Why would NATO move without a UN mandate, when said mandate would provide Raison d'être for military action from a "justifiability marshaled" International CommunityTM?
Maybe some NATO heavyweights know (desired) action on the part of the UN shall not be forthcoming?
[BBC's Masters of the obvious division] Taking cocaine can change the structure of the brain within hours in what could be the first steps of drug addiction, according to US researchers. So thaaaat's what happens.
Animal tests, reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience, showed new structures linked to learning and memory began to grow soon after the drug was taken. Mice with the most brain changes showed a greater preference for cocaine. Proving once again there is scant difference between mice and men.
Experts described it as the brain "learning addiction". Er huh, Cocaine 'experts' ?
The team at University of California, Berkeley and UC San Francisco looked for tiny protrusions from brain cells called dendritic spines. They are heavily implicated in memory formation. A group analysis emanating from a smoke filled room no doubt.
#12
Scopolamine, historically used for motion sickness and other forms of nausea, and now prescribed for depression, causes growth of the dendritic spines as well. It is thought that other anti-depressant drugs may also have a similar effect, although over a period of weeks and months rather than hours and days.
[OTTAWASUN] Driving assisted-living residences into bankruptcy leaves customers worse off... It recalls Chesterton's 1922 lament, "The burden upon us is that we are not ruled by men of ordinary ignorance, but of extraordinary ignorance."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
13:03 ||
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#1
I don't want to be ruled at all. I want to be represented.
#2
Now, be fair. Thanks to considerable progress in the intervening 90 years its now men and women of extraordinary ignorance. Especially of basic economics.
Lets not only be fair. Lets be honest. Were it not for the economic illiteracy of the voting public these people would not have been elected in the first place.
It is only our own inept perception of economic principles that allows us to embrace the malignant socialistic concept that social equality is somehow the only means for achieving economic prosperity.
It is always easy to blame the politicians. But to be fair and honest, we have met the economically ignorant and it is us.
[CTVNEWS.CA] Egyptian courts on Sunday heard separate court cases against former President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... and top leaders of his archrival, the Moslem Brüderbund, both over allegations of killing protesters in separate instances. "Chloe!"
Egyptian media portrayed the prosecution of longtime foes as "trials of the two regimes," an attempt to show that both Islamists and secular-leaning Mubarak authoritarian regimes are alike after a July 3 military coup toppled President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. "Chloe! Someone's callin'!"
Weeks of mass rallies by Moslem Brüderbund supporters over Morsi's ouster have weakened over the past days as security forces have placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! many Brotherhood leaders. The military-backed government has responded by relaxing curfew hours, trying to signal a return to normality across the country. "No reply!"
Egyptian courts on Sunday heard separate court cases against former President Hosni Mubarak and top leaders of his archrival, the Moslem Brüderbund, both over allegations of killing protesters in separate instances. "Nightshade's falling
Hear him sigh..."
Egyptian media portrayed the prosecution of longtime foes as "trials of the two regimes," an attempt to show that both Islamists and secular-leaning Mubarak authoritarian regimes are alike after a July 3 military coup toppled President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member. "Empty spaces meet his eyes
Empty arms outstretched
He's crying
Through the black of night
I've gotta go where you are"
Weeks of mass rallies by Moslem Brüderbund supporters over Morsi's ouster have weakened over the past days as security forces have detained many Brotherhood leaders. The military-backed government has responded by relaxing curfew hours, trying to signal a return to normality across the country. "If it's wrong or right
I've gotta go where you are"
"We have crossed the swamps and muddy pools, and now we are on the safe side," Ahmed el-Musalamani, a spokesman for interim-president's spokesman, said Sunday. "I roam through the dismal swamplands
Searching for you
Cause if you have lost it
Let me be there too
And through that smoking flame
I've got to go where you are
For no place can be too far
where you are
Ain't no chains can bind you
and if you live, I'll find you
Love is calling me
I've got to go where you are"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
12:11 ||
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#1
That weird yellow commentary was there earlier. WTF? I mean WTF? I thought this was a family site.
[WORLD.TIME] A blast hit a bus carrying air force personnel down a main street in Yemen's capital on Sunday, killing three, officials said.
Air force front man Col. Mahdi al-Aidarous said 23 more were maimed, including five at death's door with amputated arms or legs.
He said the bus was heading to air force headquarters when the blast went off. He said it most likely originated from inside the vehicle, but the official SABA news agency quoted later an air force statement as saying that an bomb was stuck under the bus.
Private TV stations showed a damaged bus with blown-out windows and doors stained with blood, as security troops collected evidence that included two pieces of human flesh.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
11:44 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[FOXNEWS] Zim-bob-we's president has threatened to expel foreign-owned companies over what he says is the West's interference in the politics of the country he has owned since 1980. The citizenry has nothing left to steal, so steal whatever the hated foreigners have. Then blame them when things go south. Or in the case of Zim, start back north the other way.
In a speech before supporters gathered for the burial of a top military chief in Harare, President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... said Sunday he wanted no "ideas from London or Washington." "If they ain't my ideas, they ain't ideas."
He warned the countries that although his government hasn't "done anything to your companies, time will come when we will say tit for tat." "If we sell you no products, then where will you be?"
"Where will you be?"
"Deeper in the Chinese pocket. But that's beside the point..."
The West has pushed for democratic reform in Zim-bob-we. Horrors.
Mugabe, who was sworn in Thursday for another five-year term at the age of 89, said "there will come a time when we lose our patience." "We've already lost our coherence."
Mugabe has vowed to press ahead with black ownership of foreign-owned companies. "Foreign-owned" = "not indigenously owned." If it's owned by Frenchies or Brits or Luxembourgeouis, whaddya do? Fire the board of directors?
Oh. Wait.
Just shoot them. Of course.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
11:42 ||
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#1
Bob's reading the ANC hate playbook. Reject even the liberal, progressive whites. They are not us !
Viewpoint by Magasela Mzobe: To reduce the miasmatic white supremacist enterprise that was codified in colonial apartheid only to the routine savagery and dispossession of black indigenous people, is to fundamentally miss the indispensable role performed by 'messianic' white liberalism, to the legitimization of colonial-apartheid infrastructure. Insolent racist bigots and colonial-apartheid white liberals were (are) the proverbial two sides of the same bloody coin. They are both constitutive elements of Western hegemonic logic and construct.......
#2
I can't say I have any sympathy for any foreign-owned company that's still in Zim-bob-we. They should have seen the handwriting on the wall (the rest of us did) and gotten out completely 10 years ago. At least. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/25/2013 14:56
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#3
Gotta agree w/ Muggsie on one thing, I'm not too fond of any ideas from Washington, either.
Dozens of suspected Boko Haram militants in Magumeri forest, Borno state, north east Nigeria, have turned to human eaters after being stranded for days without food or water.
It's starting to look like it goes with the religion...
With the region, as well. Remember Idi Amin Dada's culinary propensities?
He was civilized. He still used a fork...
He ate at his own dining table. These vicious idiots have got themselves lost in the woods. They probably don't use their finger bowls, either.
Magumeri forest is about 150 kilometres from Maiduguri, the state capital.
The incredible story was related by Malam Momodu Bukar, who claimed to be part of the insurgency group.
"Yeah I wuz. Not no more."
He told newsmen on Saturday in Maiduguri that he fled the camp at the forest on Thursday when it became obvious that he was going to be eaten.
"Hokay! Looks like Malam has drawn the short straw!"
"I thank God that I escaped because I would have been slaughtered by now to provide meal for my colleagues at the camp," Bukar said.
The militant was captured by a Youth Vigilante Group, popularly known as the civilian JTF at Baga Road motor park, Maiduguri, on Friday.
"Stick 'em up!"
"They're already up! I surrender!"
He said the militants had been in the forest since May, when they were dislodged from Marte, Marte Local Government Area, by the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Operation Restore Order (ORO) after the declaration of the State of Emergency.
"Hey! I left my spare socks back there!"
"Forget the socks! Just keep runnin'!"
"Our group, consisting of about 300 well armed combatants, headed for Magumeri on the orders of the sect leader, Abubakar Shekau, shortly before the military took over Marte Camp.
Before or after Shekau was killed?
"We have been lost wandering in the forest. We have exhausted our food and water supply, and so, everybody became hungry," Bukar said.
And no Mickey-D's in a national forest, either...
No snakes. No lizards. No rodents or any other mammals. No birds of any sort. No large insects. No edible plants. No streams. No fish...
He also said that they lost contact with Shekau due to the closure of GSM services by the Defence Headquarters.
Ahah. Neither before nor after, but during.
"It all started last Monday when three of the combatants in camp died of acute hunger, and it became obvious that all of us will die if action was not taken. The leader of the group, Abu Omar, directed that a non combatant member be slaughtered to provide meal for the rest.
"Mmmm! I get the toes!"
"Who the hell eats toes?"
"The meat provided meal for the combatant for just two days
"Ummm... You got any of those toes left?"
and another person was killed in the same manner
"Aaaiiieee! I am undone!"
on Wednesday. So, it became certain that I might be the next person since I am also useless a non combatant member."
You weren't useless, you were medium-rare...
Bukar said he escaped after volunteering to help search for drinking water for the group in a nearby village.
"Hey! Where'd our dinner go?"
"I left the camp on Thursday evening after agreeing to fetch water from the village. After leaving the camp, I started running
"Sockless feet, don't fail me now!"
until I arrived at Magumeri town, so, I slept in the motor park before boarding a vehicle to Maiduguri with the little money on me." he said.
-"You goin' to Maiduguri?"
"Yeah."
"Can I come, too? I got five bucks, almost!"
"That ain't much money."
"I got more comin' from Sani Abacha's kid. I'll give you a million when I get it!"
"Sounds good. Hop in."
Bukar said that he was apprehended immediately he arrived at the motor park in Maiduguri by the youth vigilante group.
