* Plane on test flight after maintenance
* Plunges into Mediterranean Sea
* Official says there's no hope of survivors
AN Air New Zealand passenger jet has plunged into the Mediterranean Sea off France, with officials saying there is no hope that any of the seven people on board survived.
The wreck of the Airbus A320 has been located off the southern city of Perpignan, where it had been undergoing maintenance.
Rescuers found the bodies of two crew members, but five others were missing this morning.
However, Dominique Alzeari, assistant prosecutor at Perpignan, said there was "no hope of finding survivors".
The plane was on a flight to check that it was operating normally when it fell from the sky, said other officials in Perpignan.
A surveillance plane, two rescue helicopters and five ships were scouring the seas around the crash site 3.5 nautical miles (2.5km) from the shore.
Five of those on the plane were from New Zealand and the two pilots were German.
The aircraft was owned by Air New Zealand but had been on lease to XL Airways for the past two years.
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said the aircraft was being flown by XL Airways to Frankfurt where it was due to be handed back to Air New Zealand.
Today is the 29th anniversary of Air New Zealand's biggest disaster, when Flight TE901 crashed into Mt Erebus while on a scenic trip over Antarctica. All 257 people on board died.
A fear psychosis has gripped India Inc. following the ghastly terrorist attacks in the countrys financial capital in which several senior corporate executives including the global board of fast moving consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever were trapped for several hours since Wednesday night.
Industry captains called for heightened security in industrial establishments and advocated for legislating tough anti-terror laws.
Saying that it is high time the industry started debating terrorism and terror laws, president of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Indian business and its various stakeholders have, so far, been mute and very detached from this debate on terrorism and tougher approach to terrorism and terrorists, including anti-terror laws.
Calling the mood in the industry extreme, director general of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Chandrajeet Banerjee said, We have to create political will and courage to combat terrorism. This is one issue where parliamentarians will have to move beyond their political parties and agenda. We need to react like America did after 9/11.
Condemning the dastardly and cowardly act of terrorists, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) Sajjan Jindal said this heinous act of terrorists will not destabilise Indias growth.
#5
Guru: Where are the stranglers?
Thuggees: [Thuggees respond in Hindi]
Guru: Give them their strangling cloths.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: Give them their burial picks.
Thuggees: Kali.
Guru: Swear by our mother Kali to be thrice faithful to her and to me and to our order and to all of us.
Thuggees: [Thuggees pray in Hindi]
Guru: Rise, our new-made brothers. Rise and kill. Kill, lest you be killed yourselves. Kill for the love of killing. Kill for the love of Kali. Kill! Kill! Kill!
-- Guru, and followers, from the move Gunga Din (1939)
#6
Add to IRNA > PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: THE ISLMAIC REVOLUTION IS NOT LIMITED TO BORDERS [Geographic andor National]; + CURRENT DEBATE IN CHINA OVER HISTORICAL ISOLATIONISM/"SOFT POWER" VERSUS ACTIVE FULL "NEW INTERNATIONALISM" VEE DECLINE OF AMERICA + DESIRED FUTURE CHIN-SPECIFIC GLOBAL SUPERPOWER AMBITION.
#7
And my above is NOT even counting the ISLAMIST THREAT PER SE to PAN-ASIAN ORDER, i.e. the Islmaist-led/desired destabilization and breakup of RUSSIA, CHINA, INDIA, + PERIPHERALS/ "NEAR ABOARD" ENCLAVES???
The gunmen holding dozens of hostages in two of Bombay's luxury hotels are demanding the release of 'Mujahideens' held in Indian jails before they free their prisoners.
Speaking from inside the Oberoi hotel where at least half a dozen foreigners are being held hostage one of the gunmen, identifed as Sahadullah, told India TV he belonged to an Indian Islamist group seeking an end to the persecution of Indian Muslims.
"We want all Mujahideens held in India released and only after that we will release the people," he said. "There are seven of us inside Hotel Oberoi."
The demands came as the death toll in the terror attacks rose to 101, with six foreigners among the dead, according to police. Another 287 people have been injured, of whom at least seven are British, according to the British High Commissioner in India.
Estimates of the number of hostages held and people trapped in the Hotel Oberoi and Taj Mahal Hotel vary between 50 and 200.
Sir Richard Stagg, Britain's High Commissioner to India, told the BBC: "We have visited most of the central hospitals where those injured have been taken and have met seven British victims who are in hospital at the moment and we understand there is likely to be some other injured of British nationality."
He refused to discuss the nature of their injuries and added that the nationality of the hostages being held in the city was unknown, although some were "foreign".
As dawn broke over the country's financial capital after the night of carnage, gunfire could still be heard in the country's financial capital.
Police with loudspeakers declared a curfew around the Taj Mahal Hotel, where at least two gunmen are still holding a number of hostages, many of them British and American.
Green uniformed soldiers were seen entering the Taj and the Oberoi. Ambulances were moved close to the Taj, in what might signal the start of a police assault on the building and its occupiers.
The attacks began late last night, when militants swept through the southern part of the city attacking a railway station, a backpacker hotel and the two hotels with automatic rifles and grenades. A taxi was bombed near the international airport.
At Leopold Café, a bar popular with tourists and backpackers, witnesses described pools of blood and bullet-scarred walls.
Eleven police officers, including the chief of Bombay's anti-terror squad, were killed in stand-offs with gunmen. Police later said that they had killed four suspected terrorists and arrested nine.
A police spokesman said: "We have only a very tenuous grasp on what is happening so far. People are scared. The incidents being reported are so many. Gunmen are under siege at several locations but we are worried about hitting civilians." Later, police said that they had killed four suspected terrorists.
The iconic Taj Mahal Hotel was set on fire, gutting the upper floors, and this mornng it was still ablaze. Soldiers and firefighters helped one woman and several others to climb down ladders and escape the blazing edifice as the firing continued inside.
A clutch of weeping Spanish, Italian and British guests huddled outside the hotel this morning, clutching bottles of water and haversacks.
A few miles away across town, eyewitnesses said gunmen hijacked a police van and then opened fire on crowds that had collected near two hospitals close to the police headquarters.
"We heard a car speed up behind us, it was a police van, but the men inside were firing at us," said Manish Tripathi, at a police cordon near one of the hospitals. "Men were screaming that they had lost their fingers. There was blood all over. I feel they are still screaming."
The ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group, Chabad Lubavitch, was reportedly attacked overnight. Shots have been heard coming from the building and witnesses say a Jewish family is being held hostage, including a Rabbi. This has not been confirmed.
Schools and colleges have been ordered to close today, and the stock market will remain closed for at least the next 24 hours.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
10:28 ||
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#1
Speaking from inside the Oberoi hotel where at least half a dozen foreigners are being held hostage one of the gunmen, identifed as Sahadullah, told India TV he belonged to an Indian Islamist group seeking an end to the persecution of Indian Muslims.
#5
There might be a better way. Rehabilitate the Thugee on condition they go after Muslims. There are a heck of a lot of Hindus who are Shiva worshipers, and Kali is the consort of Shiva.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing growing pressure to replace Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) atop of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, but so far she's sticking with the embattled chairman.
In a statement released late Wednesday, Pelosi said she is prepared to wait for the House ethics committee to complete its investigation of Rangel's personal finances, which is slated to occur before the official end of the 110th Congress in early January.
But Pelosi also signaled that she does not want Rangel's problems hanging over House Democrats indefinitely, and some action on the embattled congressman is expected early next year, maybe even before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office.
"In September, I called on the House Ethics Committee to look into issues raised by news reports on Chairman Rangel. This followed up on the chairman's own request for an investigation by the Committee," Pelosi said in her statement. "I have been assured the report will be completed by the end of this session of Congress, which concludes on Jan. 3, 2009. I look forward to reviewing the report at that time."
The uncomfortable state of limbo with one of the most senior chairmen has provided an opening Republicans and outside ethics experts to criticize Pelosi's standards and question her pledge to "drain the swamp." Democratic leaders and rank and file members have also been remarkably silent about what to do with Rangel.
The House ethics committee was already investigating Rangel's myriad financial disclosure problems, but the latest revelation from the New York Times that Rangel met with donors to the Charles B. Rangel Center at City College of New York who also had tax policy business before Congress has given yet another opening for Republican attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
10:26 ||
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#1
primary residences with rent and tax breaks in two cities? undeclared rental income and no-interest loans for Caribbean resort residence? Cholly is a dirty little POS, and has no bizness in congress, much less as chair of the tax-writing committee. Get him out, now! Jailtime and fines for the fat greasy dirtbag
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2008 11:27
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#2
But Pelosi also signaled that she does not want Rangel's problems hanging
By George I think the old buzzard has stumbled onto the solution after all.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/27/2008 14:00
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#5
Sorry to disillusion you Hellfish but this has nothing to do with Pelosi feeling shame. The pressure comes from potential political embarassment and the negatives that would bring. All of Charlie's "foibles" are as nothing to her. After all congress critters are entitled to anything they can get their hands on, aren't they?
#7
Shucks, it's only money. Now, if he had been swimming in the Tidal Basin, or shared a burlesque stage, with an Argentine stripper he'd be gone by now. (Wilbur Mills & Fannie Fox)
General Motors Corp. is studying possible elimination of some of its brands, with options including Pontiac, Hummer and Saab, the Free Press has learned.
I'd suggest splitting them off into their own companies and letting them stand or fall on their own, but nobody listens to me because I'm an old crank.
A person familiar with the company's deliberations told the Free Press that all options are being considered as executives look at potential savings and devise a plan to submit to Congress in GM's bid for government loans to help it through a cash crisis.
In addition to the storied Pontiac brand, Hummer and Saab, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that the review included the Saturn brand. GM declined comment.
Saturn only made sense if the idea was to introduce the Toyota way to GM. Now that Saturn cars are just clones of whatever Chevy has there's no need for them. Aura = Malibu, and Vue = Equinox.
The real issue: which divisions are selling cars? Which divisions have any sort of brand identity that one can build on in a new GM? Buick should be toast: it's lost its identity, and if the idea is to sell upscale cars, sell Cadillacs, not Buicks. Pontiac used to be the muscle car division, the glamour cars. If that's gone then there's no need for Pontiac. Hummer made no sense and was an acquisition back when GM had cash. Ditto Saab: Ford did the same thing buying Volvo and Jaguar and had to sell them both to raise cash. GM should do the same.
You could argue that a new GM has but four divisions: Chevrolet (basic and family cars, and trucks), Saturn (upscale small cars), and Cadillac (upscale medium and large cars), and GMC (trucks for the Cadillac dealers who need something more). But each division has to have a brand identity distinct enough to make sense. Toyota has three divisions: Toyota, Scion and Lexus. Each division is clear enough such that there is no confusion in the marketplace. GM lost its way, in part, because people couldn't see any difference between a Buick, a Pontiac and an Oldsmobile. And they were right: there was no difference.
"There is a lot is a lot speculation about what will or won't be in the plan next week, and we are going to decline to comment on it," said company spokesman Tom Wilkinson. "We are not likely to say anything in advance of the plan."
