Germany and Europe should open their doors to refugees fleeing North African unrest and instability rather than barricading the borders, according to the Evangelical Bishop of Central Germany, Ilse Junkermann
Junkermann said in an interview that those fleeing violence in places such as Libya should be granted safety and help.
“That we should help civil war refugees should not be put under question,” she said. “That is Christian duty, citizens’ duty in a global society.”
Europe must help – not only in Libya itself but also here in accepting refugees.
Referring to the current arguments over what to do with the illegal immigrants who have already landed in Italy, she said, “I find it disturbing how politics is being conducted on the backs of those people concerned.”
It is not possible to simply refuse entry, she said. “That is too little in a globalised world where one demands the ability to act as free as possible worldwide in ones own interests.”
Junkermann said the European Union should develop a migration and integration policy for refugees. “There is a clear policy which grants freedom of movement within the European region, and that the borders are open. But the price is high – the borders are as good as closed to the outside.”
This was unfair, she said, and said that a “certain permeability of European borders,” should be the aim.
#1
Then put them in your church and your house, Bishop. House them, feed them, pay them to work - all with your own money, of course, and take responsibility personally if any of them commit crimes.
Every. Damn. One. Of. Them.
Not willing to do that? Then STFU.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 20:39
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Actually, I'll bet he'll take quite a few and put them up in Evangelical parishes throughout his diocese.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/24/2011 22:04
Comments ||
Top||
#3
In other words, foist them off on other people, Steve.
How very compassionate.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 22:22
Comments ||
Top||
Senior western leaders called for Nato to adopt an assassination policy against Col Muammar Gaddafi to salvage the bombing campaign in Libya from a descent into stalemate.
The calls came as Col Gaddafi was reported to have strengthened his grip on power by repatriating billions of dollars in overseas assets that should have been frozen by UN sanctions.
On Sunday, there was growing pressure on Coalition forces to directly target Col Gaddafi with military strikes.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said that the quickest way to end the emerging stalemate was to "cut the head of the snake off". He said: "The people around Gaddafi need to wake up every day wondering, 'Will this be my last?'
Senator John McCain, who visited Libya at the weekend, also said that the Libyan dictator should be targeted but argued that it was more important to increase American firepower over Libya. He said: "It's pretty obvious to me that the US has got to play a greater role on the air power side. Our Nato allies neither have the assets, nor frankly the will - there's only six countries of the 28 in Nato that are actively engaged in this situation."
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, also on Sunday refused to rule out using remote-controlled American drones to assassinate Col Gaddafi. Mr Hague said "who and what is a legitimate target depends on their behaviour." However, he denied that there was a stalemate in Libya and ruled out proposals to partition the country
Could it be that some people do good just to hide their own evil? Dr. Helen sits with the Advice Goddess Amy Alkon and Barbara Oakley to talk about pathological altruism. Oakley is the author of Cold-Blooded Kindness and Alkon is the author of I See Rude People. Hear what happened to the Advice Goddess after she criticized Jesse Jackson.
At least four people have been wounded after a bomb blew up outside the entrance of a Catholic church in central Baghdad. The bomb outside the Sacred Heart church broke the windows and sent shrapnel flying. Fortunately, the attack took place after worshippers at the Easter service had already left.
In other violence on Sunday, an army captain was killed by a "sticky bomb" attached to his vehicle in the northern city of Kirkuk.
#1
a "gay widow" who was forced to pay $360,000 in estate taxes because DOMA prevented her from legally filing for a martial tax benefit. "This case is a prime example of the injustice perpetuated by DOMA on millions of American families," Pelosi wrote.
Gee, maybe the problem isn't homo vs. hetero, but the confiscatory tax laws. Get the government's hands out of the cookie jar, and many such problems go away.
Reports of a thaw in Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic ties has created a stir in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt and its neighbor, Israel. Indeed, even as Egypt struggles to iron out its own emerging political system after the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak, Cairo's foreign policy is also undergoing a sea change. "If you look at Egypt over the last 20 years, it just hasn't played a very serious role in the foreign affairs of the region," says Gary Sick a Persian Gulf expert at Columbia University, who served on the National Security Council under three U.S. presidents. For decades, in fact, the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak acted as little more than a "foreign policy cardboard standup" to its powerful ally and benefactor, the United States. But all that is about to change, he says. "Many of the countries that now have new leaders are going to reset their foreign affairs," Sick predicts. "And the United States is going to have to get used to that."
For post-revolutionary Egypt's new leaders and politicians, forging a new foreign policy means pushing back against much of what Mubarak stood for. That clearly includes Egypt's perceived puppet-like status to the United States, Europe, and Israel. "Let us eat the way we want, dress the way we want. Let us organize ourselves the way we want to," says Kamal Habib, a Salafi politician, who was jailed for a decade under Mubarak for his affiliation with a violent jihadist organization. "We don't want to repeat the Mubarak-American relationship again."
Habib's opinion applies to more than just his Salafist cohorts. Many Egyptians want to hit the reset button on their country's stance on Palestinian statehood, as well as its posture toward the Gaza Strip, where it has helped to enforce an Israeli-led blockade for four years. Most recently, it also includes re-thinking a decades-old enmity with Iran.
#1
sure, open up the gazoo border to your "Paleo brothers". Don't be surprised when tourism drops to zero, Uncle Sugar doesn't have any foreign aid for you, and the wymyns start getting lashed in the streets for being uncovered cat meat
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2011 13:23
Comments ||
Top||
#2
" Let us eat the way we want, dress the way we want ... organize ourselves the way we want to [etc]".
The government now borrows about 42 cents of every dollar it spends. Imagine that one day soon, the borrowing slams up against the current debt limit ceiling of $14.3 trillion and Congress fails to raise it. The damage would ripple across the entire economy, eventually affecting nearly every American, and rocking global markets in the process.
al Qaeda is planning to target UK-bound flights taking off from Pakistani airports, using undetectable chemical explosives available in liquid form, according to a report.
An intelligence agency has reported that a Pakistani airport will be used for a terror attack on a UK-bound aircraft in the near future, The Nation (Pakistan) reports.
Intelligence agencies have also reported that the terrorists have already completed the plan to achieve their target.
The spy agency pointed out that the terrorists would use liquid explosives, which are undetectable and can be carried by passengers without any hindrance.
The communique stated that limited information is presently available about the people or group involved in the plan. Maybe not detectable in Pakistan.
#4
About 1.3 million registered ,g(r)omgoru , probably closer to 2.3 million
AQ need a glamour hit to rejuvenate their ranks with more brainless orcs and have our media soaking it up like the lap dogs they are .
Im wondering whether airspace over London and the surrounding area will be shut down next weekend ( Royal wedding)
Posted by: Oscar ||
04/24/2011 11:37
Comments ||
Top||
#5
Obviously, what you need is the Prime Minister to grovel to Pakistan and apologize for all the wrongs done to them by Great Britain, real or imagined.
Already done? Do it again.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2011 14:06
Comments ||
Top||
#6
Would AlQ upset their host as most if not all passengers will be paki born/descent!
#7
AS6772, AIQ doesn't have a problem with collateral damage. They just redefine their fellow Muslims as being 'not holy enough' and therefore deserving of death. Presto! Problem solved!
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/24/2011 17:41
Comments ||
Top||
#8
The next generation of UK Royals including Brit Parliamentarians are going to have to deal wid escalatory DOMESTIC = "HOMEGROWN" TERROR.
#9
In the Jasmine-led ME uprisings, Radical Islam sees de facto opportintu to achieve their OWG CALIPHATE = GLOBAL ISLAMIST-JIHADIST STATE [Nuclear?], + IMO they are confident they will succeed.
This puts the impetus on keeping the US-NATO out of proto-Caliphate affairs + territories ASAP AMAP ALAP as the [Nuclear]Caliphate forms + rises, hence the need for major domestic Terrops to begin agz the US-NATO.
The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili blasted the policies of the West on the popular uprisings in the region, and cautioned that the West has hatched plots to derail and hijack the ongoing movements and revolutions in the region.
Addressing a gathering of Iranian diplomats here in Tehran on Sunday, Jalili said that the West is harmed by the growing waves of Islamic awakening and the role of the people in the current developments in the region, and warned that the West is seeking to derail these popular movements.
He raged that the West makes false claims about defending human rights, and lashed out at double standards towards the violation of human rights in the region, especially in Bahrain.
On Saturday, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei voiced confidence about the outcomes of the current uprisings in the region. "Thanks to Islam and Islamic Revolution, a public Islamic awakening has happened in the region today, which will definitely yield its results as it has already yielded its results in certain points," Ayatollah Khamenei said.
Ayatollah Khamenei assured that "this movement will eventually serve the interests of the Twelfth Imam people of the region in future".
A 9-11 terrorist attack memorial was installed at Wesley Bolin Plaza across the street from the Arizona State Capitol after the attack, with several anti-American and offensive phrases included in it.
This happened because the committee that designed the memorial was half appointed by the outgoing Republican governor, and the other half by incoming Democrat governor Janet Napolitano, who appointed leftist radicals that tried to blame America for the attacks.
It included phrases such as: "Erroneous U.S. air strike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians," "Terrorist organization leader addresses American people", "09 15 01 Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, murdered in Mesa," "Foreign-born Americans afraid," "You don't win battles of terrorism with more battles," and "Fear of foreigners."
Causing considerable public outrage at the time, Democrats in the State legislature were able to block and sidetrack efforts to have the offensive phrases replaced with more appropriate statements. Likewise, Janet Napolitano refused to call a special session of the legislature to deal with the problem.
Six years later, the Democrats finally agreed to a change of two of the least offensive of the phrases, while retaining most of the others.
But a Republican legislator from the Fountain Hills retirement community, Rep. John Kavanagh, hadn't forgotten. He has been waiting for a Legislature and a governor willing to remove nearly a dozen phrases he calls "political, controversial, offensive and disrespectful to the memories of those who died on 9/11."
Now with a strongly Republican State House and Senate and governor, Kavanagh this year has sponsored a measure to remove 11 phrases from the steel memorial.
"I believe that speculation about the causes, conspiracies, reactions might be fine in a 9/11 museum or 9/11 study center, but that memorial is a memorial, like a gravestone, and should be a place where people come to reflect and mourn, not argue.
"It's part of a myth that, following 9/11, Americans went into a xenophobic rage against foreigners," said Kavanagh. "That's not true. America's reaction towards foreigners was commendable."
Phoenix Democrat State Senator Steve Gallardo, opposes the bill.
"This was a product of free speech," he sniveled. "And you are not seeing an outcry by the public in terms of this memorial. The only ones you see making a big fuss is a handful of legislators." And a lot of patriots...
Senate President Russell Pearce, then a state representative, asked governor Napolitano for a special legislative session to "fix" what he called "insensitive, absolutely left-wing, drive-by statements."
The authors of each phrase must be identified. One or more political parties has to accept sponsorship for each phrase on the memorial. The authors and sponsoring parties for each phrase must be inscribed next to each phrase, and then it can remain on the memorial. For those phrases that for whatever reason magically end up as orphans shall be removed from the memorial and replaced with something that someone is willing to claim for all posterity.
The Taliban are entering the death-spiral phase of their comeback campaign. This can be seen by sharply reduced activity in the countryside (where the surge in NATO and Afghan troops has broken the fighting spirit of the Taliban), and the increased reliance on high-profile terror attacks. NATO casualties are down from the same period last year, although the media coverage of Taliban terror attacks might make you think otherwise. The fighting through the Winter was particularly damaging to the Taliban, and recruiting for this year's "Spring Offensive" has been difficult.
It's been known for over two years that this switch in tactics was coming. It's the same pattern seen in Iraq. Moreover, many Taliban leaders are trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the government. Some of these settlements have already been made, and now the Taliban have one less ally and one more target. The terror campaign could go on, intensely, for a year or two. But eventually, the "fighting" Taliban are going to run out of money, men and places to hide.
#3
I wouldn't be too quick to write the Taliban out of the game. They are still quite actively training and recruiting teens and the mentally handicapped as suicide bombers in the sanctuary regions of Pakistan, where they enjoy a huge amount of support from the government. More sophisticated weapons and tactics are being developed there as well. It is to their advantage to permit ISAF to enjoy the illusion of success and watch the inevitable Allied pullout. The US military and political structure continues to lament "there is no military solution in Afghanistan." We have essentially admitted defeat and are attempting to find the back door. The Taliban are more than willing to back off and show us the way.