"Maiduguri! Safe at last!"
"Stick 'em up!"
"[VROOM!] Don't forget my million, kid!"
Commenting, an official of the vigilante group, Mallam Ajid Asheik, said the suspect would be handed to the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Operation Restore Order (ORO) for investigation.
#1
an official of the vigilante group, Mallam Ajid Asheik, said the suspect would be handed to the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Operation Restore Dinner Orders (ORDO) "for investigation...."
"and fattening up. Then we eat him"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2013 12:34
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#1
Yes, that has worked so well all over the country. Where do we get these idiotic politicians?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/25/2013 11:07
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#2
Where do we get these idiotic politicians?
They come to the public limelight spreading truth and light, hope and change and fragrant unicorn farts and the encroachers/entitleists, grabbers vote them in. Other than PugetSoundostan, most of WA is actually to the right of center. but not enough voters to overcome the libtards.
#3
Here is a link to some local coverage. And yes people actually said these quotes:
June Son works at Lost Lake Cafe and Bar, another business participating in the program.
"A lot of us work late at night and at the end of your shift when you're walking home, it's just a much better feeling overall to know that folks aren't out there with guns," Son said.
Yes she really thinks the signs will keep her from being raped or robbed while she is outside the business.
"This is the most significant health issue of our time I would argue," said Ralph Fascitelli with Washington CeaseFire, "yet the most neglected."
You can guess what sort of organization Washington CeaseFire is...
The good news:
Washington is a free carry state and more than 350,000 people here are permitted to carry a concealed weapon.
[Dawn] Armed hard boyz killed four people including two police officials in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's volatile Kech and Sibi districts and torched two oil tankers carrying fuel for 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... forces in Khuzdar on Saturday, police said.
Muhammad Tariq, a levies official told Dawn.com that armed motorcyclists shot up a car in Tump tehsil of Kech district. He said two persons inside the car were dead on the spot. He said the myrmidons kidnapped the third person along with them.
Tariq said the assailants drove off the scene after the attack. "The incident appears to be an act of assassination," he said.
The levies force reached the spot as investigation into the incident went underway.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[CHRON] The Homeland Security Department says an employee who runs a racist website predicting and advocating a race war has been put on paid administrative leave.
He'll be back in a few months. This time in charge of Obamacare.
An acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who deals with small businesses, Ayo Kimathi, operates the website War on the Horizon. It includes descriptions of an "unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race." Kimathi is black.
Kimathi has been with the department since 2009. He was told Friday that he is being put on paid administrative leave.
His website criticizes whites, gays, those of mixed race, and blacks who integrate with whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, earlier this week reported on Kimathi's role in running the site.
Kimathi hasn't responded to email and phone calls requesting comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
Paid administrative leave - how exactly is that different from a vacation?
#4
...they'd better. Kill all the whities who's going to pay the Danegeld anymore? No workers out in the plantation field, no income up in the plantation house.
[Dawn] A front man for the main Taliban group in Pakistain claimed Saturday that the head of the Punjabi Taliban faction has been stripped of his leadership for welcoming the government's peace talk offer.
Shahidullah Shahid, front man for the Hakimullah Mehsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), said Saturday that the Taliban central shura (council) had taken 'serious notice' of Asmatullah Muawiya's recent statement as he was not authorised to respond to the government's offer for talks.
"The Taliban decision making body met under Commander Hakimullah Mehsud and decided that Asmatullah Muawiya has no relation with the TTP," Shahid told news agency AFP.
"He is respectable for us, but he has no relation with the TTP. The decision about the new head of TTP's Punjab chapter will be taken in next meeting of our decision makers," he said.
Shahid claimed that the council has removed Asmatullah Muawiya from the leadership of the Punjabi Talibs, and that the TTP leadership will later issue their stance on the offer of peace talks.
Muawiya responded to The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that the Taliban shura did not have the capacity to remove him because the Punjabi Taliban is a separate group. He said his group has its own decision-making body to decide leadership and other matters.
Last week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... had offered dialogue to "those elements which unfortunately have taken the course of extremism".
On Thursday, Muawiya said Sharif had demonstrated political maturity by reiterating his offer to hold negotiations. Muawiya had said bully boyz in Pakistain should respond positively if the government is serious about resolving the conflict.
Muawiya, who heads the Taliban's faction of fighters from Punjab province, was previously known to be a principal ally of the TTP, an umbrella group of radical religious bully boyz fighting the Pak government.
The latest development shows signs of growing divisions between Taliban groups over the issue of holding negotiatians with Sharif's government, which swept to power in the May 11 general elections.
But TTP distanced itself from Muawiya's comments and said that the commander has no further role in the outfit.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
ION Maulana Asmatullah Muawiya, see also BHARAT RAKSHAK + ATLAS SHRUGGED [08/24/2013] > PAKISTAN: JIHAD COMMANDER URGES MUSLIM YOUTHS TO REPEAT BENGHAZI - "JUST AS THEY ASSAULTED + DESTROYED THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ATTACK THE EMBASSIES OF EUROPE [around the World].
* Also from ATLAS SHRUGGED > BURMESE JIHADI GROUP URGES MUSLIMS TO WAGE JIHAD AGZ [main] GOVT. + BUDDHIST INHABITANTS.
* SAME > [JihadWatch = Washington Free Beacon] CLOSE TO 80% [77%] OF ALL TERROR PLOTS ARE JIHAD.
[Al Ahram] The Administrative Court ruled on Saturday against the banning of pornography websites in Egypt.
A case was filed by lawyer Ibrahim El-Salamony against former President Mohamed Morsi's request to ban pornography websites in Egypt.
El-Salamony filed the case, arguing that marriage burdens and high unemployment in recent years have led many young men to turn to pornographic websites. Banning such sites, the lawyer said, would protect society.
Last November, former Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud submitted an official letter to the ministries of telecommunications, information and interior ordering that measures be adopted to ban pornographic websites in Egypt, based on a 2009 court order to this effect.
In May 2009, Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court declared a ban on pornographic websites. The move was based on a lawsuit filed by Islamist lawyer Nezar Ghourab.
Blocking pornographic websites would cost Egypt up to LE100 million ($16.5m) to implement and may place a significant strain on the country's internet services, according to telecom and IT experts.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[REUTERS] Hundreds of teachers in Philadelphia voiced their outrage on Thursday at proposed pay and benefit cuts as public school officials demanded $133 million in concessions from employees because of a financial crisis.
With the teachers' labor contract due to expire on Aug. 31 and school set to start about a week after that, the district and union leaders are still far apart on terms, according to George Jackson, front man for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
Teachers are being asked to take salary cuts of between 5 and 13 percent next year and to pay more for health coverage.
More than 200 teachers held a march and then rallied outside the school board offices on Thursday to protest the demands.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
Teachers are being asked to take salary cuts of between 5 and 13 percent next year and to pay more for health coverage.
Sound like an NEA and Champ voter remorse problem to me. Snicker, snicker, snicker
[Dawn] A second man was incarcerated Book 'im, Mahmoud! by the Mumbai police on Saturday on accusations of gang-raping a female photographer in the Indian financial hub.
The attack has renewed anger over the country's treatment of women.
Echoing a similar assault in New Delhi in December last year that sparked nationwide protests, five men raped the woman in her early twenties in central Mumbai when she was on a magazine assignment with a male colleague early Thursday evening.
Officers arrested the first suspect, in his early twenties, on Friday and a second arrest was made overnight, police front man Satyanarayan Choudhary told AFP.
The attack, which shocked a city seen as far safer for women than the country's capital, sparked outrage on social media sites, uproar in the Indian parliament and protests in Mumbai led by journalists.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[An Nahar] The Internal Security Forces denied on Saturday reports claiming that explosives were seized and that information were revealed following the deadly blasts in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... "Media outlets, particularly electronic news platforms, reported news regarding the investigation in Tripoli's blasts, among them that bombs were seized," the ISF said in a released statement.
"These reports are not accurate and investigation in this case remains confidential."
The ISF urged the media "to be careful" in reporting any news, explaining that it is because "they may cause confusion" amid the current situation in the country.
"We demand media outlets to be responsible and to refer to the Public Information section of the ISF for any information about its work."
Earlier on Saturday, al-Akhbar newspaper reported that Sheikh Ahmed al-Gharib was locked away You have the right to remain silent... in Tripoli over links to Friday's blasts.
According to the report, Gharib was detained after security agencies seized at his residence military maps for the city of Tripoli and explosives.
The newspaper said that he was moved to the ISF intelligence Bureau center in Beirut.
And on Saturday afternoon, MTV said the ISF Intelligence Bureau has enjugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a second person suspected of being involved in Tripoli's kabooms.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Al Ahram] The curfew imposed on 14 Egyptian governorates will be from 9pm (instead of 7pm) until 6am starting Saturday, the interim cabinet announced, stating that only on Fridays the curfew would start at 7pm.
This decision was announced after Friday's rallies, staged by loyalists of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, witnessed less violence and a lower turnout of protesters in comparison to previous mass demonstrations on past Fridays.
On 14 August, the interim Cabinet re-introduced a state of emergency, accompanied by a daily curfew starting at 7pm until 6am in 14 governorates for a month.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[An Nahar] The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau placed in durance vile Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! Sheikh Ahmed al-Gharib in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... over links to Friday's blasts that rocked the northern city and seized arms from his residence, the state-run National news agency reported Saturday.
According to the NNA, a surveillance camera spotted in the area near the kaboom that took place near al-Salam mosque.
The Intelligence Bureau raided al-Gharib's house in Minyeh neighborhood in Tripoli and seized machineguns and grenades.
On Friday, powerful boom-mobiles went kaboom! outside two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, killing at least 45 people and wounding hundreds.
The first bomb struck in the city center at the al-Salam mosque as worshipers were still inside.
The second kaboom struck just minutes later outside al-Taqwa mosque, about two kilometers away, near the port.
