* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > VPOTUS BIDEN: [US = Obama Admin] WE ARE NOT CLAIMING VICTORY IN IRAQ, only that the IGA is strong enough + capable enough to defend itself.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS> [Bild = Germany's largest news org] WEST EXPECTS AFGHANISTAN TO FALL INTO CIVIL WAR AFTER [ISAF] TROOPS PULLOUT, ala 2014.
versus
* SAME > BACHMANN MAY LEAKED INFORMATION ABOUT PLANS AGZ PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM.
Michelle indics during live debate that approxi 15 Pak Nucplexes were most vulnerable to Jihadi penetration, wid six attempts by same already been made.
In which we get to play another round of 'Name That Party!'
Jon Corzine, the former head of bankrupt commodities brokerage firm MF Global, has been subpoenaed to testify about his role in the collapse before a congressional committee.
Corzine hasn't been heard from publicly since MF Global imploded in October, the result of bad bets on European sovereign debt, a risky gamble reportedly pushed by Corzine himself.
The House Agriculture Committee, which is looking into the collapse, will question Corzine at a hearing on Dec. 8.
No they won't: they'll ask him questions and he'll plead the Fifth.
Federal investigators are still trying to locate as much as $1.2 billion in client funds that disappeared as the investment firm collapsed.
Corzine is a former governor and U.S. senator from New Jersey,
from which party again?
who, before entering politics a decade ago, was a co-chair of Goldman Sachs.
In congressional hearings already held, questions have been raised whether Corzine used his extensive Wall Street and political ties to shield his risky strategy from regulators who might have otherwise taken issue with his aggressive bets on the troubled euro zone.
Of course he did. That and his rolodex are why MF Global hired him to be CEO.
MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, having reportedly gambled $6.3 billion on European debt just as euro zone crisis was hitting its peak. Corzine resigned his post as chief executive of the firm a few days after the bankruptcy filing and hasn't been heard from publicly since.
Investigators have questioned whether Corzine authorized the use of client money to be mixed with MF Global money to help cover losses as the European debt crisis deepened. Investment firms are barred from mingling their clients' money with the firm's proprietary investments.
When they do mingle the money, it's called 'theft', 'fraud', and a bunch of other crimes. Notice that no one at MF Global, from Corzine on down, has been charged with a crime yet. Guess it's going to take a while to investigate...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011
11:47 ||
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In which we get to play another round of 'Name That Party!'
There is more fantasy in the U.S. employment numbers than in a Harry Potter novel. According to the BLS, the U.S. added 120,000 jobs in November 2011 and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4%. This is not possible.
The U.S. economy needs to create approximately 150,000 jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate steady based on new entrants into the labor force (the oft cited 200,000 figure is based on past conditions that are no longer applicable). According to official sources, the U.S. added 131,000 jobs a month in 2011. This is better than in previous years, but still not enough to reduce the unemployment rate. Yet, the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) claims the unemployment rate is dropping and fell from 9.0% to 8.6% in November. How is this possible?
Well, first of all, it isn't. These numbers were created - and "created" is a very appropriate word in this case - by claiming that large numbers of workers left the U.S. labor force. At the same time, the U.S. government has stated that an economic recovery has taken place. A country's labor force does not shrink during recoveries, it grows. This has not happened during the current U.S. "recovery."
#1
employment numbers come from the employer survey
unemployment percentage comes from the household survey
Many times these two surveys (both by the BLS) are inconsistent. That's the way surveys are.
The employer survey is closer to a good sample but it doesn't include self employed and small biz. Another problem with both surveys is figuring out what the seasonal adjustment should be. A third problem is the monthly migration of people between full employment, part time employment and non employment.
That is why a crucial comparison is to compare month in year x with the same month in year x-1. If you do that you see that employment has increased a bit and the unemployment rate has decreased a bit. Not a robust recovery or even an average one but still a recovery.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
12/02/2011 13:38
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I'll believe in a 'recovery' when I see it. The original Great Depression stumbled along for years, then all the banks in the USA closed, and private ownership of gold was criminalized and upheld by the US Supreme Court.
My view of the future matches this, copied & pasted from Zerohedge: US data is showing only a temporary improvement with the forthcoming fiscal drag into next year likely to slow the economy to a practical standstill. Noting that 'The worst is ahead of us' he sees the implications of the hard-default he expects for Greece in early 2012 (that is not priced into the market) as very concerning with a cluster of defaults more than possible. Uncomfortably viewing the banking sector as a curse (and not a cure) for our problems, he sees the Japanese Zombie bank experience playing out which guarantees sustainable growth is not around the corner and suggests we would be far better off medium-term if bank defaults occurred and the painful medicine is taken now. The banking sector risks the threat of taking down governments...
#4
The entrepreneurs are still out there. The problem is: lack of start-up, inventory and payroll loan capacity. And stock market players are scared to re-enter, given the general stagnation.
Police said they have made more than 20 arrests at a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in London Friday. Twenty people have been held on suspicion of being members of a banned group and another two were detained for obstruction and violent disorder. A police spokesman declined to confirm a report that the protesters were members of Muslims Against Crusades, a fringe Islamist group.
The group, which was banned by Home Secretary Theresa May last month, are notorious for a 2010 protest during which it burned poppies on Remembrance Day and chanted "British soldiers, burn in hell." It had previously held a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks
While this story has not been caught by any of the major wires, The Australian's Jerusalem correspondent Sheera Frankel reports something quite disturbing: "All eyes on Israel after second Iranian blast. CLOUDS of smoke billowed above the city of Isfahan - evidence that the latest strike against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program had hit its target." We will report more if this story is confirmed by any other news agencies because if true it means that at this point things behind the scenes are no longer happening in the shadows.
As a reminder, from Monday: Satellite Image Confirms Iranian Missile Base Was Destroyed
Today's curious news report posted by Iran's semi-official news agency Fars, which was promptly muted, only to be republished by Israel's Haaretz, of a major explosion near the Iranian city of Isfahan, has left many scratching their heads. As Haaretz reports: "Speaking with Fars news agency, Isfahan's deputy mayor confirmed the reports and said the authorities are investigating the matter. However, after the incident was reported in Israel, the report was taken off the Fars website."
Which led many to wonder: is this a real event or merely a provocation designed to make Iranians believe they were attacked? Further complicating matters is the just released news from Washington Post which shows satellite images of the aftermath of another explosion in Iran, this time from two weeks ago at an Iranian missile base.
#4
"Must have been that Bean I ate for dinner" - Homer
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/02/2011 13:28
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Grunter: That is a good idea. I suspect the Israelis have planted some kind of EOD sabotage team that is currently operating in Isfahan. If so, that is going to be one nervous city.
Years ago, I knew some EOD types who had an ongoing "game", speculatively picking a random major city around the world, and on paper shutting it down in chaos, for under $500, using only off the shelf chemicals and parts openly sold there.
This was half-serious strategic training, useful both to know how to do this, and how to stop others with training, who also knew how to do this.
They covered the bases, taking out electricity, water, communications, military and intelligence targets, major transportation arteries, etc. All with emplaced explosives, with a high certainty for success.
Islamists think they are hot stuff for making suicide belts, car bombs and IEDs. They have no idea what life would be like if experts decided to play that game.
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/02/2011 14:09
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Islamists think they are hot stuff for making suicide belts, car bombs and IEDs. They have no idea what life would be like if experts decided to play that game.
#8
This is misleading. There hasn't been a second explosion in Isfahan. The second explosion in the past month has happened at Isfahan. This is a re-report of the earlier Isfahan explosion. Just wanted to clarify that because this report makes it look like a second explosion has happened at Isfahan making a total of three. That is not what has happened here.
The number currently is at two ... over the past month ... that we know of.
A top Pentagon official is calling for a production slowdown for the costly F-35 fighter jet after fatigue testing exposed potential cracks in the design.
"The analyzed hot spots that have arisen in the last 12 months or so in the program have surprised us at the amount of change and at the cost," he told AOL Defense, adding that the fatigue spots are tough to get at, meaning "the cost burden of that is what sucks the wind out of your lungs."
Instead use the money to purchase more F22s for air superiority and have the Air Force and Navy buy more F-18 E/Fs for ground attack. The latter may not be as 'good' as the F35 but it's here today and it flies (like a lawn dart, but...).
Canceling the F35 would send a clear, unmistakable message to the military, the politicians, and to the military-industrial complex: produce or else. No longer can you gold-plate weapons systems. No longer can you insist on getting 0.0001% more 'performance' at a cost of billions. No longer are cost overruns and long term, inordinate delays acceptable.
Cancel that sucker. We'll manage.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011 10:36
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Lot's more diplomatic repercussions to cancelling the F-35 than the F-22. We'll need to build them for export, but cut the domestic buy to pay for UCAVs as the production stretches. It's ugly, but the Navy is in worse shape.
They aren't standing with us, they're trying to get us to finance their irresponsible bailouts of Greece and Italy, they're planning to surrender gracefully over the next half-century to whomever comes along.
The Japanese? They don't have the cash and besides, they'd want to build the F35 themselves. Let them.
Anyone else? They'll buy F18s, or modified F22s, or Eurofighters. Let them.
Cancel the F35. We don't need it at the price we're finally going to have to pay.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011 11:40
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United Kingdom (signed 17 Jan 2001 for $2B)
Italy (signed 24 Jun 2002 for $1B)
Netherlands (signed 17 Jun 2002 for $800M)
Turkey (signed 11 Jun 2002 for $175M)
Canada (signed 7 Feb 2002 for $150M)
Australia* (signed 31 Oct 2002 for $150M)
Denmark (signed 28 May 2002 for $125M)
Norway* (signed 20 Jun 2002 for $125M)
Israel
Potential exports
Brazil
Finland
Greece
India
Japan
Taiwan
South Korea
Spain
UAE
What they should probably buy if we cancelled the F-35 is the F-15SE. F-22s are not available for export.
#5
We could generate an export version of the F22 if we wanted.
Yes, the F15SE is a good plane, as is the F18E/F. India apparently wanted a better plane than either of these, but that is perhaps for bragging rights.
Most of the Euro countries that signed up would be happy to walk away from the F35 if they could, since it's going to cost them a lot more money to finish buying the planes than they've put in so far. It's not like they're flush.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011 16:45
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Yah, it is really over-built. Too many systems and not enough basis structure. Just like my sluggish home computer.
#7
The USDOD may retire the ENTERPISE + at least one NIMITZ-CLASS CVNS iff the proposed budget cuts goes through.
I say give or sell the NIMITZ(S) to the Brits, so that thier RN will have carrier capability unitl the CF QUEEN LIZ fully comes on-line [2030's].
E.g. CHINA BLOGGER = claims that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, China isn't worried about USMC in AUS as they are about AUS + ASEAN Nations + Japan + ROK, etc. developing fuel-fired CV's FASTER, + PAR OR BETTER, VEE PLAN'S EX-VARYAG = nka PLAN "SHILENG".
AUS' proposed CANBERRA-class is already deemed by Analysts as superior to the PLAN SHILENG, which iff true all but foces the PLAN to rely on their follow-on, post-SHILENG classes of CV's, CVNS? for REGIONAL Carrier superiority.
I don't know Obama, but I know what it's like to be in his class, his caste; I used to be in it, or at least aspire to it.
He cannot compromise because he is of a caste that cannot touch the lower classes: the workers, the business owners, the gun owners, the churchgoers -- Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.) For an intellectual to contact these untouchables is to pollute his mind. Thus he remains safe from bothersome facts.
Contrast him to the Founders. Say what you want, they all were involved in a range of activities that brought them in touch with the natural world and the human world. Washington commanded backwoodsmen in the French and Indian War. Even John Adams had a farm. They engaged in farming and business. They lived surrounded by ordinary people.
But Obama went from private school to small private college to the Ivy League, then various sinecures.
For instance, I know Hyde Park, the president's former home. It is an enclave, a bubble, plunked into the South Side. I've worked on campuses and in downtowns. The modern government and corporation seal themselves off from the less tidy aspects of life, as they seal themselves off from bad weather and noise.
Even when among the hoi polloi, the intelligensia are aloof, floating above it all, like a 17th century duke oblivious to the horse droppings on the street in London....Obama is like that: the coccoon of his mind and thoughts and ideology blurs out the unseemly sights and smells of cities or, say, failed stimulus programs.
Of course, Obama like so many of his generation must detach from the chaos of his family. A generation of latchkey kids is inheriting the world. They cannot, dare not, express their sense of being lost, and fear. So they float through life, ignoring the nastiness....
And as they subscribe to a worldview that human beings are nothing special -- we are just a pool of chemicals wandering aimlessly through a pointless existence -- just being alive isn't enough for them. They must be more. They must be hip, they must be cool. They must be above it all.
Their minds, so powerful exercised on fantasies and so lacking in contact with reality, become powerful at creating fantasies....When those mental gyrations fail, the Obamanauts have nothing to fall back on. This creates panic and despair. Then their fear and dread of the Others propels them into rabid attacks on those Others.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/02/2011
09:04 ||
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Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.)
I don't know why this canard gets perpetuated. There hasn't been a 'Republican' Wall Street in a long time.
