Ukulele player Bill Tapia, believed to be the oldest performing musician in the world, died on Friday at the age of 103, his official website said.
Honolulu-born Tapia, who played with the likes of Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby, died in his sleep at his home in Los Angeles, the website said.
Tapia, whose nickname was Tappy, died just six months after releasing his latest album a live version of his 100th birthday concert celebration and one month short of what would have been his 104th birthday in January 2012.
Tapia started his career entertaining troops from World War I and later worked on steamships between the U.S. West Coast and Hawaii. He became a teacher to Hollywood stars including Clark Gable and Shirley Temple when a ukulele craze hit the United States.
After World War II, Tapia moved to San Francisco and worked for years as a guitar teacher until making a comeback in 2004, age of 96, with the release of a CD featuring jazz and Hawaiian standards.
Tapia was inducted into the Ukulele Hall of Fame in 2004 and continued to tour until 2010.
News of his death on Friday, also posted on his Facebook page, brought tributes from friends and fans.
#1
These people love to perform for everyone anywhere.
I remember a Vaudeville banjo player in his 90's at the time perform at a party. He had constant eye contact and a big smile for everyone. Generally they stay fit mentally and physically. Just like this Tappy.
On Drudge - Friday Night Doc Dump by the DOJ. Looks like a lot of smoke and mirrors to spread the blame downward. Pretty obviously the AG and his minions knew, and lied. "Apologizes for the tone of the emails" Moved to Saturday. Remember, F & F is WoT related given the national security implications across our southern border.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011
21:03 ||
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The emails sent to Capitol Hill on Friday showed that Burke supplied additional incorrect information to the Justice Department's criminal division that ended up being forwarded to Breuer. For example, Burke said that the guns found at the Terry murder scene were purchased at a Phoenix gun shop before Operation Fast and Furious began. In fact, the operation was under way at the time and the guns found at the Terry murder scene were part of the probe. Breuer was one of the recipients of that information. In written comments this week to Grassley, Breuer said that he was on a three-day official trip to Mexico at the time of the Justice Department response and that he was aware of, but not involved in, drafting the Justice Department statements to Grassley. Breuer says he cannot say for sure whether he saw a draft of the letter before it was sent to Grassley.
Where Burke got the inaccurate information is now part of an inquiry conducted by the inspector general's office at the Justice Department.
Burke's information was followed by a three-day struggle in which officials in the office of the deputy attorney general, the criminal division and the ATF came up with what turned out to be an inaccurate response to Grassley's assertions.
The process became so intensive that Breuer aide Jason Weinstein emailed his boss, "The Magna Carta was easier to get done than this was." A copy of the latest draft was attached to the emails.
translation: they lied and covered up. The truth doesn't require three days of frantic back-and-forth. F*ckers. Fire and prosecute them. Make Obama pardon them
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2011 21:15
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#2
Uh, uh, YYYEEEEUUUUPPPP, JUST LIKE THE PAKISTAN AIR FORCE???
#3
Looks like a lot of smoke and mirrors to spread the blame downward.
The denial itself speaks volumes. To many it is explicitly obvious. To many it is implicit, and it will affect their voting. The Trunks ought to bang that drum real hard before the election. And the one about the Black Panthers threatening voters. And "Reverend" Wrongight. And. And. And. ....
#2
..except all the players made Germany relatively strong by their own actions which weakened their own positions. This wasn't a grand strategy as much as things falling in place. No more so than the US finding itself a dominate position over the ashes of Europe after another bout of cultural suicide known as WWII.
#1
Tipper I notice you follow this stuff. I do also.
I'd like to add "Kaufman says were absolutely,"positively, undeniably,"totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.I believe since May they have gotten into the government pension plans. One nasty trick will be to go after all other savings or pension plans. Each fix is so short lived. Things will slowdown for the holidays then if we are lucky after Christmas, maybe after New Years layoffs and other nasty events will likely occur. Obama will be on vacation and the Republicans will attack each other as will the media. Meanwhile the driver is not looking ahead distracted by all the commotion around him, if we even have a driver.
#2
They have already gotten into every savings, checking, 401k, offshore, and every other kind of account you can think of, including cookie jars and mattress, by devaluing your dollars. But that's ok since they did it to everybody, right? Now you are starting to get the idea of how much crap you will put up with before you'll complain.
#3
WSJ today I saw this and it doesn't look good to grow old: "Debt among Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 is growing faster than for any other age group, according to the Federal Reserve. As of 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, the median debt level of that age group was $40,130, up from $27,458 in 2004". I know many seniors help their children and grand children. With this economy and unemployment when the money runs out where do you go. I have helped two families in my household get back on their feet myself. Each stayed about a year. I didn't mind the grand kids. One I helped with divorce and bankruptcy. The other till he got a job and finally a home of his own. Not at the same time. Now that would have been difficult. Then I hope no other issues arise. Be prepared. Things are going to get more difficult.
* US defence secy says strong diplomacy key to Israels security
* Says Peace process with Palestinians effectively on hold
* Says We cant get em to the damn table
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta urged Israel to get back to the damn negotiating table with Palestinians and take steps to address what he described as the Jewish states growing isolation in the Middle East.
Panetta, addressing a forum in Washington, also made one of his most extensive arguments to date against any imminent military action against Iran over its nuclear programme, saying he was convinced that sanctions and diplomatic pressure were working. You always have the last resort ... of military action. But it must be the last resort, not the first, Panetta said.
#1
Leon wants them to negotiate away land and goods unilaterally. Where's the Paleo give on Jerusalem? Stick that in their face it's clear who's intransigent. Demand Paleos live up to prior agreements before doing new negotiations?
"What're you, a Zionist Pig?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 19:41
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Yes, come sit at the table of the damned, you will receive much attention.
#3
In the prior agreements reached by Israel and the Paleos, has either side ever carried out the agreements? Has either side ever pretended to carry out its agreements?
#5
Israel needs to ignore the feeble thrashings of a doomed American administration. Israel needs to cleave to the Old Testament virtues we can all understand. Break the ceders of Lebanon and let the grass grow for the cattle of Israel.
#6
Pawnetta, a career Fed who systematically continues to get himself "kicked upstairs" (like his "sole-sistah" Hitlery), is as anti-American as they come. His face looks like "40 Miles of Bad Road" and that ain't gonna improve anytime soon.
After holding his position as head of the Mexican Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) for less than a year, Humerto Moreira Valdes resigned Friday, according to Mexican news accounts.
Moreira submitted his resignation at the 38th Special Session of the PRI today.
In his place, Cristina Diaz a former Nuevo Leon state mayor and previous general secretary of the PRI, has assumed leadership on an interim, presumably temporary basis.
Moreira has come under severe criticism, both within and outside PRI for his role in the massive expansion of Coahuila state government spending and debt assumption during his term as governor.
The ensuing scandal which began last August has caused four top officials with the Coahuila finance ministry to either resign, go to trial or has simply disappeared. Much of the debt acquired during his term had been fraudulently contracted using falsified docuemnts and allegedly forged signatures. News reports indicate the fraud goes back as far as December 2009.
Moreira's record as leader of the PRI has been nearly exemplary, save for the Michoacan elections last month in which the PRI barely eked out a win in the governor's house by less than 63,000 votes, and fail to get a majority in the state Chamber of deputies. All the other state elections during his brief tenure were marked by crushing wins over the opposition both in the legislatures or in municipalities, continuing the near clean sweep by his predecessor, Beatriz Parades Rangel, during whose term the PRI flipped or retained 11 of 14 state houses.
During the last few months as the scandal grew clearer, calls were raised by the leadership within some of the PRI's internal organizations for his resignation, calls which he fiercely resisted, claiming the scandal was about politics.
A protest began last week including PRI members in Tabasco state and elsewhere within the national PRI structure threatened the internal cohesion of the party which was uniting behind former Mexico state governor Enrique Pena Nieto, who is widely considered to be the frontrunner for president of the republic. Mexican presidential elections take pace the first Sunday in July, 2012.
At issue was the way Moreira rammed the coalition among PRI, Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico (PVEM) and Convergencia through.
Although Mexican news accounts fail to report on it, it is possible the removal of Sonoran Senator Manilo Beltrones from consideration for PRI candidate as president may have also played a role in forcing Moreira's resignation.
Senator Beltrones had demanded at least an explanation from Moreira for his role in the debt scandal in Coahuila in a public speech earlier last month.
A few days later a contrite Beltrones removed his name fron consideration citing the need for party unity.
"To understand how we got to where we are today, with a POTUS dedicated to dismantling the US nuclear arsenal while madmen in Pyongyang and Teheran - or are they mad??? - work to acquire thermonuclear weapons and threaten by their actions to pass tactical nukes to terror groups, it helps to know how close we came - or how close some thought we came - to serious nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.
David Hoffman's 2009 book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy recounts in detail threats the public remained unaware of at the time, and the slow dance towards strategic arms control agreements. Hoffman, a WaPo investigative reporter whose book greeted the newly installed Adminstration, favors disarmament. But do the remedies advanced by either the Left or the Right during the Cold War address the threat we face today?"
A report given to a high-level advisory group in Saudi Arabia claims that allowing women in the kingdom to drive could encourage premarital sex, a rights activist said Saturday. And blindness. And excessive hair growth. And acne. And excessively tight turban fitment.
The ultraconservative stance suggests increasing pressure on King Abdullah to retain the kingdom's male-only driving rules despite international criticism. Did the same folks who put together the NIE about Iran not being a threat put this together?
The Egyptian Moslem Brüderbund's Justice and Peace party won 40 percent of the vote in the first phase of Egypt's elections, according to Arab media reports of the results published on Saturday.
Arab media being, of course, known for their accuracy when raw facts are involved. See Note below.
With 20% of the vote, the Salafist ...Salafists espouse an austere form of Sunni Islam that seeks a return to practices that were common in the 7th century. Rather than doing that themselves and letting other people alone they insist everybody do as they say and they try to kill everybody who doesn't... party al-Nour took the second-highest number of votes, al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Hayat reported. Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that liberal parties took 15% of the vote. The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify the reports.
Abdul Moez Ibrahim, Egypt's top election official announced the results of only a handful of clear-cut victories for individual candidates, with most going to run-offs next week, and gave no figures for party lists in the polls, in which Islamist parties are expected to come out on top.
He said four individual candidates, two of them from the Moslem Brüderbund's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), won more than 50 percent of votes to gain outright victory out of 56 seats contested. The rest will require a run-off.
Note: In other words, the fog of elections still hovers over the Egyptian political landscape. We'll perhaps have a better idea in a month or two who has been counted as winning.
In Egypt's complex election process, staggered over three phases in six weeks, two-thirds of the 498 seats up for grabs are allocated proportionately to party lists, with the rest going to individual candidates.
For Sunday, lotp reviews "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy"
An excerpt:
To understand how we got to where we are today, with a POTUS dedicated to dismantling the US nuclear arsenal while madmen in Pyongyang and Teheran - or are they mad??? - work to acquire thermonuclear weapons and threaten by their actions to pass tactical nukes to terror groups, it helps to know how close we came - or how close some thought we came - to serious nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.
That's the theme of David Hoffman's 2009 book "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy". Hoffman, a WaPo investigative reporter, strongly favors disarmament through arms control treaties. But do the remedies favored by either the Left or the Right during the Cold War address the threat we face today?
#1
Thanks for the advance notice. I still shudder when I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was old enough then to have read a bit & have a basic grasp of the stakes at the time.
Former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell still feels upset about the shooting death of his service dog DASY almost three years after the fact.
When the local war hero took the stand Thursday in the cruelty to non-livestock animals trial of Alfonso Hernandez, one of the two accused in the case, Luttrell said he was so angry the night his dog was killed that he drew a pistol on the car the suspects were riding in.
I wanted to take a shot at the driver, but I figured if I missed and shot out the back window, I would not be able to catch them, Luttrell said.
An hour after DASY was shot on April 1, 2009, law enforcement officers eventually caught up to the car with Luttrells help. And Thursday, Luttrell got some closure in the case.
Hernandez was found guilty of a state jail felony by a Walker County jury of four men and eight women in the 278th District Court.
Two days earlier, Michael Edmonds pleaded guilty to the same charge and admitted he was the one who fired the shot that killed DASY, a Labrador retriever that was given to Luttrell by friends to help him cope with emotional and physical injuries he sustained while fighting in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Edmonds and Hernandez, who was charged as an accomplice, will have to wait for a pre-sentence investigation to be conducted before a punishment is handed down, which is expected to take place in February. Cruelty to non-livestock animals carries a sentence of up to two years in a state facility and a $10,000 fine.
Luttrell, who left as soon as he finished testifying Thursday morning, is best known for being the lone survivor of a mission in June 2005 when his SEAL team was pinned down in a firefight with Taliban forces in Afghanistan. He was awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism in 2006.
