Germany declined to comment on on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers.
The explosive charge was thrown on Nov. 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday.
A spokesman for the German foreign ministry in Berlin confirmed that three Germans had been arrested, but declined to make any further comment as an investigation was under way. A police source in Kosovo told Reuters: "They are members of the BND", but gave no further details.
The German weekly Der Spiegel also said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they had told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February after nine years under U.N. stewardship and is recognised by more than 50 countries, including Germany.
Four days before the bomb attack, its leaders rejected a plan by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's for the deployment of an EU police and justice mission, EULEX.
Der Spiegel said the BND agents had not been officially registered with Kosovo authorities, which would have secured them diplomatic immunity. A judge in Pristina was due to decide on Saturday whether to extend the men's detention or release them on bail.
#2
The One and his zombie army of True Believers have already decided that a few million dead Jews is a perfectly acceptable price to pay for that Hopeful Changiness thing...or is it Changeful Hopiness...or is it...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
11/23/2008 21:28
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Al-Qaeda welcomes Michael Jacksons conversion to Islam.
Initial reports are already filtering through that Al-Qaeda has warmly welcomed Michael Jackson into their faith 'as they would any sincere new adherent' and are confident that this high profile conversion will prove to be the turning point whereby millions of young Americans, already disillusioned by the economic crisis that is sapping Americas confidence will turn to the Koran for inspiration.
Sources close to Al Qaeda leadership are said to have have confirmed the open satisfaction of senior figures including Deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri regarding the pop star's conversion, according to some Pakistani news services. Jackson's controversial past should not preclude him from sincere practice of Islam or acceptance by fellow Muslims as 'the ability to repent is a key belief' one source commented.
It is claimed that the Al Qaeda leadership were already most surprised by the fact that Americans were prepared to vote in as President a candidate with some recent Muslim heritage, even if the President-elect is a practising Christian.
This did not of this stop Ayman Al-Zawahiri referring to Obama as a house negro' recently, although Malcolm X was lavishly praised during the same speech he made the rather controversial comment in. Now with this latest celebrity conversion Al-Qaeda are hopeful that the west is finally moving religiously towards Mecca.
Generally, intelligence sources agree that Al Qaeda is very interested in attracting disaffected African-Americans into the fold and the recent criticisms of Obama were very much in line with this aim. Obama is unlikely to solve all the problems that exist within Africa-American communities and might not be seen as acting sufficiently in the interests of fellow Black Americans by some.
Most observers agree that Jackson's conversion amidst his financial troubles is something that Al Qaeda would welcome. Interestingly Jackson is off to London today to dispute a large debt supposedly owed by him to a Bahrani prince. Perhaps his new found faith will soften the heart of his alleged creditor?
Caught via AOSHQ -I think we had a speculation report on this earlier on RB
Correct, we did.
A few weeks before dropping North Korea from the United States' list of countries that sponsor terrorism, the Bush administration thwarted a shipment of missile parts, possibly including gyroscopes for guidance systems, from the far eastern country to Iran, the weekly news magazine Newsweek reported Sunday, quoting US officials.
On August 4, an aircraft operated by Pyongyang's state-controlled airline was given permission by India to fly from Burma to Teheran, traversing Indian airspace.
On August 7, The Indian Express newspaper reported that the office of India's prime minister "hurriedly" asked authorities to withdraw the clearance. The US officials said that clearance was annulled following a request from Washington.
The US then removed North Korea from its state sponsor of terror status in October, after Pyongyang agreed to halt its nuclear program. However, what seemed a brisk start began to stutter as Japanese and South Korean officials publicly proclaimed that North Korea had stopped the process of decommissioning its reactor, and was not standing up to other sides of its agreement with the US.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008
16:38 ||
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Japanese hospitals are running a clinical trial on the world's first custom-made bones which would fit neatly into patients' skulls and eventually give way to real bones.
If successful, the Japanese method could open the way for doctors to create new bones within hours of an accident so long as the patient has electronic data on file.
Doctors usually mend defective bones by transplanting real bones or ceramic substitutes. The Japanese implants use a powder of calcium phosphate, the substance that makes up real bones.
The new implants are called CT Bone as they are crafted using the patient's computer tomography (CT) data, a form of medical imaging.
It can match the complicated structures of the jaw, cheek and other parts of the skull down to one millimetre (0.039 of an inch), a level significant enough to make a difference in human faces, researchers told AFP.
"It can also be replaced by your own bone, which wasn't possible before" with conventional sintered ceramic bones, said Tsuyoshi Takato, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Medicine.
The implants are currently limited to use in the skull because, unlike limbs, they do not have to carry the body weight.
The custom-made bones are created from the calcium phosphate powder and a solidifying liquid which is more than 80 percent distilled water, using computer-assisted design.
In the same way that an ink-jet printer propels droplets onto a piece of paper, a device squirts the liquid on a 0.1-millimetre-thick layer of the powder to form a desired shape.
The device, which was developed with Tokyo-based firm Next 21, repeats the process and builds up layers that have different shapes. For example, 100 layers create a one-centimetre thick implant.
#1
It's called laser centering in the manufacturing world and it's quiet amazing. We make plastic ducting and prototype plastic pieces. They also use a metalic powder and can make splined shafts as hard as machined parts.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/23/2008 17:24
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#2
New RNC conservative backbones? Cost and shipping? Too late for holiday delivery?
#6
Code Pink---they need to read the History of Useful Idiots and think if they really want to do this stuff with Iran. Read the chapter on Adolf Hitler and Ernst Röhm. That is a good one.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/23/2008 15:26
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#7
Rather saucy of the Lady Pinkos to be running around unaccompanied by their male relatives.
Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama's top foreign policy team has begun.
The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady's foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.
The first victims of Mrs Clinton's anticipated appointment will be those who defended Mr Obama's flanks on the campaign trail. By mocking Mrs Clinton's claims to have landed under sniper fire in Bosnia or pouring scorn on her much-ballyhooed claim to have visited 80 countries as First Lady they successfully deflected the damaging charge that he is a lightweight on international issues.
Foremost among the victims of the purges is her old Yale Law School buddy Greg Craig, a man who more than anyone led the rescue of [Bill Clinton's] presidency starting the very night Kenneth Starr's lurid report into the squalid details of the former president's sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky were published on the internet in 1998. Despite his long and loyal friendship with the Clintons, Mr Craig threw his lot in with Mr Obama at an early stage in the presidential election campaign. As if that betrayal to the cause of the Clinton restoration was not enough, Mr Craig did more to undermine Mrs Clinton's claims to be a foreign policy expert than anyone else in the some of the ugliest exchanges of the battle for the Democratic nomination.
Until this week he was poised to be the eminence grise of the State Department, organising as total revamp of America's troubled foreign policies on Mr Obama's behalf. Its turns out that Mrs Clinton's delay in accepting the president elect's offer to be his top foreign policy adviser had much to do with her negotiating the terms of the job and insisting on the right to choose her own state department staff and possibly even some of the plumb Ambassador postings. She wanted guarantees of direct access to the president without having to go through his national security adviser. . . .
Mr Craig's crime was not so much that he enthusiastically backed Mr Obama for President and helped run his foreign policy advisory panel, it was his lacerating attacks on the putative Secretary of State's claims that she passed the "Commander-in-Chief test" as a foreign policy expert in the Clinton Administration. In a devastating memo of 11 March last, which he addressed "to interested parties," Mr Craig said: There is no reason to believe, however, that she was a key player in foreign policy at any time during the Clinton Administration. She did not sit in on National Security Council meetings. She did not have a security clearance. She did not attend meetings in the Situation Room. She did not manage any part of the national security bureaucracy, nor did she have her own national security staff." . . . The memo went on to say that Mrs Clinton "never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue not at 3 AM or at any other time of day." Earlier this week Mr Craig was tapped to become White House counsel, a totally anonymous position, and shunted him out of the line of fire from the Secretary of State.
A question remains about the fate of Susan Rice, the public face of Mr Obama's foreign policy throughout the campaign. She too had been expected to take a prominent position at the State department, but in a conference call with reporters during the campaign she ridiculed Mr Clinton's claims to foreign Policy experience. She may now end up as Deputy national Security adviser to the president, in the expectation that she would be frozen out by Mrs Clinton at the State Department, a situation that does not augur well for the future.
Hope and change! Hope and change! We are the ones we have been waiting for!
Posted by: Mike ||
11/23/2008
09:59 ||
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#1
Not thrilled about Clinton's third term, but definitely better than FDR's fifth term, or Carter's second.
#13
The growing number of Clintonistas and the beast herself as State are beginning to make me wonder if Obama is being controlled(blackmailed) over his dubious citizenship or ssome other issue.
#15
With no actual abilities he ran and won the President's seat. He has no clue how to run a country or even how our government works. He is probably now scared to death that he will actually have to make a decision. The only democrats that have any salt are the clintons, even though I don't like them, they are better than anything else the dems have to offer. He is scrambling for anyone that can actually spell State dept. The last thing he wants is to fail miserably.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/23/2008 17:32
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#16
reminds me of "The Candidate" where Redford gets in the car after winning the campaign and says "what do we do now?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008 17:35
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#17
The last thing he wants is to fail miserably.
He may not want it, but it's coming to him. I plan to do my small part in bringing that home to him with a great deal of vigor.
#18
I doubt the bugger thought that he had a snowball's chance in hell of winning nomination, let alone the election. Beyond the campaign rhetoric he's clueless, no solid plan, no team. Probably more shocked at his win than any of us. The Clintonista redux may be due to his asking Rahm, WTF do I do now, and Rahm ringing up everyone on his rolodex from the bad old days. I smell industrial strength panic.
#19
He is probably now scared to death that he will actually have to make a decision.
He should be. The experience issue was ignored or derided during the campaign, but even the mayor of Podunk, USA has to make decisions. Do we fix the office copier or plow the roads this winter? As a community organizer, you can sit around making jaw-jaw about mission statements and position papers and who to extort next for grant money. Quite different from the proverbial 3am phone call.
#1
We will now see how concerned the Obama administration is with our security. We guess - not at all concerned.
OT - when Congress vetts Jamie Gorelick for a position in the Obama administration, I hope some Republican senator has the guts to ask her if she's learned anything since 9/11.
#2
It is always easy for O to shout at Bush from outside. Once he is in command things will change. Even Obama will understand the level of evil we deal with and get with the program. The difference will be the press will not go after him, they will say it was necessary and remain silent.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
11/23/2008 12:28
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#3
Even Obama will understand the level of evil.
History tells us that "evil" while oftentimes in denial, is generally quite cognizant of.... evil.
#4
Obamarx' concept of evil is that it is always done by others. He can do no evil, because he is the navel of the world and whatever solidifies that concept, is good in his mind. He has clear conscience. Or rather, he has not any, as a pathological sociopathic narcissist that he is.
#5
Evil will destroy good to serve, promote, and proliferate evil; and evil will also destroy evil to do same..
Posted by: Jeamble Scourge of the Infinitesmal6330 ||
11/23/2008 18:16
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#6
Actually, folks, we all need to pray for President Obama, nightly. OBambi has never in his life faced a job with real stress. There is no greater stress than that of the Presidency of the United States. I'd certainly hate to see him drop dead from a heart attack and JOE BIDEN become president. Even worse, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Hillary Clinton. No, we need a hale and healthy President Obama until he can be flushed by a democratic process. There ARE worse things in this world than the Obamaone.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/23/2008 18:37
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#7
A great motto: "Hey! It could be worse!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008 18:38
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#9
I think Obama probably either spoke to or believed the nonsense that these are innocent Americans gobbled up by the war machine when in reality they are diametrically opposed to everything Obama believes in except Gay marriage.
#10
Is it sour grapes to say - " More than half of the electorate couldn't think enough to not elect this muslim/marxist POS, therefore, at least half of the electorate has voted to discontinue fighting this WOT and is therefore not really derserving of our (my) assitance during the next attack?
