In what media watchers are calling a first for North Korea, state radio in Pyongyang has turned to the medium of the comic sketch to mock two of the leading figures in the US administration.
"You big running dog imperialist lug!"
"To the moon, Kimmy, to the moon!!"
In a special weekend feature, actors gave their own dramatised interpretation of apparent political infighting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The two are presented hurling comic insults at each other as they attempt to win President Bush's favour.
"Trollop!"
"Bootlicker!"
"How funny you are, Condi! Let us laugh uproariously!!"
Pyongyang Broadcasting Station announced the sketch by saying it was based on an anecdote it had spotted in a US magazine. The programme - called "The hen clucks at the White House" - marks the first time the North Korean media have been seen to use a form known as "manp'il", or "comic notes". Ms Rice, who in January included North Korea in a list of six "outposts of tyranny", is introduced as "a hen strutting around in the White House, crowing arrogantly". Later she is characterised as "a bitch running riot on the beach".
...Actually, THAT was Madeline Albright. But please - continue.
Mr Rumsfeld is portrayed as having ruled the roost during President Bush's first term, but is now little more than an ageing cockerel "keeping a low profile". And the actor playing Ms Rice brands him "an old crock". Such is the animosity between the pair that the actor playing President Bush is forced to intervene to prevent feathers flying.
"Just stop it!" he cries out. "A rooster fighting a hen, instead of a rooster fighting another rooster? I've never seen anything like it." Nevertheless, the script writers appear adamant that the rivalry spells trouble for the Bush administration.
"As the saying goes," concludes the narrator, "when the hen crows and the rooster remains quiet, the house is doomed to ruin."
"And when the Eagle flies with the Dove and you can't be with the one you love...oh, screw it."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/11/2005
17:31 ||
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#1
Sounds brilliant, like everything else that comes from nkor.
Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors.
Users of the joint-venture portal, formally launched last month, have been blocked from using a range of potentially sensitive words to label personal websites they create using its free online blog service, MSN Spaces.
Attempts to input words in Chinese such as "democracy" prompted an error message from the site: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech from this item." Other phrases banned included the Chinese for "demonstration", "democratic movement" and "Taiwan independence".
{The Wall Street Journal, 30-Sep,1996} Microsoft said it issued instructions to Windows 95 users in China on how to remove a pair of anti-Communist slogans from the software that Chinese government officials said were offensive. A Microsoft spokeswoman said a service update for the removal of the Chinese-language phrases had been issued in China Saturday. The phrases included one referring to China's leadership as "Communist bandits" and another that called on Taiwan's government to "take back the mainland."
Microsoft said it is still investigating how the slogans made it into the Windows 95 kits. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the software was written by contractors and not by the company's own software writers.
#5
Tee hee hee! Just wait until the Chicom censors discover "Jesus Loves Chicom Leaders", "Red is Better with White & Blue", "Bring the Cultural Revolution Back!", Mao killed yo pimp daddy so what!", "Got Little Red Book?", Hey look! No freedom ma!", "Tibet yesterday, Nepal soon, Taiwan tomorrow!", and "Yes we have no Korean War American War Prisoners" in their MS 95 software packages.... little teenie weenie red commie packages I might add.
#9
freedom, democracy, freedom, democracy, Yahoo ain't America great!!!! I bet the word capitolism is allowed. I'm sure all those chinese kids are smart enough to get past it.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
06/11/2005 21:45
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U.S. fighter planes equipped with precision-guided missiles launched airstrikes on an Iraqi town near the Syrian border Saturday, killing about 40 insurgents who were stopping and searching civilian cars, the military said.
Seven missiles were fired at heavily armed insurgents near Karabilah, close to the volatile town of Qaim, the Marines said in a statement.
The insurgents were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers and had "set up a barricade on a main road to the city and were threatening Iraqi civilians," the military said.
U.S. warplanes backed by helicopters started the airstrikes at 11:40 a.m. and ended them at 4 p.m. "once all the targets were destroyed," the military said. About 40 insurgents were killed. The Marines suffered no casualties.
"The coalition aircraft and fighter jets and attack helicopters from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing attacked the insurgent compound and surrounding area targeting the armed men," the statement said. "There are no reports of civilian casualties or collateral damage."
It was unclear whether any foreign fighters were among the slain insurgents. The region is known as a haven for Islamic extremists crossing in and out of Iraq across the Syrian border to attack U.S. and Iraqi security forces.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/11/2005
17:05 ||
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#1
YeeHaw Bitches! Let me know if Hell is warm enough.
#5
Jeeez, I can imagine the gleeful disbelief in the pilot's minds when confronted with a stationary point target of insurgents, set up along an aiming point roadway.
I guess these must have been terr school dropouts - who have now been efficiently removed from the gene pool.
The biggest refugee repatriation operation in the world is underway. It is the cover for Pakistan's mass-export of al Qaeda operatives back to where they came from — Afghanistan.
The UN refugee agency reports that from 2002, nearly 2.4 million Afghan refugees returned home from Pakistan. This week, General Pervez Musharraf gave the remaining estimated 400,000 until June 30 to leave the country or face expulsion.
Most live along Pakistan's northwestern border. Islamabad explains its action on the grounds that the tribal belts of North and South Waziristan have been sanctuaries for hundreds of al-Qaeda linked terrorists and the Taliban. The presence of the refugees complicates the hunt for them and adds to Pakistan's security problems.
Pakistani authorities claim terrorists are buried among these Afghan refugees and the expulsion order will deport them too.
DEBKAfile's correspondent quotes diplomatic sources in the capital as referring to the belief of US intelligence agents that al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives who took shelter in Pakistan as refugees are now regrouping and moving back into Afghanistan. Their numbers are small but are expected to swell, posing fresh dangers to the Karzai government's stability in Kabul. American military strength in Afghanistan is not nearly large enough to deal with any major influx.
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#1
gonna want to screen the ISI -plants among this group. Our good friend Pakland will be sending Taliban-sympathizers amongst the refugees. Count on it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 16:59
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#2
I don't hear any hollering from the vaunted international community over this "outrage".
Hypocritical douchebags.
Imagine the screaming if America said the same thing to Mexicans.
#3
Redden agreed that the UNHCR staff cannot distinguish between a genuine Afghan refugee and a terror operative belonging to either al-Qaeda or Taliban who now want to cross over to Afghanistan to escape arrest or join the assaults on coalition forces and the Kabul government.
Yeah, they must've learned that neat little trick from their buddies working the Palestinian gig.
I don't know how the NYT can report this stuff with a straight face. Palestinian militants and security forces exchanged fire for five hours early Saturday in Gaza, the second day in a row of armed clashes. The house of the Gaza commander of preventive security, Gen. Rashid Abu Shbak, was shot up by the militants, who also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at it, witnesses said. Witnesses reported at least three wounded, but officially, no injuries were reported, and no arrests have been made.
Militants have staged demonstrations and clashed with security forces because they say they are being denied jobs in the Palestinian security services and because they are angry at being asked to stop displaying their guns in public.
The latest shootout stemmed from an argument on Thursday night when officers of the Gaza preventive security forces stopped a car containing two members of the Palestinian Resistance Committee, a local militant group with good relations with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The militants refused to leave the car and drove away, and Abu Abeer, a spokesman for the resistance committee, said the police shot up the car and wounded Mohmen Doghmosh in the foot and shoulder. Mr. Doghmosh is from a large Gaza family known for its access to weapons. So early this morning, members of the resistance committee and the Doghmosh family and its allies - as many as 40 armed men, witnesses said - shot up the house of General Shbak, fired at his car, and then clashed with preventive security.
Mr. Abeer confirmed these details and said the committees were demanding that the policeman who shot Mr. Doghmosh, Raed Abu Hatab, himself be shot in the leg. "We ask the Palestinian Authority to think this way, that all Palestinian blood is equal," Mr. Abeer said. "The people in the resistance are also partners in making decisions and in protecting the Palestinian house, equal with the Palestinian Authority and security forces."
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he wants to restore order in Gaza and wants "one government, one law and one gun." But he returned to the West Bank from Gaza on Saturday without commenting on the shootout, after meetings with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which sent lower-level representatives in what was seen as an insult reflecting their anger at the postponement of legislative elections. Mr. Abbas, as part of his discussions with the militants to get them to continue to abide by a truce with Israel, agreed to release nine Islamic Jihad militants who had been jailed in the West Bank city of Jericho after a Feb. 25 suicide bombing at the Stage nightclub in Tel Aviv that killed five Israelis. Two of the prisoners, Sadiq Odeh and Jasser Kob, were released late Thursday night after the Palestinian Authority decided that they had not been involved in the bombing. All the militants are supposed to remain at home in Jericho.
Israeli officials have interpreted Mr. Abbas's actions as a sign of weakness. They say he will have to confront the militants and show that the Palestinian Authority is the supreme power in the territories or lose his credibility.
Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, a spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza, said about the shootout on Saturday: "We're investigating. And we won't stay silent to those who violate the public order." But he confirmed that no one had been arrested. Asked about the demand to shoot Mr. Hatab in the leg, he added: "We stand for the law."
#1
The people in the resistance are also partners in making decisions and in protecting the Palestinian house, equal with the Palestinian Authority and security forces.
Hat tip to A. M. Mora y Leon at Publius Pundit, who also has his own comments. To back up what Mr. Mora Y Leon said, when do we get around to calling this sort of thing, or what Kim il Bob has done in Zimbabwe, terrorism?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005
15:23 ||
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A gay artistâs entry that depicts President Bush in a compromising position has prompted a complaint to a county official and sparked a debate over art censorship.
What makes the flap even more interesting is that the individual who made the complaint is another artist who has his own controversial piece in the show. That piece depicts the pope as having ties to Nazi Germany.
#2
It's the art world, folks. Remember the red head boob in the clown suit the other day? That's the mentality. "Aren't we outlandish and wonderful! Kiss-kiss!" I mean, who the hell else would make the effort to see this piece of shit?
#6
I was disappointed that Broward County was the municipality invovled. The title made me think that PBS had finally found a talent to replace Bill Moyers.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 20:22
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Continuing in the vein of the striped French Juicyfruits story from a few days ago.
Maybe it's that mix of hot Latin blood and cool Cartesian intellect, or perhaps is just a collective guilty conscience. Maybe it's because they are breastfed for their first 15 years and now their estrogen levels are off the scale.
Whatever the cause, nearly 40 percent of French men told a recent survey that they would, science permitting, like to become pregnant. But actually getting their women pregnant: Quelle Horreur!
The poll, conducted by Ipsos and published in the current issue of Children Magazine (Enfants Magazine), showed that 38 percent of the more than 500 fathers of children up to seven interviewed by phone said they would like, or would have liked, to be the one to carry their offspring to term. Now I'm feeling sick. Better not be the morning variety.
A slightly higher percentage of women respondents liked the idea of their spouses taking on the nine-month job. The magazine did not compare the overlap -- whether women whose mates expressed deep maternal yearnings would welcome the prospect.
The survey carried other signs that parenting is not what it used to be in the country that spawned one of the alltime feminist classics, Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex". Thanks Simone. Ever since, no one has been able to separate French men and women. French men, however, are separated with a crow bar or a bucket of cold water.
Eighty-six percent of the fathers queried said they were ready "to take a paternity leave of several months to live their fatherhood more intensely," provided it caused "minimal financial impact." Ideally, they'd take the next 21 years off on the government tit.
And 71 percent said they were prepared to "take a year-long sabbatical" or "request to work part time." A 35 hour work week isn't considered part time?
Posted by: ed ||
06/11/2005
12:29 ||
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#1
Well.... what can you say, they're french. This doesn't suprise me a bit.
#4
All these years of being told to f*#! themselves by the rest of us has finally affected 40% of them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 14:10
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#5
We always knew they were sissies but now they want to carry? Guess it's only natural for the Frenchmen to fulfill their manifest destiny of total transgender transformation!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
06/11/2005 14:36
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Posted by: Matt ||
06/11/2005
12:19 ||
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#1
An economy that requires at least half the hourly wage to be paid over to the government in the form of taxes and entitlements, and on top of that significant consumer and corporate taxes, is no longer competitive.
Bingo.
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/11/2005 15:16
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#3
She must.
And she may have a better chance to succeed than anybody else before.
The SPD is not fading, it's crumbling, it may even face radical Left competition now and already the SPD boss called for "higher wages" for everybody. That'll work, yeah.
The thing is, people know that radical reforms are needed. They don't want them of course, but they know they need them. It's the dentist situation.
Merkel can afford to be frank about her plans BEFORE the elections, and this is good. She'll have a real mandate, backed up by a 2/3 majority in the Upper House as well. She'll have real power.
But she will need to face leftist opposition within the unions and in the streets. She'll need balls to confront them like Maggie Thatcher. When she's asked about the Iron Lady she avoids the subject. But I think she may go there.
She'll probably have a coalition with the Liberals (Libertarians rather by US standards).
She'll have two years before regional election will change anything substantial. Let's hope she'll use those wisely.
My suggestions:
1) A radical tax reform. Less taxes, more income to tax. It will cause problems with debts and deficits, but they will go away, like in the UK. If the EU complains, tell them to shove it. If they continue, bring back the DM.
2) Breaking the unions (so every company can decide on its own how much a wage rise they can afford)
3) No more pay for sick leave the first 3 days (better one week)
4) Fire easily, hire easily
5) State employees to pay for their pensions themselves.
6 De-bureaucratize administration by a simple tool. If a company applies for anything, it can consider the application granted if no objections are raised within a month (that'll speed things up)
7) Reform health care: Basic health care for everyone, everything extra you pay for it by yourself.
8) Phase out Social Security for the young (that will be a very gradual shift into investing into your own pensions). This is actually a more pressing issue in Germany than in the USA due to the age pyramid.
#4
5) State employees to pay for their pensions themselves.
For regular, (non-government) employees, who pays for the employees' pensions? Is it deducted from the employees' earnings, or does the company (corporation) itself cover the costs of the pension, on top of the worker's salary or wage? (This is how it's done in Poland, and it is a major barrier for start-up companies)
A nice first step would be for the employees to manage their own pensions.
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/11/2005 16:49
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#5
I agree with TGA, although healthcare is a tough nut to crack. I spent a lot of time working in Germany 3/4 years ago and I got the clear impression, that while the Germans liked their welfare state and 6 to 8 weeks vacation a year they realized the good times wouldn't go on for ever and were prepared to work more for less if convinced of the need. A very pragmatic people the Germans.
#9
Although it goes against the grain in Germany, she will have to create some kind of "movement" oriented for change, along the lines of the Reagan Revolution. To do so, she should emphasize optimism, a hard thing to do in pessimistic Europe; Christianity, not as opposed to secularism or other religions, but as a moral foundation; and especially, free enterprise. Since the majority of new jobs are created by small business, clear the bureaucratic path for startups. I also agree with tax-slashing, though the reality can be far less than the *concept*--to get people to accept the notion that "tax cuts are good". Unions also have to be brought in line, but then public works projects also put downward pressure on unemployment. Then a hard push to welfare reform, to some extent demonizing those who don't try hard enough to earn their own keep.
#10
Optimism is the key thing... if people believe in the future they start spending and if they start spending...
This country has trillions stashed away... lets use them
This is why I absolutetly dispise muslims. This type of abuse is not restricted just to Saudis. It is common all over the muslim world!
I don't despise Muslims, but they'd better get their act together and start condeming slavery in the same way we Westerners do.
AURORA, Colo. - A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant. Al-Turki also faces state charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, as well as 12 charges of sexual assault. His wife faces some of the same charges. The two could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. Phone messages left Friday for their individual lawyers were not immediately returned.