GM and its Detroit brethren, Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co., are preparing plans to send to Congress next week in their bid for $25 billion in emergency loans. Faced with frozen credit markets that have prevented consumers from getting auto loans, U.S. sales hit a 25-year low last month.
GM has said it could reach the minimum levels of cash it needs for operations by the end of the year, and its board has reviewed the possibility of bankruptcy.
Keep reviewing.
Before the U.S. economy crashed this year, the automakers already were losing money as they restructure to bring production capacity -- and workforce levels -- in line with demand and to shift their lineup toward more fuel-efficient vehicles and away from the pickups and SUVs that brought them huge profits in the 1990s.
The companies' chief executives were sent back to Detroit last week after lawmakers criticized them for coming to Washington, D.C., without showing a plan for how they will run their businesses differently if they get the money. They were told to come up with plans by Tuesday, and new hearings are set next week.
Critics have long called for GM to pare its offerings, as it did with Oldsmobile in 2000, and eliminate overlap as its market share in the United States has slipped.
The first Pontiac -- the Series 6-27 -- debuted in 1926 at the New York Auto Show, according to GM. Pontiac -- GM's affordable performance brand -- created icons like the Firebird and GTO. Sales have fallen for years, and Pontiac now shares all its dealerships with Buick and GMC. The brand has seen its U.S. sales drop 20.9% so far this year, according to Autodata Corp.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
10:15 ||
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I'd suggest splitting them off into their own companies and letting them stand or fall on their own, but nobody listens to me because I'm an old crank.
I agree entirely, but I'm another Old Crank.
(ask my wife)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/27/2008 10:33
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I was a GM employee for 7 years and left several years ago becuase I didn't see a hopeful future. Their assembly operations are very good but tooled for products that have been rendered inappropriate. Their stamping plants provide poor quality that no customer would tolerate from a vendor ... other than themselves. Retooling plants to vehicles that are saleable will cost billions that they don't have. Unfortunately for GM the automotive market now has become a commodity type market where most offereings are similar and the buyer makes a purchase decision based on price. In order to be successful in the automotive market GM will have to hold down costs. Its Asian competitors now own brand new American plants that are non-union shops in Southern rural areas while GM owns aging facilities in dying Northern welfare states with employees that are socialist deadbeats. Other thatn that their future is rosy.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/27/2008 13:52
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#6
How about doing this first: Go for bankruptcy, get rid of the present CEO and upper management, get rid of the board of directors and sue the sh*t out of all them for fiscal irresponsibility, and then figure out what is marketable to the public, makes economic sense, efficient, etc etc. Get the hell out of Michigan and away the unions and go to places where people have a work ethic and favorable tax laws. I mean the US.
Throwing money at the same methodology is insane, but what would expect of govt? One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/27/2008 13:54
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#7
I wish GM would make a line of cars that doesn't change every year. Make a mid-sized 4-door family car that stays the same every year. Parts (and therefore repairs) would be inexpensive, GM wouldn't have to re-tool production lines every year, and they would become a favorite of tinkerers.
Police commandoes battling the Mumbai terrorist attacks surrounded the headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Jewish outreach group Chabad Lubavitch, which gunmen had seized overnight during a series of coordinated attacks across the city.
Thousands of gawkers stood in the narrow alleyways near the white, five-story building in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India, where heavy curtains hung behind windows broken by gunfire. Neighbours had tried to protect the house as armed gunmen seized it Wednesday night.
A witness said three people were killed in the attack, but the account could not be confirmed.
"It seems that the terrorists commandeered a police vehicle which allowed them easy access to the area of the Chabad house and threw a grenade at a gas pump nearby," said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, a spokesman for the Lubavitch movement in New York, adding the attackers then "stormed the Chabad house."
The house serves as an educational centre, a synagogue and offers drug prevention services.
Residents tried to protect the centre, clashing with the gunmen and throwing rocks at them in an effort to drive the militants away, said Puran Doshi, a local businessman who lives nearby.
The crowd eventually retreated under fire from the gunmen, who wounded one man, killed three others and threw several hand grenades, he said. Police could not immediately confirm his account.
"They shot indiscriminately into the crowd," Doshi said.
Sanjay Bhasme, 40, who lives in the building behind Chabad house, said he notified the police after the shooting began about 9:45 p.m., but no police arrived for more than 30 minutes and only after he'd repeatedly telephoned for help.
Shmotkin said he had been unable to confirm reports that a couple and a teenager had been killed in the melee. He did not know the status of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, the main representative at Chabad house, or the rabbi's family.
He said there were other families who lived at the house, which draws hundreds of Israeli and Jewish visitors from India and abroad each year.
Shots were heard a few times Thursday morning, and the commandoes fired tear gas at least once at the house, said witnesses. Three people were lead from the building and escorted away by police: a woman, a child and an Indian cook.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008
09:44 ||
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Residents tried to protect the centre, clashing with the gunmen and throwing rocks at them in an effort to drive the militants away
Kudos to the brave residents of Mumbai
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008 9:50
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#2
clashing with the gunmen and throwing rocks
Unfortunately, here in South Louisiana we don't have any rocks to throw at well-armed terrorists. On the other hand, we do have lots of guns with which to throw stuff. I guess they don't in India - culture or law?
#3
Remember Glenmore, we got our independence from Britain by armed revolt. The Indians went the 'non-violent' route. Which of course only works when you deal with enlightened civilizations. Not so much when you face the types they see today.
#4
I caught a glimpse of a Indian policeman or soldier carrying what appeared to be an Lee Enfield MK V Jungle Carbine. Several were armed with MK IV's A bit dated, but still quite an effective weapon.
#5
ION INDIA, PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > HINDUVATA: ALL INDIAN MUSLIMS BRACE FOR GUJURAT-TYPE VIOLENCE; + INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > PAKISTAN WATER COMMISSION: INDIA TO MAKE PAKISTAN BARREN [no water] BY 2014, + INDIA'S WATER WAR AGZ BANGLADESH [Bangla also "drying out"].
VARIOUS POSTERS - Wid PAKISTAN already being a NUCLEAR STATE, + BOTH BANGLA + MYANMAR INTERESTED IN NUCLEARIZATION + BALLISTIC MISSLES, INDIA IS POTENTIALLY FACING WAR(S) [WMDS-Missle, Nuclear?] ON MULTIPLE FRONTS.
An 8-year-old St. Johns boy charged with double homicide may have kept a written record of spankings he received at home, vowing that the 1,000th would be his limit, according to police records released Friday. A search affidavit signed by Sgt. Lucas Rodriguez says the child "is believed to have made ledgers and/or communicated in the form of writings about his intentions."
"(The boy) told a CPS (Child Protective Services) worker that when he reached one thousand spankings, that would be his limit," the affidavit says. "(The boy) kept a tally of his spankings on a piece of paper."
The juvenile is charged with shooting his 29-year-old father and a family friend, 39-year-old Timothy Romans, at the family's home in St. Johns on Nov. 5.
One day after the killings, the third-grader gave police a statement that investigators described as a confession. In it, he says he was spanked by his stepmother at his father's request the day before the homicides because he did not bring home some school papers.
The newly released documents also say family members were not surprised when Police Chief Roy Melnick informed them that the boy had admitted shooting his dad. In a written report, Melnick says he and another officer "comforted them as best we could."
After several minutes," the report continues, "(the grandmother) shouted out in an angry and loud tone, 'I knew this would happen. They were too hard on (the boy). I knew (he) did it. He spent the night in my bed cuddling up to me. I had a feeling he did it. If any 8-year-old boy is capable of doing this, it's (him).' "
The grandfather then repeated, "If any 8-year-old was capable of doing this, (he) was."
The grandparents were too overcome with grief to explain further, the report said. Because of the suspect's age, The Arizona Republic is not identifying him or his family members by name.
Search-warrant records are contained in a police report made available by the Apache County Attorney's Office. Those records do no include crime-lab reports, which might identify fingerprints on shell casings, gunshot residue on a suspect's clothing or ballistics from the murder weapon.
However, the case file contains numerous other revelations. Among them:
The boy's father was shot four times, twice in the head. Romans was hit six times. The shot in one of his two head wounds was fired at close range. In his statement to police, the boy had said that he shot his father and Romans twice each to stop their suffering after they had been wounded by an unknown person.
The victims' co-workers, friends and family told detectives that the two men recently had been involved in minor disputes with colleagues at a nearby power plant and with men at a local bar. Police in San Carlos, where Romans grew up, told St. Johns investigators that he had a prior drug arrest and was suspected of minor drug dealing. Friends of Romans told St. Johns police that he was getting a divorce.
Juvenile-booking records show the 8-year-old had no history of psychiatric care and was not on any medications. They list the boy at 4 feet tall, and 65 pounds.
Since the ordeal began, published reports have quoted a number of psychologists and criminologists who suggest that a child of the suspect's age would be capable of killing only if he had been subjected to serious trauma.
The search-warrant records contain the first public disclosure that the boy was in contact with CPS workers and may have endured regular corporal punishment. The records do not mention a diary of spankings. However, the seized evidence includes a spelling worksheet with blood on it and another sheet of paper labeled, "Story (boy's first name) the Family."
Because CPS cases are confidential and an Apache County judge imposed a gag order, it remains unclear when and why the boy may have discussed spankings with a caseworker.
Investigative records describe how the child sat in the St. Johns police station after his arrest, chewing on a plastic cup. After a long silence, he told an officer, "They're going to send me to juvie, I know it." Within minutes, he was booked into the Apache County Juvenile Detention Center.
Another police report, filed a day later, says the boy asked to see a court security officer's phone while awaiting a hearing. "He then said, 'My lawyer has a phone like that, and my dad had one, too. But he's not going to need it. He's not coming back.' "
The boy, who is on furlough with his birth mother over the Thanksgiving holiday, faces juvenile charges of premeditated murder. County Attorney Criss Candelaria must decide within two weeks whether he will seek to prosecute him as an adult.
#1
Since the ordeal began, published reports have quoted a number of psychologists and criminologists who suggest that a child of the suspect's age would be capable of killing only if he had been subjected to serious trauma.
They obviously keep themselves cloistered from the real world. Part of the problem with so many western 'experts' is they fail to realize that the west itself lives largely in the fantasy land of human history. Their perspective is the anomaly not the norm.
#4
This kid has had serious, serious psychological trauma. Trying him as an adult would be the worst thing that could be done.
He needs time in a group home or facility where a dedicated psychologist can get into his head and figure out what happened.
And, by the way, I'm having trouble believing an eight year old kid fired 10 shots at two different men, with some of the shots being head shots at close range. Just doesn't sound right.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2008 12:11
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I think the big question is how close his parents came to beating him 1000 times? And that only includes the times an eight year old can remember.
The first thing I'd do is X-Ray the kid, then use a scan to see if there is obvious brain damage. If he checks out physically, he needs a team of psychiatrists and psychologists, as well the the best, most seasoned foster parents around.
I would actually be a good sign if he has PTSD. If he doesn't, it is going to be a decade of hard work if they hope he will have anything approaching a normal rest of his life.
#6
Those would have to be some salty foster parents Anonymoose.
I know I wouldn't want to be sleeping in the same house as a kid that kills people in their sleep.