I'm certain it is sour grapes, but there you have it. I'll not be donating to the next "twin towers fund" FUQ American Left
Is Britain simply a bigger version of Iceland? Certainly the City of London is starting to look a bit too much like Reykjavik, but with taller buildings and fewer cod. It is an exaggeration, but not that much of an exaggeration, to liken the UK to the broken, bankrupt North Atlantic island. In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die.
Ferik Duka said last week that he had brought his family to the United States nearly 25 years ago for a better life. Once, he thought he had found it. Now, he and his wife, Zurata, sit in a federal courtroom in Camden each day watching and listening as their three oldest children, sons Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir, 25, stand trial on allegations that they plotted a jihad-inspired attack on Fort Dix.
The charges, Ferik Duka said, are ridiculous; his sons are not guilty. "I'm confident in the American justice system," he said. "My sons are innocent." So he sits in the fourth-floor courtroom, dressed in a sports coat over either a shirt and tie or a turtleneck, his thick arms folded in front of him, watching the system work. His wife, wearing a head scarf, is always by his side. Occasionally other family members - a son and daughter born in the United States, a daughter-in-law, grandchildren - attend the sessions.
When the defendants enter the courtroom, the relatives smile and nod. When court ends promptly at 4:30 p.m. each day, they wait for the jury to exit, then exchange nods, smiles and waves again as the Duka brothers and their codefendants, Mohamad Shnewer and Serdar Tatar, are led away by U.S. marshals. All five have been held without bail since their arrests in May 2007. All five are foreign-born Muslims who were raised in the Cherry Hill area. Eljvir Duka is married to one of Shnewer's sisters. All face life in prison if convicted.
Ferik Duka, 61, shook his head at that prospect and then talked about better times. Standing on the steps of the federal courthouse on Market Street one morning during a break in the trial, the burly roofing contractor lit a cigarette and told the story of his coming to America. "I came . . . because we heard a lot of good things," he said. "Freedom of speech, democracy, opportunity. And it was true. I chose America because of those things."
It was 1984. He had left Yugoslavia, where, he said, there was little work and less opportunity, especially for ethnic Albanians like himself. To this day their immigration status remains murky. The government has labeled them illegal immigrants. But Ferik Duka said he had a lawyer and had been trying for years to straighten out his status. "I came in illegally, but since 1985 I have been applying" for legal status, he said. "I work. I pay taxes."
Duka operates a roofing and construction business out of his home on Mimosa Drive. His three oldest sons worked with him. They are religious, he said, but not fanatical. "For Muslims, it is not easy to live in the United States," he said. "But still, it is better than in Muslim countries. We are not extremists, not terrorists." They are, he said with no little pride, "Albanians."
"We do not have a history of terrorism," he said. "We fight man to man." And, he said, all Albanians are grateful to the United States for coming to their aid in the war with Serbia and for ending the ethnic cleansing that cost tens of thousands of Muslim lives. It was against that backdrop that Duka offered his assessment of the case against his sons. The charges, he said, are built around the lies of two FBI informants, Mahmoud Omar and Besnik Bakalli. continued at link
Officials say German police carried out raids in three states searching for suspected supporters of a terror cell whose plans to attack U.S. targets in Germany were foiled last year. Federal prosecutors' spokesman Frank Wallenta says police made no arrests during Thursday's raids on the residences of several people suspected of acquiring detonators for three alleged terror plotters.
The suspected plotters are now on trial. They are alleged to have operated as a German cell of the radical Islamic Jihad Union.
Wallenta declined to say Saturday where the raids had been carried out. Germany's Bild daily says they were in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Lower Saxony.
Deep in Yemen's restive desert, terrorists target a family of European tourists. While the country mourns the deadly attack, an elite government force storms the killers' mountain hideout and brings them down in a hail of artillery. Ripped from the headlines - and punched up with some nifty military heroics - this is the plot of "A Losing Bet," a new film financed by the government of Yemen that aims to educate a terror-scarred nation about the consequences of jihad.
"The film is part of the government's effort to show the people of Yemen the negative impact of terrorism - on the economy, on tourism, on their standard of living," said Yemen's foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Kirbi. "Hopefully, it will be watched by other countries. We need to enlighten people."
Produced for about $200,000 - expensive by local standards - the film revolves around an array of loosely connected characters: a jihadist who returns home in the hope of reuniting with his family; a university graduate who resists the pull of extremism; a jobless young man who falls prey to a charismatic al-Qaida recruiter; and two girls, a Yemeni and a European tourist, whose friendship nearly ends when the visiting girl's family comes under attack.
It's undoubtedly slick, and audiences seem to love it, but critics say the film has little hope of reaching the disaffected communities most vulnerable to terrorist ideology. Yemen has a fast-growing population, 40 percent unemployment, an economy teetering from shrinking oil supplies and tribal and religious leaders who command more authority than the government - a mixture of ills more potent than any film, critics argue. "It's propaganda," said Murad Zafir, a former government official who now works for a nonprofit institute in Sanaa, the capital. "It's a fancy, well-funded film that some well-educated people can see, but it can't compare to the messages going out on the radio and in certain mosques."
Producers hope to air the film on Yemeni television and release it on DVD, but since premiering to a VIP crowd at Sanaa's five-star Movenpick Hotel in August, it's played only at colleges and cultural centers in major cities. A free screening last month in a Sanaa University auditorium drew a standing room only crowd that found comfort in the film's broad predictability. The students giggled when jobless men were portrayed as comically lazy, snickered when bushy-bearded militants lectured dogmatically about jihad and applauded enthusiastically when Yemeni intelligence got its men in the end.
The writer-director, Fahdel al-Olofi, said the story came to him after seven Spanish tourists and their two Yemeni guides were killed in a suicide bombing at a temple in Marib, east of Sanaa, in July 2007. Al-Olofi, a producer of documentary television series, had never done a film before, but when he approached Interior Ministry officials with the idea, they were eager to help. In a surprising departure for a secretive government that tends to view the media as a nuisance, officials loaned al-Olofi a military helicopter for the climactic scene and sent security experts to consult on jihadist ideology and recruiting tactics.
Mona al-Asbahi, an actress who Yemenis recognize from popular TV serials and who plays a woman abandoned by her jihadist husband, said: "I would have done the movie for free. Everyone in Yemen has someone who has been affected by terrorism."
The film's release comes as some experts warn that a new, more dangerous generation of al-Qaida-inspired militants could be gaining power in Yemen. For years, Yemeni officials favored a softer approach to al-Qaida and other radical groups, releasing some militants while enrolling others in Islamic re-education programs, in exchange for pledges not to carry out attacks on Yemeni soil. But experts say that those agreements angered younger Yemeni extremists, including many who went to fight U.S. forces in Iraq. Following a government raid in August that killed Hamza al-Quyati, a leading al-Qaida operative, an extremist group calling itself the Soldiers' Brigade of Yemen vowed to retaliate. Some experts say that foretold the U.S. Embassy bombing five weeks later, a sign that al-Qaida in Yemen wasn't crippled by the death of a key figure.
Gregory Johnsen, an independent expert on Yemen, said the attack illustrated the weaknesses of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's strategy to co-opt Islamic militants. "Saleh just has a difficult time ruling this country, so he has to play different factions against one another," Johnsen said. "There are so many different problems that Yemen has to deal with, and they don't have the resources to deal with them."
#1
the film revolves around an array of loosely connected characters: a jihadist who returns home in the hope of reuniting with his family; a university graduate who resists the pull of extremism; a jobless young man who falls prey to a charismatic al-Qaida recruiter; and two girls, a Yemeni and a European tourist, whose friendship nearly ends when the visiting girl's family comes under attack.
If Gary Colemans is signed it's a winner. High concept. It's the 70's again.
BANGKOK (Reuters) -- A maverick Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday.
Major-general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a Rambo-esque anti-communist fighter more commonly known as Seh Daeng, reacted with disappointment to his new role as a military instructor promoting public fitness at marketplaces. "It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets," he said, before launching an attack on his boss, army chief Anupong Paochinda. "The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It's called the 'throwing-a-hand-grenade' dance," he said.
Seh Daeng is something of a folk hero in Thailand on account of his reputed undercover exploits in Cambodia and Laos during the Cold War.
His predictions of grenade attacks against People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters occupying Government House made headlines last month, especially when they turned out to be correct.
One protester was killed and 23 wounded by a grenade blast on Thursday.
#2
Subdivide civilization into the "real" economy vs. the "leveraged" economy. The leveraged economy is going to go down. Unfortunately, the US has been outsourcing its real economy with leveraged economy for decades. So we're going to take a hit until we can rebuild it.
There won't be any choice in this, because international trade is going to shut down for the duration.
For all his ambition, Obama and congress are out in the cold, because every inflationary trick they have used in past to prevent recessions won't work this time. He is in Hoover's unenviable position of just not grasping that times have changed.
#3
Unfortunately, the US has been outsourcing its real economy with leveraged economy for decades.
Take a pause. Look at Switzerland. How reliant have they been on manufacturing industrial base? How many auto companies do they operate? I don't see the Swiss as economically poor. Everyone wants the good old days in America, particularly those who didn't live in those good old days. Why not even further back a 100 years with most of the population engaged in agriculture before they were drawn to the cities and that demon of industrialization. Economies evolve. It's easier to be behind the curve to avoid the pitfalls and problems that come with pioneering the next version but sometimes he who gets there first gets the mineral rights for perpetuity.
#4
Ah yes, the good old days of having an economy that relies on that extremely energy cumsuming practice of manufacturing. Sure would have been great over the last half decade while energy prices were skyrocketting. Yessiree, Bob. M-O-O-N, that spells real economy.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 10:46
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#5
CIA Factbook GDP US industry: 19.8%
Swiss industry: 34%
So yeah, even the "Banker" Swiss make near twice the stuff Americans do. Even then, a lot of US industry is feeding the military, and thankfully, some is exported.
GDP US services: 79%
Not a balanced or healthy economy. The US agricultural and food processing industry is the only sector not operating in depression mode.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 11:04
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#6
The Swiss industry concentrates on highly developed specialized products and services. They are not engaged in vast general manufacturing. How many of the bemoaned 'exported' American jobs were generalized manufacturing? The industrial jobs everyone whines about that have disappeared are in large part low skill non-specialized employment whose qualifications in the 50s or 60s was a basic high school education [vice today's paper of propaganda which show attendance rather than hard academic standing].
The US agricultural and food processing industry is the only sector not operating in depression mode.
And its one not mainly composed of the mythical turn of the 20th Century family farm [other than ones that have incorporated] and largely subsidized and regulated through government programs. It's largely agribusiness.
#7
The "generalized manufacturing" consists of automobiles (higher end than domestics), computers, telecom and electronics, electrical production machinery, industrial tools, energy (carbon and electrical) clothing, and cheap plastic crap. You will notice almost the entire list is composed of high value, high paying, durable and capital goods. The cheap plastic crap and clothes sold at Walmart is just a small fraction of imports.
What do we have left? Ex-investment bankers, coffee barristas and massage therapists. No wonder the young voted for Obama. Stupid economic policies are bringing Marxism to America in ways the Red Army could never have hoped.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 12:21
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#8
For all his ambition, Obama and congress are out in the cold, because every inflationary trick they have used in past to prevent recessions won't work this time. He is in Hoover's unenviable position of just not grasping that times have changed. Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-11-23 08:55
Precisely correct! It's a lose-lose for Obama. Swiss UBS and big city US banks falter while small, regionals in the SZ and the US prosper. No magic involved, just a lack of gov't involvement. Remember, the small regionals controlled by hometown bank boards escaped the Gov't loan to anyone, buy-in, get a piece of the housing boom action, pressure. US investors are savy. They are just as angry as the Swiss and are waiting and watching.