Earlier on Saturday, al-Akhbar newspaper reported that al-Gharib was detained over links to the blasts.
According to the report, Gharib was detained after security agencies seized at his residence military maps for the city of Tripoli and explosives.
The newspaper said that Gharib was moved to the ISF intelligence Bureau center in Beirut.
Gharib, according to the report, was tasked by head of the Islamic Unification Movement Sheikh Hashem Minqara to follow up with the Syrian regime the latest developments.
The movement denounced Gharib's arrest, expressing fear that the accusations were fabricated against him.
Sources told the newspaper that the seized arms in Gharib's house were an individual pistol in addition to two hand grenades.
On Wednesday, army chief General Jean Qahwaji had said his forces were fighting a "total war" against terrorism whose aim is "to provoke sectarian strife" in the country.
The army had been pursuing a "terrorist cell that prepares boom-mobiles and sends them to residential neighborhoods," he said, adding that this action aimed at provoking sectarian strife.
A Lebanese and two Paleostinians suspected of preparing a car kaboom were locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! days after the latest blast in Beirut, the General Security agency said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Al Ahram] Afghanistan is in no rush to sign a pact with the United States setting out how many US troops will stay after a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... mission ends next year and may even delay a decision until after a presidential election, President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... said.
Foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when the NATO-led mission winds up and the responsibility for fighting Taliban snuffies is handed over to Afghan forces.
But NATO plans to keep a slimmed-down training and advisory mission in Afghanistan after 2014 although the United States and other NATO allies have been slow to provide detailed numbers of troops for the force.
The United States has been putting pressure on Afghanistan to finalise a bilateral security agreement (BSA), which will mandate how many, and where, US soldiers will remain once the NATO mission ends.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Dawn] A curfew was imposed in Punjab's Bhakkar district for an indefinite period following Friday's clash between members of two religious sects there left five people dead and eight others injured.
The curfew came into effect at 10 am on Saturday and additional police forces and Rangers were deployed in sensitive areas of the district to address any untoward situation.
The clash between workers of the Ahle Sunnat Waljamaat (ASWJ) and members of the Shia community happened after a protest rally by the ASWJ against the police's failure to apprehend those behind the killing of a shopkeeper.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif also took notice of the clash on Friday and condemning the incident, Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Musselmeneen declared three days of mourning.
Pakistain has experienced worsening sectarian violence in recent years. The clash in Bhakkar came on the same day as two people were killed on the outskirts of Islamabad when gunnies on a cycle of violence opened fire outside a Sunni seminary.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Western Center for Journalism] Be advised this piece is totally unconfirmed. The embedded Shoebat article is quite interesting however. If true, it certainly explains the reluctance of the regime to pursue the perps.
#3
Regardless of the alleged gun running, blaming the Nakoula's anti-Mohammed video, and telling Libyan President el-Magarief to 'pound sand' sound like a good plan if blaming Ansar al-Sahria, Morsi and the Muslim Broederbond are the only Benghazi alternatives.
Once again we find ourselves backing the wrong team.
Mohsen Al-Azazi was likely trained in the US. However, I do not believe he's the reason for the reluctance-to-pursue.
Mahadesh, mahadesh yermi, Dr. Morsi ba`atna
That phrase was mentioned in several post-analysis reports including here at the Burg. Egypt has long had ties to Benghazi. It's not all that far a drive to the Egyptian border. There is a sizable Egyptian/ethnic Egyptian presence in Benghazi. The Egyptian military supported the Libyan rebels early on.
The situation is as follows: The attack on the consulate was planned and timed. The subsequent attack on the annex, albeit haphazard at first, became effective later on when trained forces arrived, particularly on the mortars.
What that implies is a large enough organization to effect and fund a project requiring detailed intelligence gathering, coordinating various assets (perhaps having them function at varying levels,) and do it with effective internal and external OPSEC.
It really doesn't excuse anyone on my previously posted list of suspects, except perhaps a "criminal organization". It does, however, narrow things down if true.
[An Nahar] Syria will allow U.N. inspectors to visit a site near Damascus where an alleged chemical weapons attack is said to have killed hundreds of people, Iran's foreign minister said Saturday.
Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted by IRNA news agency as saying he had spoken by telephone with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem.
Muallem told him "the Syrian government will cooperate with the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... mission now in Syria to create the conditions for a visit to zones where terrorist groups have carried out attacks with chemical weapons."
"We are currently in the process of discussions with the United Nations mission on preparing this visit," he was said to have added.
The Syrian opposition has accused the regime of carrying out chemical weapons attacks on Wednesday near Damascus that killed more than 1,300 people.
The regime has denied this and, in turn, blamed the rebels.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
IRAN has repor also warned the Bammer = US not to attack Syria.
As per STARS-N-STRIPES OPED ARTIC, Baby Assad allegedly conducted this latest Chem strike [1300 dead] because he knows POTUS Obama has yet to enforce his own "red lines" agz his regime or other, hence Assad has no fear of suffering any consequences from Obama save for PC rhetoric = strongly-worded letters???
[Al Ahram] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday criticised Washington for its response to his claims of Israel's involvement in the Egypt crisis. The Turkish leader on Tuesday accused the Jewish state of being behind the military-backed ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi last month.
Erdogan's accusation was furiously rejected by the White House describing it as "offensive and unsubstantiated and wrong."
"Why is the White House making a statement on this? The White House should not have spoken about this. If there's somebody to speak on this, it should have been Israel," Erdogan said in televised remarks Saturday.
He also said that the White House's statement "upset" him, calling Washington's approach to its 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... ally "unbecoming."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
"Why is the White House making a statement on this? The White House should not have spoken about this. If there's somebody to speak on this, it should have been Israel," Erdogan said in televised remarks Saturday.
#3
Do you ever get the idea that this whole mess is scripted Kabuki theater?
They get on the phone, or Skype, and agree on who's going to say what?
After all, the goal of Bambi, Erdogan, Putin, et al., is the destruction of the U.S. They'll do anything to achieve their goal.
And the idiot "media" is glad to help them. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/25/2013 15:06
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#4
egypt's current govt and Israel have also publically said, in effect, that Erdogan is nuts, the saudis and a few others have probably told their embassy to convey that same message privately
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/25/2013 19:15
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[Al Ahram] Syria's government said Saturday that rebel fighters used chemical weapons in a northeastern district of the capital, countering Death Eater claims that the regime was behind the alleged attacks.
"An army unit is surrounding a sector of Jobar where snuffies used chemical weapons," said the state broadcaster, adding that soldiers who tried to enter the neighbourhood had "suffocated."
But French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Saturday that all indications show that Syria's government was behind the "chemical massacre" near Damascus that the opposition claims killed hundreds.
"All the information at our disposal converges to indicate that there was a chemical massacre near Damascus and that the Bashar regime is responsible," Fabius said on a visit to Ramallah in the West Bank.
Opponents of Bashir al-Assad said the president's forces killed 1,300 people when they unleased chemical weapons east and southwest of Damascus in the attacks Wednesday.
UN Undersecretary General Angela Kane arrived in the Syrian capital Saturday for talks aimed at establishing the terms of an enquiry into the alleged attacks, AFP reported.
"We ask that the UN team that is there can be deployed very quickly and make the necessary inspections," Fabius said.
"The information we have shows that this chemical massacre is of such gravity that it obviously cannot pass without a strong reaction," he added.
The Syrian government has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! accusations it carried out the attacks, but so far it has not said whether it will let UN inspectors visit the site.
Fabius arrived early Saturday on a visit to Israel and the occupied Paleostinian territories aimed at encouraging recently resumed peace talks, his office said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[OMANOBSERVER] Around 3,600 patients displaying "neurotoxic symptoms" flooded into three Syrian hospitals on the day of alleged chemical weapons attacks, and 355 of them died, Doctors without Borders (MSF) said. The victims all arrived within less than three hours of each other, and MSF director of operations Bart Janssens said the pattern of events and the reported symptoms "strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent". "Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress," he said. Syrian opposition groups have accused President Bashar al Assad's forces of launching massive chemical attacks near Damascus on August 21 and killing as many as 1,300 people.
The Syrian government has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! those allegations, but has yet to accede to demands that UN inspectors already in the country be allowed to visit the sites of the alleged attacks. There has been no independent verification of the number of dead, and the medical humanitarian organization is the first independent source to report such a high toll from the alleged attacks. MSF provides drugs, medical equipment and technical support to the three hospitals near Damascus. "MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack," said Janssens. "However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events -- characterised by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers -- strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent."
MSF said patients had been treated using atropine, a drug it had supplied and which is used to treat neurotoxic symptoms. It has sent another 7,000 vials of the drug to facilities in the area and said it is making treatment of neurotoxic symptoms part of all its Syria programmes. General director Christopher Stokes called for independent Sherlocks to be given immediate access. "This latest attack and subsequent massive medical need come on top of an already catastrophic humanitarian situation, characterised by extreme violence, displacement, and deliberate destruction of medical facilities," he said. "In the case of such extreme violations of humanitarian law, humanitarian assistance cannot respond effectively and becomes meaningless itself."
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08/25/2013
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#1
OK, MSF is a vaguely reputable organization so we have some confirmation the event actually occurred and wasn't just a massive fauxtography project. That leaves us with Who Dunnit? Maybe I'm cynical, but seems to me the rebels have the most to gain here.
#2
I'll have to confer with TW, but I believe we can safely rule out the saucisson sec.
Champ could have been an instant hero, had he shipped the rebels a few thousand atropine injectors. Of course one must then assume he would have actually known what a "neurotoxin" and atropine actually are.
