Unemployment in the 17 country euro currency bloc hit another record in May as the continent continued to be buffeted by its debt crisis, official figures showed Monday.
Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, said unemployment rose to 11.1 per cent in May from 11 percent the previous month. That's the highest rate since the euro was launched in 1999, and compares badly with an unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent in the United States and only 4.4 per cent in Japan.
In total, 17.6 million people were out of work in the eurozone in May, 1.8 million higher than a year earlier.
#3
That would be the official unemployment rate as opposed to, say, the percentage of working age adults who have jobs. I don't know what the statistics are now, but when we lived in Germany in the early '90s, something like 70% of women never held a paying job, and university students averaged something like a decade in school before getting their degree and going to work.
The largest wildfire burning in Arizona was started during a bachelor party when one shotgun-toting celebrant fired a shell that promises to shoot "100 feet of fire, setting everything in its path ablaze," The Smoking Gun has learned.
The Sunflower Fire--which has burned nearly 18,000 acres of the Tonto National Forest and is not fully contained--began in mid-May after five Arizona men gathered to celebrate the upcoming May 19 nuptials of Bryan Reeder. The group--all in their mid-20s--traveled from Mesa to the Sycamore Creek area for a weekend "campout and bachelor party," according to court records.
Craig Shiflet loaded an "incendiary shotgun shell" into his Remington 12 gauge and fired the round.
Tyler Pace, another bachelor party attendee, told investigators that after Shiflet fired the round, he "noticed smoke in the brush just behind" where the round landed in vegetation.
On Saturday, May 12, the quintet awoke and "began to target shoot in an area close to their camp," a United States Forest Service agent reported in a sworn affidavit. About two hours into the target shooting, Craig Shiflet (pictured at right) loaded an "incendiary shotgun shell" into his Remington 12 gauge and fired the round.
Tyler Pace, another bachelor party attendee, told investigators that after Shiflet fired the round, he "noticed smoke in the brush just behind" where the round landed in vegetation. Pace said the entire group "ran over to where the smoke was and noticed fire, which they unsuccessfully attempted to stomp out."
As the fire rapidly grew, Shiflet called 911 and reported the blaze (and was instructed to leave the area by a police dispatcher).
Federal agents began investigating the fire the day after its ignition. Witnesses provided probers with the license plate number of a GMC Yukon that was seen departing the Sunflower Fire. The vehicle was "occupied by five white males in their 20's," reported Lucas Woolf, a Forest Service agent.
After tracing the SUV to Pace, Woolf approached him on May 19 (the day of Reeder's wedding) and said he wanted to talk about the Sunflower Fire. "I think that we may have had something to do with that," Pace replied.
Woolf then interviewed Shiflet, who recalled firing an "orange shotgun round" at a soda box, expecting the round to "shoot out flame or act like a flare gun." Shiflet provided Woolf with the "exact same type of shotgun shell that he fired" on May 12, triggering the massive blaze.
A warning on the Fiocchi 12 gauge round's packaging made its danger clear: "Shoots 100 feet of fire, setting everything in its path ablaze. Warning: Extreme FIRE HAZARD."
Who reads product warning labels on shotgun shells?
On June 22, Shiflet was named in a three-count misdemeanor criminal complaint accusing him of causing the Sunflower Fire, which has destroyed 17,618 acres (and is now 80 percent contained). A Tonto National Forest spokesperson estimated that fire suppression efforts have so far cost $6 million.
The city collected 5,500 guns last Saturday in the annual buyback. The city gave out $100 MasterCard gift cards for each gun and $10 cards for BB guns and replicas.
Sixty of the guns and several BB guns were turned in by the Champaign-based Guns Save Life. In return, the group received $6,240 in gift cards, said John Boch, president of the group.
Guns Save Life is known for the pro-gun signs the group posts along Interstate 57 between Chicago and Champaign. It also publishes a monthly gun journal.
Most of the money will go toward buying ammunition for an NRA youth camp in Bloomington. The rest will pay for four bolt-action rifles that will be given away to campers.
This was rusty, non-firing junk that we turned in, Boch said. We are redirecting funds from people who would work against the private ownership of firearms to help introduce the next generation to shooting safely and responsibly.
Israeli air force jets bombed a Hezbollah surveillance installation in southern Lebanon Monday morning, Lebanese news outlet LBC reported.
The news described the installation that the IAF allegedly destroyed as a wireless tapping device situated near the villages of az-Zrariye and Tair Filsay.
LBC quoted Hezbollah responding to the alleged attack, saying the al-Zrariyah blast resulted from Israels remote detonation of an explosive device installed on the Resistances wire line.
The IDF Spokespersons office had no comment on the report.
DEBKAfile's Western intelligence sources in Lebanon refuted the Hizballah al Manar TV claim that an Israeli jet blew up a spy device located on a Hizballah telecommunications cable laid by Iranian experts between the southern towns of Zrariyeh and Tayr Filsay in the region of the Litani River. It was blown by a self-detonating device operated by remote control, they said, although they allowed that it could have been the work of an Israeli drone operating from Israeli air space or out at sea. No comment has come from Israel.
The sources said the cable linked the device to Hizballahs southern district headquarters at Maaroub near Tyre. The militiamen who regularly inspect the device checked on an object apparently attached to the section buried one meter underground.
[Nigerian Tribune] AS part of a soft approach to the ongoing Islamist insurgency, the Federal Government has commenced discreet contacts with moderate Islamist salafists who, while sharing similar thoughts with the Jihadi salafists within the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect, are opposed to armed struggle.
Previous efforts at reaching the hard boyz had been through mainstream Islamic leaders who, in no way, share the conservative interpretation of Islam, with the Boko Haram sect and, therefore, incapable of motivating genuine dialogue with the Federal Government.
Nigerian Tribune was told that moderate salafi-Wahabists from the North and the South are to be contacted as a starting point in the dialogue process even as it was gathered that Nigeria is reaching outside its shores to moderate salafi organizations across Africa and Middle East.
It was specifically learnt that a particular moderate Islamic organization based in the North-Central part of the country would soon be contacted as the group is widely acclaimed as the umbrella body of salafiya-wahabiya movement and scholars in Nigeria.
The said organization was reported to be very influential and very deep in the salafiya thoughts and principles, just as it was gathered that the group, peopled by very enlightened Islamic scholars, is affiliated to an international body of moderate salafiyat movement based in Riyadh, the Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... n political capital.
While details of the outreach were still scanty, findings showed that the new National Security Adviser is deploying softer tactics, especially in reaching out to the grass-roots salafiyas and Mohammedans population who are reportedly already alienated from the government due to alleged strong arm tactics of the military in the troubled areas.
A source within the establishment told Nigerian Tribune at the weekend that the decision to reach out to the moderate salafists was designed specifically to address the religious component of the Boko Haram crisis.
Referring to Nigerian Tribune's publication of last Friday, the official noted that efforts to solve and tackle the political and criminal Boko Haram were well underway but accepted that the hard nut to crack is the religionists constituted by followers of the late Mohammed Yusuf.
"We are identifying the salafis, the wahabiyas, especially their moderate leaders. We want them to be the contact point this time round," the source said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... the issue of Nigerian participation in the Mali intervention force is creating division within the Nigerian security establishment with some arguing that avoiding Mali would amount to capitulating to international terrorists' threats.
A military officer told Nigerian Tribune that Nigeria risked a Kenyan scenario if it should deploy troops in Mali, noting that since Kenya intervened in the Somali conflicts, the Central African nation had become a hotbed of terrorist conflicts.
"We are at a cross roads here. The Malian Islamists are already in league with Boko Haram. If we take them on, then the Boko Haram thing will become internationalised and Jihadists all over the world will face Nigeria," the officer said.
Findings, however, showed that the new National Security Adviser will give formal advice to President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... later this week.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
12:16 ||
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#1
And kills them? For knowledge that's NOT sacre(Spit)d.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/02/2012 15:03
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#2
AS part of a soft approach to the ongoing Islamist insurgency...
Because that plan has worked so well for the Thais. /sarc off
FYI.
US-based physicists Monday reported finding strong hints of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that is believed to give objects mass, but said European data is needed to confirm any potential discovery.
If physicists can confirm the existence of the Higgs boson, the last missing piece in the standard model of physics, the announcement would rank among the most important scientific breakthroughs of the last century.
The findings from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in the midwestern US state of Illinois, will be followed by the announcement of more definitive results from a potent European atom-smasher on Wednesday.
"Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery," said Fermilab spokesman Rob Roser.
The results come from 10 years of data from the Tevatron, a powerful atom-smasher that began its collider work in 1985 and closed down last year. With inflation, they may need to change its name to Petatron.
"During its life, the Tevatron must have produced thousands of Higgs particles, if they actually exist, and it's up to us to try to find them in the data we have collected," said Luciano Ristori, a physicist at Fermilab and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN).
"We have developed sophisticated simulation and analysis programs to identify Higgs-like patterns. Still, it is easier to look for a friend's face in a sports stadium filled with 100,000 people than to search for a Higgs-like event among trillions of collisions."
The Tevatron results show that the Higgs particle, if it exists, has a mass between 115 and 135 gigaelectronvolts (GeV/c2), or about 130 times the mass of the proton.
Based on two experiments, known as CDF and DZero, the team found that there is only a one-in-550 chance that the signal is a mere statistical fluke.
However, the statistical significance of the signal measures 2.9 sigma, and is not strong enough to meet the five sigma threshold required to say whether or not the particle has been discovered.
"We achieved a critical step in the search for the Higgs boson," said Dmitri Denisov, DZero spokesman and physicist at Fermilab.
"While 5-sigma significance is required for a discovery, it seems unlikely that the Tevatron collisions mimicked a Higgs signal. Nobody expected the Tevatron to get this far when it was built in the 1980s."
A more powerful machine at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in December 2011 announced "tantalizing hints" that the sought-after particle was hiding inside a narrow range of mass.
CERN's Large Hadron Collider -- the world's largest atom-smasher, located along the French-Swiss border -- showed a likely range for the Higgs boson between 115 to 127 gigaelectronvolts.
US-based experiments echoed those findings in March 2012, though in a slightly larger range.
Now, the scientific community is eagerly anticipating the European results later this week.
"It is a real cliffhanger," said DZero spokesman Gregorio Bernardi, physicist at the Laboratory of Nuclear and High Energy Physics at the University of Paris VI & VII. "We are very excited about it.
[Nigerian Tribune] FOLLOWING incessant attack on churches in the northern part of the country by the dreaded Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect, the Presiding Bishop of the Living Faith Church worldwide (a.k.a Winners' Chapel), Bishop David Oyedepo has rained curses on the sect for its activities in recent past.
During last Sunday's service in Lagos, the holy man declared sudden death, calamity in the camp of the sect before the end of this month, "This month ends their activities in the country and calamity will rain on their camp beginning from now," he said.
The pastor added: "Any attempt to Islamise the country will surely fail."
While wondering why the sect has been destroying only churches with no single mosque attacked by the sect, he said: "Enough is enough. Whoever is their sponsor, they should expect the wrath of God over them before the end of this month, except, I'm not called by God."
He admonished Christians to start daily prayers on Boko Haram beginning from now and see what God would do before the end of the month.
It will be recalled that Winners Chapel was among the churches attacked last week by the Boko Haram sect in Bauchi.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
11:48 ||
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#1
That'll do it. Curses are even better than a Stiff Note on stiff stationery.
With just over 75 percent of the polling stations counted, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto leads his rivals with 37.26 percent of the vote, and is likely to be the next president of the republic of Mexico, according to data supplied by official election sources.
SINAI (Ma'an) -- Three Grad missiles were found near al-Reisan village in the Sinai desert Saturday evening, witnesses said.
Congratulations are due to the Gazan rocketeers, who managed to hit Egypt, though it was not what they were aiming for.
The commander of northern Sinai security services Ahmad Bakr told Egyptian media that police arrived on the scene and collected remnants of the explosives. They are trying to determine their origin, he said.
Egyptian officials initially announced finding a simple projectile in the Sinai.
In June the Israeli army said a Grad rocket was fired into southern Israel, possibly from Egypt.
Egyptian security officials said at the time that a sweep of the Sinai border area was carried out and they were certain the rocket was not launched from Egyptian territory.
"Once ze rockets go up
who cares veyr zey come down?
Dat's not my department," says Werner von Braun.
Separately an Egyptian officer was killed and four others were maimed Saturday when their vehicle came under fire by unidentified gunnies near the village of al-Hasana in the central Sinai.
Which implies a certain malice aforethought...
Security sources told Egyptian media that gunnies fired heavily at a military vehicle, and when the driver tried to speed away, it flipped over. As a result, officer Mahmoud al-Khatib died and four others were hurt.
The Egyptian daily al-Masri al-Youm reported thon the lam numbers of Egyptian forces and coppers started to canvas the area looking for gunnies.
The northern Sinai was placed under a security alert last last month due to the Egyptian elections, and authorities deployed special forces and counter terrorism units in the border region.
The changes were made after consultations with Israel, officials said at the time.
Backgrounder on the new president of Egypt, the Moslem Brüderbund's own Mohamed Mursi, beloved by all who know him, according to Rooters -- relatives, colleagues and students alike. An old-fashioned child of the soil, his brother lives in the family home in the Nile Delta village while Professor Morsi, the Moslem Brüderbund's second choice for the presidency, tends to his large extended family and his hardworking engineering students.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
07/02/2012
01:05 ||
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Our "present" Prez and the bill's sponsors argued that Obamacare fell under the Commerce Clause.