If the economy continues to slide into depression or depression-lite, Obama and his Clintax dream team fail. If the economy returns even marginally, 401K's and investments recover, watch for continued Wall Street sell off's and withdrawls as money moves to small regionals and more secure, risk-avoidant investment and savings venues.
People are not as stupid as the gov't would have you believe. Big investment houses, like big government are becoming very unpopular. Key point to remember is, the majority of investors, business people, and true conservatives (48%) voted against Obama and the free lunch. The One's creation of "2.5 million new jobs"... (that's new gov't jobs) will only make the situation more dire. Unless the gov't nationalizes everything, where Americans put the resources which they have remaining, ie, investor correction, will determine outcomes. Not what an empty suit, Wall Street Soros socialist puppet does or does not do.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 14:09
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#10
How about starting with automobiles (higher end than domestics), computers, telecom and electronics, electrical production machinery, industrial tools, energy (carbon and electrical) clothing, and cheap plastic crap. Or do you believe that is beneath Americans?
Do you realize the US is on track to a $800 billion trade deficit this year? Do you realize that the extra jobs and taxes if that money stayed in the US all these years would have been enough to balance the budget deficits and then some?
Do you realize the US even runs a trade deficit in medical equipment and drugs (many billions)? The nation with the greatest medical machines, drugs and miracles can't even earn a positive trade in it.
And food trade is just a small surplus, and in reality, in deficit if the food the US government pays for and gives away is excluded. Can you fucking believe it? An actual trade deficit in in food stuffs.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 14:50
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#11
#5 CIA Factbook
GDP US industry: 19.8%
Swiss industry: 34%
GDP US services: 79%
These are a little misleading. Many U.S. manufacturers outsource capabilities that companies in other countries keep in house. Examples include data centers, payroll processing, robotic support, etc. (and in some cases contract manufacturing). These are all classified as business services in the U.S. even if the work is for a manufacturing company.
I don't disagree with the point being made, however.
#12
There are better solutions than the current bailout circus. A huge majority wants the bad lenders to take major hits. Okay. Banks record loans as "assets" on their ledgers. These are "non-performing" where principal is not being paid on same. Rather than bailout financial institutions, it would have been better to force them into bankruptcy, which would yield fire sale prices for assets. However, that leaves the problem of having written down financial resources. And that means there is less money for loans. Many small businesses are closing because they have no access to money for inventory borrowing. Solution: use federal funds to back savings accounts alone, and NOT loan portfolios. That leaves investment funding in good shape, and compels punishing sales of bad loans. While investors would still be reluctant to put money in start ups, once ongoing businesses are on a pre-recession footing, investor confidence will grow.
What else should happen? Select commodity markets (petroleum, etc) should be abolished. Companies should be required to finance, in small part, with corporate bonds. Golden parachute deals with CEOs of poorly run companies should be abolished. Politicians who chimp the no-regulation chorus need to be discredited. Currency values should be fixed during global recessions (Mexico was relatively stable when the Peso was fixed at 12.5 to the dollar, for 22 years).
Institutional Economists like Thorsten Veblen and JK Galbraith, always said that market forces work best when subject to good regulation. Chicago absolutists, like Milton Friedman, tossed the "socialist" pejorative at anyone who wanted good regulation. Too bad his perverse theories didn't die with him.
#13
Yes. Let's manufacture everything here in America. That way parents can spend more money on the kitchen table and have less money available to put healthy food on it. Let's manufacture all our drugs here so people can afford less of them. Then patents can go out and get extra jobs (what jobs?) To pay for all the increased costs and as a result, have less time to raise their children.
Higher education? Yeah, right! We spent juniors college money on his clothes!
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 18:07
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what jobs?
Why do you think that is? Is it because we have transferred the majority of our wealth creation machinery (you know, make things) to other nations? And even the financial engineering of creating money out of nothing has come to a screeching halt. Now there is nothing, no savings, no industry, to fall back on. Pay for your kids' college education on Walmart salaries. Though they too will be laid off since the most productive sectors have been shipped overseas. I guess mom can always table dance. What, even tittie dancers aren't making tips anymore? Spit.
It's been a great 40 years eating the seed corn our ancestors built up over 400 years. Now the US is out of savings and in debt to other people to the tune 100% of our GDP.
As for pharmaceuticals, we have gone from surplus to deficit with frightening speed. From memory, 5 years ago, the trade deficit was already $10 billion/year and growing fast. And you know what, Americans still pay the world's highest prices for drugs and have the most restrictive over the counter laws. Cheaper drugs my ass.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 19:54
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So ed is say that mercantalism would have created more US jobs over the last 40 years than free trade has?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 21:23
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#16
one word for why the Medical equipment manufacturing and Drugs have moves overseas: LAWYERS
want to re-vitalize the American economy? there are worse places to start than Tort Reform.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
11/23/2008 21:34
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Look at the economic growth rates of our trading partners who engage in mercantilism. Yes it works marvelously well especially when there is a stupid 800 pound gorilla with a wide open market to exploit. Look at their shiny new industrial plants and infrastructure while ours, built in the '50s, crumble. Look at their personal savings and foreign exchange reserves while we have been spending our inheritance (literally) in the greatest transfer of wealth in history as opportunities for our young diminish year by year.
One other sure thing. The US would not have gone from largest creditor nation to largest (by far) debtor nation in a generation and we would not have to rebuild productive industry from scratch. We would not be facing a generation of diminished standard of living as we rebuild from this drunken debauchery.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 21:54
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#18
Rebuilding won't happen if we continue to follow this suicidal course. Instead our kids can look forward to a standard of living somewhere less than that of China or India since they are not so stupid as to open themselves wide to be picked clean. And there are those still poorer and hungrier waiting in the wings to pick at whatever is left of the American economic carcass.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 21:59
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BTW Mike, Are you happy with the way the US economy is going? Would you leaveforeign trade situation as is? How many more years of $700-800 billion trade deficits do you think the US economy can absorb and when do you think the creditors will want something tangible for their money? What do we have to sell to them?
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 22:05
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#20
Whatever happened to money representing available goods and services?
#21
The US dollar is a reserve currency, not the ZimBobwe dollar (yet). Most of them are not in circulation, but held in banks and mattresses (and drug dealers' hideouts).
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 22:30
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Actually, ed, I am happy with the economy. I would rather have messicans make our pills than pay more for drugs to just so I can pay American labor rates. And yes, I would rather get steel from overseas than have a government subsidized and unprofitable American steel industry. And no, the trade deficit doesn't bother me in the least because a nations economy isn't like my checkbook.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 23:12
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#23
And mercantalism served us so well during the Great Depression. And the depression before that and the dression before that and and and.
Ever notice we haven't had one since we began embracing free trade?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 23:16
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#7
As an avid fisherman (not the fillet and release type), I loved seeing that majestic creature freed. Curious what the contraption it was stuck in, though.
#8
The contraption is deep-underwater oil drilling or production equipment - not sure if it is a blowout preventer or production valve assembly (I work shallow water and all our such stuff looks different because it operates on platforms above the water.).
A significant and growing percentage of the worlds 1.4 billion Muslims are striving for lifestyles that are both religious and modern, representing a largely untapped market, a new study of Islamic consumers says.
This profile particularly describes consumers in the UAE, where 45 per cent of the national population the highest percentage of all the countries studied fit this category of the so-called New Age Muslim, according to the study by the advertising agency JWT and the market research firm AMRB.
We often try to describe an lslamic or a Muslim consumer as westernised or not westernised, which is totally stupid, said Roy Haddad, the chairman of JWT MENA. No Arab, or no Muslim that I know, wants to be more westernised. Yes, we want to be modern. But we are not western.
There's no effective difference between 'modern' and 'western'. India understands that. Japan understands that. Singapore understands that.
Effectively, there is no contradiction between modernity and Islam, and that is what people dont understand a lot. Dubai is the best example of that.
Because they're becoming the most western ...
The research consisted of interviews, focus groups and surveys conducted with nearly 8,000 people in 10 predominantly Muslim countries: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Turkey.
While the study did find that there are certain traits such as identification with religion over nation and strong emphasis on family that unite all Muslim consumers, it also broke each countrys population into social and cultural groups that could help marketers target them better. These included religious conservatives, societal conformists, pragmatic strivers, liberals and New Age Muslims.
One of the most surprising findings, according to the researchers, was where actual religious conservatives lived. This group was defined as extremely religious individuals who do not approve of gender interaction, expect others to follow religious practices and override their personal choices for religious beliefs. They were also described as anti-media and information averse.
The study found that Saudi Arabia, the country traditionally thought of as being among the most religiously conservative in the world, actually had less than 20 per cent of its population fall into this category. In contrast, Jordan, often thought of as a relatively liberal country, had nearly half its population fall into the religious conservative category. This is the discovery that astonished us, Mr Haddad said. Egypt and Jordan are the two highest proportions of religious conservatives. It is not where we thought we would find them, in Pakistan or in Saudi.
I must say I'm rather surprised as well.
Saudi instead had a large proportion of its population fall into the New Age Muslim category. These were defined as religious individuals who do not expect others to follow religious practices, believe in societal progression and support female empowerment and gender equality. They were described as pro-media and aware of the potential advantages of the internet.
Because this category tended to be both affluent and receptive to media, it represented a huge potential market for brands, Mr Haddad said. People are really underestimating how important this sector is and how fast its growing.
As an example, he pointed to the halal food market, a US$580 billion (Dh2.13 trillion) sector, according to a 2007 Forbes report, but which is not served by a single global halal food brand. As a result, Muslims in the US spend $16bn a year on kosher food, which is also halal more than the countrys Jewish population. There are opportunities here that no one is tackling, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
01:04 ||
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#1
Rantburg Halal Foods.
We can fund this here website with our enemies monies.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 2:19
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Ironically, Saudi Arabia would make complete sense using common "western" labels. More than anything else, they could be called truly "conservative", that is, averse to disruptive change; and also "classical liberal", in gradually wanting more equal rights and fairness.
A superb example of this was their attitude towards democratic elections. In a move they thought was very daring, they decided to hold a single, very limited election for a dull local government office, basically a planning and zoning board.
Security was intense, with both the police and army on stand by, in case there were riots or a revolution offered to topple the government. But, not surprisingly, the election was dull, dull, dull. Turnout was less than expected, the vote wasn't even close. Greeted with yawns all around.
And the public voted just a tad more conservative than what the government had appointed before.
The leaders were thrilled! This democracy stuff isn't so bad after all. We should very carefully try some more of it sometime.
This is the Saudi attitude through and through, except for the minority of wild haired fanatics.
#4
I suspect the Religious Police are the world's best recruits for religious tolerance. Everywhere the Virtue and Vice police are used, everybody can't wait to be left alone.
One of my strongest memories was when Kabul was liberated, and all the men lined up at the barber shops to get their beards shaved. They were all giddy with joy.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
11/23/2008 13:41
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A British terror suspect was killed by US forces in Pakistan yesterday. MPs want to know: did they tell Britain first?
A long piece with much nutty goodness about Rauf's unfortunate demise combined with a lot of hand-wringing.
At 10pm on Friday night the tribesmen in the villages of North Waziristan heard a sound they have learnt to fear. The hum of American reconnaissance planes high above the lawless tribal lands that span the Pakistan-Afghan border usually presages an imminent strike by Predator drones, targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who shelter in their midst.
Bhwa-ha-ha-ha ...
There have been more than 20 such attacks since August, but this time it appeared to be a false alarm. The locals were relieved when the sound faded at midnight.
Three hours later, however, they were woken by explosions in Khaisoor, as three Hellfire missiles from a Predator destroyed a mud-built bungalow in the village.
3 am? We're taking lessons from the RAB ...
Inside, among the five people killed and six injured, were Rashid Rauf, the British militant alleged to have masterminded a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, and two senior Al-Qaeda comrades, Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
00:42 ||
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Did Britain ask to be told first?
