residents held a general strike to mourn the deaths of the two men.
In Jabal al-Zawiya, a rebel commander was killed in northeastern Idlib.
A sniper rubbed out a man at Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... in the north, while unidentified gunnies killed an 18-year-old in eastern Deir Ezzor. A rebel fighter was also killed in the same province, the Observatory added.
In the same region, visiting U.N. monitors condemned the killing of 13 people whose bodies were found late Tuesday at Assukar, near Deir Ezzor, many of whom had been shot at close range, they said.
A blast struck a pipeline in Deir Ezzor, according to the state news agency SANA, which added that the kaboom led to "a fire in the area."
Blaming "armed terrorist groups," SANA said this was the second time the pipeline was targeted.
At least 14 regular troops, the Observatory said, were killed on Wednesday when checkpoints in Idlib and Hama were targeted.
On Tuesday a total of 98 people, including 61 civilians, were killed in violence across Syria amid raging festivities between regime troops and rebels, the Observatory said.
More than 13,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians, since the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... regime erupted in March last year, according to the Observatory.
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[Dawn] The Taliban on Wednesday denied reports of the death of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Pak-linked Haqqani network which is regularly blamed for major attacks in Afghanistan.
"We strongly dismiss the reports that Jalaluddin Haqqani is dead. He's alive," Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP, attributing the reports to "government propaganda".
The Haqqanis, who are closely affiliated with the Taliban, are a key player in the insurgency against US-led NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... troops and Karzai's Western-backed government, particularly in eastern Afghanistan.
Tolo, Afghanistan's first 24-hour rolling news television channel, said Jalaluddin had died from kidney disease, claiming on its Twitter feed that the Taliban had confirmed it.
The United States blamed last month's 18-hour assault on Kabul, the biggest to hit the capital in a decade, on the Haqqani network, saying the group's leaders planned the attack from North Wazoo, in Pakistain's lawless tribal belt.
Before stepping down as chief US military officer last year, Admiral Mike Mullen caused a sensation when he told Congress that the Haqqani network was a "veritable arm" of Pakistain's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Haqqani was a mujahedeen leader sponsored by the CIA, Pakistain and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... during the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
He served in the Taliban government after it took power in 1996 following years of civil war.
He is known to have close ties to al Qaeda, and after the fall of the Taliban regime in the 2001 US-led invasion, he joined the insurgency. In recent years, his son Sirajuddin has taken on increasing leadership within the group from his father, who was born in 1942.
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(Sh.M.Network) -- The Kenyan police said on Tuesday that they have launched a major manhunt for two foreign suspects in connection to Monday's huge kaboom in downtown Nairobi which has so far left at least 38 people injured.
Police front man Eric Kiraithe also released a photograph of Emrah Erdogan who is thought to be either a German or Turkish citizen who is travelling on forged papers and appealed to the public to provide vital information that may lead to his arrest.
"Any person with information on Emrah Erdogan should provide the same to the nearest cop shoppe.
"He is believed to be either a citizen of Germany or Turkeyand travelling on fake or forged papers," Kiraithe told journalists inNairobi.
He said Erdogan is believed to have entered Kenya through Garissa in northern frontier from neighboring Somalia on May 3 and is probably still in the east African nation.
The latest development came as United States anti-terrorism experts are helping their Kenyan counterparts in investigating a powerful blast which shattered some buildings on Moi Avenue inNairobi on Monday.
The foreign bomb experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) went to the scene of the Monday's blast at a building in the central business district to join local experts who are exploring the possibility that the blast was caused by criminals using an improvised bomb.
Regional deputy police commander Moses Nyakwama said some of their "friends" have joined the Kenyan investigating team to unravel the cause of the huge kaboom.
"You know this is a problem and some of our friends may want to offer certain assistance.
"You cannot get to the root cause of it unless you allow them to join us," Nyakwama told Xinhua by telephone.
"The investigations are on but so far we have not made any arrest.
"What we know for certain is that the kaboom was caused by an bomb which was planted inside the building but not an electrical fault," he said.
Kiraithe said the Sherlocks have concluded that the Monday kaboom was caused by an improvised bomb planted in the building by criminal elements.
"The investigating team is now working to establish the identity of the perpetrators of this serious crime.
"In this respect the team is zeroing on two male suspects whose profile they are piecing together," he said.
The incident came amid heightened security in Nairobi after Somali forces of Evil threatened reprisal attacks in Kenya if Kenyan soldiers who launched cross border incursions since October last year do not leave the Horn of Africa nation.
The Monday attack also came a month after the U.S. Embassy inKenyawarned it has credible information of an imminent terror attack inNairobi.