Our honorable Stupreme Court has redefined it to be a "tax".
Given this radical shift in the foundation of all arguments in favor of the bill, and the fact that no Congressperson would be stupid enough to vote for a tax in a recession, except for Pelousi (and perhaps Maxine), we obviously need to put the bill back in front of Congress to be voted on again.
#2
And this is exactly what the Supreme Court found, the same thing the Justice Department was saying in 2010:
The law describes the levy on the uninsured as a penalty rather than a tax. The Justice Department brushes aside the distinction, saying the statutory label does not matter. The constitutionality of a tax law depends on its practical operation, not the precise form of words used to describe it, the department says, citing a long line of Supreme Court cases.
Moreover, the department says the penalty is a tax because it will raise substantial revenue: $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
In addition, the department notes, the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, and people must report it on their tax returns as an addition to income tax liability.
It doesn't matter what you CALL it, it matters how it actually operates. You an call a sheep a goat but it is still a sheep.
#4
It's up to the people to decide if Congress votes on it again. And that's the way it should be in a democracy. It's also why I am, and the founders were also, not a big fan of democracy.
Repeal relies on the Senate as well as the House, however, and the Senate currently only has 47 Republicans. It might be possible to get 4 Dem votes in the Senate but if not we should focus on taking back the Senate as well as defending the House in November.
Actually, we should be doing that even if somehow Obamacare is repealed before November. There's a lot more work to be done ...
#6
I thought in law, taxes, and D&D words have a very particular meaning.
Had the same thought gorb, by changing the wording of the law, it would have to be re-submitted, same as if it was passed by one half of congress to the other.
And that is what they should start calling it, a confirmation vote, pointing out waivers should now have to apply to the IRS for tax-exempt status.
#7
The White House is fighting the "tax" label hard now. They and Justice Roberts know something. "Tax" definition presents a possible nail in the coffin. The rest of America needs to fiqure out exactly what this legislative/procedural/legality nail is.
#8
...we obviously need to put the bill back in front of Congress to be voted on again.
John Kyl noted Saturday morning on Larry Kudlow's radio show that this is precisely what they're going to do. The House will hold a new vote on Obamacare with the mandate explicitly defined as a tax. The Senate won't be able to defeat a Democratic filibuster to force a similar up or down vote but they'll offer Obamacare as an amendment or the like & force a vote that way.
#9
The House Pubs can vote on the repeal of ObamaCare. They can also ask that the word "tax" be inserted into ObamaCare in place of "penalty." There is some value in publicizing the tax issue in that House Democrats are running for re-election. They will have to try to explain all the ObamaCare tax issue(s) in their home district. New taxes are never a popular issue in elections. Harry Reid will again block a vote in the Senate (What a worthless pogue). He is probably afraid the Pubs might peel off some of the Dems who are up for re-election and he is not about to let that happen. It will be interesting to see what happens in the House vote, that is, how many House Dems go along with the Pubs.
#10
If in the next 100 years or so that true conservatives are ever in power they should use this decision to require every adult to buy a gun and take required training provided by the NRA. Or pay a fine equal to the price of the gun and training or 1% of their income. After all owning a gun is a right and not everyone can afford one.
#11
If in the next 100 years or so that true conservatives are ever in power they should use this decision to require every adult to buy a gun and take required training provided by the NRA.
Jordan's king is urging his country's Islamist opposition to take part in upcoming elections, despite their dissatisfaction with reforms.
King Abdullah II made the appeal in a rare interview on Jordan TV on Sunday. It appeared to be part of his attempt to engage with Islamists, who make up the main opposition in Jordan. Islamists have made gains all over the region after Arab Spring uprisings and show increasing strength in Jordan.
Top now-retired CIA spy Enrique 'Ricky' Prado has been accused of working as a hitman for mobsters in Miami. According to the UK Daily Mail, it's been alleged that Mr. Prado was involved with the Mafia throughout his career.
#2
No mention of Sinatra, the grassy knowl, or Jack Ruby. The Mail generally lags behind the conspiracy blogs about 2-3 months. Much of what is seen here has been harvested verbatim. It's what they do.
#3
The source of the mail story is Evan Wright's new book: How to Get Away With Murder in America, reviewed a few days ago by the Danger Room. Wright previously wrote Generation Kill, which was based in part on his embed with a Marine recon unit during the 2003 invasion. Wright's Rolling Stone articles from the embed are some of the best reporting of that action.
What Wright describes here is an intelligence/covert operations organization that is not fully under control of the state it serves. This is a problem. It is reminiscent of 1960's episodes in South Florida where CIA officers recruited mafia for covert action against Cuba. You can judge the success of those operations for yourself.
What I suspect Wright probably lacks is proper context -- historical perspective. A few years ago Tim Weiner put out a book Legacy of Ashes which laid out, chapter and verse, the failure of CIA operations. But Weiner drew no conclusions about *why* operations failed, only that they did. I expect Weiner will be able to come out with a new edition shortly.
Iranians are abandoning traditional eating habits, being thrown out of work at alarming rates and face running short of medicines as the nation braces itself for fresh sanctions aimed at forcing its leaders to scrap their suspect nuclear programme. Price rises have spread across the food spectrum. Undercover student researchers surveying 20 supermarkets and four government food distribution centres in Tehran, discovered that 10 basic foods had risen in price by an average of 70% since March while the average family's weekly food basket shrunk by half. Unemployment in Iran's industrial heartland has soared to an unofficially estimated 35% because factories unable to import vital goods and equipment due to sanctions are forced in turn to sack their workers.
Despite the grim backdrop, Iranian officials have affected a lack of concern about the EU oil embargo, insisting that they have alternative customers. In truth, many non-European customers are taking flight, fearful of simultaneous new US sanctions that punishes nations for buying Iran's oil. Even China and India -- two of Tehran's most reliable clients -- have announced in recent days that they will only continue buying Iranian crude if Iran provides its own tankers and insurance. With fresh OPEC figures showing Iran's production down by 720,000 barrels in the past month, Iranian officials have resorted to desperate measures, including offering heavily discounted sales to traditional customers.
Inevitably, the climate of austerity has sparked dissent, prompting a predictably harsh response. A 10,000-signature petition addressed to Mr Ahmadinejad's government outlining workers' grievances recently resulted in mass arrests of trade union activists in Karaj, near Tehran. Even the regime's most cosseted insiders are not immune. Staff in the elite revolutionary guards have experienced salary delays, with officials blaming budgetary disagreements between parliament and Mr Ahmadinejad. And in a potent irony for the ruling theocracy, the price of textile for clerics' turbans has risen 15% in three months.
#1
Debka says Iran is building up a strategic wheat reserve:
The Fars news agency reports Tehran purchased 2 million metric tons of wheat from various unidentified countries despite financial restrictions. An Iranian official reported that a delegation from Tehran visited India in June to discuss wheat imports from Madhya Pradesh at prices lower than those offered by Pakistan.
That's 4.5 billion pounds of wheat. Assuming each person eats 1 lb of bread a day, that's enough to feed 12 million for a year. Or 72 million people for 2 months.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/02/2012 12:48
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#3
It's a Bloomberg report regurgitating a Fars report, original is here:
A gunman targeted the Shaarei Torah Yeshiva in Manchester overnight Saturday, firing shots at the building before escaping in a car. No one was maimed in the attack.
Two cars were reportedly seeing driving erratically around the yeshiva before the yeshiva was targeted around 2am Sunday. This is the largest yeshiva in Manchester, with 170 students.
Though of course, do realize if a homeowner had shot or injured a criminal, the UK police would have been right on it. Can't have them uppity serfs defending themselves.
Switch hitting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts jokes and spits in our eye, that hes headed for an "impregnable island fortress" possibly Malta....to avoid the truth questions about the startling health-care tax decision he wrote. I might recommed a very slow trawler to Devil's Island, Guiana, but that's just me.
#2
He's joking about it because he did not like what the Left would do to him in the editorials if he had refrained from doing Congress' job and rewrote the bill to make it pass Constitutional muster. I read lots of articles that noted that all the criticism of the Court running up to this decision were expressly calculated to f*ck with Roberts' head. It was much safer spitting into OUR eye because WE have principles, one of which is respect for rule of Law.
The problem is that we continue to respect rule of Law based on an assumption that the Law is as it is written. This on-again-off-again "its a penalty/its a tax/its a penalty", based solely on the desire of LIBERAL speakers. It also is based on an assumption that the Law will be enforced. This "we'll enfoce it/we won't enforce it/we'll enforce it" , again based solely on the desire of LIBERAL enforcers when they can't contort the meaning of the Law, vitiates the concept of the rule of Law.
The core problem is NOT the Constitution as it is WRITTEN, but the culture and the people assigned to obey it. To use an analogy, it is a specially written PHP script that is running on a deliberatly compromised PHP script INTERPRETER. Ken Thompson, one of the creators of the UNIX operating system and the C programming language, gave an example in his Turing Award Lecture of how this is done. Of course, the perversion of the meaning of the langauge in which a Law is written so as to alter the meaning of the Law, and thus affect its applicability, was foreseen by Orwell in "1984", although it is as rarely implied as openly as it was during the Clinton ("it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is") administration.
The degradation of the system began as far back as Marshall: the power of the Supreme Court to declare a law of congress unconstitutional is not in the Constitution. It has endured because it itself is a finding EXCLUDED from the body of texts that are SUBJECT to the declaration "its unconstitutional", by the fact that it is itself NOT a "Law of Congress", being a law "enacted" unilaterally by the Supreme Court.
Perhaps what I am trying to get across is that the practice we call "Respect for the Rule of Law" is actually subject to a set of higher laws that are being constantly violated. "Working within the system" to correct the Laws in accordance to the Law can't possibly work because the corrective process itself is subject to the abuses that caused the Laws being corrected to go wrong in the first place.
#4
Thanks for your agreement Besoeker, but It appears that I need to clarify what I meant by "Higher laws", since if I was referring to biblical principles I would have given references.
The idea I am trying to get across is that the idea of "rule of law" implicitly includes an unwritten set of laws that govern how the written law is interpreted. In order to maintain the fig leaf that they honor the rule of law, Liberals constantly violate those unwritten laws to make the written law work their way. Probably the only "divine" rule that is unwritten and constantly violated is that of hypocrisy, where those same Liberals scream in protest when Conservatives consistently apply those unwritten laws to make the written laws work their way (I.e. when the same sauce they used on the conservative goose is applied to their gander). When they say "one set of laws for me and another for thee", they are NOT referring to written laws (that would be too bold), but to the unwritten laws used to interpret those written laws. If you can't change the text of the law, but can control the grammar rules and the dictionary meaning of the words in the law on the fly, then clearly you can make any passage of "Mein Kampf" MEAN like the 23rd Psalm.
The key is to realize that only written laws can be enforced, NOT the unwritten laws that are used to interpret those written once: Roberts appealed to one such unwritten law to justify changing the penalty into a tax, while the minority view cited many unwritten laws he violated when he did so. For instance, the ACA did not have a severability clause, and someone at Belmont club pointed out that that omission meant that the ENTIRE law had to be constitutional for the ENTIRE law to be admissable, and the Medicaid penalty on the States was declared unconstitutional. Roberts violated THAT unwritten law.
Being consistent with one's application of the unwritten laws, even when consistent application does one harm, is what I call being principled, so I suppose one could call those "unwritten" laws used to interpret "written" laws as "principles". The dissenters were "principled" judges, while those majority, including Roberts, should be characterized as "unprincipled".
#5
Ptah - If one believes that the perversion of the role of the Supreme Court dates to Marshall's reading into the Constitution the power of judicial review of Congressional acts then one must necessarily celebrate rather than criticize Roberts' action because, after all, with respect to the mandate what Roberts did was to uphold the will of Congress as enacted. That's as reasonably close to a pre-Marbury result as is possible in a post-Marbury Court. That Roberts chose the Taxing Power rather than the Commerce Clause should be immaterial from this perspective as the madate in the act as passed was left unmolested and its effect will be precisely what Congress intended.
The foundational problem isn't that courts are political animals that pervert the law in order to impose their political whims (though that sometimes is true), rather it is that the language in which our laws are expressed is itself inherently non-deterministic and thus subject to differing interpretations by differing individuals. Bill Clinton correctly identified this issue when he famously answered that the meaning of his previous statement was dependent upon, "... what the meaning of 'is' is." Individual words can have a vast array of differing meanings. Assemble those into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, reams of legislation, etc. and that complexity and the possible interpretations of the ever-larger groupings of words grow exponentially.
Consider that idea in what is probably one of the most apolitical areas of federal law: the interpretation of patent claims. In these contests where a deterministic, and often concrete, invention is compared to an English language description of the metes & bounds of another's property the lawyers have about a 50% probability (internal metric) of having correctly advised their clients as to the likely outcome of the challenge. Similarly a trial court's decision has about a 50% chance of being overturned on appeal. Everyone involved from the original drafter of the claims to the litigators on both sides to the trial & appellate judges are people of not insignificant skill with language and yet none exhibit skill enough to exceed a purely random chance that the next party to examine their work will agree with their interpretation. Why? These results flow not from a perversion of language, though 50% of litigants would believe so, but from the inherently non-deterministic nature of language itself and of the minds of those who interpret it. Language isn't code (which is deterministic) and people aren't machines (which are also deterministic), that's the difference.