#3
I'm still skeptical. Looks like a 10% mortality rate. Mil grade VX/GB dispersed to an unprotected population - much higher death rate IMNSHO. Looks to be a G series non-persistent agent. Even with NAAKs, unless you get to them quickly, it does not end well.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
08/25/2013 7:57
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#4
We start with "1300 dead of nerve gas". Go to "3,600 showed 'neurotoxic symptoms'". End with "told you to boil the water!"?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2013 9:51
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...I'm with Bangkok Billy and Grom - the numbers just don't add up for what they should be for an honest-to-God chemical attack against unprotected people. Of course, that leaves us with a bunch of other Clancy-grade horrors:
A) Does this mean that whoever fired the damn things had no idea what they were doing?
B) Is it possible that whoever made the stuff didn't know what they were doing?
C) Could the chemicals used have been diluted to spread out a limited supply?
D) Were the chemicals used bought by whoever used them from a Completely And Utterly Reliable Third Party Who Is Known For Their Quality And Workmanship?
I've got a whole bunch more, but I don't want to use up too much bandwidth.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/25/2013 10:23
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#8
Still believe that Jabhat al-Nusra (or some other fun-luvin' Al-Q or worse group) is responsible for this as a way to put international heat on the regime.
Based on Srs. Billy & Kozlowski's comments, kind of more inclined in that direction.
Especially with the Ruskis involved and controlling the WMD capability of Assad's forces. Had they been involved as they were with Sadaam, it would have worked a tad better.
Next up, blame the Juice.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/25/2013 11:28
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The agreement to allow U.N. access came Sunday during a meeting in Damascus between the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, and the U.N.s top disarmament official, Angela Kane, the government said.
In a statement, the Syrian foreign minister said his government was ready to cooperate with the U.N. to expose the false allegations of the terrorist groups accusing the Syrian forces of using chemical weapons. Syrian authorities routinely refer to armed rebels as terrorists.
Syrian motives aside, I can't see the Russians getting too excited about permitting UN inspections, had the Syrian Army or Air Force been involved.
#10
Still believe that Jabhat al-Nusra (or some other fun-luvin' Al-Q or worse group) is responsible for this as a way to put international heat on the regime
There's a strong case to be made for that.
Al Qaeda has long been developing a chemical warfare program.
There are a significant number of Syrian rebels, besides al-Nusra, allied with AlQ.
Arab groups have long situated weapons and weapons facilities among the population.
Besides their use as shields, Arab groups have also used the population as props, like in Gaza and Egypt.
The question remains whether the release was a result from battle damage, an industrial accident, or a deliberate release.
#15
My guess is that the Syrian government shelled the rebels, whose hoard of chemical weapons was placed among the civilian population either to shield them from attack or in hopes that an artillery attack would result in significant civilian casualties.
#21
Assad possible reason to use Chemical Weapons
It is effectively a giant "fuck you" to the international community. Assad is confident, maybe overconfident. He recaptured quasyar and is doing well in Homs. At this point it is doubtful that the rebels can prevail, even with US support. His allies are firmly standing by him, and provide a steady stream of material and "moral support" in the form of public statements of support (if the number of Russia today posts on worldnews is any indication, it's working). The US's international reputation is at a low right now, with the spying scandal and events in turkey and Egypt. Assad, abd by extension Russia china and Iran, know that a Syrian intervention is extremely unpopular in the us, and so the cw attack is a way to "call the US's bluff", so to speak, whike getting a military advantage. If Obama goes back on his word here, the US's reputation abroad will be further damaged, and American allies and potential allies may start to doubt America's commitment to their protection.
Best not try using an antagonizing name or your remark, no matter how brilliant you think it is will be scrubbed.
Posted by: Lame Name ||
08/25/2013 20:29
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#22
...start? Why do you think the Japanese are building aircraft carriers escort vessels? They know.
[Dawn] Two persons were bumped off and a teenager was injured when gunnies attacked a seminary in the Khana locality of the capital city on Friday night.
Police said two motorcyclists raided Jamia Madinatul Uloom located along the Expressway and opened fire. As a result, three persons suffered injuries.
The injured were taken to hospital where two of them - Qari Arif, 22, and Darvesh, 30, - were pronounced dead.
The third injured, Shakirullah, 14, was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition.
According to the police, the victims were sitting in front of the seminary when they came under attack.
Sources in the police said the seminary had been receiving threats for the last a couple of days and the madressah administration had sought police protection.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... the police cover was not provided.
The sources expressed ignorance about the individuals or group behind the threats.
A senior officer, however, said there was a possibility that a bad turban outfit might be behind the attack. It seems to be an act of terrorism, he added.
After the attack on the seminary, the capital police took over half an hour to locate the scene of the crime and then raised the issue of jurisdiction with its Rawalpindi counterpart.
Later, the Shahzad Town police accepted that the incident had occurred in its limits.
Due to the jurisdiction issue, the police failed to alert its patrolling and picket staff to intercept the gunnies who escaped after committing the crime.
Late in the night, students from other seminaries in the twin cities gathered at Jamia Madinatul Uloom and staged a protest demonstration against the attack.
They blockade both the lanes of the Expressway and pelted vehicles with stones.
Policemen, including their senior officers, left the scene instead of asking the students to remain peaceful.
As a result, the students moved towards the Expressway. The participants of the protest were also moving towards Faizabad when this report was filed at about 11pm
However, you can observe a lot just by watching... police force, including anti-riot units and commandos along with armed personnel carriers, were called to the spot.
In another incident, a minor boy was rubbed out and his father injured at F-8/2.
Police said Mir Waiz, 30, was intercepted by gunnies near his house when he was taking his two-and-a-half-year-old son to a market.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Dawn] Two workers of the Pakistain Peoples Party were rubbed out in what police described as an act of assassination in an Orangi Town locality on Friday evening, police said.
They said that Mohammad Naseem, 48, and Farman aka Khurram were sitting at Essa Hotel in Orangi Town's Sector-9-E when two armed motorcyclists targeted them and rode away.
The maimed were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced them dead.
SSP-West Asif Ejaz Sheikh said that the victims were activists of the PPP and it appeared to be a case of assassination.
Orangi Town SHO Ghulam Nabi Afridi said that victim Naseem was the president of the UC-11 of the PPP's organizational structure.
He said both the victims had actively worked in the Thursday by-election on a provincial assembly seat (PS-95) in the area.
Three found rubbed out in Mochko
Bodies of three young men, stuffed in gunny bags, were found in the Mochko area on Friday morning, police said.
They said that the victims were shot multiple times and the bodies bore torture marks.
The police said that the bodies were found along the Northern Bypass near the Naval Colony Bridge.
They were identified as Abdul Razzak, 35, Aslam Murad and Irfan Ali.
Mochko SHO Liaquat Ali said that the victims were kidnapped, tortured and rubbed out before their bodies were dumped in the area.
He said Mr Razzak was an employee of the Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Electric Supply Company. All the three victims were resident of Saeedabad.
Mr Razzak's family told the police that they would lodge an FIR after his burial.
SSP-West Asif Ejaz Sheikh told Dawn that the motive for the triple murder could not be ascertained immediately.
He said one of the victims was badly tortured and all of them were shot three times each.
School principal**** killed in Orangi
The principal of a private school was bumped off in Orangi Town on Friday.
Police said that Abdul Mateen, 62, was walking to his school in Aligarh Colony from his Frontier Colony house when two armed motorcyclists fired at him and escaped.
The maimed was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He's dead, Jim! The area SHO claimed that the murder could be the outcome of some personal enmity.
Killing in PIB Colony
A suspected drug peddler was rubbed out in PIB Colony on Friday.
Police said Ghulam Sabir alias Pappu Pathan, 28, was targeted outside his residence in Liaquat Basti. He sustained multiple bullet wounds and died before any medical aid could be provided to him.
The police claimed that the victim was a drug peddler and had been tossed in the calaboose Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! many times in the recent past.
Tortured to death
The body of a unidentified young man was found in the Napier area.
Police said that the man, who was in his early-20s, was found murdered on Siddiq Wahab Road.
The body bore torture marks. It was shifted to the Edhi morgue for identification.
Youth maimed in 'sectarian' attack dies
A young man who had been maimed critically in an armed attack in North Nazimabad recently died on Friday, police and family sources said.
They said that Abbas Arif, 25, was targeted by armed riders near the Asghar Ali Shah Stadium when he was travelling in a car on Tuesday. He sustained a single bullet to the head and was admitted to a private hospital where he died on Friday.
They added that he was studying business administration and also worked in a private firm.
SSP-Central Amir Farooqi told Dawn that initially the police attributed the attack to extortion as a chit demanding protection money was found in his pocket.
However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... he said it emerged later that the owner of the factory had got the extortion chit around three months ago.
The SSP said that now Sherlocks were focusing whether the attack was motivated by sectarian reasons.
He said the victim lived in an area where sectarian snuffies had some influence.
He said that a passer-by woman had witnessed the incident and the police were trying to locate her.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[Dawn] Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... will visit Pakistain on Monday seeking the release of key Taliban prisoners as he tries to restart peace talks with the forces of Evil after they collapsed acrimoniously.
Pakistain is seen as key to ending the 12-year conflict in Afghanistan before presidential elections in April and the withdrawal of most of the 87,000 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... -led combat troops by the end of next year.
Ties between to the two neighbours appeared to improve at a summit hosted by Britannia in February, but have since frayed badly in a series of public rows that rekindled long-held mutual suspicion.
Omar Daudzai, the Afghan ambassador to Pakistain, said he was confident Karzai's visit would see progress on Afghanistan's calls for Pakistain to release Taliban prisoners and to back the peace talks being led by the Kabul government.
Mohammad Ismail Qasemyar, a member of the High Peace Council (HPC), the official Afghan government negotiators, said they would seek the release of the most senior Taliban figure tossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud! in Pakistain, former deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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[MUSIC.YAHOO] The estate of pop music legend Michael Jackson owes $702 million in federal taxes and penalties, the Internal Revenue Service charged in U.S. Tax Court, accusing the estate of undervaluing some of the star's assets by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The dollar amounts in dispute had not been previously disclosed in the court challenge that the Jackson estate filed in July to a bill from the IRS, the U.S. tax-collecting agency.