U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner said the Indonesian woman, who is in her 20s, came to the United States with the couple legally to perform domestic chores. But her U.S. visa was hidden from her by Al-Turki and Khonaizan, according to Thursday's indictment. The woman was controlled by "a climate of fear and intimidation" that included sexual abuse and the belief that she would "suffer serious harm" if she did not perform her tasks, the indictment said.
And the Saudi male is saying to himself, "Criminy, what's wrong here? I just treated her like I'd treat her back home ..."
The woman is believed to have lived with the couple from 2000 until November 2004, according to authorities. Dorschner said she is not in custody. Authorities said the couple owed the woman nearly $93,000 in unpaid wages.
A neighbor, Vicki Lisman, said she believed the couple has four children — three young girls and a teenage boy. In the summer, the mother and children would go to Saudi Arabia while the father stayed in Colorado, she said. Lisman said she had no idea another woman lived with the family. "There was certainly a sense of normalcy with the house and the family," she said.
Al-Turki worked at Al-Basheer Publications and Translation in Denver. No one answered the company's phone Friday.
By the way, if anyone from the DHS is reading, may I suggest you take a look at the company?
#1
Don't suppose there's a comment from the Aurora/Denver NAACP about this slavery thing?
Maybe because they're culturally sensitive and don't want to raise the point that the Muslims were engaged in rampant slave trading centuries before Chris Columbus showed up in the New World. And if they start that all up, maybe someone will point out the contemporary slave trade in the Sudan. Not as easy to blame whitey for some extortion money if a fuss is made of it.
#2
Maybe the State Dept can be discouraged from granting VISA's for Saudi house slaves.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 14:14
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#3
I'd rather the State Dept be discouraged from giving visas to Saudi slave owners. The slaves will always be welcome in the US as freed, proud people.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005 15:57
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#4
The other day an article was posted here regarding Islamization of Chipalta, Mexico. A young Tzotzil Mayan convert from Catholicism to Islam is quoted,"in Islam, race plays no role." Nuff to make you gag. Perhaps someone should explain that to the Saudis.
A team of Caltech engineers has succeeded in creating a fuel cell so small it could power an MP3 player but last many times longer. Led by Sossina Haile, the team made several technological breakthroughs, according to a Caltech press statement.
Currently, the team is collaborating with design experts to increase fuel efficiency. Applications of a finished design would be practically limitless, according to the team: laptop computers, television cameras, or even tiny military robots.
Haile, who was out of the country and could not be reached for comment, said in the release that the key breakthrough was a new way for the cell to keep its propane fuel hot enough to generate power. "Small fuel cells are challenging because it's hard to keep them at the high temperatures required to get the hydrocarbon fuels to react,' the press release reported her as saying. "(Normally) you have to use a lot of insulation to keep the cell hot. Adding insulation takes away the size advantage.'
Researchers at Caltech escaped this dilemma by burning tiny amounts of the propane within to keep the remaining fuel warm. Propane has the advantage of compressing easily and turning instantly to a vapor when released, though almost any hydrocarbon could work in a fuel cell.
According to Haile, two more advances turned this self-heating cell into something viable for a laptop or an iPod. First, the Caltech researchers came up with a design that could perform the necessary chemical reactions in a single chamber. Second, engineers at Northwestern developed catalysts that greatly increased the heat released by the fuel cell. Combining all three advances with a heat exchanger to lessen heat lost through exhaust, Haile said, "makes for a very simple and compact fuel-cell system.'
#5
That's all we need, a bunch of farting laptops.
Posted by: Dave ||
06/11/2005 17:21
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#6
that's what those vents are for?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 18:04
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#7
Years ago I saw a nylon or polyprop type fuel cell for cellphones...
Ran a phone for a week on 1 oz of windshield washer fluid.
The whole thing was nixed cuz panasonic would lable and manufacture their batts with no up front cost - that made a pure profit center for the mobile folks so why build a factory to make fuelcells. Factories have cost.
Two reported new outbreaks of avian flu among birds in western China have raised fears that the virus is being spread widely by migrating birds and mutating rapidly. The regional director for the World Health Organization, Dr. Shigeru Omi, told reporters in Beijing yesterday that the two recent outbreaks in remote areas in which hundreds of birds died were worrisome because they involved migratory waterfowl and domestic geese, birds that until now had been fairly resistant to the disease.
More than 13,000 geese were destroyed in Tacheng, in the Xinjiang autonomous region, after about 500 died of H5N1 avian flu, China's Agriculture Ministry reported. Poultry markets were closed and roadblocks set up in the area, the official Xinhua news agency said.
In late May, the government reported that hundreds of bar-headed geese, gulls, ducks and cormorants had been found dead on an island in a salt lake in the Qinghai region that lies on an important migratory route.
Previously, the H5N1 flu had been lethal to domestic chicken flocks, but veterinary officials had believed that geese and wild birds carried the disease without dying of it.
"The best thing I can say is to keep our vigilance high," Reuters quoted Dr. Omi as saying.
Great. Thanks Doc. We'll do that. In the meantime ...
For the last two weeks, rumors circulated on some Web sites tracking infectious diseases that more than 120 people, including six tourists, had died of avian flu in Qinghai, and that hundreds had been quarantined. However, they all proved traceable to a site run by antigovernment dissidents, which said it could not verify information members had posted anonymously. Pictures on the site purporting to show hundreds of dead birds were grainy, and allegations that the site's "reporters" had been arrested were unconfirmed.
"We're now more skeptical of the sourcing than we were," said Bruce Klinger, an analyst for the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm that drew attention to the reports and then contacted American diplomats in China in an effort to confirm them.
"And when we saw the Newsweek byline on it, we knew we could disregard the information completely," he added.
A government spokesman said there had been no human deaths there, and The Associated Press reported that the health minister had given the W.H.O. officials permission to visit the sites of the reported bird deaths. As of Wednesday, according to the W.H.O., there were 54 known deaths from avian flu in the world, all in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.
In the remote country of Yemen, a determined and heroic democracy movement battles an alliance of Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's generals, and a corrupt regime that wields all the tools of the state. The terrorists are operating on the proceeds from gunrunning and oil sales. The reformers are operating on pure determination.
Throughout Yemeni security forces, military, businesses, and public institutions, an interlinked web of corruption and brutality is stealing Yemen's resources and attacking any Yemeni who opposes it. And the majority do oppose. All the natural enemies of the jihadis are under attack in Yemen: reformers, democrats, journalists, socialists, pluralists, Shiites, Sunnis, anti-corruption advocates, human rights workers, and more. As forces unite against them, the Yemeni people unite for democracy.
In 2003, Al Qaeda praised Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as the only Arab leader not beholden to the West. It's clear why. Saleh has refused to freeze 143 United Nations identified terrorist affiliated bank accounts in Yemen. Some of the millions in those accounts may be proceeds from weapons sales, narcoterrorism, and oil sales. One person who might be able to provide details is Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, Saleh's half brother, prominent military commander, and reputed Al Qaeda loyalist.
Continued on Page 49
#2
A while back I tried to make sense of what is happening in Yemen in terms we would understand. Sunnis vs Shiias, socialists vs democrats, fundamentalists vs pragmatic reformers. The best I could do is that there is an unfinished civil war with shifting alliances. I didn't conclude the president was a despot, more Mubarack than Saddam, but I really don't know.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Federal authorities aren't saying much about their terrorism investigation in nearby Lodi but are making two things clear: Their work in the farming town has been going on for years — and it's not over.
They denied the implication by some members of Lodi's large Pakistani community that the investigation was triggered by a rift between fundamentalist and mainstream factions.
Each side accused the other of contacting the FBI. The dispute has led to a leadership struggle at the Lodi Muslim Mosque and a legal fight with a budding Islamic learning center.
"This specific investigation has been going on for several years," FBI spokesman John Cauthen said.
The FBI alleges several people committed to al-Qaida have been operating in and around the tranquil wine-growing region just south of Sacramento.
Investigators said Hamid Hayat, 22, trained with al-Qaida in Pakistan and planned to attack hospitals and supermarkets in the United States.
A Sacramento federal judge denied bail to Hayat yesterday, saying he had "a motive to flee and certainly the means to flee."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski also denied bail Tuesday to Hayat's father, Umer, 47.
Umer Hayat has said his son was drawn to jihadist training camps in his early teenage years while attending a religious school in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, operated by Umer Hayat's father-in-law, according to an FBI affidavit.
Umer Hayat allegedly paid for his son to attend the terrorist camp in 2003 and 2004.
The Hayats are charged only with lying to federal investigators.
Two Islamic religious leaders, or imams, and one leader's son also have been detained on immigration violations. Neither Cauthen nor a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would reveal specifics of the alleged visa violations.
Saad Ahmad, an attorney for the three men, did not return a telephone call.
The sequence that led to the arrests and detentions began May 29, when Hamid Hayat was trying to return to the United States but was identified in midflight as being on the federal "no-fly" list. His plane was diverted to Japan, where he was interviewed by the FBI and denied any connection to terrorism.
He was allowed to fly to California, but was interviewed again last weekend. He and his father were charged after he flunked a lie-detector test and then admitted attending the training camp, the affidavit said.
The Hayats and the imams are on opposite sides of a struggle between Pakistani factions in and around Lodi: The Hayats are aligned with a faction supporting more traditional Islamic values; the imams with another group are seeking greater cooperation and understanding from the larger community.
Adil Khan, one of those imams, was trying to start an Islamic center but has been sued by the Lodi Muslim Mosque, which claims he improperly transferred mosque property.
SERIOUS doubts have been cast on one of the key claims renegade Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin used to justify his attempted defection to Australia.
Mr Chen accused Beijing of mounting a kidnapping operation on Australian soil to take hostage the student son of a fugitive Chinese politician to coerce his return home to face justice.
But yesterday he backed away from the claims when confronted by new evidence. "I said that in fear, and I don't want to talk about it again," he told The Weekend Australian.
The runaway diplomat had earlier told The Australian through a minder, Jin Chin, that the student, Lan Meng, was kidnapped by Chinese agents in Sydney, "taken by fishing boat to a Chinese cargo ship on the high seas", then held hostage in China to force his father to give himself up.
The father, Lan Fu, returned to China from Australia in February 2000. In November that year he was sentenced to death for taking bribes in China's biggest ever corruption scandal, a $US6billion smuggling racket centred on the southern port of Xiamen where Mr Lan was a deputy mayor.
But Lan Fu's lawyer, Zhu Yongping, emphatically denied the kidnap story this week, insisting his client had given himself up voluntarily.
Mr Zhu told The Weekend Australian that Lan Meng was not in China at the time of his father's trial.
The Weekend Australian has also established that a young man named Lan Meng, now 23, was living in the Melbourne bayside suburb of Sandringham from November 1999 until November 2000.
This suggests that he was in Melbourne for at least three months before Mr Lan returned to China, casting further doubt on the story that he was kidnapped and taken to China in the lead-up to Mr Lan's return.
It was reported in February 2000 that Lan Fu had turned himself over to the Chinese Embassy in Australia. An Australian Foreign Affairs spokesman was quoted on February 23 in The South China Morning Post saying that Mr Lan had arrived in Australia a month before and left about two weeks later, and "as far as we know, he left of his own free will".
Back in China he was held at a detention centre in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, before his trial in September 2000. His lawyer Zhu Yongping of the Datong Law Office of Guangdong said his client, sentenced to death with a two year reprieve, was now in Zhangzhou City Prison where his death sentence is yet to be formally commuted.
Whether or not the alleged kidnapping occurred, it is believed Mr Lan's wife Lai Chongxin and Lan Meng are still in Australia. Ms Lai was also reported to have been on China's wanted list in connection with the Xiamen scandal.
Asked where the wife Ms Lai and her son Lan Meng are now, the diplomat would-be defector Mr Chen said "no-body knows that more clearly than the Australian government". The Quanzhou Evening News reported that in July 2001, police intercepted a package sent to Mr Lan who was still at Quanzhou detention centre containing a note inserted in a toothpaste tube which read, in part: "Wife and son still in Australia, not arrested. Say nothing."
A FORMER Chinese official in hiding in Australia sent a message today to his supporters as they rallied to pressure the Federal Government to grant him political asylum.
Hao Feng Jun, a former security officer in China, is in a secret location after backing claims by Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin that Beijing is running a network of spies and informants in Australia.
Mr Hao also supported Mr Chen's claims that members of the Falun Gong movement had been persecuted by the Chinese government.
Mr Hao and Mr Chen, who abandoned his post at the Chinese consulate-general in Sydney on May 26, have sought political asylum, fearful of persecution if they return to China.
The Government will not publicly discuss their bid for asylum, nor comment on reports Mr Chen sent a letter to the immigration department that had not been passed on to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
About 40 supporters of the pair rallied in Melbourne's CBD in a show of support.
"Through the incidents recently I strongly feel the vast democracy and freedom in this beautiful land of Australia, I love it here - I love everything here," Mr Hao said in a letter read to the Melbourne rally by one of his supporters.
In Sydney, about 50 Falun Gong practitioners staged a demonstration in the city's Belmore Park to highlight a legal action they have initiated against Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
The group, banned in China but legal in Australia, says the rules set out by the foreign affairs department to restrict their protests outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra are illegal.
Since March 2002, Mr Downer has banned the use of large banners and musical instruments by protesters against Chinese government torture and abuse of Falun Gong practitioners.
Australian practitioners this week filed a suit against Mr Downer in the ACT Supreme Court, alleging his department unfairly limited their freedom of expression.
#1
Australia is too busy brown-nosing china right now to get on board with this spy thing. Is there anyone out there that doesnt know that china has probably the most active spying community in the world?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/11/2005 14:52
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I am sure the Howard government wants to accept him. The problem is the bureacrats rejected his application. The governments position is there are no exceptions to the rules for asylum seekers. To make an exception for Chen, just creates a rod for their own back as everyone will claim they justify an exception (they do already). You will then get a system where whether you get asylum is determined by how much publicity you can generate and we already have far too much agitprop on this subject driven by cheesy current affairs programs that while professing compassion and concern are only concerned with ratings. Chen will stay (assuming he wants to) its just that the process has to occur.
GUNMEN opened fire on a bus filled with labourers just south of Baghdad today, killing 10 people and wounding three, a police official said.
The official said the bus carrying 13 people was travelling from the southern town of Hilla to Baghdad when two cars pulled up on either side and the gunmen attacked.
TWO employees of the medical charity Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres, MSF), kidnapped in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo on June 2, were freed today, military and diplomatic sources said.
The release of the French logistical expert and his Congolese driver by one of the Ituri region's numerous armed groups was confirmed by MSF in Geneva, which said both were in good health.
The sources said the pair were in the regional capital of Bunia.
Pakistan's most famous gang rape victim Mukhtar Mai, a courageous fighter turned social-worker, has been put under house arrest, her 12 rapists were ordered to be released from prison and General Pervez Musharraf's so called enlightened moderation has been dumped out into the deep gutter. All this has happened as Mai, a 35-year old village gal, who was punished by being gang raped on order of her village council in 2002, was planning a visit to the US on the invitation of some NGOs to highlight the miserable situation of women in Pakistan. But before she could leave her home for getting a visa, Mai was not only pushed into detention, she was also placed on the dreaded Exit Control List (ECL) which means she cannot leave Pakistan, even if she obtains any number of foreign visas.
Mai was raped for more than an hour on the orders of Meerwala tribal council in June 2002, in retribution for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan. That was a concocted story but Mai, then 32, had to suffer the indignity publicly. But she recovered and vowed to fight back the system. She set up her own NGO and started raising funds for women of her area and she was successful as the world rallied to her support, not just for the undeserved punishment she received but because she had the courage to stand up and fight. For the last 10 days, however, the Government of General Pervez Musharraf has incarcerated Mai in her village home, fearing that she was about to leave for US where she may expose the brutal Pakistani tribal system and "bring a bad name to the country."