The above represents the simplest example of law in which a deterministic invention is described by inherently non-deterministic language which is interpreted by non-deterministic human beings. Compare this to the Sebelius decision which saw non-deterministic human beings compare the non-deterministic languge of the Constitution to the non-deterministic language of the PPACA in light of a couple of centuries worth of non-deterministic humans comparing the non-deterministic language of the Constitution to the non-deterministic language of previous statutes interpreted in light thereof. To find a clear pervsion of law there is to attribute the impossible characteristic of determinism to language and to human judgment. The problems flow from the facts that both pepople & language are non-deterministic and therefore will not reach the same conclusion given identical inputs and from the vast complexity of what has gone before creating a seemingly paradoxical outcome no matter what said outcome might be.
Whether the Framers foresaw this sort of thing is pretty much beyond question as well. The Anti-Federalists warned that at least the Taxing Power in the new Constitution gave unlimited authority of the government over the individual and this was not the only complaint of that sort. That we now formally have a federal government of seemingly limitless power over the individual is an eventuality foreseen by at least a faction among the Framers.
#6
That's as reasonably close to a pre-Marbury result as is possible in a post-Marbury Court.
With all due respect, AzCat, but LIKE is not IS: a TRUE pre-Marbury court today would be accompanied by a pre-Marbury Presidency, a pre-Marbury Congress, and thus a pre-Marbury United States that would certainly be different from OUR world today. The law was written post-Marbury, and to keep it, Roberts suddenly "finds religion", LEAPS back to pre-Marbury thinking so that he CAN ignore the (now inconvenient) post-Marbury conventions so he can rubber stamp the ACA, then LEAPS back to our Post-Marbury time to preserve post-Marbury privileges and power for the Court.
Assemble those into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, reams of legislation, etc. and that complexity and the possible interpretations of the ever-larger groupings of words grow exponentially.
In a previous life, I pursued a PhD in Artificial Intelligence with an emphasis in Natural Language understanding, so I have done some work and thinking with regard to what you term non-determinism. The "problem" you cite is actually resolvable if one regards it as one of AMBIGUITY (one choice out of a set), not non-determinism. For instance, use two different words in several sentences that attempt to explain the same concept and you use set intersection, not power set as you imply, to select the intended meaning. Position in the sentence also disambiguates many words. "Time flies" is certainly an ambiguous sentence, but when my AI professor asked what it meant, she INTENDED it to be a trick question: TRUE AI would NOT give an answer one way or another, but RECOGNIZE that it was ambiguous. The ambiguity (non-determinism)lies in its sparseness, a property that doesn't apply to the thousands of pages comprising the ACA that was specifically structured to keep the penalty OUT of the Tax section.
#7
Robert's decision should go down in history as one of the worst SCOTUS decisions. Of course there is
Wickard v. Filburns, and Roe v. Wade (The progeny of Griswold v. Connecticut).
It [Constitution] is a thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please wrote President Thomas Jefferson, referring to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Our third Presidents words were written in reaction to Chief Justice John Marshalls decision in the landmark case of Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review and made the Supreme Court of the United States the more equal branch of the federal government.
Jeffersons thing of wax has unfortunately been molded by the Court into a shape that the Founders would not recognize:
#8
By the reasoning of the majority, the next time anyone goes to the grocery store, they should consider the possibility of being taxed for all the things they don't buy.
I honestly don't understand the fixation on Marbury with respect to the decision in Sebelius. Marbury is typically cited for the idea that it created judicial review but it is probably a bit more accurate to say that it was merely the first exercise of that power by the Supreme Court of the United States and with respect to an act of the federal government.
Like most foundations of our legal system the concept of judical review predates the United States and comes to us from earlier English law. It was practiced in the courts of the Colonies, enshrined in the early Constitutions of several states, debated at the Federal Convention of 1787 (delegates who spoke were overwhelmingly in favor), practiced in several state and federal courts in the United States before Marbury (with respect to state statutes in conflict with state constitutions), etc.
Hamilton spoke positively of the concept in one of his Federalist Papers and even the Anti-Federalist skepticism was founded on the fear that acts of Congress would be overturned by an unelected judiciary, not that the same unelected judiciary would find ways to uphold acts of Congress.
Further, while the text of the Constitution doesn't explicitly authorize judicial review it does say, "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority ...." It's difficult to read this bit of plain text, particularly in light of the abundant evidence of support for judicial review at the time of the founding, and nevertheless decide that judicial review was neither authorized nor intended.
Roberts on Sebelius
Roberts merely adhered to the longstanding doctrine that where a statute is in peril on Constutional grounds and there exists a colorable argument that would preserve it that is the interpretation that should stand. Even extremely conservative commentators have largely admitted that. It's simply not the job of the Court of find a ground on which to invalidate a stupid & destructive law, rather just the opposite. Which is precisely what happened here.
Roberts did not leap back and forth across the threshold of Marbury. He merely applied an extremely longstanding canon of Constitutional interpretation and did precisely what the Court has long done: avoid invalidating a statute where there is a Constitutional perch upon which it colorably finds purchase.
The fact is that both the Obama Administration and the opposition at least touched on the mandate-as-tax issue in their briefs. Roberts did not invent that out of whole cloth though he did contort himself into a pretzel to reach that holding it was set forth by the Executive Branch. But even if it were not it would have been entirely proper for Roberts to have gone there.
As Jon Kyl pointed out over the weekend Roberts did do something very curious: after invalidating the Medicare Expansion provisions he effectively substituted his own rather than simply strike down what was there. If Kyl's interpretation of Roberts' action on this point is accurate then this is the extraordinarily radical action of Roberts in Sebelius.
While I'm not among those clinging to the faint hope that Roberts is playing a larger game consider, for a moment, that he might be. Perhaps he's merely kicked the can past the next election knowing full well that the PPACA will come before the court again, and perhaps an issue will present itself that will win more than 5 votes. For example, the abortifacient / contraceptive mandate being challenged in the lower courts presently. That will, almost certainly, reach the Supreme Court eventually and I'll wager that there are more than 5 votes on the present Court to reverse on that point. I can't help but wonder if Roberts left a window of opportunity open to strike the entire act knowing that an issue was on the horizon that would gather both more support on the Court and more popular support. And if, by chance, he lit an explosive fire under conservatives ahead of one of the most critical elections in our nation's history well, that wouldn't be a bad thing either would it? Nor would the repeal of the PPACA via the political process which seems significantly more likely today than last Wednesday.
Ambiguities
It makes little difference that Congress structured the mandate as a penalty, politicians not under oath are still allowed to lie to the public. The punishment for that is political and meted out at the ballot box, not imposed the the courts.
Again, it is the job of the Court to find a way to uphold validly enacted (passed by Congress & signed by the President) laws. It is NOT the job of the Court to find reasons to strike down such laws when other, even very weak, reasons to uphold them exist. We don't have to like that but both our original Federalists and our original Anti-Federalists would concur.
My point was merely that it is unsurprising that the imprecision of language leads different people to interpret given language differently. Not so machines. Two machines having had identical inputs will produce identical outputs, not so humans.
In a previous life I did my academic study of natural language processing in law school, in the life prior to that I was an engineer (graduate degree but alas not a PhD) specialized in random signals & processes and very large scale numerical analysis though I would argue, and some past colleagues would likely concur, that my greatest contribution to either profession was moving on to another. Not that any of this matters to any of the opinions I've set forth here.
By this reasoning, behavior or lack of behavior, is now taxable.
By not engaging in a particular activity, in this case to carry health insurance, a person pays a tax to avoid a law.
Would it be that illegal behavior is a tax to infinity, an unpayable tax? Example, forbidding your kids to work on your farm is not a law but an unpayable tax, an infinity tax.
So what about punishable behavior, such as a no carry on health insurance. How about jail time, would that really be a tax which is paid off by time serving? And if so, can that time be purchased out like paying off back taxes?
What would that formula be? Linear? Based upon worth of convicted? Would that mean a life taken by a poor murderer is less than the life taken by a rich murderer?
Would it mean that the IRS is now the highest authority in the land? Would it mean that penalties instituted by triple letter scores such as pollution penalties made up by the EPA are now null and void until the IRS sets up its charts?
Subsidies are now tax penalties upon the consumer? Consider something easy, like sugar. By not purchasing a certain amount of sugar at the store is the consumer responsible for an additional fee at the time of purchase, and if so is it linear or a percentage of the bill?
And yes, I find it odd that what is considered constitutional flies in the face of the Founders who spent blood fighting against the very tax considerations and point of view the majority opinion expresses. But it is not just Roberts, the committee consists of either a sexist racist or a racist sexist nonetheless a person who considers themself wise, a quality reserved for others to opinionate about a person (that is, a person who considers themself wise is full of themself), a cheerleader and proponant of government health, and a person who thinks the model of South Africa is better than the one sworn to not only uphold but protect.
I have made it clear as the stars on a moonless cloudless winter high plains night that if I am forced to carry insurance on my employees that they will be taking a wage hit and people will be let go. If the minimum is raised to prevent this, I quit. Any number cruncher, margin pounder, and those who are working at this time of night just to keep the doors open should see this. And those who can just pass the expense, boy now you want to see some inflation grab hold of your butt.
#11
"By this reasoning, behavior or lack of behavior, is now taxable."
There are all sorts of taxes on behavior or lack of behavior already in the tax code, this one is just far more visible.
I would like to see offended people go after the tax code (in addition to repealing this ghastly law of course) and flatten it to remove all of the games within.
Sure but let's play an even more entertaining one.
One might generalize Roberts' opinion as making an otherwise unconstitutional mandate a valid exercise so long as people may be found in compliance by either: a) submitting to the unconstitutional mandate; or in the alternative b) paying a tax.
Why not then a federal conception license? One per individual in their lifetime each granting the right to conceive half a child with the effect of forcing a one child policy on Americans; or, alternatively, said Americans may pay a tax for non-compliance or unlicensed conception. Under the broadest and most general reading of Sebilius that's just fine.
Suppose Congress delegates to a National Child Licensing Board the details of enforcement and that said board determines that the most certain enforcement mechanism is surgical sterilization and promulgates rules requiring males to report for sterilization within 30 days of the discovery of their licensed child and females within 30 days of the delivery of their licensed child. What result under the broadest generic reading of Roberts' opinion in Sebelius? Merely another otherwise unconstitutional exercise rendered permissible via the inclusion of a tax as an alternative to actual compliance? Perhaps.
Will it happen? No. Why? Because tar, feathers, lengths of rope & lamposts would suddenly be back in vogue ... and because no politician advocating such measures could win office after doing so. It's a political impossibility because of the ballot box. That's the only defense we have to an out-of-control federal government; it's the only one we've ever had.
(Sh. M. Network)-Awin Elmi Nur, the deputy governor of Hiiran region for Somali government says he survived narrowly at liquidation attempt on his life on Sunday. Speaking with Shabelle Media via phone, Mr.Nur said that he was attacked by gunnies armed with pistols as he was heading his home in central Beledweyne town, but fortunately escaped unharmed from the liquidation. The town is under Somali government control.
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Two defense volunteers were gunned down in Pattani province Friday morning. The victims were identified as Wiwat In-iad, 42, and Kritsana Thepsao, 34.
The attack took place as the pair were off-duty and going home in a pick-up truck. They were attacked by an unknown number of terrorists gunmen in another vehicle who fired several shots from M16 assault rifles and an AK 47. After the attack, the terrorists gunmen got off their vehicle and shot the two volunteers again before making off with the victims' two .38 caliber pistols.
Police said the killing was believed to be done by terrorists insurgents.
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad says his country is at war. Rebels in Idlib province who are better armed, more numerous and stronger by the day agree, reports the BBC's Ian Pannell.
Last July we filmed refugees fleeing government attacks on largely peaceful protests, and interviewed army defectors living in makeshift camps on the Syrian side of the Turkish border who revealed that they had been ordered to shoot at protesters. By the end of that month the opposition Free Syrian Army was formed: a weak and disparate group, with neither the men nor munitions to represent a physical threat to the government. President Assad dismissed them as a few "terrorists" funded by his foreign enemies.
But since then the Free Syrian Army has become more battle hardened. The opposition now has effective control over large swathes of contiguous land in parts of the north. Faced with having to fight fires across the country government forces seem unable to hold significant amounts of territory, and the insurgency is better equipped, experienced and motivated than ever before.
Significant quantities of weapons have begun entering Syria from Turkey. We were told that two shipments, paid for by what one commander called "friends in the Gulf", with a senior Lebanese middleman acting as a broker, had been delivered to groups affiliated with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Three months ago we were told emphatically by a local commander that the "mafia" - the Turkish underworld - had been instructed not to sell weapons. Now, a senior commander in Idlib Province said, rebels were obtaining rocket propelled grenades and other arms from those very same sources. "We think a green light has been given by the West," he said.
Even rebels with the Idlib Martyrs' Brigade, who have not been sent arms from abroad, were better armed than we had ever seen before - partly because they are now churning out their own ordnance in secret workshops: improvised explosive devices (IEDs), crude but effective pipe and nail bombs, and home-made grenades.
The fighters are upbeat, confident and assertive. While still ill disciplined and poorly equipped, they now believe they are winning. What this means is more fighting and ever more death. The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people have been killed during the uprising. It is hard not to conclude that increasing numbers will die as the violence spirals out of control. It is hard to see what pressure the international community can bring to bear to reverse this.
Last week, as bombs erupted in Damascus, Mr Assad said for the first time that Syria was now in "a real state of war". On that point, at least, both the rebels and the Syrian president agree.
