Hi there, !
Today Sat 12/01/2012 Fri 11/30/2012 Thu 11/29/2012 Wed 11/28/2012 Tue 11/27/2012 Mon 11/26/2012 Sun 11/25/2012 Archives
Rantburg
531690 articles and 1855967 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 51 articles and 132 comments as of 11:57.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Opinion        Politix    Main Page
Packed Tahrir Square defiant as deadlock prevails
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
13:44 5 21:10 swksvolFF []
13:39 0 []
11:38 6 17:46 Steve White [] 
10:47 1 16:19 swksvolFF []
09:24 2 22:12 JosephMendiola []
08:55 2 19:38 Bobby []
06:55 2 21:01 Redneck Jim [1]
06:36 2 21:14 JosephMendiola []
06:31 5 21:45 JosephMendiola [] 
02:25 16 20:35 airandee [] 
01:43 2 19:24 bigjim-CA [1] 
01:39 8 11:13 Frozen Al [1] 
01:06 1 21:02 JosephMendiola []
00:00 1 20:55 JosephMendiola [1]
00:00 6 20:24 Skidmark []
00:00 11 22:19 European Conservative [] 
00:00 15 21:15 Frank G []
00:00 2 04:11 Besoeker []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 2 15:15 Raider []
00:00 1 18:38 Raider []
00:00 0 [1] 
00:00 4 17:34 Bright Pebbles [1] 
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 2 16:23 Shipman []
00:00 0 []
00:00 3 13:45 Pappy []
00:00 6 16:21 Thing From Snowy Mountain []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 0 []
00:00 2 21:21 jvalentour []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 []
00:00 0 [1]
00:00 10 22:06 USN,Ret. []
00:00 0 []
00:00 3 11:21 AlanC []
00:00 1 10:08 Procopius2k []
00:00 0 [] 
00:00 1 07:29 Perfesser [] 
00:00 4 09:40 Penguin [] 
00:00 1 13:34 Uncle Phester []
00:00 5 21:52 swksvolFF []
Africa North
Egypt court sentences in absentia 7 Coptic Christians, US pastor to death over anti-Islam film
An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world.

The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the sentence. The charges were brought in September during a wave of public outrage in Egypt over the amateur film, which was produced by an Egyptian-American Copt.

The low-budget “Innocence of Muslims,” parts of which were made available online, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.

Egypt’s official news agency said the court found the defendants guilty of harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information — charges that carry the death sentence.
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 13:44 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
The low-budget "Innocence of Muslims," parts of which were made available online, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.


So they're sentenced to death for repeating what the Koran says?!
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/28/2012 16:01 Comments || Top||

#2  In retrospect the Soviet Union might have survived into the 21st century if they had cracked down on anti-soviet speech in the West.

'A Time for Choosing' was full of anti-soviet propaganda. A trial in absentia and subsequent conviction would have ended Reagan's political career before it began.

I wonder why the Soviet Union didn't dare make such a move while weak and dependent Egypt is much less cautious.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/28/2012 16:23 Comments || Top||

#3  So when will Obama and Susan Rice extradite him to Egypt?

Serious question. I have no doubt Obama would so do if it would bring him any advantage. After all he *did* leave his ambassador and some navy seals to the wolves.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/28/2012 16:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Champ doesn't have to extradite them, they could just jug them at Gitmo. Champ has to do something with that prison camp as he continues to empty it of jihadis, you know...
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 17:45 Comments || Top||

#5  The big play would be to continue to use them as pieces for UN anti-blaspheming laws.

Seeing how pocket mo is the ideal, I would suggest the same punishment for anyone with any variation of the spelling of po-mo in any part of their full name, on account that it is demeaning and slanderous that those mos think they compare to teh perfect.

would the real mo let some jerkweeds take over so easily? Mohommed ElBaredai did, so therefore he called big mo a loser. Off with his head.

real mo was eight feet tall, and translated fatwas out of his arse. Makhmud Dinnerjacket is, what, four and a half tops. Total insult. Off with his head.

real mo would have had that prisoner exchange done and done, this court invoked the name of mo, in the shadows of the great pyramids nonetheless, and the deed is not done no blinking? Off with their heads.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 21:10 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Russia Prints Cash for Syrian Regime
Russia, which provides diplomatic support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, also has helped Syria with money. Quite literally — Russia’s state-owned printing firm, which produces ruble bills and Russian passports, has printed Syrian pound banknotes.

The printing company, Goznak, disclosed the information in an interview with its chief that was published in Russia’s government official newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, last week.

“For years Syria was ordering its currency printed in Austria. However, because of the European Union’s blockade, the printing house has refused to fulfill the order, so Syria asked us,” Arkady Trachuk said.

Russia doesn’t recognize Syrian rebels as the legitimate representatives of Syria, in contrast to some Western states, and opposes Western efforts to curtail Mr. Assad’s power.

In October, Russia attempted to supply Syria with radar parts, but a Syrian plane with the cargo was made to land in Turkey. The incident deepened the spat between Russia and the West over Mr. Assad’s regime.

Goznak, which has several printing factories and mints, was founded in 1919. Although its main task is to supply Russia with banknotes and coins, it also prints Lebanese, Laotian, Malaysian, Guatemalan and Belorussian currencies.
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 13:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Cuba will impose taxes on all starting January 1
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/28/2012 11:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is that a picture of che made with guttering? LOL!
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 11:58 Comments || Top||

#2  If the state took control of everything during the revolution, wasn't that a 100 percent tax?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 12:15 Comments || Top||

#3  What it means is that enough private economy exists for the Party to be determined to get an official cut across the board. The Party doesn't own enough of the actual means of production anymore to be reliably self-financing.
Posted by: Mitch H. || 11/28/2012 14:46 Comments || Top||

#4  ^^^^^^That
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2012 17:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Are they becoming more like us, or are we becoming..... ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 17:22 Comments || Top||

#6  If the state took control of everything during the revolution, wasn't that a 100 percent tax?

If they thought like Democrats, they could call this a 'tax cut'...
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 17:46 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gazans thank Iran for help in battling Israel
Residents of the Gaza Strip have plastered large billboards in key locations thanking Iran for its help during a recent eight-day battle against Israel.

The posters reflect the strong ties between Iran and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups in Gaza. Israel considers Iran to be its most dangerous enemy, citing Iran's support for the militants and its suspect nuclear program.

During the fighting, Gaza militants groups fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, including Iranian-made missiles reaching as far as Tel Aviv.

The posters, displayed in three locations in Gaza City, show the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, surrounded by Iranian and Palestinian flags, two hands in a handshake with the words, "Thank You Iran" in Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders have also publicly thanked Iran
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 10:47 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank you for sticking your fudj rocket into our territory, loved it, fabulous.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 16:19 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
The Fiscal Cliff and Chinese Windfall
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 09:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Except the Chinese aren't buying. Rather the Treasury is printing more money to buy the bonds back. As the subsequent hyperinflation hits, those who have an income will all be in the 'one percent' tax bracket, in effect arriving at a flat tax structure.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  OTOH DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > GERMANY REPLACES CHINA AS US CURRENCY VILLAIN, along wid Hollad + EUZ-States due to their huge trade surpluses.

and

* SAME > BBC: US: CHINA NOT A "CURRENCY MANIPULATOR".

Before + during the 2012 POTUS Elections - hell yeah China is a currency manipulator;

After the 2012 POTUS Campaign - NOT SO MUCH = WHATS "CURRENCY MANIPULATION"???

In the US' defense, its apparently denying anyone, CHINA OR EUZ, ETAL. is a harmful "currency manipulator"???

* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > UK "ECONOMIST" MAGAZINE: MEXICAN MANUFACTURED GOODS TO REPLACE "MADE IN CHINA" IN THE US AFTER 2018, US IMMIGRATION TO MEXICO CONTINUES TO FAR OUTPACE THAT OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION INTO TO THE US.

The Mexicans are coming, the Mexicans are coming.

versus

* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > POST-US WORLD BORN IN PHNOM PENH.

ARTIC > 15 Asian nations includ Australia, Russia to form "REGIONAL COMPREHENSIVE ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP" [RCEP] WIDOUT THE USA. POTUS Obama fails to get support for his favored TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP [TTP] schema.

* CHINA DAILY FORUM, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US DOLLAR COLLAPSE: 7 OF 10 ASIAN COUNTRIES TO DROP US DOLLAR IN FAVOR OF CHINESE YUAN.

* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > ANALYSIS: US GLOBAL HEGEMONIC EMPIRE IS "UNSUSTAINABLE" AND COULD COLLAPSE WIDIN 5-10 YEARS [2017 - 2022]. LOSS OR DECLINE OF MAJOR US DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES TO FOREIGN-BASED MULTI-NATIONALS TO CONTINUE.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 22:12 Comments || Top||


Africa North
With Democracy For All and Freedom for None
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 08:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When demographics become valid predictors of political outcomes, then democracy becomes theocracy and ethnocracy.s

Now where could I have read that before....?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 10:38 Comments || Top||

#2  We have had a republic.

Egypt is heading toward a true democracy, where the majority of uneducated, unemployable, sheep ... herders will decide who rules, and how.

The Athenians had a democracy, until it devolved into mob rule - see V. D. Hanson. That's why our Founding Fathers gave us a Republic - for as long as we could keep it.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2012 19:38 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Feds believe Triple-J was tipped off about probe into his finances
Difficult to believe right.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 06:55 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  JJs daddy awful quiet.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/28/2012 20:27 Comments || Top||

#2  No? (breathless whisper)
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 11/28/2012 21:01 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Report: Iran Building Powerful Nuclear Device
Iran is planning to build a nuclear bomb with at least triple the force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, diagrams obtained by the Associated Press indicates. According to AP, the diagrams were first discovered by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scientists after an inspection of an Iranian nuclear facility. The document was published by the AP Tuesday after, the news agency said, it was leaked by officials critical of the way the West has been handling the Iran issue.
That doesn't mean the IAEA leaker wants to restrain Iran...
The diagrams discovered by the IAEA show Iranian scientists calculating the desired "nuclear explosive yield" in a device they were apparently working on. IAEA inspectors described the diagrams in a report, and a senior official who is working with the Geneva-based UN organization confirmed that the diagrams obtained by AP were the same ones mentioned in the report.

The diagrams showed a scientific calculation of the expected yield of a nuclear device, with a maximum force of 50 kilotons, experts who saw the AP diagrams said. There was no possibility that the diagrams referred to a process other than construction of a nuclear weapon, the experts said.

If Iran is indeed designing a nuclear weapon with a 50 kiloton yield, it will be significantly stronger than the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II, which were only 15 kilotons powerful. Nuclear weapons held by the U.S., Russia, and other countries are significantly stronger than a bomb with a 50 kiloton yield.

Iran, meanwhile, said Tuesday that it had filed complaints with the United Nations over what it said were violations of its airspace by U.S. planes. Iran said that U.S. planes and drones had violated Iranian airspace eight times in October.
Only eight that they know about. I guess the drones are indeed stealthy enough...
"In two separate letters to the United Nations secretary general (Ban Ki-moon) and the United Nations Security Council, Iran has mentioned the cases of violation of its airspace and has called on these international bodies to warn U.S. officials about this issue so that we will not witness the repetition of such incidents and the violation of Iranian airspace in the future," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Tuesday. Any country that violates Iranian airspace, he said, could expect "strong measures" to be taken against their planes or drones.
Posted by: Beavis || 11/28/2012 06:36 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Only eight that they know about. I guess the drones are indeed stealthy enough...


