THE Mundine fight was on at the bowls club across the road, so mother of seven Lisa Forde and her de facto husband wandered over to have a few beers and watch the action.
Seven children from three families, ranging in age from 15 months to 13 years, were left behind, when a sleepover was arranged in the aftermath of a party.
After the boxing, in the early hours of yesterday morning, Ms Forde and her partner Wayne Shepherd decided to kick on from the Wyong Bowls Club on the NSW central coast, visiting a friend at nearby Tuggerah Lakes.
Mr Shepherd said he believed another man, the stepfather of six-year-old family friend Madison Hands who he knew only as Stewart, was in the house watching the children.
But he wasn't, and at about 2am a fire that ripped through the two-storey brick home left the four youngest children dead and three others in Gosford hospital suffering smoke inhalation.
Those who died in the blaze were Ms Forde's three youngest sons - seven-year-old Jethro Sparkes, two-year-old George Gillette and 15-month-old Harley Wells - and Madison.
Mr Shepherd said he had received a phone call from the three older girls who escaped the fire, Ms Forde's daughters 13-year-old Kira Moore and 11-year-old Chantelle Moore, and 13-year-old family friend Alysse Haddleton.
He said they panicked in the fire and jumped from the balcony, leaving the four youngest children upstairs.
"They were yelling out for help and there was no help. Just imagine the looks on their faces, that's what cuts me up," Mr Shepherd said yesterday.
The couple's frantic dash home was slowed when they ran out of petrol in the middle of the night, but the scene they arrived at was heartrending.
NSW Fire Brigade Superintendent Ross Brogan said the house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived eight minutes after receiving a 000 call about 2am.
Firefighters tried to force their way into the house but were unable to reach the four children trapped on the second floor.
Jethro's father Glenn Sparkes released a statement through police. "We are shocked and devastated by our tragic loss. As yet we are still waiting to find out how this tragedy occurred," he said.
Police refused to confirm reports the fire started when one of the younger children put a pillow or blanket over a bar heater.
Jethro, nicknamed "Punkie", and his two half-brothers were lively but not prone to causing trouble, neighbours said.
"It was a large family, there were lots of kids and they were always out on their bikes," said one neighbour, who did not wish to be named.
Madison, who was in Year 1 at Wyong Grove Public School, lived in a nearby street and was close to Ms Ford's family.
"We used to called her Maddymoo. She was a beautiful child, she always wanted hugs and kisses," friend Margaret Spiers said. "Hopefully the smoke's got to them so they didn't suffer, that's all I pray."
Wayne Devine, who is the flatmate of Madison's mother Leanne Pearson, agreed. "The personality just boiled out of her. She was a real little Shirley Temple - lots of blond curls," he said.
Police Acting Superintendent Kim Sorenson said the tragedy was the worst he had encountered.
'It's as high on the scale of tragedy as you can get," he said. "For a community like Wyong to lose four small children in these circumstances is beyond belief."
Nine people have died in house fires in NSW in the past three days, prompting the state Opposition to call for mandatory smoke detectors in all dwellings.
Posted by: john ||
06/09/2005
19:08 ||
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This is mere speculation at this point. Read the last paragraph:
"IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky declined to comment on what the preliminary results of the samples had revealed, saying only that 'testing and analysis is under way.' He said that final results would not be available by the time the agencyâs 35-nation board meets on Monday on Iran and other issues. The diplomat with accreditation to the agency, who has a record of accuracy on issues before the IAEA, said that if final results confirm the preliminary ones, 'they will partially support the Iranians' - and hurt the Americans in their drive to prove Iranâs nuclear program is meant to make weapons."
Posted by: Tom ||
06/09/2005 20:28
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IRAQ has finally agreed to accept three shiploads of Australian wheat stranded in the Persian Gulf after claiming the grain was contaminated, Trade Minister Mark Vaile said today.
Mr Vaile said there had been a series of tests on the wheat and that the latest had gone to new Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who announced last night that the council of ministers had unanimously agreed it was fit for human consumption.
He said the Iraqi government had given the go-ahead for the wheat to be unloaded at the port of Um Qasr without delay.
"It's all clear. Hopefully tomorrow they should be able to start unloading," Mr Vaile said.
"It's been a dispute that has gone on for the last couple of months."
Australia's wheat exporter AWB admitted it was baffled by Iraq's claim that the more than 120,000 tonnes of Australian wheat was contaminated with iron filings.
The wheat had already been paid for but the three bulk carriers have been sitting in the Gulf off Iraq's port of Um Qasr for well over a month.
The delay in offloading prompted an extensive lobbying effort by Mr Vaile and Defence Minister Robert Hill, who called on senior Iraqi ministers during recent visits.
Mr Vaile said he had talked with Prime Minister Jaafari and other senior ministers as late as last weekend.
He said neither he nor AWB believed there was any contamination.
"The shipments were tested before they left Australia. They have been tested a number of times while parked off Um Qasr," he said.
"It goes through some fairly antiquated milling systems in machine and maybe some flour has come out the other end of that process that there has been some concern.
"But certainly we have refuted all the allegations in terms of the shipments."
Mr Vaile said the top priority now was to get the ships unloaded then develop protocols to ensure this doesn't happen again.
"I certainly intend further direct contact with trade minister (Abdul) Basit just to try and establish some guidelines for acceptability of these shipments," he said.
"If they want to have them tested on route or over there, that's fine. But when they arrive we expect them to be unloaded."
Mr Vaile said there could still be a dispute between AWB and the Iraqi Grains Board over the costs of three bulk carriers sitting idle for a protracted period.
THERE are hopes that President Bush's meeting tomorrow with President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea, coming on the heels of the latest North Korean overture on restarting nuclear-weapons negotiations, may lead to a breakthrough. However, anyone who expects the South to help us put pressure on the North hasn't been paying much attention to what has happened between the two countries over the last five years.
Since South Korea's president at the time, Kim Dae Jung, met with North Korea's Kim Jong Il in 2000 (and pocketed a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts), Seoul has gone to remarkable lengths to gain the North's trust. Unsurprisingly, the only real changes under this Sunshine Policy have occurred in South Korea. And efforts by President Roh, who was elected in 2002, to engage Kim Jong Il have led him to plunge his own nation into North Korea's world of lies.
For example, Seoul no longer sees any evidence of North Korea's crimes: the government tries to keep South Korean newscasts from showing a smuggled tape of the public execution of "criminals" by the North that has been broadcast in Japan and elsewhere; reports that China is shipping refugees back to North Korea are denied by the Roh government; the North's testing of chemical weapons on live prisoners goes largely unmentioned; and even Pyongyang's apparent preparations for nuclear weapons tests are played down.
South Korea, a member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, has abstained for the last three years from voting to condemn the North for its abuses. The South's latest national defense white paper even indicates that Seoul no longer considers the North to be its "main enemy" - which implies that the presence of American forces on the peninsula is no longer necessary. okay, we can go home now. NOW. Enjoy speaking Mandarin. or would it be Japanese in a decade?
Because Seoul chooses to regard the North as a friendly neighbor, it no longer wants to help North Koreans fleeing the regime - even though its Constitution declares that these refugees have the legal right to become citizens of South Korea. There have been press reports that Seoul has been pressuring China to prevent North Korean escapees from seeking asylum in South Korea's embassy and consulates in China (there are at least 100,000 North Koreans hiding in China).
Last year, when 468 North Korean refugees who had taken refuge in Vietnam were flown into South Korea, Seoul's minister in charge of reunification declared that "we disapprove of mass defections" and promised there would not be another large-scale movement of refugees. In December, the ministry cut the "resettlement" grant program for escaped Northerners by two-thirds and announced that henceforth there would be far greater scrutiny of asylum-seekers (on the questionable grounds that these refugees might be spies).
President Roh has defended this approach by more or less throwing up his hands. He refuses to give even moral support to dissidents in the North, claiming that Kim Jong Il would ruthlessly crush any protests. For Mr. Roh, there is no chance his "partner for peace" will fall from power; in fact, he makes clear that he would not wish the regime to crumble any time soon.
So, what has President Roh received for all this appeasement? The South still has to keep paying in hard cash for any political or economic contacts to take place - it even has to bribe the North to take part in tae kwon do competitions. No reunions among families who have been divided since the armistice of 1953 have taken place in the last year; the previous rounds of reunions received a lot of positive news media coverage around the world but consisted of only brief encounters involving a small number of elderly people wanting to meet loved ones before they die. And, of course, the entire world has to put up with Pyongyang's nuclear shell game.
Many of those pushing the Sunshine Policy came of age while trying to force South Korea's postwar dictators to step down; they believe that the North can follow their model, in which economic gains paved the way for democracy. But forcing North Koreans to remain under Kim Jong Il's rule and hoping that he will make gradual reforms is unlikely to bear fruit.
North Korea undertook some economic changes in 2002, but they actually left the people worse off. A United Nations World Food Program report last month noted that the market price of rice in North Korea has nearly tripled and that of maize has quadrupled in the last year. And of course it is the government, with its monopoly on commodities, that reaps the profits from high prices.
Kim Jong Il has conned the South's big businesses as well as its government, luring them in with offers of exclusive concessions. For example, in 2000 the automaker Hyundai gave the North $500 million in exchange for a promise that it would be awarded all the major civil engineering projects Pyongyang would undertake after it received an influx of foreign aid. Hyundai has yet to realize any profit from the deal and its chairman, who faced criminal charges stemming from his dealings with the North, killed himself in 2003.
WHY does Seoul pay so dearly to prop up the criminal regime? It has claimed that if North Korea were to collapse, it would cost $1.7 trillion to rebuild it, a sum that would cripple the South's treasury. But this figure seems preposterous. Given its population of about 23 million people, the North would need an emergency influx of only about $1 billion a year to pay for food, medicines and fuel until it got back on its feet. South Korea, with its trillion-dollar gross domestic product, could easily afford this.
Nor is Seoul necessarily correct to assume that the collapse of the North would lead to an exodus of desperate people to the South. After ridding themselves of the criminal regime, wouldn't those in the North be just as likely to stay in their homes than to flee south as paupers? The huge need for capital investment in the North would probably create an economic boom, just as it has done in China over the last 25 years. With Mr. Kim gone, South Korean conglomerates and international agencies like the World Bank would be eager to invest in new power stations and factories. Unification is more likely to provide a boost to the South Korean economy than to damage it.
But beyond the economic factors, we must consider the moral ones. South Korea is seeking to keep a tyrant in power against the wishes of his own people. At 63, Kim Jong Il has spent a lifetime in a paranoid and claustrophobic dictatorship. If he were going to become a reformer, we would surely know it by now. And even if against all odds he undertook reforms, he is still personally responsible for a manmade famine that has killed 3 million people over the last decade. Would Pol Pot have been given a second chance if he had vowed to open Cambodia's markets?
Rather than coddling Kim Jong Il and paying him nuclear blackmail, we should be working to arraign him before an international criminal tribunal, just as we did with the murdering leaders of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Yes, it is highly unlikely we would ever get him before such a court, but simply making the symbolic effort might get leaders in China, Japan, South Korea and the West to envision just how attractive a post-Kim era would be for everyone.
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005
18:18 ||
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#1
The money quote:
President Roh has defended this approach by more or less throwing up his hands. He refuses to give even moral support to dissidents in the North, claiming that Kim Jong Il would ruthlessly crush any protests. For Mr. Roh, there is no chance his "partner for peace" will fall from power; in fact, he makes clear that he would not wish the regime to crumble any time soon.
There are a number of areas I have in disagreement with President Bush. But the President has made it absolutely clear that the United States supports human freedom throughout the world. President Roh has sold out his people, both north and south of Lat. 38 deg N, and sold out his principles. It is now up to the people of South Korea whether or not they will go along with his despicable actions.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/09/2005 19:23
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The answer: Yes. They're "all" Koreans, and all that "racial solidarity."
What was the saying? "Chinese are casually racist, Japanese are bluntly racist, Koreans are violently racist"?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/09/2005 21:02
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Alaska Paul, if you think the political aspect is bad, you've never seen the South Korean movie where Kim Jong-il's daughter dates a South Korean rock star ...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/09/2005 21:03
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Roh is, as his opponents long suspected, a crypto-commie.
A U.S. defense official paid a secret visit to Seoul this week and told his South Korean counterparts that Washington might withdraw its troops if the two sides continue to disagree on various bilateral issues, local media reported Thursday.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry acknowledged the visit by U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, but refused to disclose what was discussed during his meetings Monday and Tuesday.
Local newspapers reported that Lawless said Washington might have to withdraw its troops if Seoul keeps disagreeing on a range of issues, including Pentagon plans for its forces to be more flexible and potentially operate across the region. The reports in the Hankyoreh and Munhwa dailies, along with various Internet media, cited South Korean defense officials and diplomats.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the media reports as "not being in line with the trend of close cooperation between (South) Korea and the United States."
While not directly refuting the reported comments by Lawless, the ministry said in a statement that "the Korea-U.S. alliance is not so weak that it could be swayed by comments from one or two officials."
The reports come on the eve of a Friday meeting in Washington between U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun where the two leaders are aiming to patch up strains in their alliance over differences in dealing with North Korea. ADVERTISEMENT
Roh has previously expressed concern that plans for U.S. troops here to be a more flexible force might unwillingly embroil South Korea in regional conflicts.
About 32,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Washington plans to cut down the number to about 24,500 in coming years as part of a worldwide redeployment of its forces.
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005
18:15 ||
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#1
Might?? Just do it. The SKors have been assisted long enough; it's time for them to sink or swim on their own.
#2
Roh has previously expressed concern that plans for U.S. troops here to be a more flexible force might unwillingly embroil South Korea in regional conflicts.
#5
Much of this appeasement and feelings of racial solidarity with NK is generational. SK has had 50 years of of uneasy peace. Those that have memories of life on either side of the 38th parallel and the war are now over 60 years old. Like the war generation in western Europe, they are dying off. In it's place are a generation in power who have only known peace enforced by American power. They see American tanks rolling through the streets and soldiers in their bars. They don't see the life on the other side of the DMZ/iron curtain and their educational/media/cultural institutions feed their prejudices.
Bottom line. Welcome them back to reality. Americans have no obligation to continue to provide for their comfort and feelings of racial superiority. Their freedom and safety is their responsibility. Withdraw and reevaluate trade relations. Trade with out allies, ignore neutrals and boycott enemies. The Soviet Union would be alive, well, prosperous and even more threatening if our leaders had followed the crazy trading non-strategy we have today.
Posted by: ed ||
06/10/2005 0:15
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Russia has credible information that the recent disturbances in the Uzbek town of Andizhan were organized from Afghan territory, said Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov.
"Our information is quite reliable: everything that happened in Andizhan was inspired from Afghan territory," Ivanov said at a session of the Russian-NATO Council on Thursday.
"A group of armed militants from Islamic organizations, including [Taliban members], had been planning a raid on Uzbekistan for a long time. So the questions the investigation has to answer are who organized the riots, how, and who assisted them," Ivanov said.
"Ultimately, we are talking about stopping the threat of international terrorism in this strategically important region," he said.
Ivanov noted that terrorist training continues in Afghanistan. "As we know, terrorists are being purposefully trained in Afghanistan for export," Ivanov said, adding that "the recent events in Uzbekistan are a clear confirmation of this."
"In general, the situation in Afghanistan is still far from what we could call stable," Ivanov said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:43 ||
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The Bush administration has credible information that Syria has developed a "hit list" targeting senior Lebanese political figures in an attempt to regain control of its neighboring state, just six weeks after Syria said it had ended almost three decades of military occupation.
"These are threats against some of the most prominent Lebanese political leaders. The purpose would be to create instability and to create internal strife," said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity because of ongoing sensitive diplomatic efforts. After a brief lull in Syrian interference in Lebanon, senior Syrian intelligence personnel have been seen back in Lebanon, particularly over the past week, the official added.
Concerned about the possibility of ongoing Syrian presence in Lebanon, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that he may send a U.N. verification team back to Lebanon. In the meantime, U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen is being dispatched to Damascus for talks with the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Syria's return to Lebanon would be a major violation of U.N. resolution 1559, co-sponsored by the United States and France, which demanded a total Syrian withdrawal with its tiny neighbor. U.S. and U.N. officials estimated that Damascus had some 14,000 troops and 5,000 intelligence officials. Damascus claimed the last troops pulled out on April 28.
"We are now receiving reports that there may be elements that are still there and we are considering the possible return of the verification team to ascertain what's going on," Annan told reporters. The U.N. team's first mission last month was "unable to conclude with certainty" that all Syria soldiers and agents had withdrawn completely.
The Bush administration is particularly concerned of the potential impact because Lebanon is now half-way through a four-phased election for parliament, which will in turn form a new government. Syria has dominated Beirut's governments since soon after it first deployed troops in 1976 to try to quell Lebanon's civil war.
Syrian intelligence is making use of Palestinian refugee camps. "We have seen an increase in the contacts between Syrians and some of the Palestinian terrorist groups and an increasing presence in some of the camps, including an creasing flow of Syrian people and arms," the senior administration official said.
"They have figured out that one of the places they might be able to hide might be in those camps," which are not controlled by the Lebanese Army.
The U.S. allegation, based largely on information provided by "credible" Lebanese sources, follows the assassination of two leading opponents of Syria's intervention. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 19 aides and security guards were killed by a massive bombing of his motorcade on Feb. 14. And prominent journalist Samir Kassir, who wrote often about Syrian intervention in Iraq, was killed in a sophisticated car bombing on June 2.
The U.S. allegations, ironically, come on the same day that Syria's ruling Baath Party called for improving diplomatic relations with the United States.
The final communique of the party congress called for a "constructive dialogue" with Washington and "an exchange of visits on all levels," according to Syria's state-run television.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:41 ||
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Time for us to publish our hit list:
#1. Assad, Baby
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.
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2. The rest of the Baathists (in no particular order).
3. Foreign fighters caught in Lebanon (including any Syrians).
4. Hezbollah.
We could give them some sniper training. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/09/2005 16:56
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Concerned about the possibility of ongoing Syrian presence in Lebanon, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said today that he may send a U.N. verification team back to Lebanon.
And I am sure the Lebanese feel soooooo much safer now.
#4
We should publish the hit list so that the second one of them dies of dehydration in the middle of the desert (a la one late Saudi Prince) we can declare shenanigans on Syria.
Posted by: Tibor ||
06/09/2005 18:26
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Must be seen to be believed! I am like totally speechless...
"Oh shit! It's Baby Man," says one cashier, a Hispanic kid who's heard the legend but has never been a witness to the spectacle. "It's like Sasquatch!" he says. "You don't believe it exists until you see it."
Posted by: Prof. Clyde Crashcup ||
06/09/2005
16:36 ||
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... have you heard of goatse?
Sorry to say this, but you haven't been on the Internet long enough.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/09/2005 17:58
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#2
This may be the most sad, depressing story I've ever read. I need a drink and a shower.
#3
I have it on good authority that the most exclusive brothel in Hamburg Germany caters to such as him. A friend, a restraunteur-manager, was introduced to the Hamburg entertainment society elite, and was even given etiquette lessons prior to his visit to this establishment. Over there, you usually don't get in the door unless you are a multi-millionaire, and don't even ask how expensive it is. They even frisked him in a special vestibule, searching for any recording devices. All to see a bunch of old, hairy, fat guys in diapers?
#6
Jert: "Wasn't that an episode of CSI?"
No, that was L&O/SVU.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/09/2005 21:19
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CSI, Mike. "King Baby" aired Feb 17 2005.
"A powerful Las Vegas casino owner (who had more enemies than friends) is found dead in his driveway after falling, jumping or being pushed from an upper-floor balcony of his plush mansion. Catherine's team is the first to respond to the scene, but Ecklie also brings in Grissom and his crew to help with the high-profile case, which doesn't sit well with Catherine. The investigation reveals that the dead man had dirt on most every prominent person in town and a dark secret of his own."
#2
Gary Gordon... Randy Shughart... Matt Rierson... Ray Frank... Earl Fillmore... James Smith...
Posted by: Matt ||
06/09/2005 18:20
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#3
Fixing Somalia would take more troops and significantly more time than Iraq will have done. The only way for outsiders to re-establish order and civilization in Somalia would be to set up a Colonial Mandate, and spend the blood and treasure of a generation. Ain't gonna happen -- the Somali peepul are going to have to rise up against their Warlord oppressors and take control of their own destiny. Otherwise they'll continue living as their ancestors did before the Europeans took over.
"The Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front form part of terrorist organisations of political and religious conviction and of various ethnic origins, who are active in the vast Sahel and Saharan deserts," wrote the Moroccan French daily newspaper L' Opinion on Wednesday.
Commenting on the attack perpetrated last Saturday against a Mauritanian military unit in Lemghit, less than 100 km from the official borders between Mauritania and Algeria, the daily said that this aggression "is new and hard evidence of the flourishing and development of the phenomenon of terrorism in the area".
According to the daily, terrorist organisations, to which Polisario and GSPC belong, "do not find any difficulty in setting up bases for themselves; they move and act freely in these vast deserts. The displacement of the nomadic populations in these areas was never controlled, and here illicit trade, the traffic of drugs and weapons constitute a dominating source of income".
"The uncontrolled desert spaces, in which Algeria installed Polisario in Tindouf, where it still detains Moroccan civil and military prisoners, are predisposed to accommodate such groups. These groups are manipulated sometimes by ideologies or policies which opt for expansionism, or separatism or ethnic division, sometimes by the extremism and the instrumentalisation of religion," underlined the daily.
It added that "the objective of these groups, or, actually that of those who shelter them, finance their activities and maintain them is clear: to destabilise, by means of terrorism, the national security of the Sahel-Saharan countries of the area; to set up a base for international terrorism in favour of Al-Qaïda".
The daily concluded that "the attack carried out against the Mauritanian military unit, and the way in which the hostages were executed by the GSPC, revealed the extent of the suffering that Polisario has been inflicting on Moroccan prisoners that still detained in the Tindouf camps, southwest Algeria".
For the Moroccan Arabic daily newspaper "Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, Polisario agents are involved in operations of sale of weapons to terrorists in the south of Algeria. It stressed that terrorist groups have transformed the area into a refuge, benefiting from the rough ground and ease in smuggling weapons because of the strong presence of trafficking networks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:26 ||
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At least 30 people have died since inter-clan fighting broke out on Monday in the town of Beletweyne, south-central Somalia.
More than 70 people have been wounded and hundreds more displaced in the violence, now in its fourth day, local sources told IRIN on Thursday.
The fighting broke out when militias from the Galje'el and Jajele sub-clans clashed on the west side of the town. It was reportedly triggered by a land dispute and revenge killings for the deaths of two Jajele men last week and one Galje'el man on Sunday.
The violence subsided on Tuesday afternoon after elders from a neutral clan intervened, but "resumed with greater intensity on Wednesday", Abdullahi Muhammad, a local journalist told IRIN. "It was the most intense yesterday [Wednesday]."
He added: "Beletweyne has seen fighting before, but never on this scale. It is as though they used the lull on Tuesday to reinforce their positions."
Wednesday's clashes occurred after mediation efforts by a committee set up by a neutral clan failed, Abdullahi said.
The two sides first agreed to a ceasefire on Wednesday, "but later reneged", Shuriye Hussein Hayow, an elder and a member of the committee, said.