Luttrell had DASY, whose name is an acronym of the initials of Luttrells team members who were killed in the firefight, for four years. He testified Thursday that at around 2 a.m. on April 1, 2009, he let DASY out and sat down in his home on Four Notch Road in southeast Walker County, to watch television because he had trouble sleeping.
Luttrell said he heard a single gunshot, grabbed his pistol and ran next door to his mothers residence to check on her. He then made his way down to the roadway, crawled underneath a fence and saw DASY had been shot.
I saw my dog in a ditch and two men standing outside the car, Luttrell said with his new service dog by his side on the stand. I could hear them laughing.
The car, which belonged to Alfonso Hernandez, was being driven by Caleb McGough. Edmonds and Arturo Hernandez, Alfonsos brother, were also passengers. McGough and Arturo Hernandez did not face charges in the case.
Edmonds testified that he shot DASY, but that the others wanted to go back and look at the dog. He said that Alfonso Hernandez then got out and started beating the dog with a wooden baseball bat.
Luttrell chased the suspects through Walker, San Jacinto and Polk counties before a patrol officer with the Onalaska Police Department pulled the car over on Highway 190 near the bridge over Lake Livingston.
The jury heard testimony this week from Texas Ranger Steve Jeter, who helped investigate the case, and Edmonds that Alfonso Hernandez and Edmonds were connected to other dog shootings prior to the incident on Four Notch Road.
This time they shot the wrong dog, the dog of a man who cant sleep at night, Walker County Assistant District Attorney John Hafley said during closing arguments. ... Everyone else would have been sleeping. They shot the wrong dog and this time they were stopped. ... (Alfonso Hernandez) is a dog killer who celebrated like they scored a touchdown.
Defense attorney Fritz Barnett challenged the states lack of evidence that his client knowingly and intentionally took part in DASYs death. He said Alfonso Hernandez was out hunting varmints and had no idea Edmonds was going to shoot a dog.
(Alfonso Hernandez) was out hunting rabbits, coons and possums, Barnett said in closing arguments. ... It would have been like if Mr. Luttrell had been out on patrol in Afghanistan and one of his men up and shot a woman or a child and Mr. Luttrell was held responsible. Alfonso was not responsible for what Mr. Edmonds did.
... Going out and shooting dogs might have been in (Edmonds) mind, but there is no shred of evidence it was in Alfonsos mind.
Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Stroud went back to the testimony of Luttrell and Edmonds before the state rested its case. Luttrell said he heard laughing and Edmonds said Alfonso Hernandez laughed while he hit DASY with a bat.
(Alfonso Hernandez) got out and kicked and beat that dog and thought it was funny. They thought it was just another dog, she said. To Marcus Luttrell it was so much more. It was a symbol he carried around for what happened to him. He was reminded of the people it was named after. To Marcus Luttrell that was just not another dog.
#1
Sometimes, assigning certain individuals to the group Homo Sapiens is just wrong. I believe there's an entire life category called the slime mold. Perhaps if these assholes repent really, really hard, and pray, they might be allowed up into the slime mold category in their next life.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/03/2011 9:10
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My fantasy:
Judge to defendants: You have a choice of sentencing: two years in the state penitentiary, or 20 minutes alone with Mr Luttrell, who is allowed to do anything to you he can with his bare hands. Remember that Mr. Luttrell is a former SEAL. Think carefully, gentlemen.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/03/2011 10:11
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#3
At least with the SEAL it would be relatively quick.
And AFAIAC, there is no such thing as "just another dog", except maybe in the mind of a criminal like this, who needs to have his DNA and fingerprints put on file.
#5
"... It would have been like if Mr. Luttrell had been out on patrol in Afghanistan and one of his men up and shot a woman or a child and Mr. Luttrell was held responsible. Alfonso was not responsible for what Mr. Edmonds did."
Example No. 456789432 illustrating why people have higher opinions of crack whores than lawyers...
#6
I'm surprised that argument by his lawyer didn't work. Heh.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 11:20
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#7
Luttrell is a poster-boy for SEALs, who grew up on a ranch in east Texas. His book is worth the read. Especially interesting is the part where he is hosted by local Afghans until he's rescued.
May the fleas of a thousand dogs infest anybody who shoots a dog!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2011 15:28
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#8
All in all, I think Marcus Luttrell was restrained when his dog got killed by these four cruel lame brain idiots.
#11
I would find anyone innocent if they shoot any of them. But somehow I think something worse may await them in the Texas Penal System. Where do dog killers stand relative to pederasts?
#13
These bad guys should learn. If you get arrested for shooting a dog, you are not cut out for a life of crime. The best you can hope for is that the police catch you before a citizen catches you.
#16
coon and varmint hunting often takes place at that time of night. i do not buy their story that that is what they were doing, but living in backwoods GA, you do see some varmint hunting at that hour (sometimes even legit). lot of variation in the regulations for such activity from state to state.
These perps are scum and it would have been quite difficult to find a jury to convict the seal if he had killed all 4 on the spot.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/03/2011 18:34
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Republicans are more conservative than at any time since their 1980 dismay about another floundering president. They are more ideologically homogenous than ever in 156 years of competing for the presidency. They anticipated choosing between Mitt Romney, a conservative of convenience, and a conviction politician to his right. The choice, however, could be between Romney and the least conservative candidate, Newt Gingrich. But I liked Newt the two or three times I've heard him speak on U-Tube!
Romney's main objection to contemporary Washington seems to be that he is not administering it. God has 10 commandments, Woodrow Wilson had 14 points, Heinz had 57 varieties, but Romney's economic platform has 59 planks -- 56 more than necessary if you have low taxes, free trade and fewer regulatory burdens. Still, his conservatism-as-managerialism would be a marked improvement upon today's bewildered liberalism. How about "bewildering progressive/socialist/Marxist-liberalism"?
Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. And there is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything. So he'd make a great conservative dictator, is that what you're saying, George?
Obama is running as Harry Truman did in 1948, against Congress, but Republicans need not supply the real key to Truman's success -- Tom Dewey. Confident that Truman was unelectable, Republicans nominated New York's chilly governor, whose virtues of experience and steadiness were vitiated by one fact: Voters disliked him. Before settling for Romney, conservatives should reconsider two candidates who stumbled early on.
Rick Perry (disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises him) has been disappointing in debates. They test nothing pertinent to presidential duties but have become absurdly important. Perry's political assets remain his Texas record and Southwestern zest for disliking Washington and Wall Street simultaneously and equally.
Jon Huntsman ...American professional politician and diplomat. He worked as a White House staff assistant for Ronald Reagan, and he was appointed by George Bush the Elder as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce and later as United States Ambassador to Singapore. He was Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under Bush the Younger. Huntsman has also served as CEO of his family's Huntsman Corporation and was elected Governor of Utah in 2004, winning re-election in 2008 with nearly 78% of the vote. On August 11, 2009, he resigned as governor to accept an appointment as Ambassador to China in the Obama administration.... inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan's budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan's Medicare reform as "right-wing social engineering.") Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich's benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.)
Huntsman's thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security measures -- food security, somehow threatened. Gingrich says opponents of ethanol subsidies are "big-city" people hostile to farmers.) Huntsman considers No Child Left Behind, the semi-nationalization of primary and secondary education, "an unmitigated disaster." (Romney and Gingrich support it. Gingrich has endorsed a national curriculum.) Who IS this Huntsman guy, and where has he been hiding?
Between Ron Paul's isolationism and the faintly variant bellicosities of the other six candidates stands Huntsman's conservative foreign policy, skeptically nuanced about America's need or ability to control many distant developments.
Romney might not be a Dewey. Gingrich might stop being (as Churchill said of John Foster Dulles) a bull who carries his own china shop around with him. But both are too risky to anoint today. A bull who carries his own china shop! I'm going to remember that one!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2011
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IMO, the only qualified candidate (successful governor) is Rick Perry. Too bad he's a doer not a talker.
#4
(disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises Rick Perry)
That is all you need to know.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/03/2011 12:10
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#5
Who gives a, er, hoot, what George Will thinks? He's a cranky old man who hasn't written a good column in years.
Yes, Gingrich and Romney are both too risky: either could beat Obama in November.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2011 12:53
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Yes, Gingrich and Romney are both too risky: either could beat Obama in November.
That was the first thing I thought when I first saw the headline.
Perry-Gingrich or Gingrich-Perry. Either way it's gotta be better than what we have now.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/03/2011 13:43
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#7
Those dimwits make Obama look like Abe Lincoln...
Posted by: Van Der Graf ||
12/03/2011 14:48
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But both are too risky to anoint today.
Too risky to anoint? We are electing a president not anointing a saint.
There are often times, I find Will bristly, cranky, and full of his own opinions.
Perry has been up and now down. Huntsman, never got up. However, both have had good executive experience. Any of the four would be better than the Vacationer-in-Chief. Will did not mention Bachman or Santorum.
#12
Gingrich was Speaker, I'd think that would count.
Obama's team would have a tricky time I think using a lack of experience as a campaign point seeing how his executive experience had to do with 9 holes and short fairways.
To be fair Obama has formed opinions - police act stupidly by default, he says he bowls like a retard, and most importantly does not feel he has to explain his actions or opinions to the public.
The National Security Agency (NSA) announces today that it has declassified and released to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) over 50,000 pages of historic records. These records cover a time-frame from before World War I through the 1960s.
This release of documents is the first in a series of releases planned over the next two years as part of NSA/CSSs commitment to meeting the requirements outlined in the Presidents 21 January 2009 Memorandum on Openness and Transparency in Government (Executive Order 13526).
Highlights of this release include:
Manuals, charts, and other documents on the development of early computer systems at NSA/CSS, including the HARVEST. This innovative system was developed with IBM and was in use from 1962 to 1976;
Early publications on cryptography, including Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing from 1809;
Documents from World War II, including previously unreleased German documents from the Target Intelligence Committee (TICOM).
The released documents will be maintained by NARA and available for review at the National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, Maryland. A list of the documents is available on NSAs Declassification and Transparency Webpage.
Since the records were physically transferred to NARA, NSA is no longer the custodian and does not maintain copies of the records for release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Information about conducting research at NARA is available on the National Archives Website.
#1
President's 21 January 2009 Memorandum on Openness and Transparency in Government (Executive Order 13526).
Now I get it! Zero didn't mean to suggest he would be open and transparent, nor his administration. Just they guys that kept the secrets had to start being open - by Executive Order. It's not bad enough we have Wikileaks, Obumble has to go and make it official.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2011 15:21
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Rioters attacked dozens of liquor stores, a massage parlor and hotels after being stirred up by fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... sermons in a predominantly Kurdish city in north Iraq, police officials said Saturday.
The Kurdish-ruled north was spared much of the violence that engulfed the rest of the country from 2003 to 2008, but there have been several outbreaks of unrest against the rule of the two main secular-leaning parties.
The region also is home to a range of Islamist groups, including organizations involved in mainstream politics as well as smaller, more radical networks.
Friday's rampage began after midday prayers in the town of Zakho, some 300 miles (475 kilometers) northwest of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... . Thirty people were maimed, according to hospital official Imad Barwari.
The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In retaliation for the initial rioting, angry crowds then attacked offices belonging to a Kurdistan-based Islamist party, officials said.
Police on Saturday also nabbed a leader of Kurdistan's largest Islamist opposition party, which has denied any connection to the attacks.
#1
Instant karma. The best part is that the entrepreneurs will start anew, because they are profit oriented, but the expense of repair is going to come out of the hide of the Islamists, because they are prophet oriented.
"Priests" are really brave when they personally risk nothing. They get really cowardly, however, when it is their butt or their wallet on the line.
Last week, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was insisting that Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM) founder Ustadhz Ameril Umra Kato "is alive." On Friday, the MILF said it has confirmed that the breakaway Moro leader was dead. "He's been asleep for an awfully long time, Narcisso. And he stopped snoring last week!"
MILF Vice Chairman for Political Affairs Ghazali Jaafar said when reached by mobile phone,"We have an unimpeachable source today (Friday morning) that Kato has really died. This is now the conclusion of the MILF and we are going to stand by it." "Once they start to stink like that we assume they're titzup!"
Jaafar said Kato's death was kept secret to prevent his followers from getting demoralized. But one of Kato's close aides, Abu Misry Mama, persisted with his claim that their leader, who formed the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter (BIFF) before leaving the MILF, was alive but recovering from a stroke. "He'll come around, really! He always has in the past! Once he's had a bath he'll smell fine!""
Reports about Kato's death gained credibility after the BIFM kept him from public view and refused media requests to interview him. "Sorry. Y'can't talk to him now. He's meditatin'."