Or just the one they shot at and figured there were at least seven more.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 11/28/2012 19:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Even iff Iran did mostly adhere to its desired "Japan/Egypt" nuke model, the scenario does exist that it may covertly dev a handful of de facto working NucBombs to store/maintain at the ready in case of any contingency vee the US-Israel.

* TOPIX > IRAN WILL ENRICH URANIUM "WID FORCE" [Intensity]: ATOMIC CHIEF.

[VLAD "SUBMIT TO MY MIGHTY JEDI WILL" PUTIN VS. SIBERIAN "NO WE WON'T" CRANES here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 21:14 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Black Friday firearms sales hit new record high
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 06:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So the data base for future confiscations grows - what? You say those Insta-Check inquiries are spposed to be deleted? Yeah, right.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/28/2012 10:10 Comments || Top||

#2  Was thinking about this last night. Newz was giving President Barry credit for a 13% increase in sales since last Black Green Friday. How much of that was simple inflation, cuz I know my can of beans went up 25% since this time last year. Then on the radio they were talking about record background-checks, and of course the trimmings.

So I guess in lawyer talk, President Barry is responsible. Salesman of the Year, way to go.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 10:47 Comments || Top||

#3 
We don't have much in savings, our home equity is our nestegg.

I put a little away in the bank each month.

Our 401k continues to grow.

I stay away from stocks. I buy bonds.

I buy gold and silver. They won't take that away and it will always be worth something.

They'll never touch Social Security or pensions.

Buying firearms is a good investment.

I have no problem going to Kroger on odd-numbered days.

Nobody lives forever.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 11:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Welding lasers don't have characteristic unique rifling marks... just saying..
Posted by: Water Modem || 11/28/2012 15:30 Comments || Top||

#5  DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > US MOST ARMED COUNTRY [in World] WID 90 GUNS PER 100 PEOPLE.

US Citizens own 270.0Milyuhn of World's 875.0 Milyuhn known firearms, + is greatest single purchaser of weapons every year.

Clearly its not enuff as wily dastardly pro-North Korea feathered Turkeys are threatening to overrun + conquer the NE USA, while the Norkies conquer the NW.

versus

* SAME > WHY WHITE NATIONALISTS [in US] ARE TROUBLED WID OBAMA VICTORY.

- No National, Local vote on OWG.
- No National, Local vote on [anti-sovereign]NAU = "Global Federal Union" aka Regional, Trans-Regional Govt.
- No National, Local vote on Socialism,
"Globalism" + "Birtherism".
- No National, Local vote on NAU, "Global Taxation".
- No National, Local vote to formally amend the US Constitution in favor the above + related.

D *** NG IT, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 21:45 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Student Debt Bubble Officially Pops As 90+ Day Delinquency Rate Goes Parabolic
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 02:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But Obama will waive the repayment by asking the rich to pay a fair share.

Sounds so simple, does it not?
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2012 6:25 Comments || Top||

#2  There is also the....working your way through school.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 8:34 Comments || Top||

#3  It's a crushing debt, and a "take it or leave it" attitude from the schools nowadays. If you are going to major in something you can make a living at after you graduate (Civil Engineering), you aren't going to be doing a lot of working while taking 18-20 credit hours of calculus and structural analysis classes a semester. Unless you come from a family of means, you will leave with debt, so make sure you have a degree that is worth something.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 8:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh gee... look at that. Something so many "right wing" people have been predicting for so long.

I'm not worried though. The light worker will make it all go away and we'll still get our free cell phones and gas.

Yay collectivism! We are the 99%!!

/sarc
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/28/2012 8:58 Comments || Top||

#5  once you default on a federal student loan, who's going to hire you after they run your credit?

chances of repayment get more and more bleak for these people as time goes on.

it is very dangerous to put people in 'no-win' scenarios just for shits and giggles. no jobs, no growth, no end in sight.
buy by all means, keep voting for these douche-nozzles.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 9:08 Comments || Top||

#6  But bigjim, who's going to be allowed to consider such a triviality as a student loan in a credit application? Did the CRA (Barney & Chris) teach you nothing about the control of credit by Big Brother?

This is the natural growth of fascism or coporatism or crony capitalism (your choice). It grows like Kudzu and is about as controllable.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/28/2012 9:17 Comments || Top||

#7  GI Bill. Oh, wait, that means earning your way. Never mind.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 10:02 Comments || Top||

#8  Two years in the FEMA Youth Corp, remember, and all will be forgiven. My guess would be 6mo to 1year boot/education, then two years active service, reenlistment and promotion offered to those who show the proper dedication. Graduated their first class recently. Some say complete with armored vehicles, G&A, and uniforms but I have found nothing on those equipment purchases. All they need to get it going would be a major emergency.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 10:28 Comments || Top||

#9  Were those uniforms brown or black?
Posted by: AlanC || 11/28/2012 10:32 Comments || Top||

#10  All they need to get it going would be a major emergency.
Posted by swksvolFF


...like the bottom falling out of the bond market.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 10:34 Comments || Top||

#11  it's just the burst of another debt bubble ... something that has been foreseen for a long time. only one of many bubbles to come crashing down - although this debt market is huge. no need to guess who is going to pick up the expense on the unpaid debt obligations - the US taxpayer. who else? [Hint - Never the people responsible for the bubble].
Posted by: Raider || 11/28/2012 15:13 Comments || Top||

#12  The government is there to make sure that rich reckless lenders always get paid back with interest by poor hard working people.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/28/2012 16:08 Comments || Top||

#13  The road from Crushing Debt to Grinding Poverty sounds like a bad California Shortline.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2012 17:09 Comments || Top||

#14  Check this graph for the rate of change of tuition & fees compared to other classes of expenses.
Working your way through school seems less possible as the years go by. If you can make that king of money, perhaps you are better off working & not paying for further education.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/28/2012 18:35 Comments || Top||

#15  Well, yeah, but that's the cost for the finest, worthless, leftist crapola education you could find. Anywhere.

And a bargain at twice the price!
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2012 19:31 Comments || Top||

#16  once the GIvernment gets involved the costs defy supply and demand. If the GIvernment offered $20,000 for a new car would any car sell for less than $20,000?

the next move by the Washington busy bodies will be charging more for the productive degrees: science, engineeering, medical and business/technical degrees. all others get the 'free' ride.
Posted by: airandee || 11/28/2012 20:35 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Kabul Bank fraud 'profited elite'
Afghanistan's failed Kabul Bank was involved in a fraud that funnelled almost $900m into the pockets of a small number of the political elite, an independent auditors' report says.
But enough about Goldman Sachs and Tim Geithner...
One of President Hamid Karzai's brothers, Mahmoud, is said to be a beneficiary. He denies any wrongdoing.
"Wudn't me..."
Details of the audit were revealed in a leaked report seen by the New York Times supposedly a newspaper.
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 01:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A real shocker there.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 11/28/2012 11:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Doesn't it always?
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 19:24 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
US servicewomen challenge combat role ban
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a challenge on behalf of four US servicewomen against a ban on women being deployed in most combat roles.

The lawsuit filed in a federal court in San Francisco argues that the policy is unconstitutional.

Women can serve in front line positions in the US military, but they are barred from ground combat units.

A Pentagon spokesman said 14,500 combat positions had been opened to women under the current defence secretary. He added that Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had "directed the services to explore the possibility of opening additional roles for women in the military".

But ACLU lawyer Ariela Migdal said the changes so far were "not enough". The lawsuit argues that continuing restrictions violate servicewomen's constitutional rights to equality.
Whiskey Mike in the comments would like to volunteer Ariela. I suggest that we draft her into a front-line infantry unit. But I suspect that doing so would lead to yet another ACLU lawsuit, as everything seems to do these days...
One of the plaintiffs, Marine Corps Capt Zoe Bedell, said existing rules had blocked her advancement in the Marines.

"The military is the last place where you are allowed to be discriminated against because of your gender," she said.
I appreciate your service, Captain Bedell, I truly do. I respectfully note that you knew about the ban on women serving in front-line forces the day you took your oath.
Women account for about 14% of the 1.4 million active US military personnel.
Posted by: tipper || 11/28/2012 01:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I volunteer Ariela Migdalia. And didn't I read yesterday that only two women volunteered for Marines advanced infantry school? It is a tough school, no dishonor both washed out, but might some like Ariela be pushing too hard?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 11/28/2012 2:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Federal Court in SF, ACLU, lawyers, feckless army leadership.... guys like Army Chief of Staff Odierno, who feel wymin should be allowed to attend Ranger School, NUTS, all of them NUTS!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 3:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Not that the courts actually pay attention to the Constitution anymore but -

Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power-
..
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
..


It was written there for a reason [see - English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell, et al] by the founding fathers (former English subjects with far better historical recall than their modern counterparts).

BTW, if you're going to remove the prohibition from combat provisions based upon gender then you also need to alter Title X USC, para 311 on the Militia from...
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, ...

to "all able-bodied citizens at least 17 years of age..."

Let's have real equality, not prerogative or privilege to pick and choose. And can we make up for over two hundred years of discrimination that left hundreds of thousands of dead filling our military cemeteries with one predominate gender when the next draft gets kicked off? Affirmative Action needs to be implements 'fairly'.

Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 6:35 Comments || Top||

#4  How does Israel handle this? They seem to have a system that works, I see Israeli babes with guns in a lot of pictures, don't know if they are in the combat zone though.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 9:10 Comments || Top||

#5  cant see them doing well in hand to hand encounters though.
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 9:12 Comments || Top||

#6  they'll water down the PT requirements
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 10:13 Comments || Top||

#7  cant see them doing well in hand to hand encounters though.

I'm sure they got plenty of experience with the teen-age boys as they were growing up; they'd do fine.
Posted by: Glenmore || 11/28/2012 10:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Really this is about female officers getting their "ticket punched" so they can be promoted more readily.

Historically, women have been used in combat units in the past (e.g. Soviet and Israeli armies). These experiments have been walked back once the war is over.

There is a use for women in hearts and minds operations in Muslim countries. There women can deal with women and men with men. However this is best handled with a detachment of specialists.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al || 11/28/2012 11:13 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Terrified teachers shut down hundreds of schools in southern Thailand
Hundreds of classes have been suspended amid fear and panic in Thailand's increasingly violent southern provinces. The gunning down last week of 51-year-old school principal Nanthana Kaewchan as she drove home from classes in Pattani province has led to demands for the government to guarantee teachers' safety from attacks by Muslim terrorists insurgents.

Ms Nanthana was the 154th teacher killed since the recent insurgency began in 2004. Terrorist attacks and reprisals by state forces in the area have resulted in 5377 people dead and 9513 injured, said Deep South Watch, an organization that monitors the number of victims.

Rather than a lull in the violence, a mass defection of terrorists insurgents in September has been followed by a surge in terrorist attacks in Thailand's four southernmost provinces.

The head of the region's teacher's association, Boonsom Tongsriplai, said Pattani province's 332 schools would be closed indefinitely until teachers were sure they could be protected. He said teachers in other southern provinces would be asked to join the boycott. The association was sorry to inconvenience students and their parents, but teachers were fearful.
Posted by: ryuge || 11/28/2012 01:06 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Thai Insurgency

#1  * RELATED TOPIX, WORLD NEWS > VARIOUS = HUNDREDS OF THAI SCHOOLS SHUT DOWN OVER ISLAMIST ATTACKS, i.e. Bangkok's abject failure to stop same.

versus

* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > THAI INSURGENCY SHOWS NO SIGN OF EASING.

The Maha-Rushian questionne' of the day is just what did the Bammer accomplish or promise to the Thais during his recent sojourn through China's "Soft Belly/Underbelly" of Myanmar, THailand, + Cambodia in South/SE Asia???