When fighting subsided on Tuesday, the mediating committee managed to "bury the dead and take the wounded to hospital", Hayow said.
He said more people are probably affected but remained unaccounted for, as they did not make it to hospital.
The committee also brought to safety families who were stranded in their homes.
"We found people who were trapped in their own homes. They were running out of food and water." Abdullahi said.
He said the majority of those who were killed or injured were civilians, "mostly women and children" caught in the crossfire.
In an effort to reach a ceasefire, the mediation committee invited 10 elders from each side of the conflict to a meeting.
"We are offering to put neutral forces between the fighting parties to ensure that any ceasefire agreement holds," Hayow said. "I am hopeful that this time we will succeed."
Meanwhile, families continue to flee the fighting zone to the relative safety of the eastern side of Beletweyne and surrounding villages.
"The western side of town is like a ghost town. I don't think there will be anyone left if this continues for another day," Abdullahi said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:21 ||
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Muslim cleric Abu Jibril says a bomb blast outside his house on Jakarta's southern outskirts might have been masterminded by the US in an effort intimidate him into stopping his campaign for an Islamic state. The bomb exploded at about 4.30am Wednesday (8/6/05) outside the rented house occupied by Jibril, his pregnant wife and seven of their 11 children at the Witana Harja residential complex in Pamulang, Banten province.
The blast left only a 6-centimeter deep hole in the front yard of the house and caused no injuries, but it could be heard over a radius of several hundred meters, causing many locals to panic. Police found a timer, battery, wires, plastic and low-grade explosives at the scene.
Jibril was at the nearby Al-Munawwarah Mosque, performing pre-dawn prayers, at the time of the blast. He was taken to South Jakarta Police headquarters at 11.45am, questioned as a witness from 2pm to 6pm, and then released. Upon arrival at police headquarters, he told reporters the bombing was certainly "engineered", but he initially declined to speculate on the identity of those behind the attack. "This was engineered because I was praying at the mosque when the bomb exploded at my house," he was quoted as saying by detikcom online news portal.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
ABU BAKAR BAASYIR
Indonesian Mujahidin Council
ABU BAKAR BAASYIR
Jemaah Islamiyah
ABU JIBRIL
Jemaah Islamiyah
ABU JIBRIL
Kumpulan Militan Malaysia
AFIF ABDUL MADJID
Indonesian Mujahidin Council
Amnesty International
AZAHARI HUSIN
Jemaah Islamiyah
community-level leader Trisno Dahlan
FAUZAN ANSORI
Indonesian Mujahidin Council
FIHIRUDIN MOQTIE BIN ABDUL RAHMAN
Kumpulan Militan Malaysia
HAMBALI
Jemaah Islamiyah
his lawyer Achmad Michdan
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator Permadi
IRFAN S. AWWAS
Indonesian Mujahidin Council
Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso
Jibril's former lawyer Munarman
Legislator Akil Mochtar
MUHAMAD IQBAL ABDUL RAHMAN
Jemaah Islamiyah
MUHAMAD IQBAL BIN ARRAHMAN
Jemaah Islamiyah
National Police General Dai Bachtiar
National Police spokesman Aryanto Budiharjo
NURDIN MOHAMAD TOP
Jemaah Islamiyah
One of the cleric's lawyers, Akhmad Cholid
Police chief Inspector General Firman Gani
police spokesman Tjiptono
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
RIDUAN ISAMUDIN
Jemaah Islamiyah
Schapelle Corby
TPM coordinator Mahendradatta
Indonesian Mujahidin Council
Kumpulan Militan Malaysia
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:18 ||
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#1
IFF the US had done it he would be dead.
He is alive
ThereFORE::
somebody else like some publicity hound dirt bag must have done it to himself..
Muslim guerrillas said on Thursday they were helping government troops capture two Indonesians blamed for the deadly 2002 Bali bombings and confirmed that the terror suspects were hiding near their southern strongholds with eight other militants.
The two suspected bombers - Pitono, also known as Dulmatin, and Umar Patek - have been sighted in a mountainous region bordering the southern provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, often with al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf extremists, Moro Islamic Liberation Front spokesman Eid Kabalu said.
Kabalu spoke a day after deputy national security adviser Virtus Gil announced that the pair from the Jamaah Islamiyah terror network, which originated from Indonesia, were plotting fresh attacks and undergoing terror training in the southern Philippines.
Gil said the suspects have met with Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khaddafy Janjalani, and one of them, Dulmatin, was last seen near Maguindanao a few days ago.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:12 ||
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A Saudi citizen pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges of attempting to carry out a suicide attack in December 2004 on oil tankers at the Karameh border post. Fahd Noman al-Fahiqi, 24, maintained his innocence before Jordan's State Security Court on three counts of conspiracy to carry out an attack and possession and transport of explosives for use in an illicit operation, according to statements from the prosecution.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordnian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq, and Dirar Ismael Mahmud Abu Audeh, also known as Abu Abdel Rahman al-Afghani, are being tried in absentia on the same charges. Fahiqi allegedly crossed the Iraqi border in a car laden with explosives and headed toward several oil tankers but was unable to accomplish his mission due to "technical problems." Authorities arrested Fahiqi shortly afterward when they discovered explosives in his car, read the charge report.
Fahiqi studied at Imam University in Saudi Arabia where he became acquainted with several people who had embraced takfiri thoughts, a policy of killing anybody considered an infidel. The prosecution claims Fahiqi and others infiltrated Iraq from the Saudi border where they met up with Zarqawi in August 2004. Zarqawi encouraged them to join mujahedin groups. The defendant became a suicide bomber after receiving weapons training in Iraq and instruction on the benefits of martyrdom, read the report.
The targeted oil tankers and trucks transported goods from the Karameh border into Iraq. The prosecution maintains Zarqawi instructed the men to launch suicide attacks using cars laden with explosives. Presiding Judge Fawaz Bqour adjourned the trial until next Monday to hear the case for the prosecution.
This article starring:
ABU ABDEL RAHMAN AL AFGHANI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
DIRAR ISMAEL MAHMUD ABU AUDEH
al-Qaeda in Iraq
FAHD NOMAN AL FAHIQI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Judge Fawaz Bqour
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:07 ||
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Indonesian police say there has been an increase in communication among militants wanted for a string of deadly attacks, including the Bali bombings, indicating that they are planning fresh strikes.
"We can say to the public that there has been an increase in the intensity of their communication. Intelligence agencies are working hard to monitor them," national police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said.
General Bachtiar says the militants are believed to be in Indonesia but had contact with others overseas.
"It's hard to arrest them because the country is so large and there are always people who help them in hiding," the police chief said.
He says heightened security at embassies and other places will be maintained until the threat subsided.
In another development, police say they hope to find the names of people involved in attacks in Indonesia on a laptop computer seized from a Islamic cleric whose house was attacked by a bomb on Wednesday.
General Bachtiar's spokesman Zainuri Lubis says police are questioning the cleric Muhammad Iqbal - who is accused by the United States of being second in command of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant group.
Iqbal was jailed last year for six months over immigration offences after being deported from Malaysia where he had been held for two years under the country's harsh Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial.
Malaysian authorities accused him of having links to Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia, a militant group which like the Al Qaeda-linked JI seeks to set up an Islamic state.
The United States and Australia warned last week that militants are planning bomb attacks against hotels in Indonesia frequented by foreigners, urging their citizens to defer all non-essential travel to the country.
The warnings said Indonesian police have identified embassies, international schools, office buildings and shopping malls as other potential targets.
Two Malaysian fugitives, Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top, wanted in connection with all three incidents are believed to be still at large in Indonesian and plotting further attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
16:04 ||
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A German federal court confirmed a "not guilty" verdict on a Moroccan man accused of links to the Sept. 11 attacks, but authorities still want to expel him from Germany. In February 2004, a Hamburg court cleared Abdelghani Mzoudi of being involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The appeals court turned down an appeal by the prosecution on Thursday, saying that there was no sufficient evidence to justify a retrial. Despite the court's decision, a Hamburg interior ministry spokesman said the government would expel Mzoudi on the grounds of "support for a terrorist group." He said that Mzoudi had two weeks to leave Germany voluntarily or be deported to Morocco. Asked how Mzoudi could be deported despite being innocent, the spokesman said: "These are two different things. A criminal offence has to be proven before a court, but under the law on foreigners, suspicion is enough" as basis for deportation.
Testimony at Mzoudi's trial showed that he was a friend of lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell that led the Sept. 11 attacks. Mzoudi has always denied any knowledge of the plot. He was acquitted last year of complicity in the attacks and of belonging to a terrorist group. The presiding judge at the time described him as a "fringe figure" and said he was being freed because of insufficient evidence against him, not because the court was convinced of his innocence.
The trial led to tensions between Germany and the United States because of Washington's refusal to allow al Qaeda detainees to testify. The chief federal prosecutor described the U.S. behavior as "incomprehensible." However, a top U.S. official told reporters in Berlin just before Thursday's decision that Mzoudi's acquittal would not harm relations with Germany. "It is not going to poison our relations," said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
This article starring:
ABDELGHANI MZUDI
al-Qaeda
Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs
Mzoudi's lawyer, Hartmut Jacobi
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:56 ||
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#1
"It is not going to poison our relations," because they couldn't get any worse,
Hundreds of soldiers have deserted the Afghan National Army complaining of poor conditions and fierce resistance from the Taleban, US officials say.
It is a blow to the Afghan government which wants to increase the size of the force so the numbers of international troops in the country can be reduced.
The corps affected is the first to be deployed in the field.
Officials say another reason for men going absent is the difficulty they experience in dealing with their pay.
The 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army is based around the city of Kandahar.
The south of Afghanistan has seen some of the fiercest fighting against remnants of the Taleban and their al-Qaeda allies.
Members of the corps are in combat most days.
A US military spokesman told the BBC that around 300 men have deserted.
That is one in 12 of the entire force.
Soldiers are paid around $75 a month - a good wage in Afghanistan - but the absence of a banking system prevents them from sending money to their families.
The news comes as American troops take more casualties.
On Wednesday two US soldiers were killed and eight others wounded in a rocket attack near the border with Pakistan.
The Afghan government's long term plan is for the numbers of international troops in the country to be reduced and for Afghanistan's own army to shoulder more of the burden of the fighting.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:52 ||
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#1
With an integrated Afghan Army and therefore the shame before one's clan removed, the social penalty for taking a powder is much lower. Same o', same o' with the Soviet version of the 'modern' Afghan Army. As much as our advisors would like to push an all Afghan Army concept they are ignoring behavior patterns of a society not ready for the impersonal industrial age. Like our militia units of the ACW [and as carried to a certain extent of our own NG units], the individual identity of the soldier with his village/clan/peers is still more important than the 'national'.
#2
Nevertheless that must change over time if the country is to succeed. And the armed forces are the best place to start it, as the shared discipline, effort and achievement build both pride and common bonds across tribal boundaries.
Not easy but absolutely necessary. The pay issue is equally pressing, I suspect.
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005 21:08
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Al Qaeda's group in Iraq said on Thursday it was holding 36 Iraqi troops hostage and demanded the government free all women prisoners within 24 hours, according to a Web statement.
"We in the Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq give ... (Prime Minister) Ibrahim al-Jaafari 24 hours to free all Muslim women prisoners held in Interior Ministry jails," said the statement posted on an Islamist Website.
The statement said the group was holding 36 National Guards after raids in Western Iraq, and not 22 as reported by Iraqi police on Wednesday.
The Sunni Muslim group, which has often abducted and killed officials and soldiers, said the 36 were being questioned about their "crimes against Sunnis".
The statement was signed off with a name which usually accompanies the group's statements, but could not be immediately authenticated.
Iraqi police said 22 soldiers were kidnapped by gunmen after they left their base in western Iraq on Tuesday.
Violence and kidnappings have raised concerns that growing sectarian tensions between Shi'ites and Sunnis could push Iraq towards civil war.
Insurgents have stepped up attacks since a new Iraqi government was formed in late April, killing more than 800 police, soldiers, officials and civilians.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:51 ||
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#1
Last I heard, there were two - Dr. Germ and ... um ... But the bad guys would get amnesty int to find some more somehere in the gulag. They'd NEVER believe we let 'em ALL out! So they'll pop the hostages, anyway.
Reason 256 not to negotiate with terrorists.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/09/2005 16:12
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I find it strange that the release all women prisoners comes as a regular 'demand'. If there is only 2 of them (and I doubt there is many more) why are they so anxious to get them out?
#3
Those idiots are the most hard headed sons of bitches I have ever heard of. In all the kidnappings the govt. has never negotiated and never will. You'd think they would change their tactics, do something that works.
#5
Thraing Hupoluper1864 is right, don't these guys fight back. Or do they allow themselves be taken hostage, then realize to late that they are really going to be killed. If that's the case, I don't care.
Tension gripped Pattani province yesterday after militants went on a trouble-making spree to create a chaotic day for officials.
They launched two bomb attacks, left six fake bombs at different locations, set fire to roadside shelters and signboards and spray-painted separatist messages in several districts.
The first bomb, contained in a paper box left under a bamboo bench, went off at 10am in front of the house of a Thai Buddhist in tambon Yamu of Yaring district. The blast damaged the roof and spewed shrapnel that wounded a Yaring police officer and three firefighters.
The wounded were identified as Pol Lt-Col Kowit Samarnchok, Rapeephan Chaisuwan, 31, Amnart Nipholwit, 42, and Kasem Sitthichai, 30.
``Police frequently sit on the bamboo bench in front of our house. The bomb attack was aimed at police,'' said Buakham Chaiprom, 30, a daughter of the house owner.
Another bomb went off at 2pm near a police booth in Muang district of Pattani. Nobody was injured in the attack.
Police also found six fake bombs at several spots in Yaring district including in front of a post office, a temple, a bank and schools.
Separatist messages were also spray-painted in white and red on roads, bridges and signboards in Yaring, Khok Pho and Sai Buri districts in the early hours of yesterday. One message read ``Get out! This is my land''. Another read ``Pattani Merdeka (Independent Pattani State)''.
Pol Col Suthon Ditsayabut, Yaring police chief, said roadside shelters in the district had been torched. Several Thai national flags and signboards were also found burnt.
He believed some students of the Jihad Witthaya private Islamic school might have carried out the arson attacks to take revenge after their school was closed down.
On May 19, a task force raided the school and found several VCDs showing al-Qaeda terrorist-style weapons training and documents inciting people to fight for an independent state.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:49 ||
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Interesting perspective on Egyptian terrorism from the director of the al-Ahram Center for Political Studies.
Relations between Egypt's two main militant Islamist organisations, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and Jihad, have been clear since at least 1984. Never better than lukewarm, they became bellicose following Al-Gamaa's suspension of all violent activity in 1997. In contrast, Al-Gamaa's relations with Al-Qaeda remain speculative. Understanding relations between the two necessitates an examination of the nature of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and its intellectual and organisational orientation.
Established in the late 1970s, Al-Gamaa evolved as a local jihadist organisation operating solely within Egypt. The violent attacks between 1981-1997 focussed solely on the Egyptian regime, and the organisation refrained from targeting regimes, organisations or individuals outside Egypt. Al-Gamaa's literature never indicated it had any regional, let alone international, aspirations.
Oman's Sultan Qaboos yesterday pardones all 31 Islamists jailed for plotting to overthrow the Gulf Arab state's government, the state news agency ONA said yesterday. An Oman court last month sentenced six men to 20 years while 24 were jailed for periods of seven to ten years. One received a one-year sentence. ONA said Sultan Qaboos issued a decree granting them a pardon but gave no more details.
The group includes preachers, Islamic scholars, university professors and government figures. The government had accused the men of trying to set up Islamic clerical rule in Oman. There was no suggestion they had links to radical Sunni group al Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden.
Witnesses at the trial said the group denied planning to overthrow the government and insisted that their aim was to strengthen the Ibadi Muslim sect to which Oman's ruler Sultan Qaboos and the majority of Omanis belong.
The imamate, a centuries-old Ibadi tradition of politico-religious leadership by an imam, was abolished in Oman in 1959. The men were arrested in December as part of an unprecedented crackdown on Islamists in Oman. They were accused of targeting a major shopping festival in Muscat.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:25 ||
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#1
In other words, he said " Ah, what the heck. We're all muslims".
#2
Its a strange story. As I recall their main concern was increasing wahabi influence over the Ibadi sect and the coup was to install the Sultan as absolute ruler like his father.
#3
Keep in mind that 31 is the sum of 19 and 12, both fine numbers in their own right and deserving of respect. It is best to keep in mind that 12 thou not Prime is USDA Good and Plenty.
Pakistani police have arrested two sisters from an Islamic militant group with links to al-Qaeda, who were allegedly plotting suicide attacks against minority Shiite Muslims, officials said on Thursday.
They would have been the first female suicide bombers to strike the key US ally and were the subject of an intensive year-long hunt by security forces in Pakistan, which has suffered a recent wave of suicide bombings.
The pair, identified by police as Arifa and Habiba and said to be aged between 18 and 20, were seized from a hideout in the scenic northern tourist town of Swat early this week, a senior security official told AFP.
Investigators said they were trained by their uncle, a top member of the Sunni Muslim Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, who was sentenced to death last week for killing 45 people in two suicide attacks on Shiite mosques in Karachi in 2004.
"Security agencies had been desperately looking for the two sisters and located them hiding in a house in Swat following a tip-off," a security official told AFP.
"It would have been the first attack of its kind and a very difficult one to prevent," added a senior police official involved in the interrogation of the uncle.
Police first revealed the existence of the two women in July 2004, when security forces were placed on high alert and told to look out for the pair.
The women's uncle, Gul Hasan, had admitted training his nieces for a suicide attack on a gathering of Shiite men and women, the police investigator told AFP.
Swat, where the women were arrested, is about 50km from the industrial city of Mardan, where alleged senior al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi was arrested in early May.
This article starring:
ABU FARAJ AL LIBI
al-Qaeda
GUL HASAN
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:24 ||
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#1
"It would have been the first attack of its kind and a very difficult one to prevent," added a senior police official ...
I guess that's the advantage of the burkha?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/09/2005 16:13
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#2
Fatwa 8,495,621,357.../2005/6/9
Let the wimins go neykid
Graduated last in class @ Deobandi school of fiqh.
A fifth member of the Pakistani community in Lodi, California, was arrested in a federal terror investigation, although none of the five has been charged with terrorism involvement.
Mohammed Hassan Adil, 19, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on an immigration violation on Wednesday, according to ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice. Adil is the son of Lodi Muslim leader Muhammed Adil Khan, who was detained Sunday along with Lodi Mosque Imam Shabbir Ahmed, both of whom were held on similar immigration charges, according to Kice. All three men are Pakistani natives.
Authorities earlier this week arrested a father and son, identified as 47-year-old Umer Hayat and 22-year-old Hamid Hayat from Lodi, on charges they lied to FBI investigators. The son is to be arraigned Friday. They have not been charged with terrorist involvement, although a criminal complaint alleges the son attended an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
FBI special agent-in-charge Keith Slotter
FBI Special Agent John Cauthen
HAMID HAIAT
Lodi mosque
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
MAULANA FAZLUR REHMAN KHALIL
Jamiat-ul-Ansar
MOHAMED HASAN ADIL
Lodi mosque
MUHAMED ADIL KHAN
Lodi mosque
Sacramento attorney Johnny Griffin III
SHABIR AHMED
Lodi mosque
Terror expert Peter Bergen
UMER HAIAT
Lodi mosque
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:20 ||
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Terror expert Peter Bergen cast doubt on that detail.
Who are we to argue with an expert?
If Fazlur Rehman Khalil ran it, that is must have been a Harkat ul Mujahideen/Jamaat ul Ansar training camp. Its close proximity to Army headquaters probably makes for an easy commute for the Pak commandos who run the training camps.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
06/09/2005 20:52
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The presence of Islamic radicals in some parts of Latin America is well known. With its vast wildernesses and weak governments, Latin America has been used for safe houses, transit routes for personnel, and even training bases. The focus of these activities has been on moving and training Islamic terrorists. Recently, however, a potentially disturbing trend has begun to develop, as intelligence suggests that the Islamic radicals are establishing ties with domestic radical and criminal groups in several countries.
Haiti - members of an Islamic group known to have ties with al Qaeda have apparently been providing training in weapons and explosives use to one of the pro-Aristide gangs, while also attempting to convert gang members to Islam.
Dominican Republic - two local radical groups seem to have been in contact with Islamic radicals, seeking financial and technical assistance.
Nicaragua — Al Qaeda, which is believed to have moved important operatives through the country from time to time, may be trying to reach out to dissatisfied fringe elements with the intention of helping them undertake terrorist attacks against the government.
Three Frontiers Region-- Hizbollah, and perhaps other Islamic groups, have been able to operate rather freely in the porous borderlands where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay come together, taking advantage of rampant corruption, to establish training camps, safe houses, and logistical bases.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:19 ||
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Al-Qaeda has redirected its terrorist activities to new regions, above all, Southeast Asia, Northeast Africa, Latin America and Central Asia, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a session of the Russia-NATO Council. Tensions in regional conflict zones may lead to further escalation of terrorism, he said.
"One of the hardest international problems, is undoubtedly, connected with the tensions in regional conflict zones which pose the threat of Islamic radicalism and terrorism escalation," Ivanov said.
According to him, Russia gives a positive assessment of the implementation of the anti-terrorism plan of actions of the Russia-NATO Council. Recent developments have confirmed that joint efforts of all the Council's structures are needed for proactive fight against terrorism, he added.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:15 ||
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A lengthy investigation has uncovered a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Lodi, in the midst of California's agricultural heartland, federal authorities said yesterday.
Umer Hayat
Umer Hayat, 47, an ice cream truck driver, and his son Hamid Hayat, 22, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to the FBI. The two men, both believed to be U.S. citizens, are accused of attempting to deceive agents about Hamid Hayat's six-month stint at an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004.
Authorities said the investigation has been under way for several years but declined to comment further about the breadth and scope of the alleged operation.
"We believe . . . various individuals connected to al-Qaeda have been operating in the Lodi area in various capacities, including individuals who have received terrorist training abroad, with the specific intent to initiate a terrorist attack in the United States," FBI Agent Keith Slotter said at a hastily arranged news conference yesterday.
Slotter and U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said agents had not interrupted preparations for an imminent assault on a domestic target.
"I want to make it clear . . . we did not find these guys in the middle of executing a plan of attack," Scott said.
Authorities said two other men were detained Monday. Mohammed Adil Khan, 47, and Shabbir Ahmed, 37, were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for violating terms of their visas. Both are citizens of Pakistan who were living in Lodi. Ahmed has functioned as the imam of the Lodi Muslim Mosque, and Khan is affiliated with the Farooqia Islamic Center, another mosque near the city, the FBI said.
Wazhma Mojaddidi, an El Dorado Hills attorney representing Hamid Hayat, said she could not comment on the allegations against her client. Hamid Hayat is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow. Attorneys for the three other men could not be reached for comment.
Hamid Hayat said he received training in explosives, other weapons and hand-to-hand combat at the al-Qaeda camp, according to court documents.
"Hamid stated that during his training, photos of various high-ranking U.S. political figures, including President Bush, would be pasted onto their targets," FBI Agent Pedro Aguilar said in an affidavit filed in federal court.