According to the U.S. embassy, the terror attack is likely to target places that foreigners congregate in the country, including malls and night clubs.
Assanands building which was housing an exhibition was extensively damaged and property of unknown value was destroyed while neighboring buildings were slightly damaged by the blast.
Kiraithe said the team has been able to recover several materials from the scene of the kaboom which have been sent for forensic analysis to determine the composition of the explosive and its method of initiation.
"We are still appealing to anybody with information to provide it to the nearest police officer, public servant or other responsible person."
The police front man said Erdogan is "probably still in the country."
Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday termed the blast an act of terrorism.
"This is a cowardly act that should be condemned.
"I urge all Kenyans to support our security forces as they work hard to eliminate acts of terrorism."
"This is a terrible tragedy that has befallen Kenyans. It is unfortunate that snuffies have decided to target innocent civilians with cowardly acts," Odinga said after visiting the scene of the blast.
"We will make sure all residents in Kenya are safe.
"We are under attack because snuffies are being challenged inSomalia," he said.
The east African nation soldiers who are battling Somali cut-throats have intensified military crackdown inside southernSomaliato push back Al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... , blamed byKenyafor a series of cross-border kidnappings.
The hard boy group has also come under pressure from Uganda,Burundi and Sierra Leonesoldiers who recently pushed them out of the outskirts of Somali capital Mogadishu, and from Æthiopia, which seized Baidoa town recently.
The east African nation has suffered several grenade attacks since late last year when the Kenya Defence Forces attacked Al- Shabaab cut-throats in Somalia following a series of cross-border abductions targeting foreigners.
On Saturday, two grenade attacks were staged in northernKenya, the area that has suffered most of such attacks suspected to be staged by the Al-Shabaab sympathizers.
Kenyais planning to install closed circuit television cameras along the streets in the main cities, with the assistance of the Chinese government, to deter such attacks.
Since the Kenya military incursion into Somalia, several attacks believed to have been carried out by Al-Shabaab have occurred in Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa and Dadaab districts of northern Kenya even as the military reports gains against the group by capturing their military bases and killing scores of them.
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Brooke Shields aka Emmeline in "The Blue Lagoon (1980)" aka Jade Butterfield in "Endless Love (1981)" aka Susan Keane in "Suddenly Susan (TV 19962000)" aka Susan Hoff in "The Midnight Meat Train (2008)" aka Anne Jamieson in "Bob the Butler (2005)" aka Joan Brown in "The Greening of Whitney Brown (2011)" (age 47)
[Iran Press TV] A senior advisor to Fearless Leader of the Islamic Revolution ...Iran's doddering head theocrat... Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ...the successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the actual dictator of Iran... says anti-Islamic measures taken by the government of Azerbaijan cannot continue for long.
"They may take certain steps right now, but based on the experiences of those who have ruled Mohammedan countries, Islam has deep roots in the hearts of the people," Ali Akbar Velayati said Wednesday.
Referring to the Azeri government's disrespect for Islam and religion, he added that the people of Iran and Azerbaijan share the same religion, history and culture and will never be separated from one another.
"Even under the communist rule in the former Soviet Union, the hearts of the people of both countries remained close," Velayati said adding, "Any anti-religious measure in Azerbaijan is against the viewpoint of the majority of the Mohammedan people of Azerbaijan and has been imposed on them," he said.
Velayati stated that Iran never interferes in any country's internal affairs, but it is quite natural for Iranians to react when they hear the voice of the oppressed nation of Azerbaijan.
Then his lips fell off.
"We hope the government of Azerbaijan will try to remove the obstacles [that currently exist] between the two countries and to pay attention to its people's demand for the development of relations between the [two] governments," he said.
Relations between Tehran and Baku have been strained after Azerbaijan signed a USD1.5 billion deal with Israel to purchase drones and anti-aircraft and missile systems in late February.
Last month, Tehran summoned Azeri Ambassador Javanshir Akhundov to protest Baku's arms agreement with the Israeli regime.
Earlier this month, Iran recalled its ambassador to Azerbaijan after 100 members of pro-Israeli groups, including the Southern Azerbaijan Independence Party, the International Diaspora Center, and the World Congress of Azerbaijanis gathered in front of the Iranian Embassy ...You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!... in Baku, shouting slogans against the Islamic Theocratic Republic and insulting the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.
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#1
See, and then you never wonder about Russians, or even Azeri in this role of the "New Iran". Ha!
[Dawn] A holy man charged with issuing death decree against four women and two brothers for dancing in a wedding function was freed on a local court's orders a few hours after arrest on Tuesday.