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 1:09
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In answer to the MP's question: we did not tell Britain first. Do we have to get permission to kill every a$$hole.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/23/2008 1:21
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#3
Hmmm. That story fairly drips with sympathy for all the wrong people. Ain't it funny how all those MPs and "experts" can only feel good about themselves when filth like Rauf are safe and you and I are not?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 1:21
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#4
No. We did not tell you first. If your citizens turn to terrorism, we reserve the right to detain, dismember or destroy them by whatever means we desire to deploy.
In the future, we will continue to take such actions. You are hereby notified.
Also, if you need any help removing the red and blue from the Union Jack...
Posted by: USA ||
11/23/2008 2:11
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#5
If you go to the original link and read the comments to the article, nearly all the Brits are as pleased as punch about the killing of Rauf. A few limp-wristed politicians and journalists don't speak for the majority,
#6
One might suspect a few public-spirited citizens back in the U.K. might be pretty well done with plans to firebomb his old pad there. If the Muzz bastard who answered the door was pissed then, well, afterward he'd have a real reason to be. If he survived, that is.
#8
The hum of American reconnaissance planes high above the lawless tribal lands that span the Pakistan-Afghan border usually presages an imminent strike by Predator drones, targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters who shelter in their midst.
Damn de Brits, they got all the newspaper writers.
Might be better to tip the hat to Roger the Ridge Runner. Friend of mine just got back from his third trip to Afghanistan. What the average American doesn't know about the US Military is probably a good thing.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/23/2008 13:19
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#16
We should ask those ball-less MPS if they'd prefer that we deploy the Predators over the Midlands.
#17
"Previously the Pentagon required "90%" confidence that a "high-value target" was at a location before approving a Predator strike. Now that threshold was dropped to 50%-60%."
Yeah, if you look at some of those Predator videos the "Probability Indicator" is generally grayed out. The planes loiter around until the meter hits "55" and then blast whatever is in the crosshairs at the time.
Zimbabwe has refused to let Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and a South African human rights advocate visit the impoverished country for a humanitarian mission, the three said Saturday.
The former U.N. secretary general, the ex-U.S. president and rights advocate Graca Machel had planned to assess the southern African country's needs. They are members of The Elders, a group formed by former South African President Nelson Mandela to foster peace and tackle world conflicts.
Annan said no official reason had been given for the refusal, but Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper reported that the group had been asked to "come at a later date" to accommodate the crop-planting season. It quoted an unnamed source as saying they were seen as antagonistic toward Zimbabwe's government.
Zimbabweans are suffering from disease and hunger while political crisis over a power-sharing government occupies its politicians. A current cholera outbreak has killed nearly 300 people in Zimbabwe, the United Nations said.
But the three were told Friday night by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating the political crisis, that efforts to secure travel visas for the a two-day trip had failed.
"We are very disappointed that the government of Zimbabwe would not permit us to come in, would not cooperate," former U.S. President Carter said at a news conference in Johannesburg.
It was the first time the 2002 Nobel Peace laureate has been denied permission to carry out a mission in any country, he said.
Machel, a rights advocate for women and children who is married to Mandela, said she was denied a visa to visit Zimbabwe in July when she had planned to lead a women's delegation.
Government officials in Harare could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Personally I wish the US could deny entry to Jimmy Carter.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/23/2008 0:54
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#5
Zim hasn't made very many good calls lately, but they did on this one. They don't need to massuage the egos of two old men with faded revealence. Their attempts to shed their fading dictator with a massive ego problem is going badly enough as it is.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
11/23/2008 8:56
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#6
The Elders Failures
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008 10:33
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#7
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have an ungrateful socialist thug.
Pakistan's UN ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon has proposed that a joint Pakistani, NATO and US military force under the command of Gen Ashfaq Kayani should be set up to increase co-ordination and "curb terrorists across the Pak-Afghan border".
Haroon said in a speech at the US Army War College last week that he was making the proposal to "end complaints of mistrust among coalition partners and provide much needed local experience, essential for success in Afghanistan". He also said that there was a better understanding between the leadership of Afghanistan and Pakistan today than in the past, and called on the incoming Obama administration to increase economic assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan so that economic activity can be generated and the basic needs of the people are addressed, adding that this "will not cost much".
The United States as a matter of policy does not permit US military personnel to serve under any non-US command. Ambassador Haroon also dated 1978 as the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, whereas it took place in 1979. He said the "amalgam of diverse interests under the nomenclature of Taliban has taken upon us, it is now Pakistan's war. If the Taliban are not defeated history is a witness that whenever Khyber has been breached, the battle has been fought in Panipat." He said the void left by the United States after the Soviets were defeated was filled by the Taliban, who challenged the status quo and "provided the people of Afghanistan religious education and their brand of justice". Underscoring the history of US-Pakistan relations, he said since Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan visited the US in 1950, Pakistan has maintained close relations with the United States and has been a member of CENTO, SEATO and Baghdad Pacts. The ambassador listed the number of defence pacts at three, whereas CENTO and Baghdad Pact refer to the same treaty.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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A defense establishment paper recommends making contingency plans to attack Iran, reaching an agreement with Syria that includes leaving the Golan Heights and preventing new elections in the Palestinian Authority, even if this means a confrontation with the United States.
The paper will be presented to the cabinet next month as part of the National Security Council's annual situation assessment.
The document warns that in 2009, Israel may find itself facing a nuclear Iran virtually alone, following a rapprochement between the U.S., Iran and the Arab world that would also undermine Israel's military superiority. Additionally, it warns of a possible collapse of the PA, which would effectively kill the two-state solution.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
The document warns that in 2009, Israel may find itself facing a nuclear Iran virtually alone
Nuclear Iran has a choice of conquiring Arab Gulf states---making Obambi geek, or MAD with Israel.
following a rapprochement between the U.S., Iran and the Arab world that would also undermine Israel's military superiority.
If Israel's military superiority depended on USA, Israel would cease to exists in 1948, or 1956, or 1967.
Additionally, it warns of a possible collapse of the PA, which would effectively kill the two-state solution
#3
Does this mean the US can stop subsidizing Israelis, Egyptians and Palestinians? $6 billion/year will buy a lot of F-22s or manufactured goods the US no longer makes..
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 12:35
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#6
His Arrogancy is deliberately being intellectually dishonest with us. Just because their military superiority didn't depend on the US at the time doesn't mean it didn't depend on a nation that isn't Israel. The nations Israel bought weapons from then (Russia and France) stopped selling arms to Israel. Which is how we ended up selling to them.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 22:35
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#7
Not to mention almost being overrun in 1973 and the US (that's Nixon to Grom) stripping the European theater of weapons and ammo to send to Israel. Would have been a great time for the Soviets to pour through the Fulda Gap.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 22:40
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BERLIN - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has offered political asylum to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, 49, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday, quoting government sources in Kabul.
The report said the approach was made at the request of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and outgoing US president George W Bush. Karzai hoped the offer would speed up plans for a reconciliation process in the landlocked Asian nation and had promised the Taliban leader safe passage if he decided to return to Afghanistan, Der Spiegel said.
Terrorism experts believe Mullah Omar is hiding in the Pakistan city of Quetta, possibly with the help of the countrys Inter- Services Intelligence agency, the report added.
'Possibly'?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
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The questions is not who the Saudi Apartheid Islamic Republic would give asylum to, rather to whom they wouldn't. Idi Amin died in Saudi. The bar is laying on the ground.
The weekend isn't bringing any respite in the Minnesota Senate recount.
Ballots in the ultra-close race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken are being counted in at least three counties today. Fifty-three counties have reported complete results to the secretary of state, meaning fewer than three dozen remain. As of Friday night, at least 60 percent of the estimated 2.9 million ballots had gotten a second look.
Coleman entered the recount with a 215-vote edge over Franken. That lead has dropped when comparing totals in precincts where the new count is complete. But the total doesn't include ballot challenges, which have caused vote tallies for both men to drop. There have been 1,525 challenges between the campaigns, although some could be withdrawn before the Canvassing Board's Dec. 16 meeting.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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BAGHDAD - Iraqs defence minister on Saturday warned of the dangers of withdrawing U.S. forces before the end of 2011, a date set with Washington in a security pact opposed by some lawmakers.
Defence Minister General Abdel Qader Jassim said withdrawing before that date would threaten Iraqs oil exports, enable neighbouring countries to encroach on Iraqi territory and give free reign to foreign spies. The period of the timetabled withdrawal gives us enough time to complete our abilitiestraining, combat and technicaland secures us great support, Jassim told a news conference in Baghdad.
Correct. The Iraqi forces have made impressive strides, but most experts in our own military say that the Iraqis need considerable work on training and logistics. That's something we can really do well in the next couple of years, and in that time the politicians can continue their slow progress on reconciliation.
Successive governments have not succeeded in disarming the heavy and medium weapons of, and I am not naming any names, the armed blocs and armed wings, he added, justifying the pacts 2011 withdrawal date.
The security pact governs the U.S. troop presence in Iraq and will replace a United Nations mandate which expires at the end of the year. Iraqi politicians are under pressure to pass the deal to avoid an extension of the mandate.
The defence minister said Iraqs navy was not ready to assume responsibility from U.S.-led forces for protecting offshore terminals that export the countrys crude. If we evict them in an unplanned or sudden way, then ... piracy will begin here ... the ability to export will be hugely threatened, he said.
Some countries shell certain areas of Iraq daily, he said, without naming any, and the presence of U.S. forces deters them from expanding their operations. Turkey frequently shells northern Iraq in its hunt for Kurdish separatist rebels.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
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Steve: The question is not if Bambi is listening, it is whether he cares, or if it suits his purposes. I don't doubt that he will sell the US gains down the river if it will advance his policies.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
11/23/2008 20:18
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#8
We love your money, we want you to go away?
No, actually some of us would like to shove your money up (some of you) recta. But the rest of us have a deeply seated psychological need to believe that not all Gentiles are against us.
#11
I wish you and Bibi success. That's no snark. Both Israelis and Americans will have to man up and get bloody minded.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 22:27
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#12
Not all gentiles are against all of you, but some gentiles are definitely against some of you.
We're on the same side of this issue. US aid to Israel strikes me as similar to a millionaire insisting on giving money to his upper-middle class brother-in-law.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 22:41
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When Mayor Bloomberg deployed his vast personal and political power to overturn the term limits law, he began to demystify the public relations image he had purchased at considerable expense.
It was only then that New Yorkers began to recognize the danger of making Gotham's wealthiest man its chief executive. That recognition is the reason his approval rating slipped by nine points in the latest Marist poll. The public chose a mayor; they didn't expect an elected monarch.
The latest furor over his unaccountable power is his unlawful refusal to send out property tax rebate checks that have been due since Oct. 1. "We have no money . . . this is not a legal issue, it's a fiscal issue," he says, an argument that boils down to "I know better."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Bloomberg is used to operating in boom times. His company was/is extremely successful riding two waves: the internet and credit derivatives (Bloomberg's first product was proprietary pricing and tracking of mortgage loan pools). Never in his career in business or mayor has he ever had to face falling revenues.
Three Qassam rockets were fired at the western Negev on Saturday. The rockets landed in open fields and no injuries or damages were reported. The rockets are believed to have been fired from the northern Negev, in the area where the Jewish settlement of Dugit was once located.
On Friday, Palestinian militants fired two mortar shells at an Israel Defenses Forces patrol near the Kissufim crossing between Israel and Gaza. There were no injuries in the attack, which was claimed by the Popular Resistance Committeees.
After some two weeks of rocket barrages by the dozens, Hamas has said it stopped firing rockets and is working to rein in the smaller groups. One Qassasm rocket hit the western Negev Thursday.