U.S. Attorney Scott said Hamid Hayat "confirmed the camp was run by al-Qaeda operatives and that they were being trained on how to kill Americans.
"He further stated he had specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," Scott said.
Although the U.S. attorney and FBI agent in charge were circumspect about details, the affidavit offered some clues and raised more questions.
Hamid Hayat apparently had been in Pakistan for more than two years when he attempted to return on a flight to San Francisco late last month, according to Aguilar's account.
Hamid Hayat was on a "no fly" list, which meant he was barred from flying into the United States, for reasons federal authorities declined to discuss yesterday. While the plane was airborne, agents at the FBI's headquarters alerted the Sacramento office and the flight was diverted to Japan.
An FBI agent interviewed Hayat and allowed him to continue to San Francisco, according to the affidavit. Hayat was interviewed by the FBI last Friday and at first denied any link to terror camps. But the next day he was given a polygraph test and admitted he attended the camp in 2003 and 2004, according to the affidavit.
After insisting his son had no knowledge of the terrorist camps, Umer Hayat also changed his story after he was shown a videotape of his son's confession, according to the affidavit.
He then "admitted he paid for Hamid's flight and had provided him with an allowance of $100 per month, knowing his intention was to attend a jihadi training camp," FBI agent Aguilar alleged.
Umer Hayat also said he had toured several al-Qaeda training camps and that his father-in-law was a "close personal friend" of one of the camp operators, according to Aguilar.
Umer Hayat was denied bail at his arraignment Tuesday. His attorney, Johnny Griffin III, declined to return a telephone call seeking comment.
Slotter, the FBI agent in charge, said that although the suspects are believed to be "committed to acts of jihad against the U.S.," agents haven't recovered information outlining "exact plans, timing or specific targets of opportunity."
He dismissed reports that hospitals and food stores were targeted.
"This investigation is ongoing and evolving literally by the moment," Scott said. "We fully anticipate there will be further developments in the hours and days ahead."
Scott refused to say whether authorities believe the suspected Lodi cell has established connections elsewhere in the state or nation.
In Washington, President Bush said he had been briefed on the matter.
"I was very impressed by the use of intelligence and the follow-up," Bush said. "And that's what the American people need to know, that when we find any hint about any possible wrongdoing or a possible cell, that we'll follow up â by the way, honoring the civil liberties of those to whom we follow up."
The Hayats live in a working-class neighborhood of Lodi, a city ringed by thousands of acres of vineyards and farmland in the Sacramento delta. Their street, like their neighborhood, is made up largely of single-family houses and small apartment buildings.
Connie Fink, who lives in an apartment across from the house where the Hayats have lived for at least five years, said she never dreamed anyone in the area would be accused of terrorism. "I guess you never really know who your neighbors are," she said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/09/2005
15:13 ||
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A federal grand jury has indicted a former high-ranking federal immigration official in San Diego for allegedly covering up a drug and immigrant smuggling ring in exchange for money and gifts.
Daphiney Kimberly Caganap, 43, the former head of intelligence operations for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego, has been placed on administrative leave from her current post as port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Detroit Metro Airport.
She is expected to surrender to authorities next week, Assistant U.S. Atty. Edward C. Weiner said.
The indictment, filed on Tuesday, grew out of an investigation targeting an INS inspector who was part of a ring smuggling marijuana and illegal immigrants through the San Ysidro Port of Entry in 2000 and 2001.
The inspector, whose name was not released, has been criminally charged and is a cooperating witness in the case.
During the investigation, Caganap was an assistant port director in the San Diego District of the INS, where she oversaw anti-smuggling operations and supervised the intelligence unit.
Caganap, who was briefed by federal agents on the investigation of the inspector, passed along sensitive information to the suspect, the 11-page indictment said. She also lied to federal agents about the inspector's illegal activities, it said.
In return, Caganap received a hot tub spa worth about $10,000, free repairs on her Mercedes-Benz and $20,000 to $30,000 in cash, the indictment said.
The investigation was headed by the Border Corruption Task Force, which includes the FBI, the office of the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
If convicted on the nine felony counts, Caganap faces a potential 36-year prison term, Weiner said.
"Officials in high places will not be permitted to cover up criminal activities of other employees," said Daniel R. Dzwilewski, the FBI special agent in charge in San Diego. "When false statements are made to investigators, even years after the events, such dishonesty will be exposed and punished."
Caganap's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005
14:51 ||
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Jordan`s state security court Thursday served an ultimatum to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and an accomplice to surrender or face trial in absentia on terror charges.
Yeah, that'll work.Thanks
The court said it gave Zarqawi, a Jordanian whose real name is Ahmed Fadil al-Khalayila, and Mohammed Rateb Koutayshat, also a Jordanian national, 10 days to turn themselves in to Jordanian authorities or be considered outlaws.
The two suspects are accused of conspiring to carry out terrorist acts causing deaths and of possessing arms and explosives for illegal purposes. Zarqawi, the leader of the al-Qaida branch in Iraq, been blamed for most bombings, kidnappings and assassination attempts in that country. He already is being tried in absentia in Jordan on several charges, including planning to destroy the Jordanian intelligence headquarters in Amman with chemical weapons and seeking to bomb border posts on the Iraqi-Jordanian frontier. Zarqawi has been sentenced to death twice in Jordan, and there is a $25 million bounty on his head.
I suppose the ultimatum makes more sense in the original Jordanian: "Give yourself up or we'll sentence you to death a third time!" Or not.
This article starring:
ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI
al-Qaeda in Iraq
AHMED FADIL AL KHALAIILA
al-Qaeda in Iraq
MOHAMED RATEB KUTAISHAT
al-Qaeda in Iraq
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
13:57 ||
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#1
Dang...I feel better. I wonder where Z-man will turn himself in at?
Italian aid worker Clementina Cantoni has been freed nearly a month after being taken hostage in Afghanistan, the Afghan interior ministry has said. "She has just been released," said a ministry spokesman. "She is fine." Ms Cantoni, who works for aid agency Care International, was abducted on 16 May by gunmen who forced her out of her car in central Kabul. She has been in Afghanistan since September 2003, supporting more than 10,000 widows and their children. Hours before her release was announced, hundreds of schoolgirls in the Afghan capital, Kabul, handed out nearly 3,000 stickers calling for Ms Cantoni to be freed.
A pleasent surprise. Wonder how much the ransom was?
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
13:49 ||
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#1
I hear the Italians really faked the jihadi thugs out on this one. Since these guys aren't allowed to read papers or watch TV they didn't know that the Italians in 2002 switched to the Euro and were instead paid off in Lira, billions of them!
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2005 14:37
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SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Six separatist guerrillas and a soldier were killed on Thursday in a fierce gun battle in troubled Indian Kashmir, police said. It was the highest toll in a single encounter in recent weeks in the disputed region, where rebel violence has declined since India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-capable south Asian rivals, launched a peace process 18 months ago. "It is not yet clear whether militants had infiltrated from the Pakistani side or were hiding there," a police official said. The gun battle erupted in the Kern sector of northern Kashmir near the Line of Control or ceasefire line dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
India's army chief, General J.J. Singh, said on Thursday that Muslim rebels were making repeated attempts to infiltrate into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistan side. "Every week there are one or two infiltration attempts. Some get killed but some cross. We are continuously foiling their attempts," he told reporters.
Moderate separatist leaders from Indian Kashmir are on a visit to Pakistan, where they met President Pervez Musharraf and vowed their support for his efforts to resolve the dispute that lies at the heart of rivalry between the two South Asian neighbors. A Muslim separatist revolt in the Himalayan state against New Delhi's rule has killed over 45,000 people since 1989. India blames Pakistan for backing the guerrillas, a charge Islamabad denies. The two countries have fought two wars over the region since they won freedom from British rule in 1947.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
13:44 ||
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... The subject of ditching the euro, once a taboo, is to become the focus of a big political campaign after the Northern League, a right-wing member of the government coalition, declared that it would fight next year's election on a platform of bringing back the lira.
That will make Italy the first eurozone country where a promise to ditch the single currency has become the subject of an election, and it is a campaign that just might resonate.
Even before the euro was launched three years ago Italy was seen as its soft underbelly, and things have only got worse. Italy has plunged into recession. Two days ago Brussels threatened the country with huge fines for breaking the euro's borrowing rules. Italians blame the single currency for rising prices, and polls show that more than a quarter would like to ditch it.
Alasdair Murray, of the Centre for European Reform, said: "There are in most countries some anti-euro forces, but Italy is the first country where a party in government is making a song and dance about it. It is perfectly feasible there will be a country where a government comes to power promising to pull out of the euro."
Roberto Castelli, the Northern League Justice Minister, announced that his party would present concrete proposals next week for ditching the euro. "Does sterling have no economic foundation because it is outside the euro? Is Denmark living in absolute poverty because it is outside the euro? Are Swedes poor because they are outside the euro?" he asked.
The Northern League hopes to tap into a broad base of frustration with the euro, now popularly blamed for soaring inflation and Italy's economic problems. Polls show that two thirds of Italians still have problems with the euro, and one poll showed that 27 per cent wanted to return to the lira.
The emergence of Europe's first mainstream anti-euro campaign marks the culmination of the currency's worst week. After the French and Dutch rejections of the European constitution cast doubt on the entire European project, the euro's value dropped to an eight-month low. The financial markets speculated over its future, with long-term interest rates on government debt starting to diverge in different eurozone countries. One British stockbroker predicted that it would collapse within a few years...
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/09/2005 15:00
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#2
I think this is a long term foot shooting incident. Italy will in time benefit from what little fiscal discipline is required by the EU regime. Otherwise it's back to biannual devaluations.
#3
There is a nationwide evolution going on here. For years the North has been the cash cow for central and southern Italy, and they resent it terribly. But they were at least guaranteed a modicum of respect by being the national breadwinner. However, with the coming of the Euro, the Rome government has ignored the North completely except to parasite off of it. A return to the Lira would keep Rome focused on at least mollifying them.
BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 9 (UPI) -- Egypt's opposition Kifaya group has threatened to take prominent members of the ruling party to the international criminal court, it was reported Thursday. Lebanon's al-Mustaqbal daily quoted Kifaya (Enough) spokesman and journalist Abdul Halim Qandeel as saying he would seek an international trial of prominent members of the Egyptian National Democratic Party if the local judicial authorities did not take serious measures against them for assaulting demonstrators last month.
Yeah, that'll scare em.
Qandeel told the paper he testified Wednesday to the general prosecution on how he and dozens of other protesters were physically assaulted during last month's referendum to amend the constitution.
He said he presented "damning evidence" against three prominent members of the ruling party and plain-cloths security officers for "mobilizing hundreds of outlaws and policemen to beat up the demonstrators and tear off the clothes of the women protesters."
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
12:30 ||
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#1
He's been watching too many American police shows. He's managed to confuse himself into thinking those rights hold true in Egypt, too --
it's amazing to me how certain ideas nestle so nicely into brains all around the world.
#4
Shipman - I know there is one somewhere -- I was able to download a few of them such as 'We are all Bozo's on this bus'.... I just don't have the location anymore...
THE Zimbabwean government has found a way around the arms embargo imposed by its former suppliers in Europe and America and has entered into massive secret deals with neighbours South Africa and Malawi.
Highly placed sources said the government - scrounging around for almost US$420 million needed to import grain - has splashed millions of rands on military hardware, mainly to replace its obsolete equipment.
At least R1 million was forked out to buy military equipment from Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor). The government is also reported to be purchasing tear gas canisters from Malawi.
Reports from South Africa suggest the government purchased helicopter spares in a deal which had the blessing of that country's National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which gives permission before military hardware can be sold to any country. Armscor is a quasi-state institution established by an Act of Parliament. The spare parts, military experts say, will be used to repair the Airforce of Zimbabwe's Alloutte helicopters, which have been grounded due to a shortage of spare parts. Armscor spokesperson, Bertus Cilliers confirmed to The Financial Gazette that the Zimbabwean government had taken delivery of military spares to repair its ageing Alloutte helicopters, originally manufactured in France in the mid-1960s.
Cilliers brushed aside concerns that Harare was under an arms embargo, saying South Africa was not "part of the EU" adding that the door will always be open for more arms trade with the Zimbabwean government. "The EU has imposed sanctions, but South Africa is not part of the EU, we are not bound by any sanctions from the EU. As long as the South African government approves an export of arms to Zimbabwe, we will continue to do business. The only time we will stop is when there are United Nations (UN)-imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe," Cilliers said in a telephone interview from South Africa. Cilliers said the Airforce of Zimbabwe has previously taken delivery of unspecified quantities of spare parts from Armscor.
Government spokesperson George Charamba declined to comment on the reported arms purchases, citing national security considerations.
"These are issues of national security and I will not comment. This government has every right to take measures it deems necessary to protect its citizens from any form of aggression," Charamba said.
"We know you are trying to perpetuate issues which are being pushed by foreign powers. The British have every reason to be worried and to want to know what is happening regarding our arms imports," Charamba charged.
Government has reportedly set its sights on acquiring Russian-made Mig-29s as well as Chengdu PAC FC1 combat aircraft jointly manufactured by Chengdu Aircraft of China and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex. The government bought six Hongdu Karakorum-8 state-of-the-art jet trainer aircraft from China for US$120 million. ". . . We bought some Hawks from Britain and we now need spare parts for them but Britain has said no. That's why we have now grounded all our Hawks and Britain is losing because we have resorted to the "Look East Policy" and we now have similar planes from China", President Robert Mugabe is quoted as having said in the current issue of the New African Magazine.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
12:17 ||
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#1
If mugabe makes it another six months I'll be amazed. He's pissing off everybody he can think of, including about a million people in the capital city. His junky chinese jets and classic 1960's helicopters arent going to do him any good when a mob storms the presidential palace and tears him to pieces. The only curious thing to me is that he seems to think that you can go around doing whatever you want without any consequences. That seems to be a common condition with tyrants.
Mr Mugabe added that Zimbabwe was making "great strides towards economic recovery". Tourism was enjoying a "strong recovery", he said, and the demolitions in the townships were a "vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity and order in urban and other areas".
In reality, Zimbabwe suffers inflation of 130 per cent and more than one third of its economy has been wiped out in the last five years.
The president's speech "reflects his senile dementia," said Tendai Biti, the MDC's secretary for economic affairs. "Any decent doctor will tell you that once you are in your eighties, you lose your memory, you lose your grasp of reality and you have no grip of time or space. That's what is happening with this old man."
Posted by: john ||
06/09/2005 19:35
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#4
I just cannot believe that someone has not popped off this madman yet.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/09/2005 21:51
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A suspected Taliban commander responsible for roadside bomb attacks on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops has been arrested in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan commander said Thursday. Mullah Abdul Razak was handed over to coalition forces after being caught traveling in a taxi when troops at a checkpoint recognized his face from a list of photographs of wanted suspects, army commander Gen. Muslim Amid said. Razak is the alleged Taliban leader in Arghandab district, just north of Kandahar, the main city in southern Afghanistan and a former rebel stronghold, he said.
They've either caught this guy seventeen times now, or half the commanders in the Taliban have the same name...
The suspected insurgent commander was caught Wednesday in possession of letters, threatening to kill villagers if they cooperate with President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government, he said. ``He is a key figure in the Taliban and responsible for terrorist activities,'' Amid said without elaborating. Two men named Mullah Abdul Razak held senior positions in the Taliban regime before it was ousted in 2001. One was the police chief of the capital, Kabul, while the other was the interior minister.
The other 11,203 were run of the mill tough guys...
Neither has been caught, but Amid said it did not appear that either was the arrested man. He said investigators were still trying to determine Razak's position in the Taliban, but it was not believed that he was in the inner circle of the group's fugitive leader Mullah Omar.
One of the other 11,203...
The army commander said a second suspected Taliban member was also handed over to coalition forces after being captured Wednesday just west of Kandahar as he was trying to fire rockets at the city. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said he could not comment on the individual cases of detainees, including if they had even been taken into coalition custody.
Of course, if they're not in custody, they're not detainees, are they?
In separate fighting, two dead suspected insurgents were shot dead in Shah Wali Kot district, just north of Kandahar, on Wednesday after attacking Afghan army troops patrolling the area, Amid said.
Killed them twice, just to make sure.
This article starring:
MULLAH ABDUL RAZAK
Taliban
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
11:37 ||
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#1
Yes, it would be a lot easier to keep them all straight if they didn't all have the first name of Mullah.
I'm uncertain as to why all of the talking heads are so surprised about this - we've documented the Lashkar-e-Taiba training al-Qaeda recruits for at least several years now.
An FBI investigation into a suspected Islamic jihad group in California has produced sensitive new evidence that Al Qaeda may have reconstituted a major terrorist training camp inside Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks—a subject that the U.S. government has been reluctant to publicly talk about.
The assertion that Al Qaeda—which President Bush recently claimed is "on the run"—was still capable of operating a significant training facility inside Pakistan is contained in an FBI affidavit released Tuesday night in connection with the arrests of Hamid Hayat, 24, a U.S. citizen, and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, an ice-cream truck driver, in Lodi, Calif., south of Sacramento. The two men are accused of lying to the FBI about a two-year sojourn that Hamid Hayat made to Pakistan between April 2003 and this year.
#2
Problem is location of the camp. It is in Rawalpindi, headquarters of the Pakistan military.
Bombing it is a political no no. This would cause problems with Pakistan, an ally in the war on terror TM.
These camps are financed and run by the ISI.
When, during the Clinton years, the US fired cruise missiles at an Al Qaeda camp in a bid to kill UBL, they instead killed lots of Pak Army officers, deputed to ISI and engaged in terrorist training.
This sort of Pak duplicity was excused in the past because the main target was India. Post 9/11 things have changed.
Most people don't remember the 1999 Indian Airlines hijacking. A group of five hijackers took over a plane using knives to threaten the crew, slitting a passenger's throat. The hijackers were schooled in avionics. At least one had trained in a simulator. At one point they attempted to take off from Kandhahar, seeking to crash the plane onto an Indian city.
The hijackers are loose in Pakistan. Their method, having been proved sucessful was reused, on 9/11.
Posted by: john ||
06/09/2005 18:33
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The state is investigating allegations that longshoremen's union locals in Boston have placed children as young as 2 1/2 on the payroll in a scheme to give them higher wages as adult dockworkers. Massachusetts Port Authority officials have turned their records over to Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's office and the State Police, said Kurt Schwartz, chief of the attorney general office's criminal bureau. Reilly's office has launched a grand jury probe. Because seniority is determined by when a union member first receives a union card, regardless of the number of hours worked, union members who got their children enrolled are believed to have ensured that their children would receive higher pay, Schwartz said in a statement Wednesday.
OK, it's crooked. But, damm that's clever.
"The attorney general is investigating allegations that the seniority of some union members has been fraudulently exaggerated, resulting in excessive wages being paid," Schwartz said. An industry official involved in the investigation told The Boston Globe the alleged scam was uncovered earlier this year when shipping officials noticed that a new union member had the same name as the 10-year-old granddaughter of a prominent longshoreman. A check of her Social Security number confirmed who she was, the official said, and a more thorough review of records showed that as many as 30 children had been put on the payroll for a few hours a year going back as far as 1986. "We were absolutely shocked," Massachusetts Port Authority spokeswoman Danny Levy told the Boston Herald. "When Massport was made aware of the discrepancy, we contacted the attorney general and began our own internal audit."
"I'm shocked, shocked to find out that there's corruption in the Longshoremen's union"
"Your campaign contribution, Mr. Levy."
"Why, thank you."
John F. McMahon, a lawyer for the International Longshoremen's Association, said he had heard about the investigation of three locals, and declined to comment further. The three locals reported a total membership of 250 in 2000. International spokesman James McNamara said the union's ethical practices office will investigate the allegations "if there is something concrete tied to a body in the harbor."
Gotta have a lot of seniority to get a job in the ethical practices office...
The industry official told the Globe that payroll checks were issued in the children's names, but that it was unclear who had cashed them or how much money was involved.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
11:14 ||
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#1
I'm shocked! Shocked!This happened at MASSPORT!!
I'm surprised their kid's frozen embryos aren't on the payroll...
#2
You know you've lost faith in the family genes when you expect your granddaughter to grow up to be a dockworker. Nothing else is shocking about this article. Unions are monopolies and unfair by definition. They screw the employers, why wouldn't they screw each other?
#3
tu - I worked a temp job at Massport many moons ago. Did you know there are offices between the inbound and outbound decks of the Tobin Bridge? Yep, worked in that office for four months.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/09/2005 12:46
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#6
when you expect your granddaughter to grow up to be a dockworker.
No, he expects her to grow up to be a union official. By the time she graduates college, she'll have enough seniority to step right into the front office.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005 12:54
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#7
LOL I didn't know you could get a union card without getting a job. Did they form a diaper fillers local 1 of the AFL/CIO in Boston?
#11
Not the first time I've heard this. Back during my summer visits to Brooklyn in the late 60s, I heard stories about 11-12 year old boys being taken by a family member early in the morning to the loading docks, given a pair of gloves and told to stay near "but outta the way", then packed off to school.
The Bob the Builder picture was wreaking havoc due to its size and the way it was included in the comment. If you include pics by IMG SRC tag do two things, please:
first, include 'height=150 width=150' in the tag and
second, include a delimiter tag of 'slash' 'img'
Keep digging, boys!
Powerful lawmaker Charlie Rangel has provoked the ire of the Anti-Defamation League by likening U.S. military action in Iraq to the Holocaust of World War II. The Iraq war "is the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country. ... This is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed," the 74-year-old Harlem Democrat insisted during a Monday radio appearance on the WWRL-AM morning show with Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter. "The whole world knew and they were quiet about it because it wasn't their ox being gored." Nice to be in a bulletproof district, huh Charlie? You can spout whatever you want and they can't lay a glove on you.
When interviewer Malzberg challenged Rangel's analogy, the congressman replied: "I am saying that people's silence when they know things terrible are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust." Yesterday, after Malzberg sent me an audiotape of Rangel's appearance, ADL President Abraham Foxman responded: "It is so outrageous that a leader of Congress would compare one thing to the other. Sometimes we say it's ignorance. Charlie Rangel is not ignorant. Charlie Rangel has been there." That's right. And he knows he'll always get away with it.
On the radio show, Rangel also suggested that proponents of military action - namely Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's former deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle - don't worry about the Americans in Iraq because they're "black and poor white soldiers" from "the lower economic class. They had a plan to put our kids in harm's way long before 9/11," Rangel said. "Because it's not their kids ... that's exactly why. They go and pick a fight, and then say, 'I'll hold your coat.'" You left out Latinos, Charlie. They'll be pissed.
Foxman retorted: "It is so outrageous that I think he owes an apology not only to the families of the victims of the Shoah, but he also owes an apology to the soldiers who are fighting for freedom. If the world had recognized the evil of Hitler early enough - just like we're confronting the evil of terrorism and fundamentalism now - then maybe the 6 million wouldn't have died." Don't hold your breath waiting for that apology.
#2
Spot-on, BH. Rangel's just another race-baiting ankle-biting racist asswipe - from a safe district. I needn't add that it's BLUE, do I? Nah, didn't think so, heh.
I would be banned for saying what I really think of people like Rangel. Blood-sucking leech is as close as I dare.
#5
Not "powerful". Think of him as "influential", like the "influential" Association of Moslem Scholars. I think in either case, "influential" has some associated meaning with influenza or something.