Mai was earlier stopped from leaving her home when she had received a call from the US Consulate in Lahore to come and collect her US visa. She is scheduled to appear in several events in Houston and other cities this month but authorities are preventing her from obtaining the visa. The spokesperson told South Asia Tribune Mai had no intention to run away from Pakistan as she wanted to stay in her own village and provide the women there the inspiration and courage to fight the system. "They fear that Mai will speak out against the Army and the Government but this is rubbish as she has previously visited three other countries, including Spain and Saudi Arabia, but she never spoke against Pakistan," the spokesperson said.
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Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
06/11/2005
09:44 ||
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...and in other news, the 'New York Times' has begun it's 25 part series on Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay. This includes a shocking new revelation that some of the American guards actually used foul language in a room immediately adjacent to the room in which spare Korans were stored. Journalism insiders are quietly predicting yet another Pulitzer prize for the Times.
Posted by: Pat Phillips ||
06/11/2005 9:56
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frankly a pandemic hemmorhagic fever, striking only Pakistani men, might make for some good "Allah Ahkbar" entertainment
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 10:12
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#5
Do the town councils keep a list of potential rapists? Maybe council rapist is an elected office. I suspect that nepotism may play a role.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 10:54
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#6
You guys who commented before me seem suprised? I have been seeing the liberals align themselves slowly and silently to those mongrel bastards for some time. Playing down all their subhuman acts and decrying any, even the smallest slight against the "religion of peace and love". They are not so far apart in their ideologies, you are entitled to your opinion as long as it is the same as theirs, or god help your poor dumb ass.
#11
Katie Al-couric will skip this for the all-important 1 yr 2 mos anniversary of Abu Grahib
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 12:10
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#12
You know, it's not NOW, Katie Couric, or the NYT's anti-koranic-abuse division that thinks we can sell these guys more F-16's...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005 12:48
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#13
Hard call. There's a case to be made the Bush strongarmed Musharraf into helping with the GWOT and continues to do so. Case in point: every time he publicly praises M for helping, it makes it harder for M to go along w/ the Islamacists. Rock and hard place approaching each other.
I have mixed feelings about F-16s in Pakistan. OTOH, we have a good track record of building relations with the military in countries where the pols are assholes or worse. Case in point: France, where the military are a lot more pro-US than the general public. We help to keep it that way ....
Posted by: too true ||
06/11/2005 14:30
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in retribution for her brotherâs alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan. That was a concocted story
Damn sure it was concocted.
He and his sister were low "caste" muslim, they were high "caste".
They raped the 12 year old boy and made up the charges to cover their tracks when they were about to be exposed.
The sister was then "judicially" gang raped.
Posted by: john ||
06/11/2005 15:09
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#15
Anybody told Jane Fonda about this? Surely, SHE would take action!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/11/2005 16:41
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#16
Utterly Sickning! I can't express my anger, Thank God for the United States, atleast some of us can live fairly but I say f*ck the liberal left, we should be spreading democracy at almost any cost.
#17
It's things like this that force me to believe the only "instrument of change" that will actually succeed is brute force applied liberally. It's almost impossible to change a mind that ossified a thousand years ago.
In the end, the only solution may be the total disillusion of Islam and the destruction or containment of any followers until they die of old age.
Of course, first we'll have to have a "meeting of the minds" with the loonitic liberal left. A nice hickory axehandle across the bridge of the nose in an upsweep works miracles.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/11/2005 20:17
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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday lauded and thanked international special operations soldiers for their roles in the war on terror, but warned them that it is far from over.
"We have a long war ahead of us, and our enemies are waiting for us to let our guard down," Cheney said, speaking to more than 300 people at the closing of the International Special Operations Forces Week conference. "But we will not relent in this effort because we have the clearest possible understanding of what is at stake."
Cheney also visited MacDill Air Force Base for a medals ceremony at the U.S. Special Operations Command, which oversees the nation's elite military units, including Navy SEALs, the Air Force Special Operations Command and the Army Rangers and Green Berets.
His speech at the conference culminated a week that brought together U.S. special operations leaders and their counterparts from 59 countries. The event also included businesses and civilian defense contractors to talk about weapons systems specially created for special operations forces.
Cheney said American Special Operations soldiers - "silent professionals," he called them - were "the first boots on the ground" when the war on terror began in Afghanistan nearly four years ago and played a key role in bringing down Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
"Once again, the contributions of Special Ops were critical in the swift downfall of a regime, and a strutting dictator went from a palace to a bunker to a spider hole to a prison cell," Cheney said.
"At every stage of this conflict, we have looked to the Special Operations forces to carry out the most perilous, the most technical, the most time-sensitive and least visible missions," he said. "When you have enemies that are hidden, secret in their movements ... the only alternative is to find out exactly where they are and go in and get them."
Cheney warned that the biggest danger to our civilization is that some terror group, perhaps in concert with an outlaw government, will get hold of weapons of mass destruction. Preventing that, he said, must be a primary goal in the war on terror.
"In the face of such danger, free nations must move decisively to defend ourselves against attack, yet we also understand that this war cannot be won on the defensive," he said. "In this new era, all civilized nations have a duty - we must defeat the terrorists and we must not allow them to obtain weapons of mass murder.
"None of us wants to turn over the future of mankind to tiny groups of fanatics committing indiscriminate murder and plotting large scale war. So we must direct every resource necessary to defend the peace and freedom of our world and the safety of the people we serve."
At MacDill, Cheney presented the Distinguished Flying Cross to U.S. Air Force Maj. Matthew R. Glover and Army Chief Warrant Officer David B. Smith. Army Master Sgt. Donald R. Hollenbaugh received the Distinguished Service Cross; Army U.S. Army Sgt. 2nd Class Stephan Johns was awarded the Silver Star; and Navy Chief Boatswains Mate Donald B. Stokes was awarded a Bronze Star.
Posted by: too true ||
06/11/2005
07:51 ||
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Cheney warned that the biggest danger to our civilization is that some terror group, perhaps in concert with an outlaw government, will get hold of weapons of mass destruction.
You know there's a time to just say screw it. We have the human gnome code and can make a designer virus and its prophylactic if we wanted to. Mess with us and only our friends and those shunted away in little out of the way places would be the only humans left on the planet. How stupid can these idiots and their apologist be? And it doesn't have to be the government to do it, there are enough individuals in this country who'd be capable of doing it with the right motivation. Another 9/11 on a massive scale and the Strand wouldn't be fiction.
#2
Cheney warned that the biggest danger to our civilization is that some terror group, perhaps in concert with an outlaw government, will get hold of weapons of mass destruction. Preventing that, he said, must be a primary goal in the war on terror.
Okay, so what's the plan on Iran and NoKo?
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/11/2005 12:20
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Wow, that whole "racially-targetted virus" thing is for real?
Hope it doesn't affect Asians ... *has Chinese parents, if the last name didn't already tell you that*
I'd rather the selective application of FOXDIE myself ...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/11/2005 14:56
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Not racially, but the prophylactic [like a flu shot] would provide protection to those receiving it. The virus just then needs to effect human population in general as any natural plague.
#6
"One hundred men will test today, but only three win the Green Beret" - Dubya knows 9-11 was about saving Socialism , saving Communism, and forcing the same upon America, just as he knows its either America dominates the NWO and future OWG, or the Commies-Socies will, with America just another weak and anti-sovereign "sovereign" SSR. The WOT, then, is conversely, and ultimately, about SAVING AMERICA, SAVING AMERICANISM AND OUR NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY, and KILLING COMMUNISM OR LEFTISM-SOCIALISM ONCE AND FOREVER. The Lefties are giving America until 2015-2020 cuz they know America is already deploying SPACED=BASED WEAPONS as per GMD. e.g. Spaced-based Lasers, and more importantly SPACE-BASED WEAPONS/LASERS THAT WORK, with more advanced projects to come that will REVOLUTIONIZE the world's techs and civilizations.
EUROPE'S oldest civilisation has been discovered by archaeologists across the continent, it was reported today.
More than 150 large temples, constructed between 4800 BC and 4600 BC, have been unearthed in fields and cities in Germany, Austria and Slovakia, predating the pyramids in Egypt by some 2000 years, The Independent newspaper revealed.
The network of temples, made of earth and wood, were constructed by a religious people whose economy appears to have been based on livestock farming, The Independent reported.
Excavations have taken place over the past three years but the discovery is so new that the civilisation has not yet been named.
The most complex centre discovered so far, beneath the city of Dresden in Saxony, eastern Germany, comprises a temple surrounded by four ditches, three earthen banks and two palisades.
"Our excavations have revealed the degree of monumental vision and sophistication used by these early farming communities to create Europe's first truly large scale earthwork complexes," said Harald Staeuble, from the Saxony state government's heritage department.
The temples, up to 150 metres in diameter, were made by a people who lived in long houses and villages, the newspaper said.
Stone, bone and wooden tools have been unearthed, along with ceramic figures of people and animals.
A village at Aythra, near Leipzig in eastern Germany, was home to some 300 people living in up to 20 large buildings around the temple.
A GROUP of 50 anti-war activists defied warnings that they risk arrest to protest against military training in central Queensland.
However, US Navy spokesman Commander Robert Mulac said the protests had been quiet, and had not yet disrupted Operation Talisman Sabre, a joint training exercise involving 6,000 Australian and 11,000 US personnel. He said it was unlikely the protests would convert defence personnel to peace advocacy.
Our defence personnel do engage in peace advocacy, and they have a variety of weapons choices to make that happen.
Robin Taubenfeld, a spokesman for Everyone for a Nuclear Free Future, said the protesters were undeterred by the Australian Defence Force warnings, but had not yet provoked police by entering the Shoalwater Bay training area. "We fully understand the possibility of people being arrested for entering the military training area.
"The decision to do an arrestful action is up to each individual, as to how far they want to push their action for peace.
"Of course, we would love to see the police and military police not arrest us and join us in crossing the line for peace."
TWO terrorists wanted in connection with the 2002 Bali bomb blast may be on the run in the southern Philippines, a US thinktank believes.
The private sector intelligence group Stratfor, said reports from the Philippines indicated the two members of the terror group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) had been sighted in a mountainous region bordering the southern Muslim-dominated provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur on the island of Mindanao.
Pitono, also known as Dulmatin, and Umar Patek, are both sought in connection with a series of attacks against Western targets in Indonesia, including the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombing that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Indonesian police, working closely with the Australian Federal Police, have succeeded in tracking down many of the terrorists responsible for the Bali and other bombings.
But some of the key plotters remain on the run. Among them are Pitono and Patek plus another pair, Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top who are believed to still be in Indonesia.
Reports from the Philippines indicate the members of Muslim separatist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are cooperating with the Philippines government in the hunt for Pitono and Patek, plus eight other alleged JI members.
Stratfor said MILF was now engaged in peace talks with the government and there had been a ceasefire since 2002.
It cited an MILF spokesman who said the two JI militants were in contact with Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf and had met its chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani.
"While Abu Sayyaf has come under increasing pressure from Manila since 2002, when the US sent aid and advisers to the Philippines as part of its war against militant jihadists, the Islamist group has degenerated into a band of criminals, often undertaking kidnap-for-ransom operations," Stratfor said.
"In response to this pressure, Abu Sayyaf has sought alliances with JI and some MILF members opposed to peace with Manila."
This coincides with renewed travel warnings to Indonesia released this week by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs.
Stratfor said the Australian warning was extremely vague, saying only that attacks could happen anywhere, anytime and against any Western target in Indonesia.
Indonesian National Police General Dai Bachtiar downplayed the warning, saying he had no specific information.
"Despite Jakarta's dismissal of an immediate threat to Western interests in Indonesia, however, Western governments appear to agree that a serious threat exists in the region," it said.
"The recent bombing on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi indicates that the infrastructure is in place for planning attacks and transporting explosives.
"With skilled bombmakers Pitono and Top on the loose along with high-level operators Patek and Husin, the threat to Westerners in Southeast Asia is very real."
A SUICIDE bomber wearing the uniform of Iraq's high-profile Wolf Brigade police force killed eight officers and wounded many others at the commando unit's Baghdad headquarters today, police at the scene said.
Police officials put the total number of dead and injured at close to 20. The bomber, who officers said also carried police identity documents, entered the barracks with other members of the unit reporting for work in the morning.
Body parts littered the barracks area, close to the Interior Ministry and police academy, which houses the Wolf Brigade, a military-style force of several hundred mainly drawn from the capital's Shiite poor.
Promoted on television by a charismatic founder, the Brigade has denied accusations it has killed Sunni Muslims, including clerics, from the minority which ran Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi security forces have been prime targets for mostly Sunni insurgents hitting back at US occupying troops and the Shiite-led government their presence has ensured.
It is by no means the first time a bomber has used a uniform to infiltrate heavily guarded compounds. In December, in one of the bloodiest such incidents, a bomber from the Ansar al-Sunna guerrilla group blew himself up in the mess tent of a major US military base at Mosul in the north, killing 22 people.
#1
Oh, dear, the Wolf Brigade is going to be more than a little annoyed about that. I do hope, for his tribe/group's sake, that none of the various bits of the bomber's corpse had any identifying marks.
Seriously, may the souls of the dead Wolves join the Marines guarding Heaven -- or perhaps they'd get more satisfaction interdicting Hell. It is indeed such men who allow the rest of us to sleep safely in our beds at night.
#2
Oh, dear, the Wolf Brigade is going to be more than a little annoyed about that. I do hope, for his tribe/group's sake, that none of the various bits of the bomber's corpse had any identifying marks.
Seriously, may the souls of the dead Wolves join the Marines guarding Heaven -- or perhaps they'd get more satisfaction interdicting Hell. It is indeed such men who allow the rest of us to sleep safely in our beds at night.
FREED Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni has identified a picture of her main kidnapper and told Italian authorities that she was never hurt nor threatened during her three weeks in captivity, Italian newspapers reported today.
Ms Cantoni, who was released yesterday, said her hostage takers numbered between four and six and their leader introduced himself immediately as Timur Shah.
"Tell me what is your brother's name, because from now on I am your brother," the aid worker quoted Shah as saying after her capture on May 16, according to Corriere della Sera.
Ms Cantoni, immediately questioned by Italy's anti-terrorism unit upon her arrival in Italy yesterday, was shown a picture of Shah and identified him as the gang leader who led her kidnapping.
Apart from being tied by the ankles during the night and never being allowed a change of clothes, Ms Cantoni said she was never mistreated or threatened.
"They never touched me," Ms Cantoni told prosecutors, according to La Repubblica, adding that her captors allowed her to watch television and sometimes gave her newspapers in English.
"The worst moment was when I was captured," the 32-year-old was quoted as saying.
Ms Cantoni, who ran a women's project CARE International in Kabul, said her kidnappers often said she would soon be released.
On Friday, they blindfolded her and asked her to get in the boot of a car, but she convinced them to let her stay in the car, arguing that she suffered from claustrophobia.
After a 20-minute ride, she was told to get out where she was greeted by Afghan police, Italian papers quoted her as saying.
Italian newspapers reported that Ms Cantoni was freed in exchange for the release of Shah's mother.
An Afghan official in Kabul confirmed that Shah's mother was released from custody, but said that the authorities wanted to release her anyway as there was no grounds to charge her. They had originally suspected her of participating in a previous kidnapping attributed to Shah's gang.