The Israel Air Force has responded to the rockets with air strikes of its own, killing a number of militants in recent weeks. The IDF has kept crossings into Gaza mostly shut over the last few weeks because of the ongoing rocket fire.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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A prison fight in Guatemala has left seven inmates dead, including five who were decapitated. National prisons systems spokesman Rudy Esquivel says authorities found the five heads after the fight in the Pavoncito prison in Guatemala City. He says two other inmates died in a hospital of gunshot wounds.
Reporters saw a group of prisoners standing behind four heads lined up on piles of rocks in a yard. The fifth head was on a wooden stake. At one point, a prisoner masking his face with a red T-shirt lifted up one of the heads in triumph.
Esquivel says the Saturday morning fight erupted because inmates were angry over the transfer of a group of alleged gang members from another prison.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Guatemala, Guantanamo. A little clerical error could quite nicely take care of our jihadi prisoner problem.
Read 'em their Carmen Miranda rights, Mr. Esquivel.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 0:52
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#2
Somehow I get the feeling that they were in jail for a good reason.
#3
He says two other inmates died in a hospital of gunshot wounds.
Funny, IIUC, in many south american jail systems, prison gangs actually sometimes battle each others with long arms and grenades, and there are mass fights involving dozens of prisoners armed not with shanks & shivs, but with machetes... apparently, in many cases, prisons are "opne", in that sense that prisoners can come and go, and many have their families housed within the prison. Pretty far removed from a western idea of a prison.
A top Iranian commander says Iran will retaliate against any country that would aid and abet a potential strike against Iranian interests. Brigadier General Seyyed Mohammad Hejazi, the Chairman of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Saturday that Iran has drawn up plans to take retaliatory measures against potential aggressors and their accomplices.
This comes as Israeli echelons have stepped up their efforts to portray Iran as an international threat, claiming that the country seeks nuclear weaponry.
Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) denies the Israeli claim, insisting that its enrichment program is solely directed at the civilian applications of the technology.
While maintaining that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Tel Aviv, Israeli officials argue that the use of military force is a legitimate option in halting Iran's nuclear progress.
Since the historic victory of Barack Obama in the US presidential election, Tehran has seen an explicit increase in Israeli threats against its nuclear program. Commander of Israeli Air Force (IAF) General, Ido Nehushtan, has said in a recent interview that his forces are 'ready' to attack Iran's nuclear sites whenever Tel Aviv gives a green light.
Bahrain is the home to the US Fifth Fleet, which is responsible for US naval forces in the Persian Gulf.
A senior politician and former top Israeli military official, Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon, declared last week that an attack on Iran would be in line with efforts to overthrow the Tehran government.
Iran, in response, has warned that should any of its national interests come under attack by either the US or Israel, its armed forces would target Israel and American bases in the region.
In a show of power, the Iranian military has recently test-fired its medium- and long-range missiles -- such as the advanced Shahab-3 and the newly-tested Sejjil missile.
On Saturday, Brig. Gen. Hejazi said in spite of a ballistic response, Iran, in times of war, would become 'an even bigger quagmire' than Iraq and Afghanistan for the US.
For Washington to assist Tel Aviv in a war against Tehran, its forces would have to use territories of the two US-occupied countries or Bahrain -- where the US 5th Fleet is stationed. "We have ensured that if any harm is inflicted on Iran, anyone who assists the aggressor will suffer hurtful retribution," warned Jazayeri.
The Iranian general also claimed that the IRGC naval forces are capable of destroying US warships in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz -- if the White House envisions a new military conflict in the oil-rich region.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Awat al-Iraq: Quick response forces arrested an Iranian citizen who entered Iraq illegally, carrying forged Iraqi identification cards (IDs), and who hid himself in fuel tank, a source from Wassit police said on Saturday. "The Iranian was arrested while he was entering the country through Zerbatia border point, 90 km east of Kut," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. He noted that a large number of forged Iraqi IDs were found on the Iranian, in addition to Iranian cell phones scratch cards. "The IDs bear different Iraqi names," the source said. "It seems that those IDs are part of a campaign to forge upcoming provincial elections in Iraq," he added. He noted that the arrest operation relied on intelligence tips.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: Joint Iraqi-U.S. forces on Saturday captured a man wanted by security authorities in a raid on his home, backed by Multi-National Force (MNF) warplanes, north of Kut city, a security source in Wassit province said. "The joint force captured a Kadhem al-Talqani, a wanted man, in a search raid in al-Numaniya district, (40 km) north of Kut, on Saturday evening," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "Talqani's son, Iyad, is one of the most dangerous persons wanted by Iraqi forces. A picture of Iyad was at the entrance of al-Numaniya city," the source added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: The head of al-Anbar Rescue Council, Sheikh Hameed al-Haiss, on Saturday said that the Iraqi-U.S. security pact is the suitable way for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq, expressing his full support of Premier Nouri al-Maliki in this regard, in addition to amending the constitution. "Al-Anbar clans will encounter any intervention in Iraq's issues," al-Haiss told Aswat al-Iraq. "In the same way we eliminated al-Qaeda organization, we will battle anyone who intervenes in Iraq or touches its lands," he said. "The constitution was written in a hurry, and politicians should not interfere in people's decisions," he added. "We will not allow anyone to divide Iraq, whoever he is," he noted. "Kirkuk is part of Iraq, and we will practice all pressures on politicians to prevent splitting Kirkuk," he asserted.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Sri Lankan soldiers captured a Tamil Tiger rebel training camp, while air force helicopters bombed two rebel groups in the north, the military said Saturday.
Troops seized the training camp in Andankulam village in the rebel stronghold of Mullaitivu on Friday, the military said in a statement. Military helicopters also bombed two rebel groups in Kilinochchi district on the same day, the statement said without giving casualty details. Separately, the decomposed bodies of three rebels were found after recent fierce fighting along the northern Jaffna and Kilinochchi fronts, the military said. It was not clear when they died, it said. According to military reports, Sri Lankan troops have made rapid progress on the battlefield in recent months, clearing the island's entire west of rebels and forcing them to retreat into a shrinking territory in the northeast. Authorities have vowed to crush the guerrillas and end their decades-old separatist campaign.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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(SomaliNet) The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo wants to arrest three rebel leaders from the Sudanese region of Darfur and prosecute them for war crimes.
The ICC chief says the three were responsible for the attack on an African Union peace mission in September 2007.
Twelve people were killed in the attack and eight others injured. Mr Ocampo said such actions cannot be allowed to go unpunished. The judges of the court in The Hague must now agree to issue the arrest warrants.
The names of the rebel leaders and the groups to which they belong have not been made public. Mr Ocampo says this is confidential information and its release could obstruct a future trial. In July, Mr Ocampo demanded the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for genocide in Darfur. His request is still being considered.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
Geeze - Elton John looks really bad these days...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 1:00
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Outraged Malaysians were told by the country's top Islamic council Saturday to avoid yoga because it uses Hindu prayers and encourages a union with God that is blasphemous. "Yoga is forbidden for Muslims. The practice will erode their faith in the religion," Abdul Shukor Husin, chairman of the government-backed National Fatwa Council, told reporters.
Yoga is forbidden for Muslims. The practice will erode their faith in the religion.
Top Islamic chief
Yoga, an ancient Indian aid to meditation dating back thousands of years, is a popular stress-buster in Kuala Lumpur. "There are other ways to get exercise and a peace of mind," Husin said, adding "you can go cycling, swimming and eat less fatty food."
Husin said yoga involved physical and religious elements of Hinduism including the recitation of mantras he also said the ban would not be implemented on non-Muslims. "For us, yoga can destroy a Muslim's faith. But this is not a matter for the non-Muslims to be concerned about because it's not imposed on them. We are looking out for the Muslim community," he said, noting Egypt and Singapore had issued similar rulings.
Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of the population of 27 million are Muslim Malays who practice a conservative brand of the religion.
The new ruling comes hot on the heels of another edict against young Muslim women wearing trousers after the council said that by wearing trousers, girls risked becoming sexually active "tomboys."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
What a progressive country. Do they still burn witches?
#3
Yoga may have religious origins, but it is generally used for health reasons. Yah, chanting may be part of the mind clearing exercise, but there is nothing to stop a chanter from using pro atheist material in the chant.
Aswat al-Iraq: Ten suspects and wanted men were captured in separate operations conducted in Baghdad and Baiji, according to the Multi-National Force (MNF) in a statement on Saturday. "Seven suspects were arrested for involvement in acts of violence in a security operation in Baghdad," read the MNF statement received by Aswat al-Iraq. "A wanted man believed to be the leader of a terrorist cell and two other suspects were also arrested in another operation in Baiji," it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Six people are dead after gunmen burst into a Tijuana bar popular with university students and opened fire. The local Public Safety Department says witnesses reported that three people dressed in black rushed into Bar Utopia and started shooting without saying a word.
The state Attorney General's office says two men and a woman died instantly in Friday night's attack. The three others died in hospitals Saturday.
The bar is located in a neighborhood with three university campuses and is popular with students. Most of the victims were under 30 years old.
Police named no suspects or motive. Drug turf battles have fueled a wave of violence that has swept through Tijuana and other cities across Mexico.
But no motive for the shootings ...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
Nation building opportunities closer to home, George?
#3
and someone else got the "second effort" award:
TIJUANA Gunmen shot and killed a patient receiving treatment at a private hospital early yesterday, the Baja California Attorney General's Office reported, just hours after a nightclub attack left five dead.
The hospital incident took place about 12:30 a.m. inside the intensive care unit of Hospital del Prado, a small but highly regarded facility a few miles from downtown.
Some Tijuana news organizations reported the patient was being treated for a gunshot wound. The Attorney General's Office said the patient was a man, 20 to 25 years old. Administrators declined to comment.
"Please don't kill us!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008 13:30
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#4
Actually, 3 died at the scene and two died in hospital. AP put out the bad scoop. The rumor here is that this had something to do with the owners of the bar, either drug related or extortion.
NEW DELHI - A doctor here on Saturday rubbished reports of his involvement in the Malegaon bombing or the Abhinav Bharat group that supposedly masterminded the terror attack. I have no role in anything. I dont (even) know what is the ideology of Abhinav Bharat, R.P. Singh, an endocrinologist at a leading private hospital here, told news channels.
"Lies! All lies!"
Singh acknowledged that he knew the self-styled Hindu religious leader Dayanand Pandey, who is in the custody of the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad. Singh said he was working for Kashmir refugees and believed in Hindutva ideology.
"Sure, I had sympathy for them and was in league with them, but that doesn't mean I done anything!"
Singh admitted he was present in Pandeys office in Faridabad, adjoining Delhi, on January 26 this year where investigators believe the September 29 Malegaon bombing was planned. But he insisted he was not aware of any planning. Yes, I was there but no conspiracy was hatched in front of me, he said.
"I had my fingers in my ears and was singing 'la-la-la-la' the whole time!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
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Nicaragua's opposition is pressing on with a bid to cancel disputed elections despite a presidential decree declaring that effort unconstitutional.
An alliance of opposition parties says President Daniel Ortega abused his power with a decree nullifying a legislative proposal to cancel the results of the Nov. 9 municipal elections. Saturday's statement accused Ortega of "once again violating the constitution."
Liberal Constitutional Party spokesman Leonel Teller says the alliance will introduce the bill next week despite the decree.
The leftist Sandinistas won 105 of 146 races in the elections. The opposition claims widespread fraud and wants a revision of the results in the presence of international observers.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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President-elect Barack Obama yesterday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernise schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.
Using which auto companies?
2.5 million jobs would be less than a 2% gain in employment today, given that we have about 145.5 million people employed in the previous quarter. We create more jobs than what he's proposing in a good year without any government intervention.
He'll take credit for the ones that would have happened anyway. This guy has 'public image over substance' down to an art.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
We create more jobs than what he's proposing in a good year without any government intervention.
But, those are real jobs, not phony-baloney gummint make work jobs...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 1:02
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#2
Yes. Another New Deal on the way. 'Creating' jobs by taking the peoples money on giving it to someone else.