#6
Charlie's got a way with sticking his own foot in his ... nevermind ... every couple of months. Sad fact is that an idiotic racist can pass as a thoughtful and intelligent person in some quarters. Worse yet, the same type of nutter can get elected.
#8
Charlie Rangel served this country well in the Korean War and the Civil Rights movement but age and power have been clouding his judgment ever. It has long since become opaque.
#1
In related news, Acme Industries announced it will build a large warehouse/distribution center and 'product demonstration facility'. The company has purchased several under-used vinyard properties in Bordeaux for the project. An unidentified Acme spokesman said that "France was an ideal location" for Acme's wide range of products.
#3
The part-time poet and former foreign minister
[Heh.]
added: "My government will be guided by one principle: the imperative of justice; by one criterion: the general interest; by one aim: to improve the lot of every French man and woman."
#4
Yes if I were an unemployed Phrech citizen I would not be worried because this guy seems to have all the answers. I also would want to buy some stock in that Algerian bank that I keep getting emails about. I guess it's good that Dominique isn't hell-bent on world domination any more (I was begining to think he had a Nepoleon complex).
#5
Here's my prediction - if anyone on this board thought the French were insufferably arrogant and pretentious, you have seen nothing yet. The next two years of listening to the dashing poet (heh) DeVillepin's twaddle will be unparalleled chest-puffing self flattery. I'm going long on barf bags.
#8
Can't make the French citizens life better economically without major reform. Can't make their lives better physically without enforcing the laws and dealing with the Islamic issue.
But they can make their lives better by making the French feel superior to everyone else at every opportunity. All they need is a country or two to villify at every chance. Hmmm, I'm not sure which two countries will get the crap end of French happiness but I have a few ideas.
1. Order job centers to "redouble their efforts" to find jobs. [useless]
2. Encourage firms with fewer than 10 workers to hire more people by cutting social charges and paperwork. [useless, see #3]
3. Suspend tax cuts pledged by Mr Chirac in his 2002 election campaign. [stimulate the economy by raising taxes!]
4. Increase public infrastructure projects such as new railway lines and motorways. [only works for some construction workers and firms, and only short term]
"Gallic genius" is apparently an intelligence category somewhere below "Moron".
Posted by: Tom ||
06/09/2005 15:54
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#11
There's another one of them oxyMORON!s again...
#12
If nothing else the proud little villipan troll will make for excellent humor of the pathetic variety. God help France because they sure as hell can't seem to help themselves with their 20th century cast of boastful clown politicians. I think what he had meant to say was that nothing will save the French but their collective ego can be cryrogenically preserved through the unsurpassed mastery of strict daily self-delusion also known as Juche in Norkland.
Looks like another tough day at the "sheet metal shop"...
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An explosion rocked a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of injuries. One can only hope...
The Israeli army denied involvement and said the blast appeared to have been an accident. During more than four years of fighting with Israel, dozens of Palestinian militants have died while mishandling explosives. And we've enjoyed reading about every one of them...
#2
"What's my deductible on work accident claims?"
"There are no accidents, everything is according to the will of Allah. We don't pay for acts of god."
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005 12:17
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#3
Lol, Sea / Steve! I see the bright lights of Vaudeville beckoning your act, heh.
Yup, it's that time of year again:
MIAMI -- Tropical Storm Arlene developed Thursday in the northwest Caribbean Sea, edging closer to western Cuba as the Atlantic hurricane season's first named storm. Gulf Coast residents, including those in storm-battered Florida, were warned to beware. Arlene had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph after strengthening from a tropical depression that formed Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Tropical storms have top sustained winds of 39 mph to 74 mph.
At 8 a.m. EDT, the storm's center was about 190 miles south-southeast of the western tip of Cuba. It was moving north at about 8 mph, and this motion could bring the storm's center near western Cuba as early as Thursday night, forecasters said. Arlene was expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico by Friday, and residents from Florida to Louisiana were told to keep an eye on the tropical storm.
"Our best estimate of the track possibilities are that anywhere from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle could expect the center to be approaching them by the middle of the weekend," hurricane specialist Richard Knabb said.
Swell, my wife is going to Pensacola with a friend for a funeral tomorrow. She's supposed to come back Sunday. I just know she'll find some way to blame this on me.
Forecasters said Arlene was likely to remain a tropical storm, but Navy meteorologist Lt. Dave Roberts said there was an "outside shot" that the system could develop into a weak hurricane, depending on atmospheric conditions.
Looks like a Cat 1 at most
The Cuban government has issued a tropical storm watch for the western province of Pinar Del Rio to the capital of Havana. The depression was causing heavy rains and squalls across the Cayman Islands and western and central Cuba. Forecasters warned that very heavy rains in Nicaragua and Honduras could cause flash floods and mud slides. Hurricane season began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:50 ||
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#1
WooHoo! Kegger at Steve's place! Dibs on the nacho chips...he makes a crazy good salsa!!!
#2
I'll bring the salt and the lime ... oh yeah and the tequila too ;-)
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005 14:06
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Hmmm, like clockwork - same time every year, there are these storm thingys that pop up - just when she's traveling in the target zone - and Steve begs off going along... Don't you guys think his wife is going to get suspicious, eventually?
;-)
#4
Susssh, keep it down. You know how hard it was to arrange a funeral at the right place and time? Why I had to.......er, never mind.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005 14:40
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East bound I-10 bridge over still 1 lane of marsten matting. Plan for 1 hour extra. Fun though. You can wave at the boats and fishies under the bridge.
Adding a common ingredient in shampoo to paints and varnishes can create self-sanitizing coatings for frequently touched surfaces in public buildings that continue killing germs for months, according to research conducted by a multi-state consortium of high school students and retirees.
Working through the website science-projects.com, 10 students from New York, Texas and Virginia joined three World War II veterans and a retired railroader from Virginia to report their research findings at the 105th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
"Public buildings and especially schools are at the center of the epidemiological web for spreading common upper respiratory diseases that cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars annually in lost productivity. While it has long been known that our coinage possesses the quality of being self-sterilizing, little previous thought has been given to making frequently handled surfaces such as railings, doorknobs, push-plates, desktops, and faucet handles in public buildings similarly self-sterilizing through the addition of rapidly effective agents," says Carl Vermeulen, a retired microbiologist who runs the website and is coordinator of the project.
In order to find additives that could create the most effective self-sterilizing surfaces, the students tested a variety of metal dusts, salts and other organic chemicals by mixing them into clear varnish. Once dried, varnished surfaces were tested for the speed in which they killed the microbes applied to them. The coating doped with cetavlon, a major detergent component of many shampoos that is completely safe for humans, killed the microbes within seconds of application. Even after 5 months the coating could still self-sterilize within 30 seconds.
"We found that the common shampoo ingredient cetavlon was especially effective, as well as having good dopant properties due to its being a detergent that mixes well with both aqueous and oil-based coatings," says Vermuelen.
While they have shown that paints and varnishes can be made rapidly and inexpensively self-sterilizing, the group has yet to develop floor and furniture polishes that work. Students who may be interested in pursuing this line of research can contact Vermeulen through his website at science-projects.com. Bravo! A discovery that could save thousands of lives by helping to sanitize hospitals and schools.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces detained 16 American private security contractors and three Iraqis late last month after they opened fire on civilians and U.S. Marines in Falluja, the U.S. military said on Thursday. The 19, employed by U.S. company Zapata Engineering, were held after two shooting incidents in the space of three hours in the city west of Baghdad. No one was hurt in the shootings. The men were released after three days in detention.
"At approximately 2 p.m. on May 28, Marines of Regimental Combat Team 8 in Falluja reported receiving small arms fire from gunman in several late-model trucks and sport utility vehicles," the U.S. military said in a statement. "Marines also witnessed passengers in the vehicles firing at and near civilian cars on the street. "Three hours later, another Marine observation post was fired on by gunman from vehicles matching the description of those involved in the earlier attack. Marines saw passengers in the vehicles firing out the windows," the statement said.
The vehicles were stopped when spiked strips were thrown across the road. The 19 men were taken into custody at a U.S. military camp on the outskirts of Falluja. The statement gave no explanation for why the men might have opened fire on the Marine observation posts and the civilian vehicles.
Stupidity comes to mind. So does alcohol
Zapata Engineering, a small firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, employs a handful of people in Iraq, where it has a contract to dispose of unexploded ordnance. The company was not immediately reachable for comment. The contractors' weapons and vehicles were impounded as part of an investigation by the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which oversees the Marines.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:44 ||
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#1
I've been wondering how long it would take for an incident like this to pop up. Given the generally lawless nature of Iraq and the lack of a chain-of-command enforcing discipline and regulations these contractors really don't have responsibility to anyone other than their client.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/09/2005 11:01
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I know Marines are famous for their discipline, but these guys are lucky they weren't just blown to hell.
#3
Hmm well from my stay in Mosul, most third party security companies were either ex US military, or what looked liek phillipno or thai. anyway all the thrid party security guys seemed very professional, and not the kind who relax when on the road.
Now firing on a Marine outpost? I would have to say that these guys got hold of more then just some beer. These guys had to be stumbling drunk or stoned, I bet on both.
#4
PS. I can only imagine that they are alive and well because the Marines were overcome with curiosity about what the shit was these guys were smoking, and if they had anymore more left.
#6
Given that I have been a contractor - and know some who still are, I do not believe the Marines for a moment, unless somehow these were completely stupid guys. 1) You dont get that drunk in the ville on duty - nto drunk enough to fire at marines or US troops. 2) the Jars are on hairtrigger over there.
These guys probably were firing warning shots as they claimed, and the Jars thought they were firing at them. They then put out an alert, and were abusive as hell to the guys once they took them prisoner.
Look for Marines to be disciplined for abuse on this one unless the Iraqi government can sweep it under the rug for the Marines.
Iran plans to install tens of thousands of advanced centrifuges at its huge underground nuclear plant near the central city of Natanz, which eventually would enable it to enrich uranium nearly twice as quickly as anticipated, according to Western intelligence officials. Iran's timetable remains unknown, but the officials said preparatory work is under way at the plant and the decision to rely on the superior type of centrifuge suggests Iran could manufacture fissile material for a possible weapon sooner than expected.
Diplomats with knowledge of Iran's nuclear program said they could not confirm the information, but Iran said last year that it intended to use the updated centrifuges at some point in the future. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But the United States and the European Union fear Tehran intends to build atomic weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Stopping Iran from mastering uranium enrichment is the central goal of the United States and the EU. They have threatened to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council if Tehran abandons an agreement reached in November with three European governments to suspend enrichment activities. The concern centers on the possibility that, after developing sufficient enrichment capabilities, Iran could more readily shift production from low- level enriched uranium for nuclear reactors to high levels for weapons, either secretly or after withdrawing from the nonproliferation treaty. Iranian officials pledged Sunday to extend the voluntary suspension of enrichment until the end of July as part of negotiations with Germany, France and Britain over the disputed nuclear program. But Tehran has said that the suspension is both voluntary and temporary, and that it intends to eventually produce fuel for civilian reactors.
The complex at Natanz, about 150 miles south of Tehran, is the heart of Iran's enrichment effort. Plans call for more than 50,000 centrifuges to be installed in two vast underground halls where they could produce large quantities of enriched uranium, the Western intelligence officials said. Earlier this year, Iran finished covering the main plant with 25 feet of concrete and an additional layer of earth. Satellite photos show that the entrance to the underground plant and two large air shafts were concealed by what appear to be dummy buildings. Journalists taken on a government tour of Natanz in March reported that the 1,100-acre site is ringed by at least 10 anti-aircraft batteries. Iranian officials said the missiles and underground facilities were prompted by concerns over possible attacks by the United States or Israel.
An inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, will begin work today in Natanz. The team will check electrical work under way and verify that Iran is complying with the suspension in advance of the IAEA board meeting next week in Vienna, Austria. The agency has been investigating Iran's nuclear program since an exile group disclosed the existence of Natanz in August 2002, slowly unraveling an ambitious Iranian effort that was kept secret for nearly two decades. While questions remain, the IAEA says it has found no evidence of a weapons program.
Two intelligence officials and a nuclear expert, all from a government opposed to Iran's nuclear efforts, said they had developed "very solid information" about plans to install 54,000 centrifuges at Natanz. They said up to two-thirds of them would be the advanced model, known as the P-2. They conceded that they were uncertain about the key issue of when Iran would build and install the machines, and that they did not have hard evidence that Iran was currently manufacturing P-2's. Iran told the IAEA last year that it had stopped all research and development on P-2's. If Iran is building the advanced centrifuges, it would violate its agreements with the three European nations and the international agency, diplomats said.
"Their having made some planning should not be overly surprising," said a Western diplomat in Vienna, the IAEA's headquarters. "However, if there were production going on, it would be a breach of the suspension." Russia has agreed to provide fuel for Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr, which is scheduled to begin operations next year, but Iran says it plans a series of reactors to generate electricity and wants to produce its own fuel.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:35 ||
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June 9, 2005: Where are the mysterious, "elite North Korean hackers.?" For over a decade, the South Korean media has been reporting on the cyberwar capabilities of North Korea. All of this revolves around activity at Mirm College, a North Korean school that, since the early 1990s, has been training, for want of a better term, computer hackers. The story, as leaked by South Korean intelligence organizations, is that a hundred cyberwar experts are graduated from Mirim College each year. North Korea is supposed to have, at present, a cyberwar unit of some 600 skilled hackers and Internet technicians. On the other hand, it more likely that those Mirim College grads are hard at work maintaining the government intranet, not plotting cyberwar against the south. Moreover, North Korea has been providing programming services to South Korean firms. Not a lot, but the work is competent, and cheap. So there is some software engineering capability north of the DMZ.
The mystery angle shows up when you try to find any incidents of North Korean hackers actually doing anything. That could be construed as particularly ominous. Only the most elite hackers do their work without leaving behind any tracks, or evidence. Some have maintained that, because North Korea's Internet connections come from China, the North Korean cyberwarriors could be cleverly masquerading as Chinese hackers. However, after a decade, there should be some visible signs of North Korean hacking. It's highly unlikely that the North Korean hackers have been able to wander around the net without leaving some signs. While North Korea has produced some competent engineers, we know from decades of examining their work, that they don't produce super-scientists, or people capable of the kind of innovation that would enable North Korean cyberwarriors to remain undetected all these years.
So do the North Korean cyberwarriors exist, or are they a creation of South Korean intelligence agencies trying to obtain more money to upgrade government Information War defenses? North Korea probably has some personnel working on Internet issues, and Mirim College probably does train Internet engineers. North Korea probably has a unit devoted to Internet based warfare. But we know that North Korea has a lot of military units that are competent, in the same way robots are. The North Koreans picked this technique up from their Soviet teachers back in the 1950s. North Korea is something of a museum of Stalinist techniques. But it's doubtful that their Internet experts are flexible and innovative enough to be a real threat. South Korea has to be wary because they have become more dependent on the web than another other on the planet, with exception of the United States. As in the past, if the north is to start any new kind of mischief, they will work it on South Korea first. So whatever the skill level of the North Korean hackers, they will attack South Korea first.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:32 ||
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#1
This so reminds me of Elbonia in the Dilbert cartoons. Management thinks they are great, but they are really just above stone age technology.
#3
As in the past, if the north is to start any new kind of mischief, they will work it on South Korea first. So whatever the skill level of the North Korean hackers, they will attack South Korea first.
The author doesn't really 'get' how the net makes geography irrelevant for some things, does he?
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005 14:14
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You laugh but wait until Mr. Kim Master of CPM hackery comes and pays your Heathkit a visit.
#1
The story and the headline don't match. Bush doesn't say he is ready to consider alternatives. He said they are exploring alternatives, a completely different meaning than the headline said.
Here is what he is quoted as saying:
We're exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America.
#8
Thinking.
If Gitmo is primarily housing captures of the Afghan campaign and most of them have been in place for 1 to 2 years, the probability of the interned providing timely intel is quickly eroding. Meantime, the radical left lawyers and their allies on the bench are unfortunately making headway in their litigation of the war by judicial decree. Since Congress is cowardly allowing the third branch of government to establish new powers of intrusion and oversight in the conduct of war, then the Commander is engaging in some interesting manuevering. Once the interned are placed in Geneva Convention status, they only need to render name, rank, id number, and date of birth. However, if they are no longer a source of intel or intel so old it no longer is useable, then the Convention status means they are treated as POWs and subject to legal standards which the court can only intrude upon by outright fiat declaration of powers they do not have. The boys remain in limbo till Congress repeals SJR:23 of 12 Sept 2001. Basically, their living standards remain the same as any other prisoner maintained in any other high security prison in the states or federal prison system. Since they become classified as POWs, the lawyers can no longer represent them, only representative of the ICRC who can only cite treaty standards for treatment. Not that they won't try to create new ones, but as AI is quickly learning, it doesn't sell with the only audience that has any influence on the matter.
June 9, 2005: Chinese submariners are different. In the United States, submarines have crews that stay with the boat, just like on any other warship. The only exception is the SSBNs (ballistic missile subs), which have two crews, so that the boat can spend the maximum amount of time at sea. The Chinese do it differently. Each class of subs has crews trained for different types of missions, and these crews are assigned to a sub in order to train in their specialty (mine warfare, anti-surface warfare, and anti-submarine warfare). Another reason for the multiple crews (usually two per sub) is also to increase the number of trained crews ahead of the introduction of many more new subs in the next decade. The Chinese have recognized, and accepted the fact, that it takes over a decade to train effective submariners, particularly the Chief Petty Officers (the "Chiefs") who really make a boat work. The chiefs were given a big pay raise five years ago, and made to understand that being a naval NCO was a good, and lucrative, career choice.
The only flaw in this plan is the poor condition and reliability of Chinese submarines. Chinese boats are either bad copies of Russian designs, or even worse attempts to build Chinese designs. But the Chinese know that just having submarine crews is not enough, you have to get these guys to sea, as much as possible. Under the old Soviet system, the sub crews spent most of their time living in barracks, and getting lectured in classrooms, or doing dry runs while their sub was dockside, motionless. When Soviet subs did go to sea, it was for a day, and then back to port and the barracks. By the end of the Cold War, the Russians and the Chinese were convinced that the Western approach (keep the boats at sea as much as possible) was ancient wisdom that still applied, and worked.
The Chinese submariners have to work for their higher pay. Keeping their creaky boats at sea means a lot more maintenance and repair work in port, and a lot more alertness and tension at sea. There are more accidents as these boats are pushed beyond what they were designed for. The Soviet design theory held that you built subs that spent most of their time in port, and then went to war and maybe survived a few weeks or months, and maybe got a shot in. This didn't work for the Soviets during World War II, but they stuck with the concept during most of the Cold War. Now China is trying to design and build a new generation of subs on the Western model (spend lots of time at sea in peace time, and be good enough to kick ass and survive in wartime.)
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:29 ||
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#1
where do they store the MSG on a Chinese sub?
Posted by: Little Wang ||
06/09/2005 10:53
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#2
Next to that missle tube filled with lobster sauce.
#3
Yeah they're different. They devote a lot of training to how to hold their breath for a long time.
Posted by: DO ||
06/09/2005 14:22
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Another advantage of moving people around from boat to boat is that you won't get a whole boat defecting like in Red Oktober. Not that anyone would ever want to leave the Middle Kingdom or anything.
June 9, 2005: Lots of folks in sub-Saharan Africa snicker when they hear France's president Jacques Chirac complain of US "unilateralism" and American imperial aims. France still maintains an empire and if you don't think so, check out the way the Ivory Coast, Chad, and the Central African Republic (CAR) work -- or don't work.
And then there's Djibouti, an independent (at least nominally) nation located on the Horn of Africa. At one time know as the French colony of "Afars and the Issas", the place has something State Department real estate agents understand-- strategic location, strategic location, strategic location. It's near the mouth of the Red Sea-- and for the region it has excellent logistics capabilities. Djibouti got its independence from France in 1977, but the way France "de-colonialized" was something of a fiction. France and Djibouti maintain very "close ties."
Since 2002, Djibouti has served as a base for U.S. military and intelligence operations against terrorist groups in east Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Djibouti had a "minor" civil war that lasted from the early-1990s until 2001. Afar ethnics --chafing under an Issa dominated government-- occasionally blew up things and ambushed convoys. That fracas seems to be settled, though settled in the way France likes to settle things. President Ismail Omar Guelleh was recently reelected president. In April 2005 Guelleh won 100 percent of the votes in the presidential election. He was unopposed.
Several analysts have suggested continued American use of Djibouti facilities is an example of France "hedging its bets." Jacques Chirac has repeatedly played the anti-American card in French domestic politics, at the UN, and throughout the European Union. But it's argued that encouraging Djibouti to provide a base in east Africa to bash Al Qaeda scores some covert brownie points from Washington. After the French "No" to the EU constitution, Chirac can use all the brownie points he can scrape together.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:27 ||
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BS. Pure stallion-like unadultered military power and supremecy by the USA versus the little bitty impotent pony that Chirac rides got us into Djibouti just like it did in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and other places. Also having some local bad boyz with AQ ties who want to kill your president and take over your country don't hurt either.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2005 10:45
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When France ostensibly gave up colonialism, they made an offer to their colonies. Join a "French Community" and enter into economic arrangements with France, use of the franc, stability in the form of French troops stationed in-country to protect the government, technicians to maintain the infrastructure, and a host of other lucrative deals.
Guinea was the only one to refuse. The French gave them their independence. Literally. All ties were cut. France took everything, anything related to colonialism. Right down to the phone lines.
June 9, 2005: Western Intelligence services have long asserted that Al-Qaeda has an ambitious maritime capabilities program. Reportedly, operatives have received swimming and scuba training for demolitions and suicide attacks. Al Qaeda is also reported to own or control an estimated two dozen merchant ships world-wide, and is generally believed to make heavy use of dhows and other small vessels to move personnel, resources, and equipment around in Middle Eastern waters. In addition, it is believed that al Qaeda has trained personnel in small boat operations, for both individual attacks, such as the one that crippled the USS Cole, and in swarm (many, even a dozen or more, boats) attacks, with rumors that they have even conducted training in the United States.
So why haven't we seen much evidence of al Qaeda activity at sea? Certainly there are more than enough targets. Large numbers of American, NATO, and coalition warships are active in Middle Eastern waters, supporting operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all across the Arabian Sea and adjacent areas, waters also frequented by large numbers of tankers and other commercial vessels. Nevertheless, since large scale operations began in the region in late-2001, in Afghanistan, there appears to have been only one attack on a commercial vessel, against a French tanker off Yemen over two years ago. And four years of intensive MIO (Maritime Intercept Operations) in the region has managed to intercept only a handful of suspect vessels and personnel, with little evidence of any ties to al Qaeda. It is, of course, possible that the high density of the coalition maritime presence has had a serious deterrent effect on al Qaeda's maritime operations. But al Qaeda has shown itself to be rather immune to deterrence in other situations. Given the movement's track record, one could reasonably expect that they would deliberately set up a situation in which a MIO turned into a disaster, when the intercepted vessel blew itself and the boarding party up. But this has never happened, despite thousands of opportunities.