#4
Remember you don't have to kill the Taliban, just cripple it enough to allow the other predators in that environment will finish it off. While they have friends, they have also been making many enemies who loath them for the thugs they have become without a mask of religion.
#5
The Taliban are more than willing to back off and show us the way.
Even if we withdraw, the only way we can lose in Afghanistan is if we end military aid to Karzai's administration. Unfortunately, our default policy has been all-or-nothing. When we decided that Chiang Kai-Shek wasn't perfect, we ended aid to him, as the Soviets increased aid to Chinese Communists (and paid with the lives of 100K GI's in Korea and Vietnam). When we withdrew from South Vietnam in 1973, we ended aid to the RVN government, even as the Soviets and the Chinese ramped up aid to North Vietnam (and paid with the lives of thousands of American dead - via loss of deterrence - from then on until 9/11). When the Afghans outlasted the Soviets, we stopped aid to Ahmad Shah Massoud, leaving the door open for the Pakistanis to install the Taliban in power and plot the 9/11 attacks using Saudi cutouts. Here's an illuminating excerpt about the much-maligned Najibullah's staying power:
The civil war continued in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan deep in winter, with intimations of panic among Kabul officials. The Afghan mujahideen were poised to attack provincial towns and cities and eventually Kabul, if necessary.
Najibullah's regime, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was however able to remain in power until 1992. Ironically, until demoralized by the defections of its senior officers, the Afghan Army had achieved a level of performance it had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. Kabul had achieved a stalemate that exposed the mujahideen's weaknesses, political and military. But for nearly three years, while Najibullah's government successfully defended itself against mujahideen attacks, factions within the government had also developed connections with its opponents.
According to Russian publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main trigger for Najibullah losing power was Russia's refusal to sell oil products to Afghanistan in 1992 for political reasons (the new Yeltsin government did not want to support the former communists), which effectively triggered an embargo. The defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam and his Uzbek militia, in March 1992, further undermined Najibullah's control of the state. In April, Najibullah and his communist government fell to the mujahideen, who replaced Najibullah with a new governing council for the country.
I suspect a billion dollars a year in military aid to Karzai's administration could keep the country free of Taliban rule. It would certainly be cheaper than the $100B a year we're spending on keeping GI's in-country. Heck, make it $5B, and it would be close to Pakistan's annual military budget of $6.41B, and still way cheaper than a US presence.
HT to AOSHQ sidebar
As long as there are men like Sgt. Rogers and towns like Brandon, Mississippi this nation will endure and triumph over all enemies foreign and domestic
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2011
08:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
Viet Vets got the screwed reception, understood. You could take solace that the vast majority of Americans didn't feel that way then, and the video is as much for you as it is for Sgt Rogers.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2011 13:20
Comments ||
Top||
#5
I can't explain my feelings.
Today, people of all stripes seem to circle the wagons to defend the honor of our fallen warriors. Perhaps part of this is the backlash to the abominable behavior of the vocal minority of the 70s.
#1
Yes, pretty lame reasoning, besides...A year and a half earlier, in Tripoli, he described Gaddafi as AmericaÂ’s friend:
1) for the past decade no world-led criticism of Khadaffy.
2) smiles that he put away his chem-weapons program
3) smiles that he ships oil freely
4) smiles when his country was seated at the UN's Commission on Human Rights
5) Libyan opposition starts looting armories and shooting at Gov. forces to depose Khadaffy
6) Khadaffy responds
7) The West declares it unfair and supports the insurgents, whose sentiments are unknown.
Actually have more contempt for McShame than Obama...least Obama signaled what was coming and McShame still pretends to be a conservative. Get his family off the stage.
Posted by: jack salami ||
04/24/2011 8:59
Comments ||
Top||
#2
I'd give a barrel of Shiner Bock to anyone who gives a credible and logical account the Libyan circus!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 12:50
Comments ||
Top||
#4
re #3 - two words: Meghan McCain
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2011 14:39
Comments ||
Top||
#5
ION MCCAIN, PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > STALEMATE IN LIBYA WOULD DRAW IN AL-QAEDA, as per Civilian Angst + Pol Chaos.
versus
* NEWS KERALA [old] > ADM MULLEN: WAR IN LIBYA MOVING TOWARDS STALEMATE. No hard or conclusive evidence found of Libyuhn involvement [yet?]as per Al-Qaeda + other Hard Boyz.
Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someoneÂ’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on.
Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin's Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”
#1
I hate these light bulbs for many reasons: 1. they don't last any longer than incandescent bulbs so far as I can tell, 2. they are more expensive, 3. they are ugly 4. China makes them, 5. they require a major clean-up if you follow guidelines (I doubt anyone does), and 6. they are toxic and a carcinogen. Screw this government solution to energy problems. It is like Obumble notion of inflating your tires to save gas. Dismantle the EPA and the DOE--they are useless for addressing energy or environmental problems.
#2
Second that JohnQC, especially points 1 and 2. I have been using these for a couple years now in the hard to reach places and they don't do a noticable difference, except the range of light they emmit makes everything look like the inside of a freezer, and have a suspician any power surges, like those caused by storm, kick their little rotini butts.
h/t Instapundit
The U.S. dollar's downward slide is accelerating as low interest rates, inflation concerns and the massive federal budget deficit undermine the currency.
With no relief in sight for the dollar on any of those fronts, the downward pressure on the dollar is widely expected to continue.
The dollar fell nearly 1% against a broad basket of currencies this week, following a drop of similar size last week. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index closed at its lowest level since August 2008, before the financial crisis intensified.
#1
As the dollar drops, watch the other trading countries come up with new and interesting 'regulations' and 'standards' to act as trade barriers to cheaper American produced goods and materials. Suckers.
#2
The young seem to believe the rhetoric out of Washington. I heard my son say that we should have the rich pay more taxes. This was unusual for him to say. I said several things to point him in the proper direction but how effective I was remains to be seen. The thought that others should pay is growing in this country unfortunately. During the riots here if you were perceived to have anything more than another you would have to give it up, one way or another.
#3
Soros' Bretton Woods Conference Accelerates Push for New Global Economy ItÂ’s been two weeks since George Soros bought himself a major economic conference designed to remake the entire global economy. Just because the event received little major news attention, it still had an impact Americans might be reeling from for years.
When the anti-American Soros spent $50 million creating the New York City-based Institute for New Economic Thinking(INET), he began a major move against the dollar. The billionaire who once crushed the British pound through currency trading openly declared his plans to “reform the currency system.” In the Machiavellian mind of Soros, the dollar needed to take a back seat and end its stint as the world reserve currency. “The dollar no longer enjoys the trust and confidence that it once did, yet no other currency can take its place,” he wrote in late 2009.
In 2011, he is already pushing aside the dollar. “The big question is whether the U.S. dollar should be the reserve currency; and, in fact, it no longer is,” Soros told Bloomberg. He’s not the only one. Nobel Prize winning economist and Soros buddy Joseph Stiglitz said he is arguing for “a global reserve currency.” Stiglitz, who also chairs the U.N. General Assembly on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System, called for a new “global system,” saying the current one is “fundamentally unfair because it means that poor countries are lending to the U.S. at close to zero interest rates.”
In the short time following the Soros-funded Bretton Woods event, the move against the dollar has gained momentum rapidly. Soros wrote in 2009 that “the rising powers must be present at the creation of this new system to ensure that they will be active supporters.” Here come those rising powers right now, singing the Soros tune.
Open borders and an open economy are open invitations for predators, some in pinstripes.
#4
AH! at last the infamous #1(Prisoner TV series).
Mr P of 2K, Imports will decline?. I hope but the tentacles run deep into the fabric of this economy.
Consumer nation perhaps no more. That will throw a wrench into the domestic and world economies. Temporally however. Brazil. Chile, and Norway are booming and will get stronger while we flounder.
#5
I believe the US is undergoing default by devaluation. The too-big-to-fail financial institutions are being supported by devaluation, the rest of us are paying for it. This is how the Mother of All Bailouts is playing out. Soros is just a convenient demon, but he is only taking advantage of this opportunity the US has provided him. Click here for a nice graph of the value of the dollar compared to the cost of crude.
The alternative to devaluation would have been forcing the Pig Men to eat their bad loans whether or not it killed them. Can't have that, you know. On top of that the banking executives and the banks themselves have not been indicted for any of their many felonies. The rule of law is also being devalued.
#6
Things are never straightforward. "Black George" Soros (real name Schwartz György) hopes to become the great world tyrant, yet while he can make money, and endless schemes, he does not truly understand power, nor does he know that he is mortal. With his demise, the world will once again have a breath of fresh air.
As far as the economic situation in the world, the problem is less the damage that outright trillion dollar gambling has done, but that the gaming is allowed to continue without hindrance. Yet the solution to both is surprisingly easy.
By hook or by crook, the US will default on its debts. And while that prospect is horrifying to many, the truth is that it might be the most painless conclusion to much of this nonsense.
This is because US debt is not based on the core capital of its creditors, but the profits those creditors have earned by selling the US vast amounts of goods. So if the US defaults, while they will be out their profits, it will not be as devastating to them as if it took away their core money.
To show how nonsensical this is, much of the US trade deficit with China is in the millions of empty shipping containers, built in China to carry goods to the US, and too expensive to ship back empty, now rusting peacefully in the US. Each of those containers cost the US about $100,000, that we "owe" China.
Just outside the port of Los Angeles, over a million of these containers now rust. That can add up to some real bucks. But nobody cares.
So, with the stroke of a pen, the US tells China that they will not be paid for these containers. China spent a fortune to mine the ore, refine it into steel, and use that steel to build shipping containers. But in the process, it profited from mining, and it profited from making steel plants, that still remain even if the US defaults.
So while China will be upset with the US, and its economy will be upended for a while, in the long term it will recover, and still be strong.
And the US, on renouncing its foreign debt, while it will no longer get vast amounts of cheap goods from overseas, except in trade swaps, will have to rebuild its industries, which will do much to revitalize our economy.
#7
Wow so much economic stupidity on one page it's untrue.
I expect a little more sense.
If you think about a falling dollar as a pay cut, and then start thinking "wow that makes me more employable" maybe you should lower your pay some more?
#11
Agreed, OS. But AH9418 is also correct. So long as there are opportunities, there will be opportunists.
Curious to see the Fed's first official press conference on the 27th. Turbo Timmy recently insisted there was "zero risk" of a ratings downgrade, while the S&P itself places that risk at 1/3. Something cooking? A surprise halt to the legalized counterfeiting known as QE2? I'll believe it when I see it.
#13
Things are never straightforward. "Black George" Soros (real name Schwartz György) hopes to become the great world tyrant, yet while he can make money, and endless schemes, he does not truly understand power, nor does he know that he is mortal. With his demise, the world will once again have a breath of fresh air.
I don't think so. Once the socialist-lite folks pave the way, the heavies move in. The socialist path must be rolled up and incinerated, along with whatever channels of power allow it to happen, whatever form those "channels" happen to take.
As for the dollar's final value, it will depend on how long it takes those dollars to filter down through the pyramid and find their level of stability in the world stage. I know nothing about economy, but it seems to me that it should take on the order of two to four years after each infusion at the top for this money to make it out into the open. It seems to me that unless Obean et. al. manage to admit that all of their economic theory is based on crap, and can somehow artificially slow this process until after he is elected, many of his stimulii will be hitting the market about the time the next presidential election hits.
Of course, this is all assuming that they speak what is in their hearts, and is not based on some ulterior motivations.
Either way, this is all wrong and must be reversed. Any "halt" before a reverse is just a delaying action to increase the likelihood that we go into an irreversible decline. Deficits must not be halted, they must be turned into a surplus as soon as possible. The debt trend needs to be reversed now and paid off within the next eight years, and a short, simple constitutional amendment for the common citizen to understand for a balanced budged based on simple, honest accounting principles must be passed. War might be an exception, but not be allowed to be used for an excuse.
#14
Schwartz Gyorgy should be put down and on his way down, he should be made to confess publicly about his crimes against humanity that he has never atoned for. He is not a lightweight anything, he is an evil SOB.