#3
The BBC consistently reported that the Sunni Arab rebels in Iraq were winning. I'm still waiting. I suspect this bias is due to the vast majority of Muslims (90%) being Sunni and therefore overrepresented among the people it relies upon to provide translations and act as facilitators. While there may be institutional factors involved, I suspect the key factor is demographic.
[Dawn] A close aide of jailed TNSM leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad was killed when unknown armed persons opened fire on him at Bandai, Maidan, on Friday night, residents and police told Dawn.
They said that the victim, Maulana Ghayasuddin Khan, was going to a nearby mosque to offer Isha prayer when armed men attacked and killed him on the spot.
Maulana Ghayas was the son of Khan of Bandai, Maidan, Abdul Wahid Khan and a close aide of Maulana Sufi Mohammad, chief of Tanzeem Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM). In 2009, he was kidnapped by Maidan-based Taliban, but later released him unconditionally.
The Maidan police have arrested one Mohibullah in the case after private sniffer dogs entered his house at Bandai on Saturday.
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#1
What do the dogs learn by sniffing someone's privates?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/02/2012 18:18
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[Bangla Daily Star] Historian Muntassir Mamoon yesterday told International Crimes Tribunal-1 how some political parties and their leaders, including Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... and its former ameer Ghulam Azam, aided the Pak occupation forces to commit genocide during the Liberation War.
He said this at his three-hour-long deposition before the tribunal dealing with the crimes against humanity case against Ghulam Azam.
Ghulam Azam was the ameer (chief) of the East Pakistain (now Bangladesh) Jamaat-e-Islami in 1971 and Muntassir was the first prosecution witness at the trial yesterday.
Muntassir, 61, a professor of the Department of History of Dhaka University, narrated the brutal role some auxiliary forces, including the Peace Committees, Razakars and Al-Badr played during the war. The forces were formed by the leaders of the Jamaat and some other political parties.
"We who were in the country [Bangladesh] at the time [during the war] saw and heard about the brutal activities of the Razakar Bahini [force], Al-Badr and the Peace Committees," said Muntassir. He was a third-year history student at Dhaka University and was in Dhaka until October 1971.
With around 40 years' experience in research on the Liberation War, Muntassir said the leaders of those parties, including Ghulam Azam, instigated and provoked members of the Peace Committees and the forces to commit brutal acts like killing, rape and looting.
Muntassir said those leaders gave members of the forces licence to kill through their political speeches.
Muntassir said he was in Pallabi in the capital until March 29, 1971. The majority of the inhabitants of the Mirpur area were not Bangalees and they helped the Pak military kill Bangladeshis and loot their homes. However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... some families survived with the help of non-Bangalees.
He said people read the newspapers to know about the steps of the government and its allies during the war. "We also looked into the activities of 'myrmidons' in those newspapers since the Paks referred to freedom fighters as myrmidons," he said, adding that they also relied on the BBC, Radio Australia, Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra and Akashbani to crosscheck the authenticity of the news.
After March 1971, different wings of the Mohammedan League, Jamaat-e-Islami, PDP and the Peoples' Party helped the central government of Pakistain. "However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... the role of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Mohammedan League, as the main political parties, was more than that of the others," Muntassir said.
Their first step was to meet Tikka Khan, governor of East Pakistain, in the first week of April 1971, when the Pak occupation forces were conducting mass killings and lootings throughout the country, he said.
Nurul Amin and Ghulam Azam were well known among the leaders of the political parties. "Upon their [Nurul Amin and Ghulam Azam] suggestion and persuasion, Shanti Bahini [Peace Committees] were formed," said the witness, adding that the peace committee had later been decentralised right up to the grassroots level.
The collaborator forces--Razakar, Al-Badr and Al-Shams--were formed later on in places where Jamaat-e-Islami influence was more significant.
"When I say Jamaat, I mean Jamaat, including its student wings and front organizations," he explained.
He said if one looked at the newspapers of that period, one would find speeches of the then ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Ghulam Azam prominently displayed.
The leaders of those parties had encouraged others to join the collaborator forces and committees and Ghulam Azam played a vital role in aiding the Pak military, the witness said.
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For a map, click here. For a map of Durango state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A news report posted on the website of El Siglo de Durango news daily Sunday morning says that a total of 12 unidentified individuals have been found dismembered in Durango state in the last ten days.
According to the report, the latest find was made in the La Laguna region in Mexico where police were tipped off by an anonymous phone call to the remains of a man stuffed into five trash bags. The find was made on the road between Gomez Palacio and Tlahualilo. The report said the victim was a man in his 30s.
According to a report in Contexto de Durango news daily, two more dead were found in roughly the same area between Ejidos Eureka and 18 de Marzo. Both victims were male, one in his 30s, while the other was in his 40s. The two victims were butchered and stuffed into nine bags.
The report also says that nine of the victims were found in the La Laguna region, while a tenth, a female, was found in Durango city.
Thursday two decapitated victims were found in Santiago Papasquiaro municipality. The victims were found on a remote road near the village of Pascuales. Both victims were male.
To date the Durango Fiscalia General del Estado (FGE), or attorney general has yet to address the finds. The report also fails to make clear if any of the discoveries include the four dead found last Thursday, or the remains found in Cristobal Colon colony in Durango city. Those remains are presumably part of the 331 who were killed in Durango state between 2007 and 2011, but that has not yet been established by the Durango FGE.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Saudi Gazette] Iran has stored up imports and hard currency for a "battle" against "dastardly" EU sanctions, officials said Sunday, the day that the measures aimed at pressuring Tehran over its controversial nuclear program take effect.
Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said the country has stockpiled the population's daily needs to reduce the impact of the embargo hitting the oil and banking sectors.
"Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help officials in this battle," Rahimi was quoted by state television's ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
website as saying at a religious conference. He said the "dastardly sanctions" might cause "occasional confusion" in the market, but that the Medes and the Persians would not be stopped.
Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani also told the semiofficial Mehr news agency that Iran has "plans" to deal with the embargo and enough hard currency to meet its import needs.
The EU said earlier this week that all contracts for importing Iranian oil will have to be terminated from Sunday. Also, European companies will no longer be involved in insuring Iranian oil.
The measures come on top of previous sanctions levied by the US and the West that have already hit Iran's economy. US officials say the American sanctions have cut exports of Iranian crude from about 2.5 million barrels a day last year to between 1.2 and 1.8 million barrels now.
"We have not remained passive. To confront the sanctions, we have plans in progress," said Bahmani. He did not elaborate on the plans.
On Saturday Bahmani said Iran is "easily" selling its oil despite all current and future sanctions because some countries have received waivers from the US to import some Iranian oil despite the punitive measures.
Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi, meanwhile, ordered his staff to "mobilize" against "illegal sanctions," Mehr said. It did not say what the measures were.
Late Saturday Ghasemi told state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
that Iran has weathered previous rounds of sanctions. "I do not see it as a problem that enemies have imposed an embargo today," he said. "Simply, because they have imposed similar sanctions years ago, and nothing happened," he added.
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#1
Hey, hey, hey, its "wily dastardly", not just "dastardly"!
#1
Revelations in February that US troops burned copies of the Koran at a base in Afghanistan - reportedly by accident - as well as the shooting of 16 Afghans by a US soldier in March have inflamed public opinion against the foreign forces.
Notice there is absolutely no mention of the tactic of Taliban infiltrators. In the article's closing, or bottom line as we call it, the inference here (thank you once again BBC for reminding why I detest you), is that it's once again the fault of the Yanks.
[An Nahar] Both official media and an opposition group on Sunday branded as a failure a world powers deal on a transition plan for Syria a day after at least 120 people were reported killed in violence nationwide.
World powers meeting in Geneva on Saturday agreed a transition plan that could include current regime members, but the West did not see any role for Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... in a new unity government.
Russia and China insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition happens, rather than allow others to dictate their fate.
Moscow and Beijing, which have twice blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria, both signed up to the final agreement that did not make any explicit call for Assad to cede power.
Official Syrian media and the opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC) group demonstrated rare agreement in slamming the outcome.
The meeting "failed," trumpeted Al-Baath, newspaper of the ruling party.
"The agreement of the task force on Syria in Geneva on Saturday resembles an enlarged meeting of the UN Security Council where the positions of participants remained the same," it said.
The LCC, which organizes protests on the ground in Syria, said the outcome showed once again the failure to adopt a common position.
It called the transition accord "just one version, different in form only, of the demands of Russian leaders allied to the Assad regime and who cover it militarily and politically in the face of international pressure."
Burhan Ghalioun, a senior member and former head of the SNC, told pan-Arab television Al-Arabiya that "this is the worst international statement yet to emerge from talks on Syria."
According to the opposition coalition's official Facebook page, he described the plan as a "farce."
Ghalioun called a "mockery" the notion that Syrians should negotiate with "their executioner, who has not stopped killing, torturing... and raping women for 16 months."
SNC spokeswoman Basma Qadmani told AFP in Ankara there were some "positive elements" in the deal, although "important elements remain too ambiguous... and the plan is too vague to foresee real and immediate action."
"The first one is that the final declaration says that the participants agree to say that the Assad family cannot rule the country any more, and therefore the Assad family cannot lead the transition period."
"The second positive element is the agreement that the transition should comply with the legitimate aspirations of Syrian people.
"For us this means that Assad should go because Syrian people have already said that they want Assad to go."
At least 120 people were killed, mostly civilians, on Saturday, the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights said.
On Sunday, at least nine people were killed, the watchdog said.
Regime forces also shelled several neighborhoods of the central city of Homs and blasts were heard in Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... , it added.
The Geneva deal came despite initial pessimism about the prospects of the talks amid deep divisions between the West and China and Russia on how to end the violence that the Observatory says has killed more than 15,800 since March 2011.
U.N. and Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... said it was up to the Syrians to decide who they wanted in a unity government.
But he added: "I would doubt that Syrians... would select people with blood on their hands to lead them."
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[Dawn] Four people, including an activist of the Pakistain People's Party, were killed on Sunday in different parts of the city, police and witnesses said.
They said that the 32-year-old PPP worker, Sarfraz Baloch, son of Haq Nawaz Baloch, was sitting at the office of Mohammed Khan Gabol Goth within the remit of the Sachal cop shoppe along with four other people late in the night
when two gunnies came there and fired at him before fleeing.
The witnesses said that the victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds and he died before he could be taken to a hospital.
The Sachal police later shifted the body to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where medico-legal sources said that the victim had received three bullets in the upper torso fired from a very close range.
The police said that 9mm pistol was used in the attack.
The victim was said to be a resident of Chapels City and was instrumental in regularisation of Gabol Goth.
Area people said that the victim had opened an office of Gabol Goth on a plot.
The police said that no case was registered till late in the night as the medico-legal formalities were still being completed.
Two men bumped off
Two young friends were killed near the Meena Bazaar in Karimabad.
Witnesses said that the victims were going on a cycle of violence when they were attacked by two gunnies also riding a cycle of violence.
They said that both the victims died instantly.
The bodies were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where the victims were identified as Noor Mohammed Khan, 35, son of Gul Marjan Khan, a resident of Faqir Colony, Orangi Town, and Shakil Ahmed, 30, son of Bashir Ahmed, a resident of Baldia Town, Saeedabad.
Hospital sources said that Noor Khan and Shakil received two and three bullets respectively fired from a very close range as the bullets pierced through their bodies.
The Azizabad police said a 9mm pistol was used in the attack.
Man found rubbed out
A young man was found rubbed out near the Jama Cloth Market within the remit of the Arambagh cop shoppe.
The body was taken to the Edhi morgue for want of identification following medico-legal formalities at the Civil Hospital.
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[Dawn] Fear gripped areas of Tirah inhibited by Qambarkhel and Kamarkhel rustics as Taliban have accused them of supporting their opponent groups besides warning them of dire consequences, said sources in the area.
They said that the two tribes had started fortifying positions in their respective localities in anticipation of an eminent Taliban reprisal.
They said that the Taliban of Tariq Afridi group who had only recently forced Kukikhel ...a tribe of primitives inhabiting Khyber Agency. They are a branch of the Afridi tribe. Traditionally they have been migratory, tromping between Jamrud and the Rajgal valley with the seasons. The tribe has had mustache-cursing relationships with several other tribes, including the Zakkakhel and Kambarkhel, and with the Mullagori. They make welcome most anyone with a turban and automatic weapons, but every once in awhile they get together a tribal lashkar to mollify the government... tribes to leave their area, were suspicious of the role of Qambarkhel and Kamarkhel tribes and had been accusing them of clandestinely supporting their opponent and spying on them for the government.
It was learnt that after repeated assurances by the elders of the two tribes, Taliban refused to agree to their point of view and asked to cooperate with them or face action.
The sources said that Taliban had now set their eyes on other parts of Bara tehsil after consolidating their position in Kukihkel areas. They said that in view of the recent developments the Mangal Bagh ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... -led Lashkar-e-Islam had also sent a word of conciliation to its Zakhakhel rival, the Tawheedul Islam (TI).
They said that the LI wanted to form a joint front against the Taliban in order to check their advances in its own dominated areas of Tirah.
But so far, the sources said, these conciliatory gestures had failed to yield any fruit as the Zakhakhels were reluctant to trust LI.
They said that the LI had even offered to release all Zakhakhel captives as a gesture of goodwill, but the TI showed no interest in
any reconciliation.