Have al Qaeda's maritime resources have been seriously over-estimated, or have Coalition maritime security measures seriously impeded their employment, or are they holding back for some future operations? It's unclear, but at the moment, al Qaeda's naval threat is more theoretical than real.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:24 ||
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#3
I'm with pappy, the worldwide war on al-qaeda has stressed their resources. They havent done anything major outside of Iraq in some time. The doomed Iraq mission is draining their savings account and dessimating their volunteer ranks. They can't afford to take their attention or resources away from the Iraq theatre. The funny part is that the dumb bastards travel from all over the planet, spending their own money, and making a very perilous journey, only to be killed by U.S. Marines once they get there. Al-qaeda has gone from a slippery, hard to engage organization
to one that comes to us for their reward. While they most assuredly would like to plot attacks in America, the bulk of the jihadis seem stupid enough to go to iraq and afghanistan and cash in their chips.
#4
I would guess that a lot of Dhow and Merchant ship owners were all gung ho and making promises of support on Sept 11 and now after the collapse of the Taliban and Iraq they aren't returning Al Queda's phone calls.
I few other merchant ships were probably duped and taken by Chinese pirates and are now repainted and sailing under a different name.
June 9, 2005: More towns in Iraqi's "wild west" are being pacified. The usual drill is not another Fallujah, but a government official meeting with local tribal and religious leaders, where an offer is made. Iraqi and American troops are coming. Neighborhoods that support the government will see little or no fighting as a search is made for weapons, bombs and the like. Neighborhoods that wish to resist will be hit hard. By now, everyone knows how smart bombs work. Increasingly, Sunni Arab leaders are being told, by their followers, that all this violence is not worth it. After Saddam fell, Sunni Arabs continued to believe in fantasies. For the last two years, the collective delusion was that the Americans had no stomach for guerilla war, and the Kurds and Shia Arabs could never get a government together. Today, Sunni Arabs who can get away on a little vacation, go north to the Kurdish north, or south to Shia Basra. In both places you can sit in an outdoor cafe without fear of a suicide bomb going off down the street. The Kurds and Shia have more jobs, more reconstruction and less crime. The Sunni Arabs don't want to live in their own mess any more. They don't want to live in a combat zone, especially while the Kurds and Shia are not.
For Sunni Arabs to support the government, it often means fighting with the terrorist groups, and sometimes the criminal gangs they are allied with. The government offer includes help in building up local security. It has not gone unnoticed that Iraqi police are a lot more effective than they were a year ago. The government also has police commandoes who can go into any area, no matter how well defended, and take out terrorists or other heavily armed enemies. No longer does the government have to depend on the Americans for this sort of thing.
The bad news is that over a million Sunni Arabs are still hostile to the government, and any foreign troops in Iraq. Many are propelled by religious beliefs, as well as the "we are superior and should be running the place" attitude that Sunni Arabs have been cultivating for centuries. These guys are willing to keep fighting. The government doesn't want a blood bath, and they know that millions of Shia Arabs and Kurds would be willing to carry out a general massacre of Sunni Arabs, as payback for past sins. So the government goes to each town and neighborhood, gets the local leaders together, and makes the offer. Those who refuse are free to go home and get their guns and followers together for their last stand. Some of the leaders who refuse the government offer, do so because they know most of their followers want to fight on. But more and more, Sunni Arabs are deciding that there's no future in all this violence. You fight the Americans, you die. And, increasingly, the odds aren't much better against government troops or police.
However, there are other dangers in Iraq, and the most common are the tribal, ethnic and religious militias. The government has not cracked down on these private armies, or the warlords that control them. Being a tribal chief still means something in Iraq, a country with over a hundred tribes. Americans, who saw similar private militias disappear in the United States several generations ago, cannot understand why Iraq clings to this ancient concept. But to Iraqis, a warlord and his tough guys, is the last refuge in an uncertain world. While the concept of democracy is appealing to many Iraqis, the concept of getting together and forming an armed gang to impose your ideas, is an ancient one in the region.
Meanwhile, as in Afghanistan, al Qaeda is relying more and more on foreign fighters. Creating its own "foreign legion" militia. The local al Qaeda supporters are melting away. Using foreigners as enforcers has not made al Qaeda any more popular. Terror doesn't engender trust and enthusiasm, only fear. The al Qaeda approach didn't work in Afghanistan, and it's not working in Iraq. And the hundreds of Iraqi warlords and their gangs will still be sorting it all out for years to come.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:17 ||
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The al Qaeda approach didn't work in Afghanistan, and it's not working in Iraq.
The al Q approach may not have worked with respect to producing a decent society. However, it has worked to the extent that it produced a cohort of jihadis, thugs, murderers, etc.
These kind of folk will be plaguing Iraq for many years.
#2
Thats probably because they can't even figure out what the hell they want. They kidnap some dumbass truck driver from the phillipines or something and demand that we withdraw 200,000 troops within 24 hrs. Other insurgents figured out it was hard to kill marines, so they just started killing civilians. They don't even know who they are blowing up anymore. They have no goal, no direction, only one shot-up leader, and absolutely no idea of what they are going to do from one minute to the next. As the govt. makes it's way around all the provinces and brings the sunni leaders into line they will start to attack them for being sympathizers. When that happens you are going to see some weird sh*t start to happen. And I am going to sit back and laugh.
#4
How unfortunate our own MSM mislead the poor fools into the Vietnam "quagmire", resulting in more of our guys killed, and a lot more of them. ABCNews/WaPo hasn't given up on the quagmire crusade yet - see the article earlier in the week.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/09/2005 13:33
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I wonder how many more Shias and Kurds will be murdered by Sunni diehards before a general massacre of the Sunnis by the far more numerous victim population will seem like a far better alternative.
#6
The fact the Iraqi govt. has made it as far as it currently has is amazing. Sadly there will be more casualties and more secretarian tension between Sunnis, Shites, and Kurds. But I hardly forsee a coming general massacre of Sunnis. Things are improving, Iraqi military/police units are growing stronger, the "Insurgents'" (Better put Mass-Killers) support base is becoming smaller and weaker amongst the general Sunni population. As the Iraqi Government stays the course towards the path to Democracy, they will ultimately be victorious. It is very tragic so many have had to die for the longterm freedom of countless millions.
But if there was going to be a general massacre, it would have happened already. The leaders and clerics in all three ethnic groups (Well Most Sunnis...) want to avoid such a massacre.
Edited for brevity.
One measure of how effective battlefield robots have become, says a top Pentagon robotics official, is that the enemy has begun to target them. "The enemy realizes that if they take out [the robot], they can really hurt our capabilities," said Cliff Hudson, who directs the Joint Robotics Program for the Department of Defense. Reconnaissance robots, such as the backpackable Dragon Runner developed by Carnegie Mellon University, and those that dispose of unexploded mines and bombs have shown that they save soldiers' lives, Hudson said. The success with small ground robots, as well as with unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, has bolstered confidence as the armed forces move toward larger vehicles, such as Carnegie Mellon's 1-ton Gladiator recon robot, which will have longer range and, eventually, operate autonomously.
A dozen Dragon Runners [pictured] were built for the U.S. Marines, which deployed them to Iraq a year ago. The four-wheeled device is only a little more than a foot long and not quite a foot wide and weighs 9 pounds. It can be thrown over walls, out a three-story window or up a flight of stairs; the flat, 5-inch-high machine can operate whichever way it lands. "It's quickly become a critical piece of equipment," Hudson said, adding that it provides a safe means to look around corners or explore rooms.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/09/2005
10:15 ||
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"The enemy realizes that if they take out [the robot], they can really hurt our capabilities," said Cliff Hudson, who directs the Joint Robotics Program for the Department of Defense.
"Hurt"?? Robots are nice to have, but not a necessity. U.S. forces would make do appropriately if they weren't available.
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan has taken a step into the science-fiction world with the release of a "robot suit" that can help workers lift heavy loads or assist people with disabilities climb stairs. "Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future," said Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University who led the project.
And we all know what happens when you have a bunch of mutant supermen in powered armor suits running around Tokyo
The 15-kilogram (33-pound) battery-powered suit, code-named HAL-5, detects muscle movements through electrical-signal flows on the skin surface and then amplifies them.
It can also move on its own accord, enabling it to destroy humankind help elderly or handicapped people walk, developers said. The prototype suit will be displayed at the World Exposition that is currently taking place in Aichi prefecture, central Japan.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
10:11 ||
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artificial exoskeleton!= mutation
But it is pretty cool, at least until the batteries run down.
#7
A government report last week showed that pensioners made up a record 19.5 percent of the country's population in 2004 and that the ratio will grow rapidly, surpassing 35 percent in 2050.
A)You people are in big trouble
B)I am pretty sure I could pick up that girl without a supersuit. Well, I mean physically anyhow.
Director Michael Moore has been given permission to stage a hissy fit film festival in his US home state of Michigan. The Traverse City Film Festival in July will feature classics such as Casablanca on giant inflatable screens.
Moore, who has made third-rate Riefenstahl-aping propaganda films that have failed to sway the elections, dammit! documentaries including Fahrenheit 9/11, said the four-day event in the town would be strictly non-partisan. Suuuuurrrre.
The film-maker has said he hopes the festival will become an annual event for screening quality movies. Like Team America? He added that it could become a beacon for Americans who want to watch quality cinema. One word: Netflix.
Moore - who heads the Traverse City Film Festival committee - was given the go-ahead to use a park on the shores of Lake Michigan to stage the gala. The 51-year-old persuaded city bosses that the festival, which will screen some 30 films, would be solely for the promotion of his political views culture.
Family-rated films will be shown on giant screens in the park, while other films are being screened at a number of indoor venues across the city. The festival has a budget of $150,000 (£81,668), which is expected to be covered by box office returns and donations. Somehow, I don't think any of it came from Mikey...
Moore, who was also responsible for Osama's favorite film of 2004 Bowling for Columbine, made a film called Roger And Me about Flint, his home city. It chronicled its economic slump in the 1980s as car manufacturing was hit by job losses.
He now divides his time between New York and a rural county near Traverse City that wishes to remain anonymous.
His work has won him numerous awards, including best documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, and the Palme D'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for Fahrenheit 9/11.
#7
According to my eldest son, who wrote a college paper on Mr. Moore, he has spun even his hometown: "... frequent references to his âhometownâ of Flint, Michigan (where his first movie, Roger and Me, was based), one wonders if Moore isnât trying to be something he is not. For Michael Moore is not from Flint, but from Davison, Michigan. While the two towns are not too far apart, when you look at the culture of each city, the discrepancy becomes more apparent. Flint, where Moore says he is from in most interviews and press, is an industrial, working class city where the majority of the factories are located. Davison, however, where Moore grew up and attended high school, is a middle-class suburban area populated primarily by factory managers and other âprofessionalsâ. Whereas most of the children of Flint end up working in the factories or becoming part of the 15% unemployment rate, the majority of the children of Davison end up going on to higher education."
Mikey's "higher education" however, seems to have been in la-la land.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/09/2005 13:18
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#8
I saw him on TV at 2:00 AM last night advertising Ronco's Fat-O-Matic for only $19.95.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/09/2005 13:50
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#9
Hey, Matt! Where can I get one? Does it add or subtract?
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/09/2005 13:59
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All I know is that Mikey says it helps him maintain his svelte figure. His waist is down to a size 72.
For $29.95 you get the Fat-O-Matic and the Bad-Info-Matic from Moveon, plus (FREE)the Aarrrgh-O-Matic from Howard Dean. Postage and handling are extra. I highly recommend it.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/09/2005 14:10
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Traverse City.... home of one novel and 1 good movie and 1 lousy remake and I ncan't think of the damn name..... crime drama, bad guy comes back to get the DA that sent 'em up nthe river. First one was filmed on location. I'd live on the UP for a month or two ifn I could afford.
A protest organized June 1 by MoveOn, a liberal political action committee, drew about 20 people Does anyone get the feeling their memebership is -er- limp?
to the Michigan Avenue office of U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton. Demonstrators protested Rogers' ties to embattled House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
There was only one problem: They had the wrong Mike Rogers.
Whoops.
The group came armed with financial records from a Web site that detailed various financial contributions between the two Republicans, including a $20,000 campaign contribution from DeLay to Rogers as well as a $5,000 contribution by Rogers to DeLay's legal defense fund.
However, the Mike Rogers involved was not the Michigan congressman, but rather Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.
Federal Election Commission filings show that Michigan's Rogers did receive $15,000 from DeLay's PAC, but not the $20,000 that the other Mike Rogers received.
Michigan's Rogers has not contributed to DeLay's legal defense fund, according to Conor Kenny of Public Citizen, a non-profit watchdog group.
The Web site houseofscandal.org, where the information was gathered, apparently posted inaccurate information. A democratic group posting inaccurate information you say? Hmm... not a twitch on the suprise meter here.
"It's unfortunate that they made an error," said Bill Rittenberg, a protest organizer.
Democrat Bob Alexander, who ran against Michigan's Rogers in 2004, also participated in the event. Not the brightest nail in the bucket is he?
"It's unfortunate that we had this inaccuracy," Alexander said. "We didn't attempt to mislead anyone." Well at least now I know my BS meter is working.
Sylvia Warner, press secretary for Michigan's Rogers, said her boss and the Alabama congressman are frequently confused with each other.
"We get each other's mail and each other's calls from reporters," Warner said, adding people should be more careful not to confuse the two lawmakers.
The protesters delivered a petition signed by 1,166 voters in Rogers' Michigan district asking him and other Republicans to disassociate themselves from DeLay.
DeLay, R-Tex, has been the center of several recent ethics scandals. The House Ethics Committee has admonished him three times, and questions concerning trips financed by special interest groups continue to hound him.
The discrepancy between the numbers has not affected Rittenberg and Alexander's opinion on the petition, however. Its fake.... but accurate....
"Tom DeLay is the core of it," Rittenberg said. "I think it's a sound petition."
Alexander, meanwhile, said the overall effect of "a few dollars here and a few dollars there" was not relevant to Rogers of Michigan's ties to DeLay.
#7
LOL 20 and at the WRONG office? And they only got 1,166 signatures on their petition? His district has maybe 100,000 voters, so he should change his position based on 1% of the voters? These people really have no clue on how insignificant they have become (except when they do crazy stuff like this). Must be getting their marching orders from Dean.
A Taliban spokesman has said anyone working for the United States is a target, after four people were killed on U.S. bases in southeast Afghanistan Wednesday. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and eight others wounded as a missile hit the U.S. base at Shkin in Paktika province. Also two Pakistani truck drivers were killed as they left another U.S. base at Spin Boldak in Kandahar province after delivering fuel. Taliban militants claimed both attacks, saying they meant to cut supply routes for U.S.-led forces in the country. Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said anyone working for the United States would be regarded as a target. U.S. warplanes were not able to locate the attackers at Shkin but police in Spin Boldak said they had arrested five people.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:54 ||
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#1
Tell them. For every American and American freind that dies, a Koran goes down the toilet or onto a hog farm.
#4
I don't know TW, Koran disin is pretty bad. Maybe the National Safety Council will make a video giving insight to what to do if you find a holy 'Qu'ram', like one of them olde blasting cap safety spots we used to see during rain-out theatre.
#7
Ya know... Hog manure is a big stinking problem....
We could fill the oil tankers with it on their return journeys.
Kill two jihads with one stroke...
LODI, Calif., June 9 (UPI) -- A fifth man has been arrested in Lodi, Calif., on suspicion of being affiliated with an al-Qaida cell planning terror attacks in the United States. A father and son were first arrested Friday, then two Muslim religious leaders and a member of a local Pakistani community were arrested Wednesday, the Sacramento Bee reported.
FBI special agent Keith Slotter told reporters that some of those charged "have received terrorist training abroad, with the specific intent to initiate a terrorist attack in the United States," although there was no evidence found of specific plans, targets or timing of a possible attack. "We believe through our investigation that various individuals connected to al-Qaida have been operating in the Lodi area in various capacities," Slotter said.
The father and son have not been charged with terrorist involvement, but rather with lying to federal authorities. A criminal complaint alleges the son attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan for six months ending in 2004. The other three men were charged with immigration offenses, CNN said.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:51 ||
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#1
Lodi you say?
all right...let's bring on the Chandra Levy conspiracy stories!
#2
I am not an alarmist...but, it is only a matter of time before those AQ Monkeys pull off another significant terror operation - planned and trained from within our borders. I don't have the answer on how to stop it constitutionally, however my suggestion is to "get medieval" on those bastards.
#3
I would not be surprised if more arrests are not made. Something tells me this is bigger than the five already in custody. So far the father/son are the only ones with direct links to what is called a terrorists training camp. I saw some local Pakis on the news last night and they think this has more to do with some family feud than terrorism. Could these people be more out of touch with reality? Right after that they had the Deputy Imperial PooBah of CAIR who said he was disturbed about the way Muslims were being âtargetedâ by the FBI. Mind you this is AFTER Jr. admitted to attending a TERRORISTS camp while on his two year sabbatical in Pakistan. To make matters even more fun the Mayor of Lodi claims he saw four WHITE MEN harassing a Pakistani BOY. Now I live is a diverse community with Fareast people and Latin Americans and itâs real hard to tell the difference unless you are standing right next to them. Both have black hair and darkish skin. So either the Mayor was standing right next to the boy and ALLOWED the white men to harass him or he is lying to make the community shameful for thinking ill of the Pakis terrorists. IMHO the people of U.S. have been greatly restrained in their reactions to the many revelations of terrorists living among us and making shit up like the mayor did just diminishes that fact. Too bad the Muslims around the world donât reciprocate with the same respect when if come to some (Koran in toilet) allegation regarding Americans.
#4
CS, I think you are right. The quick admissions by the Father make it seem something big is up. Mind you, I was joking about the Chandra Levy conspiracy stories, but there were loons on all sides saying that Gary Condit had connections with the wealthy middle eastern men.
Perhaps Lodi is a bit like Michigan, where a foothold was grasped and politicians who were, how shall we say, influenced.
I'll put on my waders for a moment and dive in to note that it is interesting, that in the cases of Polly Klass, The Yosemite murders (which Carey Stayner later claimed credit for) and the Chandra Levy case, they all had serious allegations that these women were abducted as part of a ring that abducted women for wealthy middle eastern men. Mind you - this was LONG before 9/11 and all accounts are completely unrelated. The common theme was the accusation of abductions by middle eastern men, later dismissed. But never quite accounted for in all cases was how those bodies came to be where they were found. All cases had ties to the modesto area. Regarding Klass, the aunt wrote a book making the allegation back in the 1980's. In Yosemite murders, one of the suspects, prior to Carey Stayner admission, told the FBI (James Maddox also of Oklahoma City fame) that there was a ring in the area, and the claims were taken seriously until Stayner admitted to his almost inhuman ability to get that body to the location where it was found. I followed that case closely, and I can tell you, there were many, many unanswered questions (as there were in the Levy and Klass case) regarding how the bodies came to be where they were.
Anyhoo..we'll never know. But it is interesting nevertheless that all of those murders had similar mo's. And there were others in that general area that are questionable as well.
Just a little conspiracy morsel to chew on for the day.
#5
I don't have the answer on how to stop it constitutionally
You will never stop it constitutionally. There is one radical option that would work though - let Americans clean out their own neighborhoods and towns of these people w/o the threat of prosecution, but in doing so we would stoop to their level. Its a Catch-22. In today's day and age I really think our society will come to accept daily losses on par of Israel and move along. Our efforts to fight this will be as affective as the "War on Drugs".
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
06/09/2005 13:31
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#6
I tend to think that these a-holes are all pumped up when they're with each other, yapping about how they will bring america to it's knees, it's allan's will, etc, etc, etc.
but I also think that when reality punches them in the face, handcuffed by the feds and they're no longer surrounded by same-thinking miscreants, they soil their pants.
it's one thing to be screaming allan akbar in some pakistani no man's land, shooting at a photograph of bush, egged on by ignorant "leaders" who have no intention of ever actually putting themselves in harm's way . . .
it's another to be sitting in an interrogation room faced with the harsh reality that you really are powerless, stupid and not even remotely divinely protected.
they'll give it up. all of it. just for a promise of clean underwear in return.
Really? I remember living in SF area during the Polly Klass abduction and murder (by a 3 time loser it turns out). If memory serves me correct, she was living in Petaluma at the time. Modesto is nowhere near Petaluma. This conspiracy theory is a real stretch since Levy was found in Rock Creek park in DC. Yosemite is closer to Modesto than Petaluma but not by much.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2005 14:45
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It's the Rohnert Park Middle-Eastern Mafia. man!
#10
Planet Dan has it right A lot of these yayhoos get all fired up betweens themselves but in the line of fire they are pure chicken. Israel being a prime example of how a small, out-numbered, and out-gunned Army can stop and then crush one. Other than the Yom Kippur war I can't think of a single batle where the Arabs caused Jews to retreat. BTW that retreat was very temporary and Nasser got his ass handed back to him in a box.
Electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished and could be put up for sale on the international black market, according to UN investigators. The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium. In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away and could be for sale.
Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have been investigating the worst nuclear smuggling racket ever uncovered, headed by the Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The operation was discovered two years ago to be selling sensitive nuclear technology to Libya and Iran. A senior official said several sets of blueprints for uranium centrifuges - the so-called P-1 and more advanced P-2 systems which were peddled by the Khan network - have gone missing. "We know there were several sets of them prepared," said the official. "So who got those electronic drawings? We have only actually got to the one full set from Libya. So who got the rest, the copies? "We have no evidence they were destroyed. One possibility is another client. We just don't know where they are." A European diplomat privy to western intelligence on the Khan network added: "This is what keeps people awake at night. It's very sensitive. The fact that there are [nuclear] proliferation manuals kicking around is deeply disturbing."
The blueprints detail how to manufacture the components for a uranium centrifuge, what materials are needed, how to assemble the machines, and how to test them. The centrifuges are the main route to producing bomb-grade uranium. Uranium concentrate is converted into uranium hexafluoride gas which can be spun through cascades of centrifuges at super-high speeds to be enriched to weapons grade. "The big question is who else got this stuff [apart from Iran and Libya]," the European diplomat said.
Another diplomat pointed out that the Khan network was based in the Middle East and that Khan was known as the father of the Islamic bomb. He suggested that Syria and Egypt could be potential customers for the materials if they were still being offered. Khan is a national hero for creating the Pakistani nuclear bomb but is under house arrest in Islamabad since confessing to heading the network and being pardoned in February last year.
Although the network's operations extended to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the far east, its headquarters were in Dubai. Khan maintained a luxury apartment in Dubai. Following the uncovering of the network in October 2003, investigators went to the Dubai apartment only to find that it had been emptied, apparently by Khan's daughter Dina.
The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, confessed to his secret nuclear bomb programme and gave it up in December 2003. Three months later in Tripoli, the UN inspectors were given two CD-roms and one computer hard drive. One CD contained aset of drawings and manuals for the P-1 centrifuge system, the other for the more advanced P-2.
The instructions are in English, Dutch and German, and the designs are from Urenco, the Dutch-British-German consortium which is a leader in centrifuge technology and is the source of Khan's knowhow from his time working there in the 1970s. The CDs and hard drive are at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, where they have been analysed. The investigators now know that the scanning of the original blueprints was done in Dubai and when.
In addition to these blueprints, Khan also supplied Libya with drawings for an old Chinese nuclear warhead design. The drawings, now in Washington under IAEA seal, were not complete, say sources, but were adequate to construct a crude nuclear device. Investigators suspect that the warhead design was also copied into electronic form and is still available to prospective clients. "There is reason to believe that there might even be some drawings related to nuclear weaponisation in electronic form," said the senior official.