He's not planning this because he thinks its good for the economy.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 1:03
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#6
I got taught that FDRs government largesse fixed the depression rather than the truth that FDR made the 1930s recession into a depression.
Posted by Bright Pebbles
Not so at our house. As a kid I was certain my father had some type of mental condition regarding FDR. His dislike for the man was, well lets just say vehement, like none other. Author Amity Shlaes' new book The Forgotten Man pretty much vindicates my father's view on FDR. History has been re-written on a few other as well.
#7
Easy - more bureaucracy. Paper pushers who occupy a desk and do not create wealth but consume it, let alone make endless regulations out of fantasy that inhibit wealth creation.
#13
And if it happens, the media will laud him and his policies for it, much unlike they ever did for the millions of jobs created during the Bush administration.
#14
My dad, a union member who actually LIVED THROUGH the Depression, also hated FDR. He told me that Roosevelt's policies made things worse, not better, when I was 12 years old - 1958. Dad had to support a family of 10 during the Depression, because my grandfather had a log wagon roll over him and left him bed-ridden for two years. He hated FDR and the Roosevelt Democrats. I don't know how he voted, but I'm sure there were times when he didn't vote for the Democratic office seaker.
Roosevelt forcefully unionized all the railroads in 1943, "because of the war". They're still unionized today, and the "war"s been over for 60+ years. Roosevelt the Socialist. I do expect OBambi to follow in his footsteps, just not last anywhere near as long.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/23/2008 14:23
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#15
President-elect Barack Obama yesterday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernise schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.
I haven't been able to find any details, or even an outline, of a plan. Does anybody know where this plan has been posted?
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 15:30
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#17
Plan???? Plan????? We don't need no stinkin' plan. We have hope, and change, and love, and all kinds of float-in-the-air of goodness adjectives. Man, this political nitrous oxide is going to produce one hell of a hangover when the tank runs out of gas......
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/23/2008 15:34
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Somali pirates holding an oil-laden Saudi super-tanker for a $25 million dollar ransom said they will fight back should any military intervention to free the ship be attempted, a member of the pirate group said Saturday. "I hope the owner of the tanker is wise enough and won't allow any military option because that would be disastrous for everybody. We are here to defend the tanker if attacked," Abdiyare Moalim told AFP.
" I hope the owner of the tanker is wise enough and won't allow any military option because that would be disastrous for everybody. We are here to defend the tanker if attacked. "
Pirate
Speaking from the coastal village and pirate stronghold of Harardhere, off which the Sirius Star is anchored, he said he was one of the pirates on shore tasked with organizing militias protecting the area as foreign navies sent warships to Somalia's dangerous waters and shipping companies sought alternative routes.
A local fisherman told AFP that reinforcements of at least 10 well-armed men had joined the pirates holding the ship and its 25-strong crew. "Early this morning, I saw at least 10 heavily armed pirates heading to the ship. Their boat returned after dropping them off," Hassan Ahmed said.
Local militia and hardline Shebab fighters also arrived in Harardhere in what some residents said was a move to position themselves for a share of any ransom paid.
Ransom
The Sirius Star, the biggest ship ever hijacked, and its 100 million dollar load of oil was seized last Saturday and taken to Harardhere, 300 kilometers (180 miles) north of lawless Somalia's capital Mogadishu.
The pirates on Thursday gave the owners 10 days to pay a $25 million dollarransom, said a pirate who identified himself as Mohamed Said, threatening "disastrous" consequences if Vela International, shipping arm of the Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco, fail to comply. "The Saudis have 10 days to comply, otherwise we will take action that could be disastrous," he said.
He did not specify the threatened action but the 330-meter (1,000-foot) long tanker is carrying two million barrels of crude oil. Environmental groups have warned of a huge catastrophe if oil from the super-tanker was released.
There's a way to fix the problem: release the oil into the ocean and Greenpeace will take the pirates down without mercy ...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Change we can believe in has some old, familiar faces.
United States President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Tom Daschle as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#2
could be worse - Teh One could've selected someone competent to implement National Health Care. Tom Thumb will just be "disappointed" often
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/23/2008 8:24
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#3
The Canadians at least had the US to go to for competent and swift medical care. God knows where we will have to go after a Nationalized Health Insurance System is passed. And any system designed by Teddy K and with Tiny Tom running it, one can have no doubts about its overwhelming cost being matched to incomparable incompetence.
#4
The US already spends 16-17% of GDP and rising, while other advanced nations spend 10% or less with a higher proportion of old folks. There is nobody In the US keeping a lid on the money jar and demand to stay alive is infinite. This is not sustainable and will collapse on itself and take the country's finances (what little is left) with it.
Rationing is coming either by restrictive health insurance policies, limited personal finances or government a set pool of taxpayer money.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 11:25
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#5
or government payed health care limited by a set pool of taxpayer money.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 11:28
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#6
Gosh, ed, maybe that's why our health care is so much better. Rationing? That sounds awfully "big government" to me. I'll pass if you don't mind.
Now here's a blast from the past regarding former Senator Daschle which helps explain why he's the former senator.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/23/2008 14:50
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#7
You won't have a choice. Baby boomers still begin reaching retirement age in 2011. The medical bill for them will exceed Social Security outlays or any other group of budget outlays. 16-17% of GDP today, 20% in 1016, 30% in 2040. Get the picture? If not, this may help: Population Pyramid Summary for United States
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 14:59
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#8
will begin
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 14:59
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#9
All these Clinton retreads are like a nightmare to a Bandag process worker.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/23/2008 15:44
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#10
Obamarx needs scapegoats after the whole system collapses. That is why he populated his staff with clintonistas. When this part of the play ends, heads will roll. Mayhaps even literally.
One of the things you are probably not taking into account is the number of boomers who will NOT be retiring early because of the market meltdown. Anyone who had a ten year or less timeframe for bailing has now seen that jump back up to 15 or more. If we inflate after this crash it will be even worse.
#14
That is exactly correct Jolutch, and recovery is nowhere in sight or "gov't guaranteed." Having to postpone one's retirement for 5-10-15 years is not a pleasant prospect for most people, democrat or republican. Even if the market recovers next Spring as some are saying, I'm not convinced people (boomers anyway) are going to remain in it for a possible repeat of what we are now experiencing. I just don't think they trust the system any longer. Investor strategy may have taken a significantly different course.
#15
The majority of a lifetime's medical expenses are in the last few years of life, esp last 6 months. Putting off retirement won't materially affect that. Even if it did, the graphs at the link show the population over 65 exploding and they will expect their Medicare.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 20:20
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#16
all we need to do is shift the minimum age fro medicare up to say 72 or 75 and enough will die before eligibility to make it work. especially with the overall downturn of quality and preventative treatments as rationing ala Canada and England kicks in.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
11/23/2008 22:06
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#17
But someone still has to pay for services before Medicare. If a 70 year old is working, insurance will have to pay or out of pocket or Medicaid if too poor. No society can afford to spend 30-40% of GDP on health care. The only other alternative is a blanket denial of care (not likely) or rationing of health care, prioritize treatments and deny the low priority. That means dead people, esp the old as their treatment will buy little extra time and they have already had a chance at a full life.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 22:18
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#18
if patients had to pay market prices, self rationing and market forces would take care of it.
the main reason for most of this in US is that the end consumer does not pay the market price. costs are shielded form the user by hidden forces like lower wages from the employer etc. you copay never changes, so why shop around? no market forces at all and the perception of 'it doesn't cost me anything' means over use of a scarce resource that is overpriced beyond sensible market sustainability.
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
11/23/2008 23:24
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(SomaliNet) U.S. Ambassador James McGee said almost 300 people have died of cholera in Zimbabwe as shortages of food and clean drinking water worsen and the country's health system collapses.
A report today showed 294 confirmed deaths from the disease, McGee told reporters in Washington via videolink from the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. An additional 1,200 cases of cholera have been confirmed and 2,500 are unconfirmed, he said. "The health system here has totally collapsed," McGee said. "The three major hospitals here in Harare have closed."
McGee said the U.S. may impose additional sanctions to compel President Robert Mugabe to implement a power-sharing agreement reached in September with opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. "The political situation has created a concurrent situation on the food and health side of the house that is, frankly, intolerable," McGee said. "I don't see anything that's going to alleviate these problems until the government of Robert Mugabe starts to act in good faith."
State media previously reported that cholera had killed about 127 people in Zimbabwe since the outbreak began last month.
Patients Turned Away .
McGee said doctors and nurses aren't being paid and some clinics in the countryside are turning away patients, McGee said. He traveled through the countryside recently and saw children with the distended bellies suggesting malnutrition. The U.S. is trying to increase food assistance and help provide clean drinking water.
"Cholera is something that is fairly easily treated; you need salt, you need sugar, you need clean water," McGee said. "Unfortunately those are three things that the average Zimbabwean does not have."
Even as inflation in Zimbabwe reached 210 million percent, Mugabe has managed to strengthen his hold on power through political patronage and because military commanders fear potential prosecution should power shift to the opposition, McGee said. "We have additional sanctions that we are prepared to roll out if this political impasse continues," McGee said.
Sanctions so far have had an impact, he said. Political leaders have been forced to withdraw their children from schools in the U.S. or Australia because of sanctions, he said. "I meet with some regularity with one of the top leaders here in Zimbabwe, and he has about $7 million of his funding that's been frozen because of U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe," McGee said. "He starts out each and every meeting with the same thing -- where is my money? It hurts them."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Indian paramilitary forces have shot and killed two yoots youths in Kashmir, on a second day of protests against Indian rule by Muslim protesters.
Police opened fire to control crowds of stone-throwing demonstrators in Baramulla town, about 55 kilometres (34 miles) north of the summer capital Srinagar, killing two people including a teenage student, a police officer said.
The violence came on the eve of the second round of seven-stage state elections which wind up in late December.
Violence in the past four months has left nearly four dozen dead and hundreds wounded in Kashmir.
The region has also been beset by mob violence triggered by the allotment of land for a Hindu shrine -- a decision that caused a sharp divide between Hindus and Muslims. Indian authorities have detained several separatist leaders.
Hundreds of thousands of people have attended four previous marches organized by separatists, who favor independence from India.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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(SomaliNet) Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign minister says.
The Kenyan official, Moses Wetangula is calling on ship owners not to pay ransom when their vessels are hijacked off the lawless coast of Somalia because such payments are what have emboldened the pirates.
In their most daring seizure so far, the pirates captured a massive Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.
Wetangula was speaking Friday during a meeting with diplomats to discuss piracy off the eastern Africa coast.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Aswat al-Iraq: An Iraqi army force on Saturday conducted a security operation in southern Diala province, killing an amir (leader) of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and arresting 15 others, a security source said. "A force from the Iraqi army's 5th Division carried out an operation inside Youssef al-Hilan village, south of Buhrez district, (5 km) south of Baaquba city, killing Ibrahim Hekmat, alias Abu Qatada, an AQI amir who is top aide of the network leader in Diala," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "Fifteen AQI members others were arrested in the operation," the source added.
Buhrez is one of the hotspots in Diala that occasionally witness armed confrontations between al-Qaeda operatives on one hand and security forces and sahwa (awakening) tribal fighters on the other.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Security forces have taken complete control of Swat's Kabal tehsil, a military statement said on Saturday. It said the Taliban had fled the area after heavy casualties and a team of engineers was detecting and removing landmines and remote-controlled bombs that Taliban had planted in the area.
It said the fleeing Taliban had robbed several houses and offices.
Minister's brother: An unidentified gunman shot dead NWFP Forest Minister Wajid Ali Khan's brother in Mingora on Saturday, witnesses and officials said. Farooq Khan, an NWFP Police inspector in Mingora, was heading on his motorbike for a market in Mingora city, officials told Daily Times. The gunman then escaped on foot from the scene on the outskirts of Mingora, local police official Khaista Rehman told AFP.