Posted by: Fi ||
04/24/2011 17:04
Comments ||
Top||
#15
gorb: As for the dollar's final value
Zero. Well, the paper + ink.
it will depend on how long it takes those dollars to filter down
Nay, unless you mean the time to zero is uncertain.
on the order of two to four years after each infusion at the top
Average is two years. Weimar Ben is fully aware of this.
somehow artificially slow this process
That's the point of the current extend-and-pretend. There are different ways to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, and so far they're choosing default-by-inflation.
many of his stimulii will be hitting the market about the time the next presidential election hits.
That's the only "good" news, especially if there is a QE3: unemployment won't budge and gas and food costs will be through the roof.
You said it, Canuck: go long pitchforks and torches! And maybe Hewlett Packard, heh.
#18
Essentially, 'reserve currencies' underpin world trade.
Getting rid of the USD as the world's currency would crash the world's trading system, because there isn't a viable alternative.
We would go back to the 19th century when the British paid for everything in gold. And there isn't nearly enough gold to support the current levels of world trade.
#19
phil_b, Essentially, 'reserve currencies' underpin world trade
Only since the Bretton Woods System, which seem to be unravelling by the day. Getting rid of the USD as the world's currency would crash the world's trading system, because there isn't a viable alternative
There's always gold.
We would go back to the 19th century when the British paid for everything in gold. And there isn't nearly enough gold to support the current levels of world trade.
It's a pity more people are not aware of Richard Cantillion The Irishman who founded Political economics.
Here is how he described payment for foreign trade in 1720: (page 193) There is an expense associated with transporting
money based on the distance, risks, and other transaction costs. Bills of Exchange are a type of contract that can reduce this cost by avoiding shipments that are offsetting between two locations. When money must be sent, bankers
charge a fee for arranging the shipment and providing their customers with a bill of exchange, or check, that can be drawn or cashed at a correspondent bank where the money is sent. When the exchange rate is above par, it indicates a balance of payments deficit, and when the
exchange rate is below par, it indicates a balance of payments surplus.
so although bills were denominated in gold, very little gold was used. With allowances made for the massive increases in communications, there is no reason why a similar system cannot now be used.
It would certainly sort out some of the crazy things going on in currency markets.
#20
AFAIC QE2 = QE3 = QE??? = the USSR imploded so that post-Cold War, post-9-11 America = Amerika can adopt Soviet accounting-budget methods, espec BLACK WRITEOFFS = GOOD-FOR-THE-OWG-AMERIKAN-POLITBURO "BLACK BOOKS"???
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > THE US BEGINS TO THINK ABOUT DEFAULTING ON ITS DEBT | [AP] US DEFAULT COULD BE A DISASTROUS CHOICE FOR ECONOMY.
CMF POSTER = de facto US DEFAULT = even lead to US SOCIETAL BREAKDOWN = IMPOSITION OF MARTIAL LAW!?
"Martial Law = IMO not necessarily in only the OWG Mighty USSA = OWG Weak USRoA that once again SSSSSHHHHH..CCCCCCCorrectness NO AMERICAN FORMALLY VOTED FOR.
* Also from SAME > CHINA BRAVELY CHALLENGES US PREDOMINANCE.
Again, CHINA is prob quietly thanking the GOD OF EARTHQUAKES for 03/11 + JAPAN'S FUKUSHIMA CRISIS.
However imperfect, Radical Islam sees real opportunity to achieve de facto OWG ISLAMIST CALIPHATE [Nuclear?] thanks to Political-Legal Jihad + the "Jasmine"-led ME Uprisings, while Rising China stands to ANNEX OR DOMINATE ECON, RADIATION-TROUBLED JAPAN, + KOREAS + RECOVER TAIWAN, OKINAWA [ancient RYUKYUS vassal state].
JAPAN = EGYPT?, while SOUTH KOREA = JASMINE-SURROUNDED US ALLY "ISRAEL" = CUSTER AT THE PLA'S "LITTLE BIG HORN"???
#21
tipper, bills of exchange and other trade finance documents are, as noted, transferrable cheques (I can't recall if checks are transferrable in the USA).
19th century British bills of exchange could be redeemed for gold at various locations as could British currency.
Interestingly, foreign holders of US currency could redeem them for gold up until 1971.
As the Chinese are now discovering, selling goods abroad for dollars that are not immediately spent overseas, results in these unspent dollars being progressively stolen by the US government through its huge deficit (and the money printed to support it).
The Chinese talk of not using USD in its reserves are just so much posturing, because export led growth is the foundation of the Chinese economy. And having a few 10 of billions stolen from them each year is a small price to pay.
#22
phil_b. 19th century British bills of exchange could be redeemed for gold at various locations as could British currency.
Basically they were using the "spot price" which could be months out of date. This spot price could also differ from the mint price. Newton spent his considerable talents trying to come up with a solution and failed. He received a well deserved serve from Cantillion for his ham-fistnedness. With the spot price for gold now being available 24/7 all these problems are now obsolete. Just as a Chines company which sells to the US denominates its contract in dollars but received Yuan when it presents its check to the bank in China, there is no reason why the contract should not be denominated in gold. However if they wished for gold they would have to go further and buy gold on the spot market. The fear has always been the volatility of the gold price, however with the price of gold going through the roof, that should not be a problem for the seller at present .
The Chinese talk of not using USD in its reserves are just so much posturing, because export led growth is the foundation of the Chinese economy. And having a few 10 of billions stolen from them each year is a small price to pay
Their export trade with the US is now only 18% and rapidly declining. That fear might have existed a few years ago, but I doubt it does now.
At the April 13 meeting in Brussels of the West Bank/Gaza donors group known as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank presented reports arguing that the Palestinians are ready for statehood. As they're busy proving right now, no bunch of Arabs is ready for self-rule.
#1
"Is the Palestinian Authority really ready for statehood?"
Not in this century. Probably not the next one either (assuming any of those clowns are still around).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 10:35
Comments ||
Top||
#2
So they shoot rockets and missles at civilians in Israel. So they would murder civilians if they weren't denied by that illegal and repressive wall. So they would bomb cafe's and schools... So what?
It isn't as if they would hurt anyone of import - only Joos...
#3
Sure they are ready for statehood. Give it to them. Then when they lob rockets into Israel, treat them like a hostile aggressive nation under the laws of war. Statehood is a two edged sword.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2011 14:14
Comments ||
Top||
#4
Jusr a reminder: Killing bad guys is hungry work.
#5
Alaska Paul, that's what I thought at first. But then I realized that the laws of war don't apply to new Muslim nations, especially ones like Palestine, who have suffered soooo much at the hands of the Jooos. So, in their case, striking out at their former oppressors is just natural justice. If Israel strikes back, it is only because they are continuing their natural blood lust.
/sarcasm (as if you had to be reminded).
Inge Höger, a Left Party member of the Bundestag who was aboard the Mavi Marmara when it tried to break the blockade of Gaza last May, had reportedly attributed the recent murders by Palestinians of pro- Palestinian Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis and Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni to Israel’s government. Just saying what they all think
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 10:37
Comments ||
Top||
#2
I would say "leftist", because such people owe no allegiance to their nation, no matter which one it is. Or perhaps it would be better to call her "ethnically German".
It gets muddled. Leftists are often antisemitic, even Jewish leftists.
Group of 15 Breslev hassidim hit with gunfire from Palestinian Authority policeman as they leave Joseph's Tomb prayers; group didn't coordinate visit with IDF; PA officer identified "suspicious" individuals, fired. Ain't Peace wonderful?
Christians in the town of Gojra are making muted preparations for Easter this year. Residents of the neighbourhood called Christian Colony are haunted by memories of a 2009 attack in which seven members of a family were killed and dozens of houses torched by a Muslim mob.
"If we celebrate it with a fanfare, we fear somebody might get annoyed and attack us," said Khalid Anjum, 45.
The only sign of the approach of Easter was a few young men practicing hymns in St. Mary's Catholic Church. "Fear is there but we cannot give up our religion," said Wilson Rafiq who plays the tabla.
The level of fear has increased since Monday's death sentence for a Muslim convicted of gunning down two Christians who had been accused of blasphemy.
Rather then welcoming what some people might see as justice,
Way to maintain the facade of neutrality, Reuters.
Christians fear the consequences if the sentence is carried out.
"Things will only get worse. If one is punished, someone else will stand up to take revenge for him," housewife Shahida Kashif said. "My kids still get scared whenever there's a small disturbance. They say 'Mother, they've come. They'll set fire to our houses again'. They still have fear in their hearts."
A mob of about 1,000 Muslims, fired up by rumours that a Christian had desecrated the Koran, rampaged through the neighborhood, firing guns and throwing gasoline bombs. Hameed Pannum Khan was gunned down and six members of his family, including two women and two children, were burned to death when their hut was set on fire.
Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a Muslim firebrand prayer leader, was locked up for 15 months for inciting the attack. He was recently released after Christians, fearing attacks from his continued detention, told authorities they had no proof of his involvement.
Kashmiri denied taking part in it and made an appeal for tolerance. "Everybody should follow their own religion and should stop slinging mud at others," he said.
#1
Christians in Pakistan live in a true climate of hate, but we never hear anything about "Christianphobia." Islamists in the West make out like bandits yet we never hear the end of "Islamophobia" accusations.
Posted by: American Delight ||
04/24/2011 6:10
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Paki Christians are also repor claiming that they are being persecuted by local Muslims due to the US Drone attacks which Islamabad, Locals allege had killed many Paki civiians, mostly Muslims.
#1
Presbyterian church has been on the wrong side of the fence for decades. Heck, maybe somebody will attend one of their services today after all, today. But it won't be a muslim.
Posted by: Jack Flulet8369 ||
04/24/2011 1:23
Comments ||
Top||
#2
Oh, how perfectly precious. Now, if someone actually sits down and reads the Koran, and understands fully what is contained therein ... will that do all that much for the cause of toleration and understanding?
#5
I'm confused. What does spreading the Christian faith have to do with giving out Korans? Or do I have an out of date idea about Christianity and religion?
Posted by: john frum ||
04/24/2011 16:09
Comments ||
Top||
Pastor Terry Jones told The Detroit News that he will file a lawsuit against the Wayne County Prosecutor's office and others in connection with his arrest on Friday and the case filed against him over his planned protest outside the Islamic Center of America.
"We were arrested for something we had not done," said Jones at Detroit Metro Airport. "I was totally shocked. I could not believe it. Even the police who put the handcuffs on us were shocked." Jones said of his arrest.
Jones is working with the Thomas More Law Center to file the lawsuit for violating his free speech rights. The Thomas More Law Center filed a suit against the City of Dearborn last year. That case involved the rights of Christian missionaries jailed by police at the city's International Arab Festival. The missionaries wanted to pass out literature but police said they could only do so in a certain area.
Constitution expert Robert Sedler is happy to see Jones challenging the "bizarre" ruling by Dearborn District Court Judge Mark Somers. "The Supreme Court says you cannot deny a permit because of the message. The U.S. Constitution supersedes everything, which is why this is so bizarre," said Sedler, a Wayne State University Law School professor.
Jones will return to Dearborn on Friday. He plans to hold the demonstration at 5 p.m. Friday outside Dearborn City Hall. He says he does not want to violate the law. The topic has now shifted from "radical Islam" to a fight to protect the First Amendment. Jones called the proceedings "a definite violation of our Constitutional rights."
Some observers claimed the judge's actions were unusual but Somers had followed the letter of the law. Richard Fournier, who attended the first day of the trial, says he doesn't think their constitutional rights were violated because their protest could have created an uproar and possibly a riot.
#3
Richard Fournier, who attended the first day of the trial, says he doesn't think their constitutional rights were violated because their protest could have created an uproar and possibly a riot.
The point is they jailed him for no reason. He hadn't broken any laws. It's kind of like jailing Judge Mark Somers for rape - alter all he (presumably) has all the equipment.
#1
I think most people were already aware of this. The NYT is somewhat behind the curve, as usual... wil their next story be about the election of Harry Truman as president?
Posted by: Tom ||
04/24/2011 7:54
Comments ||
Top||
We knew before it started that it wouldn't work, except as a sop to Bambi's minions friends.