The release came after Maulana Mohammad Javed Azad deposited the Rs50,000 worth of surety bond in Kohistan. ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... "I swear on the Holy Koran that I've issued no fatwa (decree) over the last four years nor have I seen any video of dancing women. I just heard about it. The charge of my holding a jirga to issue such a decree is baseless and meant to defame the Learned Elders of Islam of Kohistan," Mr Azad told news hounds after release here.
The holy man was produced in a local court along with his brother and an accused, Mohammad Akhtar. The two were released after they deposited surety bond of Rs50,000 each.
District coordination officer of Kohistan Aqal Badshah and district police officer Abdul Majid Afridi told news hounds that the matter about the decree issuance was concocted and was aimed at destroying the peaceful environment in the district.
The two said a police team had already been sent to Palis village to find the truth.
"No jirga was held to decide the fate of women and two brothers over the alleged wedding dance. It seems someone is conspiring against the people of Kohistan. We'll foil such conspiracies," said Mr Afridi.
MPA from Palis Mufti Mehmood Alam said he was himself mufti and no one could issue death sentence after witnessing such wedding dance video.
"We are in contact with the federal and provincial government to expose the faces behind the issue. I personally visited the area and found that no incident as was reported ever took place," he said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily, his hand still stuck in the Ming vase... a jirga of Islahi Committee of Ulema was held at Puttan with former MPA Maulana Dildar in the chair over the jirga decree case.
Participants condemned a 'conspiracy' hatched to defame holy mans and destroy the image of Kohistan people.
After the jirga, Mr Dildar told news hounds that holy mans of Kohistan wouldn't allow conspirators to destroy peaceful environment of Kohistan.
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#2
IIUC, Syriza wants to stay in the euro, but opposes shifting liabilities to Greek taxpayers. I'd like a pony without the responsibility of shoveling the poop too, but you can't have it both ways.
Yet, I'm rooting for Syriza. If the Greek Parliament is taken over by children banging their spoons, the more likely it is Greece will revert to the drachma (by choice or by force remains to be seen). Anyone holding Greek bonds will take a haircut, of course, but they were never going to be repaid in full anyway.
Medium- and long-term, kicking off the euro chains in favor of a weaker drachma will be a boon to Greece. Exports and tourism will bounce back, thus employment and income will too. In a year or two, human nature and simple math will turn that bucket around.
Greece is about to prove that Rousseau, Marx, and Hegel were all f***ing wrong. Eurocrats will be reeling, baffled at why their enlightened post-nationalist genius can't hammer square pegs into round holes. Can't wait!
#4
Golly! All that drivel? Good thing I didn't mention that I took the day off to get foxed and screw around on the internets!
I don't usually have time to be such a windbag, but is it ok if I continue chiming in? I know the focus of Rantburg is more military/intel. But as so many economic trendlines are starting to approach the asymptote, I think understanding how incredibly different things are in Europe, is worth a little bandwidth.
There's a reason we call it Rantburg U, dear RandomJD, and if I recall correctly, you are one of our real life, analog world professors in addition to knowing what you are talking about. When Fred and the moderators think the subject is no longer important, we'll stop posting articles about it, and you will be forced, perforce, to stop discussing it here. ;-). But in the meantime, the subject is critical -- if Europe melts down financially, they'll have to stop funding the Palestinians and keeping so many immigrants and refugees on the dole, at which point things will likely get considerably more interesting in that part of the world than they are now.
It occurs to me also, as no doubt it has long since to others here, that the new shale oil/natural gas sources in North America and England/Europe will also change the situation for the jihadis -- what will Saudi Arabia and Iran do in a few years when their deposits don't lead to the kind of money inflows they are accustomed to?
#7
Honestly, I'm flattered. I don't know if I know what I'm talking about, exactly, but I definitely know less about breaking things and killing people. (It's a given that I approve, with gratitude, of course.)
if Europe melts down financially, they'll have to stop funding the Palestinians and keeping so many immigrants and refugees on the dole
You'd think. But that will probably be one of the last things to go. Maybe around the same time the US stops paying protection money to Pakistan.
Iran's U.N. mission has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! a U.S. newspaper report alleging evidence existed implicating Tehran or its Lebanese ally Hizbullah in international liquidation plots, Iranian media reported on Wednesday.
Then his lips fell off.
"Iran has always condemned any terrorist acts and these baseless accusations are being made against the Islamic state in line with Iranophobia and the policy of putting illegal pressure on Iran," the Iranian mission said in letter to the Washington Post newspaper, which published the report, according to the Arman daily.
The mission called the allegation "baseless" and stressed that Iran itself had been "the biggest victim of terrorism in recent years," with the liquidation of several of its nuclear scientists.