Jaafar said Kato's family, commanders of his BIFM, and his top leaders held a big "kanduli" in Camp Omar (Camp Alfaro to BIFM), in the wilderness of Talayan, Maguindanao. He said they slaughtered two cows. "Mooooo!"
"Moooo!"
"Ew-w-w-w-w! Blood! It's on me! Ick!"
"Shuddup. Allah likes blood!"
A kanduli is a Muslim feast of thanksgiving and other happy occasions but it can also be for someone who passed away. Muslims traditionally observe a kanduli either the third day or seventh day (or both) of the death of a family member. Jaafar said the kanduli was for Kato's seventh day and it was very strange that Kato was the only one absent. He said this placed Nov. 25 as the most likely day Kato died.
"Our very reliable source asked one of Kato's wives where he is and the reply was that 'he (Kato) went to a place that is better than anywhere,'" Jaafar said, adding it is a Muslim's way of saying "a person went ahead to Paradise and the mercy of God."
Jaafar said that with Kato gone, BIFM leaders have decided that their three vice chairmen -- for political affairs, internal affairs, and military affairs -- will take turns in leading the BIFM for six months each.
Two other Muslim leaders, Commissioner Datu Alladin I. Ampatuan Presumably from the same Ampatuan clan that massacred twenty-some rivals and reporters a year or two ago...
of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) and Eid Kabalu, ... aka Lipless Eddie...
retired MILF military spokesman, both believe that Kato has died. "Yep. They smell like that, they're gone. Long gone, in fact."
Ampatuan said he knew as early as last week that the renegade leader was dead because the news was relayed to him by one of Kato's close relatives. Ampatuan, commissioner-in-charge of the Bureau of Peace and Conflict Resolution (NCMF-BPCR), said, "Don't ever believe Ustadhz Ameril Umra Kato is alive; he is already dead."
Kabalu said he felt vindicated after the confirmation of Kato's leader's death just days after his meeting with Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founding Chairman Nur Misuari.
Kabalu said, "I am relieved and vindicated because I was the first one to say Kato already died. If he is still alive, then they should show him to stop all this."
However Malacañang said it is confused by the conflicting reports about Kato's death and will wait for an official confirmation from the military.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, "We're waiting for independent information. We're wondering why there are conflicting reports."
Valte noted that the Armed Forces' last report on Kato was that he refused the government's offer of medical assistance when he suffered a stroke.
Russia's North Caucasus region will vote in the country's parliamentary election on Sunday with thousands of armed security officers on in the streets while homes are searched and street markets closed.
Chechnya is expected to have 12,000 guards on duty, many of them surrounding the 456 polling stations, head of the regional Interior Ministry Ruslan Alkhanov said. At least half of the guards will be armed.
Alkhanov said, "We are obliged to ensure citizens can exercise their voting rights safely. We will work on this day and night."
The southern Russian republic of Ingushetia has banned sales of alcohol on Thursdays and Fridays.
Supporters say the measure is intended to help fight bootleg booze and reduce the number of drunk-driving accidents. However, some locals maintain that the new legislation is closely connected with Islam. The head of the republic insists that the new law is in no way meant to discriminate against people of other faiths.
In Ingushetia, alcohol sales are allowed between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. during the rest of the week. In neighbouring Chechnya, you can only buy alcohol between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. During the bloody holy month of Ramadan, all sales of alcohol are banned.
#1
weâre struggling to figure out how to deal with reasonable accommodations [of minorities].
By giving minorities a veto over the majority?
That was the form of government for most of history till democracies came in vague around the start of the 19th Century. Now we're devolving back to the will of the few over the many, not derived by the consent of the governed but to alleviate 'feelings'.
#3
Except there is no judicial creation doctrine of absolute separation of church and state in Canada. As noted in a previous day's posting of the Rant, the South Koreans have erected a Christmas Tree display on the DMZ. South Korea is not predominately Christian, but have adopted [as the Japanese] it as a consumer/business cultural holiday celebration.
Thailand's Supreme Court has upheld a life sentence against Haji Da-oh Thanam, former field commander of the separatist Pattani United Liberation Organisation (PULO), and his subordinates. In the verdict read yesterday, Da-oh, 54, was found guilty of leading the separatist movement for a time between 1968 and 1998, causing a number of deaths and injuries.
His two subordinates also given life sentences are Haji Budo Betong, 74, former chairman of the PULO, and Haji Sama-ae Thanam, 63, former head of an armed unit of the PULO. Another defendant Abdul Rohman Bin Abdulkader, 63, a former PULO member, was sentenced by the the Appeal Court on Nov 15, 2005 to 50 years and the Supreme Court has upheld this verdict against him as well.
On Oct 15, 2002, the Criminal Court sentenced Da-oh, Budo, and Sama-ae to life imprisonment but acquitted Abdul Rohman and the other defendant, Yami Maze, 61. Abdul Rohman was later given 50 years in jail, whereas prosecutors had not appealed against a decision to acquit Yami.
In this PULO case, two key witnesses were Da-oh's younger brother and a sister-in-law who were former PULO members but quit the movement several years ago and surrendered to authorities before the arrests of the four. Several other witnesses were also former members of the Pulo.
Da-oh, Budo, Sama-ae and Yami had confessed to the insurgency charges during the police investigations but they later denied any wrongdoing in court. Da-oh testified he was forced by police to confess to the charge and to assemble a bomb to be filmed and used as evidence against him. The Supreme Court was unconvinced by his claims. Right. The old "I wuz framed!" defense. Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. It smelled phony... in Narathiwat province, a female clerk was yesterday killed in a drive-by attack while traveling in a pickup truck with a male driver and his three-year-old daughter. The victim was identified as Arun Buachut, 41.
One of the two attackers, who were on a motorcycle, also grabbed Arun's knapsack that contained a .38 calibre handgun after shooting at her at close range.
Mr Anuwa, who was driving the pickup truck, said he fled the vehicle during the attack. He told police he was so frightened he left his daughter on the back seat. The young girl was not hurt in the attack, her father said, adding she was crying in the back seat when he returned after the two assailants had left.
A man was gunned down by suspected terrorists insurgents while riding a motorcycle in Narathiwat province on Saturday. The victim was identified as Preecha Tangsee, 62. Mr. Preecha's body, still wearing a helmet, was found dead in a pool of blood next to his overturned vehicle. He had been shot once in the head and twice in the chest with a 9-mm pistol.
An initial investigation found that the victim armed with a .38 pistol was riding a motorcycle from his home alone. Two assailants armed with the 9-mm pistol on a motorcycle fired two shots at him. Mr Preecha fell wounded from his vehicle onto the side of the road. The attackers followed him and shot him in the head once more. Before fleeing, the attackers also stole the victim's .38 pistol.
The base that once served as headquarters for the U.S. military in Iraq is now under Iraqi control. A United States military spokesman said U.S. officials handed over Camp Victory to Iraq Friday, after officials from both countries signed the necessary paperwork. There was no formal handover ceremony.
About 13,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, but are scheduled to leave by the end of the month. The pullout will end a military presence that began with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Camp Victory, a sprawling U.S. military compound on the outskirts of Baghdad, had served as the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq since 2003. Top U.S. military officials lived at the site, which is encircled by 42 kilometers of protective walls.
At its height, the base was home to more than 40,000 troops and military-related personal.
The sprawling base was built on and around a lavish palace complex constructed by late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Saddam was imprisoned at the compound before his trial and execution in 2006.
The Wall Street Journal says Iraqis are considering a number of ideas on the future use of the complex, including as a military barracks, a cultural center or five-star hotels.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2011
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Soon to be renamed Camp Chaos, followed by Camp Tyranny.
[An Nahar] The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday slammed "gross violations" in Syria following evidence security forces murdered and tortured dissidents including children, as eleven more people reportedly died.
Council members in Geneva overwhelmingly passed a resolution "strongly condemning the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities" and referred a report on the abuses to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
There were 37 yes votes and six abstentions, while four countries -- Russia, Cuba, Ecuador and China -- voted against.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing slaughter, arbitrary arrest and torture of peaceful protesters," US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said earlier at the council's third emergency meeting to discuss Syria since the repression began in March.
A U.N.-appointed investigative panel found widespread killings and abuse of dissidents since the start of the crackdown, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives, according to the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
"November was the deadliest month so far with 56 children killed," said the head of the panel, citing "reliable sources."
"To date, 307 children were killed by state forces," Paulo Pinheiro told the Geneva-based body.
The panel said Syrian security forces committed crimes against humanity, including the killing and torture of children, after orders from the top of the Bashir al-Assad regime.
It interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, among them defectors from Assad's security forces who told of shoot-to-kill orders to crush demonstrators and cases of children being tortured to death.
Also Friday, activists said security forces killed at least ten more people, and tens of thousands marched in protests across Syria calling for Turkey to create a buffer zone to protect civilians.
The largest protests were held in central Homs province and the northern town of Hama, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The demonstrations came a day after mutinous soldiers attacked a Syrian air force intelligence base in Idlib, killing eight people, according to the Observatory.
And another two people were killed by random gunfire in Homs province, the Observatory said in a statement received in Nicosia.
Witnesses and a medical official said Syrian troops also fired across the border into Leb, wounding a woman and two men.
Meanwhile U.S. 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... urged Assad to quit, adding to growing global pressure on the regime over its crackdown on dissidents.
"The Syrian regime must end its brutality against its own people, and President Assad must step down so a peaceful transition that respects the will of the people can take place," Biden told the Hurriyet daily in an interview published Friday.
Biden called for a peaceful transition in Syria, saying: "Lasting stability can come when there is a government that listens to its people and addresses their needs, rather than turning their guns on them."
The United States and its Western allies are leading a campaign to isolate Assad over the bloody crackdown.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... expanded its sanctions list against Syria to include the finance and economy ministers, state-owned oil companies and two media organizations.
Finance Minister Mohammad al-Jleilati and Economy Minister Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar were among 12 regime officials added to a blacklist of Syrians hit by asset freezes and bans on traveling to the 27-nation EU.
General Fahid al-Jassim, the head of the military, led a list of nine military officials punished on charges of involvement in violence against protesters in the Homs region.
The EU now has sanctions on around 120 Syrian individuals and companies and is already enforcing an arms embargo and a ban on imports of Syrian crude oil.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 0:35
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#3
took me 5 seconds. You spent more bitching
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 0:37
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Frank, gromky was right to point out the missing link. We usually stop those in the hopper. My apologies, and thank you, gromky.
Thank you also, Frank, for stepping up to find the link for us, and in the middle of the night, too. You're a mensch.
Skidmark, please check Frank's link to make it's the one you intended, and in future double check to make sure you pasted the actual URL in the box. In general we delete linkless or improperly linked articles in the hopper.
Look, I think it's not too much to ask that every story have a valid URL associated with it. This one obviously had the "body text" pasted into the "URL" field by mistake. IMO the bit of code that accepts submissions should detect properly formatted URLs, libraries are available to do this with a single line of code. If the code doesn't do this, then the human should do it. If the human doesn't do this, then I volunteer to spend my time doing it.
Down in Texas, we say "squeaky wheel gets the grease."
#7
The bags turned out to be full of explosives and detonated when an armored car full of cash showed up. The armored car was not punctured and kept going, the postings said.
Like an abusive spouse, members of theMexican indepndant left lashed out against its own country whenit field a request to investugate Felipe Calderon Hinojosa for ceimes against humanity late last month.
The Internatioal criminalCourt, a n international legealentity brought into being in 2005 on the signatured of 119 nations wouldwide, does not include more than the jurisdictions of half the population of the plant. Nations which have mot signed or ratified the Roem Statute incldue the People's FRepublic of Chine, Russia, India and the United States.
[An Nahar] Iran's diplomats in Britannia prepared to leave the country Friday as a deadline loomed for their expulsion following the storming of the British embassy in Tehran by protesters.
The Iranian flag was still flying outside the Iranian embassy in west London ahead of the deadline at around 1400 GMT, but TV pictures showed a removals van outside the ambassador's residence.
Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament on Wednesday that he had given Iran's diplomats 48 hours to close the embassy and leave the country after the attack on Britannia's mission in Tehran on Tuesday.
Britannia has also evacuated its diplomats from Iran and closed its embassy following the attack, which Hague said could not have happened without the Iranian regime's tacit consent.
The Tehran protest came after the Iranian parliament voted on Sunday to expel the British ambassador and reduce trade relations with Britannia in retaliation for UK-led sanctions against Iran's banking sector.
Hundreds of students rampaged for hours through Britannia's two diplomatic compounds in Tehran, tearing down the Union Jack, ripping up pictures of Queen Elizabeth II and trashing offices.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... piled pressure on Iran following the British embassy attack, beefing up sanctions Thursday over Tehran's nuclear program and threatening to hit its oil and finances next.