In 2008, I wrote a book called “Liberal Fascism.” That title came from H. G. Wells, one of the most important socialist writers in the English language. He believed, as did his fellow Fabian socialists, that Western democratic capitalism had outlived its usefulness....
Wells was hardly alone. Such arguments were being made in all the Western democracies, under a thousand different banners. Most progressives rejected terms like “fascist” or “Communist,” but they still touted foreign tyrannies as superior to the outmoded democratic capitalism of the 19th century.
Lincoln Steffens, the muckraking journalist, was a great fan of both Italian fascism and Soviet Communism. He returned from a trip to Russia to proclaim, “I have seen the future, and it works!”
Some things never change.
Andy Stern announced recently that he’s been to the future, and it works. In this case, the future resides in China, which he says has a superior economic system. “The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model — so successful in the 20th century — is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century.”
WhoÂ’s Andy Stern? HeÂ’s just the guy who, until last year, ran the Service Employees International Union, which under his leadership spent more than any organization to get Obama elected in 2008, some $28 million. Comparatively, SternÂ’s influence in the Democratic party eclipses that of, say, the allegedly sinister Koch brothers or anti-tax activist Grover Norquist among Republicans. Stern himself visited the White House more than any other person during ObamaÂ’s first year in office (53 times).
Stern sees the Chinese government’s allegedly keen ability to “plan” its way to prosperity as the new model for America. It is an argument of profound asininity. China had five-year plans before it started getting rich. Under the old five-year plans, China killed tens of millions of its own people and remained mired in poverty. What made China rich wasn’t planning, it was the decision to switch to markets (albeit corrupt ones). The planners were merely in charge of distributing the wealth that markets created....
...the core problem with China envy is not economic but moral. To the extent that China’s economic planning “works,” it does so because China is an authoritarian country. (Japan has been planning its economy within democratic restraints and has been dying on the economic vine for nearly 20 years.) You can hit your building quota a lot more easily when you can shoot inconvenient people and trample property rights at will. The Three Gorges Dam displaced more than a million people who were given three choices: move, jail, death.
Stern joins a long list of liberals who’ve seen China embrace authoritarian capitalism and conclude that the secret to that success had to be the authoritarianism. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, my usual whipping boy in this department, has written thousands of words rhapsodizing about his “envy” of China. President Obama himself has said he’s envious of China’s president and has touted China’s infrastructure spending as something to emulate.
If you want to copy China because its authoritarian capitalism is better than our democratic capitalism, it seems pretty obvious that what you envy is the authoritarianism. H. G. Wells had a phrase for that.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/02/2011
09:00 ||
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This envy of other systems has gone on for years. What we have had for the last three years is not Capitalism. Western Capitalism works period. I remember hearing a story about the best economic plan under Stalin. Stalin was given several ideas but one fellow said that Western Capitalism was the best. The idea was that when economic winter came under a Capitalist economic system the winter was much shorter. That recovery was more vigorous. Well that man was dead in two months time I understand. Russia at this time is more Capitalism than we are in my opinion. With Obama people another story can be told of two men walking down a street and one has a dog. The one is envious so kills the others dog. Why did you do that?. You had a dog and I didn't so now we are equal.
#2
The envy takes different forms. During the brew-ha-ha of the Florida recounts I remember a number of my friends opining over the superiority of the parliamentary system that allows for rapid elections and provides the party in power with a majority in Parliament as well as the executive position.
I'm not bashing the parliamentary system, mind you, just pointing out the habit of grass is greener.
What I find truly interesting is that liberals can go on a carefully crafted tour of Cuba or China that avoids the poverty and still remain clueless. Are they willfully ignorant or just plain ignorant?
#5
Of course 'authoritarianism' is the point. H. G. Wells may not have captured it as succinctly as Orwell did in Nineteen Eighty Four:
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011 10:41
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Such envy lies amongst the progressive elite. It has a resurgence every so often when it happens to get a boost from an admirer such as BO and his followers. It dies away under a leader such as Reagan.
I don't know why the admirers of such a system don't realize it doesn't work.
#8
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power."
Boy, that sums up Bambi and today's Dems, Dr. Steve. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/02/2011 14:11
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#9
Can't be - I know for a fact that many of my University professors labeled FASCISTS as the "Authoritarians", while COMMIES were the "Totalitarians"???
#11
Rj, spelling lesson of the day; from a former English teacher -- you get credit for proper usage, but points off for spelling:
>brouhaha
/ˈbruhɑˌhɑ, ˌbruhɑˈhɑ, bruˈhɑhɑ/
1. excited public interest, discussion, or the like, as the clamor attending some sensational event; hullabaloo: The brouhaha followed disclosures of graft at City Hall.
2. an episode involving excitement, confusion, turmoil, etc., especially a broil over a minor or ridiculous cause: A brouhaha by the baseball players resulted in three black eyes.
Origin: 1885–90; < French, orig. brou, ha, ha! exclamation used by characters representing the devil in the 16th-cent. drama; perhaps < Hebrew, distortion of the recited phrase bārūkh habbā ( beshēm ădhōnai ) “blessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)”
He then told police that he wanted to be a police officer, but was disappointed that he couldnÂ’t get the car in drive, Amherst police said.
The police department said the cruiser was not running at the time. The keys were inside, but the car had a security system.
Theado was charged with criminal trespassing, attempted grand theft, obstruction of official business and unauthorized use of a police computer. He was taken to the Lorain County Correctional Facility.
#1
I had a task in a disaster prep drill once, myself and several others were told to find any police, fire, ambulance (etc) left running with the keys in them. We were to turn on the lights and siren, and lock the doors with the keys inside.
True story. Lots of pissed off responders were had.
Decades after NASA's Voyager spacecraft began hurtling toward interstellar space, the twin probes are still shedding light on the universe, now by offering an unprecedented view of our own galaxy.
As they roam ever outward to the edge of the solar system, the two Voyager spacecraft are providing the first glimpse of Milky Way radiation that scientists have already seen coming from other galaxies. The data could lead to a better understanding of star formation, including the mystery surrounding the earliest stars in the universe, researchers said.
NASA launched the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977 to explore our solar system's giant planets and to study the electrically charged solar wind streaming from the sun. The probes far exceeded the expectations of mission planners, and to this day, they continue to beam back data.
The Voyagers are now providing us with the first glimpse of a critical type of ultraviolet radiation from our galaxy known as the Lyman-alpha line. This is the brightest band of light shed by hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe.
Studying the Lyman-alpha line can offer many insights into cosmic phenomena, such as star formation, the electrically charged environments in which the atmospheres of young planets evolve, and the shocked gas in interstellar space. [Photos from NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 Probes]
Astronomers have seen Lyman-alpha rays from other galaxies, helping them peer into the universe's early history. However, we have never seen ones from our own galaxy, because our sun essentially blinds our view.
Specifically, ultraviolet rays from our sun get scattered around by hydrogen entering our solar system from interstellar space. This leads to a haze that blinds us to Lyman-alpha rays from elsewhere in our galaxy. We can detect other galaxies' Lyman-alpha rays because they have shifted into longer optical and infrared wavelengths — ones that no longer get scattered by this hydrogen — as their galaxies rush away from us. This is similar to how ambulance sirens grow lower in pitch as the vehicle drives farther away.
Now Voyager 1 and 2 are far enough away from this ultraviolet haze for them to get a clear view of the Milky Way's Lyman-alpha rays.
"It is like beginning to see small candles within a brightly lit room," study lead author Rosine Lallement, a space scientist and astronomer at the Paris Observatory in Meudon, France, told SPACE.com.
The spacecraft have confirmed that most of these newfound rays appear to come from star-forming regions, as astronomers expected. Future study of the Milky Way's Lyman-alpha rays could help us better understand those from other galaxies, researchers added.
"This radiation traces where young hot stars are being born — therefore, knowing the amount of emitted Lyman-alpha radiation from a galaxy corresponds to the rate at which stars are being born," Lallement said. "A major goal is to detect the first apparition of stars in the young universe, so detecting Lyman-alpha from the most-distant ones and correctly interpreting the signal is one of the major challenges."
Ironically, just as the Voyager probes are getting their best views of these Milky Way rays, their ability to see them is failing. Due to lack of power, the ultraviolet spectrometer on Voyager 2 has been switched off, and that same instrument on Voyager 1 could get turned off soon as well.
Still, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently on its way to Pluto, once thought to be a planet, might soon be able to monitor these rays as well.
Lallement and her colleagues detailed their findings online in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Science.
28-year-old Ronald Olea Zebal has been charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit murder, after trying to hire a hit man to kill two other hit men, who reneged on a deal to kill the parents of a 15 year old girl he said was his girlfriend.
He said he did this because he believed the girl's parents acted in an abusive way to her.
The Sheriff's office said he gave the first two hit men $120, with a promise of another $180 once they had murdered the girl's parents. Obviously an illegal alien from the planet Stupid.
Thousands of patients in the NHS are put onto the Liverpool Care Pathway each year in their last days and hours.
It aims to give patients a 'good death' by avoiding unnecessary and burdensome medical intervention but there have been accusations it hastens death because it can involve the removal of artifical hydration and nutrition. That's a three-syllable apiece way of saying they starve or die for lack of water...
A report into palliative care in the NHS found that in one, unnamed hospital trust, half of families were not told that their loved one had been placed on the LCP and in a quarter of trusts, one in three families were not informed. "Back off, lady! I'm a trained medical professional!"
Dr Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist at East Kent University Hospitals, said it was vital that more information was made available about the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway in the NHS. "Eventually we all come under review, y'know."
He said: "We need to know how frequently it is being used. Data should be released showing the proportion of patients who die in hospital who were on the Liverpool Care Pathway and how many were on it against their will or that of their family." You can starve to death or die for lack of water at home. It's cheaper and they don't wake you at 3 in the morning to check your blood pressure.
#2
Oh Boy, I guess that means they've found a cure for the Social Security shortfall?
Reminds me of Logan's Run.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
12/02/2011 10:15
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Since authoritarian regimes are big on paper work, hopefully the leadership of the NHS have appropriate (*) by their names so when they show up finally for their 'care' they'll be given exactly what they dish out for others. [Yeah, yeah, I know they'll find a weasel way to avoid what they've dictated for others. They always do.]
The ICC's chief prosecutor has requested an arrest warrant for Sudan's defense minister on war crimes charges. Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein helped to mastermind attacks against villages in Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004. Hussein was Sudan's interior minister at the time.
A statement says the attacks followed a pattern in which the villages were surrounded, bombed by the Sudanese air force, then attacked by troops and the Janjaweed militia, who murdered and raped villagers. A panel of judges must now review the evidence and decide whether to issue a warrant for Hussein's arrest.
Saudi Arabia has refused to allow Australian officials to visit a Australian citizen and father of five imprisoned in the kingdom for almost three weeks after being accused of blasphemy.
The family of Mansor Almaribe -- detained in Medina on November 14 and accused of insulting Mohammed's companions -- has serious fears for his health as he suffers from diabetes and heart disease. Almaribe has been unable to afford a lawyer and won't be provided one under Saudi law. His case is expected in court tomorrow, where sentence will be passed.
An Arabic-speaking Australian official from the embassy in Riyadh went 900 kilometers to the jail in Medina on Wednesday but was refused entry. The Directorate of Prisons in Medina also would not allow access to Almaribe, claiming the Saudi foreign affairs ministry must first approve any visit. The Australian embassy had filed a request for access days beforehand. Visits are made difficult because only followers of Islamic faith may enter Medina.
Almaribe, a Shiite Muslim,
Guilty. Next!
was making the Haj pilgrimage when he was arrested by religious police.
The Australian official was told Almaribe was in "fine" health, was given showers, and had seen a prison doctor. But the Saudis would not allow a doctor arranged by the embassy to visit Almaribe. The prison officials did accept a copy of Almaribe's medical records sent from Australia.
Australian officials have assured Almaribe's family that they have not been able to find any past examples of people being executed for crimes of the type he is accused.
h/t Gates of Vienna
Since last February I have predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would win elections in Egypt. People have thought me very pessimistic. Now the votes are starting to come in andÂ…itÂ’s much worse than I thought. But my prediction that the Brotherhood and the other Islamists would gain a slight majority seems to have been fulfilled and then some. According to most reports the Brotherhood is scoring at just below 40 percent all by itself.
Why worse? For two reasons:
First, the votes we now have come from the most urban areas of the country. If there are Facebook sophisticates theyÂ’re going to be in Cairo and Alexandria. If the moderates do that bad in the big cities, whatÂ’s going to happen in the villages up the Nile? If the fascist party came in first in some European countries Social Democratic districts you know you are in trouble.
The Brotherhood came in first in Cairo and Alexandria. Think about that. Of course there are millions of migrants from rural areas in those places but thatÂ’s also where the middle class, such as it is, lives.
Second, the moderate parties didn’t even come in second they came in third or close to it. The Salafists—that is people who are even more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood—came in second. That they did that well is a surprise. That they did that well without bumping the Brotherhood down a notch is really shocking.
#4
"They import half their food. They have money for two months of imports".
Many worked in Libya also. Major problems to overcome. The pipeline to Israel and Jordan keeps blowing up so no money coming in from that. My concern is the Canal. I look for problems there next.
#5
My concern is the Canal. I look for problems there next. The Suez Canal has been closed for many years at a time, and the world seemed to get along without it. How long can Egyptians do without eating?