* TOPIX > ASEAN CHIEF: SOUTH CHINA SEA RISKS BECOMING "ASIA'S PALESTINE".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 21:02 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
TTP threaten to kill eight Gomal Zam Dam employees
[Dawn] The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain, on Tuesday, threatened to kill eight kidnapped employees of the Gomal Zam Dam project by December 3, if the government fails to meet their 'demands.'

A video, which shows the kidnapped men seeking the government's help and relaying the turbans' message, was released on Tuesday by the TTP -- giving the government six days to react.

One of the kidnapped engineers, Shahid Ali Khan is seen speaking in the video, which has the TTP's name written in the background, as well as gun-toting men whose faces cannot be seen.

The eight officials were kidnapped from Tank-Wana road as they were on their way from Gomal Zam Dam to Dera Ismail Khan
... the Pearl of Pashtunistan ...
for Eid-ul-Fitr holidays on August 15. Besides Sub-Divisional Officer Shahid Ali Khan, a resident of Swat, and Sub-Engineer Sanaullah the kidnapped men also include four security personnel and two other staffers.

The 46-minute video shows Khan narrating his ordeal in Urdu and the turbans' demands for their release, however, the nature of their demands remains unknown.

In the video, he says: "Assalam-o-Alaikum, my parents and friends, I am Shahid Ali Khan, we are recording this video on November 23, 2012 and December 3 2012 is our deadline. If the government of Pakistain does not accept the demands, we will be killed. I am requesting the government, specially the Wapda high officials and the political agents South Wazoo Agency to take measures for our release and accept the demands of Therik-e-Taliban Pakistain because we have been living the most difficult days of lives here. Thank you."

Security forces had managed to recover the vehicle of the kidnapped workers from Neeli Kach area of South Waziristan.

Local political administration have also held a number of jirgas (tribal council) of Mehsud rustics to discuss the means for the safe recovery of the eight men.

While no concrete demands have been put forth in this video from the turbans, sources said that the TTP include release of prisoners and ransom money of more than Rs.100 million.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Africa North
Clashes outside Islamist Party Office in Egypt Nile Delta
[An Nahar] Clashes erupted Tuesday between supporters and opponents of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, amid a day of nationwide rallies against his assumption of broad powers.

A security official told AFP that both sides threw stones as the protesters enraged by Morsi's adoption of sweeping powers tried to storm the headquarters of the Moslem Brüderbund's Freedom and Justice Party, formerly headed by Morsi.

The Islamist FJP party said on its website that 80 of its followers were maimed in the festivities, and accused police of ignoring requests to intervene.

In the coastal city of Alexandria, the Brotherhood ordered its members to evacuate from their headquarters as it came under attack by protesters, the group wrote on its Twitter account.

At least three people have been killed in violence since Morsi decreed on Thursday that his decisions could not be challenged by the judiciary.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Mexican Beauty Queen Killed in Gunbattle
[An Nahar] A 22-year-old Mexican beauty queen was killed in a shootout between soldiers and a suspected gang she was molling riding with in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, prosecutors said Monday.

Authorities suspect that Maria Susana "Toots" Flores, who was the Woman of Sinaloa 2012, was part of the gang and may have fired a gun in Saturday's violence. An AK-47 assault rifle was found next to her body in the group's car.

"She was in the criminal group that clashed with army service members," Sinaloa state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez told a news conference.

He said a forensics test was positive for gunshot residue on her body, suggesting she fired a weapon.

Two men and two women, including Flores, and a soldier died in the gunbattle in the municipality of Mocorito.

The army seized seven AK-47s, a grenade launcher, two grenades, a 40mm-caliber rifle, a handgun and around 1,000 cartridges.

Mexican media say the brunette, who participated in the Miss Oriental Tourism pageant in China in May, was traveling with her boyfriend, a suspected hitman, when the shootout erupted. The boyfriend also died.

The gang is linked to Orso Ivan Gastelum, the suspected leader of a group of hitmen working for the powerful Sinaloa narco mob.

Families and friends held a funeral in the state capital of Culiacan on Sunday, covering Flores in a veil amid a heavy military presence.

On its Facebook page, the organizers of the Nuestra Belleza Sinaloa pageant voiced their "deepest condolences" for the death of Flores, who was a "charming and happy young woman with a great future."
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Narcos

#1  Maria Susana "Toots" Flores
Posted by: Water Modem || 11/28/2012 2:18 Comments || Top||

#2  ...was traveling with her boyfriend, a suspected hitman

Women Like Bad Boys.

'CAUTION: BAD BOYS MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH.'
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 6:52 Comments || Top||

#3  Nice toots!
Posted by: Raj || 11/28/2012 9:37 Comments || Top||

#4  No clickthrough?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/28/2012 10:19 Comments || Top||

#5  a "charming and happy young woman with a great future."

As a hitwoman for the Sinaloa cartel?

Posted by: Frozen Al || 11/28/2012 10:57 Comments || Top||

#6  ...a "charming and happy young woman with a great future."

No books, no e-mails, no classified documents ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 11:07 Comments || Top||

#7  Diario Gamez Balazo

Maria Susana Flores Gamez [Ametralladora mujer - Piernas muertas - Cumpleaños no más](Killed in 2012 at age 22)



Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC || 11/28/2012 12:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Is that background (in the clickthru in post 7) a stylized mural of the body parts hacked off her compadres victims? Seriously though, what a waste.
Posted by: Enver Glusorong6308 || 11/28/2012 13:54 Comments || Top||

#9  true ... what a waste. but it's not unusual for beautiful women in Mexico to get linked up with the narco's. this girl made some very bad choices, and paid for it in a very rough way.
Posted by: Raider || 11/28/2012 15:09 Comments || Top||

#10  3 pictures, one dress. boyfriend must of been one cheapass bastid....
Posted by: USN,Ret. || 11/28/2012 22:06 Comments || Top||


Africa North
ElBaradei's 'Holocaust' comment draws fire from Islamists
[Al Ahram] "Another who denies the Holocaust." The phrase, spoken by Constitution Party head Mohamed ElBaradei
Egyptian law scholar and Iranian catspaw. He was head of the IAEA from December 1997 to November 2009. At some point during his tenure he was purchased by the Iranians. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for something in 2005. After stepping down from his IAEA position ElBaradei attempted to horn in on the 2011 Egyptian protests which culminated in the collapse of the Mubarak regime. ElBaradei served on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group, a lefty NGO that is bankrolled by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as George Soros' Open Society Institute. Soros himself serves as a member of the organization's Executive Committee.
in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine on Monday has been seized upon by the Moslem Brüderbund's official website (ikhwanonline) and other websites.

The phrase came in response to the interviewer's question: "Almost all of the liberal and Christian members of Egypt's Constituent Assembly [tasked with drafting a new constitution] have withdrawn. Why is that?"

ElBaradei replied that many feared that Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund might draft a heavily Islamist-leaning constitution, so most liberal and Christian assembly members had withdrawn. Those to remain, said ElBaradei, "include one who wants to ban music...another who denies the Holocaust and another who openly condemns democracy."

News quickly spread on social media that remaining assembly members deny the Holocaust. Many on social media mocked ElBaradei's statement, asking if one's take on the Holocaust was what differentiated 'liberals,' 'leftists' and 'secularists' from 'Islamists.'

One Facebook page appeared with the name "You are a holocaust guy," which feature interesting reactions to ElBaradei's statements, such as: "My heart feels pain for the Holocaust, yet the constitution has a cold heart towards me," "the Holocaust is against God's rule," and, "If you're asking who we are, we're the Holocaust guys."

ElBaradei's statements often come in for criticism by his detractors, which have included the ousted Mubarak regime, the Moslem Brüderbunds and Salafist groups.

In the interview, ElBaradei warned that President Mohamed Morsi's controversial constitutional decree, issued Thursday night, would turn Egypt into a "new dictatorship." ElBaradei is expected to attend a planned Tuesday rally against Morsi's decree organised by Egyptian opposition groups.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  What rock did Chuff crawl out from under?
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/28/2012 10:42 Comments || Top||

#2  IIRC he's our English "Israel4jews" troll under a new nym
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 12:18 Comments || Top||

#3  I get that. I just wonder how he got to be so twisted.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/28/2012 13:37 Comments || Top||

#4  He's also gone.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2012 13:43 Comments || Top||

#5  How'd he get so twisted? I suspect in-breeding.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 11/28/2012 16:03 Comments || Top||

#6  I long for those long-ago days of innocence when I thought the British Israelites had something to do with Benjamin Disraeli, myself.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/28/2012 16:21 Comments || Top||


Europe
Polish Court Bans Ritual Slaughter, EU Gives Go-Ahead
[Ynet] Poland's top court Tuesday ruled that the ritual slaughter of animals, a key tenet of the Jewish and Moslem faiths, was illegal, but the government insisted that new EU rules would still allow the practice.

The Constitutional Court's ruling appeared largely symbolic, as it enters into force on January 1, the same day it is over-riden by a European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
directive setting common rules for the production of kosher and halal meat across the 27-nation bloc.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But on the bright side, the ban on slaughter includes a ban on slaughtering Jews, right?
Posted by: Perfesser || 11/28/2012 7:29 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Two Sentenced for Operation Fast and Furious Gun Smuggling
Two men were sentenced to time in prison for their involvement in a gun-smuggling ring related to the botched Fast and Furious gun-walking operation.

Jacob Anthony Montelongo was sentenced to more than three years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and dealing in guns without a license, and Sean Christopher Steward faces nine years in prison for conspiracy and making false statements to authorities.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OK, so when does Holder go on trial?
Posted by: OldSpook || 11/28/2012 3:02 Comments || Top||

#2  No comment from the USEMBASSY Mexico City, or the former AMBO, FBI LEGAT, Chief of Station, ...nada.

Hey, forget about this! "Ben Laden is dead and GM is alive". Doesn't anyone get it ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 4:11 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
War crimes witness testifies against Mojaheed, Azad
[Bangla Daily Star] Testifying in two cases yesterday, a freedom fighter said he was tortured by war-crimes accused Azad and others after Jamaat leader Mojaheed held a meeting with a Mighty Pak Army officer and Razakars at Faridpur Circuit House.

Ranjit Kumar Nath alias Babu Nath told the International Crimes Tribunal-2 that expelled Jamaat member Abul Kalam Azad and his cohorts tortured him inhumanly after Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed signalled them to take him away from the circuit house.

Ranjit, the seventh prosecution witness in the case against Mojaheed, gave a heart wrenching testimony on how he was picked up by Azad and his associates, confined to a house in Bihari colony, tortured and how he escaped.

Ranjit also gave his testimony as the fifth prosecution witness in the case against Azad alias Bachchu Razakar before the same tribunal yesterday.

In the case against Azad, Ranjit said Jamaat Secretary General Mojaheed, Bachchu Razakar and some Biharies (Urdu speaking people) welcomed the Mighty Pak Army when they arrived in Faridpur on April 21, 1971.

They took the army to Prabhu Jagatbandhu Ashram (temple).

"The Mighty Pak Army men shot eight priests dead while Mojaheed and Bachchu were with them," said the 62-year-old witness from Faridpur.

The three-member tribunal, headed by Justice ATM Fazle Kabir with members Justice Obaidul Hassan and Judge M Shahinur Islam recorded Ranjit's separate testimonies.

Mojaheed was produced before the court yesterday. Azad is on the run.

During his 40-minute testimony in the case against Mojaheed, Ranjit said he was involved with the Awami League in 1971 and took part in several of its meetings and processions.

"I took shelter on the outskirts of Faridpur town after the Mighty Pak Army arrived on April 21, 1971," said Ranjit, adding that on the first week of June 1971, he went to the town to collect information about the Liberation War.