Posted by: Fred ||
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On the other hand, it would be appropriate. My wife thinks it is a good idea too.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/03/2011 14:24
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#7
It's the modern equivalent of slavery, and their society is so backwards and we're so accomodating of that that we're stuck trying to figure out which slavery is 'good' slavery and which slavery is 'bad' slavery.
Maybe it would help if we could get President Zero to pretend these people are confederates or something.
[Iran Press TV] An Iranian politician says the participation of the envoys of a number of Western countries in the carnival leading to the British Embassy in Tehran indicates London's confusion over the bill to downgrade ties.
The Ambassadors of 25 countries in Iran organized a group visit to the disputed Qolhak Garden in north Tehran on Thursday followed by another visit to the British Embassy compound in downtown Tehran.
The visits followed protests by angry students outside the British Embassy on November 29, during which protesters pulled down the UK flag and demanded the speedy expulsion of the British envoy.
Majlis on November 27 passed a bill, which was also approved by the Guardian Council the next day, to downgrade relations with Britannia to the level of charge d'affaires and limit all economic and cultural collaboration with London to the minimum level.
"Ambassadors and embassies have a specific description in international law and the presence of an ambassador is to promote [the level of] relations between countries and they (envoys) do not have the right to meddle [in the affairs of their host country," Mohammad-Karim Abdi said Friday.
Abedi, who is also a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said foreign envoys are not allowed to cross even the thinnest of their host countries' redlines and even the slightest violation of the law can make an ambassador become a persona non grata.
The Iranian politician further described yesterday's visit by Western envoys in Tehran as an insult to their diplomatic status.
Abedi added that British confusion over the Majlis decision to downgrade ties had prompted Western envoys to seek to visit the embassy compound and Qolhak Garden on Thursday, Fars News Agency reported.
"The entry of Western ambassadors into Qolhak Garden will have no impact on any decision or law [pertaining to the garden] and the [Tehran] Municipality will do its job because [according to the Iranian law] if 31 trees are felled in a location that place can be seized [by the state]," he said.
With an area of 200,000 square meters, Qolhak Garden was first leased to the British by Mohammad Shah Qajar in 1872 as the ambassador's summer residence. Although the lease contract expired under Reza Shah Pahlavi, the complex has remained in the possession of the embassy.
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Syrian troops maimed two people when they opened fire on the northern border district of Wadi Kahled on Friday, a local official said, as shootouts raged across the frontier.
A Lebanese woman was hurt by gunfire that came from a Syrian military post during an hour-long shootout, said Mahmoud Khazaal, former mayor of the Lebanese border town of Muqaybli.
A Syrian man, also maimed by the gunfire, was hospitalized in the northern district of Akkar, a medical official said, requesting anonymity.
Eyewitnesses told AFP the shootout had erupted shortly after Syrian refugees gathered at the Lebanese side of the Kabir River, which separates the two countries.
The Syrian troops began to "shoot randomly" when the crowd amassed to protest a violent crackdown on the Syrian village of Tall Kalakh by forces loyal to embattled Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Sonny, disguised as Fredo, trying to be Mike... , according to Khazaal.
Witnesses in Wadi Khaled said residents had evacuated a number of border villages.
A Britannia-based rights group said separately that Friday's assault on Tall Kalakh had left dozens of people maimed.
"Shelling and machinegun fire have targeted Tall Kalakh, which has been surrounded by armored vehicles, since this morning," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The assault, which was launched on Wednesday, was being "conducted jointly by the Syrian army, security services and Shabiha" militias loyal to the regime, it said in a statement received by AFP.
Thousands of Syrians have decamped Tall Kalakh and other border areas into Leb in recent months, as Assad's troops fight to repress an eight-month uprising.
According to Lebanese officials, Syrian troops have also laced their country's northern and eastern borders with Leb with mines in order to prevent weapons smuggling and stop dissidents from fleeing.
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[An Nahar] A Syrian government run by the country's main opposition group would cut ties to Iran, and end arms supplies to Hizbullah and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, the group's leader told the Wall Street Journal published Friday.
The interview with Burhan Ghalioun, president of the Syrian National Council, came eight months into an increasingly violent uprising against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad, Light of the Alawites... with rebels seeking international support.
"There will be no special relationship with Iran," Ghalioun, a 66-year-old university professor, told the Journal in an interview at his home in Gay Paree.
"Breaking the exceptional relationship means breaking the strategic, military alliance," he said, adding that "after the fall of the Syrian regime, (Hizbullah) won't be the same."
He also called for more robust international support for the rebels, including the possible establishment of a no-fly zone.
"Our main objective is finding mechanisms to protect civilians and stop the killing machine," Ghalioun said.
"We say it is imperative to use forceful measures to force the regime to respect human rights." ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... The rebels may well fail to topple the 40-year-old Assad regime established by Bashar's father Hafez, but a reorientation of Syria away from Iran and towards the West would have major implications across the region.
Ghalioun said an opposition-run Syria would be committed to recovering the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 war, but would pursue its return through negotiations rather than armed conflict.
He also said it would work to normalize relations with Leb after decades of tense relations.
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The Israeli government has carried out a two-day exercise it says is aimed at boosting preparedness for any terrorist attack aimed at sparking an outbreak of a highly contagious disease. Israeli officials emphasize the biological weapons drill is routine, but it comes amid rising tensions in the region, particularly from Iran.
In this exercise no one knows what contagious agent has been used, anthrax, botulism or another deadly organism. The staff must identify the agent and within hours begin vaccinating the local population against it.
The exercise comes amid rising tensions in the region. Western governments last week tightened sanctions against Iran after the United Nations nuclear agency (IAEA) said it had evidence that Iran was trying to build a nuclear bomb.
Shlomo Brom, an analyst with the Institute of National Security Studies, says he believes a military strike against Iran is only a distant possibility.
"Certainly there are discussions in the Israeli government on the option of an Israeli attack against the Iranian nuclear program as a last resort. But I do not think that it is imminent," Brom explained.
In January, security forces will hold another drill, this one responding to a simulated radiological attack such as from a uranium-laced weapon or "dirty bomb."
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Unconventional attacks are a serious concern. Anything the human mind can conceive of must be considered. Quick response a must. We all know about the nuclear bomb stories but I guess an unseen little bug does not hold any prestige.
Lobbing a dirty bomb I guess holds some interest but expect a return volley. Who sent biological may be difficult to ascertain.
[Al Ahram] Yemeni government forces killed three people in the protest hotbed city of Taiz on Friday, activists and medical workers said, and the man heading a new government meant to prevent civil war in Yemen said it could unravel if the killing went on. That's the whole idea, right?
The bloodshed in Taiz made clear that a political deal to ease 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... from power has yet to defuse violent political struggle, marked by 10 months of bloodstained unrest, over the fate of Saleh and the impoverished country.
Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbours and their US ally hope the deal can reverse a drift toward chaos on the doorstep of the world's top oil exporter, Soddy Arabia, and stop al Qaeda's Yemeni branch gaining a foothold near Red Sea shipping routes.
In Taiz in south Yemen, government forces rubbed out three civilians dead, protest leaders and medical workers said. At least 12 civilians, government soldiers and anti-Saleh gunnies were killed in Taiz in the previous several days.
The 12 dead in the city 200 km (120 miles) south of the capital Sanaa included five civilians killed by pro-Saleh troops during intense shelling of some Taiz neighbourhoods, according to residents and medical workers.
Protesters in Taiz are ringed by troops loyal to Saleh as well as tribal forces and troops opposed to him. Taiz's governor called for a ceasefire late on Thursday.
Mohammed Basindwa, a former foreign minister designated by opposition parties to lead a government to be split between them and Saleh's party, said his side would rethink its commitment to that pact if the killing in Taiz did not cease.
In a statement, Basindwa said the killing in Taiz was "an intentional act to wreck the agreement" that opposition parties signed along with Saleh, who had thwarted the deal brokered by Yemen's Gulf neighbours on three prior occasions.
An official of the bloc of opposition parties that signed the deal said on Thursday they had agreed a cabinet line-up with Saleh's party and the bloc's front man said this could be announced as early as Saturday.
The first official, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... , said Saleh's party would take portfolios including defence, foreign affairs and oil, while the opposition would get the interior, finance and education ministries.
A completed transfer of power would make Saleh the fourth Arab autocrat to be toppled by mass public protests that have reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East this year.
The prospective government is supposed to shepherd Yemen towards a presidential election that Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the vice president to whom Saleh has transferred his powers, has set for 21 February, 2012.
Opposition sources also said they had given Hadi a list of their choices for a military council tasked with running the army until a new president is elected.
The list included former defence and interior ministers plus army commanders who turned on Saleh.
Under the Gulf initiative signed by Saleh, a body will be set up to restructure the armed forces. Saleh's son Ahmed commands the Republican Guard, one of the best equipped units.
Protesters in Taiz and elsewhere have denounced the immunity from prosecution that Saleh and his relatives would enjoy under the power transfer deal.
Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said last week that up to 35 civilians had been killed in Taiz since a UN Security Council resolution in October that endorsed the call for a power transfer and condemned the crackdown on protesters.
The group said most of those non-combatants were killed by artillery fire from Yemeni government forces, and called on the UN Security Council to freeze the assets of top Yemeni officials and distance itself from any promises of immunity.
Any Saleh successor will face multiple overlapping conflicts that have gained force during the political crisis, including rising separatist sentiment in the south, which fought a civil war with Saleh's north in 1994, and fighting with Islamists who have seized territory in the southern province of Abyan.
An local official in Abyan said the head of a volunteer force fighting Islamists was maimed and another person killed when unidentified attackers hurled a bomb at him as he was en route to Friday morning prayers in the city of Lawdar.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Thingy delegation in Yemen called on Thursday for immediate access to conflict zones -- including one in northern Saada province, calling the humanitarian situation dire.
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[An Nahar] Russia on Friday lambasted the U.N. Human Rights Council's findings of "gross violations" by Syria as "unacceptable" and warned against using them as a pretext for military action.
"The positions (adopted) in the document, which include the veiled hint of the possibility of foreign military intervention under the pretext of defending the Syrian people, are unacceptable to the Russian side," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Rights council members in Geneva passed a resolution "strongly condemning the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities."
Thirty-seven voted in favor of the resolution, six abstained while four countries -- including Russia as well as Cuba, Ecuador and China -- voted against.
"Unfortunately, the draft resolution ... presented by Western countries has a politicized and partial character," the Russian ministry said.
"It does not show the latest steps taken by the Syrian authorities to stabilize the situation, carry out reforms ... and launch national dialogue."
Allied with Syria since the Soviet era, Moscow is its main arms supplier and stubbornly refuses to join the chorus of condemnation of the crackdown in Syria, where more than 4,000 people have been killed since mid-March according to the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a halt to "ultimatums" against Syria and a "move toward political dialogue," two days after 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... hit Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... with crippling economic sanctions.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edward Livingstone ... has completed a three-day visit to Burma after discussions with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a vow that the United States is prepared to support further democratic reform.
"We are prepared to go further if the reforms maintain momentum, but history teaches us to be cautious," said Clinton. "We know that there have been serious setbacks and grave disappointments over the last decades."
Clinton said the U.S. will contribute about $1.2 million in aid to Burma for landmine victims, microfinance operations, and health care initiatives. But she said tough sanctions on Burma will not be lifted until Burma makes concrete steps toward democracy.
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See als TOPIX > CHINA + INDIA WOO BURMA AGZ US INFLUENCE.
IMO read, TRADE + ESPEC MILBASES = CONTROL OF THE ENTRANCE PER SE TO INDIAN OCEAN.
[Iran Press TV] The UK and US militaries have been developing new biological weapons which are capable of terminating certain races, a Middle East expert tells Press TV.
"They (the US and UK military establishments) even developed a black-only bomb that targeted the Afro gene. There is even talk now that there may be one for the Chinese gene," Peter Eyre, a Middle East consultant, said in a recent interview with Press TV.
Eyre described the sinister project as "absolutely insane," adding the work on such weaponry initially started in former Rhodesia [modern day Zim-bob-we] by the UK government, but was then transferred to South Africa [by then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher] when the former British colony declared independence.
The analyst went on to say that the US and UK have not only amassed a huge stockpile of biological and chemical weapons but also provided dictatorial regimes around the world to use and develop such lethal weapons.
"The United States, the United Kingdom...were behind providing Iraq Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological warfare [during Iran-Iraq conflict]...The UK actually paid for the laboratories to be established [in Iraq] and helped them (the former Iraqi regime) produce that," Eyre said.
Ralph Schoenman, a Caliphornia-based political commentator, also told Press TV that the Pentagon has also been weaponizing genomes viral agents in level 4 and level 5 laboratories in the US.