#6
At some point the Muslim Brotherhood was going to be in charge of an Arab country. Now they have to govern a country rather than oppose its rulers. That's not going to be easy--the country is broke and can't feed itself.
I think the MB will be too busy trying to prevent another Egyptian uprising to stir up much trouble in the region.
#10
IIRC after their defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War AGZ iSRAEL, NASSER = EGYPT tried to close the Suez to any + all types of US-Western shipping, but ultimately changed their mind to deny access to only US-Western Warships [includ military logistics] when they saw how their own + Arab economies were badly suffering, + espec after how alternate routes only seemed to strengthen
Israel. The USSR at the time preferred to send mostly weapons to the ME, NOTSOMUCH FOOD + CONSUMER GOODIES - IT TOOK THE FAILURE OF THE POST-YOM KIPPUR WAR 1973 OIL CRISIS VEE THE US; + RISE OF MUSLIM-LED DOMESTIC TERROR THREATS AGZ REGIONAL MUSLIM GOVTS. TO REMOVE THE RESTRICTIONS.
Abound Solar, given a $400 million Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee for a project expected to create 400 permanent jobs, receives private financial backing through an investment firm founded by a fundraising bundler for President Obama.
The Sunlight Foundation notes that Bohemian Companies, which was founded by billionaire and Obama bundler Pat Stryker, participated with other companies in the "second institutional equity round of financing" in 2008 for Abound Solar, which recieved $104 million total through that round of financing.
Stryker gave $50,000 to Obama's inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and raised a further $87,000 for the inauguration. Stryker has since donated $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund, Sunlight reports.
One year after Bohemian invested in Abound, and a year before the DOE granted a loan guarantee, Stryker visited the White House. "The White House did not confirm that the visitor was the Pat Stryker in question and did not provide details about the meeting," Sunlight says.
#3
Chinese business were expected to borrow $600b but only $500 was borrowed so the rate cut was to increase liquidity by pumping an extra $50b into the economy. China with $2t of reserves is in a better position than other economies and has more levers it can use.Expect to see a soft landing rather than a hard landing that is facing Europe.
#4
With a world slowdown I look for them to sink more money into gold. So to protect what money you have you don't risk it. Now if its the government spending the money well they will do more of the same of what they have been doing. They are playing money games like everyone else. Everything is dropping so do you make up for that by throwing cheaper money at it. Everyone should know that after Christmas the bottom will fall out. The market will drop till after New Years. Best just to look the other way if you want to be happy in this world. Just for a little bit anyway.
Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Friday gave his troops "full liberty" to respond to any further cross-border attacks by Nato forces in Afghanistan in the wake of an air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, official sources said.
The powerful army chief told commanders of units deployed along the western border with Afghanistan that they had "full liberty of action to respond (by) employing all capabilities" available at their disposal, the sources said.
Kayani was quoted by the sources as saying that there should be "no ambiguity in the rules of engagement for everyone down the chain of command" if they faced an attack by Nato forces.
Such an action would "require no clearance at any level" and the army would "provide resources as required on ground", he was quoted as saying.
Following Saturday's air strike on two military border posts in Mohmand Agency that killed 24 soldiers, Pakistan closed all Nato supply routes and asked the US to vacate Shamsi airbase, reportedly used by CIA-operated drones.
Pakistan also decided to boycott the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan to protest the attack.
#2
OK: you have a loser country dying under US sanctions on Sept. 11, 2001. And said losers have a policy of support for terror groups in a country that facilitated mass murder on US soil.
So the US lifts sanction against the losers, and enlists them in nation-building in the murdering-entity. The losers are handed tens of billions of dollars, with the unsupported assumption that existing "in depth" relations with the murderers would end.
Duh! Wouldn't the pathological losers be inclined seek conditions where they can at long last win, by undermining the nation-build idiocy, and supporting the murderers? Toss the pay-masters the occasional arab bone - for max photo op - while aiding and abetting continuing murder.
When stupidity prospers, none have the intelligence to call it stupidity.
#3
They cringe in face of Taliban push back in the Territories and now they engage in lower primate displays of aggression against something that could clean them out if there were no leashes holding them back?
#4
ION DEFENCE FORUM INDIA > US REJECTS DEMAND TO VACATE SHAMSI AIRBASE.
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > {Guardian.UK = ISAF CHIef Gen. John Allen] AMERICA TO BEGIN TWO-YEAR OFFENSIVE AGZ "TERRORIST SANCTUARIES" FROM IN PAKISTAN [Eastern Afghanistan]: CROSS-BORDER ATTACKS [from Afghan into Pakistan] CANNOT BE RULED OUT | NATO PLANS TO QUELL PAK-BASED INSURGENTS [in Afghanistan]: GUARDIAN.
Focii to be agz MilTerr controlled by
> Haqqanis.
> Mullah Nazir.
> Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
ARTIC > WESTERN DIPLOMAT - PAKISTAN MAY NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH/POWER TO DEFEAT THE TALIBAN + HAQQANIS, ETC. EVEN IFF THEY WANTED TO.
* SAME > {Title paraph] PAKISTAN MAY BE CHINA'S FRIEND, BUT IT IS TOO OBSESSED WID AMERICA: PROFESSOR ZHOU RONG {Chief of South Asia Bureau, Ming Daily of China].
PROF. ZHOU RONG = PAK is too EMOTIONALLY OBSESSED wid China, but also PSYCHOLOGICALLY OBSESSED wid the US as many PAK elites still like to send their kiddies to the US for education, NOT China, despite the many probs or breakdown in diplomatic relations between the US + Pakistan.
At least that's according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it. Does this mean that Obean will lose?
Posted by: Barbara ||
12/02/2011 9:00
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#2
"Transitioning to a new era" does have an ominous ring to it. According to some of the New Age types, this is a transition from the "Piscean age" to the "Aquarian age".
Despite the mountain of b.s. surrounding it, probably the best capsule summary to describe this would be the transition from patriarchal-hierarchical forms of organization to matriarchal forms of organization.
Nothing particularly spiritual about this, just that patriarchal-hierarchical systems begin to function with less efficiency than their matriarchal equivalent. So when people want something done effectively, they use the matriarchal systems to do it.
A transition to many more females in politics and government, at first using the patriarchal patterns, but as they become dominant, shifting to more productive ways for them to do business.
American citizens are not immune from being treated like an enemy if they take up arms against the United States, the CIA general counsel said on Thursday.
CIA General Counsel Stephen Preston was responding to a question at an American Bar Association national security conference about the killing of Americans overseas without presenting evidence of wrongdoing.
A CIA drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, earlier this year.
He was linked to failed plots to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane in 2009 and cargo planes headed for the United States in 2010, U.S. officials say.
Preston said he would not discuss Awlaki or any specific operations.
"I will make this observation that citizenship does not confer immunity on one who takes up arms against his own country. It didn't in World War Two when there were American citizens who joined the Nazi army and it doesn't today," Preston said.
Jeh Johnson, Defense Department general counsel, said he echoed Preston's comments "in terms of those who are combatants, part of the congressionally declared enemy, who also happen to be U.S. citizens."
But he said the same view would not apply to someone who was not considered an enemy combatant.
"We go down a slippery slope if an individual who wants to do harm to Americans and who is inspired in his own basement by the writings he has read from al Qaeda and he hasn't interacted with a single other individual in that group, yet he has decided to do violence against America based on what he read, in my view is not part of the congressionally declared enemy and we have to be careful not to go down that landscape," Johnson said.
He said it was not feasible to take decisions made on enemy combatants to courts each time.
"Courts are not equipped to make those types of decisions which very often are based moment-by-moment on an intelligence picture that constantly evolves," Johnson said. Anwar Al-Awlaki was an evolving situation?
There is a very old word for his type: Traitor.
There is an even older way to deal with the situation: Kill them.
Sticking their head on a pike outside the city gates is optional.
Ancient wisdom.
Still good today.
#2
The trouble is, that now *most*, not just many, of the Patriot Act laws that neutralized the 4th Amendment, radically increased surveillance and search of innocent people with warrantless searches and wiretaps, and led to many federal agencies now having "SWAT-like" law enforcement powers for minor and administrative accusations of crime, are now used EXCLUSIVELY for NON-terrorism related crimes.
In other words, we sold our birthright for a mess of empty paranoia and authoritarianism.
And now, military "agencies", not necessarily who we think of as soldiers, will be able to secretly detain American citizens indefinitely, without arrest or trial.
Assuming that sane congressmen in the House-Senate conference committee do not kill this monster, or that, God help us all, Obama does not keep his promise, and fails to veto it.
Why should this authoritarian nightmare be any different than any of these other unconstitutional and horrific abuses?
This is as un-American as if we were a nation occupied by a hostile foreign power, imposing a martial law state on us.
Do not confuse "military" detention with our armed service branches. These "military" personnel would almost certainly be non-uniformed employees of other federal police and intelligence agencies, in a combined task force organization that does not answer to the Pentagon, yet receives DoD funding.
The very principle is obscene, to suggest that there is any need, ever, for Americans to be detained in America without arrest or trial, or that courts are unable to try such cases.
The police should detain if they must, but then citizens, at least, must be subject to arrest and its concomitant rights, indictment by a grand jury, and trial by a jury of their peers. Any excuse that this is "too burdensome", is utter nonsense.
#4
He went from encouraging to aiding to participating in planning attacks on the US and US citizens.
My thoughts: From the moment he stepped off the plane (if not before) whatever he did fell under "Aiding and Abetting". It's my understanding he was recruiting for Al Qaeda. That's basically the same as hiring hit men to murder Americans. And I would really hate to let a bunch of terrorists gain American citizenship just to shield them from getting what's coming to them. He needed to be killed just as surely as any other recruiter, bombmaker, bagman, or financier.
I'm sure the vast majority of Americans feel this way. The rest can move to Pakistan if it's so wrong.
#5
And thanks for the insight, lotp. It sounds like the government was waiting for him to step over some line before they went after him. In my mind, it happened as soon as he got off the plane.
#6
I would think the other part of "evolving situation" was finding the clever gentleman in the middle of his protective Yemeni tribal hosts, then following him with a Predator until he evolved himself into a place where it could reach out and touch him.
So while tens of thousands of Americans continue to be harmed or killed every year by overdoses from drugs originating from this illicit opium trade, and while cultivation of innocuous crops like marijuana and hemp remains illegal in the US, the American military is actively guarding the very poppy fields in Afghanistan that fuel the global drug trade. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. You'll have to RTWT to see how the author comes to this "conclusion".
'Prison Planet' is barking mad. Just to be clear.
Let's not make a habit of posting stuff from them.
#1
Well, the author has a few problems with facts. On the other hand, poppy fields cannot exactly be hidden. So given US military presence in the land, it's hard to believe that opium growing can continue---unless it's allowed to continue.
#4
Let's not make a habit of posting stuff from them.
Know thy enemy ....
If you don't know what they're talking about, you won't know how they think or how to persuade them. This certainly comes out of left field and gives you a window into how they think.
#6
The War on Drugs has often resulted in uncomfortable paradoxical situations, because it is in conflict with powerful market forces that are far stronger than any anti-drug resolve or funding.
An excellent example was of the meeting between Vietnam war hero LTC (ret.) James Gordon "Bo" Gritz, and later, by Australian journalist Stephen Rice, with General Khun Sa, who ruled a large enclave in Burma.
Khun Sa was called the "opium king", because his enclave produced something like 1/3rd of the world's opium crop. But Khun Sa personally hated opium, and repeatedly offered both the governments of Australia and the US to change the economy of his enclave to conventional agriculture.
His argument was that the street value of the opium his enclave produced was about $600 billion a year, but if either nation would send farm equipment, pesticide, fertilizer, and most importantly agricultural advisers and consultants, to the tune of about $50 million, his enclave would convert to conventional agriculture and eliminate opium production entirely.
He was adamant that such advisers and consultants *had* to be part of the deal, for many years, to verify that all opium production had ceased beyond any doubt.
But the governments of both Australia and the US vehemently rejected his request, the former saying, “The Australian Government is simply not in the business of paying criminals to refrain from criminal activity.”
The Americans went a step further, threatening the government of Burma with a complete cut off of American aid, unless they invaded the enclave and killed Khun Sa.
Shortly thereafter, the newspapers in Burma's capital were filled with stories of the Burmese armies conquest of the enclave, a wonderful fabrication, because if anything, the Burmese government fully supported Khun Sa's activities. But the Burmese government correctly figured that the US diplomatic mission was so lazy that they would never actually bother to witness the "war" in person. So newspaper stories were enough.
LTC Gritz, however, apprehensive of the faux "war" in the papers, then gingerly returned to the enclave, to find it not just untouched, but considerably improved from its former state, with a new highway, so that Burmese army trucks could more efficiently haul their opium cargo for export.
As an epilogue, after considerable investigation, LTC Gritz concluded that, in an effort to prevent a worldwide drug war, civil wars in dozens of countries, the US had decided, since the very start of the WoD by Nixon, to essentially take over the world's drug trade, managing it to market forces, while to a great extent keeping the money and weapons involved out of the hands of revolutionary movements.
Since that time, tragically, LTC Gritz has somewhat "lost it", and become a radical right wing personality, though still loyal to the US.
