Trend is spreading even to war-torn Afghanistan Wishful thinking?
Modern dancing is spreading fast around Central Asia, as more youths become involved in contemporary street art culture, characterised by self-expression, freedom of creativity and a passion for music and sports.
Here young people can do everything themselves: they hold their own festivals and performances and they have complete creative freedom. And its great that young people hit the streets not to fill the ranks of criminals or to look for drugs, but rather to express themselves.
The popularity of modern dancing also has reached Afghanistan. While it has not gained wide popularity yet, youth are actively promoting it.
I first came across break dancing when I was still in school, said Timur Tavaliyev, a popular Kyrgyz break dancer and the winner of the First Kyrgyz Festival of Street Culture. I am very happy that, when we were so young, we picked up on this trend instead of roaming the streets in search of dangerous adventures and ways to commit crime. Now, in turn, we are trying to generate interest in dancing in those who are younger than we are.
In Kazakhstan street dancing has been around for some time, co-existing with traditional Kazakh dances. Kazakhstani dancers are well trained and have enjoyed international success.
The Telegraaf reports that Wilders felt he had to withdraw from the negotiations after discussing the package of measures with other PVV officials.
The talks between the coalition and its alliance partner resumed on Saturday to assess the results of a financial analysis of the austerity measures. One source told the Telegraaf economists were positive about the likely impact of the plans, and that the effect on spending power would be limited.
However, in a short statement Wilders said he could not accept that pensioners would have to pay for 'useless' demands from Brussels. Agreeing with the measures is 'not in the interest of our PVV voters,' he said.
No concrete details have yet emerged of what the three parties had agreed during their seven weeks of talks. The aim of the negotiations is to reduce the budget deficit to below 3%, in line with monetary union rules.
#1
What odds Wilder's party will once again increased its share of the votes? Last time he was the kingmaker -- this time he it could be that they would have to actually let him be part of the government, which would certainly prove interesting.
Obama the International Community Organizer In Chief.Isn't there anything the miracle worker can't do?
US President Barack Obama urged the leaders of Sudan and South Sudan on Saturday to stop the fighting between their countries and begin negotiations to settle their disputes, saying there was still a chance to avoid war.
In a videotaped message to the two bitter foes, Obama sought to prevent further escalation of border hostilities that have raised tensions to the highest level since South Sudan split away as an independent country in July, taking with it most of the country's known oil reserves.
BEIJING: China's strategic experts and the official media are trying to provoke western countries saying the Agni-V missile has a longer range than India would admit, and it can hit cities in Europe.
In comments that are obviously authorized by the defence ministry, Chinese experts said the Indian missile actually has a range of 8,000 kilometers and not the shorter range of 5,000 kms, as claimed by India. There are signs China will try to pressure the US and Russia not to sell missile guidance systems to India.
"The missile brings the whole of Asia, 70 per cent of Europe and other regions under its strike range and puts India among a select band of countries in the world to possess the technology of intercontinental ballistic missiles," the official Xinhua news agency said in a dispatch published in dozens of Chinese newspapers. Another paper, the Global Times, even carried a map showing Moscow, Tehran and Jakarta among cities coming within the range of Indian missiles.
An expert at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences said the Agni-V actually has the potential to reach targets 8,000 kilometers away, according to the Communist Party-controlled Global Times. It quoted the researcher, Du Wenlong, saying the Indian government had deliberately downplayed the missile's capability in order to avoid causing concern to other countries.
"According to China's standard, an ICBM should have a range of at least 8,000 kilometers. The Agni-V's range could be further enhanced to become an ICBM," the paper quoted another expert, Zhang Zhaozhong, a professor with the People's Liberation Army National Defence University, as saying.
But some Chinese experts have raised questions about New Delhi's capability to actually use the missile.
"India does not posses high-precision guidance system. To make up for the shortfall, it has to buy it from US and from Russia. These counties may be reluctant to sell their most advanced technology," the official China Central Television quoted some experts as saying.
CCTV even questioned India's infrastructure capabilities. "The missile weighs 50 tonnes. It has no suitable loading vehicle to transport it. Due to India's poor infrastructure, the country's bridges and roads cannot bear the weight of the missile". "So far, it can only be launched from a fixed position. Even though it was successful, it will take a long time to build an operational missile force," it said.
In the Global Times interview, Zhang suggested the Agni-V would help India rise from a regional to a world power. China must work on developing defence systems against the threat of ballistic missile. "It is India's goal to possess an ICBM, as the country seeks to improve its status and become a major world player. Without it, India will remain a regional power," Zhang said.
By itself, the Agni-V will not take away China's superiority in this technology, Zhang said. "But for the sake of regional stability, China should continue to develop defence systems against ballistic missile threats," he said.
The Communist Party's main organ, the People's Daily, ran a commentary, "Risks behind India's military build-up" saying the Agni-V development shows Indian's intention to seek a regional balance of power.
"However, in the context of the eastward shift of global economic power and the changing Asian geopolitical pattern, India should cooperate with neighbouring countries and reduce its own persecution mania," it said.
China successfully conducted its first ground-based mid-course ballistic missile interception experiment in January 2010, becoming the second country in the world to conduct this kind of missile defence test, the local media pointed out.
These views, mostly fuelled by experts connected to China's ministry of defence, were different in tone and content from comments made by the foreign affairs ministry on Thursday. The foreign affairs ministry said China was for "cooperative partnership" with India as it was not a rival.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/21/2012
12:47 ||
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Somehow I don't think guidance systems will be a problem
DRDO chief said that a lot of new technologies developed indigenously were successfully tested in the Agni 5 Mission.
Mr. Saraswat said the redundant Navigation Systems, very high accuracy Ring Laser Gyro based Inertial Navigation System,RINS and the most modern and accurate Micro Navigation System (MINS) ensured the Missile reach the target point within few meters of accuracy. He said the high speed onboard computer and fault tolerant software along with robust and reliable bus guided the Missile flawlessly.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/21/2012 13:17
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The Agni-5 has three stages, with the second and third stage built of composite materials. The next missile will have a composite first stage as well, making it lighter and, therefore, able to carry a heavier payload than the 1.5-tonne payload of the current Agni-5. According to DRDO sources, an MIRV payload would be significantly heavier since it would consist of several nuclear warheads, each weighing about 400 kg. A five-warhead MIRV, therefore, would weigh two tonnes.