At issue is the wide difference between what the estate said Jackson's legacy was worth versus what the IRS determined was its taxable value.
An IRS front man and lawyers for the estate declined to comment.
Jackson died on June 25, 2009, the date of the estate tax return. His estate's beneficiaries are Jackson's mother, Katherine, his three children and charities.
The estate's 2009 tax filing said the total Jackson estate had a $7 million taxable value. In May, the IRS issued the estate a tax deficiency notice for $505.1 million in taxes and $196.9 million in penalties, according to Tax Court documents dated Tuesday.
Jackson's image and likeness were valued by the IRS at $434 million. The estate said its taxable value was $2,105.
The largest taxable item was the estate's stake in some of Jackson's recording assets, listed as MJ/ATV Publishing Trust interest in New Horizon Trust II, which was valued at $469 million by IRS. It was not valued in the 2009 estate filing.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#1
Semi-obvious lesson here - the rich always get audited. Contrary to Harry Reid, I not only guarantee Romney paid taxes but that he was on the end of numerous IRS, Mass. DOR (and other) audits.
[Al Ahram] The corpse count resulting from festivities in Egypt's Nile Delta city of Tanta on Friday, between supporters and opponents of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, has risen to two as another died on Saturday from severe injuries, reported the Middle East News Agency (MENA).
The first casualty was reported on Friday.
General Hatem Othman, security director of Gharbiya governorate, where Tanta is located, said that the identity of one of those killed is still unknown. The other has been confirmed as Mohamed Abdullah , who is believed to have been a Morsi loyalist.
At least 25 were maimed when violence broke out in the city as pro-Morsi demonstrators erupted into the streets against what they describe as a 'coup' against Egypt's first democratically-elected president.
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08/25/2013
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[Al Ahram] The trial of 33 accused of involvement in sectarian violence that took place in Qalioubiya's Khosous last April was adjourned on Saturday until 21 September. The case was postponed due to security forces' inability to transport the accused from prison to court within Egypt's current period of unrest, following the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi.
The 33 on trial are facing accusations of involvement in sectarian festivities which left 6 dead and 22 injured.
The violence broke out last April after a group of children allegedly painted a swastika on the wall of a prominent Islamic religious institute.
Some Al-Khosous residents claimed the children were Christian, yet news sources maintain they were Mohammedan.
All witnesses agree, however, that the swastika -- a popular symbol to scribble on walls -- was likely mistaken for a Christian cross.
In the ensuing violence, which raged for hours, guns were fired and shops and buildings set ablaze, leading to the death of four Christians and one Mohammedan.
The total corpse count increased to six after another Mohammedan died in hospital days later.
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08/25/2013
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[Al Ahram] Congolese soldiers fought rebels in the country's volatile east for hours Saturday, officials said, while a rocket landed inside the town of Goma and killed three people as border tensions escalated between Rwanda and Congo.
Scores of angry residents erupted into the streets of Goma in protest following several days of violence that has left at least seven dead and dozens maimed in this city of nearly a million near the Congo-Rwanda border.
Congo immediately blamed the rocket attack on neighbouring Rwanda, which has long been accused of supporting the eastern Congolese rebel movement known as M23.
"We wonder, for how long will the international community continue to tolerate these offenses?" Lambert Mende, a front man for the Congolese government, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
Rwanda, which has vigorously denied allegations by the United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... and others that it has provided support to the M23 rebels fighting the Congolese government, also accused Congolese forces of attacking Rwanda. The Rwandan army said mortar fire landed in several villages along the border Friday.
Brigadier Joseph Nzabamwita, a front man for Rwanda's military, said "acts of provocation that endanger the lives of Rwandan citizens will not remain unanswered indefinitely."
The M23 rebel group briefly took Goma last November and subsequent peace talks in neighbouring Uganda have repeatedly stalled. M23's leaders previously headed other rebel groups in the region that were backed by Rwanda. The rebel group is made up of hundreds of Congolese soldiers mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group who deserted the national army last year after accusing the government of failing to honour the terms of a deal signed in March 2009.
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08/25/2013
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The Pakistani Taleban on Saturday announced they have removed a key commander for welcoming a call for dialogue by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over ending bloodshed that has left thousands dead. Ismatullah Muaweea, the head of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistans (TTP) Punjab province chapter, on Thursday hailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs offer, saying that the prime minister had shown maturity.
Sharif made the offer to extremists on Monday in his first televised address to the nation since taking office after winning elections in May a sweeping, hour-long speech that focused on Pakistans myriad problems.
Wisdom demands that we follow a path where we minimise the loss of innocent lives, said Sharif.
But TTP distanced itself from Muaweeas comments and said that the commander has no more role in the outfit.
The Taleban decision making body met under Commander Hakimullah Mehsud and decided that Ismatullah Muaweea has no relation with the TTP, Shahidullah Shahid, Taleban spokesman, told AFP.
He is respectable for us, but he has no relation with the TTP. The decision about the new head of TTPs Punjab chapter will be taken in next meeting of our decision makers, he said.
Muaweeas response to Sharifs speech was surprising for many because the Taleban had earlier withdrawn their own peace talks offer after one of their main commanders was killed in a US drone strike in the northwest Pakistan. In his statement, distributed in Wana, the main town in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan, Muaweea praised the governments step.
The prime minister has shown maturity with his talks offer and he has also strengthened the desire for peace by staying executions, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2013
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#1
The decision about the new head of TTP's Punjab chapter will be taken in next meeting of our decision makers," he said.
[DAILYCALLER] An Environmental Protection Agency employee knowingly stole more than $886,000 from the agency, according to a criminal filing from the Department of Justice.
The alleged fraud occurred in the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation under the nose of former administrator Gina McCarthy, who now heads up the entire agency.
"There appears to be corruption to the umpteenth degree," said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter. "I think it's appalling that Administrator McCarthy and former acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe could claim that sequester is depriving the agency of important resources when in fact their own employees are stealing from the government."
EPA employee John Beale, who worked in the air office, stole $886,186 from the agency between 2000 and 2013. According to the criminal filing, Beale had stolen agency funds through salary, benefits, and certain bonuses that Beale "had not earned by providing employment services to the EPA."
"It's clear that further investigations are necessary, and at the appropriate time we'll need answers -- a whole lot of answers," Vitter added.
Vitter's criticism of the EPA saying the sequester would hamper agency functions comes just after administrator McCarthy announced that there would be fewer furlough days for employees, cancelling one planned for Aug. 30.
"The reason we're able to eliminate this mandatory furlough day is because of the savings achieved through a number of tough budget choices we have made and are continuing to make as we do our work," McCarthy said a video announcement.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#5
Big deal. The EPA stole several billion dollars from the US economy through stupid and unneeded regulations.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/25/2013 11:53
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#6
Could be a bit more to this than meets the eye. The article says Mr. Beale worked for the "Office of Air and Radiation". A bit of Google work indicates someone by that name worked in the 'Office of Policy and Review' (OPAR). In any event, it would appear his duties were at a level well above clerical assistant.
#8
I'm surprised the Department of InJustice is prosecuting - are they jealous? Did someone higher up on the food chain get pissed that his theft leaves less for her to steal?
(Not that we're naming any names or anything....)
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/25/2013 14:59
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#9
had stolen agency funds through salary,
Sounds like a "LOOK SQUIRREL" moment.
What are they hiding?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/25/2013 15:35
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#10
per the article, he has been stealing for 13 years
and, even more interestingly, he did it without messing with contracts and grants
frankly, I don't understand how this is possible without assistance from other employees
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/25/2013 17:37
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#11
According to the criminal filing, Beale had stolen agency funds through salary, benefits, and certain bonuses that Beale "had not earned by providing employment services to the EPA."
I agree with Redneck Jim and lord garth. This is a very queer accusation, since the man couldn't have accomplished that without the connivance of at least the two immediate managers above him plus someone in human resources.
[Al Ahram] Egyptian authorities on Saturday referred 26 Moslem Brüderbund leaders to State Security Emergency Prosecution in the Delta governorate of Daqahliya.
The detainees are charged with incitement to murder and over their alleged involvement in the besieging of the governorate headquarters and security directorate building during Friday rallies supporting deposed president Mohamed Morsi. Deadly festivities erupted between supporters and opponents of deposed president Mohamed Morsi in the city of Tanta, leaving two dead and at least 25 injured.
On Saturday afternoon, prosecutors visited the site of the festivities to examine the scene and ordered forensics to review the medical reports of the two killed in Friday's violence.
A Tanta security official announced on Friday that the identity of one of those killed is still unknown. The other has been confirmed as Mohamed Abdullah, who is believed to have been a Morsi loyalist.
The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy, an Islamist coalition led by the Moslem Brüderbund against Morsi's ouster, announced it would stage demonstrations dubbed the 'Friday of Martyrs' nationwide to protest the deadly crackdown on their sit-ins last week by security forces.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... Egypt witnessed a significant low pro-Morsi protester turnout in comparison to recent previous Fridays.
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08/25/2013
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[Spiegel] Turkey's prime minister has quashed opposition in the streets, but now he faces a more menacing foe: challengers within his own party and from the nebulous Gülen movement. It could spell the end of political Islam in Turkey as we know it.
The many hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who erupted into the streets in Istanbul did not succeed in toppling their country's prime minister or in continuing to occupy Gezi Park on the city's Taksim Square. The protests against the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, sparked in late May by plans to level Gezi Park, have subsided. Yet the uprising's effects may last well beyond this summer.
Members and supporters of Erdogan's conservative-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) have long refrained from expressing any criticism. Now, though, AKP followers are turning against the prime minister, with Erdogan's competitors within the party using the post-Gezi unrest as an opportunity to distance themselves from him.