#7
We seem to be slaying the innocent unborn and raising monsters instead. He needs to sleep alright, in his grave. Having tasted it, he'll likely kill again.
#8
Maybe I'm just cold and heartless, but this kid killed two people in cold blood. I'm for putting him down on a precautionary basis because if they don't, he'll be out at 21 doing it again with a worse attitude.
TOKYO (Reuters) -- Handlers of a popular polar bear, brought to mate with a female in a zoo in northern Japan, found their breeding plan was doomed when they noticed that he, in fact, was a she. Oopsie...
Tsuyoshi, a four-year-old, 200 kg (441 lb) cream-colored polar bear, had been living in harmony with a female polar bear since June, the two often playing together, Masako Inoue, a zookeeper at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo, said on Wednesday.
"We thought he was a male, so we never had any doubts as we took care of him," she said. "But one day we realized that the two bears urinate in the same way, and we thought, is that how males do it? And once we started to look at things that way, we weren't quite so sure." OK, but it took you SIX MONTHS to notice this?
Don't loan them to the San Diego Zoo, they can't get married there ...
After two DNA examinations of Tsuyoshi's hair and a manual exam, the Kushiro Municipal Zoo found Tsuyoshi to be a female.
"We do have mixed feelings," said Inoue. "But because Tsuyoshi was supposed to be a male, she came here, and because she came here, we were able to take care of her since she was very small." Wait, you had MORE than six months??
It is not uncommon for the sex of polar bears to be misread, Inoue said, as their long hair makes it difficult to distinguish, especially when the bears are young. Tsuyoshi was pegged as a male three months after birth, Inoue said. That ALONE saves you from being 'Today's Idiot.'
On a serious note the reason male humans have scrotums is to cool testiculae since human spermtaozoids die very fast at 37 degrees. But given where polar bears live the genitalia of their males are certainly hidden in their fur or perhaps even semi-internal. In cetacens they are only visible when aroused, rest of time they are carried internally for improved hydrodynamism.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/27/2008 13:57
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#5
Humans as well. It happened to me once when I was stuck on a mountainside in a snowstorm and getting hyperthermia. Reaching inside my pants to take a pee, I kinda freaked when it wasn't there. My penis had retracted completely inside my body.
A suicide car bomber plowed a Toyota into rush-hour traffic on a commercial boulevard in Kabul on Thursday morning, killing at least four civilians and wounding up to 17, the police and hospital authorities said. The bomber was apparently aiming at a passing convoy of NATO troops, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, but several witnesses said there were no security forces, either Afghan or foreign, in the immediate vicinity of the blast.
The explosion occurred about 150 meters, or 500 feet, from a major traffic circle and a heavily guarded entrance to an access road leading to the U.S. Embassy, raising speculation that the bomber may have intended to blow himself up there but detonated his device prematurely. The embassy was playing host at a Thanksgiving Day fun run beginning at 9 a.m., so Americans and other Westerners were entering the embassy compound when the bomb went off, The Associated Press reported.
According to witnesses, the car was weaving through traffic, then hit a pedestrian and a series of cars before exploding. "I thought he was drunk," said Salih Muhammad, 35, a street cleaner who was working on that stretch of road when the attack occurred. "Then there was this huge explosion."
Two other cleaning crew members were wounded in the blast, and co-workers rushed them to a nearby hospital. Muhammad stood with another street cleaner outside the emergency room waiting for news of their colleagues. His hands and orange work clothes were covered in the blood of one of his colleagues whom he had carried from the street.
Noor Agah Akramzada, director of the hospital, said he had received 10 of the wounded and the body of one of the victims. Officials at a military hospital in the neighborhood said they had received at least seven other wounded civilians.
Within minutes of the attack, the victims had been carted away and government investigators had begun sifting through the wreckage. But more than an hour later, the bloodied, twisted body of the suicide bomber still lay in the street, about 50 meters from the blast site where only the mangled front end of his car remained.
Qari Ayob, 37, the owner of a small store near the blast site, said he was in his shop at the time of the attack. "At first I felt a huge flame and then heard a very big explosion," he said. "I felt as if the flame came into my shop. Then a darkness came, and it blinded me for a while." As he spoke, workers were cleaning up his shattered shop window. The store would remain open, Ayob said. "There is no alternative," he said. "This is my job. I need to continue."
#4
Let's see you do that at 22 below, Charlotte. I doubt you'd last more than 30 seconds. There are lots of reasons for wearing fur other than as a fashion statement.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/27/2008 16:58
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#5
the nylon jackets they wear will still be in some trash heap 2 million years from now but that fur will have bio-degraded in decades.
The dead toll rose to 101 in the terror attack that struck Mumbai in yet another series of synchronised mayhem that was unleashed in the financial capital of India around midnight on Wednesday. At least 287 people were also injured in India's most audacious terror attack.
Fresh gunshots rang out on Thursday morning at the Taj and Oberoi hotels where security forces battled terrorists holding hostages after a night of horror. As soldiers, police and elite commandos fanned out across the country's commercial capital to rescue hostages and kill terrorists who stormed the city at night and struck at seven sites in the business hub of south Mumbai, one of the terrorists claimed that the attack was to avenge the "persecution" of Muslims in India.
The otherwise bustling city - home to Bollywood - was still on edge after a large but unknown number of terrorists armed with automatic rifles and grenades sneaked into Mumbai by the sea, a clear indication that they must be foreigners.
Desperate to cope with a situation they had never encountered before, the authorities declared a holiday in Mumbai on Thursday. The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange were ordered closed for the day.
"This is a most audacious attack. It is a very serious situation and gun battles are still on in at least three places," said Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh as leaders around the world denounced the well-planned terrorist operation.
The terrorists began targeting high profile landmarks close to the sea and popular with Western tourists from between 10.15 and 10.30 p.m. on Wednesday. The targets included Hotel Taj, Hotel Oberoi-Trident, Metro Theatre and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) railway station. A grenade was also hurled at a taxi in Vile Parle, destroying it and killing its occupants, and one more attack took place at Mazgaon, a Mumbai suburb. A police van was hijacked.
Panic set in quickly all over the city, which has seen several terror attacks in the past. The outwitted police took them on but suffered losses initially. Among the first to die was Hemant Karkare, the highly regarded Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) chief heading the controversial probe into bomb attacks in Maharashtra blamed on Hindu radicals.
Among his four colleagues who were also believed to be killed were Additional Police Commissioners Ashok Kamte and Sadanand Date and Mumbai Police officer Vijay Salaskar who was known as "encounter specialist" for killing gangsters.
As police reinforcements rushed to the attack sites, backed by the hurriedly summoned paramilitary and Indian soldiers, 200 commandos of the National Security Guards (NSG) were flown from New Delhi. The NSG is trained to take on terrorists. The security forces killed two terrorists and caught nine. But within a short time, a huge blast was heard on the top floor of the Taj Hotel and a raging fire erupted. Smoke billowed from there even on Thursday.
The situation appeared to be somewhat under control Thursday, with police officers herding several tourists from the two hotels into ambulances and police vehicles to move them to safety. Yet there was no word on how many foreigners were dead but one Western woman - her nationality not known - was reportedly killed at Hotel Taj.
Maharashtra Director General of Police A.N. Roy said: "The terrorists have fired indiscriminately."
Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said AK-47 and AK-56 as well as semi-automatic rifles besides grenades were used in the "coordinated terrorist acts". On Thursday, a five-kilometre radius in south Mumbai, which covers business districts such as Colaba, Cuff Parade, Nariman Point and Churchgate, was cordoned off.
A nationwide alert was sounded following the synchronised attacks that came less than a month after over 50 people died in serial terror bombings in the northeastern state of Assam.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2008
00:40 ||
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#1
November 27, 2008 11:44 IST
According to highly reliable intelligence sources, two boatfuls of weapons and some 18-20 terrorists most likely came from Karachi in Pakistan.
Intelligence agencies are zeroing in on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba as the agency behind the terror attacks.
The initial interrogation of terrorists captured in Mumbai has yielded some basic information. According to sources, for some time the directions kept coming "live" to the terrorists in Mumbai via satellite phones.
#7
Contrary to some reports the best solid information I have at this point is they have captured one of the individuals, six are still at large and believed to be holed up with hostages.
Any information that they came from Karachi is way too preliminary to have much reliability at this point. But Pakistan seems to be the nexus for pretty much every major global terrorist operation so it wouldn't surprise me to find that to be the case.
#8
10 sepparate attacks across the city, over 900 hurt or worse, 2 possibly targetted executions of officials.
No way this was done by 18-20 guys, I am thinking about 40 to 60, and I am as always quite weary to except things at face-value when the ISI is somehow involved.
#11
I really feel for these hostages, but negotiating for the release of hostages is a giant moral hazard. The reason so many hostages are taken in this world is precisely because taking them triggers a negotiation process and not an immediate death sentence. Negotiating with even the local crazy in the trailer park should have been stopped several decades ago at least.
Betweens the thousands of movies, tens of thousands of tv shows and probably hundreds of thousands of books and comic book featuring hostages the message has made it to every soul on the planet. Taking hostages gives you a chance to get out alive.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/27/2008 3:14
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#12
I just hope the backlash is larger than these attacks.
#17
Let me say the obvious here: If India and Pakistan destroy each other in war, it'd de facto be a victory for China and Russia, as their supremacy would now be uncontested in Central/Southern Asia.
Iran would also benefit, as with Pakistan's destruction it'd be the most powerful militarily muslim state, and (since Saddam's overthrow) the only muslim country that could threaten its hegemony in the region.
Therefore I wouldn't be surprised if these attacks were therefore so encouraged by agents of one of these three powers for the explicit purpose of weakening both India and Pakistan by driving them to conflict.
#18
Unless India wins without destroying itself. Maybe then the Chinese and Ruskies could go after each other and we could finish what the Indians start.
#19
Mike N., as someone who took FBI hostage training many moons ago....it's not a moral hazard in the slightest. The goal is to get the people held against their will released safely, and yes, getting the nut in the trailer park out without getting someone else hurt in the process. That includes the good guys, since from time to time the hostage takers/crazies have booby traps set up.
Besides, if you don't talk to them, you may be losing out on some valuable intelligence. It could range from where in their "fortress" they might be vulnerable to a SWAT-type operation, to who's underwriting the whole thing, to.....who knows what else. Just sayin'.
#20
Thanks for the updates, neelesh kulkarni and john frum. I am so sorry this has happened to your country. (Am hoping that a good friend of the Tsar wasn't kicking around there for a few days as planned and went straight off to Puna like a good boy.)
#21
Don't admit you captured ANY of the terrorists, or if there are witnesses, make sure you report that the prisoners were critically injured and died shortly afterward. You don't want your hands tied during your 'discussions' and you don't want them to be 'celebrities'.
#22
I wonder which training camps these people are from - the Indo-Pak or the Afghan-Pak side of the border? Either way, I suspect Uncle Sam will seriously step up bombing raids in Pakistan because of US casualties.
#23
Despite the large scale and the sea access this does not look like an attack that the ISI command would sponsor.
The jihadists (and I think that's the most accurate term to call them) may have had help from a few rogue ISI agents (or ex agents) but that's not the same thing.