The Washington Post report on Monday cited unnamed U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials as saying evidence had been amassed showing Iran or Hizbullah were behind plots to kill two Saudi officials, half a dozen Israelis, several Americans and other targets in at least seven countries, including Azerbaijan.
Sources told the paper the plots were seen as part of an ongoing covert war in which Iran also has been the victim of liquidations.
It claimed that activity for the plots abruptly halted earlier this year, when Iran agreed to hold talks with world powers on its disputed nuclear program.
The last round of the talks, between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group comprising the United States, Britannia, La Belle France, Germany, China and Russia, took place in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... last week and ended inconclusively.
The next round of those talks are to take place in Moscow on June 18-19 as both sides publicly harden their positions for what are likely to be extremely tense negotiations over Iran's controversial nuclear program and Western sanctions.
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[Dawn] Speakers at a two-day Qaumi Aman Jirga (peace jirga) have called for meaningful dialogue with disgruntled elements in Pakistain and Afghanistan to end the decades-long conflict and save the region from further devastation.
They said that withdrawal of foreign forces and non-interference were essential measures to establish lasting peace in Pakistain and Afghanistan. They blamed ordeal of Pakhtuns on lack of unity among them.
"We should talk to Taliban for the sake of peace," they suggested, adding if America could talk to Taliban, Pakistain government could also negotiate with gunnies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
Veteran politician Afzal Khan Lala organised the jirga that was attended by delegates from Afghanistan, Pakhtun intellectuals from European countries, representatives of Awami National Party, Pakistain People's Party, Pakistain Moslem League-Nawaz, Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... -Fazl, Mazdoor Kisan Party, tribal elders and civil society groups.
Haji Din Mohammad, adviser to Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... , represented Afghanistan in the jirga. Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , 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.... and Pakistain People's Party-Sherpao boycotted the event.
The event turned out to be a seminar by end of the day quite contrary to the Pakhtuns' definition of jirga, which is convened to discuss certain problem or issue.
Speakers delivered speeches and narrated their ordeals instead of presenting viable and solid suggestions. After having lunch, majority of the participants disappeared from Nishtar Hall, the venue of the event.
Speakers from Fata complained that tribal people had been deliberately kept ignorant and isolated. They said that Pakhtuns from the settled areas had ignored their fellows and that they had been deprived of fundamental rights.
"Schools constructed in Fata are being blown up," they said and added that their young generation was growing up without getting education.
Addressing at the inaugural session, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti said that collective efforts through mutual trust among countries of the region were essential for restoration of peace.
He said that people of Afghanistan should be given right of self-determination and solution to the problem should be sought through dialogue and jirgas. Military operation did not provide solution to crises, he added.
Mr Hoti termed holding the jirga important on critical juncture of history that provided an opportunity to national leaders for mutual consultation. He said that recommendations of the peace jirga would help deciding future line of action after valuable sacrifices of Pakhtun nation.
Mr Hoti termed peace and stability in Afghanistan, Fata and Pakistain inter-linked and said that there was lack of mutual trust between Pakistain and Afghanistan. He said that both the countries could not get rid of the current problems without mutual trust. He said that intruders were not well-wishers of Pakistain and Afghanistan.
He said that political and administrative reforms had been introduced in Fata as per aspirations of the people of the area. He maintained that military operation could not be a permanent solution to any problem.
The chief minister said that the only solution to problems lied in political dialogues, struggle and holding of jirgas.
He appealed to the participants of the jirga to get united for peace and brighter future setting politics aside. "Solution to the problem is not impossible," he said. He added that in times of lawlessness and devastation in the country, politics turned meaningless.
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[Al Ahram] African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops will seize the last key bastion of Somalia's al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... gunnies within three months, Kenya's army chief boasted Wednesday, as pressure mounted on the Islamists.
Hardline Shebab fighters are now left with the port town of Kismayo as the last major town they control, and have in recent months switched to guerrilla tactics as regional forces wrest territory from them.
"We continue to exert pressure on Al-Shebab," said General Julius Karangi, whose troops fighting in southern Somalia have joined the 11,000-strong African Union force in Somalia (AMISOM).
Karangi said the port city -- one of the Shehab's few remaining sources of income in Somalia -- would be taken before the mandate of the weak Western-backed transitional federal government (TFG) ends on August 20.
"Kismayo... this target will happen before August when the TFG mandate expires," Karangi added.
The Shebab still control large parts of southern Somalia, but AU troops, government forces and Æthiopian soldiers have clawed several key bases from the gunnies in recent months.
Kenya, which invaded southern Somalia in October before joining the AU force, has previously boasted of imminent victories despite its troops having made slow progress against the turbans.