#9
This problem of 'blowback' from the War on Drugs is so similar to the blowback from the decades long situation of the US protecting Lovers of Jihad Pumping Oil with our troops, that it makes my skin crawl.
#10
The area around Culiacan, Mexico remains the main source of heroin that is sold in the US. You hear about the cartels being based in Guadelajara, but that is only where the bosses live. Afghanistan produces 90% of the global market but much goes to Iran (2,000,000 addicts) and Pakistan (4,000,000 addicts). Euros get most of the rest.
U.S. Senate on Thursday evening passed a 662-billion-dollar Defense spending bill, after a long fight with the administration over how terror suspects should be detained.
The bill, passed in a vote with overwhelming support of 93-7, would provide money for military personnel, weapons systems and defense programs, as well as the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The bill came to the floor following a compromise late Thursday afternoon to add language on the detention of U.S. citizens and terror suspects on U.S. soil.
It requires military custody of a suspected member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. U.S. citizens would be exempt.
The bill also allows the administration to waive the authority based on national security and hold a suspect in civilian custody.
The White House has threatened to veto the defense authorization bill over requirements for terrorism suspects to be detained in military installations, calling it a "legally controversial restriction of the president's authority."
The compromise was contained in an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. It states that the legislation did not alter existing law for the detention of U.S. citizens or anyone who was captured or arrested in the United States.
The administration and Congress have tussled over the detainee provision in the bill. The White House has opposed mandatory military custody for terror suspects. The administration also opposes an indefinite ban on transferring Guantanamo detainees.
With Senate greenlight, the bill now goes to conference committee with the House, which had its own ideas on terror suspects that must be reconciled with the Senate version. The House passed its version of the Defense bill in July.
#2
Vote for every tax cut out there and remind everyone that Obean will grind through his credit card all that much quicker and have to come begging hat in hand for more.
The Obama administration has proposed selling 600 "bunker buster" bombs and other munitions to the United Arab Emirates, which lies across the Gulf from Iran, to deter what it called regional threats.
Iran is widely suspected of seeking to develop nuclear arms through a program that Tehran says is for peaceful power generation only.
The proposed $304 million sale would include 4,900 tail kits built by Boeing Co that turn unguided free-fall bombs into guided weapons and 4,300 "general purpose" bombs, the Defense Department said in a mandatory arms sale notice dated Wednesday.
The deal would boost UAE's ability "to meet current and future regional threats" and to help deter aggression, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in the note to lawmakers.
#1
So how many first line aircraft does the UAE have, along with first line pilots? Air refueling capability? Air defense in case the stuff comes in instead of going out?
Maybe this is a face-saving way of pre-positioning munitions on UAE airfields in case any of the big boys need a refill.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/02/2011 10:06
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#2
Aircraft include 54 F-16/Es and 25 F-16/Fs, plus a couple dozen Dassault multirole fighters.
Air refueling? UAE's right across the Straits of Hormuz from Iran. If they were based just north, in Qatar, I *think* they could make it to Qom and back. Don't know about Qom from UAE, but definitely Bushehr.
Air defense? UAE as well as Bahrain and Qatar has kindly hosted a US military presence for some time. It's fair to expect it would be a protected air space.
#4
These are the 2000# bunker busters, I think. They should be able to be delivered by an F-16, I would think. One with one of those cool new extra fuel tanks. But it seems to me that they would be much smaller than they would need against Iran, who is the only on they probably need to worry about.
#6
Maybe these bunker busters are smaller than they should be. But what would happen if the same exact spot were hit 5 times in a row by these lightweights? I expect the hole would get very deep very quickly.
#7
Good news, guys, about the equipment. I think I'd still be interested in the quality of the aircrew. Unless they were trained in the US/UK.
Read a cross-cultural manual many years ago, by the USAF since they had to do it and make it work as opposed to the nearest anthro dept, and they had many cautions about working with guys from the Arab culture. Not that they were necessarily substandard material but that they were difficult to train due to different world views. A marginal difference, though.
On the other hand, those little oil spots could afford to pay ex-military F16 pilots a pretty decent per diem.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/02/2011 14:42
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The call came into the behavior specialists here from a doctor in Afghanistan. His patient had just been through a firefight and now was cowering under a cot, refusing to come out.
Apparently even the chew toys hadn't worked.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, thought Dr. Walter F. Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base. Specifically, canine PTSD.
If anyone needed evidence of the frontline role played by dogs in war these days, here is the latest: the four-legged, wet-nosed troops used to sniff out mines, track down enemy fighters and clear buildings are struggling with the mental strains of combat nearly as much as their human counterparts.
By some estimates, more than 5 percent of the approximately 650 military dogs deployed by American combat forces are developing canine PTSD. Of those, about half are likely to be retired from service, Dr. Burghardt said.
The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm on Thursday distanced itself from a more conservative Islamist party as early vote tallies indicated that the two factions would claim the two largest roles in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
Responding to reports that the two Islamist parties together could form a majority of the new Parliament, the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party denied that there was any "alleged alliance" with the ultraconservative party, Al Nour, to form "an Islamist government." Al Nour is not 'conservative'. Al Nour is Islamicist and fascist.
The statement appeared to be aimed at quieting the anxiety of Egyptian liberals and Western governments about the unexpectedly large share of the vote apparently won by Al Nour, which was formed by the ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis. It also reflected the fine line that the Muslim Brotherhood is walking as it tries to hold together its most ardent Islamist supporters in the streets without provoking a backlash at home or internationally.
#1
One thing I will say about the MB, is that they certainly know how to be diplomatic. This in its own right indicates that they are pragmatic and smart enough to "do business", without going the Salafist or Wahhabi route.
Hopefully they will form a government with the secular party, so that the emphasis is on improving the economy, public services and infrastructure, "and we'll worry about the other stuff later."
#2
I'm expecting them to start out moderate and slowly become Hamas.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011 12:28
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#3
They have a long history of spawning - and funnelling people, money, other support to - more radical groups while keeping the main brand name 'moderate'.
#4
Erdogan's party started out claiming to be moderate Islamists, too... For that matter, electing Hamas was supposed to moderate them because they would have to compromise their principles in order to govern effectively. We've seen how well that worked.
A soldier was killed and another injured when a bomb buried on a rural road in Yala province exploded yesterday morning.
Pvt Kriangkrai Promfai and eight other soldiers were patroling on foot on the road to protect teachers when he stepped on a landmine, which was instantly set off. The explosion threw him into the air, and severed his right leg. Pvt Siam sae Lao was wounded slightly in the blast. The two were taken to the hospital where Pvt Kriangkrai was later pronounced dead.
Police blamed members of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) movement in for the blast.
Meanwhile, vendors in Yala say a safety zone in Muang is killing business. The safety zone was introduced after a series of bomb blasts at more than 30 locations in downtown Yala and nearby areas on Oct 25. The explosions killed two and injured many others.
US officials consulted with Pakistani officials before an airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and the Pakistanis gave the go-ahead for the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The officials at a border coordination centre were unaware that their troops were in the area on Saturday near the Afghan border, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed US officials familiar with initial investigations into the helicopter strike.
An Afghan-US troop contingent searching for militants near the border came under fire from what they believed to be militants but the gunfire was actually from Pakistani troops camped nearby, the officials told the Journal.
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Permission for an airstrike was sought from a border coordination centre manned by Pakistani, Afghan and US officials, one official was quoted as saying.
The Pakistani officials did not know Pakistani soldiers were in the area and gave the green light to the NATO attack in the Mohmand Agency, one of Pakistan's seven tribal districts, the official told the Journal, citing information gathered from preliminary investigations.
#1
So has anyone figured out why they were shooting across the border at Coaliton forces yet?
I notice that Pakistani forces don't need to call the Coalition before they start shooting, yet we have to call them. Who do the Pakis think they are? Congress or somthing?
#2
If this was a premeditated provocation specifically designed to inflame the locals, it was successful. Pakistan sees that we're leaving anyway so why not kick us in the backside to appease their defense-in-depth wing.
Given that our supply line has been cut and our base in Pakistan is closing isn't time to say goodbye to Pakistan? I mean cut off aid, mine Karachi harbor est. In other words, a pakiland delenda est goodbye.
SYRIA is now in a state of civil war, with a death toll "much more" than 4,000 over eight months of protests, according to the UN.
Navi Pillay, the body's high commissioner for human rights, said at a media conference in Geneva today that increasing numbers of defecting soldiers were taking up arms against the government of President Bashar al Assad.
She reiterated her claim that Syrian forces were committing "crimes against humanity," Sky News reported.
Her assessment came as the EU - already imposing tough sanctions on Iran in a challenge over nuclear activities - agreed to broaden its economic sanctions against the Syrian regime.
Speaking as he entered a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, Foreign Minister William Hague said, "There is a link between what is happening in Iran and what is happening in Syria. I believe the Iranian government has given assistance to the Assad regime."
[Dawn] A car boomwent kaboom! in a street market in the Iraqi town of Khalis on Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police and hospital officials said.
Authorities immediately imposed a curfew in Khalis, about 80 kilometres north of Storied Baghdad. ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... "According to the witnesses, there was a parked civilian car boom in the street market and it blew up and led to the deaths of 10 people," said Major Ali al-Temimi of the Khalis police.
The blast underscored Iraq's fragile security as the remaining 13,000 US troops pull out in the next few weeks, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
US Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... is on a visit to Iraq designed to herald a new era in US-Iraqi relations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Chief Justice Willy Mutunga dug in on Thursday, warning the Executive to stop interfering with the Judiciary. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a judge who had issued warrants of arrest against Sudanese president Hassan Omar Al-Bashir, Justice Mutunga said his judges would not be intimidated into bending the law.
Kenya must choose between anarchy and the rule of the law, he said.
"The Judiciary and its officers shall not be intimidated to bend the law," he added.
"In accordance with Article 160 of the Constitution, each individual judicial officer is independent and is not subject to the control or direction of any person or authority in the dispensation of judicial duties," the CJ said.
High Court judge Nicholas Ombija on Monday ordered Internal Security minister George Saitoti, who is in charge of the police, to ensure the arrest and handing over of the Sudanese leader to the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... if he sets foot in Kenya.
President Al-Bashir is wanted for crimes against humanity and genocide at the ICC.
While the ruling was in keeping with the law, especially the treaty setting up the ICC, it flew in the face of regional politics and diplomacy. The warrant triggered a diplomatic confrontation between Nairobi and Khartoum, with the latter kicking out Kenya's ambassador to Sudan, Mr Robert Mutua, and recalling its own.
The government, which has made commitment to the African Union not to arrest President Al-Bashir and is involved in various regional security and diplomatic initiatives with Khartoum, reacted to the warrants with horror. Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang'ula, who rushed to Khartoum to mollify Mr Bashir, on Tuesday described the warrant as "insensitive" and has promised to appeal.
"As much as we respect the ruling of the High Court, we are aware that the court does not operate in a vacuum. It is important that the country's national interests as well as the wider interests of the region that we live in are taken into account in matters of this nature. Since our judicial system provides for right of appeal, we shall carefully look at the judgment with a view to requesting the Attorney General to expeditiously prefer an appeal in the matter," Mr Wetang'ula said.
But in a terse statement, Justice Mutunga asked the Executive to respect the separation of powers and keep off the Judiciary's domain.
"I have stated before that the Judiciary does not intend to use its independence or interpret the doctrine of separation of powers in a manner that transgresses the domain of the Executive and the Legislature," he said.
It was "worrying", the Chief Justice said, for senior government officials to make disparaging public statements that undermine judicial officers and the Judiciary in general. He advised anybody aggrieved by a court ruling to appeal against it instead of threatening to disobey such ruling.
"Any dissatisfaction with a decision of the court should be followed with an appeal and not proclamations of non-observance of court orders," the CJ said, adding that failure to obey court orders amounted to overthrowing the Constitution.
In Parliament section of MPs supported the warrant of arrest issued against Al-Bashir. The MPs criticised the government's intention to contest the High Court decision and accused it of encouraging impunity. They accused the government of treating Mr Bashir with kid gloves despite the warrant of arrest by the ICC.
Defence assistant minister David Musila said Mr Bashir should keep off Kenya if he did not want to be placed in long-term storage. Nyakach MP Pollyns Ochieng' criticised the government for sending Mr Wetang'ula to settle the issue with Mr Bashir following the ruling.
"This government is promoting impunity yet it is known that Mr Bashir is on ICC's most wanted list over the Darfur killings," the MP said.
Ikolomani MP Boni Khalwale said Kenya had no responsibility to protect Mr Bashir.
However, the hip bone's connected to the leg bone... Foreign Affairs assistant minister Richard Onyonka, defended the government. He said the Sudan is a significant peace player in the Horn of Africa and Kenya must maintain friendly relations with it.
And Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... expressed support for the warrants against President Bashir.
"It is wonderful to see the Kenyan courts acting in line with Kenya's international commitments and the Constitution," Human Rights Watch front man Ben Rawlence told the Nation. "Now the government must uphold their decision and act on it."