The Chinese proliferation strategy to its proxies isn't working out too well
Posted by: john frum ||
04/21/2012 13:28
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Chinese propaganda isn't what it used to be. Perhaps they exported their best to North Korea?
What this says is that the Chinese really, really don't like the Agni. All the more reason for India to deploy the missile.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012 14:44
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"China says India underplaying Agni, it can hit Europe"
More importantly, it can hit China. Just sayin'
Posted by: Barbara ||
04/21/2012 14:44
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Yep. It can hit a lot of places. Really doubt any Agnis will be aimed at Europe or Africa though.
Ironically Indian PM Nehru was going to scrap the Indian Army. It was the Chinese invasion that changed things.
"I remember many a time when our senior generals came to us, and wrote to the defence ministry saying that they wanted certain things... If we had had foresight, known exactly what would happen, we would have done something else... what India has learnt from the Chinese invasion is that in the world of today there is no place for weak nations... We have been living in an unreal world of our own creation."
Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajya Sabha, 1963
The roots of politicisation of the army are to be found in Nehru's hatred for the man in uniform. Soon after Independence the first commander-in-chief of the Indian armed forces, General Sir Robert Lockhart, presented a paper outlining a plan for the growth of the Indian Army to Prime Minister Nehru.
Nehru's reply: "We don't need a defence plan. Our policy is non-violence. We foresee no military threats. You can scrap the army. The police are good enough to meet our security needs."
He didn't waste much time. On September 16, 1947, he directed that the army's then strength of 280,000 be brought down to 150,000. Even in fiscal 1950-51, when the Chinese threat had begun to loom large on the horizon, 50,000 army personnel were sent home as per his original plan to disband the armed forces.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/21/2012 15:42
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After Independence, he once noticed a few men in uniform in a small office the army had in North Block, and angrily had them evicted
Soon after Independence he separated the army, navy, and air force from a unified command and abolished the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces, thus bringing down the status of the seniormost military chief.
He continued to demote the status of the three service chiefs at irregular intervals in the order of precedence in the official government protocol, a practice loyally continued by successive governments to the benefit of politicians and bureaucrats.
During the 1947-48 war with Pakistan in Kashmir, Nehru interfered with purely military decisions at will, which delayed the war and changed the ultimate outcome in Pakistan's favour. He developed a precedent to violate channels and levels of communications at that time. His penchant for verbal orders to the various army commanders, of which he kept no records, violated the chain of command.
Menon, along with Nehru, caused havoc in the army's working, disregarding professional opinion and advice, violating all channels and levels of communication and encouraging the same within the army hierarchy, which ended with disastrous results in the Sino-Indian conflict. Like his boss, Menon believed in giving verbal orders and disliked records.
When the prime minister and the defence minister give an ear to a junior general over the heads of other generals, including the army chief, and the junior boasts about this, the morale and effectiveness of the senior officers is bound to suffer, even as the army hierarchy begins to disintegrate.
This is just what happened progressively in 1961-62. The cancer eventually entered the mainstream services and though there are strong tendencies to counter such evils ingrained within the armed forces culture, it is slowly but surely spreading, thanks to the generally weak Indian character.
After the infamous 'Jeep scandal' (purchase of Jeeps for the use of the army, which the army rejected on account of their poor condition, but was forced to accept since the Jeeps were already paid for), it became necessary to remove Krishna Menon, who had fixed that deal, from the post of high commissioner to the United Kingdom because of political and media pressure.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/21/2012 15:45
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INDIAN DEFENCE FORUM > [Sino-PHIL = Scarborough Shoal, SCS Disputes] PEOPLE'S DAILY: NO STORM CAN SHAKE CHINA'S COMPOSURE.
and
* SAME > CHINA'S MILITARY WARNED THE UNITED STATES ON US-PHILIPPINES MILITARY EXERCISE.
Beijing's frustration oer its perception that the US-Allies are trying to obtruct its
"Manifest Destiny" = rise to "post-US" World #1 Power + Influence, etc. may cause it to stop playing nicey feeley along the "First Island Chain" + START SHOOTING, JUST BECUZ THEY CAN???
A Kuwaiti man accused of using Twitter to defame the Muslim Prophet Mohammad has ignited a debate in the tiny but wealthy Gulf country about imposing the death penalty for the crime of blasphemy.
Muslim preachers, lawmakers and international human rights groups have all jumped into the debate, which erupted after Hamad Al-Naqi, a member of the countrys Shiite minority, was arrested March 28 on charges of defaming the Prophet in tweets posted on the social-networking website. He has denied making the posts, claiming that somebody hacked into his Twitter account.
Under Article 111 of Kuwaits penal code, which prohibits defamation of religion, Naqi faces up to one years imprisonment and a fine. But soon after he was arrested calls emerged for Kuwait to follow its bigger neighbor, Saudi Arabia, and impose the death penalty for such crimes.
Within days, Kuwaits parliament responded to the public outcry and gave preliminary backing to a capital punishment amendment last Thursday. Forty six out of 52 deputies voted in favor. But the fight is still on: the amendment must go to a second vote two weeks after the first and then be approved by the government and Kuwait's ruler Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
Having reworked the main page, we can now track down and kill the bugs I've let in. I've also reworked the individual article page under the hood, so there might be a few there.
And for the mods, there will be a new crop of bugs associated with the poster and editor.
Hence this: a spotlight to shine on bugs.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
10:22 ||
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clicking on one of the pages seems to return always to Pg 1 WOT. (FF 11.0)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 11:00
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actually, it just pushes PG 1 to the top
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 11:01
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Clicking where? I can't make it do that...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012 11:07
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I meant the index of the day's articles loads with WOT always at top. You used to load with the current page index at top, IIRC. No big deal, just a change.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 15:07
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You happy now?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012 15:15
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I'm always happy :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 15:28
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requests... I'd like a snark of the day added somehow. We've got some really funny folks here and it would be a crime to miss one. The moderators can decide and put a link on the front page or something. I don't know if it would be practical but it would be fun in the upcoming election season to be armed with potential quips.