In the English-language edition of the pro-government daily newspaper Zaman, columnist Yavuz Baydar recently compared Turkey under Erdogan to the United States during the McCarthy era. The conservative-Islamist Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) likewise warns that these current developments in Turkey overshadow any attempts at further democratization.
Most striking about this criticism are its sources -- both Zaman and the GYV belong to the movement surrounding Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, who is believed to have enormous influence within the government.
Gülen himself has been living in self-imposed exile in the US for years, having left Turkey after public prosecutors accused the elderly imam of working to foment an Islamist revolution. His followers have established schools in 140 countries, as well as a bank, media outlets and hospitals (see graphic).
Gülen's followers present themselves outwardly as modern. Their numbers are growing in Turkey, where poorer families praise Gülen's commitment to education, and businesspeople appreciate his business-friendly approach. But individuals who have left the fold have told SPIEGEL of brainwashing and sect-like structures within the movement.
In US State Department diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks, American diplomats described Gülen's followers in 2004 as "Turkey's most powerful Islamist grouping, feared by the core institutions of the Turkish State" saying the network "controls major business, trade, and publishing activities, has deeply penetrated the political scene -- including AKP at high levels."
The AKP as a Gathering Place for a Wide Variety of Groups
The AKP serves as a gathering place for a variety of groups. This includes, in addition to a number of splinter groups, both Erdogan's supporters and followers of the Gülen movement. Following the AKP's 2002 electoral victory, the two camps entered into a strategic partnership: Gülen would secure votes for the AKP, and Erdogan would protect Gülen's followers.
In recent months, though, that alliance has begun to crumble. Erdogan has removed from their posts important justice-system officials and party functionaries who he suspects of having close ties to Gülen. Indeed, it seems the movement has grown too influential for Erdogan's liking. Now, in the wake of the Gezi Park uprising, the power struggle is breaking out into the open.
Erdogan's camp, meanwhile, is taking systematic aim at businesses close to Gülen. Zaman describes it as a "systematic smear campaign," writing in a statement, "Now, it is sad to observe harsh and hostile criticism raised by groups we consider friends." Still, the GYV published a statement last week in which it attempted to defuse the recriminations against Erdogan.
This conflict within the party is more dangerous for Erdogan than the demonstrations on the street ever were. A split within the AKP could mean the end of political Islam in Turkey. In this case, ideological differences play only a secondary role. Instead, Gülen's supporters seem more interested in posts and privileges. Gülen's network uses "trendy concepts, such as dialogue and tolerance, but the organization follows an extremely strict and hierarchical order," says Mustafa Sen, a sociologist at the prestigious Middle East Technical University, in Ankara.
Ahmet Sik, one of Turkey's most renowned journalists, planned to publish a book in the spring of 2011 on the dangerous power held by the Gülen movement. Shortly before the book's release, security forces stormed his publishing company and confiscated manuscripts of the book, "The Imam's Army." The author now stands accused of being a member of a terrorist organization attempting to overthrow Erdogan's government.
A New AKP Government -- without Erdogan
"It's true the Gülen movement has a commitment to education," Sik says. "But why does this network want to control the country, why does it dominate the justice system, the armed forces and the intelligence service? Why won't this powerful organization disclose its finances?" Sik says he is unconvinced of the network's honesty.
"The truth is that it's about obtaining power, not through elections, but by gradually infiltrating institutions," he says. He suspects that the movement's goal is to see a new AKP government -- but one without Erdogan. The new leader in such a government could be current President Abdullah Gül, considered to be both a member of the Gülen wing of the AKP and Erdogan's main rival within the party.
"The movement will stop at nothing in its struggle to bcome the hegemonic power," says Hakan Yavuz, a political scientist at the University of Utah. "It terrorizes people."
Gareth Jenkins, a specialist on Turkey at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, feels certain that the Ergenekon investigations, which resulted last week in draconian sentencing, were largely overseen by Gülen supporters within the law enforcement and judicial systems.
Accordingly, few observers believe that leading politicians close to Gülen could truly offer a democratic alternative to Erdogan. "They want to control the government, and they don't stand for opposition," says Sik, the journalist.
Following massive international protest, Sik has been released from prison for the time being, but the trial against him is ongoing and he expects to be convicted. "The justice system has shown itself severe in its handling of all critics, demonstrators and supposed conspirators," he says. "Why should it spare me?"
[Al Ahram] Violent festivities broke out between unidentified Death Eaters and army forces in Sheikh Zuwayed, North Sinai, in the early hours of Saturday.
The festivities erupted when an unidentified car fired at a security checkpoint, reported the state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA).
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy was furiously chewing her cud and thinking... in Sheikh Zuwayed itself, Death Eaters reportedly shot at army forces from inside a school building, prompting the army to surround the school.
Military armoured vehicles arrived in the area, which contains residential buildings. Houses were caught in the melee, with shots breaking a number of windows.
No official reports have given on causalities, if any.
In parallel, the army continued destroying smuggling tunnels on the Sinai/Gazoo borders, including a main underground tunnel, according to Al-Ahram Arabic website.
Egypt's Armed Forces front man Colonel Ahmed Ali said Friday that security forces killed 78 suspected hard boys, including 32 foreigners, in recent operations in Sinai. He added that 203 persons were placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
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[OMANOBSERVER] Top military officials from the United States, Britannia and several countries are to meet in Amman this week to discuss the situation in Syria, the Jordanian state news agency reports. They are to discuss the fallout of alleged chemical weapons use near the Syrian capital, Damascus, Jordanian sources said. US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey is to attend the meeting, which is also set to include the participation of top military brass from La Belle France, Turkey, Russia, Italia, Canada and Turkey. US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel strongly suggested the Pentagon was moving forces into place, even as President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... voiced caution. Obama has said Washington must be wary of costly and difficult foreign interventions, as calls mount for action against the Syria over alleged chemical warfare.
US commanders have nevertheless prepared a range of "options" for Obama if he chooses to proceed with military strikes against Damascus, Hagel told news hounds. "The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for all contingencies," Hagel said. "And that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets to be able to carry out different options -- whatever the president might choose."
But Hagel declined to provide any details on the deployment of US ships, aircraft or troops, as the B.O. regime reportedly contemplated cruise missile strikes in Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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#3
* WORLD NEWS > [Irish Times] US REPOSITIONS NAVAL FORCE, BUT STILL NO DECISION ON SYRIA STRIKE.
Bammer response "Full of Sound + Fury, signifying nothing"???
* GLOBAL TIMES > OPINION: NO CURRENT SYRIA OPTION LOOKS POSITIVE FOR OBAMA.
IMO Artic better read, CHINA + PLA ARE WATCHING THE BAMMER'S ACTIONS, OR LACK OF SAME???
VERSUS
* DEFENCE/PK.FORUMS > VIDEO: OBAMA HAS "NO CHOICE" ON US INTERVENTION IN SYRIA - TELEGRAPH.
He has to, or else can kiss US Superpower = International credibility + his POTUS LEGACY goodbye???
* SAME, HUFFPO > [Foreign Policy] TIME TO PIVOT US FOREIGN POLICY TO IRAN | SARWAR KASHMERI.
Read, PEACE, RAPPROCHEMENT WID IRAN = NO SYRIA STRIKE OR ANY MILSTRIKE ON MUSLIM COUNTRIES BY THE US.
IOW, Baby Assad must win.
RELATED DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Iran rival] SAUDI ARABIA WILL FAIL TO ROLL BACK "ARAB SPRING" IN EGYPT + ELSEWHERE.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IRAN GIVES OWN "RED LINE" TO US OVER SYRIA STRIKE.
Third anti-US "red line" imposed on the US by Iran since June.
* SAME > NYT SUPPORTS BEST US STRATEGY IS TO IGNITE [region-wide]SHIA-SUNNI WAR.
Only other "acceptable" alternatives for the US is ...
> PROLONGED STALEMATE IN SYRIA PROPER = where Assad + Rebels + Foreign Militant Groups in Syria fight + destroy each other.
> FULL-SCALE US OR US-LED GROUND INVASION, to remove Assad Regime once + for all.
[Al Ahram] The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) -- the Islamist umbrella group for supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi -- has announced another week of protests, dubbed "The people lead their revolution," saying the recent arrests of its leaders would not weaken the group, asserting it would continue to press its demands.
Despite the relatively low turnout in recent demonstrations, the NASL, led by the Moslem Brüderbund, called on supporters to take to the streets afresh.
More than a dozen Brotherhood and Islamist leading figures were jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! recently on various charges, including inciting violence. Hundreds of Brotherhood members and supporters were arrested nationwide.
The Moslem Brüderbund has called on people to "take to the streets against the coup" peacefully, and to "innovate peaceful measures" to pressure the country's interim leadership.
It added in a statement Friday that its "revolution against the coup should not subside."
It also condemned the media, saying it is biased against the group, portraying a false image about their demonstrations by claiming that they instigate violence on the street.
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#1
one of the interesting things here is that AlNour, the salafist Islamic party, while running hot and cold in terms of cooperation with the military, has consistently refused to support the Mohammedan broderbund despite what must have been many entreaties
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/25/2013 0:05
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#2
Al Nour has read the hieroglyphics on the wall...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2013 11:09
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#3
Al Nour has its own agenda. The Moslem Brüderbund doesn't figure positively into it.
[Al Ahram] Egyptian prosecution charged on Saturday tossed in the calaboose You have the right to remain silent... Islamist preacher and Moslem Brüderbund loyalist Safwat Hegazy with attempted murder and inciting violence at two Cairo sit-ins.
Hegazy faces several charges, including attempted murder and incitement of violence against opponents of deposed president Mohamed Morsi amid pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo's Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square and Giza's Al-Nahda Square.
He was locked away Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! in the vicinity of Siwa town, in Egypt's western desert, near the borders with Libya, on Wednesday.