"It was a targeted killing. The militants threatened him several times," he said. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan told Daily Times the inspector was not on the Taliban 'hit-list'. But he owned the attacks on Awami National Party (ANP) leaders and relatives of provincial ministers from the district in the recent past.
ANP called the killing 'terrorism' against Pashtuns. "The terrorists are out to kill Pashtuns," Asfandyar Wali Khan said. "But the ANP will not step back from its struggle for the rights of the Pashtun people." "The day has come when the (Pashtun) nation stands up to protect itself and cleanse the land from the anti-Islam enemies of peace," the ANP leader said in a press statement issued in Peshawar.
Taliban flog: Locals said Taliban punished two men with 39 whips each on charges of adultery in Kabal tehsil. In Charbagh tehsil, they also punished two alleged drug peddlers with 20 whips each. The punishments followed rulings of their own 'shariah courts'.
Video shop: In Mingora, unidentified men set fire to a CD and video film store. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident so far, but Taliban have owned such incidents in the past.
Seven killed in Bajaur: Four Taliban and three women were killed in bombing by fighter aircraft in Bajaur Agency on Saturday. Officials said the aircraft attacked suspected hideouts in Kas, Gatki and Kharki areas of Mamoond tehsil. Locals said one of the bombs was dropped on a stream where women had gathered to fetch water. Officials did not confirm the killing of women.
Security forces claimed to have made swift advances in Nawagai teshil and taken over several areas that were under Taliban control.
Northern Areas: Inspector General of Police for Northern Areas Khursheed Alam Khan said on Saturday that police would conduct a grand operation against criminals by the end of the current month. A statement said that around 150 commando detachments would be formed for the operation, while security arrangements on Karakurram Highway for Chinese engineers and foreign and local tourists have been completed.
He said that around 400 non-locals have been expelled from the areas, and peace committees are being formed in the villages. He said that police officials have been asked to eliminate crime by November 25 or face stern action.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
Well, I have a feeling there will be no "Spring offensive" in 2009. Those Talibs will be plum tuckered out come March.
#2
If the cops busted your next door neighbor and then had to come in and clear landmines and boobytraps, it'd be in the news for weeks. Out in Swat, it's just another quaint local custom...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 0:56
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Iraq's parliament will vote Wednesday on a security pact with the US that would allow American troops to stay in Iraq for three more years.
Mashhadani says chances that the deal will pass are "50-50.''
Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani made the announcement on Saturday at the end of a seven-hour debate on the agreement in which at least 40 lawmakers spoke. He said the vote could even be held earlier than Wednesday if the country's main political groups reached agreement on the deal.
Al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Arab who supports the pact, said chances that the deal will pass are "50-50.'' "We support the agreement because it is the least bad alternative," he said.
Some other Sunni politicians are calling to put the pact to a referendum.
The 85-member United Iraqi Alliance, which is the biggest Shia parliamentary group, expressed its support for the pact through Hadi al-Ameiri. "It is not the ideal choice but it is the best choice because at least it sets a timetable for the departure of American troops," he said.
30 MPs of the Shia Sadrist bloc, have opposed the deal from the start. Thousands of Sadrist supporters gathered in Baghdad on Friday to protest against the security agreement. "The deal was written by American hands and the government has been obliged to sign it. It damages Iraq's sovereignty," Nassir al-Isawi said.
To be approved the Status Of Forces Agreement or SOFA, needs 138 votes from the 275 MPs.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi, said the deal was necessary because the premature departure of US troops would cause serious security threats. "The alternative is much worse than the agreement,'' he said, referring to an expiring UN mandate, under which the US forces are operating in Iraq. The mandate expires on December 31 2008.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose government negotiated the deal over the past several months, has said he wanted the deal approved by consensus, and the country's most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has indicated that the deal would be acceptable only if it wins passage in the legislature by a big majority.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
Chances that it'll pass the Donk Senate are probably even lower.
Three suspected robbers were beaten to death by a mob at Baligaon village in Kaliganj upazila of Gazipur Friday night.
Cheese. They'da had a better chance with Rab.
They would have lived til at least 3 am ...
The deceased were identified as Shukur Ali, 32, Mona, 28, and Mehedi, 28.
Locals said a gang of 8-10 robbers entered the house of Harmuz Ali at about 11:00pm and tried to loot valuables. Hearing cries of the family members for help, local people went there and caught four bandits. The angry people then beat up the robbers, killing three on the spot and injuring another robber, Hasan, 28.
Meanwhile, Kaliganj police arrested four alleged robbers -- Sarwar, 25, Rana, 26, Habib, 28, and Sohel, 28, -- and conducted drives in Uttara, Tongi and Gazipur areas to catch other gang members.
Villagers also ransacked and set on fire the house of suspected gang leader Selim in the locality early yesterday. Selim went into hiding soon after the incident.
Abdul Baten, superintendent of police of Gazipur, told The Daily Star that the robbers could not take away anything from the house and they are the members of an organised gang.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#5
Reminds me of a favorite Wizard of Id cartoon:
King to condemned prisoner: "Do you have any final words?"
Prisoner: "The death penalty is not a deterrent!"
King: "I'll believe that when I see you again."
(SomaliNet) The European Parliament on Thursday asked the UN Security Council to take urgent action to address the deteriorating situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In a resolution, the European Parliament, asked for measures toprevent any further attacks on the civilian population of the eastern provinces of the DRC and expressed extreme concern at the increase in clashes in North Kivu and the consequences for the population in the region.
The Parliament expressed deep outrage at the massacres,crimes against humanity and acts of sexual violence against women and girls in the eastern provinces of the DRC and called on all relevant national and international authorities systematically to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The parliament reaffirmed its support for the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) and called for every effort to be made to allow it to carry out its mandate in full and use the force of arms to protect those under threat.
The parliament called on Belgium, Britain, France and Italy -- EU member states currently on the UN Security Council -- to play a leading role in ensuring that the Security Council supports MONUC by strengthening its operational capacities in terms of appropriate equipment and manpower, and especially by contributing European special forces.
The European Parliament called on the African Union, the UN Security Council and key international players, including the EU, United States and China, to increase pressure on all parties to push forward with the peace process.
The European Parliament called on the European Commission and the EU member states to ensure that EU companies do not trade in, handle or import products derived from minerals that have been sourced in a manner that benefits armed groups in the DRC, and hold accountable any that persist in such practices.
The European Parliament called for zero tolerance of the sexual violence against girls and women which is used as a weapon of war and for severe criminal penalties to be imposed on the perpetrators of these crimes.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Gurkha soldiers refused to leave a dead comrade behind enemy lines even though they knew they would face 'extreme fire' from Taliban forces.
The first accounts of the courageous recovery of the body of the first Gurkha killed in Afghanistan can be revealed today as British troops continue to defend the strategic former Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala in Helmand province.
Braving withering fire from fortified Taliban positions, men from the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, located the body of Rifleman Yubraj Rai and then carried it more than 100m across open ground.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
11/23/2008
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#1
I suspect the Taliban are about to learn a really terrifying lesson of what happens when you kill a Ghurkha.
A favorite classical technique of theirs is to sneak into an enemy camp, find two men sleeping together, and cut one of their throats. The net morning, the other man is the alarm clock to wake everyone else up.
In WWII, as few as half a dozen Ghurhas caused a fresh Japanese infantry battalion to surrender without firing a shot. They snuck into their barracks at night, and painted a word on the sole of every Japanese soldier and officers boot.
The preferred Gurkha method of silencing a sentry is to just a large Kukri knife to split their head in half, vertically. If they are wearing a helmet, the Gurkha approaches laterally and cuts their head clean off.
#5
I had a customer whose son was a Royal Marine over in Afghanistan. From what I heard all of the above is true,but wait there is more. They also whip up some of the best curries in the world.
Posted by: bruce ||
11/23/2008 19:48
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(SomaliNet) Countries bordering the Red Sea pledged to cooperate at a meeting in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Thursday, where they discussed hijackings by Somali pirates.
The nations blamed the frequent acts of piracy on the state of lawlessness in Somalia, which has not had a central government since 1991. Egypt says it is suffering financial losses as a result of the hijackings because an increasing number of ships no longer travel through the Suez Canal.
The Danish firm A.P. Moller-Maersk, one of the world's largest shipping lines, says it will divert some of its ships around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope in order to avoid the pirates.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government says it is "keeping all options open" in its search for a solution to the hijackings, including diplomacy and military operations. The United States, Russia and European countries have a number of warships off the Somali coast.
Somali pirates seized the Saudi supertanker Sirius Star last weekend. The pirates, who are demanding a ransom of around 20 million euros, say the consequences will be "disastrous" if the ransom is not paid within ten days.
The Sirius Star is carrying two million barrels of oil worth nearly 80 million euros. Maritime sources say three more ships have been seized since the hijacking of the Sirius Star.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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#1
You could send them flowers and a nice note asking them to please behave. Or perhaps you could, ummm, kill 'em.
Put armed soldiers or mercenaries on merchant ships. Use convoys with naval escorts through pirate infested waters. Use air patrols to find and sink pirate ships. Naaaahh, better to yak about the problem endlessly.
#3
Fuck 'em. Stay out, save our money and lives as long as US ships and personnel are not attacked. First time US personnel are attacked, hold the pirates and town for ransom.
Posted by: ed ||
11/23/2008 12:25
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Ditto Ed. Looks like an African problem. If my memory serves me correctly, they don't like Anglo colonial solutions.
#6
We've dealt with African pirates before, and without having to jaw-jaw with every prince, potentate, or peddler in the world before doing it. The first time a US ship is captured, Somalia should cease to exist, even on OLD maps. It worked once, it will work again.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/23/2008 13:59
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I agree, OP. I hope that we are feeding intel to our allies, like India, who will do something about it. That would be appropriate for us. India, China, Egypt, Saudis, all have a dog in this fight. They need to step up and take responsibility. Cheap flags of convenience are like cheap parachutes. Caveat Emptor, MoFos.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/23/2008 15:21
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Saudi could stop it real easy.
A life time ban on Hajji trips to Mecca for pirates and everybody in their clan.
It would stop yesterday!
Three men accused of carrying out a fatal bombing in a mosque in Iran have confessed to being brainwashed by a Western terrorist cell. The three confessed in a Saturday hearing at the Islamic Revolution court to 'being brainwashed into launching a terrorist attack in the country,' according to IRNA.
A further four individuals have also been charged over the incident.
Iran had initially detained 15 people in connection with April's deadly explosion in the southern city of Shiraz. However, seven people are currently charged with involvement in the fatal bombing. Later in May, Iran announced that Britain, Israel and the United States were responsible for the deadly blast, which killed 13 Iranians and injured more than 200.
Ali-Akbar Haidarifar, representing Tehran's prosecutor-general said, "The explosion in Shiraz was one of the country's most fatal terrorist acts, and I request punishment be mete out to the perpetrators at the scene of the crime [religious center]."
The Iranian judiciary official said the inquiry into other suspects as well as those outside the country and the countries which instigated this act of terror would continue.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced in May that the terrorist group's targets also included Iran's oil pipelines, Tehran's international book fair as well as other crowded locations in different cities such as scientific, religious and educational centers.
The Iranian judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi had earlier warned that the Islamic Republic might press charges against the United States, Britain and Israel over their involvement in the April 12 bombing.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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(APP): As many as two persons received trivial injuries in two consecutive bomb blasts in the cafeteria of Punjab Institute of Languages here on Saturday night. According to police officials, time device was used in the blasts. SSP operations Ch Shafiq and other police officials have reached the spot and are investigating.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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JERUSALEM - A radar system, which the United States agreed in July to deploy in Israel to counter a perceived missile threat from Iran, is to go operational in mid-December, army radio reported on Saturday. The US military technicians who will operate the system are currently carrying out the final tests, the radio said.