THREE people have been shot dead and one critically wounded as police found four bombs in the latest flare-up of violence in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, police said today.
The attacks cap a bloody week in which at least nine people died, bringing to about 700 the number killed since January 2004 when a violent uprising erupted in Thailand's three southernmost provinces.
Buddhist construction worker Phuang Sungsakul, 49, was shot three times early today as he drove his motorcycle to work in Muang district of Yala province, police said in a report. He died in hospital.
Muslim villager Abdulroya Torloh, 39, was shot dead by unknown assailants late Friday at his house in Sungai Padi district in Narathiwat province.
A third victim, Buddhist Prachuab Srikrien, 42, was shot late Friday by suspected militants who ambushed his car. He died at the scene of the attack, in Narathiwat's Rangae district, police said.
Police also neutralised four bombs in Narathiwat and Pattani, two of the most violence-plagued provinces of the deep south.
They included a 15-kilogram bomb planted in a fire extinguisher at a public works service office in Sungai Padi that was defused by a bomb squad yesterday.
A remote-control bomb uncovered at a local health office in Pattani's Nong Chik district was detonated today in a controlled explosion which severely damaged the building.
"Police suspect these attacks were the work of militants waging an unrest campaign," the police report said.
Also today, suspected militants shot and injured the elder brother of a former Yala provincial governor, Yuthasit Kittichokewattana, police said.
Authorities blame the unrest on a mix of Islamic separatist insurgents, organised crime and contraband smugglers.
They originally targeted security forces and government officials but have spread to teachers and other civil servants, Buddhist monks and civilians such as farmers and shop owners.
#2
I could think of less-productive things Islamist assholes could do, but blowing up the public works and health centers pretty f*&king stoopid. When will the gentle Thais show their steel side? The whining and seething will peg the meters. I say then , TFB
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 12:08
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#3
Wonder if they junked the Origami strategy, or will they give it just...one...more...shot...
#8
Did you notice there's a "Lost & Found" section where you can report missing items? Perhaps I should report an arms cache last seen somewhere near Chittagong.
The Bush administration ended its opposition yesterday to Mohamed ElBaradei serving a third term as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which will allow the Egyptian lawyer to be reelected next week.
The decision ended a solitary U.S. campaign against ElBaradei, who has widespread international support despite the correct belief of Bush administration officials firmly supported by all available evidence that he has been too soft on Iran over suspicions it is pursuing a nuclear bomb.
We also suspect him of being an incompetent boob, of being in the pay of Muslim governments looking to build the Bomb, and of being an all round hack, but what the hey.
"We expect, when the vote comes up . . . that we will join the consensus," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met ElBaradei in Washington. ElBaradei is now likely to be unanimously approved by the 35 member-nations at an IAEA board meeting that starts Monday.
U.S. officials acknowledged Washington reversed its position because it had been unable to erode support for ElBaradei, who had also clashed with the United States because he did not agree with its assertions over Iraq's programs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005
01:41 ||
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No big deal. He and his agency do F**k All anyway and even if you had a Bolteneque type there it would still be a neutered bureacracy in Vienna with great views of the Danube.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/11/2005 10:29
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The Washington summit early today between Presidents Roh Moo-hyun and George W. Bush heralded new pressure on North Korea to return immediately to the six-party talks and surrender its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Roh arrived in Washington yesterday and quickly launched into his packed schedule, meeting Bush in the White House Oval Office. The hour-long meeting, followed by a luncheon, was their fourth summit in the past two years. Without drawing up a joint-statement, Roh and Bush also arranged a short news briefing.
The vital summit of the two key allies came as North Korea showed hints of yielding from its stubborn refusal to return to the six-party talks but has yet to fix a date. By reconfirming their will to peacefully and diplomatically solve the nuclear problem, the two leaders were sending a stern message to North Korea to make a progressive move toward ending the standoff, a high-ranking South Korean government official said.
The two leaders also agree Pyongyang must not possess any kind of nuclear weapons, putting more strong pressure on North Korea as it has been stepping up its claims to have developed nuclear weapons and arms.
The summit, arranged ahead of their scheduled meeting in Korea this November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, also focused on cementing cracks that emerged recently due to South Korea's new ambition to become Northeast Asia's balancer, a role that would reflect Korea's increasing diplomatic independency. Roh and Bush, however, refrained from highlighting any alternative measures against North Korea should it continue to refuse to come back to the negotiating table with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
Roh and Bush also agreed active inter-Korean relations would be a highly useful tool to bring North Korea back to the six-party talks and solve the nuclear problem.
More likely, Bush agreed not to criticize it publicly as a waste of time.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005
01:35 ||
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Right, right. And we'll put even more pressure by withdrawing another Brigade ahead of the previous schedule! [Quicker, quicker] Oh, and we'll send Alec Baldwin to talk to them too!
Nice to have known you! Have a nice day!
The police arrested a listed criminal of the district, also a close associate of the dreaded, Shibir Nasir, and recovered an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle with a hundred rounds of ammunition from Mondakini of Hathazari upazila on Friday.
The police said a squad of Fatikchhari police arrested Dulal Uddin Munna from a mosque near his house at around 1:00pm and recovered an SBBL gun and 100 rounds of ammunition of AK-47 rifle from his residence. Later the police recovered an AK-47 from a hilly area following his statement and were hunting for his allies till 8:00pm.
A real AK-47 or a shutter gun imitation?
The police said Munna was wanted in 11 criminal cases including murder and extortion.
Meanwhile, the Rapid Action Battalion arrested an extortionist in possession of two light guns from Kazir Dewri crossing of the city at around 5:00pm. The battalion said the alleged snatcher, Jainal Abedin, 28, was roaming around with arms. Upon information from locals a battalion team went to the spot and arrested him.
The article didn't say what happened next, but I think it starts with, "Hey Jainal, youse coming wit us."
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005
01:30 ||
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SRINAGAR — A fierce gun battle was in progress in a Jammu and Kashmir village yesterday after two guerrillas sneaked into a shrine following a cordon and search operation and security forces surrounded it. The holed up guerrillas have started firing at the surrounding troops at Wallerhama (Sellar) village in south Kashmir's Anantnag district, 72km from here, police said.
Security forces had laid a cordon at the village following information that a group of guerrillas was hiding in the village. "Two militants, one of them believed to be a top commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit known as 'Doctor', who is a foreigner, and his associate entered the shrine in Wallerhama (Sellar) village after security forces cordoned off the area," said Javaid Mukhdoomi, inspector general of police (Kashmir). "Police were acting on specific information that the top Jaish commander was hiding in the village with some of his associates," Mukhdoomi said here.
A foreigner, eh? Mayhaps the Indians will nail a Mr. Big, or at least a Mr. Moderately-Big.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005
01:26 ||
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An era of recent Australian military operations ends next week when the flag is lowered at the Moleana forward operating base in East Timor and the base is handed over to the East Timorese military. This marks the end of Australia's peacekeeping involvement in what's now the independent nation of Timor Leste.
The Moleana handover will be conducted on Monday with the ceremony to be attended by Timor Leste Prime Minister Dr Mari Alkatiri, UN special representative Dr Sukehiro Hasegawa and Australian army land commander Major General Ken Gillespie.
Presiding over the occasion will be Lieutenant Colonel Brian Cox who said Australia could look back with pride at what had been achieved over the last six years. "It has been a privilege and an honour to be here as the last Australian national commander in Timor. This symbolises the end of the peacekeeping mission here. We have come a long way," he said from Moleana today.
"That's it. It will be the end of an era. It's great in some ways. We came here in very difficult circumstances. Australia has significantly contributed to the security of this nation. We are leaving them in a position where they can actually grow and prosper."
"The Australian Defence Force members I have had the privilege to lead are all proud of their efforts here and the efforts of the ADF members who have come before them."
Colonel Cox said his troops had made a significant contribution to rebuilding of roads, communications, medical services and other infrastructure. What was once regarded as a major threat to East Timor, militia remnants in camps across the border, has simply faded away.
The US Treasury Department announced it was freezing the assets of a Damascus-based company and of two senior Syrian officials, accused of providing military equipment to the regime of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Using falsified documents, SES International Corp provided the Iraqi regime with military goods in contravention of UN sanctions, the Department said in a statement. The company, owned by General Zuhayr Shalish and managed by Asif Shalish, posed as the final recipient of the military equipment, but in reality transshipped it to Iraq as the final destination, the Department said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/11/2005
01:10 ||
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The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security plans to investigate allegations that senior Border Patrol managers, including the current head of the organization, looked the other way when a Border Patrol kickback scheme surfaced in Arizona several years ago.
The investigation is the latest development in a case involving whistle-blowers' charges that David Aguilar, the head of the Border Patrol in Washington, and other managers knew of the kickback scheme but did nothing to stop it. Aguilar, who directs the enforcement efforts of 11,000 agents nationwide, has strongly denied the charges.
Robert Bonner, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, requested the inspector general's review in a June 3 memo he sent to Richard Skinner, the acting DHS inspector general. Bonner also rejected charges that his agency, which includes the Border Patrol, had failed to conduct a thorough investigation of the kickback scheme. In a phone conversation with Skinner on June 3, Bonner expressed the "utmost confidence" in Aguilar, according to Kristi Clemens, a Bonner aide. The investigation, says Skinner's spokesperson, Tamara Faulkner, will be conducted "as quickly and thoroughly as possible."
The case involves charges by two former Border Patrol agents, Larry Davenport and Willie Forester. In February 2001, the two men complained to the Justice Department about a kickback scheme involving agents temporarily assigned to the Douglas, Ariz., station. In a subsequent report, the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General confirmed their allegations. Its report said that some agents had accepted cash kickbacks from supervisors who rented rooms to them, or had taken cash and other inducements from hotels and apartments that sought their business. The agents had been detailed to Douglas as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.
New Mexico now has its own chapter of volunteers who plan to patrol the state's border with Mexico as part of the Minuteman Project. The group announced in a news release Wednesday that Clifford Alford of Organ will serve as the chapter's leader.
The group drew international attention in April when volunteers showed up in Arizona to prove the border could be secured simply by putting more personnel there. Organizers say the group alerted the U.S. Border Patrol to suspicious behavior and helped catch 335 immigrants. New Mexico is the last of four states along the border to organize a Minuteman chapter. No dates for patrols have been set, said James Chase, who helped organize patrols in Arizona and founded what he calls the U.S. Border Patrol Auxiliary.
Critics, including U.S. Border Patrol officials, have said the Minutemen are little more than a nuisance and distraction that attracted attention from the media and from civil rights groups watching for possible rights violations.
The announcement of a New Mexico chapter has created unease among some Las Cruces residents. Chase emphasized that the organization isn't a militia and that racism and violence by any member will not be tolerated. "We're just a neighborhood watch that's on the border," he said.
Good analogy and one that they ought to push. Everyone understands a Neighborhood Watch program. We have one on my block.
Although the organization considers itself an auxiliary of the Border Patrol, agency spokesman Doug Mosier said there's no official connection between the two. "We have said all along that we appreciate the efforts of local citizens in reporting suspicious activities, but securing our borders is a tough job and should be the responsibility of highly trained law enforcement personnel, like the U.S. Border Patrol," he said.
You won't mind if the Neighborhood Watch calls a few things in for you, with video, right?
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he opposes the formation of a Minuteman chapter in New Mexico. "What we need are an adequate number of highly trained Border Patrol agents securing the border, not untrained volunteers," Bingaman said.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he isn't sure about the benefits of having the Minutemen on New Mexico's border. "I don't know that a Minutemen organization is the best solution to the rampant illegal immigration problems on our border, but I can clearly understand the mounting frustration in the region," Domenici said.
The senators and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., sent a letter Wednesday to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner asking that security be increased along New Mexico's border. The letter said New Mexicans have growing concerns about their safety and the security of their property.
I'd be more impressed if the Congresscritter and two Senators put in an authorization bill.
#1
Not a single border Governor has suggested putting some of his State's National Guard on the border. It might even be directly paid for by the federal government, if it is called "training". And the actual numbers of NG wouldn't be terribly much, maybe just a Company out for a two-week rotation, spread thin in the highest density migration corridor. Just give them a few weapons, and issue rations, water and hand-held radios. It would give them a chance to brush up on their radio communications' skills.
#2
At the rate at which Congress is addressing the illegal tide, we will be drowning before long.
We need new ideas to force them into action.
Otherwise it may take something as grotesque as a WMD attack to dislodge the Snot-Ball-Congressâ¢.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
06/11/2005 12:58
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#3
Youre right, both parties seem to be dragging their feet on this. Despite a seemingly overwhelming majority of people who want it handled, and now. There seems to be a mad dash for our border in the last few years. I still think we need a wall like Israel is building.
#4
There may be a point to the "wall" idea. Since much of the trespassed land is private property, all that would be needed would be owners' permission to erect a difficult to breach wall. It could be a combination of things, a deep trench, maybe filled with sharp cactus, with a wall on the other side. The idea would not be to make it impassable, but to make it so difficult for people on foot as to not be worth the effort. Remember that every square inch of corridor denied to them channels them into smaller and smaller corridors, making them easier to stop. Much of the border is impassable, with no towns on either side in walking distance. Bottom line: All you really need is some earth-moving equipment to dig trenches with.
#5
Didn't one of the latest bills authorize just that? (A wall, that is.)
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
06/11/2005 14:57
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#6
Sa Diego section - triple steel fence and teh action overrode Ca Coastal commission prohibition against filling in Smuggler's Cyn and Goat Cyn to make a smoother/more enforceable swath....imagine that, the lefties used the enviro laws to deter border enforcement, and the Patriot Act reigned supreme
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 16:07
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#7
The problem with the current wall ideas are that they are temporaries. If there is just a wall, then once it is breached, it is easy to pass. But a trench filled with blue agave, cholla, and other such cactus is a self-replenishing border impediment. In other circumstances, the US military is even considering a type of nasty tall hedge, that does not burn easily, and is covered in inch-long thorns, instead of fences for some installations. But I doubt such a hedge would grow in the Sonora. Anyway, you put such plants in a deep trench *before* the fence and you create a multiple obstacle. Even if you get through the cactus, you face a high wall of earth with a fence on top of it. Since it doesn't rain very much, it would be years before the trench starts to collapse, even more if you spray the walls with inexpensive, water resistant glue. But the idea is just to make it psychologically difficult, not impassable. You cannot stop *all* the illegal, but you can cut down their numbers to sane levels.
#8
Isn't tumbleweed native to that part of the world? I was under the impression that the reason cowboys wear leather chaps is to protect against its thorns.
#9
Tumbleweed is, interestly enough, Russian Thistle
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 18:03
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#10
Tumbleweed is just voluminous, it is not much of an impediment at all. (N.B.: it has one of the fastest water-to-cellulose conversions in the plant kingdom.) However cholla, "jumping cactus" is an evil monster. With no known practical purpose, its easily-detached balls are covered with extremely sharp, barbed hooks. And no matter what you do to cholla, you make *more* cholla: burning, shotgunning, run it over with your car a bunch, and all you get is MORE cholla. I also highly recommend blue agave, as its long, thick leaves have thick, straight 1-3" long thorns on the end and large, sawtooth thorns on the side that can cut through denim. Ocotillo cactus has tubes covered with long thorns and is even used as fencing, when the tubes are wired together; often the detached tubes will re-root in the soil, giving you an 8' tall fence of cactus.
#11
cholla, "jumping cactus" is an evil monster. With no known practical purpose, its easily-detached balls are covered with extremely sharp, barbed hooks. And no matter what you do to cholla, you make *more* cholla: burning, shotgunning, run it over with your car a bunch, and all you get is MORE cholla. I also highly recommend blue agave, as its long, thick leaves have thick, straight 1-3" long thorns on the end and large, sawtooth thorns on the side that can cut through denim. Ocotillo cactus has tubes covered with long thorns and is even used as fencing, when the tubes are wired together; often the detached tubes will re-root in the soil, giving you an 8' tall fence of cactus.