It is now also clear that multiple components secretly made for Libya's $100m (£54.6m) centrifuge programme did not reach Libya and have gone missing. From their investigations of the nuclear programmes in Libya and Iran, the IAEA has concluded that pieces of the nuclear jigsaw have not been located. "We are still missing something from the picture in terms of critical equipment, certain parts of centrifuges ... There is equipment missing important enough for us to search, an amount that makes us worried," said the official.
Around a dozen individuals, including engineers, businessmen, and middlemen, were key figures in the Khan network, with dozens of other companies operating at a secondary level, according to those familiar with the investigation. Alleged Khan associates have been arrested in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Dubai, and Malaysia, although none of those cases has yet come to full trial. British customs is also conducting an investigation into a British suspect.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:37 ||
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#1
Expect the plans to show up on every bit-torrent site.
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2005 8:55
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note these are the A.Q. Khan plans he got in the 70'3 from a dutch company as well as possibly from IEAA originally. These plans have shown up in other places already before this. Im not really sure that this is such a big story other than that the UN and IEAA can not be trusted to keep safe inmportant material.
Washington (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean Wednesday night for using "religion to divide." Obama told reporters gathered at the Rock the Vote awards dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., that Dean needs to tone down his rhetoric. Dean said on Monday that the Republican Party was "pretty much a white, Christian party."
"As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat," Obama said. "I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us," Obama explained. "We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language," he added.
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, also attending the Rock the Vote event, empathized with Dean. "I was [DNC] chairman for four years -- it's a tough job -- he's doing a great job," McAuliffe told Cybercast News Service. "I gave one piece of advice [to Dean]. I said 'Howard, you are about to become a human fire hydrant,'" McAuliffe said, referring to a conversation he had with Dean before he became DNC chairman.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona seemed pleased that Dean had made the latest in a series of controversial statements. "Howard Dean is the gift that keeps on giving," McCain told Cybercast News Service outside the Rock the Vote event.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:32 ||
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#2
It's hilarious how they keep trying to downplay his gaffes by claiming he "doesn't speak for the whole party" -- What purpose does a party chairman serve, in that case?
McCain's quote is spot on, and given the success of the compromise he helped engineer to end the filibustering and get those judges approved he's starting to earn back my approval. At the time I thought the compromise was pandering to a defeated, whiny party who can't accept that they lost the election, but it's starting to look like an end run that will give the Republicans everything they wanted.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/09/2005 10:06
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#5
His instincts are good, almost a classic liberal instead of the typical (socialist) liberal.
But it doesnt matter: they will bend him to the partisan dark side in DC. Its already begun with him tacitly backing the demagogery going on with judges.
#15
Rove needs to tell Howlin' Howie to scale it back a bit and wait just a little longer between soundbites. The Donks are starting to get suspicious.
A police chief in a northern Mexican border city has been killed by gunmen - just hours after taking the post. Alejandro Dominguez was sprayed by at least 30 bullets after attackers ambushed his car in Nuevo Laredo late on Wednesday, witnesses said.
Dozens of people have been killed in the region in a wave of drug-related violence since the authorities launched a crackdown on drug gangs in January. The US has warned citizens about the risks of travelling in the border area.
On 2 June 2005, an AF member was abducted from a nightclub in the Boy's Town district of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico by men of Mexican descent. The men assaulted the AF member and searched his belongings which were later returned to him. The AF member was released approximately 30 minutes later. Laughlin AFB has deemed this area off limits to their assigned personnel.
The attackers - who arrived in three vehicles - opened fire as Dominguez was getting in his car on Wednesday evening, a witness was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency. "They cut him off so he couldn't go. They shot him from inside [the vehicles] and then got out to shoot him more," the witness said. He added that the gunmen then drove away slowly, with their lights turned off.
Dominguez had taken office earlier in the day, saying he was not afraid of any threats. "I don't owe anybody anything. My duty is to the citizenry," he said.
More than 50 people have been killed since January in Nuevo Laredo - a major transit point for drugs entering the US. Armed Mexican police have been patrolling Nuevo Laredo - just across from Laredo in Texas - and other Mexican border cities since President Vicente Fox launched "the mother of all battles" on drug cartels and crime there.
And in other Mexican news:
MEXICO CITY, June 9 (UPI) -- Masked gunmen entered a hospital in northern Mexico and killed a federal agent recovering from a previous shooting.Two others also were killed. Investigators said the seven men entered the hospital and covered a security camera before heading upstairs to the room of federal agent Victor Estrada, El Universal reported Thursday. So far authorities have no suspects in Wednesday's killing. Estrada was recovering from a shooting earlier in the week while he was on vacation. He reportedly had been suspended from Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation for unspecified reasons then reinstated in March.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:27 ||
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#1
I'm sick of this stupid drug war. It's time to end the prohibition on drugs. Why do we care if people want to ruin their own lives. Time to make the drugs available in a sane manner and stop the illegal trade.
Even in societies where they will kill you for drug use, people continue to use them. The demand exists, time to create a supply system that harms only those who choose to harm themselves.
#2
The 2 June 2005 incident is worst of all -- MS-13?? I need a link ...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/09/2005 9:06
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The problem here is not solved by legalizing drugs. The entire Mexican government is corrupt from top to bottom. Just about everyone from dog catcher to President is on the take in some way. This case points out why we have so much illegal immigration. If we want to stop the flow of illegals across the border, we have to deal with the inherent corruption in Mexico's society and political system.
Yes our government could do a much better job defending the border and enforcing immigration laws, but we could build a moat filled wth fire and a 100' high fence of razor wire and there would still be a flood of illegal immigration as long as Mexico is corrupt.
We should take a hard line with the political leaders of Mexico - especially Vincente Fox. Instead of letting him set the agenda, demanding that the US do this or that, we should make a few demands of our own. Mexico needs to guard the border too. They need to reform their polical system and thereby, their economy. We can play an integral role in their reform, but it shoudn't be in the form of handouts. With the current political climate, spending money on Mexico is throwing it down a rathole.
It never ceases to amaze me that we are the world's one remaining true "superpower" and yet we don't have the guts to wield the power.
#5
The 2 June 2005 incident is worst of all -- MS-13??
More likely just a mugging, or attempted kidnapping. They grab a lot of people of Mexican decent visiting from the US. Their families will pay to have them released. I figure they decided they couldn't get anything for him, so they let him go.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005 9:44
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#6
not enough killed with alcohol...
that's a red flag and you know it. 40,000 people are killed on our highways annually and alcohol deaths are just a part of it. By your logic, no more cell phones, no more fast food, no more teen drivers, no more old drivers, no more truck drivers.
But wait, instead, let's look at the number of people killed world wide by the drug trade. Let's look at how many governments are corrupted by the money gained through it. Let's look at the money we waste. Heck, if you are so worried about traffic deaths, we could take all of that money we spend on the drug war and all of the taxes that we would get from making it legal in a sane and reasonable manner (no I don't mean crack machines on the corner) and we could do much better than limit the number of people killed by stoned drivers.
#8
and besides, right now there is nothing to stop them from getting the drugs and driving stoned anyway.
I know nothing about getting drugs. But I feel quite certain, that if I wanted to, I could drive downtown and have whatever my little heart desired in less than 1/2 hour.
I don't mean legal in the sense that you can buy heroin a the local market. I mean legal in the sense of perscription drugs. Legal in the sense that we don't allow advertising. Legal in the sense that we allow people who are already addicted to get it through a doctor or program. And yes, it is possible to determine who is already addicted.
Would there be corruption - yes, in the same way that there is with legal pain killers. But that is much easier to regulate and manage than the present situation with cartels and corrupt governments providing the supply.
#10
Or driving while stupid? Let's make stupidity illegal, setup a war on nitwittery, make prolonged driving in the left interstate lane at 68 MPH a Class 1 felony. We can do it. We have the means.
#14
prohibition vs. decriminalizing vs. legalizing.
The three choices all have there pros and cons.
another slant/ Do you want to raise your kids in a permissive drug culture? Kids make mistakes(as well as adults), some kids are risk takers by nature.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/09/2005 10:37
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I'm sick of this stupid drug war. It's time to end the prohibition on drugs. Why do we care if people want to ruin their own lives. Time to make the drugs available in a sane manner and stop the illegal trade.
Arguments about the drug war aside, my cynicism says the traffickers will just move onto something else that's illegal and in high demand.
#17
We have a choice, either have a societal problem with drug abuse, or have a societal problem with drug abuse and a black market. I don't believe in solutions only tradeoffs.
Bad drugs drive out safer (or less unsafe) drugs in a black market. Heroin is more profitable than pot, prisoners go blind from drinking methanol,and
Merck is prohibited from making safer drugs that make you feel good.
Posted by: Eric ||
06/09/2005 11:02
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#20
Prohibition causes artifical shortages, creating higher prices, and coupled with the attendant lawbreaking, the violence associated with such items.
Should cocaine be legalized (something I am not in favor of), it would be no more expensive than caffeine. Anybody killed over a cup of coffee lately? When was the last person killed over liquor distribution issues in the US? The day before prohibition ended would be my guess. But of course, the abuse problem would have to be addressed.... Marijuana has less of an abuse problem than harder drugs...
Posted by: Mark E. ||
06/09/2005 19:21
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#1
Of course while they were buying brand new almost cutting edge personal electronics at Walmart, all made in China, it didn't dawn on them in the least that technology skills were blooming on the mainland. Off with their heads! [Well, they certainly don't need it for thinking.]
#2
You can thank the wonderful Clinton Administration for this. Theu are the ones that authorized the technology transfers to the PRC while at the same time cutting intelligence efforts toward them. Good job Bill and I can't wait to see what Hillary has in store.
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
Thu Jun 9, 3:28 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil — more than the world is likely to need — along with an increasing ability to refine crude oil into gasoline and other products before selling it overseas, a top Saudi official says.
"The world is more likely to run out of uses for oil than Saudi Arabia is going to run out of oil," Adel al-Jubeir, top foreign policy adviser for Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, said Wednesday.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Al-Jubeir said relations between his nation and the Bush administration were strong but "the environment in which the relationship operates ... still leaves a lot to be desired." translation : Bush is not taken anymore of their bullshit
He denied his country has any nuclear weapons ambitions, despite international concerns about a Saudi request to lower international scrutiny of its lone nuclear reactor. This is a shame since they are inept enough to denote a nuclear bomb on their own backyard.
He said he was "bullish" about the Saudi economy, which although based on the country's vast oil reserves has also diversified to include a galloping stock market.
Al-Jubeir dismissed speculation, including in a recent book, that the country was hiding the true picture of its oil reserves and that it may have far less than publicly assumed. He said Saudi Arabia has proven reserves of 261 billion barrels, and with the arrival of newer technology could extract an additional 100 billion to 200 billion barrels. Lies, lies, and more lies!
"We will be producing oil for a very long time," al-Jubeir said.
Saudi Arabia now pumps 9.5 million barrels of oil daily, with the capacity to produce 11 million barrels a day. The country has pledged to increase daily production to 12.5 million barrels by 2009, and the nation's oil minister said last month the level of 12.5 million to 15 million barrels daily could be sustained for up to 50 years.
High oil prices benefit the Saudi economy in the short run, but al-Jubeir said his nation wants a stable price that won't hurt consumers so much that they reduce their energy demands. what do you know..he shows some signs of having brain activity!
The problem for both the Saudis and the United States is what happens after the oil is pumped.
"If we send more oil to the United States and you can't refine it, it's not going to become gasoline," al-Jubeir said. The United States has not built a refinery since the 1970s, and other markets have similarly outmoded or limited refining capacity. Environmental concerns and local opposition make it unlikely new U.S. refineries can be built quickly, even with the current gas price crunch.
Saudi Arabia has partly stepped into the breach, with new refineries being built inside the kingdom as well as in China and soon in India, al-Jubeir said.
The country has also invested in gasoline stations, part of a strategy of "going downstream" from oil production to distribution, al-Jubeir said.
"We continue to do it, and we have one of the largest refining and distribution systems in the world," he said.
Ordinary Saudis remain deeply distrustful of the United States in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and revelations about mistreatment of Muslim prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and a range of complaints about conditions at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, al-Jubeir said. Somebody should ask this oily asshole about the mistreatment of the 5 expats they framed in 2000 to justify the first bombing in Riyadh."Why do they hate you? They don't hate you, they just don't like your policies." Somebody should inform this grease ball that over 50 million Americans are asking themselves, when can we turn Saudi Arabia into a glass sheet?
Al-Jubeir said the Saudi regime takes no umbrage at U.S. efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have made democratic expansion a centerpiece of Bush's second term foreign policy.
"We believe that the idea of spreading freedom and democracy is a noble one," but change must come on terms each country can accept, al-Jubeir said.
#1
What's odd about this is the relatively small area in which the oil is concentrated. Even more bizzare is that it's in a historically Shia area only recently conquored by interior tribes. What is it about 15 km wide or so?
#4
Last year world oil consumption increased by almost 2M bpd. This year will be less perhaps 1.5M bpd as economies slow. If SA can increase supply by 1.5M BPD as they claim by 2009 then thats about 20% of the demand increase over that period assuming economic growth continues. So where is the other 80% coming from? (Answer = nowhere)
The world is not running out of oil anytime soon. What it has is a supply shortfall.
A Kenyan judge has thrown out charges against four men accused of murder in the case of the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa. High court justice John Osiemo said prosecutors had failed to prove that the men were connected to the attack. Correspondents say the trial was one of Kenya's first attempts to prosecute alleged terrorists. Fifteen people, including three Israeli tourists, died in the attack on the Paradise Hotel.
The four suspects - Aboud Rogo Mohammed, Mohammed Kubwa, Omar Said Omar and Mohammed Ali Saleh Nabhan - are all Kenyans. Three other men are being tried concurrently for conspiracy to bomb the hotel. A judgement in the case is expected later this month. The four acquitted defendants left the courtroom to cries of "God is great".
Accused Mohammed Nabhan welcomed the verdict. "It's fair, I'm quite happy I'm back with my family, justice has been done," he told the Associated Press news agency. The prosecution had argued that the four men had links to known terrorists. It was claimed in court that some of them had family ties to al-Qaeda operatives. But the judge said the prosecution's evidence did not connect the accused to the bombing. Under Kenyan law, judges are allowed to acquit defendants if they find the prosecution case too weak to answer. "Since ... the suicide bombers ... perished during the attack, there is no evidence whatsoever to connect the accused to the murder of the deceased persons," Judge Osiemo said, quoted by AFP news agency. "The prosecution has not established a prima facie case against the accused persons as required in criminal law to require the court to put them on their defence."
Lawyers for the defendants said they planned to sue the government over their lengthy custody. The authorities have come under fire from human rights groups for delaying the proceedings and torturing suspects during the initial investigation. The government denies the allegations of torture.
Most of the Kenyans who died in the bombing were members of a local dance group who were welcoming hotel guests. A simultaneous rocket attack on an Israeli airliner that took off from Mombasa airport failed. A group linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which dealt a severe blow to Kenya's once-thriving tourism industry.
This article starring:
ABUD ROGO MOHAMED
al-Qaeda
High court justice John Osiemo
MOHAMED ALI SALEH NABHAN
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED KUBWA
al-Qaeda
OMAR SAID OMAR
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Steve ||
06/09/2005
08:15 ||
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#1
This is exactly why the war on terror has become "a long hard slog". These assholes all say the exact same thing, "I'm completely innocent", "oh, by the way, Death to America!" When are we as a people going to get red of these guys?
...Ann dismantles the beatification of Deep Throat quite nicely.
Best Quote:
All this time, Nixon had suspicions about Felt being Deep Throat. Others may attribute Nixon's kindness toward Felt to Nixon's high principle and class. I prefer to think of it as sadism.
RTWT.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/09/2005
08:04 ||
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#1
A fun read, as Coulter almost always delivers, but I, um, had otherunseemly thoughts when I saw the title. Gosh, silly me. Color me blue-balled red-faced, heh.
NATO defence ministers meeting Thursday plan to come to the aid of the African Union's peacekeeping operation in Darfur with an offer to ferry 5,000 additional African troops to the region of western Sudan. The ministers, however, will likely stress that the African Union remains in charge of the peacekeeping operation.
The Darfur mission would be NATO's first in Africa. The African Union - a 53-member organization that African countries use to address problems on that continent - asked NATO in April to help bring more of African troops into the remote region. The African Union currently has 2,700 or so peacekeepers in Darfur, site of one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes. It wants to deploy another 5,000 - ideally before next month's start of the rainy season - but needs aircraft to send them into the region, which is the size of France. At least some of those additional troops will be flown in by a separate European Union mission, with EU ministers are expected to approve next week.
Washington had hoped for a NATO-commanded airlift operation, but France insisted the EU take charge. As a result, the two will run "side-by-side" airlift operations while taking pains to avoid wasteful duplication, said a NATO official. The United States plans to fly Rwandan troops to Darfur as part the alliance airlift. France will fly Senegalese troops under the EU flag. South Africa and Nigeria have also asked for help to fly troops to western Sudan.
Officials said NATO will only fly peacekeepers to Darfur, provide a some support staff to help the African Union run a headquarters but has made no commitment on rotating troops. Only Canada has expressed a readiness to provide helicopters to fly peacekeepers within Darfur.
Violence has raged in Darfur for more than a year, mostly between black Africans and ethnic Arab militiamen called the Janjaweed aligned with the Sudanese government. The government and the Janjaweed have been accused of committing wide-scale abuses against ethnic Africans in which 180,000 people have died and millions have fled to refugee camps.
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2005
07:48 ||
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#1
This will be the largest all Euro airlift since Stalingrad.
#3
Why don't they just charter a few Air France jets, rent some choppers and crew from Blackwater, hire Alladin's Lamp catering, and have Tribe, Inc build the movie set HQ. All off-the-shelf commercial services. Eliminates the need to build up infrastructure when all they really need is some rolodex numbers for the occasional one-off expeditionary soiree campaign.
#4
Actually, the same goes for mortuary services - which will prolly be their largest single expense, come to think of it. I'm sure there's a Peaceful Repose in Paradise or Get Yer Virgins Now or Deaders 'R Us listed somewhere on the 'Net. Hey, these guys could prolly work something out, for a fair price.
#5
Washington had hoped for a NATO-commanded airlift operation, but France insisted the EU take charge. As a result, the two will run "side-by-side" airlift operations while taking pains to avoid wasteful duplication, said a NATO official.
Okay. Let's have a race. See who gets there first.
North Korea boasted it was building more nuclear bombs ahead of the South Korean leader's trip to Washington to discuss deadlocked international efforts to get the communist state to disarm.
The North is widely believed to have enough weapons-grade plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear bombs. Asked by ABC News if the North was building more, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan said: "Yes." "As for specifically how many we have, that is a secret," he said. Kim also implied the North was able to mount nuclear warheads on its missiles. "Our scientists have the knowledge, comparable to other scientists around the world," he said.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun traveled to Washington Thursday on a one-day whirlwind trip to meet President Bush amid signs of strain in the U.S.-South Korean alliance over the nuclear standoff with North Korea.
-SNIP-
Also, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless paid a secret visit to Seoul this week and told his South Korean counterparts that Washington might withdraw its troops if the two sides continue to disagree on various bilateral issues, local media reported Thursday. South Korea's Foreign Ministry acknowledged the visit but refused to disclose what was discussed. The reports in the Hankyoreh and Munhwa dailies cited
-SNIP-
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2005
07:44 ||
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A German appeals court Thursday upheld the acquittal of a Sept. 11 suspect in a case decided partly by U.S. refusals to allow the use of testimony from captured al-Qaida members. Abdelghani Mzoudi was acquitted in 2004 of charges he helped hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah in their plot to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The five-judge panel did not immediately say why it had upheld the verdict.
Mzoudi's case will now be handed over to immigration authorities. With his student visa no longer valid, Mzoudi has two weeks to leave the country, said Norbert Smekal, a spokesman for the Hamburg state immigration department. The process could be delayed, however, if Mzoudi decides to apply for political asylum or take other legal steps, said Hartmut Jacobi, one of his attorneys. "He has not yet decided whether he will remain here," Jacobi told The Associated Press.
Mzoudi had been charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization for allegedly providing logistical support to the three Hamburg-based suicide hijackers. Testimony at his trial showed that Mzoudi trained at the same al-Qaida camps as the hijackers and was close friends with them in Hamburg. But Hamburg state court judges ruled that the prosecution failed to prove he knew anything about their plot.
In their appeal, prosecutors argued that the Hamburg judges failed to rule on whether Atta's group constituted a terrorist organization, making it impossible to determine whether Mzoudi was a member. Mzoudi's friend and fellow Moroccan, Mounir el Motassadeq, was convicted in 2003 of identical charges and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison.
The same panel that heard Mzoudi's case at the Federal Court of Justice overturned el Motassadeq's conviction last year and ordered a retrial, ruling that he had been unfairly denied testimony from al-Qaida captives in U.S. custody an issue that also contributed to Mzoudi's acquittal. A verdict in the el Motassadeq case is expected in August. Hamburg authorities have said that if he is also acquitted, they will move to expel him to Morocco as well, once his appeals are exhausted.
This article starring:
ABDELGHANI MZUDI
al-Qaeda
Hartmut Jacobi, one of his attorneys
MARWAN AL SHEHI
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda
MUNIR EL MOTASADEQ
al-Qaeda
Norbert Smekal, a spokesman for the Hamburg state immigration department
ZIAD JARRAH
al-Qaeda
Posted by: ed ||
06/09/2005
07:28 ||
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#1
my mother used to call that cutting off your nose to spite your face.
#4
Does anybody know just how good a case they had? Clearly he's al-Qaida, but did they have enough info to prove he was involved in the plot? All I know is the brief news summaries . ..
Posted by: James ||
06/09/2005 10:30
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#5
Wonder how many eyes and ears are on him now? Where will he go? Who will he lead us to? Staying put is no option for these guys.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/09/2005 10:39
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#6
Yeah, just because he trained at an al-qaida terrorist camp and lived and worked and associated with terrorists doesnt mean anything. What fucking planet did these judges come from?
PARIS has been riveted this week by a tale of intrigue, skulduggery and betrayal that a Jacobean playwright might have entitled The Revenge of Nicolas.
On one side is Nicolas Sarkozy, 50, leader of President Chirac's UMP (Union for a Popular Majority) party, who is the bitter rival of the Republican "monarch" and the dynamic star of French politics. Eight months after M Chirac banished him from government, M Sarkozy has made a surprise return as Interior Minister in the aftershock of voters' rejection of the European constitution.
This was his real crime, and for it, the press and the powers that be all agree he must be destroyed!
The French and the Arabs are all on the same page. The essence of life is to blame the Americans and Jews for the fact that you found it necessary to rob your own people.
YIELDS on eurozone government debt tumbled to record lows for a second consecutive day yesterday, amid deepening market gloom over economic prospects for the 12-nation bloc.
Benchmark ten-year German government bonds sank to 3.121 per cent before closing three basis points lower at 3.133 per cent after the Dutch central bank slashed its forecast for growth in the Netherlands this year from 1.7 per cent to just 0.4 per cent.