Schoenman further stated that such weapons are either sold to repressive regimes or are deployed in operations against countries Washington wants to destabilize.
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, called on member states to destroy all stockpiles of banned substances by April 29, 2007.
However, facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable... the US has announced that it will not be able to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons before a final deadline required by the CWC in 2012, saying it needs at least another decade to destroy its chemical weapons.
According to the CWC's directive, any country found to be in non-compliance will have to be referred to the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... Security Council.
Schoenman said, however, that the US has no intention of eliminating these weapons and such talk on the US part is simply propaganda.
"There is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that the US military indents to dispose of this weaponry; on the contrary, it is escalating its supply," he added.
This article starring:
Peter Eyre
Ralph Schoenman
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
See also TOPIX > MAN-MADE SUPERFLU COULD WIPE OUT HALF OF HUMANITY, to start.
#2
Weapons of the future. Small unseen and not traceable probably cheaper. I got the paranoia Schizophrenia blues.
Well not that bad just paranoia. Paranoia will destroy ya:
#5
I wouldn't worry too much about the US government doing this. Now say a family member of someone killed by unconstrained, pandered to, and financed religious extremists who thinks that formal government won't clean up the mess, but someone who has the advanced training and skills to produce such ugly stuff - maybe. It's one thing to blow up a girls school in the badlands of the last holdouts of pre-industrial society. It's another thing to screw with a society in which there are individuals who if motivated enough can end your world.
#6
Peter has a blog!
about him: I have appeared on TV, US Radio, written a book and write for the Palestine Telegraph. I reflect on the greed in this world, the wars, pain, suffering & poverty that American and British imperialism and their foreign policies have created. There is a direct link between this and the rise in self induced terrorism, conflict, genocide, poverty, and the displacement of millions of people. Current wars are all about excessive greed for oil and gas, natural resources, world control and certainly nothing to do with democracy. I also believe that world politics are controlled by Wall Street and London Bankers with Christian and Jewish Zionist at its heart.
Middle East Consultant? Perfect Iran Press TV source
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 10:55
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#7
I didn't know that religious extremists were a race.
#8
"I wouldn't worry too much about the US government doing this". Yes, I would like to believe this but in order to deal with this, research must be done to at least inoculate your people. All things at all times must be considered. Even on the fringe.
#11
The guy is an obvious loony tune: there is no 'Afro' gene, what there is is a specific set of genotypes that cluster around specific racial characteristics. And yeah, with technology today, it is possible to target racial genotypes; however, the big danger is that 1} you don't know who all has what ancestor several generations back; and 2) mutations happen, especially in anything as wont to change itself as a flu virus which would be the most likely candidate for such an attack. That means that the flu could easily mutate after release and start killing all those that you had wished to save.
Besides which, the population in Africa is doing a fine job of wiping itself out, as well as erasing any and all economic development and infrastructure left behind by the colonial period. Such a weapon would be a case of taking coal to Newcastle.
[Dawn] Setting terms for renewal of ties with the United States, Pakistain has sought 'punishment' for and an 'apology' from those responsible for Saturday's deadly NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... attack on two of its border posts.
The demand, military sources say, was made through a letter sent to Washington earlier this week.
"Nothing short of this will be acceptable," a bigwig said in a background interview with Dawn, adding that Pakistain would otherwise be constrained to "reconsider its partnership in the war on terror".
Even as the inquiry initiated by the US military is yet to identify who, if anyone, is culpable, a Pak general at a media briefing on Tuesday said that International Security Assistance Force chief Gen John Allen was ultimately responsible in his capacity as commander.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... military officials would not explicitly say if they would like to see his (Gen Allen's) exit.
Moreover, the US has been asked to clarify why its helicopters returned to attack the post after they had disengaged following contacts between senior Pak and Isaf commanders.
Civilian and military leaderships from both sides have been interacting quite regularly to find the way forward, but the mood in Islamabad and Rawalpindi suggests that no progress is likely until the Americans come up with a 'tangible response' to Pak demands.
Robert Raines, a front man for the US Embassy, said discussions were taking place. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... he refused to confirm or deny if any specific demands had been made.
A Pak diplomat at the Foreign Office confirmed the demand and said Washington had been categorically told to "stop treating Pakistain as a client state".
Relations between Pakistain and the US have been on a downward spiral since the start of this year, but the most recent incident has made the much talked about likely breakdown in bilateral ties more imminent.
The government has already expressed its fury by blocking crucial NATO supply route, calling for vacation of the Shamsi airbase by Dec 11 and by pulling out of the Bonn conference on Afghanistan.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, in a telephonic conversation with Italian counterpart Giulio Terzi, said the attack reflected the "callous behaviour" of the US and NATO.
Maj-Gen Ishfaq Nadeem, the Director-General of Military Operations, stepped up the rhetoric earlier in the week by claiming that the attack was deliberate.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
It appears that those responsible for the attack were punished by being killed. It is simple, do not shoot at American soldiers. American soldiers do not hold their in the face of gunfire; they attack.
[Al Ahram] Britannia on Wednesday ordered Iran's embassy in London closed after Basij militia members ran amok through its own mission in Tehran, prompting the evacuation of all its diplomats.
Several European nations, including La Belle France, Germany and Italia, recalled their ambassadors in a show of solidarity, and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... on Thursday declared it would take "appropriate measures" to hit back at what it saw as an attack on the EU as a whole.
"The live TV images of this assault clearly organised by the regime provoked a shock that will weigh for a long time on the already bad relations between Tehran and the Europeans," said one EU ambassador who declined to be identified because of the diplomatic tensions.
The new crisis has erupted as Iran struggles with severe international sanctions already in place over its controversial nuclear programme, which has been condemned by the UN Security Council.
The United States and the European Union this week announced a hardening of their economic and financial measures against Iran, following a November report by the UN nuclear watchdog expressing "serious concerns" about a possible military dimension to the programme, which Tehran has denied.
The sanctions, which are starting to be felt in the oil sector -- which accounts for 80% of foreign revenues for Iran, the second-biggest exporter in the OPEC producers' cartel -- could be extended to its central bank and even see an embargo on oil sales.
Western nations have also exerted pressure over Iran's human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... record, since severe repression against dissidents and protesters following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad in 2009.
A UN special rapporteur tasked with looking into the issue has filed a series of critical reports which a furious Tehran has slammed as politically biased.
Iranian support for opposition demonstrations led by its co-religionists among the Shiite majority in Bahrain has also reignited tensions between Tehran and its Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab neighbours -- chief among them Soddy Arabia, which has accused Iran of "meddling".
The parlous relations with Soddy Arabia were worsened in October, when the United States implicated Iranian officials in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington -- another accusation Iran denies.
"The degradation of ties with Saudis is long-lasting and could totally wipe out the Iranians' hope of closer relations with the Arab world after the recent regime changes seen in several countries," one Arab diplomat in Tehran said soon after the US plot allegation came to light.
Iran's isolation could also grow if the regime in Syria -- Tehran's main regional ally -- is toppled by the persistent protests there.
The loss of Syria would complicate Iran's access to other allies -- the Hezbullies militia in Leb, and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, in the Paleostinian territories. It would also diminish Iran's influence in the region, several European and Arab diplomats predicted.
The issue of Syria also has an effect on Iran relations with Turkey, which has taken a firm position in favour of regime change in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
Ties with Ankara, which Tehran has made a priority in a bid to get around Western sanctions, have been jeopardised by the recent installation in Turkey of a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... anti-missile shield which is expressly designed to counter an Iranian threat.
Officials in Iran -- notably within its powerful Revolutionary Guards -- have gone so far as to warn that NATO facilities in Turkey could be attacked, prompting worries in Ankara.
Even relations with Russia and China -- two permanent UN Security Council members that have been resisting Western efforts to totally isolate Iran over its nuclear programme -- are not immune from tensions.
Tehran is unhappy with Moscow for previously voting against Iran in the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... , for cancelling a sale of anti-aircraft missiles, and for repeated delays in Russia's project to help build Iran's nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
China, which has become Iran's principal trade partner in the vacuum left by the departure of Western firms, has in recent months also been the subject of complaints from Iran for dragging its feet on promises to invest 40 billion dollars in oil and gas projects.
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[An Nahar] Hizbullah announced on Friday that it had foiled an attempt by Israel to spy on its telecom network that is installed between two southern towns, prompting Israel to detonate the device through which it tried to infiltrate the group's network.
"The Islamic Resistance thwarted an Israeli spying attempt on the telecom cable installed between the towns of Srifa and Deirkifa," Hizbullah's Al-Manar television reported, noting that "Israel detonated the spy device through an unmanned aerial vehicle."
"None of the Islamic Resistance's jihadist fighters was harmed in the kaboom of the surveillance device," Al-Manar said.
A Hizbullah official in southern Leb told Agence La Belle France Presse the gang earlier on Friday had sent five of its members to monitor the area where the device had been planted, which could have alerted the Israelis that their equipment had been exposed.
Earlier on Friday, conflicting reports emerged over whether the blast was linked to Israel or Hizbullah.
The blast, which took place at 2:00 pm, was accompanied with an overflight by an Israeli surveillance plane, a security source told the Central News Agency.
It added that the kaboom may therefore have been caused by the plane blowing up an unknown object.
It revealed that an Internal Security Forces patrol, accompanied by ambulances, was sent to the area for inspection.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... another source told the news agency that the kaboom took place at a Hizbullah military zone.
It said that the party soon cordoned off the area.
Army intelligence, in collaboration with Hizbullah, had uncovered a number of Israeli espionage devices, including one in Sannine in 2010 and another in the southern town of Shamaa in March 2011.
Two weeks ago, an kaboom was heard in the southern town of Siddiqin.
Some media reports speculated that it may have taken place at a Hizbullah arms depot.
The party denied the claims.
In 2009, a blast went off in a Hizbullah arms cache in the town of Khirbet Silm in the South.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Next time, the device secreted in Nasrallah's toilet bowl.
[Dawn] The emergence of four new cases of polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... (type-I wild virus) has showed that the federal government`s campaign has failed to achieve the desired results despite the fact that a polio eradication emergency year has been declared in the country, Dawn has learnt.
The number of nationwide polio cases has now reached 165 after the four new reports came from Bahawalpur, Qila Abdullah, 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... , and Khyber and Bajaur agencies in Fata. According to a senior federal government official, the affected children had been given routine dosages of polio vaccine.
"This is the second case after a span of over two years in Bahawalpur, where the first one was reported in June 2009. Now it has affected a baby girl, Hafza Bibi, 4," said the official. "Waleed Rehman, 21-month, from Khyber Agency and Naseerullah, 4, of Bajaur were also given dosages of polio vaccine but the crippling virus attacked them," he added.
Pakistain now risks becoming the last remaining reservoir of the endemic polio virus in the world, and the only remaining threat to achieving global polio eradication. The virus is continuing to cripple children in Pakistain because of the failure to reach all children with sufficient dosages of vaccine.
The official said the federal government`s polio campaign was on degeneration and the emergence of new polio cases was evidence of its poor performance.
In a report, Dr Altaf Bosan, the national coordinator for the prime minister`s monitoring and coordination cell for polio, recommended: "There is a need for radical steps by the provincial, district health and administrative leadership to plug the gaps in the campaign quality with special focus on high-risk tehsil, UCs and hard-to-reach areas," added the official.
Officials in the national polio emergency campaign, including Dr Bosan, refused to give any statement to this news hound. However, the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... a health expert added: "The government has to rethink its policy about the anti-polio drive which is being looked after by the bureaucracy, including the cabinet division."
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[Al Ahram] Salafist ...Salafists espouse an austere form of Sunni Islam that seeks a return to practices that were common in the 7th century. Rather than doing that themselves and letting other people alone they insist everybody do as they say and they try to kill everybody who doesn't... leader and Alexandrian parliament candidate Abdel-Moneim El-Shahat described the literature of Egyptian Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz as "inciting promiscuity, prostitution and atheism."
El-Shahat reiterated his opinion regarding Nobel prize novelist Naguib Mahfouz in a TV interview on Thursday night, elaborating that Mahfouz's novels "are mostly set in areas involving brothels and drugs." He went on to describe Mahfouz's acclaimed novel Awlad Harretna (Children of our Alley), one of the books that earned him a Nobel prize in 1988, as a novel whose "symbols promote atheism."
El-Shahat's statement propelled a reaction of alarm among Egypt's liberals and intellectuals. Some considered the statement a reminder of the dangers that freedom of expression is likely to face in Egypt should the Islamists take power.