#13
jumping cholla is nasty shit, and grows all the way to the SD coast....that and others is why cowboys wore chaps...
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 19:21
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#14
I am not unique here for really, really detesting cholla (pronounced "choy-a"). As a kid I wondered why boys with buzz haircuts carried combs--to discover that combs are a great tool for getting cholla balls off of you. A friend had to have his kneecap surged because he got some thorns under it, which inspired me to make my own chaps--very thick leather and cammo print--stylish. From experience, I have learned that cholla thorns go right through denim and the canvas of jungle boots, and can even penetrate the tongue of jump boots--to get you between the laces. When dead, the balls break into little pieces and act as tiny caltrops that nail you if you sit or lie down on them. Last but not least, when you pull out the thorns, the tip breaks off inside and stays there until it "pimples" out. Not even the Indians ever came up with something practical to do with the damn things. They make a formidable barrier, especially when intersperced with 'bayonet'-style cactus.
#15
LOL - Moose - you've been there...let me not share a nasty Ocotillo ATV wipe out... damn...bed of thorns would've been a pleasure
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 21:31
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#16
Not a single border Governor has suggested putting some of his State's National Guard on the border.
Texas did have US troops monitoring the border in the mid-90s for drug-running. They were withdrawn after a Mexican herder was killed (he was plinking with a .22 and put several rounds near a camo'd observation position).
Two of the states have Democrat governors (AZ- Janet Napolitano, NM - Bill Richardson). CA is governed by a Republican, but the rest of the State government is run by Democrats. They won't dare upset the 'Hispanic bloc'
Texas simply has a different cultural attitude about illegal immigration.
#17
It sounds like we have the beginnings of our Southern Border fence, then.
I think the best way to start would be for the Minutemen to assist private landowners in digging trenches and planting cholla, blue agave and ocotillo cactus therein. Announce it as a plan to increase the native flora in an attempt to increase the biodiversity of the area, and the Greens should cheer mightily, and might even be induced to help (perhaps a grant from the Sierra Club or Audobon Society for the plant materials, or offer the opportunity for their members to do the annual birdcount near the new plantings, to see how much difference it makes -- woo hoo! lots of people with binoculars, and nothing worse than a bunch of Sierra Clubbers angry at the ignorant tramping through their wilderness. Add some milkweed for the migrating Monarch butterflies, and the illegals will be taking their lives in their hands.) And certainly the Border Patrol and Vincente Fox can't complain if private individuals choose to plant cactus gardens on their own property.
#18
Another Zonie here. Agreed, that Jumping Cholla is almost Islamic in its evilness. I know someone who planted some below ever window to deter burglars. And it really does "jump," too. When a segment breaks off and dries up, it become very light, while all the spines give it a huge surface area. The draft from your legs walking past will cause it to take off and smack you in the calf. And it's a real pain to get out of a Samoyed's coat.
The only problem is that is spreads. While not as kudzu-like as Prickly Pear, it's of the same genus (Opuntia) and seems to be able to grow and reproduce no matter what you do. It would probably grow in motor oil...
Octotillo isn't really a cactus, BTW. It's more like a desert rose bush or something. It's not a succulant and has real leaves (right after a rain, then they fall off again). People do cut the stems, then wire them up, then replant them, as a "living fence." You can buy living fence in the nurseries. But it requires good drainage. Depressions or heavy clay soil drown it out. I don't know what the border dirt is like.
Prickly Pear is somewhat down on the nastiness scale, but some species have little fine hairs that break off and cause no end of unpleasantness when brushed against. I use gloves that are going to be thrown away when dealing with these kinds of cacti, since they get infested with spines and hairs and are useless.
MEXICO CITY — Ninety-four deported migrants arrived in Mexico's capital Friday on the first flight of a renewed U.S. repatriation program that left some pledging to try to cross again, while others said their border crossing days were over. It was beginning of twice-daily flights expected to bring thousands of Mexicans to their hometowns, and the second year of a U.S. program aimed at discouraging repeated border-crossers in desert areas, where temperatures soar during summer months.
Greeted upon landing by the government's Grupo Beta migrant-aid agency, the deportees were given box lunches and free bus tickets to their home towns.
U.S. officials have budgeted US$14.2 million (euro11.6) to deport by air as many as 33,900 migrants who choose to participate in the program, saying they'd like to be transported all the way home — instead of being simply left on the Mexican side of the border.
The head of Mexico's National Immigration Institute, Magdalena Carral said the effort was worth it, even if some migrants planned to return. "You can't try to save money when it comes to saving lives," Carral said. "One life is worth it."
But she also noted the program "is not the solution. It is only a stopgap measure," and that a "legal avenue of recourse" for migrant workers was needed.
Washington plans 226 flights to Mexico City through Sept. 30 under an agreement with the Mexican government. People will be bused from Mexico City to their home towns, primarily in the southern part of the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spent US$15.4 million (euro12.59 million) on the program from July 12 through Sept. 30, 2004, with some flights going to Guadalajara.
However, all flights this year will be to Mexico City, and will [use] chartered Mexican, rather than U.S. planes.
#2
"You can't try to save money when it comes to saving lives," Carral said. "One life is worth it."
Easy to say when it's not YOUR money that's being expended. I'd have settled for leaving them at the border with a warning that a subsequent attempt to cross will result in being shot.
#4
Its cheaper for the national government to simply provide the returnees a bus ticket back to the border for another try rather than clean up their own completely corruption laden economy to actually provide these obreros real jobs and a living at home.
#5
Sounds like we are are now 1/2 funding weekend home visits.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:11
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#6
Actually, flying them back makes sense.
Flying them back to the _southern_ border of Mexico probably even makes more sense than the Capitol, but as long as they're "starting over" from pretty far down south it's OK with me.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005 11:24
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#7
In that case, it'd make even more sense to fly them to Sao Paolo or Buenos Aires...
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005 11:29
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#8
They'll probably exchange their free bus tickets for a ride back to Tijuana... and that lunch box should last until there.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:58
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#10
Alright, here's a solution: Drop the word border from the lexicon. Replace it with a term that conveys happiness and openness. Like, the US is Mexico's patio.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/11/2005 12:15
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#11
Sorry Muck - I bet the box lunch includes a lunch-meat sandwich. You don't want to support baloney producers do you?;)
CHERBOURG (France), June 11 (Bernama) -- Malaysia will take delivery of its two Scorpene submarines in 2009, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said here... one of the submarines was expected to arrive in the country in the middle of that year and the other at the end.
Najib, who is also Defence Minister, said the construction of the two submarines was proceeding according to schedule, with 35 per cent of work completed. He spoke to Malaysian journalists after a visit to the construction site at the DCN dock here, about 300 km from Paris, yesterday.
The two submarines are being built jointly by DCN International, the French shipbuilder, and Izar, the Spanish shipbuilder.
#2
The temptation to play off the old joke about "why do they call a camel the ship of the desert?" is almost irresistable, but rather than make puns about muslim seamen, I'll try to be serious and ask what the hell does Malaysia need a submarine for?
#4
I hear they are the only subs that can run on palm oil and when at surface the conning tower doubles as a mineret.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/11/2005 10:32
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#5
Malaysia not Mali.
Right. Predominately muslim nation consisting of a couple peninsulas between Indonesia and Thailand. I could see them buying maritime patrol aircraft or more traditional well-armed cutters/frigates for dealing with pirates, but subs?
#6
Just wait, jihadis. Those subs will be AQ subs some day. Right there in the Straits. The stinkin frogs would sell to the devil if they could get the contracts.
Posted by: Tom ||
06/11/2005 14:01
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#7
I think the sub purchases are intended as a warning to the neighborhood powers who seem to be engaged in a naval build-up. A diesel sub purchase decreases the likelihood of a carrier encroachment. Patrol boats would be more practical to combat piracy .... unless you intend to have the pirates disappear.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 14:28
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#8
SteveS :)
I just figure any nation sitting on the most important shipping choke point in the Pacific might want 2 or 3 different ways to to exert control.
LAHORE: Jamia Masjid Bahawalpur on Friday escaped a horrible accident when a bomb planted inside the building was found before Friday prayers, the APNA news channel reported.
An "accident"? They accidentally planted a bomb?
Much like when I "accidentally" butchered cut my sister's hair when we were kids...
Mayhaps the location of the bomb was accidental. It was supposed to go in the Protestant church down the street ...
According to the report, the bomb was discovered when someone noticed a suspicious bag in the mosque and alerted the police. Police officials along with the bomb disposal squad arrived at the scene and surrounded the mosque. The mosque was evacuated and the bomb disposal squad removed the fuse, the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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#1
An "accident"? They accidentally planted a bomb?
sumone jus foreget to taker home all they studee mateerials.
LAHORE: A labourer was killed and two others were injured in an explosion at a junkyard in Misri Shah, Geo reported on Friday. The TV channel said the labourers were unloading scrap from a truck when the blast occurred, instantly killing Shrafat and critically injuring Shahzad and Shahbaz. Police sources told Geo that there might have been an explosive shell or grenade in the scrap that went off. Junkyard owner Mian Kabir said he had bought the scrap from Quetta.
"Damn, Mahmoud! This artillery shell's all dented and dirty!"
"Well, just throw it out. We'll get you a new one!"
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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LAHORE: Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) protested on Friday to condemn killings of its leaders Aslam Mujahid, Tahir Jamal and Farhan in Karachi and the sacrilege of the Quran in the US and Israeli jails. MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmed led the main protest in front of the Islamabad Parliament House.
Who else? When it comes to public indignation over something or other, who you gonna get but Qazi? "Indignation for all occasions, only a dollar!"
Addressing the protest rallies, demonstrations and sit-in at Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, and Islamabad, the MMA leaders said that Karachi killings were a part of a conspiracy to target Islamic movements' leaders. In Lahore, Ameerul Azim, Dr Rana Mehmoud and Sheikh Mohammad Amin led a peaceful demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club after the Friday congregation. Protesters, carrying banners and placards with slogans, condemned the killing of the MMA leaders, shouted anti-government slogans and demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.
They look so... ummm... Islamic, jumping up and down, hollering, rolling their eyes, and vowing dire revenge on whomever...
According to a Jammat-e-Islami (JI) spokesman, more than 50 workers, MPAs and MNAs of the MMA were baton-charged and arrested by the police to stop them from entering the Sindh Assembly, where a budget session was in progress. Syed Munawwar Hassan, MMA secretary general, while delivering a Friday sermon at the Jamia Mansoorah said that despite the provocative action against the MMA leaders, the party's workers would not take up arms to crush violence with violence.
This article starring:
AMIRUL AZIM
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
ASLAM MUJAHID
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
FARHAN
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
QAZI HUSEIN AHMED
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
RANA MEHMUD
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
SHEIKH MOHAMAD AMIN
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
SYED MUNAWWAR HASAN
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
TAHIR JAMAL
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
Jamia Mansoorah
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Plan will free 18 countries from repaying $16.7 billion debt
Can anyone here point me to a website teaching me how to incorporate as a African nation? I promise to hold free and fair elections, weather permitting...
We can't do that, but perhaps we could persuade the leaders of 'Chad' to change their country's name to 'Emily'. Then it just depends on whether you can sign checks with the proper flourish ...
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
That's the appropriate graphic for African aid. Of course, for the debt they're talking about it was down the crapper as soon as it was lent. Writing if off is just recognition of the reality that it would never be repaid. The real issue is whether more will be lent/spent.
SEOUL: North Korea has blocked most of its international telephone lines in order to restrict the exchange of information with the outside world, according to South Korean government sources. Earlier this week a South Korean newspaper said the isolated Stalinist regime had shut down 90 percent of its outside phone lines since April and confiscated some 20,000 mobile telephones since May last year. The source confirmed to reporters that "most of the country's international telephone service appears to be controlled" and that "there appear to be restrictions on the use of mobile phones in North Korea from mid-2004". The use of cellphones, which were only introduced to North Korea in 2002, and of the Internet had been seriously restricted by a regime that worries about losing its hold on information and fears a possible US attack. The JoongAng daily reported on Tuesday that North Korea had restricted domestic communications and blocked 90 percent of its 970 international lines since April under a direct order from its leader Kim Jong-Il.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Sounds like they are just trying to show off the fact that they operate telephones at all.
LADAH: Unidentified people burned a government school in South Waziristan's Sarwakai sub-division late on Thursday in a series of attacks on schools in Mehsud-dominated areas. No casualties were reported. The porch of the Government Communal Primary School in Barwand Raghzai in Sarwakai sub-division was completely destroyed in the fire while blackboards, carpets and other equipment were also reduced to ashes, a schoolteacher told Daily Times on Friday. "You cannot say the attackers are those who are targeting government and private schools in Waziristan," the teacher said.
Then who can you say they are?
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
So they accidentally set the school on fire, resulting in its destruction -- they were really aiming for the McDonald's two doors down?
#2
I don't no that I would insure any Pakistani structure that was built from combustible materials. There can't be a whole lot of them left in the country.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:55
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Five US marines were killed in a bomb attack in western Iraq, the military said on Friday, while 17 unidentified bodies were discovered deeper in the country's rebel heartland hard on the Syrian border. "Five marines were killed in action on Thursday when their vehicle hit an explosive device while conducting combat operations near Haqlaniyah," the US military said. On November 7, insurgents stormed police stations in Haqlaniya and nearby Haditha and executed 21 policemen.
Residents of Al-Qaim said 11 executed bodies had been found, a day after a Defence Ministry official reported that six other murdered men had been discovered nearby. The identities of the victims were not immediately clear but a military source said on Wednesday that 22 Shia soldiers had been captured near Rawa.
Gunmen killed the head of an Iraqi police unit and his companion in Kirkuk. Police identified the dead men as Colonel Rahim Uthman, head of the anti-terrorist department on the local force, and Major Ghanim Jihad. In Basra, Colonel Abdelkarim al-Daraji was shot dead in his car with a second person, police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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now whyy didnt chainey thinker that? ima feelin safer alredy. Jordan's military court has ordered the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, and another suspected terrorist to surrender within 10 days to face charges of plotting deadly attacks.
Zarqawi and alleged coconspirator Mohammed Qteishat are charged with plotting terrorist attacks in Jordan that killed one person. The court's announcement did not provide further details. The whereabouts of Zarqawi, the most-wanted man in Iraq, are unknown, with some reports saying he was recently wounded in combat with U.S. troops and evacuated from Iraq for treatment. The announcement, published Thursday in the Ad-Dustour daily newspaper, did not provide other details. Military prosecutor Lt. Col. Mahmoud Obeidat declined to comment Friday.
Zarqawi is on trial in absentia in several cases. He and 12 others are charged in connection with a foiled plot to launch chemical attacks against Jordan's intelligence department. The insurgent leader also has been indicted for an alleged conspiracy to attack the Jordanian embassy and other locations in Iraq, and for a foiled suicide attack on the Jordanian-Iraqi border. He has been sentenced to death by a Jordanian military court for the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan.
#1
Helen: File this under indefinite suspension, miscellaneous file.
Right next to EU Constitution ratification.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/11/2005 0:36
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#2
Why didn't we think of giving him a deadline to surrender? It was all so simple. How could we have missed the solution?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:43
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Everyone believes now, including Jordan, that Zarqawi is dead. If he was alive they would not dare make such a demand. Just another front event to try to mislead the world, acting as if they are against terrorists.