In Malindi, the executive director of the International Commission of Jurists, Kenya chapter, Mr George Kegoro, said the government was bound by the Rome Statute and the ruling of the High Court.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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South Korea will light up a giant Christmas tree overlooking the heavily armed border with North Korea for the second year running. A government official on Wednesday said the Defense Ministry received a request from Christian groups to illuminate the Christmas tree on Aegibong peak and asked for approval from Cheong Wa Dae.
The steel tree will be illuminated from about a week over Christmas since no government agency opposes the move, the official added.
A Unification Ministry official said Minister Yu Woo-ik maintains his more “flexible” approach to the North, but this has nothing to do with the Christmas tree.
The steel structure on Aegibong peak, only 3 km from North Korea, was illuminated from Dec. 21 to Jan. 8 last year. In high-level military talks between the two Koreas in 2004, the two countries agreed to end propaganda activities along the border, of which the Christmas tree forms a part, but after North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong island last year, it was lit up again.
North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun daily has already denounced the un-Socialist illumination and said, "The psychological warfare activities of the puppet regime have entered full swing."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011
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Actually, it's a device for remotely siphoning off their precious bodily fluids.
[Tolo News] Three Taliban beturbanned goons were killed and 29 others were captured in Afghan forces' operation in the past 24 hours in different parts of the country, Ministry of Interior Affairs said on Thursday.
The operations were launched in Ghazni, Uruzgan, Wardak, Pashtun-infested Logar, Kandahar and Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... provinces to clear insecure areas of bad boys, it said.
During the operations Afghan forces have seized caches of ammunition, the Ministry said.
Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... forces recently launched military operations in different parts of the country to clear bad boys.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
What happens to the captured ones? Released in the spring, once the weather warms back up? Surely not the dreaded 'liver failure.'
[Dawn] EU foreign ministers piled pressure on Iran over its contested nuclear programme Thursday, slapping sanctions on an extra 180 firms and individuals and threatening to hit out at its vital oil sector.
Expressing "deepening concerns" on the nature of the nuclear programme, the 27 European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... foreign ministers urged the bloc to "extend the scope" of current sanctions in order to strike at Tehran's financial heart.
A statement said the ministers agreed to examine measures in particular affecting the financial system in the transport and energy sector.
Outraged by Tuesday's storming of the British embassy in Tehran, the ministers also said they considered "these actions against the UK as actions against the European Union as a whole".
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on joining the talks that he would urge his counterparts to squeeze Iran for both its nuclear activities and mounting human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. violations.
"I hope we will agree today additional measures that will be an intensification of the economic pressure on Iran, peaceful legitimate economic pressure particularly to increase the isolation of the Iranian financial sector," he saod.
Though German counterpart Guido Westerwelle too favoured moves "to dry up Iran's financial sources", the crisis-hit EU is deeply split over slapping an oil embargo on Iran as well as over calls by some, including Britannia, to agree an assets freeze on Iran's central bank.
The new sanctions follow the publication last month of a new report on Iran's contested nuclear activity by the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The punitive measures target both firms and individuals involved in the nuclear programme and those linked to the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Much of the international community fears Iran's nuclear programme masks a drive for a weapons capability, though Tehran says it serves peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes only.
Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who leads global talks with Iran on the sensitive nuclear issue, reiterated a plea to Tehran to resume dialogue.
"We have put proposals on the table," she said. "It is for the Iranians to come back and if they don't come back and answer or at least put forward their own proposals, we have to draw conclusions."
Urging the EU "to ratchet up sanctions" in the light of the attacks on the British embassy, Ashton said it was time "to make it clear to Iran that we are very serious".
But that is easier said than done. Britannia, La Belle France, Germany and Sweden favour a bar on buying oil from Iran. However, a woman is only as old as she admits... others led by economically-troubled Spain, Greece and Italia are significantly dependent on Iranian crude.
Oil from Iran in 2010 amounted to 5.8 per cent of total EU imports, making Tehran the bloc's fifth-largest supplier after Russia, Norway, Libya and Soddy Arabia.
Of that total, Spain accounted for 14.6 per cent, Greece for 14.0 and Italia for 13.1 per cent. Cash-strapped Greece led opposition to an oil embargo, with an EU diplomat saying: "Iran sells them on credit which is a considerable advantage these days."
The EU has already frozen the assets of hundreds of Iranian firms and in July last year adopted measures aimed at preventing new investment, technical assistance and technology transfers, particularly those pertaining to producing and refining gas.
Hague reiterated Britannia's angry condemnation of the embassy attack and welcomed moves by La Belle France, Germany and the Netherlands to recall their ambassadors from Iran.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Western sanctions keep patting ducks (little companies & people) on the head and never identify the goose (oil)!
Posted by: American Delight ||
12/02/2011 10:27
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In this instance, it's the companies that matter.
Iran has a large, quasi-governmental charity, the Mostazafen Foundation of Islamic Revolution, that controls a significant number of companies (it's perhaps the biggest holding company in the Middle East). It's also under control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
There's enough intel to suggest that the Mostazafen foundation has supplied funds for Iran's nuke program.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Thursday said that there was no threat of either "judicial" or "military" coup as both the institutions were pro-democracy and did not want to derail the system. If you gotta reassure your audience then there's a danger...
The prime minister was responding to the queries of callers from across the country in a live PTV's programme "Prime Minister Online".
To a question about the submission of reply by the government, Army, and ISI to the Supreme Court in Memo Case, the prime minister said there will be one reply from the executive authority.
The PM said Pakistain's decision to boycott the Bonn Conference in protest against the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... /Isaf attack and violation of its illusory sovereignty, was final and taken collectively.
"How we can attend the conference when our illusory sovereignty came under attack," he remarked.
The soil of Afghanistan was used against illusory sovereignty and integrity of Pakistain, he added.
He said the decision of staying away from the Bonn Conference was taken after thoughtful consideration and after the meeting of the Federal Cabinet which also endorsed the decisions of halting NATO supplies and vacation of Shamsi Airbase, taken by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet.
The decision was unanimous and taken with collective wisdom and keeping in view sentiments and aspirations of the people, he said adding, "If we sit in the Bonn Conference and another attack takes place who will be responsible for that."
"When German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... asked me to attend the conference, I told her that the matter is referred to a high powered Parliamentary Committee on National Security," he added.
He said in his opinion, the decision to not to attend the conference was in line with national honour, self-respect and dignity.
He denied that it was being considered to send Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Bonn.
Gilani said Pakistain can work with the United States, NATO and Isaf under a new agreement and by devising new rules of engagement.
"We have to formulate new rules of engagement and we can work under a new agreement."
The Prime Minister said it is upto the Parliamentary Committee on National Security to give recommendations for a decision on ties with US and NATO.
He said the military government of Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... first decided the rules of engagement with the US and NATO.
To a question, he said the international community condemned the NATO attack on Pak posts.
It is an attack on the integrity of Pakistain and it was decided in the resolutions of the joint sitting of the parliament and All Parties Conference that if US again takes a unilateral action, Pakistain will respond, he said adding and now the government responded by shutting off the supplies of NATO and getting vacated Shamsi Airbase.
He said he will attend the meeting of the National Security Committee of Parliament on Friday and the members will be briefed on the NATO attack and other issues.
The recommendations of the parliamentary committee will be put before joint session of the parliament.
The PM further said Husain Haqqani did not intend to go out of Pakistain and "we are as patriotic as anybody else."
About Russia's reaction on the NATO attack, he said Russia is a sovereign country, which has its own bilateral relations and international commitments.
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[An Nahar] Political parties in Belgium, which has been without a government for 535 days, agreed Wednesday on the blueprint of a ruling coalition to be headed by French-speaking Socialist Elio Di Rupo.
It's Belgian federal politics. What odds the blueprint is missing plumbing vents at the top and sewer hookups at the bottom?
"There is a global agreement, on the reform of the state, socio-economic questions and a government platform," a source close to the negotiations told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Di Rupo emerged from the talks with a smile, but refused comment after days of trying to hammer out a deal between six parties split by political leanings as well as by the country's widening language divide.
The source said further details on the more than 180-page governing platform would be released Thursday, with a cabinet expected to be lined up at the weekend and a government sworn in next week.
If it actually works, the party is at my place.
Di Rupo, 60, would be Belgium's first French-speaking prime minister in three decades and one of the few center-left voices in a European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... dominated by conservative leaders. He would also be the first Socialist to take the premiership in Belgium since 1974.
With the debt crisis spreading across the eurozone like wildfire, bickering politicians put their quarrels aside, sensing the urgency,
"My Spidey sense -- it burns!"
when Belgium's borrowing costs soared last week and ratings giant Standard & Poor's cut its credit score.
The downgrade jolted politicians into agreeing an austerity budget last weekend that aims to balance the books by 2015, removing the last major obstacle for a government deal.
Talks between the six, three from the Dutch-speaking north, three from French-speaking Wallonia, previously had snagged on political differences over how far to reduce social welfare spending and tax the rich.
Absent from the talks and the coalition however is Belgium's biggest party, the separatist Phlegmish N-VA led by Bart De Wever.
Belgium's world-record political deadlock had raised fears the country was headed for a messy split, separating wealthier Flanders, which has 60 percent of the 10.5 million population, from the French-speaking south.
...Which has the grand manor houses in need of major repairs.
Belgium has been led by a caretaker administration since the last government resigned in April 2010 after failing to resolve long-running linguistic disputes dividing the Phlegmish region and Wallonia.
Elections in June 2010 failed to resolve problems after the pro-independence N-VA triumphed in Flanders and subsequently demanded radical transfers of powers to the Dutch-speaking region.
King Albert II named a series of mediators to try to break the deadlock but breakthroughs were only achieved after De Wever's party was excluded from the negotiating table in August.This paved the way for a landmark deal to devolve more power to the regions in October, an issue that has vexed the nation for decades.
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12/02/2011
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Political parties in Belgium, which has been without a government for 535 days
Looks like Belgium figured out a way to keep from going deeper into debt.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/02/2011 1:44
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The US government (read: Democrat controlled Senate) has been without a budget for over 900 days. The budget was last passed when Bush II was president. In the meantime the Feds have charged more than $5 trillion on the national credit card.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Supporters and relatives of a Zambian ex-minister, who appeared in a Lusaka court in connection with $412,000 found buried at his farm, assaulted four photojournalists after the court session today.
Former Minister of Labour Austin Liato, a trade unionist-cum-politician, at whose farm Sherlocks found Zambian Kwacha 2.1 billion (about $412,000) cash buried underground, pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to a charge of receiving or retaining stolen property.
Supporters and relatives of Mr Liato confronted photojournalists that were taking photographs of the former minister after Chief Resident Magistrate Joshua Banda released him on a Zambian Kwacha 50 million (about $9, 900) bail.
The pro-Liato mob hurled insults at journalists and beat up Times of Zambia's Richard Mulonga, Zambia Daily Mail's Mackson Wasamunu, Muvi Television's Mabvuto Phiri, The Post's Joseph Mwenda and police officer, who wanted to pacify the situation.
At least two suspects were apprehended.
During the court procession, prosecutors alleged that between September 1, 2011 and November 24, 2011, Mr Liato received and/or retained about Zambian Kwacha 2.1 billion knowing or having reasons to believe the same to have been feloniously stolen, taken, extorted, obtained or disposed of. Mr Liato denied the charge.
The former minister applied for bail, which was granted to him for about $ 9, 900. The Magistrate ordered Mr Liato to surrender his passport to the court and provide two working sureties.
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[Dawn] A bomb went kaboom! near the office of a regional government official in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar early on Thursday, police officials said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. A wall of the district coordination officer's building collapsed after the blast, which was heard throughout the city.
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[Iran Press TV] At least 11 people have been killed after US liquidation drones launched aerial attacks in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya, Press TV reports.
Somali tribal elders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Press TV that the remote-controlled aerial vehicles fired several missiles at Bilis Qooqaani town, which is located 448 kilometers (278 miles) southwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu, on Thursday morning.
They added that over 50 people were also injured in the strikes.
Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used liquidation drones to launch deadly missile strikes. The US military has also used drones in Afghanistan, Pakistain, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen.
On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia.
"The US has unarmed and unmanned aircraft at a facility there (Ethiopia) to be used only for surveillance as part of a broad, sustained integrated campaign to counter terrorism," said Pentagon front man Captain John Kirby.
The confirmation appeared a day after The Washington Post revealed in a report that the US flies "armed" drones from an airfield in Ethiopia's southern city of Arba Minch.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Terrorizing terrorists and their little playmates. I approve.
[Dawn] Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday announced starting a separate bus service for women in the quiet provincial capital.
For a brief journey, the chief minister boarded one of the new CNG buses run by the Lahore Transport Company (LTC). He was accompanied by the LTC chairman and some commuters.
Passengers acknowledged the chief minister's initiative for starting the new bus service in the provincial metropolis which needed urgent improvements in the public transport sector.
Appreciating comfortable travel in the new bus, the people urged the chief minister to increase the number of buses on various busy routes of the city.
The chief minister assured them that steps were being taken for increasing buses during coming months.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[An Nahar] A government of unity will be announced in Yemen before Sunday, the opposition said, in line with a peace deal that is to see 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... step down from power.
"There is a deal with the ruling party on the distribution of posts. Forming a cabinet will be very easy," Mohammed Qahtan, front man for the parliamentary opposition coalition, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The government will be announced on Friday or Saturday, he added.