In short, I don't think this atrocity comes from Pakistan as much as it comes from Islam.
#24
Some more speculation: Al Qeada has been hurt badly by Pakistan's push into the territories. Al Qeada needs Pakistan to do something besides go after the territories. I'd be very interested if Al Qaeda cadre were among the dead terrorists. Sent in to prod the Indians into distracting the Pakistani army.
20 cadre from Pakistan linking up with an in place support network of maybe 5 times that would account for the scope of the operation.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
11/27/2008 11:48
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#26
"Any information that they came from Karachi is way too preliminary to have much reliability at this point."
"Satellite phone recovered from dead terrorist. 3 calls made to Karachi after the attack"
pretty damning evidence, but hey he could have been calling his mom to wish her a happy birthday....
Posted by: Jan from work ||
11/27/2008 13:14
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#27
Cell phones and credit cards recovered would appear to indicate they might have been planning to melt into the population at some point.
#28
The problem is that Pakistan is an Islamic state with nukes. Pakistan cannot now be economically self supporting. They seem to get help from the US, China, Saudis, in various forms, to various groups.
They need their nukes, nuke infrastructure, and means of subsidy taken away. Then they can go back to their tribal sh*thole backwater that they seem to prefer.
So the issue is how to achieve these ends. We need some research, thoughtful analysis, a plan and a figurative or literal wrecking crew, and carry out the mission. I am not talking frontal assault. I am not talking about nation building. I am talking about dismantaling this petri dish of terrorism. I think that the US and India could create a strategic partnership in the task.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/27/2008 13:41
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#29
Pakistan is part of the problem, no matter where these particular subhuman specimens came from. The madrassas spew hate and intolerance for everyone not a muslim, and those muslims that don't worship quite the way the imam of the madrassa believes. Eliminating the source of so much hate cannot be a bad thing. India's new western border should be the Indus river (from which India gets its name, and one of the major travesties of the British partition). Afghanistan, UNDER US OCCUPATION, should take over the other half. Let India also reclaim Bangladesh, another source of muslim perfidity. It won't end all the "fun and games", but it will slow it down a bit.
John, if you can, could you provide an update later this afternoon? Your work is the best I've seen from that area. If Time Magazine weren't so deeply imbedded in the left, you would make an excellent correspondent for them.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/27/2008 13:42
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#31
An FBI team is reportedly on the way. An Israeli team is on the ground now
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008 14:37
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#32
There are rumors of an electronic intercept of communication between the Pak embassy and the terrorists. Some of the terrorists spoke with Punjabi and Pashtun accents
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008 15:00
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#33
#32 There are rumors of an electronic intercept of communication between the Pak embassy and the terrorists
#34
From Newsweek Around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a band of 10 young armed militants zoomed up to a fishermen's colony in Colaba, on the Mumbai waterfront, in inflatable Zodiac speedboats. Locals confronted them: unlike the dark-skinned Mumbai fishermen, who speak only Marathi, the regional dialect, the intruders were young, tall and fair-skinned and spoke Urdu with a northern accent. According to local press, the gunmen reportedly told them to mind their business, then gave a raised-thumb gesture, and splitting into small groups, walked off into two different directions. The fishermen reported the suspicious men to a police post nearby, but the tip-off failed to rouse the cops to action.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008 15:50
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#35
"There are rumors "
There are going to be a lot of rumors and early reports that are going to turn out to be false. At this moment it really isn't important for us to have a clear picture of what went on. In fact, it is probably best if we don't at this point. We need to be patient and the news media would probably do the world a better service if it would stop trying to report every snippet it finds.
#39
Commandos have just slithered down ropes from a M1-17 chopper onto the roof of Nariman house where the Israelis are being held hostage
Posted by: john frum ||
11/27/2008 20:55
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#40
Willing to bet that the interrogations of these assholes doesn't stop at waterboarding. and also willing to bet that any lib-based whining is ignored ( as it should be, and should have been)
The terrorists, who created havoc in Mumbai overnight, came by boats and struck at 10 places but their number is not known immediately, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said. Addressing a press conference in the wee hours, he said two terrorists had been killed in encounters with police and security forces and nine suspects have been detained.
The terror attacks began between 9 pm and 9.15 pm with indiscriminate firing and bomb blasts, Deshmukh said. The terrorists came by boats and started firing, he said but their number was not immediately known. The attackers threw grenades and fired indiscriminately while storming the hotels across Mumbai, he added. At least two sten guns have been recovered from the terrorists, the Chief Minister said.
To a question, he said it was not immediately known as to who was involved in the attacks as the entire police force is concentrating on saving lives. He said around 200 National Security Guard (NSG) commandos had been dispatched from Delhi for the operation to flush out terrorists. Asked whether foreigners were the target of the attacks, the Chief Minister disagreed, saying it could not be said.
This article starring:
Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2008
00:26 ||
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#3
We can but hope the Indian response for their citizens being murdered by Muslims, is done at the same ratio the Israelis response when their citizens are murdered by Muslims.
#4
I can't think of any reason to start the attack from a boat like this (apparently it was a zodiac-like landing boat) unless it was launched from a larger boat offshore.
#5
Lessirree, STRATFOR > INDIA: DECCAN MUJAHIDEEN EMAIL CAME FROM RUSSIA, + RED ALERT: THE POSSIBLE GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE MUMBAI ATTACKS, i.e. IRRECOVERABLE? Harm to India-Pakistan Relations = War, Internal Pakis Govt. humiliation = new destabilization???
* TOPIX > MUMBAI ATTACKS UNDERLY RISE IN SERIOUS THREAT OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM TO INDIA AND ASIA.
#3
In addition to being moonbat leftists, they are devoid of originality.
No wonder domestic movie watching is down so much.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/27/2008 7:35
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#4
Okay, Termintor IV and Ghostbusters III are understandable. It's common to milk a successful franchise and I look forward to a new Ghostbusters movie. Remake Robocop? Any of the tohers? Foolishness.
#5
In the remake of Alien the huamns ask themselves why the Alien hates them and then determine it is Bush fault. Then they tie hands with the Alien, sing Kumbaya and bring the man-etaing thing to Earth.
#8
Can we call this the result of a 'Detroit Bubble'. A corporate cultural echo chamber that keeps making products devoid of creativity or integrity. A static institution in a dynamic evolutionary environment that rewards adaptation is eventually going to die. The question is how much else of the society are they going to drag down with them?
#11
...I MIGHT go see a Ghostbusters III or a Terminator sequel that wraps up the story, but I wouldn't touch any of the others with a 12-parsec pole. They were products of their time, and could never, ever be topped. The new The Day The Earth Stood Still - with Keanu Reeves running the gamut of emotions from A to B - is sheer blasphemy compared to the sublime original, especially when you add the PC crap that will certainly be a part of it and all the others.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/27/2008 9:20
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#12
Real life is bizarre enough for me. Forget the Sci-Fi and remakes. I'll save my money for Australia.
The special effects are STILL up to date. Way ahead of its time."
True enough, BP. But for WAY ahead of its time, check out Lang's "Metropolis".
Posted by: no mo uro ||
11/27/2008 10:11
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#14
As has been said times too numerous to mention, who really gives a rat's a$$ what Hollywood does? "Remakes" are simply an excuse for lack of any original ideas. It should be only a matter of time until Hollywood self destructs...one can only hope.
#18
When they remake Mothra I will commence mining Hanna-Barbera material for a workable HR Puffenstuff, Lidsville or Sigmund and the Seamonsters script.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/27/2008 14:02
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#19
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Is going to be utter shite.
He is here to save the planet from Humanity and Global Warming Climate Change!
A representative of an alien race that went through drastic evolution to survive its own climate change, Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) comes to Earth to assess whether humanity can prevent the environmental damage they have inflicted on their own planet. Klaatu himself already has a negative opinion of humans, and when barred from speaking to the United Nations, he decides they shall be exterminated so the planet with its rare ability to sustain complex life can survive. It is up to Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) to convince Klaatu humans are worth saving: but it may already be too late.
#21
Yes, I believe that the re-make of the Day the Earth Stood Still will join the ranks of the re-makes of Rollerball and the deep sea version of Outland as proof that drugs are bad!
Posted by: bruce ||
11/27/2008 16:16
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#22
The original "When Worlds Collide", a British Sci-Fi flick created on fifty-cent budget, was so bad it was camp. I read both the novels - "When Worlds Collide" and "After Worlds Collide", and they were definitely stereotypical of 1950's British science fiction - which isn't a complement. Better special effects won't save a lousy script, and the original script was TERRIBLE.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/27/2008 16:48
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#23
when barred from speaking to the United Nations, he decides they shall be exterminated
Ah so Klatuu is a faithful Muslim, liek me - ridding the world of Jews (and everyone else in the process, but thats not importants)
In the 21st century the age-old phenomena of piracy has experienced a spectacular rise, with the number of attacks increasing by double-digit rates per year. Last year, according to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), 263 actual and attempted pirate attacks took place. Large maritime areas have now become known as pirate heavens, where mariners can expect to be routinely molested. Specifically, the coasts off of Somalia, Yemen, and Kenya are now dangerous territory attracting worldwide attention for increasingly blatant seizures. Pirate attacks off these coasts have surged 75 percent this year, as bandits lured by million-dollar ransoms have pushed farther out to sea in search of bigger prey among the 20,000 oil tankers, freighters and merchant vessels transiting the waters each year.
The costs of pirate asymmetrical operations are very low and a ransom payoff an extraordinarily high rate of return. In addition, the pirates have a robust intelligence network at sea and in ports that appears to be tracking potential targets. For instance, the Saudi tanker was seized 700 kilometers at sea, meaning pirates' agents are monitoring movement of ships from places like the costs of Aden, Eretria and Djibouti.
In August 2008, Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, took on the role of fighting Somali piracy by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden. Countries presently contributing to CTF-150 include Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Other nations who have participated include Australia, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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A strategy of testing adults every year for HIV and immediately treating every person found to be infected could virtually end the AIDS epidemic in Africa in about a decade, new research suggests.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
This sounds about as accurate and useful as the financial modelling that "helped" us get to this recession.
#2
People create models because they don't want to pay attention to real history. Seems the plague finally burned out of Europe too. Though the people finally developed cultural behaviors which when practiced had a great tendency to reduce flareups of the problem. However being 'modern and enlightened' we would rather sacrifice millions of other humans than institute old fashion 'taboos' and practices that work.
#3
For years, doctors have proposed a system in the US for each and every blood test to also be tested for a whole range of venereal diseases. If the results are positive, then they are forwarded as anonymous results but associated with that patient's other blood work, to their physician.
This means that the government would have very accurate VD statistics, but without the names of those who are infected, yet their physician would know, tell them to their face (only), and recommend a course of treatment if one exists.
There are lots of people out there with more than four concurrent VD infections of different diseases. They are like Typhoid Marys of VD, and if they could be treated, or at least persuaded to use condoms, the US infection rate could be slashed.
However, these suggestions have always been ignored. Not because of the expense, oddly enough, but just because it is too much work for the government.
#4
I can remember the 80s, when the models had Africa being pretty much depopulated by now.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008 10:06
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#5
I've found it pretty easy to live a life without VD in the absence of government assistance. I suggest we keep it that way. Let nature work things out.