Novelist and critic Howeida Saleh reacted strongly to El-Shahat's latest televised statement: "We have long stressed [during the old regime] the importance of respecting democracy and giving Islamists the opportunity to demonstrate their cultural and political approach; but we [Egyptians] have not had a revolution so that the likes of El-Shahat come to smear our cultural symbols and call us atheists as soon as they [Islamists] start rising to power."
Contemporary novelist and literature professor Sahar El-Mougy argued that it would be useless debating with El-Shahat and other ultra-Islamist figures over matters concerning arts and culture. It would overshadow, he says, the important questions they should be asked, instead, such as their economic and social plans for the country.
Author Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid, however, believes that the intellectual community is overreacting to El-Shahat's statement. Abdel-Meguid says dismissively that Abdel-Meguid is "tuned into a time a thousand years ago," and that he takes El-Shahat's statements only with pity.
Other statements by El-Shahat, the official spokesperson for the Salafist umbrella group, the Salafist Call, have sent just as many chills up the art community's spine.
For instance, he is notorious for his statement that Pharaonic monuments should be covered up because, according to El-Shahat, they are from a "rotten" culture that does not worship God. This also caused outrage among archaeologists as well as those who work in the tourism sector, who have further accused him of sabotaging one of Egypt's main sources of revenue.
El-Shahat also denounced those who promoted democracy, and not God's word represented by Sharia (Islamic Jurisprudence), as atheists.
El-Shahat will be facing Hosni Mohamed Taha, who is supported by the Moslem Brüderbund, in a run-off election for a single-seat in Alexandria in the first phase of Egypt's parliamentary vote on Monday 5 December.
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[Dawn] NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... commanders are planning a substantial offensive in eastern Afghanistan aimed at krazed killer groups based in Pakistain, involving an escalation of aerial attacks on krazed killer sanctuaries, and have not ruled out cross-border raids with ground troops, The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
The aim of offensive over next two years is to reduce threat represented by Pakistain-based groups loyal to krazed killer leaders like Haqqani clan, Mullah Nazir & Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
NATO hopes to reduce level of attacks in the eastern provinces clustered around Kabul to the point where they could be contained by Afghan cops after transition in 2014. The move is likely to add to already tense atmosphere following recent border post attack by NATO helicopters that resulted in death of 24 Pak soldiers.
While drawing down forces in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... & Kandahar, the US will step up its presence in eastern provinces bordering Pakistain, bringing long-festering issue of krazed killer sanctuaries in Pakistain tribal areas to a head. Message being given to Pakistain military is that if it cannot or will not eliminate krazed killer havens, US forces will attempt job themselves, report said.
It is unclear to what extent killing of 24 Pakistain soldiers in NATO air strikes last Saturday will have on NATO strategy. An investigation is underway into the incident. As a consequence, Pakistain closed supply routes used by NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and barred the US from using a Pak air base to launch drones.
Isaf commander, General John Allen, said the need to confront sanctuaries in Pakistain was "one of the reasons we are shifting our operations to the east".
In an interview in Kabul, Allen, a US marine, did not give specifics of strategy and said nothing about cross-border operations.
According to The Guardian, Allen said he did not know what long-term consequences of last Saturday's clash would be, describing it as a "tragedy", but made clear that push to the east would continue.
"Ultimately outcome we hope to achieve in the east is a reduction of krazed killer networks to the point where Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) can handle them, reducing them in 2012, if necessary going after them in 2013," Allen said.
"I won't go into specifics of operations but as we consolidate our holdings in the south and as population centers there in Helmand River valley and in (Kandahar,) we will conduct substantial operations in the east idea being to expand security zone around Kabul. In particular we are going to pay lot of attention to south of Kabul, Wardak, Pashtun-infested Logar, Ghazni, Zabul.
Because in the end if you have a population in the south that feels secure and it's secured by ANSF, and you have a population in east and around centre of gravity of Kabul, and those two are connected by a road so you have freedom of movement, you have a pretty good outcome."
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] THE unprovoked attack on two Pak Army check posts in Salala, Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... Agency by multiple 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... aircraft and ground troops on Nov 26, is likely to prove one of the lowest points in deteriorating US-Pakistain relations.
The incident has occurred at a time when a heated debate is under way in Pakistain regarding the contents of a memo sent to Adm Mike Mullen that many believe was another attempt to limit the role of the Pak military in politics.
There are reports that the attack occurred when the US Special Operation Forces were operating in the vicinity of the posts.
Could it be that this was the first combined operation against Pak forces?
President B.O. has called the attack a tragedy. NATO has offered regrets for the incident and ordered an inquiry. Pakistain in retaliation has stopped the transit of material to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Pakistain has also asked for Shamsi airbase, on lease to the US and from where the drones are reportedly operated, to be vacated.At the same time, Pakistain has asked the US not to send any military delegations, and a similar embargo applies to Pak military visits to NATO countries.
The net result is the downgrading of US-Pakistain relations. It can be said that the NATO attack on the Salala post in Mohmand Agency perhaps spells the end of Pakistain's participation as an ally of the US in the war on terror. This will severely limit US/NATO ability to conclude a clean withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Another important aspect related to Afghanistan is Pakistain's decision not to attend the forthcoming Bonn Conference; without Pakistain's participation the Afghan endgame cannot be concluded.
It is possible that the Mohmand incident may force the US to continue its presence in Afghanistan into the foreseeable future.
In short, the NATO attack may turn out to be the costliest mistake yet in the Afghan war. It is speculated by many that Pakistain will consider increasing its deterrence capability after this episode to protect its border posts by providing shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles to its troops stationed there.
Failure to do so will increase dissatisfaction amongst the Pak troops guarding the border. The provision of missiles will transform the whole calculus of forces deployed on the Durand Line.
Secondly, Pak force commanders will now be less than enthusiastic about cross-border raids. This could lead to further complications. If Taliban attacks increase, NATO will be hard-pressed to protect its mandate. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy, has said that Russia might suspend the northern supply line that will threaten western operations in Afghanistan.
The NATO position thus appears untenable as the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan draws near. NATO thus may have to brace itself to face new challenges in the days ahead.
One thing is certain -- the NATO establishment in Afghanistan will see more bad turban attacks in the future as Pakistain begins to lose interest in border management.
It is unlikely that Pakistain will conduct independent reprisals against US interests as it has much more to lose. However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... it can undertake soft actions by recalling the privileges that have been extended to Isaf/NATO/US forces in the form of provision of supply routes through Pakistain, joint monitoring of borders, exchange of information and closing down of the Shamsi drone base.
Pakistain is also likely to stop joint cooperation with NATO in Afghanistan and the former will be left holding the hammer without an anvil.
Although NATO has expressed regrets, this will not lead to improvement of relations if the current atmosphere of distrust continues to prevail. Some of the steps that could be taken to defuse the situation will include the restitution of losses suffered by bereaved families and the submission of a formal apology.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... one wonders if this will be done in today's world where the rule of law and equity in behaviour are rarely seen.
Travelling on this path will require a joint inquiry by NATO and Pakistain into the causes of the tragedy.
If the inquiry finds that some officers neglected to follow the protocol applicable to operations on the border, then such officers would need to face court-martial.
One must also not overlook the consequence of an extended war on the people of the affected region. An examination of the situation shows that both in Afghanistan and Pakistain the majority of the affected people are Pakhtuns. In both countries they have been bearing the brunt of conflict over the last three decades. Death, injury, displacement and economic hardship blight their lives.
In fact, some ask whether the war in Afghanistan and in the Pak Pakhtun areas does not fall under the definition of 'genocide' as stated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).
The convention notes, among other things, that actions committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part would constitute the crime of genocide.
Some argue that this attack was the first salvo of a new phase in the war in this region and directed against Pakistain. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... this projection does not fit into the other time lines that indicate a commitment to withdraw by 2014. One thing is certain that when the fighting ends, the Pakhtuns will be the main beneficiaries of peace.
The writer is chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research in Peshawar.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Pakistan is repor refusing to cooperate or participate in US-NATO led investigatuve probe.
As a reminder, besides all other reasons rpior to this event, LT OR PERMANENT CLOSURE OFF THE NATO SUPPLY ROUTES BY PAK + now RUSSIA? = US/US-LED WAR AGZ IRAN TO SAVE AFGHANISTAN AFTER 2014???
#2
Pakistan was in deep sh*t, because even the DC dimwits could no longer ignore Pakistan rulers' duplicity. The incident, whether contrived or real, is haven sent. Now they're an aggrieved party, and they're going to extort a lot of concessions before granting a magnanimous forgiveness.
[Dawn] The US military says it has handed over Camp Victory, a sprawling base at the edge of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... that used to be the headquarters for the US military, to the Iraqi government.
US military front man Col. Barry Johnson says Victory Base Complex -- as it's formally called by the US military -- was formally signed over on Friday morning and is now under the "full authority" of the Iraqi government.
Camp Victory has served as the headquarters for the US military and home to the military's commanding general.
Some parts of the compound are already being used by the Iraqi military, but the government is still deciding what to do with the prime real estate like the palaces used by the US military.
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[Iran Press TV] Amnesia Amnesty International has urged African nations to arrest former US President George W. Bush during his visit to the continent this month.
"International law requires that there be no safe haven for those responsible for torture; Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia must seize this opportunity to fulfill their obligations and end the impunity George W. Bush has so far enjoyed," senior legal advisor for Amnesia Amnesty International, Matt Pollard said.
According to the international rights group, African nations have the obligation to bring Bush to justice for his role in war crimes, Rooters reported.
This is while Bush's stay in Africa is aimed at raising awareness of cervical and breast cancers, as well as HIV/AIDS.
Last month, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair guilty of committing crimes against humanity during the Iraq war.
Earlier this year, Bush canceled a trip to Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... due to fears of being incarcerated over allegations of ordering the torture of prisoners held in overseas military bases.
President from 2001 to 2009, Bush authorized the use of waterboarding, as well as other interrogation techniques, considered to be torture by human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Except that these countries adore W. Bush, because he gave them a huge amount of practical and useful help in improving themselves. Not just dumping money or sending idealistic NGOs to waste everyone's time.
#3
Ask anyone, say Al-Alwaki or Shamir Khan, Would you prefer to be water-boarded or hit with a drone missile? Oops, they are not here to answer. Arrest Obama.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
12/03/2011 12:04
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#4
I consider Human Rights activists to be torturing me everytime they speak. I therefore demand they be arrested and broken on the wheel for my amusement.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
12/03/2011 19:45
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Internet traffic and Web search measurement tools from several sources indicate that despite massive promotion efforts on MSNBC and in other venues, Politico.com is rapidly losing readers, especially outside of Washington, D.C.
Measurements of U.S. Web traffic provided to The Daily Caller by Compete, Inc. indicate that the number of total monthly visits to Politico.com dropped by 31.8 percent during the 18-month period that ended on October 31.
During that same period, and perhaps not coincidentally, Politico has come under sustained criticism from many observers, including Fox News Channel anchors and several prominent radio hosts, for exhibiting liberal bias in its news stories.
Other third-party traffic measurements also indicate a recent traffic decline for Politico.
Yet a glowing review of the news outlet published Wednesday by the American Journalism Review, a project of the University of Maryland Foundation, claimed it "receives nearly 60 million pageviews per month from between 8 million and 11 million unique visitors."
Jodi Enda, the article's author, wrote that she relied on Politico's "internal tracking" for those numbers.
Enda, a freelancing former Philadelphia Inquirer national correspondent who has also been published in the liberal American Prospect, Mother Jones and the Huffington Post, told The Daily Caller in a phone conversation that her "researcher" fact-checked the numbers. Enda did not, however, name that researcher.
Afterward, Politico confirmed to TheDC during a follow-up conversation that Enda contacted the publication to verify the numbers it had given her.
Enda also did not say whether she or anyone else verified Politico's self-reported Web traffic numbers against other, independent measurements.
"Tracking numbers are all over the lot for online publications, so we used Politico's internal numbers and attributed the information accordingly," she emailed The Daily Caller Thursday, in response to questions about her article.
Statistics provided to TheDC by Compete -- one of many independent traffic arbiters -- also show that from October 2009 through October 2011, total monthly visits to Politico.com dropped by more than 11.5 percent. And the average number of times each of Politico's readers actually visited the website declined by 24.7 percent during the same two-year period.
While Compete indicates that the number of "unique" visitors to Politico.com increased by 17.4 percent during the same period, the raw number of unique visitors it reported for Politico in October 2011 was just 2.96 million -- a number far lower than similar measurements provided to The Daily Caller by measurement services run by Nielsen, Inc., and comScore.
Lincoln Merrihew, Compete's Managing Director of Business Insights, told TheDC that there could be two explanations for why Politico's readers are returning to the site less often than they used to.
"So what you can say is that [either] the site is so much better, and therefore people are able to get all the news they need in fewer visits," said Merrihew, "or it's become much worse, and more confusing, therefore people are getting frustrated and visiting less."