#8
The numbers in the views/comments field aren't clear as to what they mean. Should probably be separated into two different fields. If the views is 49 and comments is 0, it looks sort of like 490, even though they're different colors.
#10
Fred, when you get a chance, take a look at the Name Link. It showed up queerly in today,s article in the Recent Articles list, though it looks fine in today's article under Editor:
reports that Wilders target=_blank>Wilders felt he had
#11
Similar to #8 gromky - Sometimes I like to just check the comments later in the day, currently the comment number is difficult to distinguish. Good job anyhow.
#13
I concur with #11 and #12 - I can't easily tell how many comments there are - usually the most interesting articles are the ones with lots of comments.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/21/2012 18:35
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I'm also not a fan of the color of the comment boxes. The drab mustard yellow with blue text is kind of hard to read.
#17
See if you like this way better, with the number of comments, last commenter, and [number of views]
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012 19:25
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When the number of views increases, the number of comments correlatingly increases. This is because on Rantburg you have to reload the same article multiple times if you want to see if anyone is replying to your comments.
Via the Puppy Blender (and doesn't recent dog news implicate him even more!), Mr. Baruth writes a true rant about manhood, courage and cars. It's a sheer delight to read, and that's why I'm pointing to it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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linky wrong
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 11:02
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This is an important move - thanks for pointing it out, Besoeker.
For some years now, people like Major General (ret) Bruce Lawlor have been pointing out the convergence of terror groups with crime networks. The illicit economy not only funds a lot of terror activities, but the lines have begun to blur very badly - as Rantburg's Chris Covert has been informing us with regard to the narcos to our south.
#2
Unfortunately you will never see this editorial in the San Francisco Comical or the Los Angeles Crimes.
The guy hit it out of the park over the apartment building across the street and into the vacant lot next to the tracks...he got it ALL.
The only reason I am here is because I bought this beautiful house that is now completely underwater AND I am unemployed. I'd move in a heart beat if I could find a job somewhere else and could unload my house.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/21/2012 12:41
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OK, so right of the bat there is this...
Mr. Kotkin, one of the nation's premier demographers, left his native New York City in 1971 to enroll at the University of California, Berkeley.
New York City??? Blame Californians all you want but I blame New Yorkers.
#5
OK, now I've read the whole thing and some of it is absolute nonsense...
Part of California's dysfunction, he says, stems from state and local government restrictions on development. These policies have artificially limited housing supply and put a premium on real estate in coastal regions.
How often does this guy leave his little ivy covered tower?
During the 1980's, 1990's and early 2000's the cities along the coast in northern San Diego County grew faster than any other cities in the state. I know. I was there. The city council members in these cities were in bed and having fun with any and every developer who came down the pike and there were a whole helluva lot of them. They went from sleepy, agricultural beach towns to big, frickin' Orange County style cities almost overnight. It's sticks and stucco with red tiled rooftops as far as the eye can see. Yes, it's expensive but it's in high demand and you could get an exotic, fraudulent mortgage courtesy of Fannie and Freddie for no money down. As for those who had to move to Temecula, boo hoo. You think Texas is better? Be my guest and leave. Or maybe you should go back to New York.
You want the entire California coast to look like Long Beach? FOAD.
You want the nicest weather in the world? You want to live with the beautiful people? You want a big house in the suburbs with a green lawn, palm trees, the beach down the street and fancy cars? You're gonna have to pay extra for that.
Yes, Jerry Brown is an idiot. But I didn't vote for him. Transplanted New Yorkers like Joel Kotkin did. Illegal aliens did. Thanks to Bill Clinton for that. Kotkin probably voted for him too. That's why California is boned.
#6
Brown has structured his next FY budget assuming the voters will pass another big tax increase on those bastard rich people, or the "schools and parks will close". Typical. Either you vote for this draconian tax increase or "the poor and students will be kicked into the streets". No other alternative exists in the Democrat calculus. Of course, when the vote fails, they'll find a way to make it work. Lying assholes
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 15:27
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Part of California's dysfunction, he says, stems from state and local government restrictions on development. These policies have artificially limited housing supply and put a premium on real estate in coastal regions.
True whether or not you like it.
#8
You want the nicest weather in the world? You want to live with the beautiful people? You want a big house in the suburbs with a green lawn, palm trees, the beach down the street and fancy cars? You're gonna have to pay extra for that.
And Californians are paying extra for that. Oh, how they are paying!
I don't believe it. All I've seen in the past three decades is growth. In 1993 I could drive down Interstate 5 to work without ever touching my brakes. Now I5 is a big parking lot. The politicians are in bed with the developers. They let them do whatever, wherever and whenever. Are you telling me you haven't seen that? Where do you live?
#10
Ebbang - you know my bio by now. The Coastal I-5 improvements planned by Caltrans (I was Project Manager for the City's Project Report and Enviro Document clearance from Sorrento to LJ Village Dr as part of a new Genessee/I-5 bridge interchange) Help is on the way
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 19:15
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Anguper hears and sings along with the siren song of The Golden State's Demise. It's just so pretty to think so, especially for those who have never lived hear.
#12
Ebbang, I can only speak for myself in my tiny little northern California town, but I had to fight city hall tooth and nail for years just to get permission to build a house on my own damn property. It was a friggin nightmare. I love it here (just got back from a beautiful spring skiing day), but I hate all the Californians who want big government to be responsible for all of us whether we like it or not.
Let me be blunt: as a gun collector I was actively driven out of California under Grey Davis. One year the things I had in my gun cabinet were legal. The next: ten years in state prison for having them. The Secretary of State said (and I quote)"Move to Nevada or Texas if you like that kind of thing."
So I did. And I cursed the state and everything it stands for as it vanished behind me.