The TI was formed in March last year after some of the LI commanders from Zakhakhel tribe developed differences with Mangal Bagh over the killing of a Zakhakhel holy man.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, a new, even louder, voice was to be heard... activists of the two rival groups clashed in the border area of Akkakhel and Zakhakhel on the night between Friday and Saturday which resulted in injuries to two LI activists. The LI claimed to have captured two volunteers of its rival group.
In Akkakhel area of Bara, myrmidons targeted a government school with a rocket and damaged its one portion. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... no one was hurt, as the school was closed.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
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[Dawn] OVER a year after it was formed, the commission set up to investigate the the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now sometimes referred to as Mister Bones... raid has yet to deliver its findings. In that time it has spoken with dozens of civilian and military officials and members of Bin Laden's family. At a December presser the head of the body said it would complete its work soon, and as far back as January a member of the commission had told this newspaper that almost all interviews and investigation had been completed, that the writing process was under way, and that it should take about a month to complete it. Since then, several new deadlines have come and gone, including in May and June of this year.
There was reason for hope when the commission was formed. Unlike the parliamentary resolution calling for it, it was tasked with establishing not just why and how the raid took place, but also with looking into Bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... . Instead, the long delay is simply creating the impression that this critical national incident, like so many other controversial political events and security failures in Pakistain's history, might also remain shrouded in secrecy. The longer the report is delayed, the more tempting it will be to believe that making public the facts of the matter would be too uncomfortable for those in the civilian or military establishments. But there is also a perception among those following the commission's work that its report will likely not fix concrete responsibility or name specific individuals, especially when it comes to the security establishment. That would be a disservice to Pakistain -- and would make this body as redundant as others that have recently failed to take a stand, such as the Saleem Shahzad commission -- and make it even more unclear why there has been such a delay in releasing the findings.
May 2, 2011 was arguably Pakistain's most embarrassing and shocking military failure after the loss of East Pakistain, which brings to mind the Hamoodur Rehman commission's findings. That report was kept under wraps for nearly 30 years before it was declassified after a leak. Many other events in Pakistain's history that deserve to have been unearthed remain opaque years and decades later. Given the pace of developments in this country, it is all too easy to keep important discoveries private while the nation gets caught up in the latest political drama or security failure. With the stakes in the May 2 case being as high as they are, there is reason for concern that the same is happening with the findings of the Abbottabad commission.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
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#1
...whether the blow that left him dead
cut off his body, or his head.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Ashley Tisdale aka Sharpay Evans in High School Musical (2006)TV Movie" aka Maddie Fitzpatrick in "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody (TV 20052008)" aka Savannah Monroe in "Hellcats (TV 2010-2011)" aka Bethany Pearson in "Aliens in the Attic (2009)" aka Kim, Dorky Girl in "Donnie Darko (2001)" (age 27)
Olivia de Havilland aka Maid Marian in "The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)" aka Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in "Gone with the Wind(1939)"(Nominated Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress) aka Emmy Brown in "Hold Back the Dawn(1941)"(Nominated Academy Award for Best Actress) aka Miss Josephine 'Jody' Norris in "To Each His Own(1946)"(Academy Award for Best Actress) aka Virginia Stuart Cunningham in "The Snake Pit(1948)"(Nominated Academy Award for Best Actress) aka Catherine Sloper in "The Heiress(1949)"(Academy Award for Best Actress) aka Elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine aka Paternal cousin of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, an aircraft designer, notably of the De Havilland Mosquito (age 96)
Susan Hayward aka Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!(1958)"(Academy Award for Best Actress) aka Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow(1955)"(NominatedAcademy Award for Best Actress) aka Jane Froman in "With a Song in My Heart(1952)"(NominatedAcademy Award for Best Actress) aka Eloise Winters in "My Foolish Heart(1949)"(NominatedAcademy Award for Best Actress) aka Angelica 'Angie'/'Angel' Evans Conway in "Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman(1947)"(NominatedAcademy Award for Best Actress) aka Constance Chesley in "The Fighting Seabees(1944)" (Co-star with The Duke) aka Helen in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)" (Died in 1975 at age 57)
#4
Ashley was the auditorium girl in Donnie Darko??? Color me surprised! And Olivia is a real treat. She must have been a tiny gal, when I click through it looks like she stands about 4' 8"!!!
[An Nahar] An Israeli military court on Sunday sentenced a former military leader of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, to multiple life sentences after convicting him of ordering the killing of dozens of Israelis, the army said.
"The Ofer military court sentenced Ibrahim Hamed to 54 life sentences," a statement said, referring to an Israeli court and prison complex located in the West Bank between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
"Hamed, who was the head of the military wing of Hamas in the West Bank, was convicted last week of responsibility for a long list of suicide kabooms which brought about the deaths of 46 Israelis and the wounding of more than 400 Israelis," the army statement said.
Hamed was placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! in 2006 with the help of Mosab Youssef, the son of a Hamas founder who became an undercover agent for Israel's Shin Bet security agency, Israeli media said.
Haaretz newspaper said Hamed was behind suicide kaboom attacks in a Jerusalem cafe, a crowded city square and the Hebrew University, among many others.
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[Dawn] A Taliban roadside kaboom tore through a bus on a highway in myrmidon-plagued southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing five passengers, including women and kiddies, officials said.
There was no claim of responsibility for the bombing in the province of Ghazni but officials blamed the blast on the "enemies of Afghanistan", a standard phrase used to refer to the Taliban.
"The bus was travelling from Kabul to Kandahar. Along the road near Ghazni city it struck a roadside kaboom. Five people were killed and 11 others were maimed," provincial police chief Zarawar Zahid told AFP.
Baz Mohammad Hemat, a doctor in the local hospital, confirmed the casualties.
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As European oil embargo kicks in, Tehran announces three-day surface-to-surface missile drill. Revolutionary Guards general: We'll soon launch missile that can hit Iron Dome defense system
Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the Revolutionary Guards' airspace unit, added that Iran will soon introduce a new missile that can also penetrate the Iron Dome missile defense system, threatening that if Israel plans any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, "They will provide us a reason to remove Israel from the earth."
He said Israel is not capable of attacking Iran "since it was defeated by Hezbollah" in 2006.
However, a hangover is the wrath of grapes... in a conflicting report, Fars new agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying that the range of the new missile is only 300 kilometers.
Iran has reportedly a few hundred surface-to-surface missiles with a range of approximately 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), which can reach Israel, southern Europe and other states in the Persian Gulf, where US maintains military bases.
I'm probably not alone in wanting to help take back the Senate and repeal Obamacare. And I'm probably not alone in not knowing which Senate races to invest my limited time and money in.
So I'm wondering if together we could crowdsource a list of the most important races where our donations of time or money might make the difference between living with this monstrosity and rolling it back.
There are 33 Senate seats up for election this year (see list below): 21 currently held by Democrats, 11 by Republicans and 2 by Independents who lean center/left and hard/left respectively. That leaves 30 Democrats and 37 Republicans in place for the next 2-4 years.
It takes 51 Senators to repeal a tax bill and 67 to repeal other legislation. Let's assume that the SCOTUS decision means the Dems agree to treat Obamacare as a tax. Let's also assume that we might not be able to get any Dem votes for repeal. (In practice, the former may be overly optimistic and the latter overly pessimistic.)
At a minimum, then, conservatives who wish to repeal Obamacare most likely must defeat 4 Democrats, plus defeat additional Democrats in the event that one or more Republican seats are lost.
So, Rantburgers, taking into account those who are not running for re-election or who were defeated in their primaries,
a) Which Republican seats in the Senate are in danger of being lost this year?
b) Which Democrat and Independent seats are most vulnerable to being captured by the Republican candidate?
c) Where should we be focusing our money, volunteer efforts and outreach to influence friends and family?
Here are the current Senators whose seats are competed this year:
#1
"TO EVERY MAN there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is physically tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talent; what a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour.
Those words spoken by Winston Churchill over 70 years ago are very appropriate today.
#3
Vote for as many Republicans as are offered and pray they are honest men and women who will do their best. Not given to frequent scriptural quotes, but in desperate times like these I sometimes revert. Paul says it very well in the small book of Tessalonisense, "keep away from every brother who is idle"....
A brilliant young woman, gifted author, and I believe now former senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations by the name of Amity Shlaes puts it so very well in the book "The Forgotten Man". The essence of her 460 pages is basically the "New Deal" was a colossal failure. Unfortunately it has taken some 80 years for us to accomplish discovery.
I am strongly encouraged by young thinkers like Shales, Rubio, Jindal, West, Bachmann, Rice, and others. There is hope.
#4
I agree. However, I want to do more than just vote - I want to help influence others to vote our way too.
I have limited funds and time to donate. Which races would be the best ones to invest that limited time and money in? Which R candidate/senator is most in need of shoring up, which D is most vulnerable to a well funded, energetic campaign to replace him/her?
My hope is that you all will have insights beyond the basic campaign commentators to help focus my investment. I'm also hoping you all will decide to, and where to, invest yourselves.
#5
If you want to repeal obamacare it might be better to focus on those who will vote against it rather than merely voting republican and hoping they will vote against.
#9
It's a good question, lotp, because the senate is going to be extremely important in the next few years. Sorry I don't have any good answers. Feinstein in California is a shoo in. Hopefully some Rantburgers can identify vulnerable Democrats in other states.
#11
A link to consider for possible donations and work, click here by Hugh Hewitt. [ED note -- this is a list put together by Hugh Hewitt, whom I happen to think is the best radio interviewer out there. Plus, he does interviews with folks running for Representative and finds those that really need help]
You might want to check out his 12 picks for a starting place.
#12
Plus, they should do articles of impeachment for Roberts.
Amen! But you know the gutless worm won't do it. For so long now there's been no consequence of any kind for bad behavior. Time to hold all these people to their oath's with severe punishment for violations.
Flaying and salting sounds good.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
07/02/2012 14:44
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#13
+1 for Hewitt's list. He's done the legwork for us and donations of time or money to the candidates on his list will likely be as impactful of the outcome of the actual election as anything else we could do.
#15
I realy don't think you need to donate to Deb Fischer. She has a big lead over Kerry who has been labeled correctly as a east coast progressive which doesn't do well in Nebraska.
#16
Here is the poll data for Josh Mandel (vs. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)), courtesy of Real Clear Politics. I really hope he wins (nice Jewish boy, volunteered as a fighting Marine after getting his law degree, doing a good job as Ohio treasurer, from what I hear, and to top it off, his family are prominent in democratic Jewish circles up Cleveland way -- I have my waspish moments, I am ashamed to admit), but it remains to be seen. Ohio is strongly union-Democrat up north, as it is strongly Republican down here in the southwest.
#17
I'm wondering if together we could crowdsource a list of the most important races where our donations of time or money might make the difference between living with this monstrosity and rolling it back.
I took a look at Realclearpolitics and hear is my take:
In General - RCP's numbers are too liberal. They give polls of adults the same weight as polls of likely voters. If you ignore all polls except those of likely voters and average then you'll get pretty good results.
NV: Heller ahead by 5% R HOLD
NM: True toss up. Wilson could use your help.
....Small state. A little money could mean alot.
MT: Rehberg ahead by 6% R PICK UP
....Small state. A little money could mean alot.
ND: True toss up. Berg could use your help.
NE: Fischer ahead by 15% R PICK UP
MO: Steelman ahead by 12% R PICK UP
WI: Thompson ahead by 9% R PICK UP
IN: True toss up. Mourdock could use your help.
OH: True toss up. Mandel is R Candidate.
FL: True toss up. Very volitile. Mack R Candidate
VA: True toss up. Allen is R Candidate.
MA: True toss up. Brown is R Candidate.
So there you have it. 4 likely pick ups, 7 toss ups, 1 likely loss in Maine (to an independent).
I hope this is usefull.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/02/2012 20:22
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#18
Yum. I do love seeing other people think out loud. Thank you, Al. :-)
#20
By the way, anyone can help out by making phone calls from home on behalf of candidates. If you have generous long distance coverage you can call across your state or for another state's candidate; otherwise you can call locally. Just a thought ....
[An Nahar] Violence across Syria killed at least 43 people on Sunday, 36 of them civilians caught in fierce fighting between troops and armed bad turbans.
Sunday's highest concentration of deaths was in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor where nine civilians and three rebels were reportedly killed.
Regime forces shelled several areas of Damascus ...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat... province, a day after mortar fire killed at least 30 civilians attending a funeral in the town of Zamalka, 10 kilometers (six miles) east of the capital, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britannia-based watchdog said troops shelled the town of Daraya during the night, killing four people, adding that several blasts were heard in Damascus itself, without elaborating on casualties there.
A civilian and a rebel fighter were killed in al-Tal and Douma in Damascus province, both sites of festivities, the Observatory said.
The army reportedly staged a bloody attack on Douma on Saturday.
In the central province of Hama, regime forces rubbed out five people, the monitoring group said.
Activists in Hama told Agence La Belle France Presse that regime forces shelled the Halfaya suburb, while grassroots opposition network the Local Coordination Committees said the army was using helicopters to attack the area.
Meanwhile the army continued to shell several besieged neighborhoods of the central city of Homs, according to activists, with the Observatory saying several buildings in the Jourat al-Shiah neighborhood were destroyed, leading to at least one death.
Rebels and regime forces clashed in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, the Observatory added.
The northern province of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... saw continued fighting too, where "regime forces withdrew from the village of Atarib," the monitoring group said. A rebel fighter was killed in festivities in the same province, while a young detainee died under torture by regime forces, it added.
The village is situated near Idlib province, where three civilians were reportedly killed. Much of the northwestern border province is under rebel control.