On Saturday, prosecutors also released fresh orders to detain Hegazy for 15 days pending investigations.
Sources from the prosecution told Ahram Online that prosecutors have questioned Hegazy for inciting violence for comments he made last December.
His statements were widely interpreted as a call on Morsi supporters to confront demonstrating opponents in December 2012 in front of the presidential palace in Cairo. At least ten were killed on 5 December 2012 amid deadly festivities between pro and anti-Morsi groups.
Hegazy was also questioned for inciting Morsi supporters to march on the Elite Republican Guards headquarters in Cairo -- where the army allegedly detained Morsi -- on 8 July. Over 50 Brotherhood supporters were killed and dozens injured when the armed forces stormed the protest.
Hegazy has been one of the prominent supporters of Morsi and the Moslem Brüderbund. He was reportedly present at the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in, where he made highly controversial statements about the Brotherhood's opponents.
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08/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Sporadic gunfire was heard on Saturday in the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... as gunnies erected checkpoints and began inspecting the ids of passersby, a day after two deadly blasts that targeted the city.
The calm in the city was violated by intermittent gunfire, in particular, in Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood and the area surrounding it, the state-run National news agency reported.
On Friday, powerful boom-mobiles went kaboom! outside two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, killing at least 45 people and wounding hundreds.
The first bomb struck in the city center at the al-Salam mosque as worshipers were still inside.
The second kaboom struck just minutes later outside al-Taqwa mosque, about two kilometers away, near the port.
Voice of Leb radio (93.3) reported that fire erupted in a car on Friday over night in the city near al-Mallouleh bridge after unknown assailants shot up it.
Several media outlets also reported that gunnies established checkpoints across the city and began inspecting ids of passersby and vehicles.
Al-Jadeed channel reported that the Lebanese army cordoned off Abou Ali roundabout in Tripoli after information obtained on a suspicious car.
Meanwhile, ...back at the revival hall, the SWAT team had finally arrived... the residents of the neighborhoods surrounding al-Salam and al-Taqwa mosques and civil defense teams began removing the mess caused by the blasts amid heavy army and security forces deployment.
Some residents used shovels and brooms to clean up shards of glass and shrapnel that littered the pavement in front of nearby shops.
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08/25/2013
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#1
gunnies erected checkpoints and began inspecting the ids of passersby
big believers in Freud, are they?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2013 9:53
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[Dawn] The army has rehabilitated 60 more former Death Eaters after they renounced militancy and underwent a three months training in different trades at the 'Mishal centre for de-radicalisation' in Phetaam area of Swat.
The 17 Division of Pakistain Army organised a ceremony here on Friday to mark the rehabilitation of the bully boys, where General Officer Commanding of Malakand division Major General Sanaullah Niazi, civil and military officials and local elders were in attendance.
Commissioner of Malakand division Mohammad Akbar Khan was the chief guest on the occasion.
The former Death Eaters mostly belonged to Swat, Dir, Swabi, Malakand and Nowshera.
Usman Ali, 36, a resident of Charbagh, told Dawn that he had renounced militancy for good and received three months training in tailoring to earn his livelihood.
Said Mohammad, 20, a resident of Rahimabad near Mingora city, said he had learned tailoring and felt the change in his life.
"I will serve my country as a good citizen" he said.
Another resident of Rahimabad, Imran, 21, said he had learned how make shawls.
Shafiullah, 31, a former bully boy belonging to Deehrai area of Kabal tehsil, said he would begin a new life.
"Apart from being trained in welding profession, I learnt the ways and means to spend life as a good citizen," he said.
Ali Mohammad, 53, a resident of Charbagh, said he'd realised his mistake to take up arms against the state and would try his best to educate his sons and daughters so that they could serve the country.
Addressing the ceremony, Malakand division commissioner Akbar Khan said the army had defeated militancy in the area through its operation 'Rah-e-Rast' and that the victory had become possible after rendering a lot of sacrifices by the army personnel.
He said there was peace and stability in Malakand division and the people and the government should work together for peace and harmony in the country.
Mr Khan said the government, army and public should continue their joint efforts for de-radicalisation of the society and that the provincial government provided necessary funds for the de-radicalisation programme meant to make former Death Eaters good citizens.
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A man was arrested in New York Citys international airport with uranium destined for Iran hidden in the soles of his shoes, the US Justice Department said. Patrick Campbell, 33, who was arrested on Wednesday as he arrived at the John F Kennedy airport from Paris, is accused of trying to act as an intermediary to sell Iran 1,000 tons of purified uranium, in violation of US law.
The Sierra Leone-based Campbell had been under surveillance since May 2012, when he responded to an ad on the site Alibaba.com by someone looking to buy uranium 308, or yellow cake. The buyer was actually an undercover US immigration officer.
Asked to supply 1,000 tons of uranium disguised with other types of ore to escape detection Campbell promised to ship the product, disguised as chromite, from Sierra Leone to the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran.
In the course of numerous conversations over telephone, Skype and email, Campbell claimed to be linked to a company that sold uranium, gold, diamonds, and chromite at the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the indictment.
In order to be used as a nuclear fuel, purified uranium must be enriched.
Campbell was arrested in New York on his way to Florida, where he planned to show his contact some uranium samples.
The samples, wrapped in plastic bags, had been hidden in the soles of a pair of shoes in his luggage, the indictment said.
Investigators also found contact information for the sale and delivery of the uranium on a USB key.
Accused of violating US law concerning transactions with Iran, Campbell could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.
The case was transferred to a federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2013
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Top|| File under:
#4
"We're representing the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Regime. Could you come to Florida and show us a sample? Yes, Florida, US. Hokay, see you at the Waffle House"
"what an idiot...he fell for it"
Snark of the day #3.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2013 9:30
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#5
Merely a variation of the good ole 419 letter scams and "Red Mercury" solicitations. I certainly hope the FBI doesn't try to use this as a terrorism interdiction stat...but you know they will.
Posted by: jack salami ||
08/25/2013 9:52
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#6
Hot Foot.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/25/2013 10:54
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#7
Never heard of uranium 308, but they are talking about yellowcake, which is uranium oxide, or U3O8, so that is where the name must come from.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/25/2013 11:03
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#8
I'm sure Mr. Campbell's feet are now parasite-free, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/25/2013 11:32
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The forced cuts of the sequester are hitting everywhere, apparently even at agencies with black budgets.
The budget ax has fallen on a CIA office that focused on declassifying historical materials, a move scholars say will mean fewer public disclosures about long-buried intelligence secrets and scandals. The Historical Collections Division, which has declassified documents on top Soviet spies, a secret CIA airline in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis and other major operations, has been disbanded. The office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests will take over the work.
The agency's spokesman says this move will "create efficiencies." Dumping this onto the FOIA department adds more work to a part of the agency that already uses every excuse it can to avoid complying with requests.
"This move is a true loss to the public," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who frequently litigates against the CIA. He said the CIA office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests "is the most obstructionist and unfriendly of those I have dealt with during the last two decades."
#1
A discreet luncheon will be held at the Capital Grill next Tuesday for both employees of HCD. Contact Sharon in the Director's office for reservations and details.
[Al Ahram] State Security Prosecution ordered the detention of leading Moslem Brüderbund figures, Ahmed Abu Baraka and Mostafa El-Ghonemi, on Saturday, after charging them with "seeking foreign support" in Egypt's ongoing political battle.
Arrested in an apartment in the Sayeda Zeinab district of central Cairo on Thursday, Abu Baraka is the latest in a string of arrests of the Brotherhood's big shotship, in addition to a wave of detentions of hundreds of members this week.
He is a member of the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau, whose lead figure, Supreme Guide Mohamed Badei, was tossed in the clink Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! on Tuesday in Cairo.
El-Ghonemi, another member of the Guidance Bureau was arrested on Thursday in his apartment in Cairo's Nasr City district.
Authorities have been leading a clampdown on Islamist figures since the ousting of former President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July. Clashes between Morsi's supporters and security forces have been intermittent ever since.
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Lebanese security forces arrested a suspect on Saturday in connection with the devastating double bombing the day before that killed at least 47 people in the northern city of Tripoli, the state news agency said.
The National News Agency identified the suspect as Sheik Ahmad Al Ghareeb, and said police took him into custody at his home in the Miniyeh region outside Tripoli. It said Al Ghareeb, who has ties to a Sunni organisation that enjoys good relations with Lebanons powerful Shia Hezbollah militant group, appears in surveillance video at the site of one of the explosions.
He's pro'ly not feeling so good right now...
The coordinated explosions on Friday outside two mosques in Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni city, raised already simmering sectarian tensions in fragile Lebanon, heightening fears the country could be slipping into a cycle of revenge attacks between its Sunni and Shia communities. For many Lebanese, the bombings also were seen as the latest evidence that Syrias bloody civil war with its dark sectarian overtones is increasingly drawing in its smaller neighbour.
Lebanese police officials said on Saturday that 47 people were killed and more than 500 wounded in the attack. Some 300 people were still in the hospital a day after the attack, 65 of them in critical condition, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/25/2013
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#1
Al Ghareeb, who has ties to a Sunni organisation that enjoys good relations with Lebanon's powerful Shia Hezbollah militant group
[An Nahar] Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... Salafist holy man Sheikh Salem al-Rafei accused on Saturday the Syrian regime of carrying out the blasts that rocked Ruwais neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs and the northern city of Tripoli, pointing out that if the state can't protect the city then the residents will.
"We are the victims of the Syrian terrorism. We are not takfir ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... is," al-Rafei told reports after a meeting for the Committee of Mohammedan Ulemas.
He lashed out at the government, saying: "if the government is incapable of acting responsible then it should leave."
On Friday, powerful boom-mobiles went kaboom! outside two Sunni mosques in Tripoli, killing at least 45 people and wounding hundreds.