Not disappointed, disgusted.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/24/2011 12:40
Comments ||
Top||
#7
There is nothing but stupid in that rag of a paper. I have blocked it from all of my machines because of RHTHVN crap as well as I do not want to give sewage my patronage. This stupid rag of a paper wanted obama so bad, and now they are turning on him. They have not had a truthful article in more than ten years. Screw you schulturder.
#10
The "stimulus" was never intended to repair the economy. Watch Robert Reich and Charlie Rangel discuss turning it from an infrastructure plan into a slush fund for the Democrats' victim groups:
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
04/24/2011 22:37
Comments ||
Top||
[Pak Daily Times] Syrian forces killed at least six people on Saturday when they fired on mourners calling for the end of President Bashar al Assad's rule at mass funerals of pro-democracy protesters shot a day earlier.
Witnesses and rights campaigners said security forces killed three people in 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... 's Barzah district and a further three when they fired at mourners trying to join funerals near Izra'a in southern Syria, where at least 12 burials were taking place.
The mourners were chanting "Bashar al Assad, you traitor! Long live Syria, down with Bashar!"
"There was a heavy volley of gunfire in our direction as we approached Izra'a to join the funerals of deaders," a witness from the southern city of Deraa who came to join the burials told journalists.
Security forces also shot up a funeral in Damascus's Douma suburb, wounding three people, witnesses there said.
Mourners in Harasta, a town near Damascus, also came under fire from security forces, before staging a sit-in to demand the release of detainees tossed in the clink in the last few weeks.
Protesters staged another sit-in after a funeral for four people from Irbeen, near Damascus. "We are not leaving until the political prisoners are released," one protester told journalists by phone.
Friday was by far the bloodiest day in over a month of demonstrations to demand political freedoms and an end to corruption, with at least 100 people killed, said two activists.
Friday's violence, in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a, brings the corpse count to more than 300, according to activists, since unrest broke out on March 18 in Deraa.
Damascus remained tense on Saturday and many people stayed indoors, one activist told journalists from the capital.
"This is becoming like a snowball and getting bigger and bigger every week. Anger is rising, the street is boiling," he said.
Two Syrian politicians, both from Deraa, told al Jazeera television they were resigning from parliament in protest at the killing of demonstrators. Theirs were the first resignations from within Assad's autocratic regime.
"Security solutions do not work," said one of the politicians, Khalil al Rifaei.
Syrian parliament is effectively appointed by the authorities. Resignations were unheard of before the protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
Several killed in pro-democracy anti-Alawite protests in Syria
[Bangla Daily Star] The head of the Committees for the Defence of Democracy, Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria was incarcerated yesterday at his home in the northwestern city of Banias, lawyer Khalil Maatouk told AFP.
"Security services incarcerated rights activist Daniel Saud today at his home in Banias and took him to Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location," Maatouk said.
The move came after President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... on Thursday decreed an end to emergency rule, in force in Syria for nearly 50 years.
"This signifies that the security services are continuing to act" as they did before the emergency law was lifted, Maatouk said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Pak Daily Times] Thousands of civilians have decamped heavy festivities between rebels and south Sudan's army in key oil-producing Unity state, officials said on Saturday.
"The fighting in recent days has been very fierce, and the people have been running away from the violence to safety," said Charles Machieng, commissioner of Mayom county, the area of heaviest fighting. "Although we have no reports of fighting today (Saturday), assessments show that there are 3,800 civilians who have decamped, many who are here in Mayom town because their houses have been destroyed," he added. Clashes in the soon-to-be-independent south broke out on Tuesday between the army and the rebels, one of at least seven separate militia groups battling the southern government.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
[Al Jazeera] Rights organisations are calling on the Bahraini government to halt what they term human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations, and to stop a crackdown on hospitals where doctors and patients suspected of being sympathetic to pro-democracy protests have been placed in durance vile.
In separate statements on Friday, Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Amnesia Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights slammed the government's attacks on medical staff.
London-based Amnesty urged the international community to step in to stop the crackdown, or risk being accused of having "double standards".
"North American and European governments, so vocal recently in espousing the cause of human rights in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, need also to speak out loudly about what is going on in Bahrain," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesia Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa.
"To avoid the charge of double standards, they must be much more robust in pressing the Bahraini authorities to uphold their international human rights obligations."
In a statement on Friday, Huda Nunu, Bahrain's ambassador to the US, denied the allegations. No, no! Certainly not!
Nunu said that the kingdom had not targeted or attacked doctors and patients and that the medical establishments in Bahrain were operating normally.
'Cleverly planned'
In a new report, Amnesty accused the Bahraini government of launching "a cleverly planned and orchestrated crackdown using excessive force to suppress protests calling for political change and reform".
Amnesty said that security forces' use of shotguns, rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as live ammunition in some cases, was unjustified.
It said that more than 500 people have been placed in durance vile in the last month in the tiny Gulf island country, which has seen a series of protests against the current monarchy-led government since February 14.
At least four detainees have died while in jug under "suspicious circumstances", Amnesty said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
[Pak Daily Times] An eight-year-old minor was killed and another was injured when a remote-controlled bomb went off in the guesthouse of a former head of a peace committee in Shahoowam area of Hangu district. ... Hangu is famous for its greenery, hills, beauty and water. Most of the people of this area are Bangash & Orakzai Pashtuns. Part of the Bangash are Shia. The Orakzai and the Sunni Bangash are determined to kill them... The kaboom severely damaged the guesthouse building. According to Station House Officer (SHO), Islam Din, unidentified hard boyz had planted a remote-controlled bomb in the guesthouse of Hafiz Sakhiur Rehman in Shahoowam, Hangu district. As a result of the kaboom, an eight-year-old boy, Imran, was struck down in his prime, while 30-year-old Ayaz was critically injured. The dear departed and the injured were shifted to the Hangu District Headquarters Hospital. Rehman was a terrorist commander, who surrendered and said that he would support the security forces. He fought against hard boyz along with the security forces and was made head of a peace committee.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Pak Daily Times] Fierce festivities on the Thai-Cambodia border have left 10 dead and forced thousands to flee the worst bloodshed since a UN ceasefire appeal in February, officials said Saturday.
The two countries exchanged heavy weapons fire for a second straight day on their disputed jungle frontier, the scene of a series of deadly gunbattles in recent years. Three Cambodian troops and one Thai soldier were killed Saturday, according to officials in the two countries, a day after three soldiers died on each side.
Cambodia accused Thailand of using 75mm and 105mm "heavy guns loaded with poisonous gas" and said in a defence ministry statement that Thai military aircraft flew "deep into Cambodia's airspace".Thailand denied the claims, which could not be independently verified. A Cambodian field commander, Suos Sothea, said the gas caused some soldiers who inhaled it to feel weak but did not cause serious injury. He also accused Thailand of using cluster bombs.
Thailand recently admitted using controversial Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions during the February fighting but insisted it did not classify them as cluster munitions.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
CNN + FOX NEWS this AM = it appears the border combat is still going on for Day #3.
#3
Control of militarily strategic border areas that also happen to contain ancient Temple plexes.
* PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > THAI PM VOWS TO BACK ARMY IN DEFENSE OF TERRITORIES.
* NEWS KERALA > THAILAND DENIES CHEMICAL WEAPONS [75-105mm Arty Shells]USED AGZ CAMBODIA, as per new border clashes.
----------
ION REGIONAL
* PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > [Lowery Institute poll = under 1/2 of Aussies surveyed] AUSSIES FEAR
THREAT OF WAR WID CHINA, circa Year 2030+? ala desire by China for AUS Land + Resources.
OVERWHELMING MAJORITY = believe any outbreak of US-China War in Asia-Pacific will inevitably involve Australia on the US side; FAVOR SUPPOR SOUTH KOREA [+ US] IFF ANY WAR BREAKS OUT ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA.
* DAILY TIMES.PK > NORTH KOREA DIPLOMACY AT A CROSSROADS: TALK OR TROUBLE?
Gonna be a "near/tricky thing" as Churchill once said.
Again, SOKOR has a vested interest in ensuring that China does NOT take over NOKOR for any reason, ee War or Econ Collapse = Attrition. KIMMIE WANTS THE SAME THING BUT IDEALLY NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF DYNASTIC RULE + POWER, OR MAJOR CHANGES TO NOKOR-STYLE SOCIALISM.
IMO the JAPAN "FUKUSHIMA" CRISIS is diverting China's attention away from the Kimmie agenda - iff Japan is ultimately abandoned by Japanese due to excessive radiation-led environ destruction, or otherwise becom milpol dominated + suborned under mainland China, NOKOR WILL NO LONGER RECV PRIORITY IN CHINA'S EYES WHICH WILL NOT DO FOR KIMMIE + DYNASTY-REGIME.
Remember, the KIM CLAN + NOKOR COMMIES had promised, among other, that the DPRK = COMMIE UNIFIED KOREA will be a "GREAT POWER/NATION" again one day under their Leadership.
Kimmie is NOT like Uncle Muammar in Libyuh as per National Progressivism, but IMO he is like Muammar in that, in the absence of international concessions/kowtowing, Kimmie will choose to fight to the death to preserve His + Dynasty's political power.
IMO KIMMIE WILL HAVE NO QUALMS ABOUT STARTING A MAJOR US-CHINA WAR [incl. use of Nuke Weapons] TO PRESERVE PERSONAL, DYNASTIC POWER, OR IN THE ALTERN ENSURE THAT NO ONE HAS POWER [mutual destruction].
IOW, KIMMIE = GADDAFI = ITS FOR SOKOR + UNO + US, OTHER ALLIES TO CONCEDE, NOT HIM.
[Pak Daily Times] A man was killed while another sustained injuries in a landmine blast in Dera Murad Jamali on Saturday. According to levies authorities, two people were on their way home when their cycle of violence hit a landmine in Goth Gul Ghanwar area of Rabi Canal. As a result, a man identified as Akhtar was struck down in his prime while his friend Nadeem sustained serious injuries and was admitted to a hospital. The levies have started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the unidentified terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Pak Daily Times] Libyan troops captured by rebels in Misrata said on Saturday the army had been ordered to retreat from the western port, and a rebel front man said soldiers had booby-trapped bodies and buildings as they decamped.
The last large city held by rebels in western Libya, Misrata had been under a punishing government siege for nearly two months and hundreds of civilians have died in the fighting.
"We have been told to withdraw. We were told to withdraw yesterday," one government soldier, Khaled Dorman, told journalists from the back of a pickup truck
He was among 12 maimed soldiers brought to a hospital for treatment in Misrata, 200 kilometres east of Tripoli. Blasts and machinegun fire could be heard in the distance.
Another serviceman, asked by a correspondent if the government had lost control of Misrata, said "yes".
Rebel front man Gemal Salem later told journalists by telephone from Misrata that Muammar Qadaffy's forces had left the city but remained outside and would still be in a position to bombard it.
"Misrata is free, the rebels have won. Of Qadaffy's forces, some are killed and others are running away," he said.
Salem said the rebels in Misrata would now help those elsewhere in western Libya against Qadaffy's forces, who cracked down on the west early on in the uprising against the Libyan leader's four-decade-old rule after the east fell to the rebels.
The Libyan government acknowledged late on Friday the siege had been broken when rebels seized the port and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... air strikes had taken their toll. "The tactic of the Libyan army is to have a surgical solution, but it doesn't work, with the air strikes it doesn't work," Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said.
"The situation in Misrata will be eased, will be dealt with by the tribes around Misrata and the rest of Misrata's people and not by the Libyan army," he told news hounds in Tripoli.
The United States carried out its first drone strike in Libya on Saturday, the Pentagon said, two days after approving the use of pilotless aircraft to aid rebels fighting Moammar Qadaffy's forces.
"The first Predator strike in Libya occurred today in the early afternoon local time," a US military press front man said in a statement.
But he said there would be no further information about the target or where the strike occurred. "Per common practice we are not providing any details," the front man added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But he said there would be no further information about the target or where the strike occurred.
[An Nahar] Tribesmen and al-Qaeda beturbanned goons killed 22 people, all but two of them soldiers, and captured dozens of others in separate attacks over a 24-hour period, security and tribal sources said on Friday.
"Al-Qaeda beturbanned goons ambushed a military patrol near Safer (oil fields), in (the eastern province of) Marib, killing 11 soldiers," a security official in Sanaa said. The assailants used machine-guns in Friday's attack.