The Shebab said Tuesday they had engaged in a fierce exchange of gunfire with foreign warships off the coast of Kismayo that Kenya identified as its vessels.
"Kenya navy vessels recieved fire from a hostile Al-Shebab watch tower off the coast of Kismayo... we engaged them and destroyed the watch tower," said military front man Colonel Cyrus Oguna.
"We shall be engaging them off the coast of Kismayo as and when opportunity presents itself."
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... other reports from Kismayo suggested other foreign naval vessels may also have been patrolling offshore from the port, but these could not be independently verified.
Kenyan boasts of seizing the port follow a large blast on Monday, blamed on the Shebab or their supporters, that destroyed shops in central Nairobi wounding 38 people.
"We just had a very terrible situation where there was an kaboom in the centre of the city, this is of course something carried out by Al Shebab," said George Saitoti, Kenya's security minister.
US forensic experts have been supporting Kenyan police to scour the blast site for clues.
Kenya has suffered a series of attacks in the past several months, which police have also blamed on the Shebab, including the wounding of four coppers on a night patrol early Wednesday in the eastern border town of Liboi.
"Our officers were ambushed by Al-Shebab....these criminals are getting the heat on their side and are now crossing over to Kenya," Saitoti added.
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[An Nahar] A Saudi court overturned on Wednesday provisions of a labor ministry circular that allowed saleswomen to work alongside men in shops, a lawyer told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The court in Riyadh "abolished part of the decision by the ministry of labor which allowed shop owners to employ men and women in the same place," based on a law suit filed by businessman, lawyer Mohammed al-Zamel told AFP.
Zamel said the ministry had misinterpreted a 2011 royal decree in which King Abdullah limited work in lingerie shops to women only.
"The king's goal from that decree was to allow women to buy their underwear from shops run by women to prevent embarrassment" and not to allow men and women to mix at work.
"Many women (working alongside men in shops) resign from work because of harassment and due to the late working hours," he said.
In June 2011, the king issued a decree limiting work in lingerie shops to Saudi women in a bid to reduce high female unemployment in the conservative kingdom.
He also made employment at certain industrial facilities, including drug manufacturers, exclusive to women.
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#1
Your Honor, can we stipulate that Islamists are essentially 5th grade boys and as such, are extremely concerned with getting girl cooties?
[Nigerian Tribune] But for the vigilance of the police and other security agents in Kaduna on Tuesday, the Democracy Day celebrations would have been cut short as suspected snuffies attempted to bomb a bus stop near the Punch newspaper office at Katsina roundabout.
Confirming the incident to newsmen, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in Kaduna, DSP Aminu Lawan, said around 6.00 a.m., his command was alerted to the suspicious movement of a strange man in the area.
"We deployed the anti-bomb squad of the command to the scene after receiving a distress call from residents of the area that they spotted an unknown man dropping an object. Our men quickly moved to the scene and immediately condoned off the area to residents and motorists away from the scene.
"After combing the entire vicinity, they discovered an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) tucked into an old television set by the side of the road near the former office of the Kaduna State Transport Authority (now occupied by the NURTW). Our men successfully detonated the
IED and there was no casualty," Lawan said.
As news of the planned bombing spread, there was confusion in that densely populated part of the city as newspaper vendors, distributors, taxi drivers and market women scampered for safety.
An eyewitness said, "for almost two hours, the area was blocked and motorists were made to go through adjoining streets. Luckily, no one is affected."
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Yemen's holy men urged the government to impose the state influence across the republic and to protect roads and properties. After their meeting with president Abdrabu Mansour Hadi, the holy mans called in a statement for applying the law to those who disturb the public security and peace and subject their properties to danger. Furthermore, they recommended to change officials in the governorates experiencing insecurity and deteriorating basic services with competent officials to assure the people their lives and properties are in safe hands.
The holy mans called for putting an end to bloodshed in conflict areas such as Saada, Hajjah and some parts in Sanaa and Amran and to quickly solve the situation in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... province, where the army has recently stepped up an offensive against Al-Qaeda krazed killers.
They argued that solving the situation in Abyan comes within what the government should do to prevent external meddling in Yemen's internal affairs.
"The holy mans reject external interference in Yemen's own affairs which may violate the country's illusory sovereignty, subject its unity, security and stability to danger and provoke sedition," the statement said. "Yemen should build relations with foreign countries on the bases of serving mutual interests, not on the bases of dependency and meddling".
In their statement, the holy mans urged to convince all Yemeni groups and forces to participate in dialogue, complete the transition, especially reforms in the army, protect the national unity and resources and solve all dilemmas and court cases.
What, all? That's ambitious -- more than we've been able to do in America in almost two and a half centuries.