The latest fall in yields is likely to fuel consternation among European Central Bank policymakers, who are trying to dampen hopes of an impending interest rate cut and leave investors puzzling where bond markets are headed next.
Axel Weber, a member of the ECB's governing council, stressed yesterday that the central bank was in "wait-and-see" mode.
Otmar Issing, the ECB's chief economist, also said it was being made "a scapegoat for many problems" in Europe's economy.
However, City economists suggested that Europe's lacklustre economic performance might force the bank to act sooner rather than later.
Fixed income markets in the US face a similar conundrum. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, has admitted that he is at a loss to explain why yields on longer-dated US bonds are so low. On Tuesday he suggested that "new forces" might account for the low level of interest rates.
The dip in borrowing costs prompted a rush of companies to tap the corporate bond markets yesterday. GlaxoSmithKline, Europe's largest drugs maker, said that it would raise as much as â¬1.5 billion through the sale of two bonds, while LVMH, the luxury goods maker, and Veolia, the French utilities company, each sold â¬600 million in new paper.
If the central banks can't predict the likely response to rate changes, or if structural changes are occuring globally but no one has a good handle on them, expect a lot of financial and economic instability for the next few years.
Posted by: too true ||
06/09/2005
06:31 ||
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#1
Long term interest rates are signalling an imminent and probably severe recession. There is a lot of debt out there that will never be collected. As I said yesterday - too much liquidity chasing fewer returns and discounting risk to zero.
#3
Europeans are so smart, and soo much smarter than us, it's hard to believe this is really happening.
It couldn't happen to a nicer, more pleasant people.
The terrorists' operations are somehow well organized, logistically covered and financially well supported. To do that there are 3 main Arab states providing a full support in spite of their official denial. Syria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the main countries providing support for the terrorists in Iraq while other Arab countries providing information and propaganda support. Radical Islamists in Jordan, Iran, Kuwait, and other Arab states also provides different kinds of support. Radical groups especially Al-Qaeda supporters in the Western countries play an important role in recruitments, propaganda, financial and many other supports. One of the big mouths providing not only propaganda but well-formed support for the terrorists is the Qatari TV Al-Jazeera.
Syria, Saudi Arabia and Qatar states are coordinating with the Wahabi and Salafi groups for the support of the terrorists in Iraq. They plan together, separately &/or with the radical groups in the Western countries for mobilization of manpower and financial support for the insurgents in Iraq. Part of the support goes to the media especially the TV channels.
In Saudi Arabia many groups (thousands) have been recruited for the insurgents in Iraq inside the Mosques and the Religious Institutions and under the eyes of the Saudi Authorities. Not once these Authorities denied that they do not know enough about these activities to prevent them yet it happened in front of their eyes with a close range to their ears.
There are many reports from different sources and from the confessions of the captured Arab insurgents that there are high level of arrangement between the Saudi recruitments and financial support and the Syrian Intelligent Authorities which is directly linked with the highest Authorities in Syria. Syria as well as Saudi Arabia intentionally lastly mentioned the capture of thousands of insurgents in Syria most of them are Saudis. They only did that after strong evidence given by the insurgents about the involvement of these countries in training, recruiting and providing all support for the insurgents in Iraq. This is just part of equivocation and double entendre by saying that they will secure the border from the insurgents yet they are doing the reverse.
...
#1
In many ways our policy is "the attrition of the war-like". Throughout the world there are large numbers of young men, but still a tiny minority of all young men, that fit one particular profile. They are fanatical *and* they are willing to do something about it. A far larger number are willing to support the "doers", but wouldn't ever do anything themselves. So the 'direct' war is an effort to both concentrate the "doers" and exterminate them, and the 'indirect' war is the far slower process of changing the minds of their supporters. Afghanistan was too brutal to be used as an effective concentrator for most but the extreme fanatics; but Iraq is far more attractive, they not realizing that it is a far deadlier trap. But in any event, this concentration saps the strength from terrorist *movements* worldwide, draining them of the muscle they would use in their home country for all sorts of mischief. The few that return home do so with tales of horror and great disdain for those who sent them off in the first place. All told, the final result will be to make the entire region less war-like, by draining it of its warriors.
The Washington Post first reported last week that the Bush team is re-evaluating its anti-terror strategy. The Times subsequently conducted interviews to learn details of some of the ideas.
Officials told The Times there is some frustration at the review's slow pace. One called it a "complicated process" and blamed the National Security Council staff at the White House for delays in pushing all sides to agree.
"The Pentagon has been trying to overcome a lot of resistance," said the second Bush official. "Anytime they make their case, they get resistance."
That official said the Pentagon wants the intelligence community to put more emphasis on signal intercepts to identify al Qaeda foot soldiers.
Posted by: Scott ||
06/09/2005 7:57
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#3
Horn Silica is finely ground quartz meal that spends the summer in the soil inside a cow horn
ROFL- sand that spends the summer inside a cow horn is still sand. Alex, I'll take looney for $500!
Voice of America report, so there's some things that are basic in presentation
...Ever since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration and members of Congress from both major political parties have focused on the southern border with Mexico as a potential weak link in keeping terrorists out of the United States. Earlier this year, FBI Director Robert Mueller warned lawmakers that immigrants with ties to al-Qaida could easily enter the United States illegally from Mexico using false identities.
In recent months, some members of the president's majority Republican Party have stepped up pressure on the administration to do more to crack down on illegal immigration. Arizona Republican John Kyl, a member of a Senate subcommittee that deals with immigration issues, expressed concern about the continuing influx of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border during a recent hearing.
There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. But federal immigration officials insist they are making progress in stemming the influx. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar recently briefed a Senate subcommittee on immigration about his agency's efforts since last October.
"The Border Patrol as a whole has apprehended over 800,000 illegal aliens, interdicted 886,000 pounds of marijuana and 7,400 pounds of cocaine. Our objective is nothing less than a border under operational control," he said.
But with that success have come other problems. State and federal officials complain they are running out of room to detain illegal immigrants suspected of criminal intentions or from so-called countries of special interest, which are known to have links with terrorist organizations.
Immigration officials have instituted a limited expedited removal program that detains the most suspicious illegal aliens and usually results in them being deported in about a month's time. Large numbers of other illegal aliens who are not deemed a threat are often released inside the United States and told to appear in court at a later date to determine whether they are eligible to remain. A large number of them never make their court appearances.
Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn is joining forces with Senator Kyl to sponsor a bill that would double the size of the Border Patrol over the next five years. If approved, the Cornyn-Kyl bill would authorize 10,000 new Border Patrol agents to the current total of 11,000. It would also offer a version of a temporary guest worker program similar to that proposed by President Bush last year.
The president's plan would allow unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States to apply for legal status to work and would impose new penalties on companies that knowingly hire illegal workers.
Stewart Verdery is a consultant on immigration issues and a former official in the Homeland Security Department. He told lawmakers that the creation of a guest worker program is an important part of helping law enforcement focus on terrorist and criminal threats coming across the border.
But the guest worker proposals have drawn criticism from across the political spectrum. Immigration opponents are worried about the government's ability to administer a massive new program while immigration advocacy groups are concerned that the plan will not do enough to protect the rights of temporary workers.
#1
Our objective is nothing less than a border under operational control,"...
Bull, you don't act like it and no holder of that office ever has. The Border to the south should be controled and Patroled by a military type force. Zero drugs and illegal aliens should get across.
#2
SPoD -
Can't use Title X military forces, Posse Comitatus.
However, you could raise a 'para-military' force and put it under Homeland Security. Say, about two brigades of, otherwise unemployed, Apaches. It's not like that has ever been done before. :)
#3
Should have had the Marines practicing intradiction in a desert environment long before we went into Iraq.
Signs along the border "in Spanish" saying US Marine training area, do not cross. Would do a lot more towards stopping infiltration than water fountains.
#5
There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. But federal immigration officials insist they are making progress in stemming the influx.
What about ejecting those that are already here?
Large numbers of other illegal aliens who are not deemed a threat are often released inside the United States and told to appear in court at a later date to determine whether they are eligible to remain.
How about identifying the government officials who are responsible for this, and lowering the boom on them??
The president's plan would allow unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States to apply for legal status to work..
No, no, NO. Round 'em up and throw 'em OUT. Anyone that wants to be a part of the guest worker program needs to be clean, with NO RECORD of illegal entry.
This can't be said enough: NO REWARDS FOR ILLEGAL ENTRY. PERIOD.
In a sharply worded attack, the union for 10,000 U.S. Border Patrol employees accused the federal government of conducting a "witch hunt" in an investigation that implicated dozens of Border Patrol agents in a kickback scheme. The agents, said T. J. Bonner, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, were "victimized by a mindless bureaucracy."
The federal investigation uncovered a widespread kickback scheme involving agents temporarily assigned to the Douglas, Ariz., Border Patrol station several years ago. A Justice Department report disclosed that agents had accepted cash kickbacks from supervisors who rented rooms to them, and cash and other inducements from hotels that sought their business. In some cases, agents filed false expense accounts with the government.
The investigation was prompted by allegations made by agents Larry Davenport and Willie Forester. In a story in its June 6 edition, U.S. News reports that the whistle-blowers' charges led to the disciplining of 23 agents and three low-level supervisors. Border Patrol records show that at least 19 other agents were involved in the scheme but were not disciplined. Two agents, indicted in the case, are awaiting trial in Arizona. Davenport and Forester left the Border Patrol in 2002.
Most of the agents implicated in the scheme were detailed to the Arizona-Mexico border, beginning in 1999, as part of a campaign to crack down on illegal immigration. The whistle-blowers, Davenport and Forester, alleged that David Aguilar, now the head of the Border Patrol in Washington, knew of the scheme but did nothing to stop it. They complained to the Justice Department in February 2001. At the time, Aguilar was the chief patrol agent in Tucson, which includes the Douglas station and covers a 260-mile stretch along the U.S.-Mexico border. Through a spokesman, Aguilar strongly denied the whistle-blowers' allegations.
An Army Reserves lieutenant colonel from western New York has been killed by hostile fire while training Iraqi troops. Lt. Col. Terrance Crowe, 44, was a father of two. He was from Grand Island, north of Buffalo.
Crowe was the fourth member of the Rochester-based 98th Division to be killed in Iraq. Military officials said the attack occurred in Tal Afar, a city in extreme northwestern Iraq.
Crowe taught ROTC at Canisius College in Buffalo. He recently returned home on leave to attend the college's commissioning ceremony. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Bagwell of Canisius said Crowe was passionate about doing things in the best way possible.
the links appear to take congestion hits so I used the WoC link.
...
Soldiers from the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with hundreds of Iraqi Army soldiers, kicked off the rare daylight operation in a particularly violent neighborhood just before dawn. The troops moved door to door on narrow streets looking to capture or kill insurgents who have carried out numerous attacks in the city. They were backed up by about 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers, and Apache helicopters overhead covered them.
The Evil of Heresy is Greater Than the Evil of Collateral Killing of Muslims
"Islamic law states that the Islamic faith is more important than life, honor, and property. Indeed, it is the most important of the five inalienable rights, [2] and their very basis, and safeguarding it takes precedence over safeguarding them. It should be noted that all of these inalienable rights can not be safeguarded except through assuring the observance of the Islamic faith...
"Interpreting His words [in the Koran, 2:191] 'Temptation [Fitna] is worse than killing,' [the commentator] Mujahid says: 'For a Muslim, apostasy into idolatry is worse than death'...
"Allah stated [in the Koran] that heresy and idolatry, according to His law and His faith, are worse than killing. This is the Koranic basis for giving the safeguarding of the [Islamic] faith precedence over the other four inalienable rights, the first of which is life. To safeguard those [other] inalienable rights by forfeiting Islam... — this is the real temptation against which Allah warns...
"The evil of the temptation of heresy and idolatry is greater than the evil resulting from the unintentional, collateral killing of Muslims [in the course of a Jihad] intended to destroy the Fitna of heresy and idolatry and to cleanse the universe of it.
"Sheikh Al-Islam ['the authority of Islam'] Ibn Taymiyya said: 'Complete piety means that man should be able to recognize the better of two good things and the worse of two evils, and that he should know that the basis of Islamic law is that one should [strive to] achieve beneficial things and perfect them and to stop evil things and diminish them...
"He [Ibn Taymiyya] also said: 'Allah made it lawful to kill people as much as necessary for the good of humanity. As He said [in the Koran, 2:217]: "The temptation [of idolatry] [fitna] is worse than killing." [This is so] because, although killing is evil and wrong, there is more evil and wrong in the temptation of heresy'..."
#3
Wow, talk about moral relativism! This is a faith that needs some major adjustment if not abolition.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/09/2005 8:27
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#4
virtually all wahabis and many salafists believe that Shiites, Ismailis, Ahmiyadas and Sufis who oppose Salafism are a class of infidels that is worse than non-Islamic infidels
this classification was part of the Salafist 'reform' during the 19th century and, if you believe that the early caliphs were pure because they practised pure and spartan islam (which is an egregiously false notion), then it is 'logical' to believe that the post 8th century sects are a threat
#6
"Interpreting His words [in the Koran, 2:191] 'Temptation [Fitna] is worse than killing,' [the commentator] Mujahid says: 'For a Muslim, apostasy into idolatry is worse than death'..."
This about sums it all up. Lots of religions have used the apostasy excuse to kill their respective apostates. The reasoning goes something like, apostates are worse than the worse infidels because they do know the word and have turned from it.
I think Mucky sums is on to something.... "mebbe we are jus need confinsen them thatn there all apostates in sum way."
Kind of why it made sense to send arms to both Iran and Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war in the 80's.
#8
"Allah made it lawful to kill people as much as necessary for the good of humanity."
Adolf & Josef and I are SO proud to have been doing Allah's work: we all love that phrase "as much as neccesary", it was key to our justification of the eradication of those who were in our way.
Pay no attention to the guy with the horns & flaming pitchfork behind me...
#9
Appropo that they use the word "necessity" in their argument to justify the slaughter of the innocent.
Necessity never made a good bargain. -- Benjamin Franklin
Necessity has no law. -- Benjamin Franklin
Necessity knows no law except to conquer. -- Publilius Syrus
Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities, are the greatest cozenage men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by. -- Oliver Cromwell
And last, but best:
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -- William Pitt
#10
Makes me wonder about the other side of the coin.
What if super-rich super-power Spain had taken her wealth from the New World and continued the Reconquesta into North Africa instead of tangling with Apostate European powers. I kind of think we wouldn't have an Islamic North Africa today. I kind of think the Turks could have been beaten back before they got their roots too deep into Balkan soil.
But the heretic is so much worse in the minds of a fanatic. Reminds me of the Left's reaction to George W. Bush as well.
#11
what is that I hear? open discussion and debate in the muslim world about the merits of zark's position? condemnation by enlightened muslims? honest soul searching in muslim communities about what is right and good and wrong and evil about their teachings and practices?
A GROUP of Cubans trying to reach the United States in a vintage American car converted into a boat were intercepted by the US Coast Guard, relatives said today. It is their third attempt in two years to reach the US in the amphibious 49 Mercury.
In their impoverished Havana neighbourhood, tearful mothers implored US authorities to allow the emigres to stay in the United States, saying they would be jailed if returned to Communist-run Cuba. Thirteen Cubans, including six children, sailed across the Florida Straits in a 1949 Mercury with a built-on prow and a taxi sign on the roof. They were intercepted about 32km off Key West on the southern tip of Florida yesterday morning, Miami television station NBC 6 reported.
The group set off on Monday night local time from a beach east of Havana in the converted car owned by Rafael Diaz, who was making his third attempt to leave Cuba in the makeshift amphibious craft. Miami television images showed them aboard a US Coast Guard cutter. A Coast Guard spokesman said he could not provide details on the incident until the fate of the migrants was resolved. "He's my only son. He is all I have got," said Diaz's mother Josefina Rey, 79. "But at least in the United States he can remake his life. Here they will not leave him in peace."
"I implore the US government that they be allowed to stay. If they are returned they will be refugees for ever, there will be reprisals," said Efigenia Bello, whose daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, aged 3 and 4, were on the vessel. She said her daughter Yerani was a doctor and Cuba would not allow her to emigrate legally to the United States.
Generally, Cubans intercepted on the 140km crossing to Florida are sent back to the island, while those who make it to US soil are allowed to stay. Others are taken to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay and later allowed to go to a third country from where they can make it to the United States. According to Coast Guard statistics, some 1406 Cubans have been intercepted illegally crossing the Florida Straits since October. Most are ferried over in smugglers' vessels.
#5
I heartly agree with the idea of exchanging leftists for ingenious Cubans. I would add to the list of people to send there: ungreatful muslims, ungreatful latins, Howard Dean's supporters, Kerry's supporters and resentful minorities, in general.
#6
I shudder looking at that thing immersed in salt water -- the winter road salt here in PA does enough damage to cars as it is!
Jackal's right -- anyone this ingenious and determined deserves amnesty.
And JFM's exchange program idea is perfect. I nominate Alec Baldwin as our first dropping offering.
Posted by: Dar ||
06/09/2005 9:58
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#7
Those cubans needed to put an angular superstructure on the vessel to dissipate radar waves, some better camo paint, and they would have been able to dock at Miami. I agree, though, they are they type of people that we need, if we take immigrants.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/09/2005 11:08
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#8
Would emeral-green not blend with the color of the water? I have flown over that area and the water, in some parts, looks just like the color of the car!
#11
Can't we just pretend people like this are Mexicans crossing the land border and "forget" to ask them about their immigration status?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/09/2005 16:23
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#12
The thing that really impressed me is that they painted the bow the same colour. Talk about pride.
These people really ought to be offered the opportunity to live and work in the US - they've certainly shown they have the guts and drive (ho ho!) to have a go!
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
06/09/2005 16:26
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#13
Those cubans needed to put an angular superstructure on the vessel to dissipate radar waves, some better camo paint
Hell no - looks sweet the way it is. These guys could get a job in about 10 seconds in Florida.
Afghan and US-led coalition forces on Wednesday arrested five men suspected of being Taliban rebels responsible for a deadly attack on a Pakistani-owned fuel tanker after it delivered gasoline to a US base in southern Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported. The truck's Pakistani driver and assistant were killed in the assault late on Tuesday in Spin Boldak district, which is next to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition troops fanned out across the area Wednesday morning, searching for the attackers. The five were arrested in a village in the area, district police chief Mohammed Raz said.
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06/09/2005
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Pirates armed with AK-47 assault rifles attacked the crew of a supertanker waiting to load crude at Iraq's Basra oil terminal before making off with cash, an ocean crime watchdog says. The raid happened at night on 31 May about 10 nautical miles from Iraq's deep-water oil terminal where most of its crude oil is exported. "They tried to enter the bridge claiming to be policemen. The master denied them entry and the pirates became violent ... they assaulted the master causing him injuries and demanded money," the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in a report on Wednesday.
The Nord Millennium was capable of carrying 300,000 tonnes of crude when fully loaded. A warship belonging to the US-led forces arrived to assist following a mayday signal. Jayant Abhyankar, deputy director of the IMB, told reporters the incident raised questions about security at the oil terminal, Iraq's main outlet for oil exports that provide nearly all of its income.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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Gunmen have kidnapped 22 Iraqi soldiers shortly after they left their base in western Iraq, a police official said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, saboteurs blew up a main oil pipeline in northern Iraq amid reports that eight people including five Iraqi civilians and three US soldiers were killed in fresh violence.
The soldiers were abducted on Tuesday on the road from Qaim, near the Syrian border, to the town of Rawa, said Shaker Saleh, chief of police of Anbar province. He said the soldiers were Shia from southern Iraq.
A car bomb that targeted a long row of cars queuing outside an Iraqi petrol station killed at least three civilians and injured another in the city of Baquba on Wednesday, police said. "We found three civilians' bodies torn completely apart," said Lieutenant-Colonel Thair al-Izzi. Eyewitnesses said no security force personnel — frequent targets of insurgent attacks — had been near the car at the time of the blast, 65 km north of Baghdad. .
Gunmen killed two bodyguards of an official who is a member of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution in an attack on their car on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said. The bodyguards of Freydoun Abdel Qadir, a member of the National Assembly, were driving on a Baghdad highway when they were attacked. Qadir was not in the vehicle.
Three US soldiers were killed in two attacks by insurgents in Iraq late on Tuesday, the US military said. A mortar attack on a base at Tikrit killed two soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Division, the military said in a statement on Wednesday. A soldier from the 1st Corps Support Command was killed when a roadside bomb blasted his vehicle.
Saboteurs blew up a main oil pipeline in northern Iraq early on Wednesday, an official at the Northern Oil company said. A Reuters correspondent at the scene, just north of the refining town of Baiji, said smoke was pouring into the sky. Firecrews and US military personnel were in attendance. The Northern Oil official said the line affected was used to export oil to Turkey from Iraq's vast northern oil fields around Kirkuk. The company official said there had been no exports at the time because of repeated attacks. "This isn't the first time. They've targeted oil for a long time even when there is no exporting," he said on condition of anonymity. A shipping source said exports from the Ceyhan oil terminal at the Turkish end of Iraq's export pipeline, which currently holds 3.6 million barrels in storage tanks, had resumed on Tuesday. He said he did not know how long the flow would continue. "From previous experience we know that they pump for 24 or 48 hours and then they stop," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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Arab nations are making good progress in fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, with significant strides in controlling charities, the head of a regional watchdog said yesterday. The comments by Muhammad Baasiri, president of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENA FATF) come after the United States has criticized slow progress on the issue in the Arab world. "Countries in the area have honestly taken significant strides in reshaping the charity organizations in their countries. A lot of controls have been imposed on charities and on charities getting money from abroad or transferring money," Baasiri told Reuters in an interview.
Baasiri's task force sets standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing for 14 Arab nations. US Treasury Department official Daniel Glaser said in April there was "still a lot of work to be done" by Arabs to tackle the problem. Washington has pressed Arab states to clamp down on sources of militant financing since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The MENA FATF issues standards based on the recommendations of the global body, Paris-based Financial Action Task Force. The standards also deal with the specific nature of the problems in the Arab world, such as funding through the informal hawala system of money transfers, charities and through smuggling of cash, Baasiri said. The countries have also been "cooperating beautifully" with the United Nations and other international organizations by taking steps such as freezing of bank accounts of suspected terrorists, he said. The MENA FATF's 14 members are Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Baasiri said Sudan, Mauritania, Djibouti, Libya, the Palestinian Territories and Iraq may also be absorbed as members of MENA FATF before end-2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#1
MENA FATF, based in Paris and run by Muhammad Baasiri. Okaaaay, I feel better now, my confidence restored, my fears allayed. Whew! Close one! No more unsupervised monkey business, no siree.
#4
In a New Brunswick court hearing earlier this year, Mr. Despres' father was sentenced for beating his live-in girlfriend. High on cocaine, court heard, his father used to rev up his own chainsaw and use it on appliances and the ceiling. Another time, his live-in girlfriend woke up with him standing over her bed with a chainsaw.
#5
half - Check the Onion. I ran across a dedicated Holy Shit! image site once with precisely the sort of images you're referring to, but for some reason - momentary good taste, perhaps, I failed to bookmark it.