Also in Marib, two soldiers were killed, two maimed and 30 taken prisoner in a clash with rustics, said another security official and a tribal source. Six rustics were also maimed.
The rustics, armed with anti-aircraft guns, attacked a military convoy trying to open the main Sanaa-Marib road, which the tribes have blocked in protest at local grievances.
Security officials later said unknown gunnies on Friday rubbed out a soldier in the restive southern province of Abyan, an al-Qaeda bastion, raising the army's corpse count to 20.
On Thursday, a fierce clash between armed rustics and troops of Yemen's elite Republican Guard in the southern province of Lahij left at least six soldiers and two rustics dead, security officials said.
The festivities broke out over the army's refusal to redeploy a Republican Guard unit from the mountain village of Labus, according to tribal sources.
Yemen, a deeply tribal country on the Arabian Peninsula, has been the scene of deadly protests since late January calling for the ouster of President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The protests have led to defections and festivities within the army. But the Republican Guard, headed by Saleh's son, Ahmed, has remained loyal to the embattled president.
Besides anti-regime protests, Yemen has been battling a secessionist movement in the south, a Shiite rebellion in the north and an al-Qaeda resurgence on its soil.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saleh's fall or replacement by a weaker leader would pose "a real problem" for Washington's fight against al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Police are trying to establish whether three suspects arrested on the Kenya-Somalia border have any connections with Al-Shabaab.
Anti-terorism officials were also said to have increased security for the Ugandan High Commission in Nairobi over terrorism threats, unit chief Nicholas Kamwende said.
Mr Kamwende said police had information that the Uganda High Commission was likely to be hit and they were closely monitoring the area.
And Diplomatic Police boss Allan Sangoro said patrols and surveillance had been enhanced in most foreign missions in Kenya.
"We would not want to state who is targeted more than the other, but what I can say is that all the missions are adequately covered," said Mr Sangoro. He said some of the officers were operating covertly and had been briefed adequately.
Military front man Bogita Ongeri acknowledged that Al-Shabaab posed a credible threat to Kenya and the entire region, and even beyond.
Mr Ongeri said Operation Linda Nchi was going on well and normality had been restored along the border with Somalia. He also urged the militia group to fight its own wars, and not extend its aggression to Kenya.
"A time comes in the life of any nation to choose between submission and aggression," said Mr Ongeri in a commentary published elsewhere in this newspaper.
The increased surveillance comes against the backdrop of the arrest of a Sudanese national who was in possession of bomb making materials including powder, matches and assorted wires.
Two other suspects who were travelling in the same vehicle, which was intercepted by police at Liboi on the Kenya-Somali border, are also in police custody helping with investigations.
Police are trying to establish why the men were transporting dangerous items and whether they have any links to the myrmidon militia group.
The trio was travelling towards Somalia and was tossed in the calaboose at the border after the Somali-based militia issued threats to Kenya that it would bomb public places.
Kenya police had already issued a terrorism alert and asked the public to be on the lookout following the threats.
North Eastern provincial police boss Leo Nyongesa said police were questioning the foreigners.
"We are investigating the suspects to establish their motives and whether they have any links to the Al-Shabaab militia," he told the Sunday Nation on the phone.
As the Easter festivities kicked in, police in major towns were on high alert, guarding crowded shopping malls, while passengers travelling to various destinations were subjected to thorough scrutiny to ensure explosives were not smuggled into passenger buses.
Mr Nyongesa said surveillance would remain high along the mostly non-existent border.
Kenya has in the past suffered Al-Shabaab related attacks that resulted in death in Nairobi.
The war against terrorism has been complicated by reports that the militia has been recruiting Kenyan youth to join its terrorism networks.
The rag tag militia, which has been fighting over control of war-torn Somalia with the internationally backed Transitional Federal Government forces, has been a constant threat to regional security and has grabbed credit for deadly attacks including bombings in Kampala, Uganda, in which more than 70 people were killed.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Iran Press TV] More Yemeni soldiers have reportedly joined the camp of anti-government protesters, despite the possibility of being tossed in the clink by the regime.
On Saturday, the servicemen were cheered by the protesters as they started attending the demonstrations held in the capital of Sana'a's Change Square, Rooters reported.
"God willing, in a week we will force him to leave," said Salaman Ahmed al-Hawri, one protester, referring to President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh. "We are standing here with our naked chests. The youth is very enthusiastic. He (Saleh) will not stay."
Three people were also injured in an attack on anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Hajjah.
Unidentified gunnies have reportedly kidnapped a Saudi diplomat in the unrest-riddled country's capital.
Since late January, hundreds of thousands of people have turned out for regular demonstrations in main Yemeni cities, calling for corruption and unemployment to be tackled and demanding the president's departure.
Since the beginning of the popular revolution, a huge number of Saleh's loyalists, tribal allies, ranking government officials, military figures and several soldiers have defected to the opposition.
According to local sources, at least 300 protesters have been killed and many others injured during festivities with riot police and forces loyal to the Yemeni president armed with batons, knives and sticks.
Also on Saturday, medical sources said army gunfire has maimed two protesters in the southern port city of Aden.
In response to a call by the opposition, a general strike is underway in the city and many shops, businesses and schools have shut down in the cities of Hudaydah and Taizz, respectively in the west and the southwest.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
[Yemen Post] Hours after the government officially accepted the GCC new proposal to tackle the Yemeni crisis, the Joint Meeting Parties, the opposition coalition, said on Saturday it had accepted the Gulf initiative too.
The coaltion held a meeting today that discussed the proposal and gave up the term of forming a national unity government led by the opposition, front man for the coalition said.
" We agreed that the General People's Congress, the governing party, forms the national unity government from the government, the opposition and other political forces on condition the protests continue on the streets," said Muhammad Qahtan.
Furthermore, the new initiative also called for giving immunity for Saleh and his regime from prosecution after leaving office, he said.
For his part, Sultan Al-Atwani, Secretary General of the Nasserite Unionist People's Organization, said that the proposal was welcomed in general, but the outright approval depends on accepting comments on some terms in the GCC-brokered deal.
Accepting the deal, Saleh warned on Saturday of civil war unless the current crisis is tackled.
In his speech to deans, commanders and students in the military and security colleges, Saleh accused his foes of receiving funds from unnamed countries to incite chaos and oust the regime.
" The Joint Meeting Parties receive dirty money to topple the government, and those who joined them from the ruling party were agents for the opposition," he said.
" We are very interested in preventing bloodshed because the Yemeni blood is very precious and the opposition can't drag us to killing each other. Civil war will not only affect Yemen, but also the whole region and the international security," he added.
I am ready to quit but according to the constitution which stipulated change through the ballot boxes and free elections, he said, adding that the JMP is seeking to reach power through ignoring reality and democracy.
"Change is necessary but through peaceful means and without destruction or sabotage. The demands of the youths, who are on the streets, are the people's demands and I truly support these demands and suggest that the youth form their own political party," said Saleh, who is facing mounting internal and external pressure to sted down amid the escalating protests across the republic.
Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... the antigovernment protesters strongly rejected the proposal, saying it did not call for an immediate ouster of the regime.
Whatever the regime and the opposition reach or act, this never means we agree with them or we accept to abandon our demands, said a front man for the youth revolution outside Sana'a University.
Our demands are very clear and the GCC proposal did not call for meeting them immediately and directly; hence, we will continue our strife until our demands were met, said Hosam Al-Sharjabi.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
One group says it is in Libya for unfinished business with the West, especially the United States, for their role in the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts
The bastard---don't they understand it was for their own good?
#4
Qaddafi holds one major advantage: His army can absorb foreign assistance without delay and almost seamlessly, whereas Western aid drops into a pit of uncertainty with regard to the rebel groups and their chiefs.
There is something to be said for the Soviets' standardized, geared-to-the-lowest-level-of-civilization military organization, equipment and training.
#5
One of the first things Al Qaeda masquerading as "rebels" did, drum roll, was set up a Central Bank.
Why on earth would they do that?
Well it soon became obvious. The US froze The Ducks assets in the US and transferred those assets, including Treasuries to the "Rebels" Central Bank.
While celebrations are ongoing in Al Qaeda headquarters in Pakistan, the paranoia level of other holders of US Treasuries rose alarmingly.
What if, one of those holders of US Treasuries thought they might want to bitch slap Taiwan around a bit, what would happen to their US holdings? China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings
#7
Our government will survive it. Theirs won't.
Nimble Spemble, that is the big question, who will win?
During the Suez crises, Eisenhower threatened to dump British bonds. The British responded by saying that would harm the US economy.
Eisenhower responded by saying that the move may well harm the US economy, but that it would destroy the British economy. The British folded.
#8
Compare wid DEFECNE.PK/FORUMS > [Robert Wheeler = Wired.com] THE DRONE-IFICATION OF AMERICA.
ARTIC = although not set in stone, the LT trends indic by USDOD Drone contracts is that mainstream Amer should not be surprised iff Drone Aerodomes(s) are set up in US States TO KEEP WATCH [street level] OVER AMERICAN CITIES, TOWNS, + SOCIETY.
Espec given that ...
* NEWS AM = HOUSEHOLD PETS, e.g. PET DOGS IN THE UK WILL BE REQUIRED TO GET MICRO-CHIPPED FOR ENTRY INTO A NEW NATIONAL CP DATABASE.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] The problem of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean appears nowhere near resolution, at least not in the foreseeable short term.
Somalia-based pirate gangs have honed their skills, extended their reach and operate at will, seemingly undeterred by the aggressive naval patrols mounted by warships deployed in these waters.
An array of counter-piracy and deterrence measures -- from violent armed attacks on suspected pirate skiffs and motherships to arrests, trials and imprisonment of suspects in Kenya and other non-Somali jurisdictions -- have proved less effective than hoped.
It is clear the strategy so strenuously pushed by the Western naval alliance over the past two years is not meeting expectations. The reason for this ineffectiveness is obvious: The response has remained a predominantly military one, albeit increasingly tempered by legal, political and diplomatic efforts.
Since 2009, there has been a discernible shift in international thinking about the problem. The official policy lexicon has changed and, rhetorically at least, everyone now subscribes to the idea of a "multi-pronged" strategy based on "land-based" interventions, consciously targeted at tackling the root causes instead of the symptoms.
Sadly, evidence on the ground suggests that not much has changed, and the heavy emphasis on military and security responses remains intact.
Despite the rhetoric and the subtle variations in nuance and detail, the dominant tendency has been to militarise the problem.
Militarist mindset
Contrary to claims, the counter-piracy strategy is dominated by a militarist mindset, impervious to evidence that military response is failing to effectively deal with a problem that is complex and inextricably tied to the prolonged crisis in Somalia.
Military might has demonstrably failed to deter piracy. Extensive and robust patrols, and aggressive pursuits of suspect vessels, have inadvertently displaced the problem.
Pirate gangs have simply shifted to less tightly patrolled waters farther from the Somali coast. More troubling, military pressure is unintentionally improving the adaptability, versatility and resilience of the pirate gangs.
With ransom payments now at an all-time high, they are using the financial windfall to upgrade and modernise.
The pirates' greatest tactical advantage over the enemy is time. They know well that the naval deployment is time-bound and at some point there will be a drawdown, whether because of an adverse shift in domestic public opinion or, as is most likely, budgetary constraints, not to mention the outbreak of another global crisis.
Rather than challenge the navies, they can simply opt to outwait them -- disbanding temporarily and retreating to their land bases to lie low.
Indeed, credible evidence suggests some may have already taken this route, or are in the process of branching off into other, less lucrative, criminal rackets like people smuggling and kidnap-for-ransom.
The prospect of such a tactical retreat is, of course, only plausible if military operations do not extend to the land -- as some fear -- and if the clan-based pirate support networks survive.
If a temporary, tactical retreat is a viable possibility, we should be sceptical of some of the positive statistics routinely churned out by military officials to prove that pirate attacks are on a downward trend, by implication demonstrating the efficacy of the naval operations.
To put it differently, to what extent is such a reduction, if true, attributable to a lull induced by a tactical retreat rather than a decisive defeat?
Whatever the case, suggestions of a tipping point in the war against piracy are premature, as long as military pressure is not consciously combined with and consistently augmented by more crucial, non-military, land-based interventions aimed at bringing about a sustainable long-term solution.