(SomaliNet) Nigeria's main militant group warned on Tuesday it may end a unilateral ceasefire and launch attacks across the Niger Delta in support of activists seeking the removal of a military commander in the oil-producing region.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it was considering a request from militants in the western part of the delta to join their campaign against the region's joint military task force (JTF). Most of MEND's attacks on the oil industry, which have shut down around a fifth of Nigerian output since early 2006, have focused on Rivers state in the eastern Niger Delta.
Militants from the western state of Delta warned at the weekend that they would interrupt shipping and attack oil and gas facilities run by US energy firm Chevron unless the region's military commander, Wuyep Rimtip, was removed.
"Should MEND join the fight, we intend to spread it all over the Niger Delta region so as to jeopardise the 2009 budget projections and cripple the oil dependent economy," MEND said in its emailed statement.
A network of armed gangs operate under the MEND franchise in the Niger Delta and the line between militancy and criminality is blurred.
Rimtip has taken a tougher line than his predecessor in fighting bunkering - a multi-million dollar trade in stolen oil - in the western states of Delta and Bayelsa, whose governments have long preferred negotiating to an overtly military approach. Security sources say Rimtip has replaced several battalions - including one in the Delta city of Warri and one in Bayelsa's capital Yenegoa - whose soldiers were deemed to have become too close to criminals engaged in bunkering.
His men said last week they had repelled an attack by gunmen in speedboats close to the Escravos export terminal operated by Chevron, a raid which Rimtip blamed on oil thieves retaliating for the seizure of a vessel used in the illegal trade.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Arab foreign ministers from 11 countries were to meet at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo Wednesday to call on Arab governments and civil society to officially take a stance against the Israeli blockade and to seek reconciliation between the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
"Arab foreign ministers must find tangible solutions to the issues facing Palestine in terms of internal conflict and the Israeli siege," Ambassador Hisham Yusef, director of the office of the secretary general of the Arab League, told AlArabiya.net
"Without internal reconciliation, we cannot move forward with peace talks," he added.
The conference is expected to seek tangible solutions to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which has reached its lowest point since the Israeli blockade began in early November.
Arab states have said that penetrating the Israeli blockade is one possibility on the table, a spokesperson from the Arab League press office told AlArabiya.net. Breaking the blockade would involve sending humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip either through international aid organizations or through other arrangements among Arab states bordering the Gaza Strip, such as tunnel shipping.
According to U.N. reports, more than 1.1 million people-88 percent of Gaza's residents-depend on food aid from humanitarian organizations, which have been forced to intermittently suspend deliveries when Israel prevented their trucks from passing through the border.
Representatives from Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Egypt are also expected to discuss Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations and reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
Egyptian efforts at achieving internal reconciliation through dialogue fell flat when Hamas cancelled 48 hours before scheduled talks with Fatah were to take place on November 10.
"Last minute cancellation on the part of Hamas was very strange. Halting negotiation talks at the last minute signals that some sort of external pressure was put on Hamas," Magdi Subhi, a political analyst at al-Ahram newspaper told AlArabiya.net.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit and Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa are expected to review Egypt's mediation role between Fatah and Hamas and push for more Arab states to get involved in the peace process.
"So far Egypt plays the mediatory role in peace talks and reconciliation process, but having more players would add effective pressure on Hamas and Israel to resolve their issues," said Yusef.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Unidentified men on Wednesday fired three rockets that hit a terminal for trucks carrying supplies to NATO and United States troops in Afghanistan. Neither of the rockets caused serious damage or any injuries, police officer Abdul Qadir said. Qadir said officers were not sure whether the truck terminal was the target of the attack. The rockets are normally fired into the city from hills on its outskirts some 10 kilometres away, AP reported.
Up to 75 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan pass through Pakistan. Peshawar is a key stop for convoys en route to the Khyber Pass and on to Western Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, suspected Taliban hijacked several trucks near the Khyber Pass whose load included Humvees heading to the US-led coalition. Pakistan halted traffic along the road for several days while it arranged for armed troops to guard the slow-moving convoys. In a sign of its frustration, Washington has carried out a surge of missile attacks in the lawless area since August, killing dozens of militants but angering Pakistan's young government and many of its 170 million people.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Thailand's powerful military stepped into a battle Wednesday between the government and protesters occupying Bangkok's international airport, calling on the government to resign and the protesters to leave the buildings they have seized.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Militants have fired ten rockets at several buildings in the Pakistani cities of Bannu and Peshawar amid a surge in insurgency in Pakistan.
One of the rockets fired late on Wednesday in Peshawar, the provincial headquarters of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), hit a terminal for trucks carrying supplies to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan, said police officer Abdul Qadirwhich. Other rockets destroyed a security check post in Bannu, northwestern Pakistan.
Khan Markaz, the main office of the Awami National Party was also hit by rockets.
Local police officials told Press TV that militants attacked the house of Union Council, Nazim Abdul Malik in Matni area of Adezai while the police and local people in retaliation killed at least four people including two "extremists".
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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(SomaliNet) Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Tuesday that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed "at least 500" suspected political opponents in the last two years.
The New York-based rights campaigners accused President Joseph Kabila's government of "brutal repression," saying "about 1 000 more" have been detained since July 2006 elections aimed at bringing democracy to the vast central African nation. The NGO said many of those held reported having been tortured.
The report stated that government security forces deliberately killed or summarily executed an estimated 500 individuals mainly in north-west and southern DR Congo - away from the current conflict with rebels centred on eastern Nord-Kivu province - and that unlawful force was used to intimidate and eliminate political opponents.
HRW found that Kabila himself set the tone and direction by giving orders to "crush" or "neutralise" the so-called "enemies of democracy," during the elections.
The rebellion in eastern DR Congo stems from an unresolved conflict from the country's 1998-2003 civil war that ended with a transitional government and the elections two years ago - but HRW says the ongoing strife there must not be allowed to detract from abuses elsewhere.
"While everyone focuses on the violence in eastern Congo, government abuses against political opponents attract little attention," Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher in HRW's Africa division, said in a statement. "Efforts to build a democratic Congo are being stifled not just by rebellion but also by the Kabila government's repression."
Through 250 interviews with victims, witnesses and officials, HRW documented how Kabila subordinates using state security forces cracked down on perceived political opponents, especially suspected supporters of defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba, and members of a political-religious group Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK) in Bas Congo that favours greater provincial autonomy.
State agents tried to cover up the killings of opponents by burying the bodies in mass graves or dumping them in the Congo river, and then blocking investigations by UN human rights staff, the 96-page HRW report said.
Those who ended up as detainees told HRW of beatings, mock executions and the use of electric batons on their genitals and other body parts. Many claimed they were forced to sign confessions saying they were involved in coup plots against Kabila. "As they beat me with sticks and whips, the soldiers repeatedly shouted, 'We will crush you! We will crush you!' Then they threatened to kill me and others who opposed Kabila," a political party activist detained in March 2007 told HRW.
At least 200 people are still being held in politically related cases, HRW estimated.
The HRW report also noted that armed groups linked to Bemba and the BDK have been blamed for killing state agents and civilians, but added that the police and army response, while appropriate, was often conducted with excessive force.
The HRW report also criticised foreign governments seeking to win favour with the Kabila government for keeping silent about increasingly repressive rule. "We all saw this coming, but again we did not do enough to avert the crisis," a European military adviser with close ties to the Congolese army told HRW about March 2007 violence in Kinshasa that left hundreds dead.
The international rights group has called on the Kabila government to set up a high-level task force from the Justice Ministry to investigate the abuse claims.
All that kvetching and the demand in the end is for a 'task force'.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#2
Of the many things I have to be thankful for today, few do I appreciate as often as I do Rantburg. And Rantburg serves to make me understand more clearly how much I have to appreciate as an American every day. I'm happy to have a holiday that encourages me to express my gratitude to those who's contibutions might become taken for granted over time.
Thank you so much, Fred and all the others who do so much we can never know to keep this site the extraordinary and beautiful project that it is. And God bless all those who have served our country. How much more dreadful a place the world would be without them!
#3
Ima thankful for a shitload of stuff... including being able to hear again... Ima make deh SP^N but damn.... 6 minutes in listen, listen to America.
#6
Ima thankerful for bein able to unnastann wut he's talk about .5 of the time.
kinder liek your friends moms meatloaf. Ya didn't know what was in it, but it taste good.
Oh Dear Lord. Please let the turkey not taste like Jimmys mothers meatloaf
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/27/2008 8:33
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#7
Thanks .5 Took my late father-in-law back to RAF Burtonwood in 1986. Tower and orderly room were still standing. He was a veteran of the Mighty Eighth AF.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2008 11:29
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#11
Rantburgers, get out of my bedroom and don't ever come back unless your loaded for or bare!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
11/27/2008 12:08
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#12
Happy Thanksgiving to all! We have a lot to be thankful for this year, and we're happy to share with all the Rantburg clan, including the lurkers. I issued a special invitation to Governor Palin and her husband to join us last week. Don't know if it's going to do any good, but we can hope.
Phyllis is a tasty dish, even in her high-heel paisley house slippers.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/27/2008 13:23
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#3 We saw this at a leadership class a year ago. All four categories of leader were presented aimed at the willing and able; willing, but unable; unwilling, but able; and unwilling and unable.
Even tho I saw it many years ago, I was so impressed, I bought it for the three kids (25-30 years old) for Christmas. My Dad was a navagator on a B-24, with 26 missions after D-Day.
God bless 'em all.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/27/2008 13:38
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#14
Bobby, what group was your dad in? My dad was a ground crewman in the 444th at Shipdham (Spelling?) Aerodrome.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
11/27/2008 15:12
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Aswat al-Iraq: Police forces in Missan province on Wednesday discovered large amounts of ammunition and explosives in downtown Amara city, a local police source said. "Emergency police forces have seized four hand grenades, an improvised explosive device (IED) and other ammunition during a raid in central Amara city," Col. Sadeq Abdelazeem al-Halw told Aswat al-Iraq. Since June 2008, Iraqi security sources have been conducting a wide-scale security operation, called Bashaer al-Salam (Promise of Peace), in Missan with the aim of tracking down armed groups and outlaws in the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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(SomaliNet) The Anatolia news agency reported on Tuesday that the Turkish owner of a chemicals-laden tanker seized off Yemen in the Gulf of Aden two weeks ago is close to an agreement with the pirates on a ransom.
"We have talked to the pirates four or five times.... They have told us how much ransom they want. We have started bargaining on this amount. At this point, we are close to an agreement," Kubilay Marangoz, a lawyer for the YDC Maritime company which owns the vessel, told the agency.
Marangoz did not say how much money the pirates had demanded. "Our only aim is to secure the release of the vessel and the crew safe and sound. That is why we prefer an agreement to an armed operation," he added.
The Karagol, manned by a 14-strong Turkish crew, was seized on November 12 off the coast of Yemen as it was transporting 4 500 tons of chemicals from Israel to Mumbai in India. It was the second Turkish-owned vessel to be seized in the Gulf of Aden after the M/V Yasa Neslihan was captured on October 29.