David Hicks' new lawyer hopes the latest comments from the US Government could lead to negotiations to return David Hicks to Australia. David McLeod will fly to Cuba today to meet his client for the first time. Mr McLeod says the meeting is particularly important now the US administration has announced it would prefer detainees to be released to their countries of origin to be tried and jailed at home. However, he has told ABC Radio's AM that the fact that David Hicks is one of only four detainees facing charges, will undoubtedly complicate the case for bringing him home. "The ideal situation is for David to be simply released into Australian custody and brought home to Australia and liberated - that's the high watermark," he said.
I'd say the ideal situation would be for David to get a paper cut while abusing his koran, get sepsis, and die. But maybe that's just me...
"The low watermark would be for David to be returned to Australia for trial."
The low watermark is where we tie him to a stake.
Poor, misunderstood David was captured in Afghanistan, fighting with al-Qaeda, a few days after Johnny Jihad was rooted out at Qala i-Jangi.
Mr McLeod says concern from some US politicians over the lengthy legal process Hicks is going through may help his client's case. "I think we're still to come into the home term, we're in this for the long haul, David knows that," he said. "Unfortunately it's gone longer that anyone had hoped or anticipated."
Not nearly as long as I'd hoped or anticipated. Of course, they could have just shot him and saved us all the tedium of watching the apologists try to get him sprung.
He says similar concerns are being expressed in Australia. "It's as well to note that there has been some discussion from Australian authorities that they also are becoming concerned and it's obviously that tack that we would like to pursue with the Australian authorities upon my return," he said.
#1
Don't return him to Australia. We don't want him and I doubt he has broken any laws of significance here. Send him to Afghanistan. I am sure they can find a suitable place to house him for say 20 years.
#2
We don't want him and I doubt he has broken any laws of significance here.
That's the weird part I don't get. What would Australia try him for (such as what crime did he commit on Australian soil?)? He should have been dropped on the battlefield and left there as food for the buzzards.
#3
His lawyer is pissing in the wind. The only "concern from some US politicians over the lengthy legal process Hicks" is coming from a few left wing democrats. In order for that route to bear fruit, the Democrats would have to retake the House, Senate, and White House. I doubt the ANY serious Senatorial or Presendential candidate will take up the banner of freeing prisnoers from gitmo. It would be like commiting political suicide.
#6
The low watermark is where we tie him to a stake.
May I recommend this nice muddly little place in the Bay of Fundy? Be sure to anchor that stake with some BIG rocks, though. Wouldn't want it pulling out when the tide comes in - sh$$ floats.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/11/2005 20:58
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US President George W. Bush gave Syria a fresh warning yesterday, calling on Damascus to pull its intelligence services out of Lebanon.
"Now, lookee here, bub!"
Bush said he was "disturbed" by reports of Syrian intelligence personnel in Lebanon.
"Yeah. I'm very disturbed. Who'da ever thunkit?"
"Cheeze, Mr. President, you crack me up!"
"Our message to Syria — and it's not just the message of the United States; the United Nations has said the same thing — is that in order for Lebanon to be free," Syria needs to "not only remove their military, but to remove intelligence officers as well."
Among civilized countries, intelligence officers usually collect intelligence. The guys they're talking about here aren't from civilized countries; they're more along the lines of secret police. It's kind of insulting to term them "intelligence officers."
Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House was "deeply concerned about Syria's interference and intimidation inside Lebanon. "Syria needs to comply fully with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559. That means getting all their intelligence operatives out of Lebanon," he added. "We are concerned that those intelligence operatives are interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs. We have all called on the United Nations to send the verification teams back to Lebanon," McClellan said, noting that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "looking at this course of action."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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The prop guy must've put in some serious overtime on that hat...
One of the Muslim world's most influentual figures in Europe called Friday for the unconditional release of a French journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad five months ago, as well as a prompt withdrawal of US and other foreign military forces in Iraq.
Sheikh Hussein Halawa, secretary general of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said he was ready to go to Iraq if necessary to secure the release of Florence Aubenas. Aubenas, a senior correspondent for the French newspaper Liberation, and her interpreter Hussein Hanun al-Saadi went missing after leaving the journalist's hotel in Baghdad on January 5. "I must say that I am very much against the captivity of the French journalist," Halawa, speaking in Arabic through an interpreter, told AFP in Dublin on the 155th day of Aubenas's disappearance. "I would like to state that this is against the Islam that I believe in and I call on them to release her and all the captives they have taken." Halawa felt confident that his appeal would be heard by the kidnappers, five days after a similar plea was sent out from Saudi Arabia by Sheikh Abdullah Ibn Bayya, vice president of the International Organisation of Ulema and a member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research. "After the call made by Sheikh Ibn Bayya, and after my call today, I think this will touch their hearts (those of the hostage takers) and that they will soon release the captives," he said.
Halawa said the overall situation in Iraq, more than two years after the US and British invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime, remains "very painful," and he urged foreign military forces to leave as soon as possible. "I call on people in Iraq to renounce fanaticism and tribalism and come together and unite," he said. "I also call on the occupying forces to leave Iraq. The day they leave Iraq, then the people of Iraq can unite, I trust the Iraqi people and I think they can look after themselves and manage their own affairs." Referring to the Aubenas case, Halawa said: "I think the kidnapping has a negative impact on those who don't understand the true image of Islam. But there are a lot of people who do understand the true image of Islam and are still taking these kind of actions," he added.
Doesn't miss much, does he?
"I call on those who have kidnapped to take into consideration the fact that this is not in harmony with Islam, and also to think of the Islamic Dawa and the Muslims who have good relations with people of different parts of Europe. Such a behaviour is not good with regard to the Muslim relations with the European people who have opened their lands to Muslims. This is against Islam as a religion. We condemn this and we condemn all kinds of violence all over the world."
Based in Ireland [ ! ], the European Council for Fatwa and Research is a private foundation, created in 1997, that brings together more than 30 Muslim religious leaders, jurists and other prominent figures living in Europe, the Middle East, Mauritania, Pakistan and Sudan.
The mufti of Jerusalem added his voice yesterday to allegations that copies of the Qur'an had been abused in an Israeli prison as hundreds of Palestinians staged protests in the occupied territories. "The occupation authorities have followed the American example in profaning the holy Qur'an," Sheikh Ekremah Sabri told worshippers attending the weekly prayers at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque. "The media have reported the abuse committed by the jailers and the police who tore up copies of the Qur'an in front of the heroic detainees at Meggido prison to provoke and humiliate them, and we have corroborated this information," he added.
All this while the Israelis have been jugging Paleostinians, and they've never thought to desecrate any Korans until now. Must be coincidence that it happens when that's the atrocity du jour...
Palestinian detainees at Meggido in northern Israel accused the authorities earlier this week of deliberately ripping out pages of the Qur'an during a search of their cells, claims which have been rigorously denied by the Israeli prison service.
This article starring:
SHEIKH EKREMAH SABRI
Learned Elders of Islam
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Can't they drum up some abuse of prayer mat charges to break the monotony?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:53
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Tasmanian schools and childcare centres have been sent details and a photograph of a man police say have threatened to blow up a school. Police say the threats did not specify any particular school. Deputy Commissioner Jack Johnston says a Hobart magistrate yesterday granted an interim restraint order against the man, banning him from going near schools or childcare centres. He later appeared in an out of hours court session and has been remanded in custody to reappear in court next week.
Deputy Commissioner Johnston says police were told the man has made a number of threats to blow up a school, and that after investigations there were genuine concerns he may be able to carry them out. "Tasmania Police informed the Education Department and independent schools that we had some considerable concern regarding the person," he said. "As a result of that I understand they have communicated with their schools to provide them with advice regarding the identity of the person and seeking their cooperation to report instances should he be in attendance in, or near those premises."
Education Minister Paula Wreidt says police acted quickly and appropriately. Ms Wreidt says every possible step is being taken to ensure students' safety. "The individual concerned still remains in custody as I understand it and certainly the safety of children in our schools is paramount," she said. "We will always do everything in our power to ensure the safety of our students and I believe we have taken every appropriate step that we possible can and that parents should feel confident that they can send their children to school next week."
Following the example of Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Moldova, has demanded that Russia pull out its troops from the country's territory, Interfax news agency reports. The Moldovan parliament passed on Friday a draft law ordering Moscow to withdraw its troops from the break-away Transdniestr region by the end of the year. The pullout is needed for the fulfillment of the demilitarization plan as part of the Trandsniestr peace settlement. The so-called "Yushchenko plan" was offered by the Ukrainian president and approved by the Moldovan parliament earlier on Friday. Already supported by the U.S. and the European Union, it includes holding elections at the Supreme Soviet of Transdniestr as a constituent region of Moldova, involving U.S. and EU negotiators in peace talks, and the development of military and civilian observers' work.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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MULTAN: A farmer fatally shot two of his teenage daughters in Sahiwal district after one did not immediately serve him a glass of water when he returned from working in the fields, police said on Friday. Ismael, 47, shot Abida, 18, for failing to give him water, and then killed Salima, 16, when she tried to save her older sister, police said. However, Online news agency reported that the man killed his two daughters because he suspected them of having illicit relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Online news agency reported that the man killed his two daughters because he suspected them of having illicit relations.
SERBIA'S government knows where top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic is hiding and is considering how to arrest him without causing casualties, the respected Belgrade newspaper Danas reported yesterday. Quoting what it called an "impeccable source", the paper said Mladic's whereabouts were determined during the visit to Belgrade of the Hague tribunal's chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte on 2 June.
Was the determination made because of Carla's visit? In honor of her visit? Coincidentally with her visit? Or did they discover that Carla is secretly Ratko Mladic in drag?
He is said to have met "very co-operative associates" inside the Serbian leadership. Belgrade later denied the report which was described as "completely unfounded", but the newspaper's editor-in-chief Grujica Spasovic stood by the story.
They would prob'ly deny it because they wouldn't want to tip him off. If he knows they know he's one place, it's relatively easy for him to be another place. See below.
But that was a long time ago, and we were much younger then, and, really, it was only 20,000 people, many of them civilians, so what's the rush? After all, Ramsey Clark needs a little time to put together his defense...
He is said to have heavily armed protection from hard-liners in the army or secret service. "We know which town he's in and how long he has been under the control of certain security bodies," Spasovic said. Disclosing the town's name would be irresponsible, he said.
Disclosing that you know the town's name is irresponsible. Even though we don't know which town he's in, since you don't tell us, unless he's been hit hard on the noggin, I guarantee he knows what town he's in...
There is a reward of $5 million for the capture of Mladic. Danas reported rumours that Mladic was ready to surrender were wrong, and added that the government had made up its mind to arrest him as soon as it could do so without causing casualties.
Actually, I'd say any number of casualties less than 20,000 would be pretty well justified...
"Our paper was told the name of the town where Mladic has been located but we assessed it was not opportune to unveil it now because of tensions it may create. We can only say that it is a town inside Serbia," said the report.
Somehow I couldn't imagine him hiding out in Croatia or Bosnia...
Serbia's failure to arrest Mladic has been the main obstacle for Belgrade's progress toward the European Union and NATO. "The sooner he's in the Hague the better," said NATO's secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, yesterday. Vojislav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, initially a critic of the UN court, has so far this year persuaded 12 fugitives to surrender and says Serbia will fulfil all its obligations to the tribunal soon. The United States has lifted a freeze on a $5.5 million aid package to Serbia following its recent co-operation with the Hague tribunal. Mladic has been rumoured to have the protection of men from the army or the secret service, and is often described as travelling with heavily armed security.
KARACHI: A senior moderate separatist leader from the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) on Friday called on militants fighting India's rule in the Indian-held Kashmir to join the political mainstream. "Now the time has come when political and militant wings sit together and formulate a strategy for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute," Mirwaiz Omar Farooq told foreign journalists in Karachi. He pointed to the example of Northern Ireland, where militants had backed a political solution to end decades of Protestant-Catholic violence in the British-ruled province.
"... and look how well that's been working!"
"At this juncture, political leadership should play a leading role with the support and consensus of militant leadership in finding a just solution to the Kashmir problem," Farooq said.
This article starring:
MIRWAIZ OMAR FARUQ
All Parties Hurriyat Conference
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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A three-member review board of the Lahore High Court (LHC), consisting of Justice Mian Muhammad Najamuz Zaman, Justice Sheikh Abdul Rashid and Justice Mohammad Bilal Khan, on Friday ordered the release of a dozen men detained in connection with the Mukhtar Mai rape case, in the latest legal twist in one of the nation's highest profile cases involving violence against women. The men had been jailed since March on an order that will expire next week. The review board also denied the Punjab government's request for a three-month extension, said Mohammed Shahid, a court official. It was not clear when they might be freed, though presumably the government can hold them at least until the original order expires.
A total of 13 men were captured in 2002 after Mukhtar Mai, then 33, came forward to tell of her ordeal. She said that she was raped on orders from a village council, which said it was a punishment for her brother's alleged illicit affair with a woman from another family. In August 2002, six suspects were sentenced to death and the other eight acquitted. But in March of this year, another court overturned the convictions of the five men, and reduced the death sentence of the sixth to life in prison, sparking an outcry by human rights groups both in Pakistan and abroad.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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SUCRE: Bolivia's supreme court chief, Eduardo Rodriguez, took office as president Thursday and vowed to hold early elections, fighting to quell a three-week uprising by masses of poor people demanding a share of the country's natural gas riches. Rodriguez, 49, was sworn in as the 84th president late Thursday at an emergency session of Congress, convened in the colonial capital of Sucre as violent protests gripped Bolivia, unleashing a warning of a military crackdown.
Is this like the 134th government in 89 years or the 113th government in 76 years?
For three weeks, tens of thousands of farmers, workers and indigenous people have clamoured on the streets of La Paz and other cities for the nationalisation of the gas and oil industry and a more equitable distribution of the country's meagre wealth. Bolivia's social meltdown pits poorer Andean regions in and around La Paz against interests in the more modern, relatively prosperous eastern and southern plains, where most of the natural gas wealth is located.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Name your country to honor a revolutionary and here's what you get.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:51
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KARACHI: Police detained 50 Islamic hardliners on Friday who were protesting against the alleged desecration of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, said police and witnesses. Riot police here moved in to break up over 250 protestors linked to the MMA. "We have detained some 50 people for violating a government ban on rallies," said police officer Mohammad Zahid. However, MMA leader Marajul Huda said that police had beaten up "peaceful" protestors and arrested three MMA legislators.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Terrorism is a crime to be pursued through international cooperation rather than a movement to be targeted in a war waged by individual nations, a veteran Spanish anti-terrorist investigator said on Thursday in an apparent slap at the United States. "Terrorism is a crime, it's not a movement ... In a war, we have to defend ourselves, and this is today distorting the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism," said Baltasar Garzon, an investigating judge for Spain's National Court. "The only way to combat terrorism in any of its manifestations is with the strength of law and reason and not the reason of force," he said. Without mentioning Washington by name, Garzon said Spain had recently received no response when it sought to extradite three Spaniards charged with crimes in Spain and being held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Dear Judge Garzon:
I still think you are a stone cold stud, but haven't you talked to enough of these lying nutbags yet? We're over there breaking stuff so we can break the hold these arrogant thugs have over the people of good will. Since you're the only judge in the world to recognize the danger, I'll cut you some slack, but your job and our job go hand-in-hand. You keep the boyz behind bars, we make it harder for the boys to hide and prey on decent folk.
Respectfully,
Emily alias Abu Seafarious
USA
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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#1
Love the tie. Was it St. Patrick's Day when the pic was taken?