Three people were also killed in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising, including two maidens of tender years, according to the Observatory.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
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[Saudi Gazette] Sudan accused unnamed "Zionist institutions" Sunday of fanning anti-government protests as it tries to snuff out disturbances which echo Arab Spring unrest elsewhere.
Of course. Because everything bad that happens to Muslims is due to the connivance of those damned juices. You'd think that after going on a millennium and a half of this, the Muslims would have learnt by now to behave with the utmost propriety and keep their heads down...
For two weeks, anti-austerity protesters have been calling for the resignation of the government of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, one of Africa's longest serving leaders.
Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil revenue after South Sudan gained independence last year, forcing the government to impose cuts that have hit Sudanese who were already grappling with soaring inflation and a weakening currency.
"Zionist institutions inside the United States and elsewhere... are exploiting the latest economic decisions to destabilize the security and political situation," the state-linked Sudanese Media Center quoted presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.
Nafie said the government had evidence of collusion between rebel groups in Darfur, politicians in arch-foe South Sudan and Zionist institutions in the United States to sabotage Sudan. He did not present the evidence.
The demonstrations have rarely gathered more than a few hundred people at a time, but have been an added pressure for Bashir's government, already trying to contain the economic crisis and multiple armed insurgencies.
Police used tear gas to put down protests in Khartoum on Friday.
The Sudanese Commission for Defense of Freedoms and Rights estimated on Sunday that 1,000 people had been tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! since the protests began.
Demonstrators have chanted the widespread Arab Spring refrain: "The people want the downfall of the regime".
Unusually, there was no official ceremony on Saturday to mark the 23rd anniversary of Bashir's bloodless coup.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2012
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As hated leaders are replaced by even more brutally oppressive regimes, the Arab Spring has become a sick joke
By John Bradley
Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's deposed dictator, is reportedly still in a coma after being handed a life sentence earlier this month for complicity in the deaths of almost 1,000 protesters during last year's mass uprising against his tyrannical rule.
He is a man utterly lacking in charisma, who has only ever been interested in enriching his family and the corrupt tycoons who surrounded him. Few will shed any tears when he dies.
However, while Mubarak was no better known for his political acumen than for his benevolent rule, he has been proven right about one thing at least. A few days before he was forced to step down in February last year, he warned that sudden, dramatic change in the land of the pharaohs would lead only to anarchy, followed by a takeover by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood party and the imposition of strict Islamic law.
Gradual political reform, in other words, was preferable to revolutionary upheaval that had no agenda other than ousting the current leader.
That advice, at the time mocked as the self-serving twaddle it partly was, now seems strikingly prescient. Indeed, Mubarak could have been talking about the consequences of revolutionary chaos not just for Egypt, but the Arab region as a whole.
On Monday, Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, warned that the mayhem caused by the so-called Arab Spring has resulted in the creation of new Al Qaeda training camps throughout the Middle East, especially in Syria and Libya, where British jihadis are receiving training in terrorist tactics. They are intent, he added, on returning to Britain to launch attacks here.
The terrifying reality is indeed that Islamists of various factions are taking advantage of the febrile volatility in the regime to flex their muscles.
Egypt's new president has just been announced. He is Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. His victory ends a year of political transition in the country during which the Muslim Brotherhood have thrashed their liberal opponents in every election that's been held.
On Sunday, Morsi called for national unity. That will be a tall order. Like other so-called 'moderate' Islamist leaders throughout the region, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The truth is that the Muslim Brotherhood will now set about implementing their real agenda: imposing Sharia law and encouraging the growth of extreme Islam.
Still championed by over-excited, ill-informed pundits in the West, and kept alive on the ground by a gaggle of equally naive, out-of-touch and mostly English-speaking local activists, the bitter truth is that the so-called Arab Spring has proved a dismal failure on every level.
Nothing good has come of it at all, if judged by the classic Western values of liberty, freedom of expression and democratic accountability.
From Egypt to Tunisia, Yemen to Libya, shockingly high crime rates, economies in free-fall and decimated tourism industries are the terrifying new realities Arabs must now confront.
And in each of those countries, radical Islamists have moved quickly to fill the social and political vacuum. They have used a simple strategy: relying on gaining a majority from the minority who vote, and blatantly disregarding rules that ban foreign campaign donations from neighbouring states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, looking to extend their influence in the region.
Both these countries, although Western allies, also subscribe to Wahhabism -- the strictest and most austere interpretation of Islam that even bans contact between unrelated men and women. They also consider it their God-given duty to promote this 'pure' version of Islam whenever the opportunity arises, thus their attempts to exploit the Middle East's disarray.
THE ARAB SPRING SO FAR
TUNISIA
The ousting of staunchly secular Tunisian dictator Ben Ali in January 2011 marked the birth of the Arab Spring. The country's subsequent descent into religious extremism, lawlessness and economic ruin is a microcosm of what has happened throughout the region in all the countries caught up in the ongoing turmoil.
Elections last October brought to power Ennahda, the self-professed 'moderate' Islamist political party that is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood and which was banned under Ben Ali. However, tens of thousands of more radical Salafi Muslims have been causing constant mayhem on the streets of Tunis and throughout the country, attacking liberal artists and filmmakers, firebombing shops that sell alcohol, and assaulting women who refuse to wear the veil.
In recent weeks, rumours have been rife in the country that the Salafis may be about to launch an armed insurrection. Their goal: creating a hardline Islamist state.
LIBYA
The National Transitional Council, which has ruled since last year's Nato-led uprising in Libya, governs in name only. Since the fall of Tripoli in August 2011, Libya has been in turmoil.
Officials openly admit billions of dollars have been smuggled out of the country by corrupt officials and businessmen, while the country's infrastructure is disintegrating.
Just this month, the British ambassador's vehicle was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades, and the U.S. Consulate was bombed. The latter attack was claimed by a local Islamist group, which said it was angered by assassinations of suspected Al Qaeda members in Pakistan.
Parliamentary elections slated for this month have been postponed until July 7, with officials citing 'logistical and technical' reasons for the delay. Not that most people in this most tribal of Arab countries, as elsewhere in the region, are likely to care.
EGYPT
Since Mubarak was ousted, the Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly shown it is willing -- indeed eager -- to reach compromises with the elite group of generals overseeing the messy transition to democracy.
That co-operation will continue now that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi is president.
The Muslim Brotherhood will leave policy decisions concerning the defence budget and foreign relations to the generals. Instead, it will concentrate on radicalising Egyptian society through parliament -- with devastating consequences for the liberal elite and religious minorities.
SYRIA
Exaggerated reports of the imminent overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian regime have been a staple of the Western media for more than a year.
However, the initially peaceful street demonstrations have been hijacked by armed gangs of radical Islamists, whose members are drawn from both inside and outside the country. For the time being, the majority of the Syrian people are therefore sticking with the devil they know.
Still, with the Syrian regime's crackdown on all dissent as ruthless as ever, the country could quickly descend into bloody civil war.
In Morocco, Kuwait and Algeria -- the only Arab countries that have held parliamentary elections during the past year -- affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood have swept to power.
Now the Muslim Brotherhood itself has also triumphed in both Egypt's parliamentary and presidential elections. Meanwhile, Syria's initially popular and peaceful uprising is in the midst of being hijacked by a band of fanatical international jihadists also intent on imposing Sharia law.
These more extremist Syrian insurgents, who employ classic terrorist tactics such as suicide bombings and kidnappings, are being funded by the most repressive, undemocratic Islamist theocracy in the region: Saudi Arabia.
Ironically, because of the grip of its leaders, the repressive Saudi kingdom itself has witnessed no major uprising, apart from sporadic demonstrations among its repressed Shia minority.
Meanwhile, in Libya -- despite Britain and France's intervention -- Islamist militias now rule the streets. The country is at serious risk of being torn apart along tribal and regional lines.
Just last week, more than 100 people were killed in clashes between rival tribes in Libya's south, and a band of armed Islamists occupied the capital's airport in protest at the arrest of one of their members. The Libyan transitional government exists only in name.
In neighbouring Tunisia, the birthplace of this Arabian nightmare, thousands of zealots last week rioted throughout the country -- the latest violent agitations against artworks deemed insulting to Islam. What was once the most socially liberal and progressive Arab country has, like Egypt, in a year become yet another backwater for extreme Islam.
Tunisia, too, is now governed by a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot called Ennahda. Its electoral success, like that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, is widely reported to have been achieved in part by substantial funding from the states of the Persian Gulf -- Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Thus we are witnessing a ruthlessly successful counter-revolution led by these two countries. For both nations, secularism and democracy are anathema, as they are using their immense wealth to successfully install their extremist Islamist proxies.
The terrifying reality is that we are seeing once secular, tolerant cultures being dragged back to the Middle Ages -- and with the implicit blessing of the West. Indeed, Saudi Arabia's continued status as a vital Western ally holds up a mirror to the rank hypocrisy of the pro-democracy rhetoric we hear from the likes of Barack Obama and David Cameron.
How extraordinary it was to hear last week, for example, Western leaders' gushing praise on the occasion of the death of Saudi interior minister Prince Naif. This was a man who, for decades, was at the helm of a vast army of internal security forces that had a repugnant record for crushing all political dissent.
The truth is from the outset of the Arab Spring, realpolitik dictated the Western powers' determination to contain Iran and ultimately trumped any concerns about human rights and democracy. Sunni Saudi Arabia is Shia-dominated Iran's arch-enemy. Saudi Arabia is Britain's biggest trading partner and a reliable source of affordable oil.
Yet, despite all this, liberals in the West continue to call for more uprisings in the Arab world, more bravery from the protesters, more upheavals, more violence and chaos -- all in the name of a democracy in which most Arabs have no interest in partaking, and which is being shamelessly manipulated by outside powers.
John R Bradley is the author of After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked The Middle East Revolts
#7
Read, "Why Nations Fail." These countries fall into the failed nations slot. They will not make the fundamental changes required to succeed. They will just have to do their Insh'allah thing till they get tired of falling on their faces. No use throwing good money after bad. It is up to them and not us to encourage positive change.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/02/2012 12:49
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#8
This is why we should not give them ANY aid or money or support. I'd even say that we should blockade and interdict the movement of ALL resources in and out of these countries until they dissolve and are ready to join the Human race.
#9
Darth, I'll see that. Have not yet hit where I was thinking. No gas, Suez is still open, so forth.
And to be as fairly criticle as I can, and not to say the US should or could do anything here, it does not really help when this administration claims credit for this with the Cairo speech, then bumbles a dictator replacement, backdoor negotiates a hostage situation, travels outside of a UN warrent with what may look like a NATO/Europe attack upon a unprepared ally Ghadaffi yet a fickless approach to Assad. Not sure what is going on behind the scenes but in public is looks like a total cluster of a US policy, to the point the True Believes should be getting a third bucket of pissed off at Obama or turning in their creds.
The USAF has purchased 191 "baseline" 2000lb AGM-158 "stealth" JASSM missiles and 30 JASSM-ER extened range variant with 2.5 times the range of the standard variant. The standard variant is said to have a range of over 230 miles with the extended range variant having a range of over 575 miles.
The Air Force plans to obtain a total of over 3,500 AGM-158 missiles.
Delivery dates were not provided by the source article.
This will be delivery Lot 10 in the program, which started development in the mid 90s, with first deliveries in 2009. The extended range variant is newer, with initial production in 2010.
[VOA News] On Sunday, gunnies attacked two churches in Garissa, a city in northeastern Kenya. At least 17 people were killed, and more than 40 maimed. The Somali thug group al-Shabaab ... the personification of Somali state failure... and its supporters have been blamed for other attacks in Kenya.
Four gunnies attacked the African Inland Church in Garissa on Sunday morning. The shooters were masked in balaclavas, regional police chief Philip Ndolo told Rooters. They entered the church after throwing two grenades inside. Two grenades also went kaboom! in a nearby Roman Catholic Church. Two police are among the dead.
Qadr, a Garissa resident, is looking for his housekeeper. He fears she may be a victim of the attack.
"She's not around, I've been looking for her, I don't even know if she was one of those people who died," he said
Garissa is a city in northeastern Kenya populated by ethnic Somalis. Garissa is located 100 kilometers from Dadaab, home to what is often considered the largest refugee camp in the world. Dadaab has received a steady stream of Somalis fleeing the civil war in their country.
Kenyan troops invaded southern Somalia last October, joining African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops in a battle against the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab Islamists. Since the Kenyan invasion, a wave of grenade attacks and kidnappings have beleaguered Kenya. Analysts believe al-Shabaab or its supporters may be behind these attacks.
Earlier this week, four foreign aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council were kidnapped in the Dadaab camp. Their Kenyan driver was killed.
In the last year several aid workers have been kidnapped from Dadaab. Many international NGOs and humanitarian groups have since scaled down their operations in the camp
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#1
Up until this point they have been hitting small local pubs in Kenya with grenade attacks. Typically a car pulls up, a guy runs to the front door and tosses a grenade inside, then they exit quickly. Usually the targets are places with local citizens and relatively poor security. This switch to hitting churches is a concern - primarily because it's what Boko Haram has been doing in Nigeria. But the attack in Garissa happened in the far north of Kenya - well away from major population centers. Watch to see if this pattern is repeated by Al Shabaab (against churches) in major cities.
#2
Islamists know major cities can not survive without agricultural products from the country side. This is a first attempt to subdue the Christian country side and then lay seige to major cities.