Compete's online measurements show that Politico.com suffered an 8.6 percent decrease in unique visitors between October 2010 and October 2011. By comparison, HuffingtonPost.com enjoyed a 111 percent increase, and DailyCaller.com increased its unique visitor traffic by 100 percent. Other news websites had similar growth.
Compete bases its conclusions on measurements taken from a sample of 2 million U.S. web surfers.
"We stand by our numbers," a Politico front man told The Daily Caller on Thursday, insisting that Politico's own traffic measurements -- collected by Omniture, an Adobe program used to measure Web traffic data -- were more accurate than any third-party measurements.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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[Dawn] When patriotism rules the minds, thinking faculties take the backseat. Patriotism, like religion, is a conviction based on a belief system which cannot be reasoned with. It's the biggest, all-pervasive cult that entire nation states are besotted with, some to the point of no redemption -- and there is no distinction between democratic and undemocratic polities whilst succumbing to patriotism. In the US and in India, for instance, patriotism overrides all else; it is a consistent state of mind through which everything else must be seen and judged. In countries like Iran, Syria and North Korea, autocratic regimes fan patriotic sentiment to show to the world how their people are behind government policies.
In Pakistain, patriotism is an organised affair, managed and overseen by state institutions through their beneficiaries, lackeys and the right wing lobby as and when the need arises. We have a long history of patriotism of the negative variety only, which oscillates between anti-India and anti-US/West rhetoric.
There is hardly anything positive about Pak patriotism; it relies mainly on condemnation of the enemy, real or perceived. Once such rhetoric starts it assumes larger than life proportions; everyone everywhere feels obliged to chip in with their own vent of anger until the brinkmen calling the shots decide that tactical results have been achieved. Whilst the fit lasts, nothing can hold back its fury, not even genuine national interest.
The way Pakistain has reacted to the killing of 24 soldiers by NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... air strikes is the most recent case in point, following the Memogate scandal. Granted it's intolerable and unacceptable that our so-called allies should attack our army posts, but while our military is able to take armed assaults on the GHQ and the Mehran Naval Base from home-grown Orcs and similar vermin with some calm, western forces attacking our soldiers is somehow much more outrageous. Similarly, hundreds killed in American drone attacks, mostly terrorists, is more disgraceful than over 20,000 civilian lives lost, including those of women and kiddies, in terrorist attacks on shrines, mosques, schools and in the bazaars. Were those not the sons and daughters of Pakistain, who were killed not in the line of duty defending their country on remote hilltops but whilst going about their daily, innocent routine in our cities? They were not even in the war zone, where bloody accidents can happen.
One is not saying that the latest NATO attack was an accident or a terrible miscalculation on the part of the foreign troops and their Afghan hosts, because if truth be told under these charged up conditions, we don't really know that. The inflexible reaction shown by the ISPR tells us that it has totally rejected such an explanation and called the assault deliberate. The government too has stood firmly behind the armed forces' stand on the issue, and the media just picked up the story and ran with it, with war songs blaring from TV sets and anchors baying for enemy blood. Cable operators have done their bit for the country and taken western news channels off the air. Under whose orders and under what rules and regulations, no one is willing to ask.
Is this a well thought out stance, especially when an inquiry into the air strikes is underway across the border? Even if it is held that the NATO attack was not a mistake but a deliberate move, it has to be asked what was NATO's motive behind attacking Pakistain Army check posts? If the motive was to pit the Pakistain Army against the foreign troops based in Afghanistan and make that an excuse to extend the theatre of war into Pak territory, then the sinister mind that cast the bait must now feel vindicated because we have taken the bait.
NATO supplies have been cut off from Pakistain and the US has been told to vacate the Shamsi air base in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , perhaps a fitting response to the provocation, but what is next, you may well ask. Where do we go from here? When nations become angry, they behave like the individuals who run them, and this isn't the best frame of mind in which to rush to conclusions and take action. The past 10 years show us that the hubris displayed by the US in its 'war on terror', whose battle cry is vengeance, is not the way to go, because it has got them nowhere. Is that the destination Pakistain also wants to embark upon?
A saner response would have been to use the Bonn conference to put across Pakistain's point of view much more aggressively to convince the world that Paks have borne the brunt of this war which is going nowhere. A forceful argument based on logic would perhaps still work better than the knee-jerk reaction shown so far. Islamabad should reconsider boycotting the Bonn moot and not opt for diplomatic isolation by being absent from it. Being absent from Bonn can lead to further estrangement from the international community that can spill over to the economic and military domains -- a spectre Paks can ill-afford to grapple with on their own, all alone.
It is time to save Pakistain from international isolation even as we damn NATO and demand retribution for the outrageous attack on our border check posts. The soldiers died in the line of duty in a war zone defending their country, which was their job, and have been duly and rightfully honoured. It would be wrong to conduct foreign policy on their martyrdom.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
The author says that patriotism is a force that drives people in the U.S. I dare say, WWII would not have had the outcome that it did had nationalism and love of country and countrymen not been stirred. Survival is another strong instinct that stirs people to act.
[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Friday said that conspiracies were being hatched against the government but it was not very easy to topple it, DawnNews reported.
Speaking to media representatives in Islamabad, Prime Minister Gilani appreciated the system's 'success', which he said had been sustaining for the past four years despite the conspiracies against it.
The prime minister further said that people hatching conspiracies against the government wanted to avoid the Senate elections and root out the existing system.
Responding to a journalist's question, Prime Minister Gilani said Pakistain's response to 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... 's attack was responsible and not aggressive.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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[Washington Post] The House Ethics Committee ...think of a nudibranch pretending to be a vertebrate... announced Friday it will continue its investigation into allegations Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. or someone acting on his behalf offered to raise campaign cash for then-Gov. Rod Y'gotta pay to play! Blagojevich Who was tried and eventually convicted on federal corruption charges that he tried to sell or trade Obama's old U.S. Senate seat. in exchange for a Senate appointment in 2008.
The committee also released an initial report from the Office of Congressional Ethics that said there was "probable cause" to believe that Jackson either directed a third party or had knowledge of a third party's effort to convince the since-convicted Blagojevich to appoint Jackson Jr. in exchange for campaign cash.
The report, originally compiled in August 2009, also said there is "substantial reason to believe" Jackson Jr. violated federal law by using his congressional staff to mount a "public campaign" to secure a Senate appointment.
The report had not been released previously and the ethics committee had delayed its investigation because the Justice Department was conducting a criminal investigation that led to Blagojevich's conviction on a series of corruption charges including efforts to sell a Senate appointment. The Justice Department recently withdrew its request for the committee to defer its investigation, indicating it is no longer actively investigating Jackson.
The ethics committee had previously said it would determine by Friday what course its investigation would take involving Jackson, a Democrat and son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Shirley, Holder's DOJ will turn over all the investigation documents to the House Ethics Committee? To bring this to a swift - and just - end, right?
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2011 8:18
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redacted black unreadable sheets - and don't call me Shirley.
oops. My first sentence was raaaacist!!11!!!. I denounce myself
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 10:26
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Apple doesn't fall far from the tree...
Posted by: Van Der Graf ||
12/03/2011 14:53
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Expelled Iranian diplomats packed up Iran's London embassy on Friday, as crowds staged new anti-Britain protests in Tehran. Embassy staff were to leave Britain by 1400 GMT on Friday - a deadline given by the British government after the ransacking of its embassy in Tehran earlier this week.
The Iranian flag was still flying outside Iran's London embassy early Friday as staff loaded boxes into a moving truck and ducked in and out of the building to avoid the media.
Tensions between Britain and Iran worsened on Tuesday when protesters smashed windows and ransacked offices at the British embassy in Tehran. The British government has since moved to expel Iranian officials from Britain, pulled its own diplomats from Tehran and backed new sanctions against Iran.
Four other European countries, including France and Germany, have also pulled top diplomats from their Tehran embassies. The European Union has since tightened sanctions against Iran, and the United Nations Security Council has condemned the violence.
The attack came after Britain and other Western nations placed new sanctions on Tehran's central bank over its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2011
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[An Nahar] Mutinous soldiers have attacked a Syrian air force intelligence base in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing eight people, a rights group said on Friday.
"A group of deserters attacked an air force intelligence center... killing eight people from the base," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received in Nicosia.
The Britannia-based Observatory said at least 13 people were maimed in the three-hour shootout on Thursday between the rebels and intelligence agents at the base, located on a highway to the Mediterranean port city of Latakia.
On November 16, fighters opposed to Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Sonny, disguised as Fredo, trying to be Mike... raided an intelligence base outside 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... , in one of the most daring attacks to have been claimed by the rebel Free Syrian Army.
At a meeting earlier this week in Turkey, the Free Syrian Army met with the civilian opposition Syrian National Council, agreeing to coordinate their efforts to overthrow Assad's regime.
The United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... said Thursday that more than 4,000 people have been killed in the Syrian regime's crackdown on democracy protests since mid-March.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... , Navi Pillay, said meanwhile that the violence in Syria is a civil war.
Pillay warned that as more defectors threatened to take up arms, there was an increasing threat of "a civil war and at the moment -- that is how I am characterizing this."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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[An Nahar] Election-related violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 18 civilians between November 26 and 28, Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... said Friday, urging an end to killings by security forces.
"The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should immediately rein in its security forces, especially the Republican Guard, and prevent the targeting of political opponents and their supporters in the aftermath of the November 28, 2011 presidential and legislative elections," the group said in a statement.
The New York-based rights watchdog said the majority of those killed were rubbed out by Republican Guard soldiers in the capital Kinshasa.
Other non-combatants were killed and maimed during festivities between rival political parties, attacks by gangs and mob violence, it added.
At least 100 civilians had been seriously maimed in election-related violence, it said.
Human Rights Watch warned further unrest could erupt when the provisional results of the presidential election -- which pits incumbent Joseph Kabila against a field of 10 opposition candidates -- are announced on December 6.
"Tensions are running high given the logistical complications of organizing the election," Anneke Van Woudenberg, Human Rights Watch senior Africa researcher, said in the statement.
"Security forces should be protecting people, not fueling the violence."
Monday's polls were rocked by apparent separatist attacks in the restive southeastern city of Lubumbashi that officials had said left 10 to 11 people dead, including two police.
The campaign also saw deadly festivities between police and opposition supporters, and repeated street fighting between Kabila's partisans and those of his chief rival, veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Given the milieu, a peaceful and orderly elections.
[An Nahar] The leader of the main opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) on Friday sought "more concrete" international backing against the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad. Lord of the Baath... "Only collective action by the international community is capable of dissuading the Syrian mafia, now in power, to quit the country or give in to the fight of the Syrian people," Burhan Ghalioun said in Sofia.
"What is important today is for this international backing to become more and more concrete," he said after talks with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov.
Ghalioun said he met recently with the rebel Free Syrian Army commander, Riyadh al-Asaad, where he confirmed the SNC stance against civil war.
"We do not want offensive actions against the Syrian army," Ghalioun said Friday, recounting the meeting.
"We want deserting soldiers to limit their actions to defending themselves and protecting peaceful protesters and to adapt their strategy to the peaceful strategy of the democratic Syrian revolution."
All army elements should be organized by "a single force that can control them after the liberation," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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[An Nahar] Iraqi Major General Qassim Atta on Friday said an kaboom near parliament was a botched attempt to kill the prime minister, after an official termed it an attempt on the parliament speaker's life.
At least one person was killed and two maimed in the blast near the Iraqi parliament building on Monday, the cause of which was disputed. MP Muayid al-Tayyeb was one of those hurt.
"The intelligence information that we obtained showed that this operation was conducted to target the prime minister," Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... security front man Atta told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The person was supposed to bring the car inside the parliament parking, and leave it there for four days until (Prime Minister Nouri) al-Maliki attended a session of the parliament," Atta said.
"He failed to bring the car inside the parking, so he went kaboom!"," he said, adding that "the car entered the Green Zone with a convoy."
"We placed in long-term storage two groups involved in this operation," Atta said.
He told a news conference on Friday that the vehicle was a black SUV containing 20 kilograms of locally-made explosives.
A burned body has been found at the scene was suspected of being the body of the "terrorist," he said.
Iraqi security officials, an MP and a U.S. military front man had on Monday given a laundry list of potential causes for the blast, saying that it was alternatively from a mortar shell, a jacket wallah, or a magnetic "sticky bomb."
Atta is the second official to allege that the blast was an attempt on a high-ranking Iraqi politician's life.
Aidan Helmi, media adviser to parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, said on Monday that the kaboom was caused by a suicide bomber and called it a botched "liquidation attempt" on Nujaifi.