They issued fatwa saying Islam forbids taking arms against the government and killing innocents, referring to suicide kabooms by Al-Qaeda.
At the meeting, Hadi reviewed progress on the implementation of the power-transfer deal, which was brokered by the GCC and backed by the UN after the unrest in 2011, according to the Yemeni official agency Saba.
He also highlighted problems faced in the country, pointing to the role the holy mans should play in guiding the people and helping to address all national issues, Saba said.
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[An Nahar] Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... on Wednesday revealed that he has provided Paleostinian leaders with the names of a group plotting to assassinate him, noting that they are "experienced individuals."
In an interview on al-Manar television, Berri added that he had summoned top Paleostinian leader Azzam al-Ahmed, member of Fatah's Central Committee, to brief him on the available information, which were reported by "three sources."
Berri confirmed during a parliamentary meeting on May 16 a list of politicians and figures allegedly targeted by krazed killer groups, describing the threat as serious and dangerous.
According to NBN television, Berri called on security agencies to investigate the threat.
Local newspapers have reported that certain world powers had warned Lebanese officials that a terrorist group linked to an krazed killer organization has infiltrated the country recently to carry out "subversive" operations.
According to As Safir newspaper, the information coincided with similar data obtained by Lebanese security agencies.
Berri and several other senior Lebanese officials might be the target of a security threat by the terrorist group.
Lebanese Forces A Christian political party founded by Bashir Gemayel, who was then bumped off when he was elected president of Leb... leader Samir Geagea ... Geagea was imprisoned by the Syrians and their puppets for 11 years in a dungeon in the third basement level of the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. He was released after the Cedar Revolution in 2005 ... escaped an liquidation attempt on April 4.
In January, security agencies urged Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... to take precautions as they might be the target of an liquidation plot.
Al-Joumhouria newspaper has reported that the security agencies succeeded in the past few days in uncovering a terrorist network with local, Arab, and European links.
During the al-Manar interview, Berri said "no one accepts the presence of these groups in (Paleostinian refugee) camps," warning that "this issue might push the country into the unknown."
Berri noted that "al-Ahmed recognized the names of the suspects except for one name," stressing that "the responsibility to deter such attempts falls on the Paleostinians themselves."
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[Tolo News] An man in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province was cooled for a few years Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on Tuesday after trying to cut off his pregnant 16-year-old wife's tongue, apparently for refusing to hooker herself.
The girl, Negina, who was seven months pregnant, suffered a miscarriage after a severe beating from her 21-year-old husband.
Negina's mother told TOLOnews that her daughter had been abused many times already by her husband since their marriage in Balkh's Charbolak district, and that he tried to cut off her tongue after Negina refused to hooker herself for income.
Negina lost her child because she was badly tortured by her husband, the mother said.
Her tongue has been stitched, but it will take some time before she can talk again.
Head of the Provincial Women's Directorate Fariba Majid said that it was the worst case of violence against a woman recorded in Balkh province.
She said that more than 40 cases violence against women have been recorded so far this year, but this was the first time that a husband has tried to cut off his wife's tongue.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... provincial security chief General Abdul Razaq Qaderi said that anyone found to commit such actions will be tossed in the calaboose. Please don't kill me! He added that Negina's husband has been tossed in the slammer. Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
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#1
For injuring his wife, Negina's husband should have to choose between his tongue and his thumbs.
Then, after he is healed up, he should face punishment for killing the baby.
[Shabelle] (Sh. M. Network)-Suspected Kenyan Warships have once again shelled on a southern Somali port town controlled by Al Qaeda-linked Al shabab beturbanned goons, local residents said on Wednesday.
Warships on Somali shore began on Tuesday firing missiles the port of Kismayu, 500 Km south of Mogadishu,Somalia capital, the largest strategic town in the country that is still under the control Al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... bully boys.
Residents, who spoke with Shabelle Media via phone from Kismayu, told that several shells hit today on Al shabab military camps located on the outskirts of the town.There are no reports of damage or injuries.
These naval attacks on Somali's port town of Kismayu followed after Al-Shabaab fighters on shore fired on the vessels on the town's seashore with anti-aircraft rifles and Kenyan warships fired back.
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[An Nahar] U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... peace envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... on Wednesday said the situation in Syria is "complex" and urged an intensification of international efforts to end bloodshed that has killed thousands of people.
"The Syrian issue is complex, and the world is closely following developments there," Annan told Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh during a meeting in Amman.
"We need to work hard and do our utmost to find a solution to this crisis and end the suffering of Syrian people, who should have priority in all efforts exerted," a foreign ministry statement quoted Annan as saying.