A top Yemeni security official says authorities have uncovered at least 13 al-Qaeda plots targeting foreign diplomats, embassies and senior military and government officials in the capital of Sanaa and other cities.
The official says authorities were tipped off by captured al-Qaeda members.
[An Nahar] Beturbanned fascisti in northern Mali took hoes and chisels to the tombs of ancient Moslem saints in Timbuktu for a second day Sunday, ignoring international pleas to halt their campaign of destruction.
After smashing three ancient tombs on Saturday, the Islamist beturbanned goons who consider the World Heritage shrines idolatrous, set about wrecking four mausoleums at the cemetery of Djingareyber, a local journalist told AFP.
Mali's government and the international community have expressed horror and outrage at the destruction of cultural treasures in the fabled city, an ancient desert crossroads and center of learning known as the "City of 333 Saints".
On Saturday the Islamists destroyed the tombs of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya, and on Sunday attacked Cheikh el-Kebir's mausoleum as residents stood by helplessly.
Crying "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great), the men circled the cemetery clasping tools such as chisels and hoes, but did not have construction vehicles that were used in Saturday's rampage.
"There are many of us watching them destroy the mausoleum. It hurts but we can't do anything. These madmen are armed, we can't do anything but they will be cursed that is for sure," the journalist said on condition of anonymity.
The cemetery is situated in the south of Timbuktu in the suburb of the eponymous Djingareyber mosque built from mud in 1327.
Another resident of Timbuktu, a former tour operator, said the Islamists had also threatened to destroy the ancient mosques.
"This morning (Sunday) the Islamists told us that if there are saints inside the mosques, they will also destroy these mosques."
Several saints are buried inside the city's three historic mosques. Timbuktu is also home to 16 cemeteries and mausoleums, according to the UNESCO website.
The Islamist fighters from Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) are among the Al-Qaeda-linked gangs which occupied the north of Mali in the chaos that emerged after a March coup in Bamako.
Their presence in Timbuktu prompted UNESCO on Thursday to list the city as an endangered site because of the continuing violence in northern Mali and in the wake of an attack on a 15th century tomb in May.
"God is unique. All of this is haram (forbidden in Islam). We are all Moslems. UNESCO is what?" a front man for Ansar Dine, Sanda Ould Boumama, said on Saturday.
He said the group was acting in the name of God and would "destroy every mausoleum in the city. All of them, without exception".
Mali's Culture and Tourism Minister Diallo Fadima Toure on Sunday urged the UN to take action to preserve her country's heritage.
"Mali exhorts the UN to take concrete steps to stop these crimes against the cultural heritage of my people," Toure told UNESCO's annual meeting in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.
The attacks were reminiscent of the Taliban blowing up the giant Buddhas of the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan -- an ancient Buddhist shrine on the Silk Road and a world heritage site -- in 2001 after branding them un-Islamic.
The Malian government has denounced the "destructive fury, comparable to war crimes" as pleas poured in for a halt to the Islamist rampage.
UNESCO session chairwoman Yeleonor Mitrofanova told a meeting in Saint Petersburg that the destruction was tragic.
"I appeal to all those engaged in the conflict in Timbuktu to exercise their responsibility -- for the sake of future generations, spare the legacy of their past," she said.
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[Dawn] UNLIKE the Afghan Taliban, the international community does not appear keen to engage the Pak Taliban in talks.
The emphasis in western and regional capitals is on reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban and that obviously forms part of the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... exit strategy from Afghanistan.
Although there is little reason so far to be optimistic about the future of engaging with the Afghan Taliban, at least weighing the different options is under way. One may be excused for concluding that the western and regional capitals consider the burden of sorting out the Pak Taliban to be Islamabad's alone.
The security, strategic, political and ideological implications of the post-NATO scenario in the region and the future of the Pak Taliban is not getting the deserved attention in Islamabad's policy circles. No rationale for this attitude is available, except for the ambiguous threat perception about the Pak Taliban, especially amid false notions of their reconcilability and the externalisation of the threat.
In that context, there is a need to identify the potential of the Pak Taliban and their strength, which may help remove any ambiguities in threat perception. The Pak Taliban's main strength lies in their ideological bond with Al Qaeda and their connection with the Islamisation discourse in Pakistain. They gain political and moral legitimacy by associating themselves with the Afghan Taliban. Their tribal and ethnic ties provide social space and acceptance among a segment of society.
At their core, the Pak Taliban espouse Deobandi sectarian teachings. This commonality allows them to function under a single umbrella, even though their political interpretation of Deobandi principles is at times not monolithic. As a group, they maintain a dogmatic stance by espousing an interpretation that is intolerant of all other Moslem sects.
This ought to isolate the Taliban from the majority of Paks who adhere to the Barelvi tradition. In reality, this was only
partially the case when the insurgency began as the Pak Taliban craftily created a narrative around their movement that found sympathy across the sectarian divide. They strove to portray their struggle as one aiming at driving out foreign 'occupation' forces from Afghanistan in the short run, and all 'infidel' forces from Moslem lands in the long run.
By doing so, they not only tied in with transnational jihadi groups in a material sense but also presented themselves as ideologically similar. More tangibly, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) leadership, especially its first head Baitullah Mehsud, also tried to portray the outfit as an operation under Mullah Omar ... a minor Pashtun commander in the war against the Soviets who made good as leader of the Taliban. As ruler of Afghanistan, he took the title Leader of the Faithful. The imposition of Pashtunkhwa on the nation institutionalized ignorance and brutality already notable for its own fair share of ignorance and brutality... 's Afghan Taliban. Every cut-thoat faction that wished to join the TTP had to take an oath of commitment to the enforcement of the Sharia and of allegiance to Mullah Omar. By doing so, Baitullah hoped to gain more legitimacy and further portray his struggle as Afghanistan-focused.
Baitullah knew that existing as an overt anti-Pakistain group aiming to target the Pak state would quickly generate a consensus against his activities, and therefore he used the TTP's ideological, ethnic and sociopolitical ties with the Afghan Taliban to stress a natural cohesion between their operations and goals. This strategy was also instrumental in attracting other sectarian groups, such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... (LJ), and splinter groups of Kashmire-oriented outfits to work closely with the TTP.
The Pak Taliban not only had a well-defined ideological base, the geo-strategic milieu also worked in their favour.
While the Pak Taliban may not enjoy moral or political support from neighbouring states, they have strong connections with non-state actors in those territories, which allow them to thrive despite opposition from the Pak state.
The TTP has connections with smugglers and mafias in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistain, and have support from international terrorist networks, including Al Qaeda. Coupled with the Pak state's belief that the conflict in Afghanistan is upsetting the regional power balance in favour of its adversaries, and that the war is entertaining covert wars of international and regional spy agencies and players, it has distracted the counterinsurgency focus.
Another strategic advantage for the Taliban has been its dynamic leadership; evident especially in the case of killed leaders such as Nek Muhammad, Abdullah Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud, as well as the current TTP head Hakeemullah Mehsud, who emerged as a 'charismatic strategist'. Hakeemullah also quickly realised the benefit in associating himself with global terrorism rings, and used it as a means to enhance his own and his outfit's stature.
Hakeemullah's appearance in 2009 in a video with a Jordanian jacket wallah, who later killed several CIA agents in the Afghan province of Khost ...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency... , put his name on the list of high-value cut-thoat targets for the US. This endorsed his stature as a worthy successor to Baitullah. Similarly, TTP's fingerprints on the failed Time Square bombing by Pak-born Faisal Shehzad in May 2010 elevated the TTP's stature as a group that could directly threaten America on its own soil.
The challenge for the Pak state is complex, with dire implications for the country's internal security. Al Qaeda, the TTP and cut-thoat groups in Punjab, Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and elsewhere have developed a nexus. Splinter groups of banned Death Eaters organizations or emerging groups have been involved in the recent wave of terror in mainland Pakistain.
These groups, tagged as the 'Punjabi Taliban', are the product of a narrative of destruction fostered within the country over the past three decades. Their agendas revolve around Islamisation and sectarianism. Their operational capabilities have been enhanced by Al Qaeda providing them training and logistics, and by the Pak Taliban offering safe sanctuaries.
Breaking these links between Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and mainland cut-thoat groups is not an easy task, especially when the state continues to lack the vision to build a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, and the capacity for effective implementation.
Even if all of these things materialise, the central, and the most difficult, task for the state in the post-Taliban insurgency scenario will be to overhaul and rehabilitate tribal society, as well as restructure the administrative, political and economic systems in the areas where the Taliban claim to provide an alternative to the state.
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[Dawn] Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened to act "with firmness and determination" against anyone collaborating with a foreign military force that might intervene in north Mali.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a leader of AQIM, which is one of the bully boy groups controlling the huge territory for the past three months, warned Saturday that no one should be tempted to "profit from the situation" in north Mali "by collaborating with the foreign forces who are eyeing the region."
In a statement released by Mauritania's private news agency Nouakchott Informations (ANI), a mouthpiece for AQIM, Belmokhtar said: "We will not stand by with our arms crossed and we will act as the situation demands with firmness and determination."
On Friday another Islamist bully boy group in lawless northern Mali, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), threatened countries who would join a military intervention force.
Mali has been gripped by chaos since disgruntled troops swarmed the capital Bamako in the south in March and ousted the elected president of what had been seen as one of Africa's model democracies.
Tuareg rebels and Islamist hardliners have taken over a stretch of northern Mali the size of Afghanistan.
The bully boys, also including the Ansar Dine group, have since imposed an austere version of sharia law in northern Mali, and they have fallen out with the Tuareg.
The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, is considering sending a military force of 3,300 troops to Mali.
AQIM stems from a group started in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists, who in 2007 formally subscribed to al Qaeda's ideology.
These beturbanned goons, numbering around 300, have spun a tight network across tribal and business lines that stretch across the sub-Sahara Sahel zone, supporting poor communities and protecting traffickers.
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#3
The tribes went their seperate ways after the flood. Interaction was infrequent and cautious. Over time however, their numbers grew and they began to stray and wander about like herds of Wildebeests. That's when the trouble began!
(Sh. M. Network)-At least seven people are reportedly killed and indefinite number of others were maimed in a fierce battle between Somali government forces backed by Kenyan army and Al shabab Islamic fascistiin southern Somalia.
According to the local residents, the skirmish sparked at Qoqani town in Lower Jubba region, after Al shabab agents armed with rocked and automatic machine-guns attacked overnight on military positions in the town that manned by the coalition forces, killing 7 combatants on both warring sides.
Somali military chiefs in the region said, they repelled the attack and killed many Islamic fascistiduring the assault in Qoqani town which is one of areas controlled by TFG and its allied forces from Kenya.
Locals reported that the situation has returned into normal on Sunday morning and the area remains in full control of Somali and Kenyan army.
Al shabab has yet to release any comments on the raid so far.
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[An Nahar] A criminal court judge was among three people killed in gun and kabooms north of the Iraqi capital on Sunday, security and medical officials said, in the latest in a spike in nationwide unrest.
In the restive city of djinn-infested Mosul, gunniesrubbed out Judge Abdul Latif Mohammed while he was driving home, said police First Lieutenant Mohammed al-Juburi and Dr Mahmud Haddad in djinn-infested Mosul's main hospital.
Three roadside kabooms near two schools in Tikrit, 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , detonated as middle-school students took their end-of-year exams, killing a policeman and wounding two colleagues, police and a doctor said.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
And in the central province of Diyala, gunnies opened fire on an army checkpoint in Khan Beni Saad, a town just north of Storied Baghdad, killing First Lieutenant Omar Ahmed and wounding two other soldiers, the sources said.
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[Dawn] Two suspects allegedly involved in the blast at the Data Darbar two years ago, have been tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! by intelligence agencies, DawnNews reported on Sunday.
More than 50 people had been killed in the kaboom at the shrine in July 2010.
The IG Punjab stated that six suspects who were allegedly involved in the bombing are in jug and their investigations are still going on.
He stated that very soon an official report on the bombings and the criminals involved will be presented in a news conference.
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[An Nahar] Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced they are to fire ballistic and other missiles at desert targets during three days of war games starting Monday in a warning to threats of military action by Israel and the United States.
The more they use up now, the fewer they'll have later. And of course, enemies will be watching from overhead, not to mention the spy squirrels...
"Long-, medium- and short-range surface-to-surface missiles will be fired from different locations in Iran... at replica airbases like those used by out-of-region military forces," the head of the Guards aerospace division in charge of missile systems, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said.
"These maneuvers send a message to the adventurous nations that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is standing up to bullies alongside the determined and unified Iranian nation, and will decisively respond to any trouble they cause," he was quoted as saying by the Guards' official Sepah News website.
OMG!!! They utterly pulverized a defenseless bit of desert!!!1!
Although Iran frequently holds war games, these exercises appeared to underline Tehran's threat to strike U.S. military bases in neighboring countries -- in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... -- if it comes under attack by Israel or the United States.
Tel Aviv and Washington have said that military action against Iran remains an option if diplomacy and sanctions fail to convince the Islamic republic to curb its sensitive nuclear program.
Hajizadeh said the war games, titled Great Prophet 7, would "test the accuracy of missile warheads and systems" by hitting the mock camps in the Kavir Desert in central Iran.
He mentioned two types of ballistic missiles that would be used: the Qiam, which has an estimated range of around 500 kilometers (300 miles), or 750 kilometers according to Iranian media; and the Khalij Fars anti-ship missile, which has a range of 300 kilometers.
Tehran refers to its ballistic missiles as "long-range" although other world militaries qualify them as "short-range".