Opposition chief Mohammed Basindawa was charged on Sunday with forming a government tasked with overseeing a 90-day interim period until Saleh's agreed departure in February.
The peace deal, agreed under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh last week, is meant to end 10 months of crisis that has led to violent protests and intense street fighting across Yemen.
In it, the opposition is to evenly share cabinet portfolios with Saleh's ruling party.
According to Qahtan, the posts to fill were handed out by lottery with the opposition ending up with the ministries of interior, finance, cooperation, information and human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state...
Saleh's ruling party is to keep the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, oil, telecommunications and civil services.
"The forming of a cabinet will be very easy" as the Gulf deal stipulates that each party accept the nominations of the other, Qahtan said.
Another opposition source told AFP the two groups would meet on Saturday to reveal their choices to fill the ministry posts.
The new government will enter office swearing-in to Vice President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, to whom Saleh transferred effective power in accordance with the Gulf-brokered deal.
Saleh, 69, has ruled Yemen for 33 years and signed a deal mediated by Gulf Cooperation Council states in which he agreed to step down in return for immunity from prosecution for himself and his family.
On Thursday, more than 13 people were killed in festivities between forces loyal to Saleh and dissident rustics in the country's second-largest city Taez.
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12/02/2011
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[Dawn] At least three forces of Evil including an important commander were killed and four others received injuries in a clash between rival armed outfits in Tirah valley of Khyber Agency on Wednesday.
Sources said that members of banned beturbanned goon organization Lashkar-i-Islam and volunteers of Kukikhel tribal lashkar attacked the Maylo base of Tariq Afridi-led Taliban when the latter kidnapped two activists of the former.
They said that both sides used heavy weapons against each other during the festivities, which continued till Wednesday evening.
Local sources said that besides killing three Taliban including one of their important commanders Abu Atif, the Lashkar-i-Islam and Kukikhel volunteers destroyed a hideout of forces of Evil in the area.
Lashkar-i-Islam sources in Bara claimed to have captured at least five Taliban during the clash. They said that their four activists were maimed in the fighting.
The Tariq Afridi group had forcibly evicted some of the Kukikhel families from their houses in Tirah valley few months ago to establish its bases in the area. Since then, Kukikhel tribe had been at loggerheads with Tariq Afridi group of Taliban. A number of people had been killed from both sides during sporadic festivities between the two sides.
Tariq Afridi group had also grabbed credit for the suicide kaboom on a Friday congregation in Jamrud on August 19 this year that killed at least 54 rustics, mostly Kukikhels.
Taliban said that the attack was a reaction to the formation of a Kukikhel lashkar in Tirah and killing of their two members by the lashkar men.
The Lashkar-i-Islam, having a strong presence in neighbouring Sipah area, was also not happy with the growing influence of Taliban in Tirah valley. The two groups had traded gunfire on a number of occasions besides targeting each other sympathisers with kabooms.
Also, the head of a local peace committee was killed when a time bomb planted at his car went off in Hangu city on Wednesday.
Officials said that Haji Hashim Khan, the head of the peace body, had come to Hangu city from his hometown Darband to appear before a court. A bomb planted at his Land Cruiser went kaboom! near the office of the district coordination officer, killing him on the spot, they added.
They said that his driver Shah Habib and gunman Shah Nawaz were seriously injured in the blast. They were taken to Hangu civil hospital for treatment.
The bomb disposal squad said that about one kilogram explosives were used in the blast. "It was a magnetic devise, fixed with a timer," they added.
Haji Hashim Khan was buried in his ancestral graveyard in Darband area of Hangu in the presence of thousands of people.
The Hangu city police started the paperwork but haven't done much else against unidentified hard boyz and launched investigations.
In is pertinent to mention here that forces of Evil had killed several anti-Taliban politicians in Hangu as they were trying to broker a peace deal between Shia and Sunni sects and restore peace in the area. They include former provincial minister Ghaniur Rehman, district chief of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... Fida Sadi and former district nazim ...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council... Khan Afzal.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] A bird hunter was shot in the buttocks after his dog stepped on a shotgun laid across the bow of a boat.
Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Potter says the 46-year-old Utah man was duck hunting with a friend when he climbed out of the boat to move decoys.
Potter says the man left his 12-gauge shotgun in the boat and the dog stepped on it, causing it to fire. It wasn't clear whether the safety on the gun was on at the time. Given the condition of his buttocks, I'd say no...
Potter says the man was hit from about 10 feet (three meters) away with 27 pellets of birdshot. Owx27!
He says the man wasn't seriously injured, in part because he was wearing waders. The man was treated at a nearby hospital.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Lucy Liu aka O-Ren Ishii in "Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)" aka Lindsey in "Lucky Number Slevin (2006)" aka Alex Munday in "Charlie's Angels (2000)" aka Life Coach in "Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (2011)" aka Andrea in "The Trouble with Bliss (2011)" aka Dr. Parker in "Detachment (2011)" aka Anne in "The Year of Getting to Know Us (2008)" aka Violet in "Watching the Detectives (2007)" aka Princess Pei Pei in "Shanghai Noon (2000)" (age 43)
[Yemen Post] At least five non-combatants were killed in Thursday morning governmental attacks in Taiz province. All the casualties are civilians and medics in Taiz said that corpse count is expected to rise.
Medics in Taiz Freedom Square told Yemen Post that four of the injured are at death's door as he expected the casualty toll to increase.
The attacks were the first major shelling in Taiz since President-for-Life Saleh ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... signed a power transfer deal that grants him immunity in return for stepping down from power.
Eyewitnesses said that the focus of the attacks were Rowdah, al-Hasb and hay al-Noor areas of Taiz.
Medics in Taiz said that one of the injured is at death's door. "We expect more injuries to reach the medical field hospital. Attacks are in residential areas so those injured don't know how to reach hospitals due to the attacks," a medic in Taiz said.
Opposition parties called on the international community not to observe quietly after President Saleh openly attacks civilians only days after getting immunity. "It's a one sided war by the regime. We call the UN secretary general to interfere and save Taiz from these attacks," said Mohammed al-Sabri, a senior opposition leader.
Protests are expected to take care nationwide condemning the night attack against civilians by the ruling family.
Taiz has seen massive protests daily since January, all calling for a regime fall, making itself the corner stone for change in Yemen.
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[Dawn] Seven Pak workers have been kidnapped in an area troubled by the Taliban near the Afghan capital Kabul, police said Thursday.
The Paks --engineers and workers assigned to a hospital construction project in Pashtun-infested Logar province --were returning to their accommodation after work when they were snatched at gunpoint on Wednesday.
"They were going home from work. Along the road, their minivan was stopped by unknown gunnies, their driver was forced out of the car and all were taken away to an unknown location," Pashtun-infested Logar police chief Ghulam Sakhi Roghliwani said.
"We've launched a search operation. We hope to find them and free them very soon," said Roghliwani.
There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction but police said the kidnapping might have been carried out by "criminal gangs" seeking a ransom.
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[An Nahar] The brother of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... , several ministers and telecom magnate Rami Makhlouf are on a list of 17 senior figures to be targeted by Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... sanctions, officials said Thursday.
Under the economic measures agreed this week by the 22-member organization, they would be banned from travelling in the region and have any assets in Arab countries frozen, if the list is confirmed at a meeting on Saturday.
Ministers from Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Oman and Sudan are to meet in Doha on Saturday. Other countries have been invited, but Iraq has already said it will boycott the vaporous Arab League measures.
The list comprises Maher Assad, the brother of the president, his cousin Makhlouf, as well as Defense Minister General Daood Rajha, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar and other military and intelligence figures.
In an unprecedented move, the pan-Arab bloc on Sunday approved a raft of sanctions against Syria to pressure Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... to end its deadly crackdown against an uprising.
The sanctions also include freezing government assets, suspending cooperation with Syria's central bank and halting funding for projects in the country.
In its most recent toll issued early in November, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... estimated that more than 3,500 people have been killed in the violence that has shaken Syria since mid-March.
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12/02/2011
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[An Nahar] Washington on Thursday placed economic sanctions on a senior Syrian general and a financier uncle of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Lord of the Baath... , adding new pressure on the regime over its bloody political crackdown.
The Treasury Department added Mohammed Makhlouf, Assad's maternal uncle and the father of already-sanctioned telecoms magnate Rami Makhlouf, and 4th armored division General Aus Aslan, to its growing list of Syrian figures and organizations that Americans are banned from doing business with.
The Treasury called Makhlouf, 79, someone "whom Assad used to make and move money" and an important Assad economic advisor.
"Makhlouf ensured that assets in nearly all sectors were controlled by businessmen who were willing to act as proxies for the Assad regime in return for profits," it said.
"In addition, he served as President Assad's primary economic advisor and final decision maker on capital allocation decisions for Syrian regime investments in private banks in Syria."
Also listed in the new sanctions were a defense ministry business -- the Military Housing Establishment, and the government-controlled Real Estate Bank, the country's second largest bank.
The Military Housing Establishment "provides funding to the regime", the Treasury said, while the bank is "responsible for administering the Government of Syria's borrowings."
The move came as both the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... nations also stepped up sanctions pressure on the Assad regime for its heavy-handed eight-month crackdown on political protesters which has left more than 3,500 dead.
"It has never been more critical to escalate pressure on the Syrian government to immediately cease all violence against its own people and isolate the regime from the international financial system," said Treasury under secretary David Cohen in a statement.
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#1
Eek. I'll bet that inexperienced 79 year old Makhlouf is just shaking in his boots right now. Maybe he can have one of his grandsons take care of any business paperwork for him.
North Korea says it is making progress in producing enriched uranium for its light-water nuclear reactor, raising fresh concerns that the controversial project could be used to develop atomic weapons. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that the country's "experimental" uranium enrichment program is "progressing apace."
North Korea unveiled its low-enriched uranium plant a year ago at its atomic complex in Yongbyon, saying it would be used to generate electricity. But some Western observers fear the facility could easily be converted to produce highly-enriched uranium that can be used in nuclear bombs.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday at an aid conference in the South Korean city of Busan that Pyongyang should continue efforts to abandon its nuclear program and improve relations with South Korea. But the North said Wednesday that its right to "peaceful nuclear energy" is a matter of national sovereignty, and that "neither concession nor compromise should be allowed."
Two years ago, North Korea abandoned talks with the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia aimed at convincing Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return for economic and diplomatic benefits.
The North has in recent months pressed to resume the talks without preconditions, but Washington and Seoul say Pyongyang must first shut down its uranium enrichment program and take other steps to demonstrate its sincerity.
North Korea already possesses a plutonium-based nuclear stockpile that is estimated to be capable of producing several atomic bombs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2011
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#1
North Korea, Iran, and Syria. With Pakistan's help.
#2
Remember: the Obamanible refused to support democratic activists in Iran during the 2009 protests, because he claimed that the ayatollahs have legitimate grievances over the "events of 1953." Actually, that year's coup prevented Soviet satellitization of Iran, and undid Soviet manipulation of Iranian politics.
What is BHO? The President of the World's grievance carriers? Kinda un-Constitutional.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Zim-bob-we Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has ended his 12-day marriage with a wealthy Harare businesswoman citing interference by the country's intelligence service and political rivals. ... and the fact that Kim Kardashian's available...
The 59 year-old politician issued a statement on Wednesday after days of frantic speculation in the media about his marriage.
He admitted initiating traditional marriage rites with Ms Lorcadia Karimatsenga Tembo last week.
But he claimed that he suddenly became a by-stander in the marriage as government and state security agents appeared to be a step ahead of him.
"My genuine intention has been betrayed and hearts have had to search long and hard to the meaning of this well-choreographed drama that has now been hijacked to cause political damage on my person and character," Mr Tsvangirai said.
"This relationship has been irretrievably damaged to a point where marriage is now inconceivable."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Anyone have an copy of this article in English?
[L.A. Times] Al Qaeda grabbed credit Thursday for the kidnapping of a 70-year-old American aid worker in Pakistain in August, and issued a series of demands for his release.
In a video message posted on bad boy websites, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Warren Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped Arclight airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistain, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects around the world.
"Just as the Americans detain all whom they suspect of links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even remotely, we jugged this man who is neck-deep in American aid to Pakistain since the 1970s," al-Zawahri said, according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors bad boy messages.
Weinstein was kidnapped by gunnies from his house in the eastern city of Lahore on Aug. 13. Police and U.S. officials have not publicly said who they believed was holding him, but Islamist bad boy groups were the main suspects.
Weinstein, who has a home in Rockville, Maryland, worked in Pakistain for several years and spoke Urdu.
He was the country director in Pakistain for J.E. Austin Associates, a U.S.-based firm that advises a range of Pak business and government sectors. The company has said Weinstein is in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it implored the kidnappers to give him.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Sources told NBC News that Weinstein is in the custody of militants led by Commander Tariq Afridi, operating in the semi-autonomous tribal region of Darra Adamkhel, sited between Peshawar and Kohat.
It is the same militant group that kidnapped a Polish engineer, Piotr Stancza on Sept. 28, 2009. Stancza was executed on Feb. 6 after their demands were not met.
Some sources said Weinstein was kidnapped by another group and later sold to Afridi, NBC News reported. He is considered the most ruthless among his militant colleagues and is known for his harsh policies.