The prospect of a neat solution achieved with ease and at minimal cost on the high seas is tantalising, but simply unachievable: There are no short-cuts to dealing with the piracy problem emanating from Somalia.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
Military response would work, if it involved pirate boat sinkings and summary pirate hangings, rather than arrests and trials and imprisonment (assuming one can find a jurisdiction willing to take that responsibility.)
#2
Mucking about on the high seas is treating the symptoms, not the base of the disease. Take a base, destroy the houses of the new rich for starters. Then destroy their boat fleet anchored near the shore, and work up to total destruction of the town, stopping only when they stop the piracy
Hobyo or Eyl are good places to start.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/24/2011 1:05
Comments ||
Top||
#3
Militarist mindset
Contrary to claims, the counter-piracy strategy is dominated by a militarist mindset, impervious to evidence that military response is failing to effectively deal with a problem that is complex and inextricably tied to the prolonged crisis in Somalia.
Military might has demonstrably failed to deter piracy.
An academic mindset that is devoid of any knowledge of real human history. How did Caesar deal with pirates? How did Thomas Jefferson deal with pirates? It's an old disease that does respond to old 'cures'.
As to military deterrence - there is none when their hands are tied.
This is the same bovine drivel by people who can't connect the overall drop in crime with the largest incarceration population in the country's history. Just maybe crime is down because the perps have been removed from society.
#5
I absolutely agree with Glenmore. If we treated pirates like they treated pirates in the good old days, especially with the weapon systems we have today, there would be no piracy problem. A few skeletons hanging in the pirates' ports, a few smoking craters where the pirates' bases used to be, and the problem would dry up fairly quickly.
#6
Military might has demonstrably failed to deter piracy. Extensive and robust patrols, and aggressive pursuits of suspect vessels, have inadvertently displaced the problem.
That's not military, that's a kind of (PC) police work.
#7
ARCLIGHT a couple of their villages into dust, tell them that if we have to come back we'll use both high explosives and napalm, then follow through. The only thing these people understand is force. Show them enough force, and they'll stop their behavior. As long as the West plays timid, and the pirates make huge profits, it will continue. HURT THEM. Hurt them so badly they won't want a second dose. It's the only thing that will stop this.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/24/2011 13:34
Comments ||
Top||
#8
That's not military, that's a kind of (PC) police work.
Stop paying the ransoms and you will stop the piracy.
Nothing that is done on land will make a whit of difference. Sinking boats will certainly help suppress it, but never stop it as long as the ransoms are paid.
[Pak Daily Times] Terrorists ambushed an Afghan police vehicle, killing two on Saturday and a coalition helicopter crashed in eastern Afghanistan with no fatalities, NATO and Afghan officials said. The Afghan Interior Ministry said Death Eaters attacked the coppers in Dara Nur district in the northern tip of Nangarhar province. Two others were maimed in the attack, the ministry said. Fighting has escalated in the east as Afghan and coalition forces step up their attacks on Death Eaters along the Pakistain border and Death Eaters retaliate with attacks on pro-government forces and Afghan officials. A suicide kaboomer on foot detonated his vest packed with explosives on Friday afternoon at the entrance to a building used by education officials in Jayi Maydan district of Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... , said Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, police chief in the eastern province.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[Al Jazeera] Yemen's embattled president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... has agreed to a deal by Gulf Arab mediators that would lead to a transition of power in the country after weeks of anti-government protests.
Tariq Shami, a presidential aide, told Al Jizz on Saturday that the president had agreed in principle to a proposal from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) for him to step down.
The GCC plan would see Saleh submit his resignation to parliament within 30 days, with a presidential vote to be held within two months.
Shami said the opposition must first agree to the deal in order for Saleh to accept the plan.
"The president has agreed and accepted the initiative of the GCC," he said.
"The transition of power in Yemen will take some time. It needs an agreement between the national powers and the opposition at the same time. This thing will happen within 60 days if we have an agreement."
The White House welcomed Saturday a plan for Yemen's longtime President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down, urging all sides to "swiftly" implement a peaceful transfer of power.
"We applaud the announcements by the Yemeni Government and the opposition that they have accepted the GCC-brokered agreement to resolve the political crisis in a peaceful and orderly manner," said Jay Carney, White House front man.
Mohammed Qahtan, an opposition front man, told Al Jizz that the opposition parties also welcome the deal. He said a basis of trust is lacking for the opposition to join a national unity government, but he said the opposition would start a conversation regardless.
"The vice-president will take over for a certain period and then we will see what happens," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
[Pak Daily Times] Mukhtaran Mai, a gang rape victim, will file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its April 21 verdict of acquitting five of the six accused in the case.
The apex court had, upheld the Lahore High Court's (LHC) verdict in the Mai gang rape case and acquitted all the accused except one Abdul Khaliq.
In a blurb issued on Saturday, Mai's counsel, Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan, said they would go for a review of the case. He said after his consultation with Mai, they had decided to file a review petition in the apex court against its judgement of April 21.
The counsel said he was disappointed over the court's ruling. He was of the view that the decision needed to be reviewed. He claimed that in drawing their conclusions, the majority judges had disregarded cogent evidence and failed to notice actual material on record and the facts proved thereby.
Aitzaz added that the majority judgement was manifestly flawed and was not even based on the evidence available on record. He said the judges had also failed to take notice of the social backdrop, which was established on record itself, and in the context of which the horrendous crime of gang rape was committed, reported and investigated.
The counsel further said the judges had misread evidence which they had adverted to. "We are grateful to the people, media, civil society and particularly women of Pakistain for their committed support in this critical hour," he added.
About the review petition, Aitzaz said it would contain a full critique of the judgement and there was no need for him to make any other comments in media on the subject.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[Iran Press TV] La Belle France seeks tighter border controls by temporarily suspending the 1995 Schengen Treaty after an influx of Tunisian, Libyan and Egyptian refugees from Italia.
"The governance of Schengen is failing. It seems there is a need to reflect on a mechanism that will allow a temporary suspension of the agreement, in case of a systemic failure of an external (EU) border, to intervene through a provisional suspension, until such time as the weakness is corrected," AFP reported the French presidency as saying.
French officials have accused Italia of abusing the treaty after granting 20,000 temporary residence permits to the Tunisian immigrants who had decamped from the unrest following their country's revolution.
Italia, on the other hand, has accused La Belle France of overstepping the agreement when it temporarily stopped trains carrying North African colonists traveling from Italia last week.
The visa-free Schengen zone allows for border-free travel between 25 European countries, excluding Perfidious Albion and Ireland. The current agreement allows for the suspension of the treaty only in cases of a "grave threat to the public order or internal security" for a maximum of 30 days.
As the first country of arrival, Italia is responsible for managing the refugees, reportedly numbering 26,000 from the embattled North African countries this year. Being a former French colony, many Tunisians mostly like travelling to La Belle France where they have friends and relatives.
Last year, La Belle France expelled thousands ethnic Romanian and Bulgarian families, in a move President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... claims was to dismantle illegal camps of Roma gypsies.
Many human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups have called the move xenophobic.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Global Jihad
[An Nahar] International condemnation of Syria mounted Saturday after its security forces reportedly killed more than 80 people in one of the bloodiest days of a month-long uprising.
Russia, Italia and Greece joined the chorus of criticism which includes U.S. President Barack B.O. Obama and U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon, as well as La Belle France and the European parliament.
Russia, the first of Syria's allies to speak out, urged 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... to accelerate its political reforms, saying Moscow was "concerned by the heightening of tensions and signs of a confrontation that is leading to the suffering of innocent people."
A foreign ministry statement said Russia viewed Syria as its "friend" but added, "We are firmly convinced that only constructive dialogue and accelerated broad-scale political, social and economic reforms outlined by the Syrian leadership can achieve stable and democratic development."
Moscow also called on "the government and all social and political groups and confessions ... to suspend violence and continue searching for fair solutions to existing problems."
The crackdown Friday targeted thousands of protesters who demonstrated in cities across Syria on Friday, chanting "freedom, freedom," and calling for the fall of Bashir al-Assad's regime.
Assad issued decrees Thursday scrapping decades of emergency rule, abolishing the state security court and allowing citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations.
But witnesses said snipers and security forces killed at least five mourners at funerals of the victims on Saturday.
"We are firmly convinced that only constructive dialogue and accelerated broad-scale political, social and economic reforms outlined by the Syrian leadership can achieve stable and democratic development," an Italian foreign ministry statement said.
"We are following with very great anxiety the developing situation in Syria and we strongly condemn the violent repression of the demonstrators," the statement added.
"The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said Friday.
He dismissed Assad's moves as "not serious" and accused him of seeking Tehran's aid "in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies."
A United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... front man said the secretary general "condemns the ongoing violence against peaceful demonstrators in Syria ... calls for it to stop immediately."
Ban said Assad's government must "respect international human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... , including the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, as well as the freedom of the press."
He also repeated his demand for an "independent, transparent and effective investigation into the killings."
Ban stressed that "only an inclusive dialogue and the effective implementation of reforms can address the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and ensure social peace and order."
Earlier La Belle France said Syrian authorities should "renounce the use of violence against their citizens ... engage in an inclusive political dialogue without delay and put into place reforms that respond to the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people."
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages called for those responsible for the killings to be brought to justice, the release of people jugged and the respect of basic rights.
European Parliament speaker Jerzy Buzek said Damascus had to see the writing on the wall.
"The Syrian regime must at last acknowledge the signs of the times and meet the legitimate aspirations of its own people. Mere declarations will not delude the people any more," he said.
"Any form of violence against peaceful demonstrators must stop: no more killing, no more torture, no more arbitrary arrests. An independent investigation into the deaths of protesters has to be carried out," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[8 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[Pak Daily Times] Hundreds of Russian nationalists staged a racism-tinged rally in central Moscow on Saturday to demand an end to social payments for Mohammedan republics of the volatile North Caucasus region.
The sanctioned gathering came amid spiking social tensions and lingering security fears from a January suicide kaboom at the main Moscow airport that killed 37 people and was claimed by the nation's most feared thug warlord. "We are tired of seeing the Caucasus youth creating mayhem on our streets and at our schools and universities and then going unpunished," rally co-organiser Alexander Khromov told the Interfax news agency.
The event was officially titled "Stop Feeding the Caucasus!" and included leaders from far-right organisations that rights groups link to deadly attacks on migrants from Russia's Caucasus and the Central Asian republics. Recent polls have shown a rise in Russian xenophobia and a sense of voter frustration over the influx of mostly Mohammedan newcomers to cities that are already creaking under the strain of heavy crime and poorly-funded services. Both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... - a former president who launched Russia's last war in the Caucasus in 1999 - have condemned the racist violence that now periodically erupts on the streets.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Russia remains Russia".
More than anything else, Russia needs to decentralize its population, to give Russians some, any, reason to live somewhere other than Moscow.
It would be well worth their while to build new cities, with strict environmental rules, and lots of forest and landscaping, designed solely for young parents to breed large families with minimal stress.
Paperwork jobs for the men, and housewife jobs for the women, emphasis on family friendly boredom, which leads to children. Especially if non-breeders are for the most part kept out.
#1
Not being officially in uniform doesn't change that Mr. Almryde gave his life in the fight to keep us free from the jihadis. Rest in peace with our thanks, sir.
[Ennahar] Two U.S. soldiers were killed while they were operating in southern Iraq, said Saturday a U.S. military statement.
"Two American soldiers were killed yesterday (Friday) while they were conducting an operation in southern Iraq," the statement said without giving further details.
These deaths bring to 4,450 the number of U.S. military deaths since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which precipitated the fall of Saddam Hussein, according to a report from AFP based on the website www.icasualties.org.
The U.S. military still has about 50,000 troops in Iraq, a country they must have left at the end of the year.
Since the end of its combat mission on August 31, the U.S. military focuses primarily on training and advice of Iraqi security forces. But U.S. troops can always be brought to fight if attacked or if Iraqi forces seek their help.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
At least 54 people have been killed in heavy festivities between Somali government troops backed by African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... forces and al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban. The organization's current leader is Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, also known as Ibrahim al-Afghani. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Kenyan al-Qaeda member, is considered the group's military leader... fighters in Mogadishu.