Have you Californians ever wondered why your neighbors - the liberals in Oregon, the libertarians in Nevada, and the conservatives in Arizona - all despise you? Because you're arrogant, self-important, culturally grotesque, violent, and exploiting. When you move to other states, you don't assimilate - you try to force everyone to assimilate to you. You spread the sickness that is your state's degraded Stalinist culture every chance you get. And you - not anyone else - are responsible for the artistic Holocaust that is Hollywood.
We, your neighbors, have every right to hate you. You're our oppressors. You want to make CA a better place? Start by burning the LA and SF areas down.
Coming across the PAK border in large trucks, has been for years. Taliban pay off Afghan Border Patrol (ABP) and haul it in. Welcome to the Spring Offensive.
#1
How many times have they had to lick and kiss fingers over there after they were pulled out of their allies butts!?!
Following the 9/11 attacks, al-Thani was named a defendant in lawsuits stemming from the attacks. His attorney said al-Thani did not facilitate âterrorist acts,â but would not deny that al-Thani assisted terrorists. The U.S. government has not taken any action against al-Thani in the years since 9/11, despite his known connections with al-Qaeda. As of late 2007, al-Thani continues to oversee Qatarâs internal security, while his country hosts the U.S. militaryâs Central Command for the Iraq war.
The five suspects had confessed that the planned attack was co-ordinated by two Taliban commanders with links to Pakistan's main intelligence organisation the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), according to the spokesman.
ToloNews adds the names of the Taliban commanders: Noor Afzal and Mohammed Omer.
Ay Pee adds the truck had Pakistani licence plates.
Thus far the mighty spring offensive has been a bit of a dud, though a great deal of thought and effort has gone into planning the first round.
#5
#3 Remain me again---what are you doing in Afghanistan?
g(r)omgoru, trying to capture Bin Laden I think, although there might have been a bit of mission creep in the interim.
#9
Ever looked at stats on Islamic emigration to USA before and after 911, TW?
No I haven't, g(r)omgoru. But I do remember the Muslims fleeing for the exits after 9/11, when they were required to register to show they were here legally. It seems an awful lot of them had overstayed visas, then brought over all their relations -- NPR did a heart-wrenching story at the time, which I don't seem able to find, of Muslim families lined up at the border crossings to Canada, having left lovely homes and small business ventures behind, because they didn't want to be deported back to Pakistan, etc. The government program, one of the first visible impacts of the passing of the Patriot Act, was called the National Security Exit and Entry Registration System (NSEERS). This story gives a little of the history.
On reflection, I wonder what impact those returnees had on their home countries. However much they might resent America for driving them away, they clearly appreciated the opportunities for success and the rule of law which they became accustomed to here.
#2
They will be calling in the heavy hitters from Nevada Aerial Research and British Columbia. Where is that Holly Wood Al Qaeda sign terrorist anyway?
Posted by: Titus the Full Bosomed2177 ||
04/21/2012 8:19
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Interesting sour notes buried in all the wide-eyed hooraw:
But it is clear they are here to deal with Mr Obama's overwhelming problem. 2012 is not 2008.
The amazing coalition that propelled him to power hasn't exactly fractured, but the enthusiasm and energy has run away into the sand. Many natural Obama voters are disillusioned and demoralised.
Mr Obama's team believe that if they can't have the natural wild magic of 2008, some clever stage craft and behind the scenes mechanics will still synthetically reproduce that winning wizardry in 2012.
#2
This isn't the trucker who took the wrong turn and ended up on the wrong side of the border, is it? That happened to me once, driving back from Germany to Belgium -- I spent twenty minutes inHolland, trying to find a way back.
#3
Since the Obama Administration has decided to implement gun control by controlling ammunition, could this be another "Fast and Furious" with ammo. The Border security must not have gotten the memo.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Relative calm has returned to Mali after the junta that zeized power in a coup last month release 22 high ranking officials.
The junta explained that former Prime Minister Modibo Sidibé and other officials, who had been placed in long-term storage early this week, would remain under the watch of the gendarmerie (a department of the armed forces).
Last Wednesday, the gendarmerie displayed weapons it claimed were recovered after the arrests although it did not give information on where the weapons were found.
Earlier, the National Assembly had asked for the relase of all civilians and military officials being held by the junta.
The parliamentarians adopted a resolution in which they condemned the declaration of Azawad State by MNLA rebels.
Parliament stated that Mali was "a sovereign, indivisible, laic and social republic".
They asked the rebels to surrender their weapons and to stop using foreign media to relay their message.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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SANAA: Yemeni government troops launched a surprise attack in the south of the country to recapture an Al-Qaeda stronghold, killing 25 militants, an official said yesterday.
The official said the army succeeded in regaining control over one district on the outskirts of Zinjibar, but the rest of the provincial capital was still in Al-Qaedas hands.
A Defense Ministry statement yesterday said the offensive that started two weeks ago around another city in the southern Abyan province, Lawder, has so far killed 250 Al-Qaeda militants. Also, 37 Yemeni soldiers have died, it said.
In recent weeks, the Yemeni military has been hitting the militants in ground and air operations, while Al-Qaeda has carried out some bloody surprise attacks of its own against government forces.
Yemens government expressed determination.
The war on terrorism will expand and reach all the terrorist elements; it will continue and will not stop until it curbs it and uproots it, a statement yesterday from the Ministry of Interior read.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Eleven Central African troops belonging to a regional border task force were killed in Sudan by rebels using gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, officials said Friday.
"We deplore 11 deaths and nine maimed on the Central African side. The attack targeted the headquarters of the tripartite force based in Sudan in the Am Dafok region," a government source in Bangui said, adding the incident took place on Wednesday.
The attackers "armed with heavy weapons, including rocket-launchers, RPG7s, grenades and vehicles mounted with machine guns, launched their assault on the Sudanese army base at Am Dafok, on the Sudanese side of the border, on Wednesday around 13H00 GMT," a Central African officer told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The base also housed Central African soldiers belonging to the tripartite force" comprised of troops from Sudan, Chad and Central Africa responsible for monitoring the border, the officer added.
The bodies of the dead and maimed have been taken to Bangui.
The African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... -United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) is investigating the incident, spokeswoman Susan Manuel said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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UK police say three men flying in from Oman have been placed in durance vile at Heathrow Airport by counterterrorism officers.