When Ranjit was approaching the town, one Habi Matabbar, terming him a freedom fighter, handed him over to Abul Kalam Azad, Abul Mia and Kalu Bihari at East Khabashpur.

"Beating me up, they took me to Faridpur Circuit House on a rickshaw and Major Koreshi, a Mighty Pak Army official, Mojaheed, Afzal and other Razakars were holding a meeting there," said Ranjit.

According to the prosecution, as a leader of Islami Chhatra Sangha, the student wing of Jamaat in 1971, Azad was a close associate of the then central Chhatra Sangha leader Mojaheed.

Getting a signal from Mojaheed, Azad and his associates blindfolded Ranjit and took him to Faridpur Zila School ground and put him under a plum tree, said Ranjit.

After a few minutes a car went there.

"Someone in the car in Urdu said, 'Don't shoot him. Hand him over to the Biharies and slit his throat in the morning'," said Ranjit.

He said he was then taken near a Bihari colony on Mollah Bari Road.

"Hanging me up side down from a kadama tree, they [Azad and others] beat me up for one hour and one of my teeth and a bone of my nose were broken," said Ranjit.

Later, they confined Ranjit to a house inside the Bahini colony and around midnight Ranjit escaped breaking through a window, he said.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami


Africa Subsaharan
DR Congo Rebels Set Conditions for Goma Pullout
[An Nahar] The M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
said Tuesday they would only withdraw from Goma if the government meets their demands, despite earlier announcing they would pull out of the key eastern city.

The M23 wants the government to dissolve the country's election commission and ensure freedom of movement for opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi among other demands "before a pullout", political leader Jean-Marie Runiga told a presser in Goma.

"If that is done," he said, the M23 will leave Goma "very quickly."

A senior rebel commander had told Agence La Belle France Presse earlier that the M23 would withdraw from the city which the rebels captured a week ago, "in order to start negotiations with the government".

Regional leaders had called at a weekend summit in the capital of neighboring Uganda for the rebels to quit the city by late Monday.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:


Caribbean-Latin America
Chavez Back to Cuba for More Chemo
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The newly re-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will head back for another round of treatment to combat pelvic cancer that has plagued the world leaders for almost two years.

Chavez has asked his country's legislature Tuesday for permission to travel to Cuba for more medical treatment after spending much of the past 18 months fighting cancer.
He spends much more of his time away he's gonna look like Jesse Jackson Jr. ...
The Tuesday request says Chavez has needed "various sessions of hyperbaric oxygenation" and physical therapy to continue "consolidating the process of strengthening health." The request doesn't provide more details about the treatment.

The 58-year-old president first underwent cancer treatment in Cuba in June 2011 and suffered a relapse in February. He has since said he's recovered from the pelvic cancer and won re-election in October against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. With his recent victory, Chavez will now have a freer hand to push for absolute power an even bigger state role in the economy, as he pledged during the campaign, and to continue populist programs. He's also likely to further limit dissent and deepen friendships with U.S. rivals such as Iran.

During his campaign Chavez spoke little about his fight with cancer, but he has said his most recent tests showed no sign of illness.
He was lying, of course...
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Really nice photoshop
Posted by: Water Modem || 11/28/2012 2:23 Comments || Top||

#2  'Chavez has needed "various sessions of hyperbaric oxygenation" and physical therapy to continue "consolidating the process of strengthening health." The request doesn't provide more details about the treatment.'

This looks like Manfred von Ardenne's Oxygen
Multistep Therapy
and/or Systemic
Cancer Multistep Therapy
.

Are they trying alternative medicine because everything else was a failure?
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 11/28/2012 8:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 8:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Won't embalming fluid kill every cancer known to medical science?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 11/28/2012 9:11 Comments || Top||

#5  Best chemo for him now is probably some of the good stuff moved by his friends in FARC.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Odd he still had eyebrows.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/28/2012 20:24 Comments || Top||


-Lurid Crime Tales-
Germany to ban sex with animals
And it's about time, I'd say!
THE German government is about to reintroduce a ban on bestiality, after pressure from animal welfare groups. Newspaper die Tageszeitung reports that the governing coalition are soon to amend the country's Animal Welfare Act to make sex with animals punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($31,000).

Bestiality was legalised in Germany in 1969, the same year that gay sex was also removed from the criminal code. After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured. However animal welfare groups have pushed for the ban to be reinstated, in an advertising campaign that used dramatic examples of "animal rape".

Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner has agreed to change the law to make it illegal for people to "use (animals) for their own sexual activities or sexual acts of third parties" - which also bans the 'pimping' of animals to others.

However the move has aroused the ire of zoophile group ZETA.
Of course there is a 'zoophile' group. Why would I have a problem believing this...
Lobbyist Michael Kiok, who lives with his dog Cassie, told the newspaper there were more than 100,000 zoophiles in Germany.

"Mere morals have no place in law," he said.
Boggle...
Mr Kiok said he was worried that if the law took effect the authorities would try to take away his dog.
"What's that you say Lassie? Little Benji is locked away in the bedroom with the evil Mr. Kiok who has his pants down around his ankles?"
"Roof! Roof!"
The amendment to the law will be debated in the German parliament in mid-December.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I guess when the folks in government don't want to address serious problems they can just manufacture something to address. At least that way they can pretend they're doing their phoney baloney jobs.
Posted by: gorb || 11/28/2012 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Wait, where's the muslim outcry over this? After all, they and their goats are very friendly.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division || 11/28/2012 0:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe they get a religious exemption.

Kind of like a religious exemption to getting a vaccine...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/28/2012 1:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Ick!!!!
Posted by: bigjim-CA || 11/28/2012 8:53 Comments || Top||

#5  But its not, like, animal elmo-elmo.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 10:30 Comments || Top||

#6  It'll never stop coyote dating.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 12:08 Comments || Top||

#7  "After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured."

That's not quite true. While strictly speaking sex with animals was not a crime, almost any unnatural interactions with animals are already prohibited through animal protection rights. That would cover 99% of sexual activities I guess.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/28/2012 17:24 Comments || Top||

#8  That would cover 99% of sexual activities I guess

Peanut butter see quite a lot of use in that 1%
Posted by: Cretinous Humongous || 11/28/2012 18:34 Comments || Top||

#9  Does it makes me a zoophile if i prefer cougars?
Posted by: Phaith Grique4599 || 11/28/2012 18:38 Comments || Top||

#10  The victims will never testify!
Posted by: Sgt. D. T. || 11/28/2012 19:41 Comments || Top||

#11  We have no peanut butter in Germany
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/28/2012 22:19 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Prominent traditional elder gunned down in central Somalia
[Shabelle] Unidentified gunnies have on Sunday night assassinated well known traditional elder in Beledweyne town,350 Km north of Mogadishu, the regional capital of Somalia's central Hiiraan, Witnesses said.

Locals have told Shabelle Media that two masked men armed with pistols have murdered Sheikh Mohamed Hussein locally better known as "Maryacadde" at Yobsan market in the city.

The elder was elected on last Monday as the chief of Hiiran traditional elders.

Security forces have reached at the area of the shooting and conducted search operations to arrest the killers, according to the witnesses.

The motive and the identity of the attackers are yet to established by the local administration under Somali government.

Beledweyne, a key town in central Somalia that fell to Somali and Æthiopian troops on December 31, 2011, after Al shabab fighters abandoned the city, without a much resistance.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


India-Pakistan
Suspected Taliban member arrested in Karachi
[Dawn] A suspected Taliban member was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock
Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please!
in a joint operation conducted by the intelligence agencies and police in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
's Orangi Town area, while two suspected hit mans were arrested from different areas of Bloody Karachi, DawnNews reported on Tuesday.

A man suspected to be an important member of the banned thug group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) was arrested in the Data Nagar area of Orangi Town during a raid conducted by intelligence agencies and the area police.

According to security sources, he had been traced through the closed circuit television footage of the attack on Rangers headquarters in North Nazimabad. The footage showed the suspect walking in front of the truck that was used in the attack. The suspect had also been seen surveying the surrounding area on two consecutive days prior to the attack.

Weapons and a cycle of violence were recovered from the suspect who was later transferred to an unknown location for further investigation.

In a separate search incident, a suspected hit man was arrested in the SITE area. According to police sources, the suspect was involved in more than 50 incidents of murder.

The police arrested a suspect following an encounter in the Mauripur area of Bloody Karachi, recovering a pistol and a cycle of violence from him. The police claimed that during preliminary investigations, the suspect confessed to killing at least one person in Liaquatabad.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Europe
Anger As Hungary Far-Right Leader Demands Lists Of Jews
[Ynet] A Hungarian National Socialist far-right politician urged the government to draw up lists of Jews who pose a "national security risk", stirring outrage among Jewish leaders who saw echoes of fascist policies that led to the Holocaust.

Marton Gyongyosi, leader of Hungary's third-strongest political party Jobbik, said the list was necessary because of heightened tensions following the brief conflict in Gazoo and should include members of parliament.
Never mind that 'twas he who heightened said tensions. The Jerusalem Post has the details, for those interested.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Far right? This sounds more like far left to me.
Posted by: gorb || 11/28/2012 0:04 Comments || Top||

#2  This never ends well.
Posted by: Iblis || 11/28/2012 0:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Jobbik.....that's Hungarian for Tea Party right? No "lists" needed here, we've got Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Axelrod, Emanuel, Ayers, Dohrn, Soros, Alinsky and the DNC. All fully out of the closet, visible, and in charge! Get over it Gyongyosi you racist hater, or get on the train!



Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 4:59 Comments || Top||

#4  If you want some perspective, google famous Hungarians. The vast majority of important Hungarians are Jews. In the sciences especially.
Posted by: Penguin || 11/28/2012 9:40 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Packed Tahrir Square defiant as deadlock prevails
Over 100,000 defiant protesters occupied Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday to demand the cancellation of President Mohamed Morsi's controversial Thursday decree. Egypt’s ruling Islamists, however, showed no sign of backing down, suggesting that continued political deadlock is inevitable.

Facing his most serious domestic test since assuming power on 30 June, Morsi finds himself embroiled in a battle – with leftists, liberals, socialists, and several other influential political sectors – after issuing a decree that would shield his decisions from legal challenge until a new parliament is elected. His decree also protects the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly (tasked with drafting the country's first post-revolution constitution) and the Shura Council (the upper house of Egypt's parliament) from dissolution. It also relieved Egyptian Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud of his duties, bringing in Judge Talaat Abdullah as Mahmoud's replacement.

In rallies that remained largely peaceful, thousands took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria, Assiut, Tanta, Mahalla, Mansoura, Luxor, Suez and Port Said, in scenes reminiscent of last year's 18-day uprising that unseated autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.

The Nile Delta city of Mahalla, however, witnessed clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents in front of the office of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

"If the decree isn't undone, we will demand that Morsi himself leave. Then we can have new presidential elections," Khaled Metwali, a member of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Coalition, told Ahram Online.

"We plan to remain in the square until Morsi backtracks on his constitutional decree," Metwali added.

Morsi, backed by Islamist parties and groups, has so far withstood immense pressure to reverse his decision, which has prompted opponents to brand him Egypt's "new Pharaoh."

He has also incurred the wrath of Egypt's judges, many of whom vowed to challenge his decree by calling strikes.
Since Morsi is, after all, endangering their meal tickets...
Many journalists and lawyers were similarly infuriated by the president's latest move, which they believe poses a threat to democracy. Thousands of lawyers marched from their syndicate to Tahrir Square, the cradle of last year's revolt, chanting "The people want the fall of the regime" – a slogan frequently heard during Mubarak's final days in power.

The Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, launched an attack on Morsi's opponents, accusing them of "not caring about the country's national interests."

"On January 25, united Egyptians [Islamists, liberals and leftists] revolted against autocracy, supported by millions across the country. Today is politics," the Islamist group declared on Twitter.

"When ordinary Egyptians across the nation see pro-Mubarak [elements] protesting in Tahrir along with Islamists' rivals, they know this isn't January 25," the group added. "The opposition thinks the significance of today is of Tahrir protestors; they should brace for millions in support of the elected president.”

The Brotherhood had initially planned to hold parallel demonstrations on Tuesday, but backtracked at the last minute to avoid potential clashes with its political rivals.

Morsi’s decree has nevertheless sparked violence in several governorates, which have left three dead so far. The president's supporters argue that the decree is necessary to tackle deep-rooted judicial corruption; opponents say it will only pave the way for an Islamist dictatorship.
Since it conveniently removes the last official roadblock to absolute power...
According to Al-Ahram's Arabic-language news website, the Brotherhood’s authoritative Guidance Bureau is mulling measures to appease protesters, but the group has so far refrained from making any public statements to this effect.

A meeting on Monday between Morsi and Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council, the state's highest judicial authority, failed to bear fruit.

Several of the president's advisers, meanwhile, have resigned over the issue, ratcheting up even more pressure on the president who at one time had been jailed by Mubarak.

It remains to be seen whether Morsi and the Brotherhood will be able to contain the outpouring of public anger, especially among the young people who were on the frontlines in the battle to topple Mubarak.

Many of the protesters camping out in the flashpoint square compared Morsi to his autocratic predecessor, with some going so far as to demand he step down only five months after becoming Egypt's first-ever freely elected head of state.

"It's not my first time in Tahrir Square. I'm here to stand against the constitutional declaration and the 'Brotherhoodisation' of Egypt," Asmaa Salem, 40, a member of the Popular Current, told Ahram Online. "Either Morsi cancels the declaration, or we'll topple him like we did Mubarak."

Standing by protesters, several well-known politicians have established a new 'National Salvation Front' – including Nobel Prize laureate and opportunist Mohamed ElBaradei and former presidential candidates and opportunists Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabbahi – to oppose Morsi's divisive decree.

Protesters are planning to hold another million-man march on Friday, in hopes of exposing Morsi's and the Brotherhood's growing political isolation.

"Egypt is losing every day," presidential adviser and prominent writer Ayman El-Sayad declared as protesters and Morsi supporters braced for renewed confrontations.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  See DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [CNN.com] PROTESTORS TO MORSY: ROLL BACK DECREE OR LEAVE.

and

* SAME > TARIQ AHROMAYED: EGYPT IS FIGHTING OUR [Arab-Muslim World's] BATTLE.

* WORLD MILITARY FORUM > MUBARAK SIGHS FROM PRISON ON EGYPT CHAOS: I WARNED THEM IT WOULD HAPPEN!

As per CNN + FOX this AM, looks like most of the Perts fear a second civil war or "Arab Spring" will happen iff the Egyptian Army is forced to become involved???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 20:55 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Two Lebanese Men Abducted from Nigeria Construction Site
[An Nahar] Gunmen have kidnapped two foreign workers from a construction site in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region, police said Tuesday, while local media said the victims were Lebanese.

The two "were taken from a construction site in the creeks of Delta State yesterday (Monday)," state police front man Charles Muka told Agence La Belle France Presse.

"Both of them were working on a bridge project being handled by Setraco Nigeria Limited," he said, adding that investigations had been launched into the incident.

Muka could not disclose the nationalities of the victims, but local media said they were Lebanese and were seized by gunnies in a speedboat.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Medvedev Says Russia Has no 'Special' Ties with Assad
[An Nahar] Russia only has a "working relationship" with Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday, insisting that special ties were a thing of the past.

"There are no special or privileged relations with President Assad," Medvedev said during an official visit to La Belle France.

"Such relations, which existed between the Soviet Union and his father (late Syrian president Hafez Assad), no longer exist between our country and the current president," Medvedev said after talks with French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

"We have had, and have, good working relations" with Damascus
...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
, he added.

Medvedev had on the eve of his visit slammed as "unacceptable" the recognition and support by La Belle France and other states of the Syrian opposition battling Assad.

La Belle France was the first Western state to recognize the newly formed Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and was swiftly joined by Britannia.

Gay Paree has also suggested arming opposition fighters.

"From the point of view of international law, this is absolutely unacceptable," Medvedev had said.

On Tuesday, he claimed that Russia -- widely viewed as Syria's staunch ally -- was not partisan.

"It is not up to us to back any regime whatsoever," he said, adding that the task of the global community was to bring the two warring sides to the negotiating table.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  As per BHARAT RAKSHAK + TOPIX, Iran + Hamas are also at odds over support for the Assad Regime.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 11/28/2012 1:11 Comments || Top||

#2  i.e. he's just as expendable as all their other ME assets. Maybe a little bit more so ... now that his gorgeous wife is living in Moscow :-)
Posted by: Raider || 11/28/2012 15:15 Comments || Top||


87 Dead across Syria
[An Nahar] Syrian rebels downed an army helicopter for the first time on Tuesday with a ground-to-air missile from newly acquired stocks, a watchdog said, in a potential turning point for the 20-month conflict.

A car boom hit a regime security post near Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
and festivities raged around the capital, as rebels further tightened the noose around the key northern city of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
.

Human Rights Watch
... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world...
called on Syria's army to stop using cluster bombs, two days after an air strike killed at least 11 children and state media published the names of nearly 150 imported muscle it said had died alongside bad turbans.

"It is the first time that the rebels have shot down a helicopter with a surface-to-air missile," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman said of the gunship that was on a strafing run near a besieged northwest base.

The Sheikh Suleiman base, 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Aleppo, is the last garrison in government hands between Syria's second city and the Turkish border.

An amateur video uploaded to YouTube showed a helicopter plunging to the ground in a ball of flames.

The Observatory said the missile was part of a consignment newly received by the rebels that had the potential to change the balance of military power in the conflict which began as a peaceful uprising in March last year.

Near Damascus, a car boom killed at least two soldiers at a military police checkpoint in Jdeidet Artuz as the regime pursued its efforts against bad turban strongholds south of the capital.

Battles raged in Moadamiyet al-Sham and nearby Daraya, where a massacre in August killed more than 500 people, according to the Observatory.

Rebels meanwhile seized a military post 15 kilometers southeast of Aleppo, tightening the noose around the city, both the forces of Evil and the Observatory said.

After hours of fighting, the rebels in the area said they had taken the post at dawn in the village of al-Mintar, near al-Safireh.

The operation was carried out by the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham which fights alongside the Free Syrian Army, the main component of the armed opposition to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
's regime, they said.

Seventy soldiers were killed or captured, and the rebels seized six 23-mm cannons, rocket batteries, and other weapons and ammunition, they added.

It came a day after forces of Evil took control of a dam in an area that connects Aleppo and Raqa provinces, leaving the regime with only the highway from Damascus to send reinforcements, according to Abdel Rahman.

Elsewhere, in Idlib province in the northwest, an aerial bombardment near an olive press killed at least five people and maimed dozens, the Observatory said.

In the same province, rebel-held Maaret al-Numan was also bombed from the air as festivities raged at the southern entrance of the town strategically located on the Damascus-Aleppo road.

Human Rights Watch called on the army to stop using cluster bombs after at least 11 children were killed by an air strike south of Damascus on Sunday.

According to two witnesses cited by HRW, the air strike occurred as a group of around 20 children were gathered in a field where they usually play.

"This attack shows how cluster munitions kill without discriminating between civilians and military personnel," said Mary Wareham, the New York-based rights group's arms division advocacy director.

The Syrian regime insists it is fighting against foreign-backed "terrorists," and state media published the names of 142 fighters from 18 countries who it said were killed alongside rebels.

Pro-regime Al-Watan published a list, which it said Damascus sent to the U.N. Security Council last month, that included Arab, North African, Central and South Asian fighters, giving the date and place of their death.

"Most are jihadists who belong to al-Qaeda's network, or who joined it after arriving in Syria," the paper said, adding they entered Syria via Turkey and Leb.

An initial toll from the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics for its information, said 87 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday, including 32 civilians.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria


India-Pakistan
Taliban Claim Bid to Kill Pakistan TV Anchorman
[An Nahar] Pakistain's umbrella Taliban faction grabbed credit on Tuesday for planting a bomb under the car of a prominent journalist and TV anchorman and threatened a second liquidation bid.

Hamid Mir, who hosts prime-time show Capital Talk on Geo television and writes a column for the biggest-selling newspaper Jang, was criticized by the Taliban last month in the wake of the shooting of teenage activist Malala Yousafzai.

"Life and death is in the hands of Allah. Allah saved his life but we will make a similar attempt again," Tehrik-e-Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone from an unknown location.

"Hamid Mir earlier shot into prominence for working in the interest of Islam and Mohammedans. We targeted him because now he is working against Islam and Mohammedans," he said.

Police said the device -- half a kilogram of explosives fitted with a detonator -- was found stuck under his car in Pakistain's capital Islamabad on Monday.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
offered a cash reward of 50 million rupees ($500,000) for anyone with information about who was responsible for the powerful bomb.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Africa North
Report: Egypt Seizes Weapon Shipment From Libya
[Ynet] Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported that security forces in Suez seized "a shipment of a large amount of heavy arms smuggled to Sinai." The report said the weapons shipment was smuggled via the Egypt-Libya border.

A preliminary investigation indicated the shipment contained 185 bullet crates, anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, rockets, RPG launchers, land mines and explosives - collectively worth some 20 million Egyptian pounds (roughly $ 3.3 million).
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Geez.....I wonder where they came from..... (Amb. Stevens to the white courtesy phone....)?
Posted by: Uncle Phester || 11/28/2012 13:34 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Malik announces Rs200 million for information on Ehsanullah Ehsan
[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
on Tuesday said anyone providing information on the whereabouts of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) front man Ehsanullah Ehsan would be awarded rupees 200 million, DawnNews reported.

Speaking to media representatives in Islamabad, Malik said Ehsan was working for foreign elements and vowed to soon reveal all on the TTP front man.

The minister added that the TTP was a divided organization and now constituted of various groups, including the Waliur Rehman faction, the Hakimullah Mehsud group and other small factions.

Malik moreover questioned as to what kind of shariah the TTP front man wanted to enforce in the country which legitimised the killings of innocent civilians and sanctioned suicide kabooms.

He said "terrorists" were defaming the religion and shariah for money, adding that, the government had struck a peace agreement with the Taliban in Swat
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
which the latter had themselves violated.

Malik added that if "snuffies and myrmidons" surrendered and gave up their weapons, the government could consider giving them amnesty.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Africa North
Rice Concedes Error on Libya
WASHINGTON -- Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, conceded on Tuesday that she incorrectly described the attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya, in September as following a spontaneous protest, rather than being a terrorist attack. But she said she based her statement on the intelligence available at the time and did not intend to mislead the American public.
Even though it was known before she opened her mouth that it wasn't a "spontaneous protest", it was known later, and her boss made the same mistake, for which neither have been punished.
Ms. Rice's acknowledgment, in a meeting on Capitol Hill with three Republican senators who had sharply criticized her earlier statements in a series of televsion interviews after the attack, seemed to do little to quell their anger. The senators emerged from the meeting voicing even deeper reservations about Ms. Rice's role in the messy aftermath of the Benghazi attack, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans.
Which is the lede for the NYT, doncha know...
"We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got, and some that we didn't get," Senator John McCain of Arizona said to reporters. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, "Bottom line: I'm more concerned than I was before" -- a sentiment echoed by Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.
Pubs: lead with Ayotte. She's the one who can bring Rice down.
Their statements -- coming after Ms. Rice's conciliatory remarks during a meeting designed to mend fences with her three critics and smooth the way for her nomination as secretary of state if President Obama decides on her as the successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton -- attested to the bitterness of the feud between the White House and Republicans over Benghazi.
And to the dismay the Pub senators have with Champ for pushing forward a potential Secretary of State who has such a cavalier regard for the truth...
Mr. Graham and Ms. Ayotte said that knowing what they know now, they would place a hold on Ms. Rice's nomination if Mr. Obama selected her.