#3
Piotr Stanczak was excecuted because he would not convert to Islam. That was the demand that was not met.
I don't think they are going to have more success with Weinstein.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/02/2011 9:31
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#4
I'm always amazed how the uber-zealous Muslims are so polite. They make the snipers' jobs so much easier by banging that bullseye on their foreheads.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/02/2011 15:11
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[Iran Press TV] The Chinese and Russian governments have called on Western countries to show restraint over Iran, warning them against escalating tensions with the country.
"We hope the countries involved will keep calm, rational and restrained to avoid emotional actions," that can aggravate the situation, Chinese Foreign Ministry front man Hong Lei was quoted by Xinhua as saying at a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
The remarks came after British Foreign Secretary William Hague ordered the closure of Iran's embassy in London following a Tuesday protest rally staged by Iranian students outside the British embassy in Tehran.
The student rally followed Iran's Majlis (parliament)'s approval of a bill aimed at downgrading ties with the UK and in protest at Britannia's hostile policies towards the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
On Thursday and in an apparent reaction to the rallies, foreign ministers of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... (EU) imposed sanctions against 180 more Iranian individuals and companies, but failed to bring into force an embargo against the country's oil sector. The ministers, however, claimed that they would keep working on developing additional restrictive means, which would directly affect Iran's oil industry.
Hong added that China had "taken note of" the aggressive responses to the student protests.
Russia has also cautioned Western countries against further souring their relations with Iran.
"We speak out categorically against cranking up a spiral of tension and confrontation on issues linked with Iran. We believe that this ... is fraught with severe consequences," Russian Foreign Ministry front man Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
"The increasing tensions in relations with Tehran is essentially blocking the renewal of talks" between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britannia, China, La Belle France, Russia, and the US -- plus Germany (P5+1) over Tehran's nuclear program, Lukashevich added.
On November 21, the United States, Britannia, and Canada imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran's energy and financial sectors after a November 8 report by the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tehran's nuclear program, which had alleged diversion in the Islamic Theocratic Republic's nuclear activities.
The report has been dismissed by Tehran as "unbalanced, unprofessional, and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States."
The US, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to push for the imposition of sanctions on Tehran as well as to call for the launch of a military attack against the country.
Iran, however, refutes such allegations as 'baseless' and maintains that, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has every right to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The agency has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence of diversion in Tehran's civilian nuclear program.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Does this mean they don't want any more kabooms?
The New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called the New York Police Department (NYPD) his own army, saying he is a mini-president of his very own mini-country.
"I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have," The New York Observer quoted Bloomberg as saying during a speech at MIT university.
However, Bloomberg also raised the possibility that he might seek the presidency. He claimed the executive duties performed by mayors have prepared him for the White House better than other political positions.
"The difference between my level of government and other levels of government is that action takes place at the city level," Mayor Bloomberg said.
"The cities and mayors are where you deal with crime, you deal with real immigration problems, you deal with health problems, you deal with picking up the garbage," he added.
Recently, Bloomberg has been under heavy criticism for the NYPD's actions in Zuccotti Park, when police moved to evict Occupy Wall Street protesters from their camp site using pepper spray, tear gas and excessive force.
The city also closed airspace in lower Manhattan to prevent news helicopters from taking aerial footage of the police crackdown, while reporters were prevented from witnessing the scene and some were even arrested.
The Occupy movement emerged after a group of demonstrators gathered in New York's financial district on September 17 to protest the unjust distribution of wealth in the country and the excessive influence of big corporations on US policies.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Well, his ego isn't "mini." That's for damn sure.
#2
Should have waited to use such silly metaphors for his eventual book. Now they will be used to end any reelection chances. Not that that would be a bad thing.
#5
Gonna be lots of jockeying among Dems with ambitions, especially if Bill and Hillary decide his generous 'speaking fees' outweigh another stint in downtown DC.
[An Nahar] Iran's charge d'affaires in Rome, Mehdi Akouchekian, was on Thursday summoned by Italia's foreign ministry following the "intolerable" attack by protesters on Britannia's embassy in Tehran.
The Italian government expressed its "strong condemnation" of the "violent and intolerable" attack and stressed its "solidarity with the British government," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Italia will evaluate, along with other European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... countries, how to react to make sure such an episode will not happen again," it said.
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said Wednesday that he was considering closing the Italian embassy in Tehran.
"Italia expects from Iran strong and clear guarantees on respecting the fundamental principles of sanctity of diplomatic-consular representatives," the statement said.
Akouchekian expressed Iran's "regret" for the protesters' "unacceptable behavior" and assured Italia that "urgent and necessary measures will be adopted."
He assured the foreign ministry of Iran's "commitment to protect and safeguard the diplomatic and consular offices in Tehran."
Britannia's mission was attacked on Tuesday by protesters angry over new British sanctions against Iran's financial system that followed a recent U.N. report containing evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Back when the British Empire had teeth, they would generally have a violent, non-linear response to provocative attacks and violations of diplomatic missions by foreign powers. Their enemies found this to be very unnerving.
For example, In 1860, during the Second Opium War, two British envoys, a journalist for The Times and their small escort of British and Indian troopers met with the Royal Prince to negotiate. Instead they were confined and tortured, resulting in twenty deaths.
The British High Commissioner to China, Lord Elgin, retaliated by ordering the destruction of the Chinese Old Summer Palace, which was then carried out by French and British troops.
This cut to the bone, because it ignored any efforts by the Chinese nobility to blame it all on unauthorized lesser individuals, and hit them where they hurt.
[An Nahar] Amnesia Amnesty International and rights activists on Wednesday called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on protests to the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... .
A Syrian activist forced into exile by Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... 's government said there has to be "regime change" in the country, but with no foreign intervention.
Amnesia Amnesty International is pressing for an arms embargo, an asset freezes against Assad and his associates as well as an investigation by the ICC, said a Middle East campaigner for the rights group, Maha Abu Shama.
"It is high time for the U.N. Security council to take action," Shama told news hounds at a briefing also attended by Catherine al-Talli, who was briefly jugged by Syrian authorities in May and has since gone into exile.
The lawyer activist backed the calls for sanctions but said "we want the regime to be changed but with no foreign interference."
The mounting agitation for international action against Syria comes as western nations renew calls for condemnation of the Assad government for the crackdown, which the U.N. says has left more than 3,500 dead.
The U.N. Human Rights Council will hold a special session in Geneva on Friday on the Syria following a request by the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... . U.N. human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... Sherlocks said in a report released this week that crimes against humanity have been committed in Syria.
Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... foreign ministers are to meet this weekend in Doha and could decide to refer the Syria case to the Security Council. Russia and China vetoed a resolution against Syria last month.
The European powers which proposed the resolution say they are waiting to see how the vaporous Arab League advances with its sanctions clampdown on Syria before deciding on whether to ask again for U.N. action against Syria.
Russia will be the president of the Security Council for December.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[Tolo News] A 12-member orc group laid down its weapons and surrendered to Afghan forces in northern Balkh province on Wednesday, local officials said.
Now that these men have joined the grinding of the peace processor, security will be improving in Balkh province, officials added.
Local officials said the armed forces of Evil under Sardar Mohammad handed over their weapons to security authorities in Nar-e-Shahi district of Balkh.
More than 150 forces of Evil have been laid down their weapons and surrendered to Afghan cops in the past six months in Balkh province, officials said.
The surrender comes as Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... forces conduct clearing operations around the country in advance of handing over responsibility for providing security to local troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[An Nahar] Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... chief Nabil al-Arabi rejected any foreign intervention in Syria on Thursday as he joined European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... talks aimed at ramping up pressure on the regime over its crackdown on dissidents.
"We reject any accusation that the vaporous Arab League is inviting any intervention," Arabi said on arrival for a lunch with EU foreign ministers, who slapped a new round of economic sanctions on Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations...
"Every decision taken by the Arab League rejects an intervention," he added, days after the pan-Arabic body imposed its own unprecedented sanctions against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Sonny, disguised as Fredo, trying to be Mike... 's regime.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused "some League members" this week of "pushing to internationalize the conflict."
EU officials were hoping to join forces with the Arab League in order to pile pressure on Assad.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was "very pleased" with the sanctions approved by the League and that Arabi and EU ministers would try to determine "the best and most appropriate ways that we can collaborate."
"We want to work with the Arab League to discuss how they want to go forward and how effective they think their sanctions are going to be," she said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the Arab League sanctions were "historic" and that the EU would discuss how "we synchronize our measures."
"I think it is very important that our answer to the repression and to the atrocities in Syria is a united answer," he said, adding that Europeans would also keep trying to get a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria.
EU ministers adopted bans on exporting gas and oil industry equipment to Syria, trading Syrian government bonds and selling software that could be used to monitor Internet and telephone communications, diplomats said.
European governments will also be barred from providing concessional loans to Syria -- credit at lower rates and longer grace periods than those offered by the markets.
The goal is to restrict the regime's access to cash.
The EU also added 12 more individuals and 11 more entities to a blacklist of people and companies hit by assets freezes and travel bans over the regime's crackdown on protesters, diplomats said.
The EU has passed nine rounds of sanctions against Syria, placing 74 people on the list, including Assad, enforcing an arms embargo and banning imports of Syrian crude oil.
The U.N. says the violence has killed more than 4,000 people since mid-March.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[An Nahar] Lebanese banks have adopted strict measures to ensure compliance with international sanctions against neighboring Syria and are scrutinizing transfers of existing Syrian clients, banking officials said on Thursday.
"Banks are taking extremely strong precautions to avoid bad surprises regarding people or institutions under sanctions," said one official who works at one of Leb's top banks. "No one wants to expose himself to pressure or problems.
"Banks are running away from anything that has to do with Syria like it's a disease because the U.S. is closely watching."
He requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and banking secrecy laws.
He told Agence La Belle France Presse that the precautions taken apply to transactions by long-standing Syrian clients as well as new account applicants, many of whom are being turned down.
The measures are in light of U.S., European and Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... sanctions slapped on the Syrian regime over its fierce crackdown against an eight-month revolt that has left thousands dead.
"All accounts held by Syrians are under surveillance so that banks themselves don't end up facing punitive measures," said an official at another top bank who also requested anonymity.
"No transfers from accounts held by Syrian clients are being made in dollars and other transactions need special approval," she added.
The U.S. sanctions adopted last summer have forced Syria to stop all transactions in U.S. dollars, prompting the country to turn to the euro.
Lebanese banking officials said it was clear that many Syrians had taken their money out of the embattled country soon after the revolt broke out mid-March.
According to figures from the Association of Banks in Leb, in March, when the revolt in Syria broke out, there was a net inflow to Lebanese banks of 1.34 billion dollars and in April 1.8 billion dollars.
"There is a consensus in Leb that this was Syrian money," one of the officials said.
Comparatively, before the unrest in January, a net outflow of deposits totaled 1.1 billion dollars, largely because of the collapse of the Lebanese government that month.
Economy Minister Nicolas Nahas told AFP this week that Lebanese banks would have no dealings with the Syrian central bank or any individuals targeted by the sanctions.
Central Bank governor Riad Salameh for his part said Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... has no funds deposited at the Lebanese central bank.
In an unprecedented move, the vaporous Arab League on Sunday approved a raft of sanctions against Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly crackdown.
The sanctions include freezing government assets, suspending cooperation with Syria's central bank and halting funding for projects in the country.
Leb's Hizbullah-led government disassociated itself from the vote at the Arab League.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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UPPER WEST SIDE, NY (PIX11)-- If you need to catch a cab, you may want to try the Upper West Side. Some residents who live next to the Islamic Cultural Center on Riverside Drive say their neighborhood is flooded with parked taxis every week.
"They are everywhere, hundreds of them. I joke with my doorman every Friday I can't find a cab," said John Hart, who lives across the street in a high-rise building.
"I have to pray," said a cabbie who did not want to give his name," I have no choice but to break the rules."
The Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center, Abdur Rahman, told PIX11 News, muslims must pray several times a day and that he urges his worshippers not to break any parking rules to pray. "A good muslim does not offend anybody. I wish the City, though, could give us 45 minutes on Fridays to pray, like Christians on Sunday," said Rahman.
"I don't know how they get away with it," said Hart, who hopes the N.Y.P.D. will crack down on parking violators. "It's a sea of yellow and its got to stop," continued Hart.
If any Rantburgers know a member of the NYPD, this would be wonderful income opportunity for the city -- and heaven knows New York could use additional income
#1
Have tow trucks start hovering around at prayer time and see what happens. Maybe a Sky Crane helicopter or two with electromagnets, just for dramatic effect. They can set the taxis down on the roof of the Islamic Cultural Center so they are out of the way.
#7
This is a high risk maneuver, because hack licenses (medallions) start at about $700,000 each, are heavily regulated and can be revoked easily, and there is a big backlog of those waiting in line to get them.
#8
So they aspire to become taxi drivers. What a class of immigrants! Maybe the next wave will want to deliver pizzas.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with honest work of this sort, which has been the entree to life in America for many immigrants whose educations and status back home were higher than those jobs suggest.
[An Nahar] Kuwait on Thursday appealed to its nationals to leave Syria and refrain from travelling there because of safety concerns amid a deadly eight-month crackdown on democracy protests.