#11
A little perspective may be needed here in that Garzon has done a really good job within the confines of Spanish law as far as going after both ETA and al-Qaeda. He has been able to persuade French authorities to abandon the previous blind eye to the ETA in the wake of 9/11 and probably figures that you can do the same with some of nastier countries in the Middle East. There is also the point to be made that Spain is not exactly a major military power, so law enforcement is about the only weapon they have at their disposal.
Keep in mind that Garzon was locking up terrorists long before 9/11 and so he still has a lot of that pre-9/11 mindset as far as how he sees the situation and views the US as Johnny-Come-Latelies to the table.
Finally, he is a Socialist though from a far more moderate region of the party than Zapatero and as such a lot of the cheap anti-Americanism that normally surrounds him has probably influenced his thinking to a certain respect.
I'm not defending the guy, just trying to explain how he came to the understanding that he did.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/11/2005 11:56
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#12
Sorry, the soap box is full and is taking no more wacko critics. Just try the case, judge, and leave the heavy lifting to your superiors.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/11/2005 12:03
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#13
Abu Seafarious should just admit that it's the tie.
#14
He's a socialist Spanish judge who wants to attack the US about its anti-terror tactics?
Reduce the sauce-d'ya think his solution to terror might have elements of the redistribution of wealth through bribe-based solutions to terror, and the compromising of the US through pressure to comply with international law (their version, of course)?
Hi, y'all-I'm back. Now writing from moonbat land.
#2
There's a deeper issue here which the Deep Throat/Felt story illustrates. The FBI became utterly warped under J. Edgar, especially in the latter years. A lot of the people who entered the Bureau under Hoover were still active in the early 90s. That organization has some very deep rot going on still in its culture. Another symptom of this was the faked lab analyses that started coming out of the FBI labs a while back.
I'm no fan of shoot the wounded. But there have been some really serious problems over there and now the word is that they are stonewalling on reforms and on working with the CIA and others effectively.
Cheney is right: we are in a long, bitter fight for our lives and our freedom. These guys have GOT to get on board and that means they have got to realize how much is at stake if they keep playing the games they played before 9/11.
Posted by: too true ||
06/11/2005 8:49
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#3
btw - you bayonet the wounded....saves ammo
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 10:32
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#4
I think that law enforcement should have prevented the death of Nicole Brown Simpson also. With all that evidence available allowing that woman to die so horribly is just shameful incompetence. {{ Cut to video of OJ going through airport security with Frank Gifford both wearing yellow blazers }} See how lax homeland security had an opportunity to arrest the killer.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:32
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#5
Fred, this reminds me of something I'd brought up at Wheelus and have been meaning to polish up for further explanation later.
About a week or two back I listened to a long interview with writer Peter Lance on the late-night-conspiracy-radio show Coast to Coast, performed by George Noury. And, no, although I found a lot of the individual facts interesting, I didn't agree with the vast framework they were putting together, where they mentioned all the "missed opportunities" along with other stuff involving Ramsi Yousef while George Noury tried to drag the interview into the direction of "these attacks were allowed to happen in order to expand the power of the federal government, enrich all the oil companies, etc.... you know, all the stuff the left is saying is happening, but really _isn't_ (I mean, think back to comparisons with WW2: if this were WW2, most of the people at Guantanamo would have been sentenced to death by a military tribunal by now, if they weren't shot to death by the frontline troops on the spot. And the "big oil companies" are really just resellers for OPEC these days. OPEC's made a lot of money off of the price instability caused by the war, but I don't think Shell or Valero have. And FDR would have found a way to drill in ANWR with or without Congress's approval in Oct. 2001. But I digress...)
In case you're wondering, I listen to the conspiracy junk that's going around here because it's going to move on from here and spread to the propaganda outlets run by the US's enemies elsewhere. A lot of the insinuations run by Al Jazeera and Pravda have their start in the loony left (although some days we should perhaps call it the loony center) _here_.
Anyway, getting back to the radio interview, a really strange and interesting and wonderful thing happened: someone called in and asked about the anthrax attacks.
Mr. Noury changed the subject SO FAST it would make your head spin. He just mumbled something about how they were sure it was someone domestic, it had nothing to do with international terrorism, nothing to see here, these aren't the droids we're looking for...
BUT without offering any references for anything like that.
The anthrax attacks don't fit into the conspiracy theorists' theories, or more importantly, their _agenda_. They _can't_ explain them, so they have to explain them away.
Their agenda, such as it is, is based on a double standard: If the FBI could have done 'X' (never mind that the evidence that 'X' needed to be done was lacking) the crimes would have been stopped or postponed, and since they weren't, the FBI obviously must have wanted them to happen.
(As Super Hose points out, this can be stretched to show that every murder that's happened in the US is something the FBI wanted to happen.)
One thing sticks out in the Daily Times article:
The head of the San Diego FBI office responded that the report greatly exaggerates the possibility that local agents could have prevented the attacks.
The two Saudis rented a room in the home of a longtime FBI terrorism informant, and also befriended a fellow Saudi who had drawn FBI scrutiny in the past.
The informant identified the two men to his FBI handler only by their first names, and the report criticizes the FBI handler as ânot particularly thorough or aggressiveâ in following up.
The two men also befriended Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had established himself in the area. The FBI briefly investigated him in 1998 when the manager of his apartment complex reported that al-Bayoumi had received a suspicious package, had strange wires in his bathroom and hosted frequent weekend gatherings of Middle Eastern men.
It occurs to me that if we did start arresting people for "being from the Middle East," attending meetings with others from SA or the ME, receiving suspicious packages, or similar things, there'd be the biggest outcry from the ACLU, CAIR, Amnesty International, etc., than you even have today because we've incarcerated at Guantanamo people who would in a proper rule of law be hung by the neck until they are dead.
BUT... that's precicely the sort of legal treatment Christians and Hindus (and depending on time and place, even the wrong sects of Moslems) get in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They want to feed the thesis that 9/11 was "allowed to happen," so they postulate an FBI with the combined powers of the Vice Police in SA and Bangladesh's RAB.
Well, back to doing the dishes...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005 12:27
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#6
Phil, my main point is that 2nd guessers work the problem back with the answer already in hand. Watching this blame dance is asinine. I picture a MSNBC anchor interviewing an "expert" explaining how Newton was actually incompetent for not theorizing E=MC2 because the equation is so simple, only having three terms and all. That is the level that the intelligence critics have reached. It is truly sad that our logically challenged society accepts such sophistry at face.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 14:23
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#7
My point was that they're more than just second-guessing: they're operating from a background that they assume we have as well as they do (i.e. foreigners not having any rights period) but that they'd use against us if we adopted (can you imagine their reaction if we started arresting people for "learning to fly while Arab?").
That, and they have a direction they're going in and want to insinuate. And the proponents here will cut off callers who bring up points that don't quite match the theory... they're not quite the anti-authoritarians they pretend to be.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005 14:49
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#8
Phil, I have a conspiracy theorist that works for me. He demonstrates an incredible imagination that is willing to accept almost any possibility ... that is consistent with what he wants to believe. We often while away the day concocting ideas to torment him with. Some of my latest include:
1. The WTC was hit by an LA class Sub .... launched from the world's largest slingshot.
2. GM is cutting 25K jobs so that GMAC can forclose on their mortages so that their will be housing available for the UN troops imported to enforce the edicts of the global government. Prescott Bush formulated ...
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 20:49
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#9
'Hose, that's mean. And funny as hell.
I mourned on 9/11...for my innocence. My understanding of the world changed forever that week, and I was MAD. I wanted to go back to my happy safe place, but knew I could not. The things that happened that day still seem to be the stuff of a very bad dream. Before that day, I doubt I would have approved of 'random' arrests of Arab men. I might even have believed they were being persecuted unfairly. But that's 20/20 hindsight for you...
#10
They missed alot. Courage is in not circling the wagons or defending budget over `effectiveness' incorrecly identified.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2005 22:36
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#11
"My understanding of the world changed forever that week, and I was MAD. I wanted to go back to my happy safe place, but knew I could not..."
9/11 didn't change my understanding one iota: it was just one more attack in a long, low-level war Islam has been waging against America for years. My own awareness of this struggle began with the Palestinian airplane hijackings of the 1960s, and my awareness that it was in fact a full-fledged war-- a no-bullshit fight to the finish-- was solidified in November, 1979.
My first thought on learning of the atrocities on 9/11 was "Well, I wonder if we're going to start paying attention now and realize that those homicidal maniacs who've been yelling 'DEATH TO AMERICA!!!' really mean it."
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/11/2005 22:55
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#12
I try to insure that the guy becomes a laughingstock each time he opens his mouth concerning 9-11. I have some unfortunate experience with firefighting and don't think I shall ever recover from watching on television brave men run into that building knowing that it would probably come down. I'm sure that they knew as well. I don't appreciate when my pet kook makes a travesty of their sacrifice with ravings of blue beams and missiles.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 23:14
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#4
Make sure their seat has leather straps for the arms and legs.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:45
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#5
Hmmm, let's see. How 'bout...."no".
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/11/2005 12:33
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#6
âNobody can ignore the Islamic world that represents one fifth of global population and a country must represent the Islamic world in the Security Council,â OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said.
Add: Ummah.
Remove: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the PA "observer," Oman, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, UAE, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Malaysia, Libya, and state that bases its law on Sharia (like France, soon).
A court in the city of Vladimir found a Syrian student guilty of promoting Islamic extremism in Russia and ordered him to pay a fine of 10,000 rubles ($355), Itar-Tass reported Friday. After returning from his homeland in March 2004 Abdolkhalek Samir Mejed, who studies at Vladimir University, brought a disk with a recording in Arabic dedicated to rebel military activities in Chechnya and containing calls for extremist actions in Russia, the Prosecutor's Office told Itar-Tass. He passed the film on to his fellow students, nationals of Syria, Sudan and Morocco.
An expert committee found that the film contained calls to "change Russia's constitutional system by force, to violate its territorial integrity and disrupt its security, to form and support illegal armed units, incite ethnic and religious hatred," Itar-Tass reports. The court found Abdolkhalek Samir Mejed guilty and ordered him to pay a fine of 10,000 rubles. The student could have faced up to three years in prison for his actions.
What a dumbass. Shoulda sent him to Siberia. I understand Khabarovsk is nice this time of year...
I thought Khabarovsk was nice any time of year? That's what my brochure sez...
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Well, that should just about put an end to that.
#4
Well, TGA, they probably figured out by now they weren't really making that much money off of the work camps then, but if they leave this guy free to roam around they can fine him at regular intervals... "This week's fine is for complaining about last week's fine..."
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
06/11/2005 13:28
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ISLAMABAD: The joint investigation team investigating the Bari Imam blast case has arrested two individuals on suspicion of masterminding the incident, Talat Mehmood Tariq, inspector general of police (IGP) of the federal capital, told reporters on Friday. IGP Talat said the inquiry team had made significant progress in the case and he would inform the media when the main suspects were arrested. He said that the inquiry team had found a video film made before the suicide attack at the shrine and it had helped in the investigations into the case.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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Syrian intelligence agents remain in Lebanon despite assurances they have left and more political murders can be expected, a key opposition figure has said in a claim echoed by a senior US official quoted in The New York Times. "I believe the entire opposition is being targeted," said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in a television interview late Thursday night, repeating an accusation he has often made since the murder in February of former premier Rafiq Hariri. "The assassinations will continue with or without the knowledge of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Maybe the Columbians will lend some of Los Pepes.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:22
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/11/2005
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"Power it down, Achmed, the plutonium is here!"
"Right, boss! How shall I keep these fools entertained?"
"Aw, sh*t, I dunno. Sell 'em some more rope."
Posted by: ST ||
06/11/2005 0:34
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So the deal to freeze was in November. ANd how many times have they promised to freeze/unfreeze/cool down/heat up the programme? The IAEA, you say? I feel better already!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/11/2005 8:40
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It's hard to freeze plutonium generation. I think that the radioactivity works the process. Maybe the Iranians just need to research more Carnot.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:20
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They are diplomats. How would they know the difference?
Kashmiris want LoC as border?
According to Khabrain, 54 per cent of the Kashmiris of Held Kashmir wanted the LoC to become a permanent border while 74 per cent Indians also wanted it. Only 3 per cent Kashmiris in Held Kashmir wanted Kashmir to be a part of Pakistan, while 43 per cent of them thought of Musharraf as their favourite personality.
Qazi names his grandson Osama
According to Khabrain, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the MMA and the Jamaat-e-Islami, has named his newly born grandson Qazi Osama Hussain. The boy is from his son Dr Anas Hussain. The significance of the name was not lost on the paper, which referred to its international significance.
Churail kills children
According to Khabrain, farmer Munawwar Cheema of a village near Daska was being pursued relentlessly by jinns and churails (female jinn). At one point, his three buffaloes were found dead. Then his three sons disappeared but their dead bodies were found later in nearby fields. He hung ayaat of the Holy Quran in his rooms where the dowry of his three daughters lay in steel trunks. The dowry was completely burned while the Quranic verse remained untouched.
Jinn burns girls
Reported in the Nawa-e-Waqt, a girl in the house of one Ehsan of Gojra was suddenly burnt to a cinder. The man stated that jinns had set her afire. Hardly five hours later, while he was looking after the dead body, his daughter too was severely burnt by the said mischievous jinn.
People kill blasphemer in Cherat
According to Jang, people got together to kill one Ashiq Nabi (in translation, 'lover of the Prophet' PBUH) in Cherat, NWFP, after they thought that he had shown disrespect to the Quran and insulted the Holy Prophet PBUH. They fired at him with dozens of guns till he was dead. After that the ulema gave a fatwa that he should not be buried in a Muslim graveyard. His brother handed him over to the sanitation department, which buried him without last rites.
Nek Muhammad was Indian agent
Writing in Khabrain, Munir Ahmad Baloch stated that the rebel of Wana Nek Muhammad was an agent of RAW which had seduced him by supplying him with a wife. Nek Muhammad was tricked into attacking the Pakistan army. Later, the Wazirs became aware of Nek Muhammad's Indian links and he was abandoned.
Qadianis made to apologise
Reported in Khabrain, one Abbas Qadiani of Naukot challenged Ataullah Pathan to a munazira (debate) on prophethood and a date was set. Pathan notified clerics of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat and gathered great scholars of Islam, including six of the most fiery ones, from the surrounding areas. The police was also notified for security arrangements, but on the appointed day, the Qadianis did not come for the debate. After the fiery clerics decided to go to the Qadiani village, the police intervened and got the Qadianis to apologise for challenging the Muslims to munazira.
Na'at on film tunes not valid
According to the daily Pakistan, any praise (na'at) of the Holy Prophet PBUH sung to the tune of a film song was not valid and brought no blessings on the singer or those who hear it. Also, it was un-Islamic to shower banknotes on the singer of a na'at during recitation because it looked very mercenary. This was unfortunately the practice. Giving the incentive (lalach) of umra for commercial enterprises was also not right.
Kill Christians when you see them!
Column Sarerahe wrote in the Nawa-e-Waqt that while Islam was a religion of great flexibility, it had also the divine sanction of killing Christians, Hindus and Jews 'wherever you see them.' He said that these days, the flexibility shown by the rulers was not Islamic. It is because of this flexibility that Afghanistan and Iraq have been 'reformed' and Iran was the next target.
Honest, I can't decide whether to go with the cheap Howard Dean joke here or the geezer whinge "In my day, we knew how to kill Christians right. Not like the slacker 'mujaheddin' we're stuck with now, all makin' videos 'n' stylin' on they interweb. No sirree. We seen a infidel, we killed him just as quick as a wink. Smelled the blasphemy just oozing out of his pores, we did. 'To shaytan with dialog,' we would say, and our imam would back us up all the way to the bigs in Najaf and Makkah. Now they've gone all soft, fighting for face time on Al-Jazeerah. Feh."