"One man in a black vehicle that looks like the vehicles of Nujaifi's convoy tried to enter the VIP gate of parliament," possibly aiming to join the speaker's convoy, Helmi told AFP.
"When he tried to enter, the guards asked him for a special badge, so he backed up, hitting a car behind him and the pavement.
"He then got out of the car and started arguing with the driver of the car behind him, and suddenly he went kaboom!"."
"Mr. Nujaifi was in his room, and he was late because I talked to him for 15 minutes," Helmi said.
"This is an liquidation attempt against Mr. Nujaifi. The question is not which party the attacker belonged to, but rather how he managed to arrive here with this vest."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
just a "thanks for failing on the SOFA" celebration
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 0:51
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[Iran Press TV] Despite British allegations that Iranian authorities had organized Tuesday's protests outside the UK Embassy in Tehran, 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... says there is no such indication.
"I don't have any indication how and or if it (the protests) was orchestrated," Biden told Rooters on Thursday.
The comments stand in sharp contrast to earlier claims made by British Foreign Secretary William Hague that the protests in Iran had been state-sanctioned and orchestrated.
Hague, in an address to the UK parliament on Wednesday, blamed Iran's Basij forces for the attack, saying, "We should be clear from the outset that this is an organization controlled by elements of the Iranian regime."
Britannia further used this pretext to "immediately" close Iran's Embassy in London and expel Iran's diplomatic missions from the UK.
Angry students protested outside the British Embassy on November 29, pulling down the UK flag and demanding the speedy expulsion of the British envoy.
The protest followed a Majlis decision on November 27, which was also approved by the Guardian Council the next day, to downgrade relations with Britannia to the level of charge d'affaires and limit all economic and cultural collaboration with London to the minimum level.
The Iranian politicians acted on the bill in response to the UK's recent decision to impose unilateral sanctions against the Central Bank of the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran, over allegations that Tehran's nuclear program may consist of a covert military aspect.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Thanks, Joe. Idiot
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 10:55
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Looks like it's time to get Joe in for another plug loosening...
[Dawn] The office of district coordination officer was damaged slightly when a time bomb went off here on Thursday, police said.
"Besides damaging the outer wall of DCO office at Bacha Khan Chowk, the blast also damaged the windows, doors and windowpanes of the nearby offices," an official of Faqirabad cop shoppe said.
The explosive packed in a ghee canister was planted near the wall of DCO office that went off at 5:45am.
Heavy contingents of police cordoned off the area after the blast and restricted movement of vehicles and pedestrians.
According to Bomb Disposal Unit the device was locally made and weighed about 500 grams. It went kaboom! before the fixed time. "Had it went kaboom! about one hour later, there would have been many casualties. The vegetable market is located very close and there is great rush of vendors, chicken sellers and customers in the area," officials said.
DCO Siraj Ahmed, when contacted, told Dawn that there was no specific threat to his office but in the prevailing circumstances faceless myrmidons could attack anyone.
"Anyone can be involved in the crime as we have sealed several fake factories of daily use items, penalised people and placed in durance vile hundreds of shopkeepers for selling below standard commodities and overcharging customers," he said.
The terrorists, he said, wanted to disturb the peaceful atmosphere but the law enforcement agencies were fully alert to avert all kinds of untoward incidents. "We have adopted tight security measures to ensure protection on the occasion of Muharram," the DCO added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
sounds like Pak sovereignty is like a "little pregnant"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/03/2011 0:47
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[The Local (Sweden)] A man from Nyköping in eastern Sweden has been denied a power wheelchair despite having had both of his legs amputated as the local health authority remained "uncertain if the impairment was permanent".
The man had his legs amputated after a long struggle with diabetes, but despite being unable get about, his application for a power wheelchair has been denied.
"I was bitterly disappointed in the local authorities. I don't feel I got the support I deserve," Evert Stefansson told The Local.
Evert Stefansson had struggled with his health for a long time. As a long-suffering diabetic his kidneys have taken a beating, as has his eyesight.
About a year ago, his condition took a turn for the worse when his toe suddenly went black. He was rushed to hospital where they had no other choice than to amputate his leg. Within a year, they had to take his other leg too.
Since then Evert has experienced some difficulty in getting about. He might be able to walk short distances again with prosthetic legs, but that will take up to a year, according to his wife Siv.
In order to regain some of his independence, Stefansson applied for a so-called Permobile, a power wheelchair, that he could manoeuvre himself.
"But I had my suspicions right from the start that it wouldn't be easy, when the woman from the county visited. She sort of hinted that he could have an ordinary electric wheelchair," Siv Stefansson said.
The electric wheelchair was less desirable as it would still need a carer operating it, and would therefore not allow Stefansson to get about by himself, without the constant help of his wife.
However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... the motivation for the county council's decision was allegedly that it was "uncertain if the impairment was permanent", reported local media.
After the couple found out that Evert's application would be rejected, Siv decided to take the matter into her own hands.
"I got angry. It just isn't right that he has worked all his life but now can't do anything that he loves anymore. Not even go fishing," she told The Local. "I decided to contact the papers and the broadcast media. And it was definitely what was needed."
Through media's reports, a woman in the nearby area caught wind of the couple's plight and contacted her brother, who works with permobiles and has previously helped others in the same predicament. Thanks to the woman's initiative, Evert's new permobile will arrive next week, on loan from the company that manufactures them.
"I am overjoyed! It is by far the best Christmas present we could receive," Siv Stefansson told The Local.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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And they want us to believe there are no death panels.
[An Nahar] A powerful truck bomb went kaboom! near the gate of a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... base in Afghanistan Friday, killing one person and wounding as many as 70 others, including a foreign soldier, officials said.
The Taliban grabbed credit for the suicide kaboom at Combat Outpost McClain in Muhammad Agha district of Pashtun-infested Logar province, south of the capital Kabul, which took place at around 8:00am (0330 GMT).
The blast outside the small base could be heard for several kilometers (miles), an Agence La Belle France Presse news hound in the area said, and was described as "huge" by local police chief.
Pashtun-infested Logar provincial governor Atiqullah Ludin said an Afghan carpenter who had just entered the camp through the gate was killed in the attack, while seven others -- five police and two intelligence officials -- were maimed.
But Pashtun-infested Logar's health director, Mohammad Zarif Nayebkhail, told AFP up to 70 people from the surrounding area were taken to hospital with injuries from shrapnel or flying glass.
"Seven of them are (Afghan) security guards of NATO, the rest are civilians," he said. "Several of the maimed were in a serious condition."
NATO's U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said that one coalition soldier was maimed.
ISAF said none of its troops were killed and it is not thought the blast breached the base's perimeter.
Pashtun-infested Logar's deputy police chief Mohammad Abed described the kaboom as "huge," adding it had destroyed some homes nearby.
"The suicide attacker wanted to ram his explosive-laden vehicle into the coalition forces base but he was stopped at the gate and detonated the truck outside the base," he said.
In September, 77 U.S. troops were maimed in a truck bombing which targeted a NATO base in Wardak province, which neighbors Pashtun-infested Logar.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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[Dawn] The White House has said it sincerely expressed condolences to Pakistain over loss of 24 soldiers in a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... strike but indicated the US would wait for conclusions of investigations underway before reacting further to the border incident that has complicated its relations with the key regional country.
"Well, we are in the middle of an investigation -- actually, at the early stages of an investigation -- into what exactly happened. So I think that the expression of condolences for tragic loss of life conveys a sincere sentiment about our feelings, the President's feelings and the administration's feelings, and it goes to the importance of the relationship that we have with Pakistain," President Barack I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money Obama's front man said.
Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed as "utter nonsense" the suggestion in a report by The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... that President B.O. was refraining from making a formal apology to Pakistain due to domestic political considerations.
Questioned at the daily briefing about whether the White House has apologised over the incident, which has evoked a strong reaction from Pakistain, Carney referred to the comments that President B.O. sees it as a tragedy.
"We need to find the results of this investigation. We have offered our condolences. We have called it what it is, a tragic loss of life. And we anticipate results of the investigation to come when they're ready," he said, when asked if the White House considered it premature to offer an apology.
"It's a matter of fact that I, speaking for the White House and the President, offered condolences on behalf of him, the administration, the American people, for the tragic loss of life -- and it was a tragedy," he responded to a question.
"And we have launched an investigation through CENTCOM, as well as ISAF, to find out exactly what transpired. But -- maybe I'm pre-empting what your question was, but there was obviously no apology and there was an expression of condolences," the front man added.
Carney found the headline of the media report as being at odds with the story but confirmed that there was a "suggestion from our embassy in Pakistain that a message of expressing condolences be taped."
"We didn't do that, but I personally got up here and expressed condolences on behalf of the President and the American people. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... has done the same thing. So that message has been delivered. But, again, the headline is at odds with the story."
The White House front man said the US is working with Pakistain on the issue of border routes for NATO supplies, which have been closed in the aftermath of the November 26 attack on Pak check posts.
He said it is "vital" to American national security that the US continue to have cooperative relationship with Pakistain, especially in the fight against terror.
"We urge them to attend the conference in Bonn, and are working with them on our overall relationship. We understand that this is complicated by events, as has been the case at various times this year.
"But it's an important relationship that we continue to work on, because it's in the interest of the American people and our national security that we continue to work on it."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Well, we are in the middle of an investigation negotiations -- actually, at the early stages of an investigation attempted shakedown
[An Nahar] Egypt said on Friday the country's first post-revolution election had seen a record turnout but it again delayed the release of full results expected to show Islamist candidates sweep to victory.
At a presser by the election commission chief Abdul Moez Ibrahim, already pushed back by two days, he began announcing figures before abruptly leaving the room saying he had "no more energy" and had "run out of gas."
His incomplete announcement of results in some constituencies made it difficult to discern the overall trend, but he did reveal that turnout had been a record "since the Pharaohs" at 62 percent.
His prepared opening statement said Egypt had "passed from an era of dictatorship to a democratic era" -- a reference to the abuses of the regime of Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... who was tossed in a January-February uprising.
More than eight million Egyptians embraced their new democratic freedoms this week in Cairo and second-city Alexandria in the first election since the toppling of the 30-year rule of president Mubarak.
The results are expected to show the Moslem Brüderbund, a moderate Islamist movement banned for decades, as the dominant force, but with a strong showing by hardline Salafi candidates.
Forecasts in the local media and from the parties themselves put the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) at around 40 percent, the Salafis at about 20 percent and a secular liberal alliance trailing in third place.
There was no immediate announcement of when full results would be revealed, but Ibrahim said they would be posted on the Internet.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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#1
Deayed until the Ballot dan be rigged to show the Islamics winning.
Quote Joseph Stalin.
"It matters not who votes, But who counts the votes".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/03/2011 1:52
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#3
The army will skew the vote, but likely towards moderation. I am guessing that the MB will get the largest number of votes, but not enough to have a majority on their own.
They have already told the Salafists that they won't form a government with them, which means an alliance with the secular party. This would probably make the majority of Egyptians more comfortable, and not foul Egypt's foreign relations too much.
In any case, the MB will first try to cement its lead like the Islamists in Turkey, by carrying out a bunch of long overdue social reforms that put food on tables.
#5
The army won't skew the vote. The army will delay the reporting just a bit longer so that the generals can finish removing from Egypt everything that can be removed. Then they'll skedaddle to live off their foreign bank accounts and let the Islamicists take over.
Bad times coming in North Africa, folks...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2011 12:56
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#6
methinks Steve has it. that or negotiating with Jimmah Carter to make sure the 'right' Islamists take over after they boogie out with everything not tied down.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/03/2011 15:43
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#7
The Suez Canal may be more important than ever. I don't know why that hasn't been mentioned so far.
I admit the Arab spring has destabilized the region.
Israel can focus more on Iran. It may take years to get their respective houses in order. The more internal fighting the better. I recall Dick Chaney did mention this as a possible effort some time ago.
[An Nahar] French authorities have increased security for Syrian opposition members based in La Belle France who have come under threat, the interior minister said Friday.
Claude Gueant did not specify the nature of the threats or of the new security measures.
Speaking to news hounds in Gay Paree, he said the measures would affect members of the Syrian National Council. That would include the opposition council's Gay Paree-based leader, Burhan Ghalioun.
La Belle France, Syria's one-time colonial ruler, has strongly endorsed the council and holds a tough diplomatic line against the deadly crackdown by Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Leveler of Latakia... regime on an anti-government uprising.
The U.N. estimates the regime's suppression has led to more than 4,000 deaths.
"Measures have been taken to ensure the protection" of Syrian opposition members in La Belle France, Gueant said. "We know that the Syrian government is violent, and doesn't hesitate to turn to threats."
French police had already been alerted to potential violence toward Syrian opposition members after scuffles at an anti-Assad demonstration in Gay Paree in August.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011
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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.
For a map, click 
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