The radar system, which has a range of more than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles), has been installed in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Some 120 US troops have been deployed to Israel to set up and operate the system, public radio reported in late September.
The idea here is to help Israel create a layered missile defence capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region, near and far, a senior Pentagon official told AFP in late July.
The so-called X-band radar system, also known as an AN/TPY2, is a powerful phased array radar that is designed to track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles with the targeting data needed to intercept them.
The United States deployed a similar system to Japan in 2006 in response to a North Korean missile test. It plans to install a larger one in the Czech Republic. The Pentagon was scheduled to deploy the radar to Israel in the autumn of 2009 for a joint exercise but moved it up a year following the talks in Washington earlier this year.
The system includes two massive radar antennae which have been under construction near the Dimona nuclear plant in the Negev. The Maariv newspaper reported on October 5 that the two 400-metre-high (1,300 foot) masts being erected near the top-secret military plant where Israel is widely believed to have developed the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East would be the largest in the region.
Data from the radar will be provided to Israels missile defence system, but it will remain owned and operated by the US military.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
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#1
I'm really curious re the orders the operators will receive from their incoming CINC.
ISLAMABAD - An anti-terrorism court on Saturday formally indicted five people in connection with the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, media reports said.
Bhutto was murdered in a gun-suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, which is adjacent to the capital Islamabad, during an election rally on December 27 last year.
The authorities accused Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the restive tribal district of South Waziristan of masterminding the slaying of the former head of the now ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. The commander, who has links with al-Qaeda and leads a 5,000- strong militia, has denied the allegations.
Five other suspects were arrested associated with the crime in the following months and indicted on Saturday by the Special Court Judge, Chaudhry Habibur Rahman, on various charges. Three accused - named as Aitzaz Shah, Sher Zaman and Abdul Rashid - were accused of having prior information relating to the terrorism activity of which they did not inform the police and other relevant authorities, the Urdu-language Geo news channel. The two others - Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat Hussain - were accused of helping in the conspiracy that led to the murder of Bhutto and helping the suicide bombers involved in the attack.
All the five accused rejected the charges.
"Lies! All lies!"
Police have claimed Hussain and Gul confessed they were seeking revenge for the death of a comrade killed in a July 2007 commando assault on Islamabads Red Mosque, where radical Islamists were smoked out by security forces following a weeks fighting.
According to the Pakistani authorities, over 100 people, including a dozen soldiers were killed in the operation. But Islamist claim over 3,000, including women and children, studying at the Islamic seminary adjacent to the mosque died. The suspects were outraged by US support for Bhutto, who had vowed to intensify the fight against militants in tribal areas, a senior police official Abdul Majeed told reporters in February.
Pakistan also has asked UN to carry out an international inquiry into the terrorist action, which the family of Bhutto and her party suspected might have carried out by some rouged elements in Pakistans intelligence agencies sympathizing Taliban.
'Rouge elements'?
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/23/2008
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rouged elements
Hiding in caves does tend to bring out the pallor.
At least three policemen have been killed and one injured when militants attacked a security check post in Bannu city in North West Pakistan.
According the officials, the attack was carried out in the Mandaan police station late on Friday night. The assailants used grenade and mortar fire to launch their attacked that resulted in the death of three men and then escaped unscathed.
On Saturday in the Hangue district also in North West Pakistan, a bomb blast killed five people including, two children and injured another 25 others.
A bomb went off in a mosque in the Thall area of the district while worshipers were leaving the evening prayer ad creating the carnage a local official told a Press Tv correspondent. The injured people were moved to a local hospital, some are in critical condition, a local official added.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Mine explosion has killed a French soldier and seriously injured another near the Afghan capital, Kabul, a French military spokesman said.
The blast occurred Saturday morning near the Darulaman camp, some 10 km south of Kabul, when the soldiers were on their way to a firing range. It was unclear if the mine was planted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-linked insurgents fighting the US-led forces in Afghanistan.
Condolences to the brave French soldiers and to the loved ones.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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Two more senior managers at the Ohio agency where computers were used to dig up information about "Joe the Plumber" have been suspended without pay for their roles in the searches, an official at the agency said Friday.
Let's consider this: suppose someone had confronted John McCain during a tour of a swing state, one that's controlled by Republicans. How about Indiana. Now suppose that officials in Indiana abused their positions to toss the files of said individual. And now suppose the Republican governor had passed out 2 and 4 week suspensions for the guilty officials.
Now ask: how do you think the MSM would have handled it?
Fred Williams, the Department of Job and Family Services' assistant director, will be placed on two weeks unpaid suspension beginning Monday, spokeswoman Scarlett Bouder said in a statement. Doug Thompson, the department's deputy director of child support, is facing a four-week unpaid suspension, also starting on Monday. Two other agency employees are facing disciplinary action based on conclusions reached Thursday by Ohio's government watchdog, she said.
The department's director, Helen Jones-Kelley, improperly ordered staff to look up records on Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, the Toledo-area man who became a household name in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Ohio Inspector General Thomas Charles said in a report. Gov. Ted Strickland immediately ordered Jones-Kelley be placed on a one-month unpaid suspension after reviewing the report's findings.
Charles' report also outlines roles played by Williams and Thompson in the searches, as well as Paul Fraunholtz, the deputy director of family stability, and Judi Cicatiello, the deputy director of unemployment compensation.
Fraunholtz and Cicatiello will receive written reprimands, and all four employees must undergo ethics training on handling confidential data, Bouder said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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If they'd been seaching medical records, it'd be a federal beef. As it is, it looks like RICO should apply here...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 1:07
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#3
Fred is right. If this had been republicans, the MSM would have gobe into a feeding frenzy.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 1:54
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#4
Does Joe have any legal recourse?
Posted by: One Eyed Mike N. ||
11/23/2008 1:56
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#5
Legal recourse? Anyone can sue Bush, Cheney or Rove any time for anything. Joe probably can't get the time of day from the legal system on this mess...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/23/2008 2:04
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#6
You notice that at first they were trying to blame the clerk that actually was ordered to do the search. Glad the blame is going in the direction of the Supervisors that actually ordered the search.
#8
And the somewhat clandestine 'Joe the Plumber' illegal gov't investigation went up the chain of command exactly how far? I smell more smelly fish in that pond.
#9
The election is over, but Joe the Plumber continues to root out evil in Ohio government. Hip, hip horray for Joe!
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
11/23/2008 8:46
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#10
We threw Taft out because the dumb ass couldn't say "No" to lobbists buying him golf outings. Strickland ran on the idea that he was the ethical candidate.
Plain as day, Strickland shows us that, in his mind, abuse of the public trust is no big deal.
#12
Now ask: how do you think the MSM Donk party propaganda organs would have handled it?
I believe its now been pretty well established that the MSM is simply the sock puppet of one party in the vast majority's perspective. The mask is off.
#14
Any plaintiff's attorney's reading this, here's a question.
If nothing else, could Joe construct a claim of damages with a floor amount of the value of all the "unpaid" leaves and suspensions and vacations which are piling up? It seems the state is admitting damage to at least that extent. Now, the rest of his claims could be the damages above and beyond that, but the state as kindly started digging the hole their in.
Just hours before a scheduled meeting here with Russia's leader, President Bush issued a provocative statement hailing the fifth anniversary of the so-called "Rose Revolution" in the former Russian province of Georgia.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2008
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I'm sure Russians will be really upset, and change all their plans.
#3
Ol' George W may not have the speechifying gene ala Churchill, but the boy does speak his mind. More than once, he has confounded his enemies by telling them exactly what he was going to do. (He can't possibly mean that!). I think I'm gonna miss him.
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.
Ferik Duka said last week that he had brought his family to the United States nearly 25 years ago for a better life. Once, he thought he had found it. Now, he and his wife, Zurata, sit in a federal courtroom in Camden each day watching and listening as their three oldest children, sons Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir, 25, stand trial on allegations that they plotted a jihad-inspired attack on Fort Dix.
Deep in Yemen's restive desert, terrorists target a family of European tourists. While the country mourns the deadly attack, an elite government force storms the killers' mountain hideout and brings them down in a hail of artillery. Ripped from the headlines - and punched up with some nifty military heroics - this is the plot of "A Losing Bet," a new film financed by the government of Yemen that aims to educate a terror-scarred nation about the consequences of jihad.
Maverick Thai general does the hand-grenade waltz
A British terror suspect was killed by US forces in Pakistan yesterday. MPs want to know: did they tell Britain first?
Pakistan's UN ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon has proposed that a joint Pakistani, NATO and US military force under the command of Gen Ashfaq Kayani should be set up to increase co-ordination and "curb terrorists across the Pak-Afghan border".
A defense establishment paper recommends making contingency plans to attack Iran, reaching an agreement with Syria that includes leaving the Golan Heights and preventing new elections in the Palestinian Authority, even if this means a confrontation with the United States. 
Three Qassam rockets were fired at the western Negev on Saturday. The rockets landed in open fields and no injuries or damages were reported. The rockets are believed to have been fired from the northern Negev, in the area where the Jewish settlement of Dugit was once located. 
Aswat al-Iraq: Joint Iraqi-U.S. forces on Saturday captured a man wanted by security authorities in a raid on his home, backed by Multi-National Force (MNF) warplanes, north of Kut city, a security source in Wassit province said. "The joint force captured a Kadhem al-Talqani, a wanted man, in a search raid in al-Numaniya district, (40 km) north of Kut, on Saturday evening," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "Talqani's son, Iyad, is one of the most dangerous persons wanted by Iraqi forces. A picture of Iyad was at the entrance of al-Numaniya city," the source added.
(SomaliNet) The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo wants to arrest three rebel leaders from the Sudanese region of Darfur and prosecute them for war crimes. 
Six people are dead after gunmen burst into a Tijuana bar popular with university students and opened fire. The local Public Safety Department says witnesses reported that three people dressed in black rushed into Bar Utopia and started shooting without saying a word.
Nicaragua's opposition is pressing on with a bid to cancel disputed elections despite a presidential decree declaring that effort unconstitutional.
President-elect Barack Obama yesterday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernise schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.
Somali pirates holding an oil-laden Saudi super-tanker for a $25 million dollar ransom said they will fight back should any military intervention to free the ship be attempted, a member of the pirate group said Saturday. "I hope the owner of the tanker is wise enough and won't allow any military option because that would be disastrous for everybody. We are here to defend the tanker if attacked," Abdiyare Moalim told AFP.
(SomaliNet) U.S. Ambassador James McGee said almost 300 people have died of cholera in Zimbabwe as shortages of food and clean drinking water worsen and the country's health system collapses. 
Indian paramilitary forces have shot and killed two 
(SomaliNet) Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign minister says. 
Aswat al-Iraq: An Iraqi army force on Saturday conducted a security operation in southern Diala province, killing an amir (leader) of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and arresting 15 others, a security source said. "A force from the Iraqi army's 5th Division carried out an operation inside Youssef al-Hilan village, south of Buhrez district, (5 km) south of Baaquba city, killing Ibrahim Hekmat, alias Abu Qatada, an AQI amir who is top aide of the network leader in Diala," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "Fifteen AQI members others were arrested in the operation," the source added.
(SomaliNet) The European Parliament on Thursday asked the UN Security Council to take urgent action to address the deteriorating situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 
(SomaliNet) Countries bordering the Red Sea pledged to cooperate at a meeting in the Egyptian capital Cairo on Thursday, where they discussed hijackings by Somali pirates. 
(APP): As many as two persons received trivial injuries in two consecutive bomb blasts in the cafeteria of Punjab Institute of Languages here on Saturday night. According to police officials, time device was used in the blasts. SSP operations Ch Shafiq and other police officials have reached the spot and are investigating.
ISLAMABAD - An anti-terrorism court on Saturday formally indicted five people in connection with the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, media reports said.
At least three policemen have been killed and one injured when militants attacked a security check post in Bannu city in North West Pakistan. 