"The foreign ministry calls on citizens currently present in Syria to leave for their own safety," it said in a statement quoted by the state-run KUNA news agency.
It also called on Kuwaitis to abandon any plans to travel to the Arab state "due to the unstable security situation."
Similar travel alerts have already been issued by Kuwait's neighbors Bahrain, Qatar, Soddy Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The warnings follow attacks on the Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... embassies of Qatar, Soddy Arabia and the UAE in the wake of the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... 's decision to suspend Syria's membership and slap unprecedented sanctions on its regime.
In addition, Soddy Arabia said one of its citizens was killed on November 21 while visiting relatives in the restive city of Homs in central Syria.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Police foiled another terrorist attack on Shia "Imam Bargahs" during Muharram by arresting four suspected cut-throats on Thursday, DawnNews reported.
Talking to media representatives, SP Aslam Khan claimed that the locked away were belonged to banned but still somehow murderously active Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistain (TTP.)
Suicide jackets, hand grenades, pistols and other weapons were recovered from the locked away suspects, said Khan.
It is important to mention that two scouts performing Muharram duty at the Numaish intersection on the city's main M.A. Jinnah Road were killed and another injured in an attack on the first day of the holy month (November 27.)
At least eight people, including a news hound of Waqt television, were maimed and a car, a van and around two dozen cycle of violences were set ablaze by a large number of enraged people who had gathered at the place after the attack.
According to police, the attack took place when participants of a rally held by the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), formerly Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistain (now proscribed), at Regal Chowk had dispersed.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Pakistain has said that it would no longer tolerate the spilling of the blood of its citizens at the hands of the US-led forces, who violate its illusory sovereignty.
"Enough is enough. The government will not tolerate any incident of spilling even a single drop of any civilian or soldier's blood," Pak daily The News reported on Thursday, quoting Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar as telling politicians in Pakistain's capital Islamabad.
Pakistain would discontinue its support for the US-led war in Afghanistan if its illusory sovereignty was violated again, she added.
On November 26, US-led NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... helicopters and fighter jets carried out Arclight airstrikes on two military checkpoints in the northwest of Pakistain, killing 24 Pak soldiers and wounding dozens of others.
The attack has fueled the anti-American sentiment among the Pak people and prompted a harshly-toned condemnation from the country's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
Khar said there would be no compromise on the country's national interests.
The minister added that Islamabad's recent retaliatory decision to order the US to vacate Pakistain's Shamsi airbase in the northwestern province of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... was final.
On Wednesday, a senior Pak Army official said the attack had been a deliberate act of blatant aggression.
"Detailed information of the posts was already with ISAF (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force), including map references, and it was impossible that they did not know these to be our posts," said Major General Ashfaq Nadeem, Army's Director General of Military Operations.
Thousands have marched in all major Pak cities, including Islamabad, Bloody Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsada, Nowshera, and Rawalpindi to condemn the strikes.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > PAK ARMY CHIEF GIVES TROOPS "FULL LIBERTY" TO RESPOND TO NATO STRIKES, wid any + all weapons systems available.
versus
* SAME > [WSJ.com]PAKISTAN CLEARED FATAL HIT, US SAYS.
* SAME > PAKISTAN DEFENDS LACK OF ACTION [military counter-response/retaliation] DURING NATO ATTACK.
ARTIC = Communications was down, the PAK AIR FORCE, etc. was confused.
[Iran Press TV] The head of Turkey's main opposition group has accused the government of allowing the country's soil to be used for training Syrian gangs, Press TV reports.
"Is it appropriate for Turkey to use its soil for training armed forces with the aim of creating unrest in another country?" Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of Republican People's Party (CHP), told news hounds in Ankara on Thursday.
"While we have lots of problems ourselves, why do we meddle in the internal affairs of another country?" he added.
His remarks came after Turkey's Taraf daily reported that Ankara was establishing a 'buffer zone' in Syria to provide Syrian rebels with shelter.
"We say 'Great Turkey', 'Powerful Turkey'. Can a great and powerful Turkey use its soil to support an armed force with the aim of meddling in another country? Is such an understanding possible?" Kilicdaroglu questioned.
"What if tomorrow another country begins training armed forces in its soil against Turkey and begins interfering in our affairs? This is wrong. This not appropriate for the future of Turkey," he argued.
The official also accused the Turkish government of having turned into a contractor for the 'dominant powers.'
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March, with demonstrations being held both against and in support of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
Hundreds of people, including many members of the security forces, have been killed in the unrest.
The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deadly violence, saying that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
The opposition and Western countries accuse the Syrian security forces of being behind the killings. Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... strongly rejects the claim, asserting that the security forces have been given clear instructions not to harm civilians.
In September, the Syria Steps news website said Syrian cyber specialists had uncovered an anti-Damascus agreement struck between Turkey and La Belle France.
In line with the deal, Turkey would facilitate implementation of La Belle France's strategic plans in the Middle East, especially in Syria, Israel, and Leb.
The report noted that, in line with the accord, Ankara would help deposing Syrian President Bashir al-Assad by reinforcing the Syrian opposition among other things. Gay Paree would instead ease Turkey's accession to the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... before the end of 2012.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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[Dawn] US President Barack I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money Obama is not considering offering formal condolences to Pakistain over the deaths of 24 soldiers in a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... Arclight airstrike last week, a report in the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... stated.
The report, quoting administration officials, said that Cameron Munter, the United States Ambassador in Pakistain, had requested the White House to issue a formal video statement from Barack Obama so that rapid deterioration of relations between the two countries could be prevented.
The White House, however, refused the request and said that expressions of remorse offered by senior administration officials and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ... sometimes described as The Heroine of Tuzla and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Philander C. Knox ... were enough.
The US president was unlikely to say anything further on the matter in the coming days, the officials told New York Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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#1
Hopefully they've bitten off more than they can chew this time.
#2
You're assuming a backbone somewhere in the administration?
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011 8:48
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#3
Somebody out to whisper in Obama's ear that he's sure to be reelected if he orders enough of Pakistan leveled to prevent interference with withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan.
Though knowing the people surrounding him, somebody whispers in his ear right now that he should grant Russia whatever they demand to allow troop supply through trashcanistans.
#4
"SORRY/I'M SORRY" [so sorry] 1960's CLASSIC HIT SONG ...
versus
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > "US THREAT [Any] TO PAKISTAN IS THREAT TO CHINA", as per un-named Chinese Govt. Official.
* NOT-NECESSSARILY-UNRELATED SAME > [Farsi New Agency] TO AMERICA, ISRAEL IS NOT WORTH THE DESTRUCTION OF THE US.
ARTIC = Iran itself may not have any Nuclear Weapons [yet?], BUT ITS ALLIES HAVE.
Pakistan, Pak BFF China, Pak = Iran? BFF? Russia.
Soon to be HUGO? NORTH KOREA???
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US WARNED PAKISTAN [times] OF TERROR ATTACKS ON INDIAN SOIL. "Serious Consequences" may be in store for Pakland.
* INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > PROJECTION OF NAVAL POWER KEY TO INDIA'S EMERGENCE.
* SAME > INDIA NAVY TO PROTECT ONGC [Oil-Natural Gas Consortium] VIDESH ASSETS IN SOUTH CHINA: VIVE ADMIRAL DK JOOSHI, + widout any need for absolute reliance or dependency on new ally Unified Vietnam = Vietnamese Navy to successfully do so.
ARTIC = Actually, India to broadly protect anywhere in the Seven Seas = aka the World, but espec in the South China Sea.
In short, INDJUH CAN'T MILPOL SERVE + PROTECT NEW BFFS VIETNAM + PHILIPPINES, ETC. IFF IT CAN'T HELP ITSELF.
RISING CHINA has NE ASIA = OKINAWA-TAIWAN STRAITS as its MAIN/PRIMARY STRATEGIC FRONT, RISING INDIA has the SCS + SW, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN AREAS.
[Dawn] Pakistain's former ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani said on Thursday he had no intention of leaving the country, DawnNews reported.
He further said that he had no palaces waiting for him in Soddy Arabia.
Earlier, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... had moved the Supreme Court on the memogate scandal filing an application calling for restrictions on Haqqani from leaving Pakistain.
Haqqani on Thursday claimed that he himself had tendered his resignation so that an independent investigation could be conducted on the issue.
Haqqani had resigned from his position of ambassador days after Pak-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz accused him of being behind the alleged memo that said the military was plotting a coup and appealed to the Pentagon to help ward it off.
Haqqani has denied any connection with the memo.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[An Nahar] Syria has suspended its participation in the Mediterranean Union in retaliation for punitive measures against its regime by European states, state media said on Thursday.
"Syria is suspending its membership in the Mediterranean Union in response to European measures taken against it," said a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.
Syrian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
meanwhile accused the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... of "taking a series of measures which constitute a flagrant violation of the illusory sovereignty and patent interference in the internal affairs of Syria."
The statement came after EU ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday said they were targeting Syria's energy and financial for new sanctions.
The 43-nation Mediterranean Union, an initiative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... , was inaugurated in 2008 to bolster cooperation between Europe, the Middle East and north Africa.
Launched by La Belle France and Egypt at a Gay Paree summit, the union groups all 27 European Union member states with countries in North Africa, the Balkans, the Arab world and Israel.
Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... was one of 40 heads of state and government present when the Union was launched amid much fanfare and at the time placed himself firmly at the centre of Middle East peace moves.
However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... he has since fallen far from grace and the EU, Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... and United States have all slapped sanctions on his regime over its fierce crackdown on an eight-month revolt.
At least 4,000 civilians have been killed in the violence, the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... said in its most recent toll given on Thursday.
The European ministers said in a statement released at their Brussels meeting that they had decided to implement "further restrictive measures targeting the regime's ability to conduct its brutal repression."
The sanctions target "the energy, financial, banking and trade sectors and include the listing of additional individuals and entities that are involved in the violence or directly supporting the regime."
Diplomats said the measures include bans on exporting gas and oil industry equipment to Syria, trading Syrian government bonds and selling software that could be used to monitor Internet and telephone communications.
The EU has passed nine rounds of sanctions against Syria, placing 74 people on the list, including Assad, enforcing an arms embargo and banning imports of Syrian crude oil.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2011
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Police said they have made more than 20 arrests at a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in London Friday. Twenty people have been held on suspicion of being members of a banned group and another two were detained for obstruction and violent disorder. A police spokesman declined to confirm a report that the protesters were members of Muslims Against Crusades, a fringe Islamist group.
He cannot compromise because he is of a caste that cannot touch the lower classes: the workers, the business owners, the gun owners, the churchgoers -- Republicans (of the Main Street variety, not the Wall Street subgroup.) For an intellectual to contact these untouchables is to pollute his mind. Thus he remains safe from bothersome facts.
Andy Stern announced recently that he’s been to the future, and it works. In this case, the future resides in China, which he says has a superior economic system. “The conservative-preferred, free-market fundamentalist, shareholder-only model — so successful in the 20th century — is being thrown onto the trash heap of history in the 21st century.” 
AMHERST, Ohio - Officers arrested a Lorain man they say tried to 
Thousands of patients in the NHS are put onto the Liverpool Care Pathway each year in their last days and hours.
At least that's according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it.
American citizens are not immune from being treated like an enemy if they take up arms against the United States, the CIA general counsel said on Thursday.
So while tens of thousands of Americans continue to be harmed or killed every year by overdoses from drugs originating from this illicit opium trade, and while cultivation of innocuous crops like marijuana and hemp remains illegal in the US, the American military is actively guarding the very poppy fields in Afghanistan that fuel the global drug trade. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.
"According to the witnesses, there was a parked civilian 
International Criminal Court
[Tolo News] Three Taliban 
[Dawn] EU foreign ministers piled pressure on Iran over its contested nuclear programme Thursday, slapping sanctions on an extra 180 firms and individuals and threatening to hit out at its vital oil sector.
Prime Minister 
Pervez 
[An Nahar] Political parties in Belgium, which has been without a government for 535 days, agreed Wednesday on the blueprint of a ruling coalition to be headed by French-speaking Socialist Elio Di Rupo.
[Dawn] A bomb 
[Iran Press TV] At least 11 people have been killed after US 
[Dawn] Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday announced starting a separate bus service for women in the 
... 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...
A bird hunter was shot in the buttocks after his dog stepped on a shotgun laid across the bow of a boat.
[Yemen Post] At least five 
[Dawn] Seven Pak workers have been kidnapped in an area troubled by the Taliban near the Afghan capital Kabul, police said Thursday.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
North Korea says it is making progress in producing enriched uranium for its light-water nuclear reactor, raising fresh concerns that the controversial project could be used to develop atomic weapons. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that the country's "experimental" uranium enrichment program is "progressing apace." 
[L.A. Times] Al Qaeda 
The New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called the New York Police Department (NYPD) his own army, saying he is a mini-president of his very own mini-country.
Iran's charge d'affaires in Rome, Mehdi Akouchekian, was on Thursday summoned by 
A 12-member
[An Nahar] Lebanese banks have adopted strict measures to ensure compliance with international sanctions against neighboring Syria and are scrutinizing transfers of existing Syrian clients, banking officials said on Thursday.
Police foiled another terrorist attack on Shia "Imam Bargahs" during Muharram by arresting four suspected 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Nawaz Sharif
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