West Midlands police says the men -- all from Birmingham, England -- were jugged Thursday night "on suspicion of possessing articles and documents with intent to use them for terrorist purposes overseas."
CAIRO: Tens of thousands of Egyptians demanded yesterday that their military rulers stick to a pledge to hand over power by mid-year after a row over who can run in the presidential election raised doubts about the armys commitment to democracy.
It's not the 'liberals' who are protesting...
Two leading Islamist candidates, one representing the Muslim Brotherhood who was seen as the frontrunner, were among those disqualified this week from a vote that starts on May 23-24, drawing a storm of criticism from supporters and the candidates. Khairat Al-Shater, the Brotherhoods former candidate, said his ejection showed the generals who have ruled since Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year had no serious intention of quitting. The movement is now fielding a reserve candidate.
We are all here to protect the revolution and complete its demands, said Sayed Gad, 38, a pharmacist and Brotherhood member. He had joined a protest which attracted both Islamists and liberals to a packed Tahrir Square in central Cairo.
A council of generals, who stepped in 14 months ago after mass demonstrations in Tahrir and elsewhere sapped Mubaraks power, has led Egypt through a turbulent transition punctuated by spasms of violence and frequent protests against their handling of the move to democracy.
The army says it will stick to its timetable to hand power to a new president by July 1 and has promised to oversee a fair vote. But some remarks from military officials suggesting the army might also seek now to have a new constitution in place before that handover an impossibly tight deadline for many has added to popular worries about the militarys ambitions.
Western diplomats expect the timetable for transferring powers to hold but say the army which supplied Egypts presidents for six decades, including Mubarak, and which has built up sprawling business interests throughout that time, will remain an influential player behind the scenes for years.
Down with military rule and The people want the execution of the marshal, some protesters chanted, a reference to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Mubaraks defense minister for two decades who now leads the ruling military council.
Some demonstrators sheltered under awnings and umbrellas to shade them from the midday sun. Many waved Egyptian flags.
Thousands also gathered in the second city Alexandria and turned out in some other cities. The hours after weekly prayers at mosques on Fridays are traditional times for protests.
No to remnants. No to military rule, read one banner that carried pictures of Mubaraks last prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander, and of Moussa, a former foreign minister. They are both strong contenders, especially now that the Brotherhoods Shater has been disqualified.
From a stage in Tahrir Square where his supporters had also gathered yesterday, people chanted over loudspeakers: Islamic revolution! With our soul and blood, we sacrifice for Islam! and The Qur'an is the constitution!
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(Sh.M.Network)- Eleven Somalis were on Thursday sentenced to a 20-year jail term for attacking a French naval ship.
Mombasacourt Principal magistrate Mr S.K. Gacheru declined to have the accused serve their sentence inSomaliaas they had pleaded during mitigation.
Mr Gacheru instead ordered that they be deported toSomaliaupon completion of their sentence.The court noted that the offence was serious and that it had endangered the lives of the crew of the French naval ship, Nivose.
The magistrate said the offence called for a deterrent sentence to act as a warning to others who might have the intention of committing a similar offence.
The accused are Ahmed Abikadir,Abdirahim Mohamed,Abdullahi Salat,Abdullahi Yusuf,Abdullahi Mohamud,Abdi Dahir,Ahmed Maalim,Ahmed Hassan,Ahmed Mohamed,Abshir Ahmed and Omar Ibrahim.
They allegedly committed the offence while armed with two AK 47 rifles, an RPG 7, six RPG launchers and a knife attacked the naval ship on May 3 2009 upon the high seas.
State counsel Catherine Mwaniki urged the court to impose a harsh sentence on the accused citing the seriousness of the offence and economic costs incurred.
"The accused are not of Kenyan origin, their nationalities have not been established, there are no records of their previous convictions in the country and that they may be treated as first offenders" Ms Mwaniki added.
Lawyer Ng'etich Samson representing the accused called upon the court to consider that the accused did not board the naval ship during the incident and that at no point was ransom paid.
The judgement was prepared by Principal magistrate Karimi Mwangi who has since been transferred but was delivered by Mr Gacheru.
The eleven pirates now join list of other Somalis who have been convicted and sentenced by Kenyan courts foir piracy in the high seas.
Kenya prosecuted its first piracy case in the year 2006 and has since been receiving and prosecuting suspected Somali pirates captured by international forces patrolling international theIndian Ocean.
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(Sh. M. Network)- At least one person was killed and ten others were maimed in a renewed festivities between Somali government forces in the lawless capital,Mogadishu, locals said on Friday.
A witness told Shabelle Media that the fighting sparked after TFG military army attacked a cop shoppe at Howlwdag junction, just few inches from the main Bakaro market in Mogadishu, killing a passerby, wounding 10 others.
The victimized were rushed immediately to the medical centers inMogadishuby ambulance services for treatment. The reason of the combat is yet unclear.
Some Somali government military officials whom Shabelle Media contacted on the line for comments,declined to talk about the internal fighting between the soldiers.
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Iran will cut oil export to all European countries if they do not lift sanctions on Tehran after the next round of talks in Baghdad, country's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said on Thursday, Mehr reported.
Qasemi said the Oil Ministry has "officially" cut crude exports to Britain and France, however, he added a stop of Iran's oil export to refiners in Greece, Spain, and Germany is not "official". He added that Greece is paying a large sum of its oil debts to Iran.
The minister went on to say that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed new contracts with some customers so that if oil export to Europe is halted completely Iran will have alternative buyers.
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#1
Maybe Europe will wake up and get mildly excited. Nah.
#2
Iraq is subsidizing Iran by allowing it to tap into its reserves to the tune of billions of dollars. The Rial fell by 70% compared to the dollar last month, yet Iran seems unconcerned.
I suppose if your belligerency is being subsidies by your coreligionists next door you can keep going for a long time
South Korea on Thursday unveiled two new missiles capable of hitting targets anywhere in North Korea.
That will certainly make life interesting for some north of the border.