Earlier this month, a representative from Yasa company, which owns the ship, said pirates had demanded a ransom in return for the release of the vessel and and its 20-man crew. He declined to reveal the sum.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Household spending and investment in big-ticket items plummeted in October in the United States, as major world economies announced new plans to try to boost demand to fight a deepening economic downturn. I dunno about you guys, but every time I got by a gas station price placard I've got one word in my mind, and often on my lips: "Ratbastidsunofabitches."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
Be difficult to have an economic upturn if you never had a downturn. I'm still buying green bananas, clutching my Bible and....
#2
Haven't altered my spending habits for years. Thrift is always a sound plan. I start holding back normally around August in anticipation of buying for the extended family at this time of year.
#3
It's my way of getting back at the cretins who elected Bama. My money stays in my pocket, out of the country, and out of Dem clutches. The folks that wanted Bama can starve as far as I'm concerned. No sympathy whatsoever here.
Don't count on any help from me in getting out of the recession. Saving and being debt-free is the new "in" thing and this is one fashion trend I'm fully supporting.
#4
Wel-l-l, compare wid WORLD MIL FORUM [paraph = GOOGLE Chinglish translation] > THE NEXT BANK BAILOUT:BANK OF AMERICA MAY FOLLOW CITIGROUP STEP-BY-STEP???
Aswat al-Iraq: The Iraqi Ministry of Oil is planning to build a new oil refinery in Missan province at a cost of $4 million U.S. dollars, Missan's mayor said on Wednesday.
"During the coming few days, the Ministry of Oil will sign a contract for the establishment of a refinery with a capacity of 150,000 barrel per day (bpd)," Adel Mahodar told Aswat al-Iraq, noting that the completion period is 18 months. "The project will be referred to the cabinet for approval given the high cost of the project," the mayor explained.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
The article says $4M. I would think that was kind of cheap for a refinery.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
11/27/2008 13:55
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I would think that was kind of cheap for a refinery
(AKI) - Iran executed nine men and one woman on Wednesday at the country's notorious Evin prison, in Tehran, semi-official news agency Fars reported. Some reports said the woman, identified as Fatemeh Haqiqat-Pajuh, killed her husband because he had raped her daughter from a previous marriage. However, the official overseeing the execution said Fatemeh was executed because she brutally murdered her husband in 2001, cutting him into pieces.
All of the 10 people executed were convicted of murder. In Iran, capital punishment is imposed for murder, kidnapping , adultery, treason, drug trafficking of over five kilogrammes and other offences.
On 17 November, Iran hanged Ali Ashtari, an Iranian who allegedly spied for Israel's intelligence agency Mossad.
More than 200 hangings have taken place in Iran since the beginning of 2008. Last year, Iran was second only to China in the number of executions it carried out, hanging 317 individuals, according to rights group Amnesty International.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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The Saudi Ministry of Education recently ordered the removal of two books by a leading intellectul of the Muslim Brotherhood from school libraries because of the extremist ideas they contained, a Saudi newspaper reported on Wednesday.
"The books, 'The Lies About Sayyid Qutb' and 'The Jihad in the Way of God,' are banned from school libraries because of their extremist and confusing ideas that may misinform students," Abdul Rahman al-Fasil, director general of Boys Education Administration in the Saudi Asir province, was quoted as saying in the Saudi Arab News.
The ban on the two books was aimed at protecting the young students from deviant ideology, said Ibrahim al-Hamdan, director general of the Girls Education Administration in Abha.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
Well, it's a start.
Who knows, it could catch on!
They just progressed to the 7th century!
Hurray Saudi Arabia!
To get banned there, it must have been a real doozie!
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman recently asked Iran for medium-sized weapons for Lebanon's army, in a move aimed at shifting Iran's assistance from the country's militant Hezbollah movement to the state, a Lebanese government official said Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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(AKI) - Iran on Wednesday test-fired a rocket into space on Wednesday. Iran fired the 'Kavosh-2' (Explorer-2), which parachuted back to earth 40 minutes after launching. The test was conducted within the framework of Iran's 20-year outlook plan and Iran's strategic space plan, said Iran's Mehr news agency.
Before the launching of the rocket, Iran announced that it had more than 5,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges running. "At present, we have more than 5,000 centrifuges operating," said Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, quoted by official Iranian news agency Irna. Aghazadeh spoke on the sidelines of his tour of the Exclusive Exhibition on Nuclear Industry Achievements.
UN officials have previously said that it would take 1,700 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium for Tehran to be able to enrich the uranium further for use in an atom bomb. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has stockpiled 630 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium.
No one seems to be doing anything about it, either ...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#2
IRNA > Iran has now turned into a REGIONAL POWER.
ISRAELI-IRAN CONFLICT SCENARIO > all things equal, and given that various Perts believe the NUCLEARIZATION OF IRAN WILL EFFECTIVELY END WORLD ANTI-NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION EFFORTS = NPT [Treaty], it may come down as to WHOM WILL PREEMPTIVELT STRIKE THE OTHER FIRST, + IFF CAN RECOVER.
Lest we fergit, 9-11/WOT > WAR FOR DOMINATION = AKIN TO ASYMMETRIC "TOTAL WAR", aong other. RADICAL JIHAD IS ULTIMATELY NOT WAGING JIHAD FOR "PARITY", "DETENTE", BI-POLAR ANDOR MULTI-POLAR "MUTUAL CO-EXISTENCE", ETC. WID NON-ISLAM = NON-ISLAMISM.
(SomaliNet) The United Nations said Wednesday that Somalia's weak transitional government has agreed to share power with a faction of the country's opposition.
Sources say the agreement was unlikely to change the political chaos in Somalia, however, as the extremist group at the center of a deadly insurgency did not participate.
The power-sharing deal calls for doubling the number of parliament seats to 550, with 200 going to the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia -- a relatively moderate group that split from the Shabab extremist group. No timeline was set for implementing the deal, which also extends parliament's term two years beyond its original end date of August 2009.
"We are happy with what we have achieved so far," Abdirahman Warsame, chief negotiator for the opposition alliance, told The Associated Press by telephone from the U.N.-backed talks in Djibouti. "What we are waiting for now is the election of the leadership that would haul the country out of its current chaos."
However, calls to Somali government negotiators were not immediately returned.
Somalia has had no effective government for two decades, and the U.N.-backed transitional administration has failed to exert any real control. Making matters worse, President Abdullahi Yusuf recently has been feuding openly with the prime minister, with each accusing the other of hampering plans for peace.
Meanwhile, a humanitarian crisis has worsened with high food prices and drought.
African Union peacekeepers have struggled to maintain security, with only 2,600 troops of the mission's approved 8,000 on the ground.
The U.N. Security Council said that, if Somalia can improve security and political reconciliation, it would consider sending U.N. peacekeepers to replace AU forces.
The U.N. envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said he hopes the new power-sharing deal will lead to "Somali leaders working together, wholeheartedly and committed to the dignity of the Somali people."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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World oil prices have claimed after China's Central Bank announced 1.08 percentage points decrease in its benchmark one-year rates. The market was also supported by the prospect of a possible cut in OPEC's output when the oil exporting organization meets this weekend in Cairo.
Light sweet crude for January climbed 3.67 dollars to close at 54.44 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in January added 3.57 dollars to settle at 51.55 dollars a barrel.
The price of crude oil has collapsed by about two-thirds since hitting record high points above 147 dollars per barrel in July. Last week, oil slumped under 50 dollars to levels not seen since early 2005.
Meanwhile in Wall Street, US shares surged Wednesday as investors extended a bargain-hunting rally. The Dow Jones industrials rose 2.88 percent or 244 points at the close.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A Russian company tasked with building Iran's first nuclear plant says UN sanctions do not apply to the plant due to its peaceful nature.
Russia's Atomstroiexport, nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, said the project is going on as scheduled and faces no problem. "Bushehr nuclear plant is under no sanction because it is a nuclear center for peaceful purposes," the company's spokeswoman Irina Yesipova told IRNA on Wednesday.
Some 1,800 experts are working to complete the construction of the nuclear plant.
Yesipova declined to reveal the exact date of the launch of the plant but noted that "we are doing our best to launch the plant as soon as possible."
Iran and Russia signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation in 1992, and Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly signed a contract in January 1995 to build Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. The plant was originally scheduled to come on stream in 1999, but the project has faced numerous delays.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#2
Bushehr seems to be more of a revenue center for the Russians than an actual project.
This nuclear power plant began construction in 1975. I'm guessing there must have been hundreds of major design changes during this process. The Russians and the Persians say it will produce commercial power in 2009 but they would say that.
#3
The Israelis should try to persuade the Iranians of the error of their ways in a direct manner, before militarily attacking. For the very good reason of convincing the Iranians to quit messing around with nuclear anything.
The way to do this is with a covert operation to contaminate the stronghold of the Mullahs, the city of Qom with lethal, but short half life radioactive contamination. It must be done with very plausible deniability, and the means of dissemination must be very, very discreet, and leave a vague trail in the direction of Bushehr.
Suddenly, out of the blue, the people of Qom start suffering from radiation burns and poisoning, tens of thousands needing medical treatment and thousands dying. Truly horrible stuff.
But actually fewer people injured and killed than in the attack needed to take out their nuclear facilities. And it goes directly to their heart of the regime's unpopular support.
A few rumors blaming the disaster on an Iranian government screw up will spread like wildfire.
#4
I think it is over a hundred miles between the Bushehr plant and Qom and there is no obvious reason why rad material would be leaving the Bushehr area.
#5
Send some Californium as a gift. Lively little neutron emitter.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/27/2008 13:47
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#6
If a 'Polonium Putin' style attack happened in Iran, the only countries that would be blamed for it are Israel and the US. No amount of propoganda on our behalf would change that. Not to mention the difficulties involved in attacking Qom in a manure spreader loaded with nuke material style attack.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
11/27/2008 18:02
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#7
ION WORLD MIL FORUM > RUSSIA SAYS IT WILL UKRAINE HARDER IFF ANOTHER RUSSIAN-UKRAINE CONFLICT/WAR OCCURS; + ROW OVER ANTI-VIETNAM INTERNET "WAR PLANS" [SINA.net] HIGHLIGHTS CHINA-VIETNAM TENSIONS. Hanoi angrily sends for the Chin Ambassadors more than once for explanation. PLANS > VIETNAM IS THE STRATEGIC HUB FOR THE WHOLE OF SE ASIA, AND WHICH MUST BE "CONQUERED FIRST" BY CHINA, IFF CHINA IS TO BECOME AN ASIAN-PACIFIC GREAT POWER, PROTECT AND CONTROL THE REGION, ESPEC IN [geopol]CONTEST = WAR AGZ AMERICA???, + CHINA AND VIETNAM IN TUG OF WAR OVER LAOS, SE ASIA TRADE RESOURCES AND INFLUENCE.
Also from SAME > GERMAN MEDIAS: NORTH KOREA AT HIGH RISK OF NATIONAL COLLAPSE UPON SUDDEN/NEAR-TERM DEATH OF KIM JONG-IL. POWER OF KIM HEIRS-APPARENT [sons] UNCERTAIN. CHINESE MILITARY OCCUPATION, CONTROL OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS A POST-KIM "STABILIZING FORCE" FOR NORTH KOREA.