He added that "intensified international efforts are needed to face the situation in Syria and find ways to end the killings there."
Annan, who arrived in Jordan from neighboring Syria on a two-day trip, is due to meet King Abdullah II on Thursday, government officials said.
While in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... , the peace envoy met Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... , urging him to take immediate steps to end 15 months of bloodshed and warning the country has reached a "tipping point."
The main opposition coalition said on Wednesday that Assad must step down if Annan's peace plan is to be saved.
"An international understanding for Assad's stepping-down is the only way to save Annan's plan and the political solution; otherwise the situation is on the verge of kaboom and will threaten the entire region," said Syrian National Council chief Burhan Ghalioun.
The SNC said that Russia's position on the Syrian crisis is encouraging the regime of Assad to commit "savage crimes."
"Russia has chosen to join ranks with the Syrian regime and to provide it with political cover ... encouraging it to continue committing savage crimes that target civilians, including women and kiddies," it said.
The SNC condemned Russia for "trying to prevent an international condemnation" from being issued against Assad's regime.
Western nations -- the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , the United States and other governments including Australia, Canada and Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... -- have ordered out Syria's top diplomats after the killing of at least 108 people, nearly half of them children, during an assault by pro-government forces last week.
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[Jerusalem Post] Kirkpatrick defended Israel with unyielding critique of UN, charging anti-Israel diplomacy 'has nothing to do with peace."
Jeane Kirkpatrick experienced an epiphany shortly after Ronald Reagan appointed her America's permanent representative at the UN in 1981 when Israel's ambassador Yehuda Blum came to her office for his first official visit.
She had been appalled during the previous four years by what she regarded as the Carter administration's contemptuous attitude toward the Jewish state, and particularly by the way that preceding UN ambassadors Andrew Young and Donald McHenry had, respectively, criticized the Jewish state as "stubborn and intransigent" (and met secretly with the PLO representative), and voted for Resolution 465 condemning Israel's occupation of "Arab territories including Jerusalem."
But she didn't realize how deeply these attitudes had penetrated the US mission until she saw the way the career foreign service officers she inherited from the previous administration dismissively referred to Blum by his first name and rudely interrupted him on this first visit. She sternly pointed out to them that Blum was a Holocaust survivor who spoke nine languages, and angrily ordered them out of the room.
"You can see what it has been like for Israel here," Blum told her after they sat down. Kirkpatrick replied, "It will be different now. No one will be treated better in this mission than Israel."
And this was true. She and Blum cooperated on several initiatives and often escaped with key staff members for private strategy dinners at a small restaurant in Brooklyn they both favored. The personal relationship was political for Kirkpatrick. Seeing the hatred of Israel in her first days at the UN, she told her colleague Richard Schifter with a stricken look on her face, "I think the Holocaust is possible again. I didn't think so before I came to the UN, but I think so now."
She brought this feeling to president Reagan who agreed with her that the US had to stand against "the obsessive vilification of Israel." Along with preventing the spread of Marxism-Leninism in Central America and driving a stake through the heart of the Soviet Union, this became Kirkpatrick's chief objective during her time at the UN.
After the bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, she argued strenuously that the US should simply abstain from the resolution advanced by Iraq after the attack calling for sanctions against Israel but was overruled by the State Department.
She then worked behind the scenes to get the resolution watered down to a condemnation and made her feelings known when even this question was called by raising her hand reluctantly to half mast and allowing a look to cross her face of someone who has just detected a fecal odor in the room.
Kirkpatrick defended Israel by her unyielding critique of what it faced at the UN. Charging that diplomacy regarding the "Arab- Israeli conflict" at the world body "has nothing to do with peace, but is quite simply a continuation of war against Israel by other means," she said that the UN, as a result, had become a place where "moral outrage was distributed like violence in a protection racket"; a place where Israel is regularly and routinely attacked for manufactured crimes amidst deafening silence "when 3 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's murderous utopia... when a quarter million Ugandans died at the hands of Idi Amin... and when thousand of Soviet citizens are denied equal rights, equal protection of the law; denied the right to think, write, publish, work freely or emigrate."
She pointed out repeatedly that hatred of Israel deformed all aspects of UN operations: "A women's conference is suddenly transformed into a forum for the denunciation of Israel" because of assertions that "the biggest obstacle to the realizations of women's full enjoyment of equal rights in the world is Zionism....A meeting of the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency becomes so absorbed in negotiations and debate over a resolution to expel Israel that it almost forgets to worry about nuclear non proliferation."
Kirkpatrick experienced this malign obsession personally when she headed a delegation to the International Conference on African Refugees in March 1981.