The Hyunmu-3 cruise missile has a range of 1,500 km and is capable of precision attacks on key North Korean facilities, including nuclear and missile installations, while the Hyunmu-2 ballistic missile has a 300 km range and can destroy a target the size of scores of a soccer field.
The military had kept the existence of the missiles a top secret but decided to unveil them to ease public jitters after Pyongyang's latest threats to strike Seoul.
Major General Shin Won-sik told reporters the cruise missiles are "capable of striking targets anywhere in North Korea."
The Hyunmu-3 is said to be more accurate than the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile with a range of between 1,300 km to 2,500 km. It can be launched from both ground-based mobile platforms and Aegis-class destroyers and submarines.
The Hyunmu-2 ballistic missile's range is restricted to 300 km due to a treaty with the U.S. that limits the reach of South Korea's missiles, but could apparently travel up to 500 km. It can hit targets with 30 m accuracy.
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#1
As per WORLD NEWS + TOPIX , Jong-un = DPRK may be secretly stashing a second Space Rocket???
Also, SAMe > US ANALYSTS = believe that the DPRK's Missle Launchers don't work, which has led a number of MilBloggers to ask how, iff true, whose "Space Rocket" [Iran? Al-Qaeda? Other?]did the DPRK launch as its own.
#5
Thing.
Given the geography of the region, ROK ought not keep anything in Seoul, including Seoul.
It's an interesting starting point for your exercise, but someplace in the mountains a bit further south might be safer from a commando raid by sleepers or something, or being destroyed by Nork's ten thousand gun tubes and rocket launchers in the first three minutes.
For grins, look up "redleg rumba". That rate of fire is too fast for sustained fire, but if you want steel on target and don't care about the barrel, you could put a lot of bad on a target the size of a city--which means you don't have to check and if necessary redeflect and elevate--in a couple of minutes. Ten thousand of them....
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04/21/2012 16:19
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Let's just say for a lot of the interesting targets within 1500 km that won't make a whole lot of difference.
An argument over saltine crackers led to a bloody knife fight between an uncle and nephew in a South Bridge Street home Thursday night, according to police.
Capt. Arthur Monfette said the incident began when the uncle, Pedro Mendoza, 37, of 13 Worcester Place, became upset because his nephews ex-girlfriend was cooking with the saltines.
Monfette said the nephew, Carlos Pagan, 18, who lives at the 542 South Bridge Street residence where the incident occurred, stuck up for his ex-girlfriend and the argument escalated into a knife fight.
Mendoza was stabbed and slashed in 11 different places and Pagan got slashed once in the hand, Monfette said. Both men were taken to area hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries
Charges are pending further investigation, Monfette said. Police were summoned to the home shortly after 10:35 p.m.
#4
I remember the first day I moved to Southern California and was listening to the traffic station (believe it was KNX) and heard a news report of two brothers fighting over a frozen chicken managing to shoot and kill each other. Some mother lost two sons in a fight over a frozen freaking chicken. That's when I decided I was going to move back to the USA as soon as possible.
[Dawn] The agony of an SHO was doubled when first he was deprived of his official pistol, cell phone and other valuables at the hands of gunnies, and in consequence, suspended by the SSP who asked him to report to Police Lines.
The SHO at Kot Lalu Police Ali Sher Sheikh along with a constable Altaf was going to Kot-Lalu on Kumb-Nawabshah Road on Wednesday evening when deprived of official weapon, mobile phone and other valuables by eight highwaymen near Jalal Ji Chowdagi. SSP Khairpur Irfan Baloch suspended the SHO with directives to report at Police Lines.
Police from different stations went after the robbers by following their footprints on Thursday.
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An iconic Mexican military commander was murdered in the streets of Polanco in Mexico City Friday.
General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro is reviled by the Mexican left for his involvement in the Dirty War as commander of the Mexican Army garrison in Acapulco where, critics claim, he ordered the murder of hundreds of political opponents of Mexico's ruling party, charges of which he was later acquitted.
As dark as his military record was during the 1970s, his final legacy may well be a last, failed mission he had during the early part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa's war against Mexican drug cartels.
Rantburg.com correspondent Chris Covert examines the life of General Acosta Chaparro on Rantburg's Sunday Morning Coffee Pot.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Friday branded Turkey a "hostile state" with a sectarian agenda, the latest in a series of bitter exchanges between the neighbors.
Maliki was responding to comments made by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in which Erdogan accused the Iraqi leader of fanning tensions between the country's Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds with his "self-centered" ways.
"The recent announcements by Mr. Erdogan represent another return to flagrant interference in Iraqi internal affairs," Maliki said in a statement on his website.
"His announcements have a sectarian dimension. To insist on continuing these internal and regional policies will harm Turkish interests and make it a hostile state for all."
[An Nahar] Syrian activists protested against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... on Friday, saying the embattled leader will be defeated, as at least 36 civilians and 13 pro-regime security personnel were killed in fresh violence.
The Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said security forces killed 36 civilians across the country, including three children and two women.
Twelve people were killed in Homs, nine in Idlib, three in the Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... neighborhoods of Daff al-Shouk, al-Tadamon and al-Midan, four in Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , two in the Damascus suburb of Douma, one in Deir Ezzor and one in Daraa, the LCC said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said a powerful blast killed 10 security force personnel in the southern region of Quneitra, blaming the kaboom on "terrorists."
The latest violence, which left three security forces dead elsewhere, came as international envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... 's front man acknowledged the situation was "not good" and as rights monitors reported an opposition activist killed and intense shelling of protest centers.
"It's a very fragile ceasefire," Ahmad Fawzi told news hounds of the tenuous truce which has seen more than 120 civilians killed since it went into effect on April 12.
The deadly blast took place in Quneitra, near the border with Israel in the occupied Golan Heights, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.
"An armed terrorist group went kaboom! a 100-kilogram (220-pound) bomb in Sahm al-Jolan in the region of Quneitra, killing 10 members of the security forces," the television said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... an advance team of U.N. military observers resumed work bolstered by the signing on Thursday of a protocol governing their mission to monitor a six-point plan brokered by Annan.