* STRATFOR > SPRATLEY ISLANDS: THE TIRADE OF TROUBLES RISES + JAPAN: NEW MILITARY UNITS, NEW MILITARY STANCE [new Asia fears].
#8
Jeebus, its not even JAN 2009 YET, and PRE-POTUS BARACK already is facing more real domestic and geopolitical crises, and potential crises, than POTUS JIMBO CARTER EVER DID.
Jan. 2009 - 2012/2016 > THE THREAT TO AMERICA's = AMERIKA's, the potent USSA = weak USRof A's, NATIONAL SECURITY, SOVEREIGNTY, INTEGRITY, + CONSTITUTION = WAY OF GOVT, ETC. IS GREATER THAN AT ANYTIME DURING THE COLD WAR.
#9
IRANIAN.WS > IRAN AIMING FOR 50,000 CENTRIFUGES, over five years ending circa 2012-2013???; + ISRAEL MAY ATTACK IRAN VIA TURKEY, JUST LIKE WITH SYRIA?; + PAYVAND > US GATHERING INTELLIGENCE ON IRAN'S DEFENSES.
NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti has said that a jirga comprising 100 men from tribal areas will hold a meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday (today). Talking in a TV programme on Wednesday, Hoti said that President Zardari had called for a jirga to address the issues over the ongoing military action in Swat. He said the jirga, led by him, would comprise members of the NWFP Assembly from Swat, and representatives from the Awami National Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Pakistan People's Party and Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami party. He also said that because of constant American drone attacks in populated areas of the province, people who were once supporting security forces against the Taliban, have become dejected and are not helping the fight against militancy. Hoti denounced the missiles attacks in Bannu and urged America and its allied countries to honour the sovereignty and integrity of other countries and stressed the need to avoid such attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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An organisation calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen has claimed it was behind attacks in Mumbai that left at least 80 people dead, television channels reported on Thursday. The previously unknown or little known group sent an email to news organisations claiming responsibility. Indian journalist Ameet Sha told a private TV channel there was no confirmation but the pattern suggested involvement of Laskar-e-Taiba. She said terrorist attacks of such a magnitude and the participation of such a large number of gunmen raised questions on the security situation in India.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
Amer tourists are allegedly being randomly shot or attacked on the streets, whilst two US INTEL Officers have reportedly been killed.
Aswat al-Iraq: A total of 18 al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) suspects were detained during operations in different parts of central and northern Iraq, the Multi-National Force (MNF) said on Wednesday.
"Coalition forces further degraded al-Qaeda in Iraq on Tuesday and Wednesday, detaining 18 suspects during operations targeting the terrorist group's bombing and leadership networks," read an MNF statement received by Aswat al-Iraq.
"Coalition forces operation Tuesday in Qayarrah, about 60 km south of Mosul, captured one wanted man believed to be an AQI operative. Reports suggest the man was actively involved in planning a car bomb attack in Sharqat at the time of his capture. One additional suspect was detained for further questioning."
"Forces continued to target AQI bombing networks Wednesday. Two alleged Bayji-based improvised explosive device facilitators were captured near Hadithah, about 211 km northwest of Baghdad. One of the wanted men surrendered himself to Coalition forces during the operation. Four additional suspects were also detained.
Another operation Wednesday in Baghdad netted two suspects believed to be associated with an AQI car bomb and IED operative in the city," the statement added.
"A wanted man assessed to be a Diyala AQI administrative operative and explosives facilitator was captured Wednesday in Tuz Khurmatu, about 70 km southeast of Kirkuk. The suspected terrorist, who reports suggest has connections to al-Qaeda operatives outside of Iraq, was detained with another man assessed to be his associate.
Coalition forces partnered with Iraqi forces during a Tuesday operation targeting AQI military leaders near Hawijah, 60 km southwest of Kirkuk. The forces captured one suspected terrorist believed to have connections to a Tamim AQI leader. One additional man was detained for further questioning," it noted.
"Four suspects were detained by forces Wednesday near Ad Dawr, 136 km north of Baghdad, during an operation targeting a Sumarra-area terrorist cell leader," according to the statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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At least 80 people are reported to have been killed and 250 wounded in a series of gun and grenade attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai. "It seems to be a terrorist attack, many places are under siege by gunmen," A.K. Sharma, a government police commissioner, said on Wednesday. The teevee said the Indian forces are engaging the terrs in at least one of the hotels.
Attacks were launched on about eight places in Mumbai, India's main financial centre, police said. Armed men attacked a crowded Mumbai train station, a restaurant popular with tourists and several luxury hotels, often firing indiscriminately. "They entered the passenger hall of the station and started firing," Sharma said. "The terrorists have used automatic weapons and in some places grenades have been lobbed. The encounters are still going on and we are trying to overpower them," A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said."
'People panicking'
Malay Desai, a correspondent for the Mumbai Mirror, told Al Jazeera: "There are reports of panic on the roads. Not all of the members of the planned operation have been gunned down yet, a lot of them are still roaming around the streets in Mumbai, firing at will and creating panic among the people of Mumbai." He confirmed that there had been a blast outside the city's airport, saying it was a "peak time for flights coming from the West to Mumbai".
A group calling itself the Deccan Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the attack, the AFP news reported, but Mahan Abedin, an insurgency analyst, told Al Jazeera: "At this stage, that name does not necessarily mean that much. I've never heard of that group."
'Westerners held hostage'
Hemant Karkare, the chief of the police anti-terrorist squad in the city, was killed during the attacks, Indian television channels reported.
Three members of staff were shot dead at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba district, the Press Trust of India reported. Westerners were also being held by armed men at the venue, according to media reports. "They wanted anyone with British or American passports," one witness at the hotel told the NDTV Indian news channel. "They wanted foreigners." I suspect that's really why the incident has received the play it's getting in the news. Turbans routinely inflict agonies on the Indians with barely a blurb on Google News when all the casualties are Indians.
Kashif Khusro, a journalist for the Times Now newspaper, told Al Jazeera hostages were being held at the city's Trident hotel. He said: "Army commanders have surrounded the luxury hotel - there are three hostages inside. Three of the gunmen have been shot. The gunmen inside are armed with automatic weapons." Another three people died in a bomb blast in a taxi in the south east of the city.
'Serious attack'
Speaking from Mumbai, Al Jazeera's Riz Khan said: "This was a serious attack by people armed with AK47s. The police were taken by surprise ... they are not equipped for this. The attacks would have been organised as they struck several areas at once." Wonder how many of the guys running around waving AKs has been let off by the courts for lack of evidence?
He said landmarks and heavily populated areas had come under attack. "Seeing these two major landmarks - the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels - on fire is psychologically damaging for people in India and is comparable to the affects the September 11 attacks had on Americans in 2001."
One woman, who gave her name as Souad, escaped an attack on the Oberoi hotel in the city. She told Al Jazeera: "We heard no alarms, nothing. My husband opened the door and we couldn't see outside - it was so dark with all the smoke - we couldn't breathe. We were on the 17th floor of the hotel and we used towels to protect ourselves and then ran and got a taxi and then we just drove as far away as we could."
'Nowhere safe'
Police said there were reports of shootings in other parts of the city, including some in five-star hotels. Al Jazeera's Matt McClure said: "There was at least five attacks - the largest on a Mumbai railstation and there were three on large, luxury hotels. It seems clear what the intent is here - to sow fear and leave people worried and thinking 'nowhere is safe'."
India has witnessed a series of co-ordinated attacks in recent months. A little-known Islamic group, the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for serial blasts last month in which 80 people died in India's northeast state of Assam. A total of 12 explosions shook the northeastern state, six of them ripping through crowded areas in the main city of Guwahati. Six weeks earlier, the capital New Delhi had been hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 people dead, the attacks were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.
This article starring:
Deccan Mujahedeen
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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#1
If I were a muzzie in Kashmir, I'd think twice before protesting in the near future. Hindu patience may be at an end
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2008 10:32
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Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is to be charged in one of the corruption cases over which he has faced police questioning, Israeli broadcast media reported on Wednesday. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz "notified Ehud Olmert that he wants to meet him in order to press charges in the Rishon Tours case," public radio reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) will target President Asif Ali Zardari and his allies for their 'pro-American' stance, a regional commander told journalists in the Orakzai tribal region on Wednesday.
Hakeemullah Mehsud, deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, accused the ANP, PPP and MQM of "working to break up Pakistan in collaboration with the US". The TTP also threatened to 'cut off' supplies to American forces in Afghanistan if US drone attacks did not stop. The TTP displayed one of the two American Humvee military vehicles they had hijacked in Khyber Agency on November 10.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Gee, that gives gomez lots of incentive to try and "smoothe things over" with the "rebels" and "militants" don' it?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/27/2008 3:46
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(AKI) - A Libyan ship carrying tonnes of humanitarian supplies is travelling to the Gaza Strip in a bid to break the Israeli naval blockade. The Libyan ship, the first aid ship sent by an Arab government to Gaza is carrying 3,000 tonnes of food supplies, as well as Palestinian and international peace activists, said Palestinian MP Jamal Al-Khudary. "Your Enormity! A Libyan ship has broken through the blockade!"
"Good! How much dynamite did they send?"
"Ummm... None. Only food."
"Food? What the hell are we gonna do with food?"
Al-Khudary, who is also head of the Popular Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza, called on other Arab states to do the same. "This ship is a practical measure against the siege. It is not for media consumption," said Al-Khudary, quoted by the Palestinian news organisation, the International Middle East Media Center.
Several dozen politicians and volunteers have sailed from Cyprus to the Palestinian territory with humanitarian supplies since August in defiance of the Israeli blockade as part of the so-called Free Gaza Movement's humanitarian voyages.
If the Libyan ship is successful, it will be the fourth vessel to reach Gaza in clear defiance of Israel's naval blockade.
Rights group Amnesty International said recently that 80 percent of Gazans depend on international aid, compared to 10 percent a decade ago.
Israel claims the blockade, imposed after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip, is to counter indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli cities by Palestinian militants.
News of the Libyan mission came a day after the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Central Council called on the United Nations' Security Council to lift the siege off the Gaza Strip.
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#1
as well as Palestinian and international peace activists
Palestinian peace activists huh? BTW, what port will the good ship Al-Oxymoron be sailing out of anyway?
The body of a person killed on suspicion of spying for the United States was found in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency on Wednesday, officials said. Political administration officials told Daily Times that Khasadar personnel found the dead body in the Tauda Meela area. The killers left a letter alongside the body, warning that anyone spying for the Americans would be treated the same way. The identity of the killed person could not be ascertained until the filing of this report.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
Aswat al-Iraq: A total of 97 persons were arrested during a security operation in different parts of Basra province, the media office of Basra's police said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday, Basra police forces conducted a wide-scale security operation to search for wanted persons in different parts of the province," the office told Aswat al-Iraq. "Those arrested are wanted on criminal and terrorism-related charges," it added. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Mahdi Army
The Netherlands plans to ban face coverings worn by some Muslim women from universities, not only for students but also mothers and anyone else entering the grounds, the education ministry said Wednesday.