The day before it opened, the Arab States, led by Libya, moved to bar Israel's delegate. Kirkpatrick announced that if this happened, the US would walk out and withdraw the $285 million it had pledged to the refugee problem. She dared the African countries and their Arab allies to choose between their "vile rhetoric" and money that could help their people.
They chose the money.
She saw clearly that isolating and stigmatizing Israel was the USSR's "great project" at the UN, an effort undertaken with diabolical ingenuity by the accusation that the Jewish state was guilty of racism -- the greatest of sins in the post-colonial period when newly minted states were regularly entering the world organization -- and by making Israel morally equivalent to apartheid South Africa.
She presciently saw that this accusation would be justified not by facts or proof, but by "a systematic assault on language and meaning."
She picked up on the first signs of this brazenly methodical effort to turn the narrative of the Holocaust inside-out by rebranding the Paleostinians "the Jews of the Arab world" and the Israelis " Nazis," and she understood the likely consequences: "by successfully claiming that Israel was guilty of genocide, any attack against the state and people of Israel was justified."
The passionate indignation over the treatment of Israel at the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick carried with her until her death in 2006 is nowhere visible in the Obama presidency whose cold friendship for the Jewish State has justly been compared to the Carter administration's. But his treatment of Israel is also often cited as one of the reasons Carter lost to Ronald Reagan who immediately installed at the UN a woman who believed that "to defend Israel was to defend America and western civilization itself." So perhaps the historical analogy carries with it a ray of hope after all.
#1
She might have liked Israel but she tried to get Reagan to side against the Brits in the Falkland conflict. Side with a conquering dictatorship over historical democratic allies.
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.
A German kidnapped in Nigeria in January, allegedly by Al Qaeda's north African branch, was killed by his captors Thursday during a military raid in the northern city of Kano. 
After weeks of hitting Mitt Romney for his tenure at Bain Capital, President Barack Obama's re-election team shifted focus to the Republican's record as governor of Massachusetts Wednesday, painting his time in the state house as overloaded with unfulfilled promises.
The long-running battle between a Tennessee Muslim community and its critics over a new mosque took a dramatic turn with a county judge's ruling that could bring construction to a halt.
Hours after being released from jail, a man walked through an emergency door at San Diego International Airport, onto the tarmac and sat down on a United Express plane Tuesday, according to San Diego authorities.
MoveOn, a giant in the progressive political world and an early endorser of Barack Obama in 2008, warns that it might have to pull the plug on key campaigns to help Obama and Senate Democrats if its 7 million members dont pony up with at least $5.
A conservative senator called on Tuesday for the United States to suspend all aid to Pakistain and grant citizenship to a doctor who was 
[Iran Press TV] 
Deposed Egyptian dictator 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A British aid worker freed after a kidnap "ordeal" of nearly three months in Sudan's Darfur region has arrived in the capital Khartoum following his release.
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor a great friend of the former Libyan dictator 
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Yemeni Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwah said on Wednesday that his country is ready for a new era as the ball of change started rolling.
[Dawn] Twelve 
Rejecting documents submitted by Interior Minister 
Nine people, including a political activist, were killed on Tuesday and at least eight others 
[Tolo News] Tribal elders competed in offering praises to militia chieftain Nabi Gechi as they gathered last week in the remote Afghan village of Qala e Zal, which until a year ago teemed with Taliban fighters.
Goodluck Jonathan's
[Tolo News] The Taliban are positioning themselves in several areas in Afghanistan's north in preparation for an offensive against the Afghan government after foreign troops leave the country, General Abdul Rashid 
[Tolo News] A Taliban leader was killed in an 
Mahmoud 
[Iran Press TV] A new report says the Qatari intelligence chief was held by security forces at the Cairo Airport while carrying bags of cash a few days before the first round of Egypt's presidential election.
[Dawn] A tribal physician who helped the CIA track down 
Mangal Bagh.
Fierce 
[An Nahar] Fierce fighting erupted on Wednesday between regime troops and rebels near 
The Taliban on Wednesday denied reports of the death of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Pak-linked Haqqani network which is regularly blamed for major attacks in Afghanistan.
The Haqqanis, who are closely affiliated with the Taliban, are a key player in the insurgency against US-led 
Wazoo
(Sh.M.Network) -- The Kenyan police said on Tuesday that they have launched a major manhunt for two foreign suspects in connection to Monday's huge 
[Dawn] A 
Iran's U.N. mission has 
Speakers at a two-day Qaumi Aman Jirga (peace jirga) have called for meaningful dialogue with disgruntled elements in Pakistain and Afghanistan to end the decades-long conflict and save the region from further devastation.
Yemen's 
Samir Geagea
Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
An man in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province was 
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