U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... urged the Security Council to take "early action" to bolster the mission, while acknowledging that boosting its numbers to 300 was "not a decision without risk."
Opposition activists had called for a show of defiance against Assad's regime for the main weekly protests on the Mohammedan day of prayer and rest.
"We will win and Assad will be defeated," was the slogan on the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook Page, which has been a major engine of the 13-month uprising that monitors say has left more than 11,000 people dead.
Videos posted online showed thousands of demonstrators joining a huge rally in the city of Hassaka in the mainly Kurdish northeast.
Others showed demonstrations in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising, as well as in the Damascus suburbs.
Across the country, activists reported a massive security force presence, particularly outside mosques, the traditional starting point for marches and protests.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the U.N. observer mission needed to be able to guarantee Syrians the freedom to protest.
"We need observers on the ground, but properly equipped observers with helicopters that can ensure the right to protest. It's extremely important. The day this freedom is guaranteed, the regime will fall," he said.
But the head of the small observer advance team, Morocco's Colonel Ahmed Himmiche, said it would not be attending demonstrations on Friday for fear that "our presence is used for an escalation."
"Today, we have other tasks. We are going to meet civilians and representatives of organizations," Himmiche told Agence La Belle France Presse as his team prepared to leave their Damascus hotel.
The U.N. chief said there was "deeply troubling evidence" that the government was pursuing its deadly crackdown despite agreeing to halt violence.
"The past few days, in particular, have brought reports of renewed and escalating violence, including the shelling of civilian areas, grave abuses by government forces and attacks by gangs," Ban said.
The protocol signed with Damascus on Thursday will pave the way for the U.N. observers to fan out across the country.
The advance party has visited the Daraa region but has not so far been able to visit Homs, where rebel neighborhoods have come under repeated deadly bombardment, Ban said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the rebel Khaldiyeh district of Homs -- Syria's third-largest city -- was under heavy bombardment for another day.
"A shell is falling every five minutes on the neighborhood," it said.
Footage posted on the Internet showed what activists said were plumes of smoke rising over Khaldiyeh.
Homs activist Seif al-Arab charged that government forces were "intensifying their operations in a bid to take control of the whole city before the observers enter."
Some 30 percent of Homs remains outside security force control despite a month-long assault on the city's Baba Amr district that saw hundreds killed, including Western journalists, before it was overrun on March 1.
Activists in the town of Qusayr, further north, also reported heavy bombardment. "Mortar and rocket fire did not stop all night and is continuing today," said Hadi Abdullah.
"The regime wants to empty Qusayr of its residents and destroy it as it did with Baba Amr, because it's the only way it can assert its control," he charged.
Damascus ally Moscow insisted Friday that the Syrian ceasefire was generally holding despite violations and should be viewed as an achievement that was saving the country from a broader civil war.
"Despite the existing violations and provocations, the ceasefire is holding overall. This is a great achievement whose loss could lead to a dangerous retreat to a new wave of violence," the foreign ministry said.
[Yemen Post] Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani, the Yemeni prominent holy man and Islamic Islah party high-ranking leader, called on Yemenis on Friday to stand by President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi in his efforts to restore security and get things back to track, condemning the spread of violence acts by the bad turban groups across the nation.
In an interview with the daily Akbar al-Youm newspaper, al-Zandani said that it's forbidden to carry weapons or to kill another Moslem, citing Prophet Mohammed when he said whoever carries a weapon on us is not from us.
He called on the National Unity Government and President Hadi to quickly hold the inclusive national dialogue and to base the dialogue on clear objectives, including banning carrying weapons.
The prominent Islamic holy man, who is on US wanted list, noted that every one complained about the former regime because it repressed peaceful protests, restricted freedoms and violated rights, but now there is new president and new era.
Speaking about the fundamentalist Islamic groups like al-Qaeda, al-Zandani
Showed complete objection to what these groups do such as fighting and killing Moslem soldiers, saying we should correct the misconceptions on which such acts were based.
With regards to the upcoming national dialogue, he said that the national dialogue should be held in a transparent way that all Yemeni people know every thing goes on in it.
"The government should invite all forces and factions in Yemen to participate in the upcoming national dialogue, who ever accept the invitation and takes part in it is welcome and those who refuse to participate and lay down arms the government along with all Yemeni people should take a decisive stance against them. The government should restore security and stability in the country." Al-Zandani suggested.
Al-Zandani further pointed out that it's forbidden in Islam to attack foreigners or their interests.
No doubt one of those abrogated verses or a hudna or something...
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BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau: Guinea-Bissaus military leaders said Thursday they had agreed on a candidate to lead a transitional government, though the proposed two-year timeframe for organizing new elections after last weeks coup was unlikely to appease the international community.
Two years is long enough for the coup-plotters to pry up everything that's presently nailed down...
Manuel Serifo Nhamajo, who has served as vice president of the National Assembly, was chosen by junta authorities and the opposition parties who took part in the process. The overthrown ruling party was not involved and later said it rejects any government stemming from a coup detat.
Sure, you'd expect them to say that, but they're the ones on the bottom right now...
In New York, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday heard calls for deployment of a UN force from the foreign minister in the countrys ousted government and the representative of Portuguese-speaking countries.
Guinea-Bissaus Foreign Minister Mamadu Saliu Djalo, who was out of the country when soldiers violently took over the presidency on April 12, begged the council to authorize a peacekeeping force with a long-term mandate to allow for the establishment of a legitimate democratic state in the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.
Send in the mighty Uruguayans!
Ambassador Youssoufou Bamba of Ivory Coast, speaking on behalf of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, said it intended to deploy a military contingent to the West African nation, which is allowed under a UN Charter provision dealing with regional organizations.
The ECOWAS mission will ensure the protection of VIPs and institutions as well as the envisaged transition and electoral process, Bamba said.
Angolas Foreign Minister Georges Rebelo Chikoti, speaking on behalf of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, urged the council to create a peacekeeping force and take measures to restore constitutional order.
Among those taking part in planning a transitional government was the party of Kumba Yala, one of the two presidential candidates in a runoff vote that was derailed by the coup. Guinea-Bissau was just weeks away from holding a presidential runoff election when soldiers attacked the front-runners home and arrested him along with the countrys interim president.