The fighting occurred in northern and southern districts of Mogadishu on Saturday, the Press TV correspondent in Mogadishu reported.
About 130 people were also injured after the two sides exchanged heavy gunfire and barrages of mortar shells.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Over the past two decades, up to one million people have bit the dust in the fighting between rival factions and due to famine and disease.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia. Over 300,000 IDPs are sheltering in Mogadishu alone.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions on makeshift sites in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... High Commissioner for Refugees.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Al Jazeera] Turkey's main parties have kicked off their electoral campaigns ahead of parliamentary elections in June which could hand prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a third term in office, local media reported.
Erdogan launched his re-election campaign on Friday in the northern province of Bayburt by explaining the government's economic vision and slamming the opposition, according to the English-language Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.
Erdogan's Islamist-influenced Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won landslide victories in 2002 and 2007 despite opposition from Turkey's secularist establishment.
Last year, Erdogan won public support to implement a raft of sweeping constitutional reforms, including reshaping the judiciary and curbs on the powers of the military, in a referendum seen as litmus test of his enduring popularity.
Launching his party's manifesto, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads the traditionally secular Republic People's Party, or CHP, promised a new constitution accompanied by social and political reforms to establish greater freedoms for all citizens, including Turkey's Kurdish and Alevi minorities.
Erdogan's stewardship of Turkey's successful economy is seen as crucial to his party's chances and on Friday he said his ambition was to make Turkey one of the world's top economies by 2023 and push gross domestic product to $2tn and per capita income to $25,000.
"Now some will ask whether you have $25,000 in your pocket or not. Look, we are talking about expanding the economy. No one puts such money into anybody's pocket in any part of the world," said Erdogan, whose party came to power in 2002.
The prime minister took a swipe at the opposition saying when it was in power Turks waited in queues for cooking oil and gas.
"They [CHP] used to meet in the cabinet with overcoats on their backs because the heaters were out of use," said Erdogan.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, also came in for criticism from the prime minister who alluded to the riots in the streets of eastern and southeastern Turkey in previous days and claimed the BDP and other parties were "rubbing their hands together [malevolently]" when the youth stoned the police.
Turkey is home to a large Kurdish minority - numbering about one-fifth of the country's population of 75 million - but they complain about marginalisation and abuse of their rights. Since 1984 the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has waged a guerrilla campaign for an ethnic homeland in the southeast.
The CHP's election manifesto anticipates a number of reforms with regard to the constitution, press freedom, electoral reform, agriculture and the economy.
"The CHP is a party that realized significant transformations. We will now bring democracy and freedom to the country," Kilicdaroglu told supporters. "We will touch every field of life; we have projects related to every sphere of life ... Politics exists for the human being."
If elected, the party will make a new constitution its priority, which will be prepared with contribution from all segments of society, the CHP chief said.
The new charter would anticipate control over the military by civilian authority, a strengthened parliamentary system and separation of powers, while seeking equality.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
[Tolo News] More than 9,000 civilians have bit the dust in the past three years in Afghanistan, a joint report by UN and Independent Human Rights Commission said.
How many of those civilians are actually jihadis who stepped away from their guns... or willing or unwilling human shields?
There has been a 15-percent rise in civilian casualties in the country, the report said.
In the past three months more than 420 civilians have bit the dust nationwide, it said. It said most of the deaths have been caused by Taliban and Islamic exemplars.
"One third of the figure have been killed in operations by foreign and Afghan forces and two third of it have been killed in suicide kabooms, roadside kabooms and direct slaughters by the Taliban and bad boys," Nader Naderi, a member of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHC), said.
Civilians took bulk of the casualties in southern regions, where beturbanned goons are highly active, it said.
The report finds suicide attacks, roadside kabooms, bombardments and missile attacks as the main factors behind civilian deaths surge.
Involved sides in the conflict should make their all-out efforts to prevent targeting civilians in attacks and operations, it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[Ennahar] Police on Saturday blocked in Algiers thirty demonstrators trying to march for the eleventh time since February in favour of a regime change in Algeria, said a journalist.
Opponents, who responded to the call of the National Coordination for Democracy and Change (CNDC), were blocked and surrounded by police when they arrive in Place du premier mai, in the center of the capital, place of usual weekly appointment.
They had to go to the Martyrs' Square, the main rallying point for protesters.
Among them, the honorary president of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH), Ali Yahia Abdennour, officials of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD secular opposition, 19 members of 389) and women draped in the Algerian flag.
The demonstrators chanted in particular "system leave" or "for the fall of the regime."
This faction of the CNDC, of political parties, maintains this appointment "every Saturday". A second trend of the movement, the NCCD-Barakat, following a split on February 12 of the Coordination born January 21, denies systematic street demonstrations.
Besides the supporters of the CNDC, several processions of demonstrators stormed the capital since the riots of the beginning of the year which killed five people and injured over 800.
Among them, students have repeatedly demonstrated against a "devaluation" of diplomas, but their march on April 12 was dispersed with batons by the police who caused injuries.
The United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involve making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, one-week visit to Algeria, April 17 urged the authorities not to use force against peaceful demonstrations.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
Jill Ireland aka Geri Nichols in "Death Wish II" aka Jackie Pruit in "Love and Bullets" aka Marica in "Breakheart Pass" aka The Girl in "The Mechanic" aka Reina Valachi in "The Valachi Papers" (Died in 1990 at age 54)
[Straits Times] POLICE say a 20th suspect tossed in the calaboose in two Indonesian bomb plots is a TV news cameraman.
National police front man Colonel Boy Rafli Amar said on Saturday that Imam Firdaus was tossed in the calaboose a day earlier in Jakarta and was recruited into the group to film and broadcast its terrorist acts.
Arya Sinulingga, news director of the Jakarta-based Global-TV, confirmed Firdaus worked there and expressed remorse over the involvement of media employees in terrorism.
The 20 people tossed in the calaboose this week are suspected in Islamic bad turban plots to bomb a church ahead of Easter Celebrations and sending mail bombs last month.
Police found the bomb placed near a church after the arrests.
Only one of the mail bombs went kaboom!, wounding four people.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Intense fighting gripped Misrata today, overwhelming its hospital with casualties after Muammar Qadaffy's regime gave its army an "ultimatum" to take the besieged Libyan city.
The United States, meanwhile, said it carried out the first drone strike in the more than month-old conflict.
At least 10 people were killed and 50 maimed in the Misrata street battles that came after 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 style of the American pants... air raids struck near a compound in the capital Tripoli where Qadaffy resides.
"Since eight o'clock this morning, we have received 10 dead and 50 maimed, which is usually the number for a full day," said Doctor Khalid Abu Salra at the main Hikma hospital in the western port city.
We're overwhelmed
"We're overwhelmed, overwhelmed. We lack everything: personnel, equipment and medicines," he said.
Ambulances pulled up outside the hospital every three or four minutes, also bringing in maimed soldiers loyal to Qadaffy, as paramedics frantically wiped blood off stretchers.
Misrata has been the scene of deadly urban guerrilla fighting between pro-Qadaffy forces and outgunned rebels for more than six weeks.
Saturday's upsurge in the fight for the port city came after Qadaffy's government said it had given its army an "ultimatum" to stop the rebellion in the city, 200 kilometres east of the capital.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said: "There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misrata, then the people from (the neighbouring towns of) Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels.
"If they don't surrender, then they will engage them in a fight," he told journalists.
Hamed al-Hasi, a colonel coordinating rebel fighters at the western gate of the crossroads town of Ajdabiya in the east, said the decision meant the bully boyz were beginning to win the war.
"This is the first nail in the coffin of Qadaffy. This means the Libyan army is no longer capable," he told AFP.
The United States carried out its first Predator drone strike in Libya in the early afternoon on Saturday, the Pentagon said, declining to give details on the targets or location.
Earlier, NATO strikes hit a patch of bare ground opposite Qadaffy's Bab al-Aziziya residence in central Tripoli, and what looked like a bunker.
Authorities who took foreign correspondents there said they were "a parking lot" and "sewers." Anti-aircraft fire rang out as ambulance sirens wailed.
Allibya television said the capital was "now the target of raids by the barbaric crusader colonialist aggressor," a term the Qadaffy regime uses for Western forces.
The official Jana news agency reported two people died in NATO raids late Friday on the Zintan region southwest of Tripoli where stepped up fighting has taken place with rebels who hold several towns.
NATO warplanes continued to overfly Tripoli on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[Tolo News] Top Foreign Taliban leader, who is believed to be an Uzbek Taliban leader, has been tossed in the slammer in an operation in northern Kunduz province.
A man believed to be a senior leader of the terrorist group the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was jugged on Wednesday during a raid conducted by coalition forces against the movement's leaders in Afghanistan, Isaf said in a statement on Friday.
The statement said he was tossed in the slammer in Khanabad district of northern Kunduz province.
He is believed to have been functioning as a link between Uzbek forces of Evil based in Pakistain and top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.
"He assisted both groups by directing orc movement for training and operations between the two countries, coordinating suicide, bombs, and mortar attacks against Afghan and coalition forces throughout northern Afghanistan," it said.
The tossed in the slammer jihad boy headed Uzbek fighters waging war against Isaf and Afghan troops in Afghanistan and had beat feet from a Pak jail along with fellow-hard boyz last year.
Isaf has so far been able to arrest more than 20 Uzbek fighters.
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is blamed for a series of attacks on Isaf and Afghan troops in northern Afghanistan.
The group is believed to have around 2,500 to 4,000 fighters stationed in Pakistain's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
Isaf has so far been able to arrest more than 20 Uzbek fighters.
April 20, 2011: The leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (and two followers) was captured in northern Afghanistan (Kunduz). This makes about twenty Uzbek Islamic terrorists captured up there in the last two months, and many more killed or wounded. Uzbekistan, which is rather more of a police state than Afghanistan, has become so dangerous for Islamic militants, that dozens of them have fled south to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Those that settled down in northern Afghanistan have been the source of much of the terrorist activity up there in the last few months. As foreigners, they are easier to spot. A cell phone equipped civilian population has been eager to rat these murderous fanatics out.
#2
That's from Strategy Page, Zebulon Thranter9685? If you would be kind enough to include a link to that quote so I could read the context myself, I'd be grateful. Thanks!
[Pak Daily Times] A renegade warlord in Ivory Coast said Saturday he was ready to lay down his arms as ordered by the new president, but said it would take time to organise.
In an interview Saturday, Gen. Ibrahim "IB" Coulibaly said that one could not just dispose of arms in the streets. He spoke from his heavily armed stronghold within Abobo, a poor neighbourhood in Ivory Coast's largest city Abidjan. He arrived at the interview in a three-car convoy, guarded by a missile launcher set up on the back of a pickup truck.
President Alassane Ouattara on Friday ordered Coulibaly, who led two coups in Ivory Coast and commands the Invisible Commando force, to lay down arms or be forcibly disarmed. Ouattara also ordered all combat units back to their barracks -- the former rebel forces who installed him in power to their stronghold in the central city of Bouake and troops who fought for former President Laurent Gbagbo ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker... to their old military camps.
Ouattara said that regular and paramilitary police will be redeployed to take over security. "He said lay down your arms. We will lay down our arms. It is not a problem," said Coulibaly of Ouattara's order. When asked why then he has so many arms around his stronghold, Coulibaly said: "You don't dispose of arms in the street. There has to be a strategy."
Coulibaly, who began the battle against Gbagbo's troops and militia in Abidjan, said he wants his forces to join the new army but is waiting to be invited. He told that he has 5,000 men under his command. But the number appears under 1,000 from AP assessments at his Abobo headquarters and a college there where his commanders are training recruits.
Ouattara tried to distance himself at first from the former rebels fighting in his name when they began a lightening assault that brought them from Bouake and the west to the gates of Abidjan within days. They had been accused of atrocities during the offensive. But when his pleas for an international intervention to force Gbagbo from power went unheeded, he adopted them as his forces and now calls them the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, or FRCI by the French initials.