"I wouldn't vote for anybody being nominated out of the Benghazi debacle until I had answers about what happened that I don't have today," Mr. Graham said.

Republicans have seized on Ms. Rice's initial account -- that the Benghazi attack stemmed from a spontaneous protest gone awry, rather than being a premeditated terrorist attack -- as a politically motivated cover-up by the administration. The White House has defended Ms. Rice by saying she was simply articulating talking points produced by intelligence agencies.

Ms. Rice is viewed as Mr. Obama's favored candidate to replace Mrs. Clinton.
And Champ is going to dig in on this one because he can't have mere Republicans proving him wrong...
The president delivered a passionate defense of Ms. Rice at his news conference two weeks ago and scolded the senators for making her a target in their broader attack on the White House.

Ms. Rice had asked for the meeting and was accompanied by the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael J. Morrell, amid signs that Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham were softening their opposition to her potential nomination. "She deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself," Mr. McCain said on Sunday.
I'd describe that as "let's give her enough rope..."
In a statement issued after the meeting, Ms. Rice said she and Mr. Morrell discussed the talking points that she used when she appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows on Sept. 16, five days after the attack.

"We explained that the talking points provided by the intelligence community, and the initial assessment upon which they were based, were incorrect in a key respect: there was no protest or demonstration in Benghazi," Ms. Rice said.

"While we certainly wish that we had had perfect information just days after the terrorist attack, as is often the case, the intelligence assessment has evolved," she added.
Except of course she had sufficient information: it was a deliberate terrorist attack carried out by an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group on the anniversary date of the WTC attack. There was nothing 'spontaneous' about it, nor was it inspired by a chuckle-headed video. It might not have been 'perfect', but it was strong. She and her boss chose instead to mislead the public.
"We stressed that neither I, nor anyone else in the administration, intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved."
Except you did intend to do so, and you did, and now you've been caught, and not even your boss is going to fix this one, so you're not going to be the next Secretary of State. Unless Champ does a recess appointment, which he might just do...
That did not mollify the senators. Mr. Graham said that as the ambassador to the United Nations, Ms. Rice had access to classified intelligence about the attack, and had an obligation to question intelligence agencies before presenting an account that later proved inaccurate.
She had the access indeed, which is why she knew, or should have known, that it was a deliberate attack. She lied, and now she's been caught lying.
Jay Carney, the odious White House mouthpiece and pet liar press secretary, said after the meeting: "There are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice's appearance on Sunday shows and the talking points she used for those appearances that were provided by the intelligence community. Those questions have been answered."
Posted by: Steve White || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Last week the Director National Intelligence General Jim Clapper (who months ago said he did not know who changed the report) said he "changed the report". This week the acting Director CIA said the FBI changed the report. Within hours, a CIA spokesperson recanted saying the FBI had not changed the report, that they (the CIA) changed it. I don't believe any of them.

Rice is a TOOL this is being groomed as a potential candidate to replace the Champ or Biden in 2016. Watch it happen.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 3:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe somebody can write a book about what happened. Then there would be something everyone could call "misleading".
Posted by: Bobby || 11/28/2012 6:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Speaking of conceding errors....

They've called for her at State. She must come!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 6:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Last week the Director National Intelligence General Jim Clapper (who months ago said he did not know who changed the report) said he "changed the report". This week the acting Director CIA said the FBI changed the report. Within hours, a CIA spokesperson recanted saying the FBI had not changed the report, that they (the CIA) changed it.


"They are Spartacus"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 10:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Dang, Sue. That's pretty bad if you can't even fool the likes of McCain and Graham.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/28/2012 10:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Conceding an error is a lie. She lied about Libya, and she should be admitting that she lied.
Posted by: Iblis || 11/28/2012 12:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Based on previous antics with that... august body... Ms. Rice's chances of being nominated were slim at best in the Senate before this. She also does not have a good rep within Foggy Bottom, either.

Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2012 13:49 Comments || Top||

#8  What we got here is a black Harriet Miers.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2012 16:30 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe worse?
Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2012 16:55 Comments || Top||

#10  Read Pappy's link. Much worse is correct.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2012 17:12 Comments || Top||

#11  Thanks Pappy. Appears her manly stride isn't all she has in common with a Barone Sanitation truck driver.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/28/2012 17:19 Comments || Top||

#12  When the Libyan government are being more truthful about the murder of the American ambassador to Libya than the secretary of State (i.e. the ambassador's boss), you really are up to your necks in sh1t.

Keep poking around 'cos the Zero is getting very tetchy about it.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/28/2012 17:32 Comments || Top||

#13  Didn't know the Russkies dislike her. That's a surprise.
Posted by: Classical_Liberal || 11/28/2012 18:48 Comments || Top||

#14  And Obama says he's "not really concerned" that she lied to misled the US public.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 11/28/2012 19:38 Comments || Top||

#15  "I do it all the time"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 21:15 Comments || Top||


Judges maintain strike, unsatisfied with Morsi's 'clarification'
[Al Ahram] Egypt's Judges' Club denounce the president's office recalcitrance on his Constitutional Declaration and assert they will continue escalating their strike and work to press for the executive to retract his decree.
In a statement released on Tuesday the Judges' Club assert they are struggling to preserve the judicial branch's independence.

President Mohamed Morsi tried to placate senior members of the judiciary in a meeting on Sunday over the Constitutional Declaration he surprised everyone with on Thursday, which protects the Islamist-led Constituent Assembly and lower house of Parliament from dissolution and makes presidential decrees the final word - even untouchable by the judicary.

In a statement the president's office released after the meeting, they stressed that the Constitutional Declaration will remain unchanged and that the president expressed his respect for the independence of the judiciary. Morsi also offered a clarification that only "sovereign" decrees are not challengable by the judicial system.

Meanwhile,
...back at the bake sale, Umberto's Mom's cannoli were a big hit...
many courts in several governorates have continued their strike for the third day, demanding the decree be retracted.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


International-UN-NGOs
U.N. Committee Calls for Ban on Female 'Circumcision'
[An Nahar] Campaigners against female circumcision scored a major victory Monday with the approval by a key U.N. committee of a resolution calling for a global ban on female genital mutilation.

The resolution, adopted by consensus by the U.N. General Assembly's human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
committee, calls the practice harmful and a serious threat to the psychological, sexual and reproductive health of women and girls.

It calls on the U.N.'s 193 member states to condemn the practice, known as FGM, and launch education campaigns for girls and boys, women and men, to eliminate it. It also urges all countries to enact and enforce legislation to prohibit FGM, to protect women and girls "from this form of violence," and to end impunity for violators.

With 110 sponsors, the resolution is virtually certain to be approved by the full General Assembly, which is expected to take it up in the second half of December. Although not legally binding, assembly resolutions reflect international concerns and carry moral and political weight.

Italia's U.N. Ambassador Cesare Maria Ragaglini, who has been working with African partners for a ban, called the resolution "a breakthrough in the international campaign to end the harmful practice of FGM."

"I think that together we can change the fate of many maidens of tender years around the world, and today this goal appears closer than ever," he said. "The resolution, in condemning the practice and promoting social and educational programs, is ... the beginning of a new journey."

The centuries-old practice stems from beliefs that FGM controls women's sexuality, enhances fertility, or is required by religious belief -- although both Moslem and Christian leaders have spoken out against it.

The procedure involves the removal of a girl's clitoris and sometimes also other genital parts, usually in childhood or early adolescence. Critics say it can lead to painful sexual intercourse, complications in childbirth, and eliminates any pleasure for women during sex.

The U.N. said in 2010 that about 70 million girls and women had undergone the procedure, and the World Health Organization said about 6,000 girls were circumcised every day.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Its not circumcision if they are lopping the whole thing off. People need to use the right term - I'm not a fan of "PC" language but "mutilation" certainly fits in this case.
Posted by: OldSpook || 11/28/2012 3:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, even a blind squirrel finds an acron once in a while.
Posted by: Cheaderhead || 11/28/2012 5:45 Comments || Top||

#3  I wonder if US was one of the cosponsors.
Posted by: lord garth || 11/28/2012 15:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Clitorectomy.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/28/2012 17:34 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian regime draws battle lines as rebels advance
[Al Ahram] Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
is increasingly relying on Death Eaters and members of the Alawite community to defend his regime as pro-democracy rebels advance in Syria's north and east and inevitably towards a final showdown in Damascus
...The capital of Iran's Syrian satrapy...
, analysts say.
As the conflict becomes more drawn out, greater numbers of recruits from a massive pool of Sunni Mohammedans -- 70 percent of the country's population -- are joining the insurgency, which enjoys backing from Turkey and Gulf countries.

At the same time, the army is facing difficulties in attracting new recruits, says Aram Nerguizian, visiting fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

"The regime is ... working to better organise Alawite and other militias, like the shabiha, into more capable forces," Nerguizian told AFP.

Barah Mikail, researcher at Madrid-based think tank FRIDE, concurs that the regime is increasingly turning for support to the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to which Assad belongs.

"The army has called on reserve troops in Alawite regions to try to avoid new defections," said Mikail.

"Intimidating and very violent, shabiha play a paramilitary role," the Middle East expert told AFP. "They aim at terrorising the population, to dissuade people from joining the uprising" against Assad that erupted in March last year.

Meanwhile,
...back at the game, the Babe was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger. Finally it hit him...
the army struggles to bring in new conscripts, said analyst Karim Bitar of the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

"For logistical and sectarian reasons, the same battalions have frequently been called up and moved from one part of the country to another since March 2011," Bitar told AFP.

The army now relies on some 120,000 experienced fighters and conscripts forced to stay on after completing their military service, according to European military experts.

"Naturally, troops' morale is suffering, as they understand full well the fact that the regime is becoming increasingly isolated," Bitar added.

Trained for conventional warfare, the army has focused on besieging and bombing rebel-held areas, including towns in Damascus province, where Orcs and similar vermin have set up rear bases.

"There seems to be a deliberate decision to try to hold terrain in northern Syria where possible, but accept strategic retreat when necessary," analyst Nerguizian told AFP.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  Is it not surprising that Alawites are deserting? What do they think is gonna happen to them when al Qaeda takes over?
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 11/28/2012 15:56 Comments || Top||

#2  I seriously doubt the rebels are "pro-democracy".
Posted by: jvalentour || 11/28/2012 21:21 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Foreign Policy magazine publishes wargame in which points are scored for killing Jews
"A Reign of Missiles" is a print-and-play game, meaning that the map, playing pieces, and rules are in three small PDF files that you can print out yourself.
This is no wargame at all. The headline is inflammatory enough, "Launch your own Gaza war". You could contact them and say something.
Posted by: gromky || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Has this been reviewed on BoardGameGeek.com yet? There have been similar solitaire games about the Battle of Britain.