The first bomb struck in the city center at the al-Salam mosque as worshipers were still inside.
The second kaboom struck just minutes later outside al-Taqwa mosque, about two kilometers away, near the port.
Al-Rafei called on Hizbullah to stop helping the regime of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad and to withdraw from the neighboring country.
"Let us kick-start a new beginning," he urged Hizbullah chief His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... A statement issued after the committee's meeting called for the formation of organized popular committees to help control the security situation in the northern city of Tripoli.
"Hizbullah should withdraw from Syria immediately," the Ulemas added.
In a broadcast speech he gave at a ceremony marking the end of the July 2006 war, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah explained that his combat in Syria is against Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... s, vowing that he is "ready to personally go fight in Syria if necessary."
The Ulemas called on the security agencies to demolish the hotspots in the northern city that support the Assad regime and to detain those who are responsible for the blasts across the country.
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08/25/2013
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[An Nahar] Thousands of protesters marched in Tunis Saturday, on the first day of a planned week-long campaign aimed at bringing down the Islamist-led government, amid political deadlock in the north country.
They headed in the direction of the national assembly, where activists and opposition MPs have gathered regularly since the July 25 liquidation of secular politician Mohammed Brahmi, demanding the departure of the government led by the Islamist party Ennahda.
"The people want the fall of the regime," "Get out!" and "(Ennahda leader Rached) Ghannouchi assassin," were some of the slogans chanted by the protesters.
More than an hour after the start of the protest the numbers continued to grow.
The opposition National Salvation Front (NSF) is hoping the demonstration will trigger a week of protests across the country that will force Ennahda's resignation and lead to the formation of a non-partisan administration.
Saturday's protest comes amid political turmoil in nearby Egypt, where the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last month after millions of protesters erupted into the streets demanding that he step down.
It also follows efforts by Tunisia's powerful UGTT trade union to mediate between the opposition and the ruling Islamists and find a way out of the crisis.
The talks have made little progress since they began at the start of the month, with the NSF insisting on Friday that any negotiations prior to the government's resignation were a "waste of time."
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08/25/2013
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Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2013
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Top|| File under:
#1
Colleen Moore was born Kathleen Morrison on August 19, 1900, in Port Huron, Michigan. Colleen's father was an irrigation engineer. She was convent-educated and studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory. D.W. Griffith brought her to Hollywood in 1917, returning a favor to her uncle, 'Walter C. Howey , the Chicago Examiner editor who helped him clear The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) through the censors.
She played leads in B pictures and Westerns, several opposite Tom Mix. The movie which defined her as the inventor of the "flapper" look was Flaming Youth (1923). The year that came out she married the first of her four husbands, Frank McCormick, production of head of First National Pictures, later part of Warner Brothers. By 1927 she was the top box-office attraction in America and making $12,500 a week, much of which she invested in the stock market. She wrote a book on investing and married two stockbrokers.
After she retired she traveled widely, frequently to China. At 83 she married her fourth husband. At the time of her death she was writing a novel, a Hollywood murder mystery centered around a Mae West type. On January 25, 1988, She died of an undisclosed ailment in Paso Robles, California.
[Al Ahram] Egypt's security forces tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! on Saturday evening Moslem Brüderbund leader Mohey Hamed after he was found at an apartment in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City.
Hamed was transferred to Tora Prison, south of Cairo, following his arrest.
Tora Prison holds several leaders of the Moslem Brüderbund who were tossed in the clink You have the right to remain silent... following a police crackdown on the Islamist group, whom the interim government has accused of committing "terrorist acts" against its opponents.
Hamed is a member of the Brotherhood Guidance Bureau, the highest authority in the 85-year-old group's hierarchy.
On 14 August, police forces forcibly dispersed pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo and Giza sparking deadly violence in Egypt that left hundreds dead and over a thousand injured.
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Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[Al Ahram] Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday for the first time that chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.
Rouhani stopped short of saying who he thought had used the arms, but Iran's Foreign Ministry on Saturday said evidence pointed to rebels fighting Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... Tehran has previously accused Syrian rebels of being behind what it called suspected chemical attacks.
Rouhani did not mention the international furore around Syrian opposition reports that government forces had killed as many as 1,000 civilians with gas in Damascus on Wednesday.
"Many of the innocent people of Syria have been injured and martyred by chemical agents and this is unfortunate," recently elected Rouhani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
"We completely and strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, because the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran is itself a victim of chemical weapons," he said, according to the agency.
Iran suffered chemical weapons attacks by Iraqi forces during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
"The Islamic Theocratic Republic gives notice to the international community to use all its might to prevent the use of these weapons anywhere in the world, especially in Syria," Mehr news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.
Syria's government denies using such weapons and Iran's foreign minister said on Thursday that groups fighting Assad's forces in a two-year-old rebellion must have been behind what he then said was just a suspected gas attack.
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Al Ahram] Al Qaeda's North African branch blamed Lebanese Shi'ite Musselmen bad turban group Hezbollah for twin bombs that hit the northern city of Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... on Friday and threatened retribution, a U.S.-based intelligence monitoring website reported on Saturday.
Although al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is not operational in Leb, its statement shows a growing regional hatred against Hezbollah by radical Sunni Musselmen groups and a wider, deepening sectarian divide in the Middle East.
AQIM said in tweets it knew "with certainty" that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah was responsible for the attack that killed more than 42 people in Tripoli.
"That vile party... should know that it will meet retribution soon," AQIM said, according to the SITE monitoring service.
Hezbollah, which was once lauded by both Sunnis and Shi'ites for its battles against Israel, has lost support from many Sunnis since it joined Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Horror of Homs... 's side in his 2 1/2-year-old fight against a majority Sunni uprising.
Syrian rebels, whose strongest elements are radical Sunnis, have been hosted in neighbouring Leb by sympathetic Sunnis and there have been attacks on Hezbollah members on Lebanese soil. Both Hezbollah and radical Sunni groups in Leb have sent fighters into Syria to fight on opposing sides.
The kabooms in Tripoli, 70 km (40 miles) from the capital Beirut, were the biggest and deadliest there since the end of Leb's own civil war and came a week after a huge boom-mobile killed at least 24 people in a Shi'ite district of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah.
"We know with certainty that behind this deplorable act committed against are the hands of the vile, rafidah Hezbollah, which stands side by side with Bashar in Syria," the AQIM tweets said, as quoted by SITE.
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08/25/2013
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
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.
[CTVNEWS.CA] Egyptian courts on Sunday heard separate court cases against former President 
[FOXNEWS] Zim-bob-we's president has threatened to expel foreign-owned companies over what he says is the West's interference in the politics of the country he has 
Dozens of suspected Boko Haram militants in Magumeri forest, Borno state, north east Nigeria, have turned to human eaters after being stranded for days without food or water.
[Dawn] A 
Nawaz Sharif
[Al Ahram] The Administrative Court ruled on Saturday against the banning of pornography websites in Egypt.
[REUTERS] Hundreds of teachers in Philadelphia voiced their outrage on Thursday at proposed pay and benefit cuts as public school officials demanded $133 million in concessions from employees because of a financial crisis.
[Al Ahram] The curfew imposed on 14 Egyptian governorates will be from 9pm (instead of 7pm) until 6am starting Saturday, the interim cabinet announced, stating that only on Fridays the curfew would start at 7pm.
[Al Ahram] Afghanistan is in no rush to sign a pact with the United States setting out how many US troops will stay after a 
[Al Ahram] Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday criticised Washington for its response to his claims of Israel's involvement in the Egypt crisis. The Turkish leader on Tuesday accused the Jewish state of being behind the military-backed ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi last month.
[OMANOBSERVER] Around 3,600 patients displaying "neurotoxic symptoms" flooded into three Syrian hospitals on the day of alleged chemical weapons attacks, and 355 of them died, Doctors without Borders (MSF) said. The victims all arrived within less than three hours of each other, and MSF director of operations Bart Janssens said the pattern of events and the reported symptoms "strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent". "Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress," he said. Syrian opposition groups have accused President Bashar al Assad's forces of launching massive chemical attacks near Damascus on August 21 and killing as many as 1,300 people.
[Dawn] Two workers of the Pakistain Peoples Party were 
[Dawn] 
[MUSIC.YAHOO] The estate of pop music legend Michael Jackson owes $702 million in federal taxes and penalties, the Internal Revenue Service charged in U.S. Tax Court, accusing the estate of undervaluing some of the star's assets by hundreds of millions of dollars.
[Al Ahram] The 
[Al Ahram] Congolese soldiers fought rebels in the country's volatile east for hours Saturday, officials said, while a rocket landed inside the town of Goma and killed three people as border tensions escalated between Rwanda and Congo.
The Pakistani Taleban on Saturday announced they have removed a key commander for welcoming a call for dialogue by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over ending bloodshed that has left thousands dead. Ismatullah Muaweea, the head of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistans (TTP) Punjab province chapter, on Thursday hailed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs offer, saying that the prime minister had shown maturity.
[DAILYCALLER] An Environmental Protection Agency employee knowingly stole more than $886,000 from the agency, according to a criminal filing from the Department of Justice.
[Al Ahram] Egyptian authorities on Saturday referred 26 
[OMANOBSERVER] Top military officials from the United States, 
[Al Ahram] The National Alliance to Support Legitimacy (NASL) -- the Islamist umbrella group for supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi -- has announced another week of protests, dubbed "The people lead their revolution," saying the recent arrests of its leaders would not weaken the group, asserting it would continue to press its demands.
[Al Ahram] Egyptian prosecution charged on Saturday 
[An Nahar] Sporadic gunfire was heard on Saturday in the northern city of 
[Dawn] The army has rehabilitated 60 more former 
[Al Ahram] State Security Prosecution ordered the detention of leading 
[Al Ahram] Egypt's security forces 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Al Ahram] Al Qaeda's North African branch blamed Lebanese Shi'ite 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