Education Minister Ronald Plasterk announced in parliament that the planned ban, initially intended to apply only to the compulsory schooling system, would now also extend to tertiary education institutions, his spokesman told AFP. It would apply to pupils, teachers, cleaners and parents -- all women who come through the gates of such institutions, said spokesman Freek Manche.
"It will forbid any kind of garment that covers the face. The intention is to ensure that all people who communicate with each other on school grounds are able to look each other in the eye, to see each other's faces," he said.
Plasterk had initially intended the ban on garments such as the burka and niqab only for schools, citing the importance of children being able to recognize and identify others. "... if you want to be present there (at school) as service provider, as parent, as teacher or as pupil, then you will have to let your face show," the minister said when he initially announced the restrictions in September.
He had not wanted to extend the ban to tertiary education, said the minister's spokesman, "because this level of education is not compulsory. These are adults."
However, Plasterk had to adapt his plans on the insistence of a majority in parliament. The ban would affect "a few hundred people, and only a handful in higher education," he added.
Only one or two female students are thought to actually cover their faces while attending classes. An estimated 100 women in the Netherlands wear the all-encompassing Islamic garment, according to the daily Dutch News.
To date, schools and universities had been able to make their own rules on this issue. The ministry plans to pass a law during the course of 2009 to change this.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Global Jihad
#1
Mashallah! We can now communicate "eye to eye."
Iraqi lawmakers deferred until Thursday a scheduled vote on a security agreement that would extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq until the end of 2011 but agreed to put the pact to a national referendum next July. If voters reject the agreement, U.S. forces would have to leave the country by the middle of 2010, according to Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers.
The referendum was a last-minute concession to Iraq's largest Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has long demanded a nationwide vote on the issue. "If there is no referendum, we will not vote yes to the agreement," said Omar Abdul Sattar, an Islamic Party lawmaker, speaking before parliament postponed the vote on the so-called status-of-forces agreement.
Haider al-Abadi, an influential member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party, said lawmakers affiliated with the ruling coalition had "given guarantees to conduct the referendum and will comply with the result, whatever that may be."
The Sunni bloc's 44 votes in the 275-seat parliament are insufficient to defeat the security agreement; Shiite and Kurdish parties already claim the simple majority of 138 votes required to approve it. But in accommodating the Sunnis, the ruling coalition is bowing to the wishes of the country's preeminent Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has said any deal should have the support of all of Iraq's parties in order to appear legitimate.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
The Taliban on Wednesday warned of attacks against the government if the military operations continued
Omar said the Taliban would launch a countrywide campaign against the government if it did not put an end to the offensive against them.
in Bajaur, Mohmand and Darra Adamkhel. Talking to journalists over the phone, Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar said the Taliban were concerned over the operations in Tribal Areas, and demanded the government immediately cease fire. Omar said the Taliban would launch a countrywide campaign against the government if it did not put an end to the offensive against them. He said the Taliban were ready to negotiate with the government to resolve all disputes peacefully, adding that they would resort to violence if their demands were not met.
This article starring:
Bajaur
Darra Adamkhel
Mohmand
MAULVI OMAR
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: TTP
(SomaliNet) The two British crew members of a Saudi supertanker seized by Somali pirates 10 days ago told media here Tuesday they were being well treated by their captors. "Everything is OK, we've got no mistreatment or anything, we're being treated quite well," Peter French, the chief engineer on the Sirius Star, told ITV News television by telephone.
Peter said the pirates were "no problem whatsoever", adding: "Hopefully we are going to get some more phone calls to our families soon. Our families don't have too much to worry about at the moment."
Second officer James Grady said the 25-strong crew were not being allowed on deck. But while he said their captors were heavily armed, he said they appeared "quite relaxed" and had not hurt the hostages.
It was unclear whether the pirates were present during the interview.
Grady said the pirates had taken the ship within minutes of boarding it on November 15 in the Indian Ocean. It was the biggest ship ever hijacked and is carrying a 100 million dollar load of oil. "It happened very quickly, really. It was early on the 15th. Ship's time 0855 they boarded the ship, and by two minutes past nine we were slowing down, because they had control of the bridge by then," the officer said.
He asked for a message to be passed on to his family: "Not to worry. We hope that it's not going to be too much longer."
Sailors from Croatia, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia are also among the crew of the supertanker, which is now anchored off the Somali coastal village of Harardhere.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
Overhear any pirate chitchat, bother to catch any names, physical descriptions, or take a few pics? No...? I figured as much, next please.
UN officials slammed as inadequate limited basic supplies Israel allowed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying the closures of recent weeks were forcing the territory's population to live from hand to mouth. The UN Relief and Works Agency, which distributes food rations to half of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million population.
They always seem to have rockets, though, don't they?
Wonder if they bothered to walk down to the supermarket ...
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#4
shut off the power and let em starve in the dark. F*ckers.
Ima have a happy turkey day, but then again, I don't seethe, roll my eyes, shoot/kidnap the neighbor's kids, or shoot rockets into their house. Maybe they should look in the mirror. I'll have an extra glass of wine, helping of turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy and pie, and Gaza gets....nuthin
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/27/2008 10:54
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Top||
#5
Consider the photo at the link. BTW, has anyone ever noticed that mot of the "starving" Paleo children look slightly overweight.
Oh and BTW how is that the Paleos never lack money for weapons? Make them refund every single cent they got in aid.
#7
Also while we are at it: those UN people feeding the Palestinans haven't beeeen working for free. In fact I even doubt their salries have been their sole income and they didn't take a cut of the aid.
#8
Justice, what makes you think any of your threats against us would make us bow to your crap. Let this be a "reminder to you". It makes us all the stronger.
Posted by: Jan from work ||
11/27/2008 13:20
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(AKI) - A new video found by Spanish security forces shows the Taliban threatening to attack the US, Israel, Australia, Denmark, France and Spain. The 42-minute video was distributed on 14 November, five days after two Spanish soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb attack in western Afghanistan, said Spain's Cadena Ser news, which posted the video on its website on Wednesday.
The video shows the flags of the six countries and the United Nations burning and eventually exploding, only to be replaced by an Islamic white flag showing Islam's 'shehadeh' or creed.
The scene is followed by a speech in the Dari language by alleged Taliban commander Sheikh Mulavi Abdel al-Basset, who is holding a copy of the Koran in his hands. In the video he demands the withdrawal of Spanish, US and NATO troops in Afghanistan and threatens to attack their interests inside and outside the country.
Al-Basset is shown with four other militants, all with their faces covered and heavily armed, some of them wearing suicide bomb belts, holding a rocket-propelled grenade and a Kalashnikov machinegun.
Spain's security forces believe the video is authentic. It is the second time that the Taliban has made direct threats against Spain.
This article starring:
Sheikh Mulavi Abdel al-Basset
Posted by: Fred ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under: Taliban
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council on Wednesday unanimously endorsed a plan by Secretary Genral Ban Ki-moon on the deployment of an EU police and justice mission in Kosovo. "The Security Council welcomes the Secretary-General's report" and "welcomes the cooperation between the UN and other international actors, within the framework of Security Council resolution 1244," said the council's declaration, which was read by the representative of Costa Rica, which is this month's council president.
The declaration meant the council had given the green light to the planned EU mission, known as Eulex, which will gradually take over from the UN mission in Kosovo, diplomats said. The vague wording of the text sidestepped the question of Kosovo's independence.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a report published Tuesday said Eulex would observe strict neutrality regarding Kosovo's independence, meaning the law and order mission did not convey any UN recognition of the territory's political status.
The council also "welcomes the continuing efforts of the European Union to advance the European perspective of the whole of the Western Balkans, thereby making a decisive contribution to regional stability and prosperity," it said.
During a debate preceding the statement, the foreign ministers of Serbia, Vuk Jeremic, and Kosovo, Skender Hiseni, promised their governments' cooperation with the Eulex mission. "I want to assure all the nations that will participate in Eulex, that Eulex will enjoy the full support of the institutions and the people of Kosovo," said Hiseni, adding it was crucial the EU mission "deploys throughout Kosovo."
Jeremic said: "We are now getting close to the point where we can unite behind the Secretary-General and the report he produced. I invite the Council to support it in the strongest possible terms."
The UN has not made a decision on Kosovo's independence, which Pristina's majority Albanian authorities declared unilaterally in February in a move rejected by Serbia. Some 50 countries, including the United States and most European countries, backed the move.
Kosovo's independence might take longer than a Hague tribunal ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/27/2008
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Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A suicide car bomber plowed a Toyota into rush-hour traffic on a commercial boulevard in Kabul on Thursday morning, killing at least four civilians and wounding up to 17, the police and hospital authorities said. The bomber was apparently aiming at a passing convoy of NATO troops, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, but several witnesses said there were no security forces, either Afghan or foreign, in the immediate vicinity of the blast.
Use a live rabbit, that does the trick. 
Unidentified men on Wednesday fired three rockets that hit a terminal for trucks carrying supplies to NATO and United States troops in Afghanistan. Neither of the rockets caused serious damage or any injuries, police officer Abdul Qadir said. Qadir said officers were not sure whether the truck terminal was the target of the attack. The rockets are normally fired into the city from hills on its outskirts some 10 kilometres away, AP reported.
Rantburgers, get out of my bedroom and don't ever come back unless your loaded for bare! 
(SomaliNet) The United Nations said Wednesday that Somalia's weak transitional government has agreed to share power with a faction of the country's opposition. 
A Russian company tasked with building Iran's first nuclear plant says UN sanctions do not apply to the plant due to its peaceful nature. 
An organisation calling itself the 
Aswat al-Iraq: A total of 18 al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) suspects were detained during operations in different parts of central and northern Iraq, the Multi-National Force (MNF) said on Wednesday.
At least 80 people are reported to have been killed and 250 wounded in a series of gun and grenade attacks across the Indian city of Mumbai. "It seems to be a terrorist attack, many places are under siege by gunmen," A.K. Sharma, a government police commissioner, said on Wednesday.
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is to be charged in one of the corruption cases over which he has faced police questioning, Israeli broadcast media reported on Wednesday. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz "notified Ehud Olmert that he wants to meet him in order to press charges in the Rishon Tours case," public radio reported.
Aswat al-Iraq: A total of 97 persons were arrested during a security operation in different parts of Basra province, the media office of Basra's police said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday, Basra police forces conducted a wide-scale security operation to search for wanted persons in different parts of the province," the office told Aswat al-Iraq. "Those arrested are wanted on criminal and terrorism-related charges," it added. Basra, 590 km (340 miles) south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, has an estimated metropolitan population of 2,300,000 in 2008.
The Netherlands plans to ban face coverings worn by some Muslim women from universities, not only for students but also mothers and anyone else entering the grounds, the education ministry said Wednesday. 
The Taliban on Wednesday warned of attacks against the government if the military operations continued 
(AKI) - A new video found by Spanish security forces shows the Taliban threatening to attack the US, Israel, Australia, Denmark, France and Spain. The 42-minute video was distributed on 14 November, five days after two Spanish soldiers were killed in a suicide bomb attack in western Afghanistan, said Spain's Cadena Ser news, which posted the video on its website on Wednesday.