Ouattara's orders to disarm and return to barracks came two days after the former rebels attacked Coulibaly's Invisible Commando force in his stronghold in Abobo, but were repulsed. Meanwhile on Saturday, thousands of people from the mainly Mohammedan quarters of Abobo cheered when a commander told them the war was over at a gathering called by forces backing Ouattara. Cmdr. Sofi Dosso, leader of the traditional hunters who live in tropical rainforests, said his forces were "ready to help disarm those who disobey the president's commands."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
NOT-EBONY-N-IVORY IVORY COAST
versus
* FREEREPUBLIC > NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION MUST BE SET ASIDE FOR SHARIA, SAYS BOKO-HARAM [Group].
[Ennahar] Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) holding hostage four French for seven months, calls especially for the departure of French troops from Afghanistan in addition to a ransom of 90 million euros, said Saturday a source close to the mediation.
"People of AQIM also claimed and especially the departure of French troops from Afghanistan to free the four kidnapped Frenchies still being held. They stressed that," said the source close to the mediation, which included elected officials and Malian Nigerian personalities.
This requirement for a withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan had already been made twice by the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, to which AQIM has made allegiance.
March 21, the same source close to the mediation had told AFP that AQIM claimed "at least 90 million euros" and the "liberation of prisoners held in several countries" in exchange for the release of the French, a demand which was immediately rejected by La Belle France.
A group of mediators is currently in the stronghold of the kidnappers in an unnamed country in the Sahel, for a new round of negotiations, also said a Malian source close to the case. "These are long and difficult negotiations. We hope very soon to obtain, why not, the release of some hostages," the source added.
AQIM is holding hostage four Frenchies who were among a group of seven people kidnapped Sept. 16, 2010 in Arlit, a uranium mining site in northern Niger, of a French nuclear group Areva.
On 24 February, three of the hostages (a French, a Togolese and a Malagasy), were released near the junction of the borders between Algeria, Mali and Niger.
AQIM has bases in Mali where it operates in several countries in the region of Sahel-Saharan desert where it is guilty of the attacks, carries out kidnappings, mostly of Westerners, and engaged in smuggling.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Suspects jugged over the post-election violence rioted at an overcrowded jail in northern Nigeria and more than a dozen of them beat feet, a prisons official said on Saturday.
Andrew Barka, controller of prisons in Adamawa state, said 18 of the 600 tossed in the clink this week beat feet but six were later captured.
The prison in the state capital Yola, which has a capacity for 900 inmates, was already full when the 600 were thrown into the jail.
"There was heavy congestion. The living conditions have worsened since the suspects were brought in," Barka told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
[Yemen Post] At least three antigovernment protesters were maimed, one seriously, when pro-government security forces and bullies attacked the sit-inners, who have been calling for the ouster of the regime, in Hajjah province on Saturday.
While the sit-inners were performing dawn prayers, the forces and bullies stationed on the roofs of buildings nearby the square of change threw rocks and fired live bullets at them, local sources said, quoting sit-inners as accusing the local council in Shahil district of attempting to disperse the sit-in by force.
In Aden, the security forces conducted mass arrests of antigovernment protesters in Al-Muala district after a heavy exchange of gunfire between the forces and armed people stationed on the roofs of some buildings.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Alamo, Davey was counting their remaining cannon balls and not liking the results... demonstrations and sit-ins continued today in most of the Yemeni cities to call for an immediate ouster of the regime.
The protesters urged the GCC countries, currently brokering a deal between the political rivals to end the crisis, to stand by the people not the regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
[Pak Daily Times] Pakistain's military has broken the back of gunnies linked to al Qaeda and Taliban and the nation will soon prevail over this menace, the country's powerful head of the army said in a speech on Saturday that followed criticism from the United States that it wasn't doing enough to fight militancy.
Washington, struggling to put down a 10-year insurgency in Afghanistan, said this month that Pakistain lacked a robust plan to defeat Islamic exemplars, and its intelligence agents were maintaining links with Afghan Talibs.
Without making any reference to Washington's concerns, Pakistain Army General Ashfaq chief Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... said Pakistain Army was fully aware of the internal and external threats faced by the country. "Pakistain Army would come up to the expectations of the nation," he expressed the resolve
"In war against terrorism, our officers and soldiers have made great sacrifices and have achieved tremendous success," he said in a speech to army cadets at Kakul military academy, north of Islamabad, broadcast by state television.
"The terrorists' backbone has been broken and (God willing) we will soon prevail."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Arab News] Iran's supreme leader warned Saturday he will intervene in the government's affairs whenever necessary in a rebuke to President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad for challenging the holy manal leader's all-encompassing authority.
Their most recent confrontation involved Ahmadinejad's dismissal last week of the country's powerful intelligence minister, whom Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then quickly reinstated in a slap to the president.
Ahmadinejad, who has said in the past that Khamenei was like a father to him, has enjoyed strong support from the supreme leader, especially in the tumultuous period after his disputed re-election in 2009. At times, though, he has defied the country's most powerful figure.
Some have accused the president and his allies of trying to amass more power and challenge Khamenei's ultimate authority in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year and presidential elections in 2013.
"I won't allow, as long as I'm alive, an iota of deviation of this massive movement of the nation," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state TV Saturday.
"In principle, I have no intention to intervene in government affairs ... unless I feel an expediency is being ignored as it was the case recently," he said, referring to the dispute over the intelligence minister.
Khamenei, who was addressing hundreds of Iranian citizens in his residence in Tehran, said he was right and he would stand by his words.
"With the help of God, ... I firmly stand by our right stance," he said.
Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi was forced to resign last week after apparent disputes with Ahmadinejad. The president publicly accepted his resignation but Khamenei ordered him to remain in the Cabinet.
In a sign of mounting tensions, Ahmadinejad has reportedly refused to give in to the order and has not invited Moslehi to the latest Cabinet meeting.
The escalating dispute with the supreme leader will likely overshadow the remaining two years of Ahmadinejad's presidency. Ahmadinejad's gamble appears to be aimed at setting up a confidant to become the next president, analysts say. He needs to control the Intelligence Ministry in order to influence the next parliament as well as who becomes the next president, they say.
Khamenei is believed to be intent on helping shape a new political team, absent of Ahmadinejad loyalists, to lead the next government.
Without meaningful political parties in Iran, unpredictable political factions (groups) have emerged before elections. Khamenei, analysts say, feels threatened by a single political faction remaining in office for more than eight years.
The dispute has also pointed to a potential weakness in the heart of Ahmadinejad's government, as its base of support shrinks among parliament members and others.
A statement signed by 216 parliament members -- more than two-thirds of the 290-seat chamber -- warned Ahmadinejad Wednesday that he cannot disobey Khamenei, who has the last word in all state affairs.
Hard-liners consider Khamenei to stand above the law and be answerable only to God.
A conservative news website, alef.ir, said politicians might summon Ahmadinejad to parliament for questioning if he does not back down. If they do, Ahmadinejad would be the first president to be called to parliament to answer questions since the Islamic theocracy 32 years ago.
The dispute became public when hard-line media published the text of Khamenei's order to Moslehi to remain in his job. In a humiliation of the president, Khamenei didn't write to Ahmadinejad because the president ignored the supreme leader's written order two days earlier, according to conservatives websites.
Traditionally, the supreme leader must approve the appointments for the ministers of foreign affairs, intelligence, defense and interior.
Conservatives have praised Moslehi for cracking down on the opposition after the disputed 2009 presidential election and discovering the mysterious Stuxnet computer virus, which made its way into Iran's nuclear and industrial sites.
He may have angered Ahmadinejad by firing a deputy who is an ally of one of the president's confidants, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.
Mashaei has criticized Iran's intelligence services for what he said were failures to predict the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
The Arab News article seems to give a slant that Khamenei is in the drivers seat here.
Actually, over the past few years, Ahmadinejad has forced out a number of Khamenei allies who were in the cabinet. Moslehi was the last of Khamenei's dupes in the cabinet.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
04/24/2011 16:01
Comments ||
Top||
[Arab News] Soddy Arabia currently has 1,325 non-Saudis on trial for their direct or indirect involvement in terror plots or for conspiracy to participate in terror-group activities, Interior Ministry front man Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki told Arab News in Riyadh Saturday. Al-Turki did not specify the nationalities of the foreigners.
When asked about the suspects' countries of origin, he added: "This has not been our policy to point out the nationalities."
The Interior Ministry says 11,527 Saudis and non-Saudis have been nabbed since Sept 11, 2001. Out of this number, 5,831 people, including an unspecified number of foreigners, have been released because they were found not guilty or had served their time. The official added that 1,612 people have been convicted of terrorism charges. Six hundred and sixteen suspects are currently being investigated by the Interior Ministry while 603 suspects are currently on trial.
The Interior Ministry has also completed its investigation of hundreds of others whose cases have been passed to prosecutors for pretrial procedures.
"The Saudi prosecution is preparing lists of charges against 934 people and is investigating the cases of 1,931 others," said the front man.
Most of the suspects who have been rounded up by Saudi security agencies since 2001 were accused of belonging to terrorist networks, supporting and financing terrorism, going to areas of conflicts to fight illegally, coordinating with groups outside Soddy Arabia or actively seeking ways to otherwise harm the nation.
Earlier this month, 15 people were released after undergoing the Kingdom's rehabilitation program. These men were set free after they underwent a year-long counseling program at Prince Mohammed bin Naif Center for Counseling and Care, a facility located in a resort complex with swimming pools and recreational facilities in Riyadh.
Al-Turki pointed out that there are "very few" women among those who have been jugged.
Asked about reports indicating plans to allow Saudi women in police and security forces, Al-Turki said: "Every security agency or department had its own plans based on their needs ... you can check with different agencies on this."
Public security departments may need women but Civil Defense, which is responsible for firefighting and other domestic rescue and recovery operations, does not require them, said the front man. Some published reports have said that the Kingdom is examining the feasibility of allowing women to join the police force to help it deal with female suspects or crime victims.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
[Tolo News] A top official in the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries said Pakistain has refused to discuss Pak-Afghan transit problems with Afghan delegate.
A couple of days ago Pakistain's Premier in a trip to Kabul said his country is ready to discuss transit issues with Afghanistan.
Chief of Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) Mohammad Qurban Haqjo accused the government of being reckless toward Pakistain's acts.
"We believe that Pakistain hasn't been honest in implementation of transit and trade agreements with Afghanistan and it in a way wants to take political and financial advantage from Afghanistan and the US," Chief of ACCI Mohammad Qurban Haqjo said.
Mr Haqjo said still Afghan-bound containers are stranded in Pakistain despite officials in Islamabad pledge to release the whole number of containers at thousands.
Pakistain is not sticking to its words, especially in terms of trade and transit with Afghanistan.
"I don't think we should trust promises being made by Pakistain's transit officials, because we have seen in the past they have acted vice-versa," Deputy Minister for Commerce and Industries Ghulam Mohammad Ailaqi said.
More than 30 percent of commodities in the Afghan-bound containers in Pakistain have been spoilt and Afghan traders have called for compensation.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/24/2011
00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
E-Mail||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
ION TRANSIT, NEWS KERALA > PAKISTAN SUSPENDS NATO SUPPLIES TO AFGHNANISTAN DUE TO PROTESTS AGZ US DRONE ATTACKS.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > US DEPARTS [Shamsi, NW Pak]PAKISTAN DRONE BASE, SAYS CNN quoting a Pak INTEL Official.
IMO it nominally appears that the US withdrew due to preceived imminent start of controversial, long-delayed, Pak Govt-Army resisted mil offensive in Waziristan; + in lessor extent to harsh Pak Govt, Other criticism oer US Drone strikes + Non-Militant Pak Civilian Casualties.
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.
This day can not come soon enough... 
The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Saeed Jalili blasted the policies of the West on the popular uprisings in the region, and cautioned that the West has hatched plots to derail and hijack the ongoing movements and revolutions in the region. 
Christians in the town of Gojra are making muted preparations for Easter this year. Residents of the neighbourhood called Christian Colony are haunted by memories of a 2009 attack in which seven members of a family were killed and dozens of houses torched by a Muslim mob.
cycle of violence
[Pak Daily Times] Libyan troops captured by rebels in Misrata said on Saturday the army had been ordered to retreat from the western port, and a rebel 
Ali Abdullah Saleh
Mukhtaran Mai, a gang rape victim, will file a review petition in the Supreme Court against its April 21 verdict of acquitting five of the six accused in the case.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
The sanctioned gathering came amid spiking social tensions and lingering security fears from a January 
al-Shabaab
Mahmoud 