The longest-range ballistic missile Iran possesses in its arsenal is the medium-range Shahab-3 which, with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers, is capable of hitting Israel. There was no indication in Hajizadeh's remarks that a Shahab-3 would be used in the maneuvers.
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For a map, click here For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
An undisclosed number of municipal police agents in Zacatecas city were disarmed by Policia Federal, Mexican Army troops and Zacatecas state police agents early Sunday morning, according to Mexican news accounts.
El Sol de Mexico news daily reported on its website Sunday afternoon that federal security forces had conducted an inspection of firearms in use by the Zacatecas municipal Policia Preventativa agents, and then decided to seize all weapons.
According to the report, the Zacatecas state Secretaria de Seguridad Publica (SSP), General Jesus Ortiz Pinto and the commander of the Zacatecas state Policia Preventativa Víctor Manuel Bosque apparently approved the plan to disarm the police agents.
After the disarmament took place, police agents scheduled to do so went out on regular road patrols unarmed.
Mayor of Zacatecas municipality Dagoberto Muñoz attempted to receive information as to why the police had been disarmed, but was told to contact the Secretaria de Defense Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army.
The disarming of local police agents en masse in Mexico is rare but it does happen, usually when a municipal police corporation fails certain security and reliability tests.
According to the article, federal and Zacatecas state security teams would be performing additional patrols for election day.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Saudi Gazette] Tensions between Turkey and Syria rose Sunday, as Ankara said it scrambled fighter jets after Syrian helicopters flew close to the border, underlining the mistrust between the neighbors after the downing of a Turkish plane last month.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that a jet fighter shot down by Syria last month was in international airspace, dismissing a US newspaper report that it was downed inside Syria as untrue.
Erdogan waded into the row at a meeting of his AKP party, saying that the Wall Street Journal had "unfortunately published a story which is not true".
The comments follow a report Saturday in the newspaper citing US intelligence that claimed the plane was "most likely hit by shore-based anti-aircraft guns while it was inside Syrian airspace".
Turkey has repeatedly said its F-4 Phantom warplane was downed without warning in international airspace on June 22, although it admitted that it had violated Syria's airspace for a short time and "by mistake".
The Turkish military gave further details in a statement Sunday, saying the plane had been inside Syrian airspace "for about five minutes".
"We see no indication that it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile" as Turkey says, an unnamed senior US official was quoted as telling the newspaper.
Meanwhile four F-16 warplanes took off Sunday from Incirlik airbase after Syrian helicopters flew four miles closer to the border than is normal, the army said. Two more F-16 jets scrambled from a base in Batman after one helicopter approached the border in the south of Mardin province.
There were three incidents but there had been no violation of Turkish airspace, the army said.
Erdogan, speaking in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri, tied the publication of the article to the upcoming presidential election in the United States. "The election is looming there and this newspaper is acting on behalf of a political movement. This is an attitude adopted against President (Barack) Obama," said Erdogan.
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[Dawn] A US drone attack on a Death Eater compound in Pakistain's northwestern tribal district killed eight gunnies on Sunday, security officials said.
The latest attack killed fighters loyal to Death Eater commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the officials said.
Bahadur is believed by residents of the region to have an informal working relationship with the Mighty Pak Army, refraining from targeting the security forces while focusing on US and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... forces in nearby Afghanistan.
Two Pak intelligence officials said four Hellfire missiles were fired at a house used by suspected Death Eaters in Dre Nishter village of North Wazoo.
All the Pak officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The officials said some foreign Death Eaters belong to the Turkmenistan Islamic Movement were believed to have been killed, along with other local fighters from the Bahadur group. Militants from several central Asian countries have joined Afghans, Arabs, and others in Pakistain.
The strike destroyed the house and triggered a fire," an official said.
"It was difficult to identify the bodies immediately as some of them were charred," he said.
North Waziristan is one of several tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan that are hubs of Death Eater activity. Bahadur controls most of North Waziristan.
Washington considers Pakistain's semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt the main hub of Taliban and al Qaeda Death Eaters plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.
A similar attack in the region on Tuesday killed five Death Eaters.
The US rarely talks publicly about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistain which are a cause of discontent between the two countries.
The continued strikes, despite the likely political fallout, show Washington's confidence in the effectiveness of the drone program against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who allegedly use Pakistain as a base.
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Paleostinian Authority's labor minister says shortfall in delivery of aid from Arab donor nations means government employees won't receive July salaries
The poor, suffering darlings. Perhaps if they were more loveable, they would be more loved.
The Paleostinian Authority is facing its "worst financial crisis" since its 1994 establishment, the Paleostinian labor minister said on Sunday.
Ahmed Majdalani warned that a shortfall in the delivery of aid from Arab donor nations means the PA will be unable to pay employees their July salaries or pay off debts it owes to private businesses across the West Bank.
"It is the worst financial crisis experienced by the Paleostinian Authority since its founding," he told AFP.
"What is available to the Paleostinian Authority at the moment in terms of funds is not enough to pay government employee salaries this month, with Ramadan approaching," he said.
"It is not sufficient to pay the bills that the Paleostinian Authority owes to private companies."
The Paleostinian Authority has frequently warned it faces a massive financial shortfall that threatens its ability to pay thousands of government employees on time, or even at all.
A delay in salary payments would be particularly sensitive this month, as the Mohammedan fasting month of Ramadan begins in mid-July. Mohammedans often break their daily fast on the lam communal meals, stocking up ahead of time on plenty of food.
Dire funding situation
Last July, Paleostinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... said the government would pay workers half-salaries because it faced a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars.
He attended a special meeting of the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... to urge Arab donor nations to make good on aid pledges.
The executive committee of the Paleostine Liberation Organization also warned on Saturday of the dire funding situation facing the West Bank government.
"The executive committee calls on all the brotherly Arab nations to contribute to the solution of the urgent financial crisis that the national authority faces," it said.
"The continuation of this crisis will threaten both the Authority's short and long-term development and the stability of its institutions," the committee warned.
"The current financial situation is worse than any previous circumstances and requires rapid intervention," it added.
"The Authority is currently unable, with Ramadan about to start, to pay salaries and other financial entitlements that are both necessary and urgent."
The Paleostinian Authority government headed by Fayyad is expected to meet on Tuesday to discuss the crisis and chart a path forward.
#4
please hillary, don't read this and start sending more $$.
Posted by: jack salami ||
07/02/2012 16:04
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#5
What's the matter with you people? Go to college. Get a job.
Posted by: Eric Cartman ||
07/02/2012 16:16
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#6
Take Western money, live by Western rules. That means layoffs, furloughs, early retirement (I assume the generous foreign aid has paid for retirement benefits for Hamas veterans), government shutdowns, etc, until you can get your own fiscal house in order.
Posted by: American Delight ||
07/02/2012 17:33
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#7
This is an amazing occasion! Many of the west and arab donors are not throwing good money into bad for the Paleos. There is hope. Just no change figuratively or literally yet.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/02/2012 18:32
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[Dawn] Militants blew up a government girls school and grocery store in Mardan and Beautiful Downtown Peshawar areas.
According to police officials, building of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School located in the Shahbaz Gari area of Mardan was partially damaged when an improvised bomb planted by unidentified Islamic fascistiinside the school went kaboom! on the night between Friday and Saturday.
They said police personnel and residents of the surrounding areas rushed to the spot when they heard the huge sound of the kaboom. They, however, said that no one was hurt or killed in the kaboom as there was no one present in the building at that time.
The officials concerned took the watchman of the school into custody after registering FIR against unidentified Islamic fascistiand started investigation in this regard.
On the other hand, the grocery store located at Cherry Cuban Road in Pepal Mandi area of Peshawar was blown up early on Saturday, police said.
The store owner Riaz Khan said that he had no enmity with anyone nor he was associated with any of the peace bodies. He said that the entire store was destroyed but he was yet to estimate the loss the blast had caused to him.
He said that it was duty of the police to ensure protection to the lives of the people and their properties. He said maximum of the stuff had been purchased on credit.
An official of the local police said that case had been registered against unknown myrmidons.
He said the Orcs and similar vermin had planted the explosives under the shutter of the store and detonated it with remote control device at about midnight.
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07/02/2012
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#7
Lotp beat me to it. Except given the lack of courage of these terrorists, I would have guessed they were intimidated on more than one level by the baby kosher dill pickles.
[An Nahar] Gunfire and kabooms rocked a northeastern Nigerian city as security forces launched a pre-emptive offensive against Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamists, leaving three dead, police said Sunday.
The offensive on Saturday followed intelligence that the beturbanned goon group planned to attack the restive city of Damaturu again, said the deputy police front man of Yobe state.
"Security operatives were able to discover a plan by Boko Haram hoodlums to launch attacks in the city," said Gbadegesin Toyin.
The Joint Task Force (JTF) military unit "located their positions... they cordoned off these positions and engaged the gunnies in a shootout," he added.
He said soldiers fired mortar rounds at the Islamist thugs, who responded with gunfire and also threw improvised bombs.
The violence was most heavily concentrated in the Nyanya and Obasanjo Estates areas of the city, he said.
"Three suspected Boko Haram faceless myrmidons were killed and a female sect member was jugged I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! . The hideout was destroyed in the raid," Toyin added.
Nigerian authorities on June 19 slapped a round-the-clock curfew on Damaturu, after suspected Boko Haram Islamists launched coordinated gun attacks on targets around the city.
The curfew was partially relaxed two days later after soldiers and police reclaimed control of the streets in an offensive that left at least 40 people dead, including 34 alleged Boko Haram members.
The ban on movements was further eased on Monday, but Damaturu residents are still forced to remain in their homes between 6:00 pm and 7:00 am.
Damaturu has repeatedly been hit by the radical Islamist group, responsible for more than 1,000 deaths since the middle of 2009 in Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer.
Yobe state borders the extreme northeastern state of Borno, where the capital Maiduguri is considered Boko Haram's base.
The Islamist group's insurgency, concentrated in Nigeria's mainly Mohammedan north, has frequently targeted the security forces, though the Islamists have attacked churches and other symbols of authority.
The government's response to Boko Haram in past months has included heavy-handed military raids, which had angered residents of hard-hit areas and failed to stop the beturbanned goons.
Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... fired his national security adviser and defense minister, amid intensifying criticism of his administration's response to the Boko Haram threat.
The Islamist group initially said it was fighting for the creation of an Islamic state, but its demands have since shifted repeatedly. It is believed to have a number of factions, including a main Islamist wing.
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07/02/2012
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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.
The largest wildfire burning in Arizona was started during a bachelor party when one shotgun-toting celebrant fired a shell that promises to shoot "100 feet of fire, setting everything in its path ablaze," The Smoking Gun has learned.
Boko Haram
Simple:
Iranians are abandoning traditional eating habits, being thrown out of work at alarming rates and face running short of medicines as the nation braces itself for fresh sanctions aimed at forcing its leaders to scrap their suspect nuclear programme. Price rises have spread across the food spectrum. Undercover student researchers surveying 20 supermarkets and four government food distribution centres in Tehran, discovered that 10 basic foods had risen in price by an average of 70% since March while the average family's weekly food basket shrunk by half. Unemployment in Iran's industrial heartland has soared to an unofficially estimated 35% because factories unable to import vital goods and equipment due to sanctions are forced in turn to sack their workers.
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad says his country is at war. Rebels in Idlib province who are better armed, more numerous and stronger by the day agree, reports the BBC's Ian Pannell. 
[Dawn] A close aide of jailed TNSM leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad was killed when unknown armed persons opened fire on him at Bandai, Maidan, on Friday night, residents and police told Dawn.
[Bangla Daily Star] Historian Muntassir Mamoon yesterday told International Crimes Tribunal-1 how some political parties and their leaders, including 
[Saudi Gazette] Iran has stored up imports and hard currency for a "battle" against "dastardly" EU sanctions, officials said Sunday, the day that the measures aimed at pressuring Tehran over its controversial nuclear program take effect.
Both official media and an opposition group on Sunday branded as a failure a world powers deal on a transition plan for Syria a day after at least 120 people were reported killed in violence nationwide.
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
Four people, including an activist of the Pakistain People's Party, were killed on Sunday in different parts of the city, police and witnesses said.
cycle of violence
[Dawn] OVER a year after it was formed, the commission set up to investigate the 
[An Nahar] Violence across Syria killed at least 43 people on Sunday, 36 of them civilians caught in fierce fighting between troops and armed
Sudan accused unnamed "Zionist institutions" Sunday of fanning anti-government protests as it tries to snuff out disturbances which echo Arab Spring unrest elsewhere.
[Dawn] UNLIKE the Afghan Taliban, the international community does not appear keen to engage the Pak Taliban in talks.
Two suspects allegedly involved in the blast at the Data Darbar two years ago, have been 
Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced they are to fire ballistic and other missiles at desert targets during three days of war games starting Monday in a warning to threats of military action by Israel and the United States.
[Saudi Gazette] Tensions between Turkey and Syria rose Sunday, as Ankara said it scrambled fighter jets after Syrian helicopters flew close to the border, underlining the mistrust between the neighbors after the downing of a Turkish plane last month.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that a jet fighter shot down by Syria last month was in international airspace, dismissing a US newspaper report that it was downed inside Syria as untrue.
A US drone attack on a
Wazoo
Paleostinian Authority's labor minister says shortfall in delivery of aid from Arab donor nations means government employees won't receive July salaries
Militants blew up a government girls school and grocery store in Mardan and 
Gunfire and 