Ghazi Ilam Din Zinda Bad!
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, in a meeting of the Majlis-e-Karkunan-e-Pakistan, PPPP leader Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan said that in Nowshehra, a man was accused of insulting the Holy Prophet PBUH and before any investigation into the allegation could be held, the man was killed as a blasphemer. He complained that this indicated that society was becoming debased. At this, the audience became angry and accused Mr Ahsan of being guilty of enlightenment (roshan khayali). The audience also raised the slogan of Ghazi Ilam Din Zinda Bad. Ilam Din was a Muslim who had killed a Hindu in vigilante action.
Blaspheming priest of Sweden
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, the Muslims of Sweden were greatly upset with a Christian priest who had said insulting things about the Holy Prophet PBUH and his wife Hazrat Ayesha. Thought first that the statement was a misprint, but then a spokesman of the priest confirmed it, after which more than 400 Muslims — including women and children — protested in the streets of Stockholm. The Muslim ulema made appeals to Muslims not to take the law into their own hands.
"Wusses. Back in my day..."
Samiul Haq's unwise fulminations
Writing in the daily Pakistan, Tanvir Qaiser Shahid stated that the European parliament had insulted Pakistan by arresting senator Maulana Samiul Haq, but the Foreign Office in Islamabad should have anticipated the reaction in Europe against Taliban-related terrorism. Samiul Haq had always bragged about his connections with Mullah Umar and no one was ignorant about the fact that his seminary had trained many Taliban commanders and followers. He himself had fulminated against the West, which had attacked and defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. Samiul Haq himself and his son Haamidul Haq had won support in the MMA. Samiul Haq was not far behind those MMA leaders who had made it their policy plank to condemn and curse the West.
Sura Rehman cures all ills According to the daily Pakistan, one Ishrat Aliya declared that the recitation of Sura Rehman by the famous Qari Basit would cure any disease, including hepatitis which afflicts 40 crore people in the world. She said that she had cured thousands of people with Sura Rehman. She said astronaut Neil Armstrong listened to Sura Rehman and embraced Islam.
Opposition leader's chair The daily Nawa-e-Waqt quoted PMLN leader Makhdoom Javed Hashmi as saying that he was not happy with prime minister Nawaz Sharif's one-sided campaign of vilifying and victimising Ms Bhutto. In the National Assembly, the leader of opposition routinely sat next to the prime minister but under Nawaz Sharif, the chair of Ms Bhutto was thrown in one corner by Ch Nisar Ali Khan. He went up to Ch Nisar Ali Khan and asked him to restore the chair to its normal place. Ch Nisar Ali Khan was taken aback at his attitude.
Burnt during 'chilla'
According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, a 60-year old man in Sattu Katla near Lahore was mysteriously burnt to death while performing the mystical act of chilla in a graveyard. The heat produced by the chilla burnt him to death.
Pakistan versus 'Roshan Khayali'
Speaking to the daily Pakistan, Prof Mehdi Hassan said that despite all claims of enlightened moderation and roshan khayali the government was still travelling on the road of darkness. He said that in Sargodha, the police and the clergy were together on the roads flailing their sticks at the mixed marathon runners. He said it all began when Jinnah's 11 August address was censored by the secretary general of Pakistan, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali because the address was enlightened.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The audience..accused Mr Ahsan of being guilty of enlightenment
Enlightenment? Whoa, dudes, none of that, please! A little Enlightenment and next thing you know, you've got some kind of Reformation going on. Or worse, Buddhism!
Jeez, if it wasn't for their propensity for murder and blowing stuff up, the muslim world would be a never-ending source of comic buffoonery.
#11
Neil Armstrong walked on the face of the Moon God popularly known by it's 99th Persian Gulf pagan name of Allah? isn't that like desecration of the face of the Moon God aka Allah? Who will be the first bacon-stained bearded one to proclaim a fatwa against defiling the face of the Moon God Allah?
#12
She's saying that the Muslims have astronauts and the most advanced people all convert.
Posted by: too true ||
06/11/2005 19:29
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OOOoooo! That would mean like ummmmm.... There is a name I just can't recall... Maybe Cat Stevens or was he a re-convert? He was pretty advanced. I need some help here... sure would be a great game show question.
The Sri Lankan government's main ally vowed on Friday to quit the ruling coalition unless President Chandrika Kumaratunga ditches plans to share tsunami aid with Tamil Tiger rebels, giving her five days to comply.
The support of the Marxist Peoples Liberation Front (JVP), which has 39 seats in the 225-member Sri Lankan legislature, is essential for the survival of Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance government, which has been in office for only one year. "She has time until midnight on June 15 to do away with the pact and if she fails to do it, we will withdraw from the government on the 16th," Somawansa Amarasinghe, the JVP leader, told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Makes you feel good about forking over cash, doesn't it?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/11/2005 11:56
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They didn't get me. Even though Compassion Fatigue is curable, I choose to live with it...
KABUL: One US soldier and seven suspected Taliban militants were killed Friday after an ambush on a joint US-Afghan patrol near Lawara in southeastern Afghanistan, the US military said. Three US soldiers were also wounded in the fighting. Two were evacuated to a nearby forward operating base and the third was treated and returned to duty at the scene in Paktika province, the US military said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our soldier and will honour him by continuing to take the fight to the enemy," US Army Brigadier General Jack Sterling said in the statement. The name of the deceased was being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin, the statement said.
"Coalition forces reported the enemy fleeing shortly after the ambush began. Coalition fixed- and rotary-wing attack aircraft and artillery responded to the attack," it added. The attack comes amid a recent wave of violence blamed on remnants of the hardline Islamic Taliban, whom the Afghan government accuses of plotting with Al Qaeda militants to derail legislative elections due in September.
On Wednesday two US soldiers were killed at the forward operating base at Shkin, also in Paktika province, near the Pakistani border, when a mortar bomb crashed into the compound. More than 30 US service members have now died in Afghanistan this year, 15 of whom were killed when a Chinook crashed in bad weather in April. It was the worst American air crash since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Prince Talal, president of Arab Gulf Program for UN Development Organizations (AGFUND) and the Arab Open University, has called upon the Qatari government to revise its decision revoking citizenship of some 5,000 Qataris belonging to the Al-Murrah tribe. "I request you to review the decision sympathetically considering the difficult situation of these thousands of Qataris, who found themselves suddenly in the desert after they were asked to leave the country," he said in an appeal to Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad.
Prince Talal urged the Qatari ruler to address the issue with "a democratic spirit" considering the suffering of the people who lost their citizenship as a result of a decree issued by the government last April. "I believe that the Qatari leadership has the wisdom to do justice to this group of people who remain without any shelter," Al-Riyadh Arabic daily quoted Prince Talal as saying. The AGFUND chief made this comment while speaking to reporters in Manama.
A total of 5,266 people from the Al-Ghafran branch of the Al-Murrah tribe were affected by the decree. The men, women and children on the list are to lose their rights to state-provided employment, housing, education and health care. Informed sources said the move was "a belated response to a failed coup attempt," a reference to the 1996 attempt to unseat Sheikh Hamad.
Posted by: Fred ||
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So the Prince sez to the Emir, he sez, "address the issue with âa democratic spiritâ" That's what he sez: democratic spirit!
Syria's ruling Baath party has re-elected President Bashar al-Assad as its secretary general and recommended revising a 42-year-old state of emergency, a minister announced. The Baath party, in power since 1963, on Thursday adopted "the principle of a social market economy" and decided to reform the public sector while supporting the private sector, state television said.
Ummm... Yeah. That'll work, I'm sure...
It said the congress, the first for five years, pledged to press ahead with the country's "economic, social and administrative reforms". Baath delegates also elected a new national leadership including many new faces close to the president while veteran figures got the boot made their exit. The party congress, which ended Thursday, adopted a recommendation to "revise the emergency law and limit its application to crimes that threaten state security," Bussaina Shaaban, Syria's emigrants' minister, told a news conference.
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
Wow, what a treasure trove of information about Rantburg's favorite law enforcement agency. Links with 
The police arrested a listed criminal of the district, also a close associate of the dreaded, Shibir Nasir, and recovered an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle with a hundred rounds of ammunition from Mondakini of Hathazari upazila on Friday.
The US Treasury Department announced it was freezing the assets of a Damascus-based company and of two senior Syrian officials, accused of providing military equipment to the regime of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Using falsified documents, 
LAHORE: Jamia Masjid Bahawalpur on Friday escaped a horrible accident when a bomb planted inside the building was found before Friday prayers, the APNA news channel reported. 
LAHORE: A labourer was killed and two others were injured in an explosion at a junkyard in Misri Shah, Geo reported on Friday. The TV channel said the labourers were unloading scrap from a truck when the blast occurred, instantly killing Shrafat and critically injuring Shahzad and Shahbaz. Police sources told Geo that there might have been an explosive shell or grenade in the scrap that went off. Junkyard owner Mian Kabir said he had bought the scrap from Quetta.
LAHORE: 
Plan will free 18 countries from repaying $16.7 billion debt 
SEOUL: North Korea has blocked most of its international telephone lines in order to restrict the exchange of information with the outside world, according to South Korean government sources. Earlier this week a South Korean newspaper said the isolated Stalinist regime had shut down 90 percent of its outside phone lines since April and confiscated some 20,000 mobile telephones since May last year. The source confirmed to reporters that "most of the country's international telephone service appears to be controlled" and that "there appear to be restrictions on the use of mobile phones in North Korea from mid-2004". The use of cellphones, which were only introduced to North Korea in 2002, and of the Internet had been seriously restricted by a regime that worries about losing its hold on information and fears a possible US attack. The JoongAng daily reported on Tuesday that North Korea had restricted domestic communications and blocked 90 percent of its 970 international lines since April under a direct order from its leader Kim Jong-Il.
LADAH: Unidentified people burned a government school in 
Five US marines were killed in a bomb attack in western Iraq, the military said on Friday, while 17 unidentified bodies were discovered deeper in the country's rebel heartland hard on the Syrian border. "Five marines were killed in action on Thursday when their vehicle hit an explosive device while conducting combat operations near Haqlaniyah," the US military said. On November 7, insurgents stormed police stations in Haqlaniya and nearby Haditha and executed 21 policemen.
Jordan's military court has ordered the Jordanian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, 
US President George W. Bush gave Syria a fresh warning yesterday, calling on Damascus to pull its intelligence services out of Lebanon.
One of the Muslim world's most influentual figures in Europe called Friday for the unconditional release of a French journalist who was kidnapped in Baghdad five months ago, as well as a prompt withdrawal of US and other foreign military forces in Iraq. 
The mufti of Jerusalem added his voice yesterday to allegations that copies of the Qur'an had been abused in an Israeli prison as hundreds of Palestinians staged protests in the occupied territories. "The occupation authorities have followed the American example in profaning the holy Qur'an," 
Tasmanian schools and childcare centres have been sent details and a photograph of a man police say have threatened to blow up a school. Police say the threats did not specify any particular school. Deputy Commissioner Jack Johnston says a Hobart magistrate yesterday granted an interim restraint order against the man, banning him from going near schools or childcare centres. He later appeared in an out of hours court session and has been remanded in custody to reappear in court next week.
Following the example of Georgia, another former Soviet republic, Moldova, has demanded that Russia pull out its troops from the country's territory, Interfax news agency reports. The Moldovan parliament passed on Friday a draft law ordering Moscow to withdraw its troops from the break-away Transdniestr region by the end of the year. The pullout is needed for the fulfillment of the demilitarization plan as part of the Trandsniestr peace settlement. The so-called "Yushchenko plan" was offered by the Ukrainian president and approved by the Moldovan parliament earlier on Friday. Already supported by the U.S. and the European Union, it includes holding elections at the Supreme Soviet of Transdniestr as a constituent region of Moldova, involving U.S. and EU negotiators in peace talks, and the development of military and civilian observers' work.
MULTAN: A farmer fatally shot two of his teenage daughters in Sahiwal district after one did not immediately serve him a glass of water when he returned from working in the fields, police said on Friday. Ismael, 47, shot Abida, 18, for failing to give him water, and then killed Salima, 16, when she tried to save her older sister, police said. However, Online news agency reported that the man killed his two daughters because he suspected them of having illicit relations.
SERBIA'S government knows where top war crimes fugitive 
A three-member review board of the Lahore High Court (LHC), consisting of Justice Mian Muhammad Najamuz Zaman, Justice Sheikh Abdul Rashid and Justice Mohammad Bilal Khan, on Friday ordered the release of a dozen men detained in connection with the 
SUCRE: Bolivia's supreme court chief, 
KARACHI: Police detained 50 Islamic hardliners on Friday who were protesting against the alleged desecration of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, said police and witnesses. Riot police here moved in to break up over 250 protestors linked to the MMA. "We have detained some 50 people for violating a government ban on rallies," said police officer Mohammad Zahid. However, MMA leader 
Terrorism is a crime to be pursued through international cooperation rather than a movement to be targeted in a war waged by individual nations, a veteran Spanish anti-terrorist investigator said on Thursday in an apparent slap at the United States. "Terrorism is a crime, it's not a movement ... In a war, we have to defend ourselves, and this is today distorting the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism," said 
A court in the city of Vladimir found a Syrian student guilty of promoting Islamic extremism in Russia and ordered him to pay a fine of 10,000 rubles ($355), Itar-Tass reported Friday. After returning from his homeland in March 2004 Abdolkhalek Samir Mejed, who studies at Vladimir University, brought a disk with a recording in Arabic dedicated to rebel military activities in Chechnya and containing calls for extremist actions in Russia, the Prosecutor's Office told Itar-Tass. He passed the film on to his fellow students, nationals of Syria, Sudan and Morocco.
ISLAMABAD: The joint investigation team investigating the 
Syrian intelligence agents remain in Lebanon despite assurances they have left and more political murders can be expected, a key opposition figure has said in a claim echoed by a senior US official quoted in The New York Times. "I believe the entire opposition is being targeted," said Druze leader 
Kashmiris want LoC as border?
According to the daily Pakistan, one Ishrat Aliya declared that the recitation of Sura Rehman by the famous Qari Basit would cure any disease, including hepatitis which afflicts 40 crore people in the world. She said that she had cured thousands of people with Sura Rehman. She said astronaut Neil Armstrong listened to Sura Rehman and embraced Islam. 
The daily Nawa-e-Waqt quoted PMLN leader Makhdoom Javed Hashmi as saying that he was not happy with prime minister Nawaz Sharif's one-sided campaign of vilifying and victimising Ms Bhutto. In the National Assembly, the leader of opposition routinely sat next to the prime minister but under Nawaz Sharif, the chair of Ms Bhutto was thrown in one corner by Ch Nisar Ali Khan. He went up to Ch Nisar Ali Khan and asked him to restore the chair to its normal place. Ch Nisar Ali Khan was taken aback at his attitude. 
The Sri Lankan government's main ally vowed on Friday to quit the ruling coalition unless President 
KABUL: One US soldier and seven suspected Taliban militants were killed Friday after an ambush on a joint US-Afghan patrol near Lawara in southeastern Afghanistan, the US military said. Three US soldiers were also wounded in the fighting. Two were evacuated to a nearby forward operating base and the third was treated and returned to duty at the scene in Paktika province, the US military said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by the loss of our soldier and will honour him by continuing to take the fight to the enemy," US Army Brigadier General Jack Sterling said in the statement. The name of the deceased was being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin, the statement said.
Syria's ruling Baath party has re-elected President 