LAWYERS for terrorism suspect Jack Thomas will lodge an official complaint about a television quiz show question they say could prejudice his trial. Mr Thomas, charged with receiving financial support from al-Qa'ida, providing the group with resources or support to help carry out a terrorist attack and having a false passport, was the subject of a question on Monday's Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. On the program, a contestant answered a $1000 question that asked: "Suspected of associating with the terror network al-Qa'ida, Joseph Terrence Thomas, was dubbed what? a) Jihad Jack; b) Joe Blow; c) Terror Terry; or d) Thomas the Tank Buster."
Thomas's solicitor, Rob Stary, said yesterday he would lodge a complaint with the Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions this week. "I think it's completely inappropriate to trivialise the matter when court proceedings are well and truly in place," Mr Stary said. "These are serious charges, and my client is entitled to the presumption of innocence."
Thomas's brother, Les Thomas, said their grandmother, aged in her late 70s, watched as the question was aired. "My grandmother nearly choked on her biscuits when she saw it," Mr Thomas said. He said the contestant had asked host Eddie McGuire to lock his answer in, and McGuire said: "Apparently he's been locked in for quite a while." Mr Thomas said a reasonable person who heard the question about his brother "would come away with the idea he actually calls himself Jihad Jack, which was never the case". His brother had adopted the name Jihad, a word he understood to mean "spiritual striving", when he converted to Islam in 1996. "Jihad Jack is a nice piece of alliteration the media has come up with, and the whole connotation is of a mad bomber who is intent on causing death and destruction. "That's not the brother I have known all my life."
A spokeswoman for Nine said the program's producers stood by the question. "The information is very much in the public domain," the spokeswoman said. "It didn't refer to what Jack Thomas might have done, more so what he has been dubbed."
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan dropped their demand Wednesday for veto power for new permanent members in an expanded U.N. Security Council. The so-called Group of Four, who have been campaigning vigorously to become members of the U.N.'s most powerful body, were forced to back down because of opposition from a number of countries. The group has circulated a resolution that would increase the Security Council from 15 to 25 members, including six new permanent seats — with four hopefully going to them and the other two to African nations. But Wednesday's revised draft would delay consideration of a veto for the new permanent members for 15 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#6
They should just set up hidden cameras in every meeting room and edit it together for a weekly reality show. General Disassembly. I'd watch. The UN could be good for something then. Entertainment.
Syria said on Tuesday it sought better ties with the United States, but would not compromise its principles. "We always wish for and seek good relations with the United States," Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban told a news conference at the ruling Baath Party congress which is due to focus on reform. Shaaban said Syria was pressing ahead with reform based on the country's needs "that are not related to what others try to threaten (Syria) with".
The congress is expected to approve democratic reforms that Shaaban said might include improving press freedoms and allowing some political pluralism. Ties between Syria and the United States hit their worst level after the US-led war in Iraq which Damascus opposed. Last year, Washington imposed unilateral economic sanctions against Damascus for failing to prevent insurgents from crossing into Iraq, backing anti-Israel militants and maintaining a military presence in Lebanon for almost three decades.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#1
A couple words about "Hot Pursuit" and for no reason we hear "better ties"?
#4
I thought they just cut diplomatic ties with us? When they figure out what they want maybe they can let us know. I give up, the whole thing is very muslim.
Monday, June 06, 2005
My friend just came from Iran
I bumped into an old friend yesterday. Well, I won't call him a close friend because he leads such a lousy lifestyle. Anyway, he informed me that he just came back from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
"What the hell were you doing there man, you turned into a Shia?" I asked laughingly.
"No, I went there on a business trip. We had a meeting with a number of Iranian businessmen who are going to import our products. My American colleague John (not his real name) came with me. Man, I was scared to death before going there. I mean here I am an Egyptian guy accompanied by an American on a trip to Iran. You sure know that relations between Egypt and Iran are not so good, not to mention the US!! I was also afraid lest I break some religious rule and regret it! Or we get arrested because of John" he said.
"So, tell me about it" I asked.
"Well, I stayed there for 5 days. I got drunk in the first 3! Man, there ain't a house or an office I entered that didn't have a mini bar in it full of smuggled booze from Smirnoff vodka to Heineken beer! I was shocked. Everyone drinks there. Their private life is the complete opposite of what you see on the street. We went up a mountain with a group of Iranians and had all the fun there. When they knew that John was American, they were like flies around him. They took his email, phone number, and stuff" he said.
Axis of evil? What axis of evil? Get on your knees and pray that something happens in Iran guys.
// posted by BP @ 12:25 PM Comments (13) | Trackback (0)
Sunday, June 05, 2005
I didn't want to write what you are going to read right now
I admit I thought countless times before writing today's post. I signed in to Blogger twice only to sign off again. My hesitation was a result of me not wanting to "hang our very dirty clothes" in front of this blog readers. After much thought, I decided to post just to inform you of the humiliation many of us feel and what this "humiliation factor" can lead to.
Upon Laura Bush's recent trip to Egypt, it was planned that she, along with her host Mrs. Mubarak, would visit a USAID funded school in Alexandria. One week before the scheduled visit, the tattered school was painted anew, tidied up, and the sewage system was fixed. The dirty roads around the school were cleaned up and trees were miraculously planted all around the area. A sign in English was written to welcome the 2 first ladies.
Nevertheless, the Alexandria education officials didn't like how the Om el Qura school kids looked like! The girls were poor and wore dirty school uniforms. Instead of cleaning them out and distributing clean clothes that would have definitely drew a huge smile on their faces, the officials decided to replaced the kids with new kids brought from a language school! Not only that, they gave the entire school staff a one week leave! Can you imagine how humiliated the school kids and the teachers are feeling right now!
I believe that Mrs. Mubarak was not aware that she would take her guest to a fake school. I mean, the education officials would have done the same thing if it was only Mrs. Mubarak visiting the school. However, what happened highlights a very important issue which is the humiliation that our governments and leaders made so many of us feel.
Those who are poor and not well connected cannot escape humiliation in public hospitals, police stations, and the military establishment. When I went to check my military status at an army base, I saw firsthand how Egypt's poor youth were being treated so harshly and without any atom of dignity by the army's officials. I was spared from this treatment just because my former army general father was with me. This humiliation is one of the factors that make some so vulnerable to what a terrorist might preach to them. May be poverty and unemployment might not go away, but I don't think it is that hard to teach government officials and employees that fellow citizens deserve to be treated humanely no matter how poor they are or how unclean and untidy their clothes might look.
Besides, I just don't understand how a school that is funded by USAID can be so tattered and in such a bad shape. Does it really receive the funds or do they go into some pockets? And how come the US embassy here doesn't check upon how Americans' tax money is being spent? I have no clue!
Now, Mrs. Bush can do something that would turn the world upside down here. This might cause a huge diplomatic problem between the two countries but it will definitely help the US with some PR here. Mrs. Bush can say that she is not pleased with what happened and she demands that those who lied to her and Mrs. Mubarak be held accountable. She will then invite a delegation of 10 persons from the school, 5 teachers and 5 students, to go and visit the US in the summer. That would be something.
#1
"And how come the US embassy here doesnât check upon how Americansâ tax money is being spent?"
And there you have it, your State Dept in repose. Of course they prolly do "check up" on things now and then - they send the office boy Abdul around. He reports back what they want to hear and they treat themselves to another round... of young local "delights". Abdul was once a favorite, too, but he grew out of it and they kept him on for sentimental reasons.
Wherever posted, they quickly adapt and become privileged barons, caesars, caliphs, crowned heads, czars, emperors, gerents, imperators, kaisers, khans, magnates, maharajahs, majesties, mikados, moguls, monarchs, overlords, pashas, potentates, princes, rajahs, shahs, sovereigns, sultans, tycoons - whatever the local flavor allows. The Foreign Service is very very addictive to the indolent arrogant.
#3
TGA's mentioning The Diplomad yesterday reminded me how much I (we) miss that blog and their insider view. Sigh. Mine's a poor imitation, I'm afraid. He / they were so much more elegant, skewering with a light touch, lol! The Vulture Elite, wasn't it?
An opinion poll based on 4,738 interviews in 12 cities by the Iranian Students Polling Agency on May 31 and June 1 showed support for Rafsanjani was 27.8 percent, down from 34.8 percent in a poll in the capital by the same agency published last week. Rafsanjani's closest challenger remained Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and police chief, with 14.0 percent. Outspoken reformist Mostafa Moin, a former higher education minister, came third with 10.2 percent.
The combined support of the four hardliners Qalibaf, former state broadcasting chief Ali Larijani, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaie, is just shy of Rafsanjani's backing, the poll showed. Newspapers speculated that Ahmadinejad and Rezaie were the most likely to drop out of the race. Kayhan quoted Larijani as saying there would be good news soon on a consensus candidate. Political analysts say the June 17 election is unlikely to be conclusive. To win outright a candidate must secure at least 50 percent of votes cast. Otherwise the top two candidates must face off in a second round held a week later.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#3
Come on, guys...it may be symbolic and/or window dressing, but it's a start on democratic reforms, isn't it?
As the Chinese say, "A journey begins with a single step..."
Good for Qatar!
And they've been wonderful allies with us, too.
Gosharoonies, that will let them continue to cover for Al Jizz, something they were taking some serious heat over. How convenient.
Freedom of Assembly, but "according to the law".
Hmmm. Since Shari'a is the basis of law (next item) this this doesn't mean dick, now does it?
Article One - âIts religion is Islam and Shariah is the main source of legislation. Its regime is democratic and its official language is Arabic.â
and
"no changes can be made to the document for the first 10 years"
Think about this. Just because they said a few magic words, "constitution" "democratic" "free speech" "free press", you folks are getting all wobbly and gushy.
Bullshit. They have successfully played the sucker bet and enshrined the same old Arab Islamic Shari'a SHIT, carved it into stone for 10 years, and made all legal-looking and spiffy for public consumption. For what? For so-called "free speech" and "free press" and "free assembly" and an occasional vote on what color the wheels of Shari'a "justice" will be? These are all as stipulated under Shari'a Law, folks. In other words, it's the same old shit.
Shari'a is the key to oppression - and they've got you looking at the shiny wrapper, instead of the shit sandwich inside.
Sorry, but this is a clever PR snowjob - a massive pig in a poke Islamic joke. Swallowed the sucker hook, line, and sinker, too. Need some more metaphors? How about "Same old wine in a brand new bottle"? You can add, now New and Improved with a Constitution and Democracy! Sorta. Active Ingredient: Shari'a.
I've got some swampland and bridges fine real estate I'll grudgingly part with...
#7
"...no changes can be made to the document for the first 10 years..."
How handy for the Emir!
Posted by: Tom ||
06/09/2005 8:36
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#8
Some of these people still think the sky can fall on their heads so this has to be a start.. no matter how miniscule and ultimately disguised it may actually be.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
06/09/2005 8:39
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#9
Sure, okay.
The Great Arab Leap Forward. I expect that those Dictatorships, Thugocracies, Mullahcracies, etc, who aren't run by total congential idiots and haven't yet made their plans for new window treatments (in response to the pressure they feel from Bush) will take a good hard look at this hoax bold step - and likely emulate it. It's a masterstroke, even approaching genius, for Arab Dictators, anyway.
Please ignore me, I'm just being incorrigibly unforgiving of the Arab Vision Thingy. Silly me.
#10
At least they're saying the words.. which is something.. must be breaking their hearts balls..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
06/09/2005 9:51
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#11
Saying the words won't disturb the rulers at all if they're thinking in terms of taqqiyah (dissembling to fool the infidel enemy). I agree with .com on this one. The giveaways, to me, are the timing and the 10 year "No change" clause.
#12
Dictators have done this type of thing thoughout history (eg. czarist russia create a state duma without little power) and look how that ended up. This is just done to releve pressure on his regime and wont have any real power.
Indian Kashmiri separatist leaders indicated yesterday they might abandon their 57-year-old stance on holding a referendum in the divided Himalayan region after meeting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella group of some two dozen parties, said a solution could emerge from outside a series of decades-old United Nations resolutions calling for a plebiscite. Until now the separatists have always backed the resolutions, which were adopted from 1948 onward, as the only acceptable path to end the bitter dispute over the scenic territory. "It looks as if we are moving toward a negotiated settlement. We have to move from our traditional positions," Farooq said after a group of moderate separatists met Musharraf late Tuesday.
This article starring:
MIRWAIZ OMAR FARUQ
All Parties Hurriyat Conference
All Parties Hurriyat Conference
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#1
Somebody hired a good polling firm (with good body armour and better insurance) and discovered that after a couple decades of randomly butchering everyone's Uncle Jed and Aunt Fatima, for some reason the seperatists don't have the votes they thought they'd have by now...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/09/2005 13:20
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Iran will agree to renew dialogue with arch-foe Washington if it releases Iranian assets frozen since the Islamic revolution, presidential frontrunner Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted as saying on Wednesday. "As I have said before, a goodwill gesture on the part of the United States would be for them to unblock our assets," the top Shiite cleric said in an interview with the hardline Jomhuri Islami newspaper. "If such a gesture was made, we could enter into negotiations. This has been my position and I still think the same way," the 70-year-old Rafsanjani said.
Iran and the United States cut off relations in 1980, a year after the revolution, and Iranian assets in the US were frozen. Rafsanjani has previously said the figure is at least eight billion dollars plus interest.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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#1
[there are many ways to comunicate]
Ayatollah Asshati [humming to himself in Iran]
Oh it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood..neighborhood...
..it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood..neighborhood...would you be my neighbor?
[high up above the ink black sky, a voice]
Roger that neighbor
The Rods from God
Among the weapons the Air Force might deploy are space-based lasers, a space plane capable of delivering a half-ton payload anywhere in the world in 45 minutes, and the "rods from god." The rods are currently just a concept--and have been since the early 1980s--but, if the myriad technical and political hurdles to deployment could be overcome, the system could represent a tremendous leap forward in the military's ability to destroy underground, hardened facilities of the type that have allowed Iran and other rogue states to violate the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty with impunity.
HOW DO THE RODS WORK? The system would likely be comprised of tandem satellites, one serving as a communications platform, the other carrying an indeterminate number of tungsten rods, each up to 20 feet in length and 1 foot in diameter. These rods, which could be dropped on a
target with as little as 15 minutes notice, would enter the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 36,000 feet per second--about as fast as a meteor. Upon impact, the rod would be capable of producing all the effects of an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon, without any of the radioactive fallout. This type of weapon relies on kinetic energy, rather than high-explosives, to generate destructive force (as do smart spears, another weapon system which would rely on tungsten rods, though not space-based).
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/09/2005 0:35
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#2
Yeah, but big difference between "...might deploy" and "is/already deployed", espec if one looks up at the skies o'er WESTPAC. As for the SPACE PLANE, the one described is for civilians and PC - the REAL SPACE PLANE is the one that will take astronauts and space ve-hiickles to the Moon and back.[HINT: t'aint DELTA-WINGS of UFO notoriety].
#3
no reel wun hiderin in em nyoo zeelan. strikly yoos fro tranzpoten teh lizard peples to teh mars base tho. litter do em iluminati kno tho the erth polar shift gonna afec teh hole solar system therby destryoin plutos entire ecosystem.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/09/2005 2:39
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#7
I'm still waiting for a "good-will" gesture from the mullahs. How about an apology, restitution, etc. for the embassy take-over? Never forgive, never forget!
#12
"As I have said before, a goodwill gesture on the part of the United States would be for them to unblock our assets," the top Shiite cleric said in an interview with the hardline Jomhuri Islami newspaper.
#14
Red Dog-
I recently read a tech article pooh poohing the god rods. It claimed that projectiles moving faster than 3000 fps do no more burrowing than those moving slower, the end of the rod just "boils off" faster. Further, it said that accurately guiding the suckers would not be a piece of cake and the cost of getting them into orbit would be astronomical (heh, heh). The conclusion was that a rocket from more conventional launch pad would be much cheaper and as effective. FWIW.
Police in the Indian capital on Wednesday arrested three men, including a top Sikh militant and the main accused in the bombing of two cinemas last month that killed one person and wounded dozens. The men are members of Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, which wants an independent Sikh state, a police spokesman said. The arrests in a Delhi suburb took the number of people held over the May 22 blasts to eight.
"Jagtar Singh Hawara is the head of Babbar Khalsa and there was a price of 500,000 rupees ($11,500) for his arrest. He is wanted for the assassination of Beant Singh among other cases," the spokesman said. Another of those arrested on Wednesday was the mastermind behind the home-made bomb blasts that tore through the cinemas in Delhi, the spokesman said. "We suspect they were in Delhi to collect some money and flee the country. Some guns and a huge amount of explosives were recovered from them," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/09/2005
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GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador - A bomb exploded early Wednesday outside an office building housing a Citibank branch, blowing out windows and causing some damage but no injuries, police said. The so-called Group of People's Combatants, or GCP by its initials in Spanish, claimed responsibility for the attack. An e-mail sent to The Associated Press, claiming to be from the group, said the blast was in opposition to free trade talks between Ecuador, Peru and Colombia with the United States aimed at opening tariff-free access to U.S. markets. The 10th round of negotiations are now taking place in this Pacific coast city, the country's banking and financial hub.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Chavez's and Fidel's legacy.
They both should be taken out before they cause any more damage.
Three members of a family of a militant who surrendered to the army were killed in Jammu after a gun battle broke out between police and Indian paramilitary forces, a local news agency reported. Police and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel clashed over the surrender of some militants in the Kalakote region of southern Kashmir. Reports said that two militants from Hizb-e-Islami, Aashiq Ali and Mohammad Farooq, had offered to surrender before the army in Gool tehsil of Udhamur district. Army officials organised a function where the militants laid down their arms, and they were later handed over to the local police. When the police party was leaving with the militants, a BSF patrol stopped their vehicle and objected to the militants surrendering to the army in a BSF-controlled area. They asked the police to hand over the militants so they could organise a surrender ceremony afresh.
An altercation ensued after the police party refused. BSF personnel allegedly opened fire and three members of Ashiq Ali's family his father Abdul Rafiq, mother Zohra and brother Riyaz were killed. BSF officials have denied their involvement in the killing. A BSF spokesman said that militants might have intercepted the police vehicle in the guise of BSF personnel.
This article starring:
AASHIQ ALI
Hizb-e-Islami
MOHAMAD FARUQ
Hizb-e-Islami
Hizb-e-Islami
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I've read that BSF and Indian army uniforms are for sale in local Kashmiri markets.
Because of the poor quality products of the state owned factories, many soldiers and paramilitaries will go to a local tailor and have their kit made.
Posted by: john ||
06/09/2005 6:51
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A suspected Taliban commander responsible for roadside bomb attacks on Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops has been arrested in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan commander said Thursday. 
Massachusetts Port Authority officials have turned their records over to Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's office and the State Police, said Kurt Schwartz, chief of the attorney general office's criminal bureau. Reilly's office has launched a grand jury probe. Because seniority is determined by when a union member first receives a union card, regardless of the number of hours worked, union members who got their children enrolled are believed to have ensured that their children would receive higher pay, Schwartz said in a statement Wednesday. 
Iran plans to install tens of thousands of advanced centrifuges at its huge underground nuclear plant near the central city of Natanz, which eventually would enable it to enrich uranium nearly twice as quickly as anticipated, according to Western intelligence officials. Iran's timetable remains unknown, but the officials said preparatory work is under way at the plant and the decision to rely on the superior type of centrifuge suggests Iran could manufacture fissile material for a possible weapon sooner than expected. 
PARIS has been riveted this week by a tale of intrigue, skulduggery and betrayal that a Jacobean playwright might have entitled The Revenge of Nicolas.
An Army Reserves lieutenant colonel from western New York has been killed by hostile fire while training Iraqi troops. Lt. Col. Terrance Crowe, 44, was a father of two. He was from Grand Island, north of Buffalo.
"Islamic law states that the Islamic faith is more important than life, honor, and property. Indeed, it is the most important of the five inalienable rights, [2] and their very basis, and safeguarding it takes precedence over safeguarding them. It should be noted that all of these inalienable rights can not be safeguarded except through assuring the observance of the Islamic faith... 
Afghan and US-led coalition forces on Wednesday arrested five men suspected of being Taliban rebels responsible for a deadly attack on a Pakistani-owned fuel tanker after it delivered gasoline to a US base in southern Afghanistan, The Associated Press reported. The truck's Pakistani driver and assistant were killed in the assault late on Tuesday in Spin Boldak district, which is next to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Afghan and coalition troops fanned out across the area Wednesday morning, searching for the attackers. The five were arrested in a village in the area, district police chief Mohammed Raz said.
Pirates armed with AK-47 assault rifles attacked the crew of a supertanker waiting to load crude at Iraq's Basra oil terminal before making off with cash, an ocean crime watchdog says. The raid happened at night on 31 May about 10 nautical miles from Iraq's deep-water oil terminal where most of its crude oil is exported. "They tried to enter the bridge claiming to be policemen. The master denied them entry and the pirates became violent ... they assaulted the master causing him injuries and demanded money," the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said in a report on Wednesday. 
Arab nations are making good progress in fighting money laundering and terrorist financing, with significant strides in controlling charities, the head of a regional watchdog said yesterday. The comments by Muhammad Baasiri, president of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENA FATF) come after the United States has criticized slow progress on the issue in the Arab world. "Countries in the area have honestly taken significant strides in reshaping the charity organizations in their countries. A lot of controls have been imposed on charities and on charities getting money from abroad or transferring money," Baasiri told Reuters in an interview.
LAWYERS for terrorism suspect 
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan dropped their demand Wednesday for veto power for new permanent members in an expanded U.N. Security Council. The so-called Group of Four, who have been campaigning vigorously to become members of the U.N.'s most powerful body, were forced to back down because of opposition from a number of countries. The group has circulated a resolution that would increase the Security Council from 15 to 25 members, including six new permanent seats — with four hopefully going to them and the other two to African nations. But Wednesday's revised draft would delay consideration of a veto for the new permanent members for 15 years.
"We always wish for and seek good relations with the United States," Expatriates Minister Buthaina Shaaban told a news conference at the ruling Baath Party congress which is due to focus on reform. Shaaban said Syria was pressing ahead with reform based on the country's needs "that are not related to what others try to threaten (Syria) with". 
Indian Kashmiri separatist leaders indicated yesterday they might abandon their 57-year-old stance on holding a referendum in the divided Himalayan region after meeting Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. 
Police in the Indian capital on Wednesday arrested three men, including a top Sikh militant and the main accused in the bombing of two cinemas last month that killed one person and wounded dozens. The men are members of Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa, which wants an independent Sikh state, a police spokesman said. The arrests in a Delhi suburb took the number of people held over the May 22 blasts to eight. 
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador - A bomb exploded early Wednesday outside an office building housing a Citibank branch, blowing out windows and causing some damage but no injuries, police said. The so-called Group of People's Combatants, or GCP by its initials in Spanish, claimed responsibility for the attack. An e-mail sent to The Associated Press, claiming to be from the group, said the blast was in opposition to free trade talks between Ecuador, Peru and Colombia with the United States aimed at opening tariff-free access to U.S. markets. The 10th round of negotiations are now taking place in this Pacific coast city, the country's banking and financial hub.
Three members of a family of a militant who surrendered to the army were killed in Jammu after a gun battle broke out between police and Indian paramilitary forces, a local news agency reported. Police and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel clashed over the surrender of some militants in the Kalakote region of southern Kashmir. Reports said that two militants from 