The part in this one about excessive Israeli force leading to international condemnation and losing the game is ridiculous; the international community will always condemn Israel.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 11/28/2012 7:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Line in the Sand had a jihadometer. Don't have time to playtest it, but as Eric states to think that Israel has a fair shot at international community is already a falicy in the game theory.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 11:17 Comments || Top||

#3  I have a copy of last year's Labyrinth, by Volko Ruhnke for GMT, a serious card-driven game about the WoT. It's in the same style as the superb Twilight Struggle. People have objected that it's tacky, or inappropriate, but what would you say about a typical WW2 Eastern Front war game? That you want both sides to lose?

I'm not sure what you meant, Swk.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 11/28/2012 19:33 Comments || Top||

#4  First, the headline is stupid and gross.

Note: I have designed/modified my own board games with two from-scratch originals. Had a chance to read the instructions, and it reads well (some prototype spell check problems but to be expected). Of course play testing by x times ,but reads well. Basically a game of chance with a action scene plinko-type rocket hit system, rolling low is to sides' advantage. Game ends when one side scores enough point, that number increases or decreases depending upon where the international opinion scale is. 1 player game, number of Hamas attacks is on a set scale. Israel is granted a set number of attacks, and can hedge international opinion (against Israel) points for additional attacks. Also, can wager low/high risk/reward attacks. Random event generator keeps each game different to an extent.

The problem with it being a simulation rather than just a game, which it is, is that the odds are basically split down the middle. In real life, the international opinion marker starts off at least two point against Israel and Israel does not seem to be able to gain IO points back.

Line in the Sand (Desert Storm/Shield) had something similar with the a Jihad thermometer if you will. If the western player made aggressive moves, especially if they failed, the scale would go up, giving abilities and events to Middle East player(s).
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 20:50 Comments || Top||

#5  *That is, the Hamas player is auto-directed and has the first move sequence, therefore it is an Israeli defence, according to the game.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/28/2012 21:52 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syria names 142 slain foreign fighters from 18 countries
[Al Ahram] A Syrian newspaper on Tuesday published the names of 142 imported muscle from 18 countries the regime says were killed alongside rebels in Syria's conflict.
Pro-regime Al-Watan published a list, which it said Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
sent to the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Security Council last month, that included Arab, North African, Central and South Asian "terrorists," giving the date and place of their death.

"Most are jihadists (radical Islamists) who belong to Al-Qaeda's network, or who joined it after arriving in Syria," the paper said, adding that they entered Syria via Turkey and Leb.

Among the 142 it named 47 Saudis, 24 Libyans, 10 Tunisians, nine Egyptians, six Qataris and five Lebanese.

It also listed 11 Afghans, five Turks, three Chechens, one Chadian and one Azerbaijani.

Most of the fighters were killed in October and November in the northern province of Aleppo
...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins...
, Homs in central Syria, the northwestern region of Idlib, Deir Ezzor in the east, and Hasakeh in the northeast, it said.

Damascus says foreign-backed "terrorists" are responsible for the revolt against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
that broke out in March 2011.

The violence in Syria has killed more than 40,000 people in 20 months, according to the Britannia-based watchdog the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The uprising did not turn into an armed insurgency until several months after it erupted, following a severe regime crackdown.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Syria

#1  prolly pretty representative of the "militants" Syria ferried into Iraq against our troops.

Karma's a bitch, huh, Pencilneck?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 9:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Live by the Ratline die by the Ratline.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/28/2012 16:23 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
U.N. Committee Slams North Korea, Iran on Human Rights
[An Nahar] A key U.N. committee on Tuesday passed resolutions condemning human rights
...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state...
abuses by North Korea and Iran amid growing Western pressure for action.

An annual vote on North Korea was passed by consensus for the first time, with not even close ally China voting against.

But a reduced majority passed a similar condemnation of Iran's human rights record at the U.N. General Assembly committee, which was also to vote on Syria's case.

The resolution on North Korea, prepared by European nations, slammed the "systematic, widespread and grave violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights," in the tightly controlled Stalinist nation.

It highlighted the use of torture and prison camps and draconian restrictions on freedom of movement.

North Koreans can be executed for trying to flee the country, according to activists. And a U.N. special rapporteur on North Korea, former Indonesian foreign minister Marzuki Darusman, has estimated there are 150,000-200,000 people in North Korean prison camps.

A North Korean diplomat at the meeting, Kim Song, called the resolution "state political terrorism." He rejected all the allegations against his country.

China did not vote against but along with other allies such as Iran made it known that it opposed any resolution that concentrates on one country.

A similar condemnation of Iran was passed with 83 votes in favor, 31 against and 68 abstaining. Last year, 86 countries backed the resolution and 32 opposed it.

The resolution, again prepared by Western nations, hit out at torture and executions in Iran, "widespread" restrictions of freedom and "pervasive" violence against women.

Iran's U.N. ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said the resolution was unbalanced and contained 150 "unsubstantiated" allegations. China, Russia and Syria were among those who voted against.

All the resolutions passed by the General Assembly's Third Committee, which concentrates on human rights, are non-binding, but they are also the subject of fierce diplomatic lobbying.

The resolutions will go to a formal vote in the General Assembly in December where they should be easily passed.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So this means that they get to join the U.N. Human Rights [abusers] Comission right?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/28/2012 1:00 Comments || Top||

#2  a second resolution voted Kim Jong Un the "sexiest man alive"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/28/2012 10:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Heard a line from a football coach last week speaking about the media, fits for the UN too.


All they are is Gobble, Gobble, Turkey.
Posted by: AlanC || 11/28/2012 11:21 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Declaration Leaves Egypt's Morsi with Declining Support
[Al Ahram] President Mohamed Morsi is in a difficult position -- almost a week after last Thursday's controversial constitutional declaration -- according to aides, critics and even some members of the Moslem Brüderbund and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Morsi is not through the first six months of his four-year term. Yet already calls are being made in massive demonstrations for Morsi to 'leave' -- the rallying cry of the 25 January Revolution that forced Mubarak out after three decades in office.

Public dissatisfaction with Morsi might have been ignited by the new constitutional declaration, by which the president, who already holds executive and legislative powers, abruptly put himself beyond judiciary power. However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
it is not only about this.

Anger against Morsi, the first ever freely-elected civilian president of Egypt, has many sources and is related to a series of events. One clear source is the continued decline of socio-economic conditions in Egypt.

Another source is the continued decay of public services that was tragically demonstrated by a road/rail disaster earlier this month that left close to 60 children dead. Then there is the growing apprehension among Moslem Brüderbund and Salafist quarters, over the drafting of the constitution and the recent withdrawal of close to one third of the drafting committee.

There is also displeasure among female and Coptic quarters, along with other minorities, at what amounts to, in the words of some feminists and Coptic activists, as a "condescending approach."

"The rights of Copts are mentioned in some of the speeches of the president, but very scarcely seen in his decisions," criticised Nader Shokri, a Coptic activist.

"Women's rights are not at all a priority for President Morsi," said Inas Mekkawy, founder of the new women's rights group 'Bahiya.'

"But over and above, he decided to make himself the sole owner of the country and the only decision-maker whose decrees can't be appealed," said Raniyah Husseini, a 33-year-old banker who participated in last Friday's rallies against Morsi's constitutional decree.

On Monday evening, following an extended meeting between the president and Egypt's Supreme Judiciary Council, presidential front man Yasser Ali told the press that Morsi's controversial constitutional decree applied only to his "sovereign decisions."

Ali declined to offer any definition as to what would constitute a "sovereign" decision. He, however, added that, at the end of the day, the president was not introducing any amendments to his constitutional declaration.

This came as no shock to activists, who hadn't expected the president to be flexible. "On Tuesday we still plan to insist that this constitutional declaration be annulled," said activist Khaled Abdel-Hamid.

Morsi's next move will be based essentially on who is with him and who is against him. And to judge by the accounts of informed sources, Morsi does not have much support to back him now.

Already, some of Morsi's key aides have resigned. According to sources, these aides include Vice President Mahmoud Mekki, key political Islamist and former presidential runner Selim El-Awa, and other aides, including Coptic writer Samir Morkos.

"Some of these aides and officials have announced their resignations, but others have chosen not to either out of courtesy to the president or to give him a chance to reverse what he did," said a presidential source.

Also standing divided on supporting Morsi is the Guidance Bureau of the Moslem Brüderbund. In a meeting on Sunday evening, much criticism was levelled against Morsi's administration of the crisis and the language and style of the constitutional declaration. Sources from within and without the Moslem Brüderbund speak of the "anger" of the Brotherhood's most powerful man, Khairat El-Shater.

"Some people think that this anger was prompted by the campaign launched on Facebook calling for the boycott of products sold at the stores owned by the Msulim Brotherhood, but financial losses are the least of their worries now. The main worry is about the image of the Moslem Brüderbund as aspiring dictators -- it is not at all fair; the Moslem Brüderbund are not dictators," said a leading Moslem Brüderbund figure who declined to be named.

Also shrinking is the president's faith in the uncontested support that he would have from the army and police should the demonstrations against him expand or turn into a state of civil disobedience. An army general told Ahram Online that the army for the most part never really welcomed the idea of a civilian president, especially one from the Moslem Brüderbund, and that Morsi's constitutional declaration had only increased this sentiment.

According to presidential palace and ministry of interior sources, the president is not at all satisfied with the level of security that was accorded the offices of the Moslem Brüderbund and has complained to the interior minister about alleged deliberate negligence that allowed some of these offices to be recently attacked by anti-Morsi demonstrators.

Worse, Morsi, according to the same sources, received reports suggesting that some police and army officers had openly expressed support for the anti-Morsi demonstrators.

Meanwhile,
...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart...
Morsi appears to know that the volume of support that he has within the judiciary cannot in and of itself spare him from an otherwise angry judiciary, which feels that it is being openly marginalised for the first time in its history.

According to a judicial source, one of the members of the Supreme Judicial Council openly told Morsi on Monday evening that his constitutional declaration amounted to a vote of no-confidence in the entire judiciary.

Worse still, Morsi has to worry about resentment against the "dictatorial content" of his constitutional declaration from within the Islamist camp. Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fottouh, a former presidential runner who spent four decades in the Brotherhood, clearly rejected the constitutional declaration.

Judicial figure Tarek El-Bishri, associated with the Islamist camp, openly attacked the constitutional declaration. Mohamed Abdel-Qodous, a leading figure of Egypt's Press Syndicate and long-time Moslem Brüderbund member, openly rejected the constitutional declaration. Ibrahim El-Hodeibi, a political activist and researcher with an affinity for political Islam, whose family gave the Moslem Brüderbund two out of its seven supreme guides, also protested against the constitutional declaration.

The joke on Facebook and Twitter today is that Morsi has nobody left to support him except his spouse -- an exaggeration of the declining support that political activists hope will convince the president to withdraw his constitutional declaration.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Lebanon in the 80's, meet Egypt. Egypt, meet Lebanon.
Posted by: OldSpook || 11/28/2012 3:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Or any failed 60-70s African nation state, OS.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/28/2012 12:22 Comments || Top||

#3  In this case, Lebanon has a particular, pungent similarity.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/28/2012 13:45 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Gunmen 'Dressed as Soldiers' Kill 10 at Nigerian Pub
[An Nahar] Gunmen said to be dressed as soldiers opened fire on a central Nigeria pub, killing 10 people in a region hit by waves of festivities between Christian and Mohammedan ethnic groups, authorities said Tuesday.

The incident occurred in the Barkin Ladi area of Plateau state late Monday and saw gunnies storm the pub then open fire indiscriminately on customers, according to a military front man who denied soldiers were involved.

Barkin Ladi is a mainly Christian area of the region which lies on the fault line between the mainly Mohammedan north and predominantly Christian south of Africa's most populous nation.

"The gunnies opened fire indiscriminately on customers, killing eight on the spot, while two others died later as a result of the gunshot wounds they sustained," Captain Salisu Ibrahim Mustapha said.

"In protest to the killings, some members of the community barricaded the highway, preventing commuters from using the road."

Some residents claimed the gunnies were wearing army uniforms, while a Christian activist from the Stefanos Foundation made the same accusation.

"There was an attack on a drinking spot in Heipan last night by five gunnies dressed in army uniform," Mark Lipdo told AFP, referring to the neighborhood in Barkin Ladi.

Mustapha denied any soldiers were involved. Criminals have in the past dressed as soldiers or police to carry out crimes or commit violence.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram

#1  Now that's taking it too far - killing a man while he sips a cold brew. Should qualify as a crime against humanity. I hope they get the bu**ers who did it - apparently known to the locals.
Posted by: Raider || 11/28/2012 18:38 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Surge of killings in South Sudan's Jonglei: MSF
[Al Ahram] Women and children are increasingly targeted in a surge of violence in South Sudan's Jonglei state, riven by ethnic killings, a rebellion and an army crackdown, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday.
"Tens of thousands of men, women and kiddies have been repeatedly attacked, killed and displaced, with devastating impacts on their lives," the report by the medical aid agency MSF read, documenting an upsurge in violence since 2011.

"The lives and health of Jonglei's population are hanging by a thread," said Chris Lockyear, MSF's operational manager, warning of a further "spike in violence" in the approaching dry season.

Violence includes an escalation of traditional cattle raiding between rival tribes into a wave of brutal Dire Revenge™ attacks, exacerbated by an easy availability of automatic weapons.

The nature of the attacks is shifting, MSF said, documenting multiple cases of rape in the vast and grossly impoverished state, while four of MSF's six clinics in Jonglei have also been looted or destroyed since 2011.

"While appropriating cattle used to be the main aim of the attacks, nowadays civilians are targeted, with women and kiddies making up a large proportion of victims treated by MSF teams," the report read.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in Jonglei in the past 18 months, according to the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Bombs kill six in Iraq's disputed Kirkuk province
[Al Ahram] Car bombs killed four people in Kurdish areas of the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, while roadside kabooms killed two more in a nearby Arab town, a security official and a doctor said.
The attacks come a day after top security officials from the federal government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region reached an agreement aimed at easing high tensions in disputed areas of northern Iraq, which the country's parliamentary speaker has warned could lead to civil war.

One car boom went kaboom! in a Kurdish area of east Kirkuk near a Kurdistan Democratic Party youth club, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq, killing two people and wounding seven, a security official said.

About 10 minutes later, a second car boom went kaboom! in another Kurdish area in the city's northeast, killing a Kurdish security forces member and wounding four other people, the official said.

And a third car boom detonated in the north of the city killed one person and maimed five, with Kurdish security forces members among the maimed.

Two roadside kabooms meanwhile went kaboom! in an Arab-majority town about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Kirkuk,
... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
killing two people, among them a policeman, and wounding one other.

Dr Nabil Yusef from Kirkuk General Hospital confirmed that six people were killed in the attacks.

Also on Tuesday, six roadside kabooms targeted Iraqi army and police in the disputed town of Tuz Khurmatu, wounding two members of the security forces, police Lieutenant Colonel Khaled al-Bayati said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but car and roadside kabooms are a hallmark of Sunni bully boy groups in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Africa North
Police Clash with Protesters in Tunisian Town
[An Nahar] A strike by Tunisians protesting government neglect has degenerated into festivities with police that have left 14 people maimed.

Witnesses and the state news agency reported that residents of the central town of Siliana went on a general strike Tuesday and marched through the streets, demanding more government funds and development for their town.

Police fired tear gas after demonstrators threw stones at them. At least one person was transferred to a hospital in Tunis, the capital.

Tunisia's interior has always been poorer than its coastal regions. The economy of this North African nation has also suffered since Tunisia's dictator was tossed in January 2011.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring


Africa Horn
Big blast hits AU soldiers in Marko, south Somalia
[Shabelle] Witnesses say a huge blast tore through a military personnel carrier with soldiers serving for the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
peacekeeping mission in Somalia in Marko town, just 110 Km south of Mogadishu.

Local residents in Marko said they heard a loud kaboom at about 2pm on Tuesday that was targeted on AMISOM forces as they were passing on one of the streets in the city.

Details on the casualties are yet sketchy as the AU forces sealed off the area and carried out searched following the attack. The city has once under Al shabab control before the coalition forces moved in almost one months ago.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Europe
U.S. Clashes with France over Palestinians
[An Nahar] The United States publicly disagreed with La Belle France, one of its closest allies, on Tuesday, after Gay Paree said it would back a Paleostinian bid for enhanced status at the United Nations
...what started out as a a diplomatic initiative, now trying to edge its way into legislative, judicial, and executive areas...
"We obviously disagree with our oldest ally on this issue. They know that we disagree with them," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "But it's their sovereign decision to make, how to proceed."

She confirmed that if a vote goes ahead as planned in the U.N. General Assembly this week, the United States will vote against the Paleostinian request, which Washington regards as "a mistake."

"We're focused on a policy objective on the ground for the Paleostinian people, for the people of Israel, which is to end up with two states that can live peacefully next to each other," Nuland told journalists.

"Nothing in this action at the U.N. is going to take the Paleostinians any closer to that. If there is a vote, we will vote 'no'. And we said that yesterday. I say it again today."

La Belle France is the first major European power to voice approval of the Paleostinian move to upgrade its current permanent observer status, while Britannia has said it has yet to decide on its position.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority

#1  Of course had we some real folk in State, this would be a good time to ask why France is still on the Security Council. Shouldn't it be the EU in the model of kicking Taiwan off/out and putting Beijing in?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/28/2012 10:08 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Bangla Public Enemy #1 held in Kolkata
[Bangla Daily Star] Subrata Bain, a most wanted criminal in Bangladesh, was placed in durance vile
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
in Kolkata of West Bengal yesterday, 18 days after his escape from a jail in Nepal.

Law enforcers rounded up Subrata at Boubazar with a pistol in his possession, a top official of Special Branch of Bangladesh Police told The Daily Star last night.

Boubazar police lodged two cases against him for possessing illegal firearm and illegal immigration to India, he added.

Also known as Shuvro, the 46-year-old culprit is accused in many cases for killing, extortion and abduction in Dhaka.

The felon from Barisal converted to Islam from Christianity in 1995 and took the name Fateh Ali.

Subrata was freed from Dhaka jail on a High Court bail in 2001. As police launched a manhunt, he sneaked into India that year.

Police sources said while hiding in India, he used many names and had been to Nepal and China.

He managed a Nepali citizenship card taking the name Asif Ali Ansari as a resident of Sunsari district.

Though he had been on the run for years, many criminal gangs in Bangladesh had extorted people using his name.

Even the criminal himself threatened many people over the phone from India and Nepal to extort money from them.

His name featured in the 23 most wanted Bangladeshi criminals' list that was handed over to the Indian home department officials in 2008.

He was arrested by Kolkata police on October 13 in the same year, but walked free from jail on bail in September, 2009.

In the same month, Nepal police arrested him at Kakarvita border along India with two members of Kolkata police as the coppers had intruded into Nepal while chasing the criminal.

At night of November 8, Subrata along with a dozen of inmates beat feet from a Nepal jail by digging a 12-metre tunnel.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Three killed, eight injured in Charsadda firing
[Dawn] Three people, including a woman, were killed and eight others were maimed during an exchange of gunfire between two groups near Rajar bypass in Mirabad village of Charsadda district on Tuesday, DawnNews reported.

Police sources said that the exchange of fire took place as a result of an ongoing feud over a Rickshaw stand between two groups in the area.

The attack took place near the By-pass road when one of the of the rival groups was heading towards the courts to attend a a hearing over the issue.

The injured, including women and kiddies, were shifted to the Lady Reading hospital.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa Horn
Somali police investigate killing against Bakaro merchants' chief
[Shabelle] Gen.Abdullah Hassan Barise, the front man of Somali police announced Tuesday that they are launching an investigation on the murder of Ahmed Nure Awdinle, Bakaro merchants' chief by unknown assailants on Monday.

Mr.Barise told local media that the police have tossed in the clink
You have the right to remain silent...
unconfirmed number suspects in connection with the killing after carrying out search operations in Mogadishu since Monday.

It was yesterday when unknown gunnies have shot and killed in a broad day light Ahmed Nure Awdinle, Bakaro merchants' chief along with top security personnel.
Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Shabaab


Arabia
Hadi orders to not recruit children
[Yemen Post] President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi
...the second and possibly the last president of Yemen, successor to former President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh...
has ordered all security and military services to not recruit under-18 children, affirming that child recruitment is a crime.

During his meeting with Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of UN Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict on Tuesday, Hadi called all Yemeni groups and factions to stop recruiting children.

He revealed that international organizations will set up centers for taking care of orphans and providing them with food and education.

Yemeni lawyers had called to enact laws that ban child recruitment and involving them in armed disputes, stressing the important of respecting conventions and treaties signed by the Yemeni government regarding children. They also urged media outlets to play roles in spreading awareness about risks of child recruitment in the army and security services.Hundreds of children were recruited in 2011 as demonstrations demanding the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
to step down erupted.During the outbreak of the political crisis in Yemen in 2011, activists warned against the risks of child recruitment and involving them in the armed disputes.

They further called to take actions against armed forces, spread awareness of the community and reform legislations regarding child rights, accusing the government of not taking serious actions against those who are involved in recruiting children.The Sana'a-based Seyaj Organization of Childhood Protection said 40 percent of the recruited soldiers by Yemeni security, military services and tribes are under the legal age.

Posted by: Fred || 11/28/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [0 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring



Who's in the News
28[untagged]
6Arab Spring
4TTP
4Govt of Syria
3al-Shabaab
1al-Qaeda in Iraq
1Jamaat-e-Islami
1Boko Haram
1Palestinian Authority
1Thai Insurgency
1Narcos

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
Comments Spam
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
RSS Links
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio
Sink Trap

Alzheimer's Association
Day by Day
Counterterrorism
Hair Through the Ages







On Sale now!


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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2012-11-28
  Packed Tahrir Square defiant as deadlock prevails
Tue 2012-11-27
  30 Inmates Escape as Gunmen Attack Nigerian Police Unit
Mon 2012-11-26
  Syrian Rebels Claim Capture of Helicopter Base Near Damascus
Sun 2012-11-25
  Thousands of anti-Morsi protesters spend the night in Egypt's Tahrir square
Sat 2012-11-24
  7 People Killed in Pakistan Shiite Procession
Fri 2012-11-23
  IDF, Shin Bet Arrest 55 Terror Operatives In West Bank
Thu 2012-11-22
  Mashaal: I accept a Palestinian state on '67 borders
Wed 2012-11-21
  'Bomb blast' on bus in Tel Aviv
Tue 2012-11-20
  Female Suicide Boomer Targets Qazi
Mon 2012-11-19
  Israeli Strikes Kill 21 Palestinians, Gaza Rockets Wound 10 Israelis
Sun 2012-11-18
  Israeli air strikes pound Gaza as death toll hits 38
Sat 2012-11-17
   Israel air strikes hit Hamas HQ
Fri 2012-11-16
  Israel Warns of Escalation After Tel Aviv Missile Firing
Thu 2012-11-15
  Gaza missiles fired at Tel Aviv
Wed 2012-11-14
  France recognizes rebel coalition as legitimate rulers of Syria

Better than the average link...



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.
3.237.189.116
Paypal:
WoT Operations (17)    WoT Background (16)    Opinion (2)    (0)    Politix (1)