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[An Nahar] Suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... have killed at least eight people, including a policeman, in separate attacks in restive northern Nigeria, police said Friday.
The attacks, which also maimed a policeman, occurred in three different cities, with most of the violence in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state in Nigeria's northeast where Boko Haram has been based.
"Five people were killed yesterday by gunnies suspected to be Boko Haram, in a bakery. All five were laborers in the bakery, located in the Polo area of Maiduguri," Borno state police commissioner Bala Hassan told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He said two gunnies stormed the bakery with guns concealed in a sack and shot the five dead. The attackers decamped before police arrived, he said.
Hassan said a customs officer was rubbed out on Wednesday at Gamboru market in Maiduguri, while a water vendor was also killed in another area of the city on the same day.
In nearby Yobe state, police front man Toyin Gbadegeshin told AFP a policeman was killed outside his house in the state capital on Thursday.
"We lost a policeman to unidentified gunnies who trailed and killed him outside his house at Pawari neighborhood of Damaturu," he said, adding that Boko Haram was suspected.
In yet another attack, a policeman was maimed by gunnies who opened fire on him outside a petrol station in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's north.
Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of shootings and kabooms, mostly in northern Nigeria, in an increasingly deadly insurgency that has killed more than 1,000 people since 2009.
Criminal groups have also carried out violence and robberies under the guise of Boko Haram.
The U.S. embassy in Nigeria warned Wednesday that Boko Haram may be planning attacks against hotels or other targets in the Nigerian capital Abuja, but the government downplayed the alert and said there was no cause for alarm.
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[Dawn] At least 14 people were killed on Friday in firing incidents in different parts of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , DawnNews reported.
Unidentified gunnies on a cycle of violence shot three people at Qadaffy Chowk in the Orangi Town area. The shooters managed to escape from the scene of the crime.
In another part of Orangi Town, bullet riddled dead bodies of two kidnapped men were found. The bodies bore torture marks, DawnNews learnt. Two other people were rubbed out in Orangi.
Separately, a rickshaw driver was killed in a firing related incident at Teen Hatti.
Moreover, two people were rubbed out in the areas of Malir and New Sabzi-mandi at Super Highway.
Two people were rubbed out in Mominabad and one in Aligarh colony.
Furthermore, a man maimed in a shooting incident in Clifton on Thursday departed this vale of tears.
Home Minister takes notice
Home Minister Sindh Manzoor Wasan took notice of the deteriorating law and order situation and ordered the law enforcement agencies to establish peace in the metropolis.
Wasan ordered Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Bloody Karachi West to produce an investigative report on the killings in Orangi Town.
Speaking to DawnNews, Wasan said he had directed Inspector General (IG) Sindh to issue orders to the city's Station House Officers (SHOs) to patrol their respective areas and search suspected individuals.
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The notion that 'fiercely autonomous' tribes in the 'weakly governed' FATA gave refuge to fleeing cut-throats from Afghanistan in line with the code of Pashtunwali is completely false
In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistain was forced to fight the Taliban. Pak generals accommodated the immediate US concerns about Al Qaeda but also continued a low profile relationship with the Afghan Taliban to preserve them for strategic depth in Afghanistan after the US had left the country. They managed to play the double role by creating a 'managed chaos' in FATA that made the region too insure for independent observation from the outside and too frightening for the local tribal people to share information with the outside world. It was systematically propagated in Pak media that 'fiercely autonomous' tribes in the 'weakly governed' FATA have given refuge in line with the code of Pashtunwali to the fleeing cut-throats from Afghanistan in defiance of the Pak state. All this is utter nonsense.
Not even a single tribe in FATA gave refugee to any bad turbans. People who cooperated with the cut-throats were individuals within tribes. These individuals have longstanding links with the military establishments and their tribes have no control over them. For example, Maulana Noor Muhammad from South Wazoo was openly urging the tribes in his Friday sermons to support the cut-throats following their escape in the area.
South Waziristan was the first FATA agency where the 'managed chaos' was imposed to construct a fake popular support for the bad turbans. While most people watched the activities of the cut-throats as unconcerned bystanders, it were the local Waziri Pashtun nationalists and other sensible local tribal people who foresaw the danger in such activities and began to educate people about them. At this point mysterious assassination of such anti-Taliban people began in 2003. The first anti-Taliban primitive who was target killed in 2003 was Farooq Wazir, the local leader of the Pashtun nationalist Pashtunkhwa Mili Awami Party, PMAP, who had publicly declared in response to Maulana Noor Muhammad's sermons that no cut-throats will be allowed to enter the city centre of Wana, capital of South Waziristan.
Between 2003 to 2007, over 200 political activists, including tribal leaders in South Waziristan were target killed under mysterious circumstances never investigated by the government of Pakistain. The common denominator among them is that they all were anti-Taliban. Their families hold the ISI responsible for their killing. Many of the eliminated anti-Taliban people were local activist of Pashtun nationalist political parties, PMAP and ANP. Mahmud Achakzai, leader of PMAP, repeatedly visited Waziristan to attend the funeral ceremonies of his assassinated party workers.
At the time of his arrival in South Waziristan as a Taliban capo, Baitullah Mehsud could not even speak Pashto in the typical Mehsud dialect
When the 'managed chaos' had to be shifted to the Mehsud area of South Waziristan, the intelligence authorities could not even find a suitable local Mehsud to 'crown' as Taliban capo. Thus a non-local Mehsud, Baitullah Mehsud, was chosen for the purpose on the recommendation of Maulana Mirajudin, an establishment linked Mehsud holy man. Although originally from South Waziristan, Baituallah's family had settled in Bannu for a long time. At the time of his arrival in South Waziristan as a Taliban capo, Baitullah could not even speak Pashto in the typical Mehsud dialect. He used to speak Banuchi - the Bannu Pashto dialect. Later during his stay in Waziristan as a terror leader he learned the Mehsud dialect.
Taliban apologists, such as PTI leader Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... , have been claiming that Taliban militancy in Waziristan is inspired by Faqir of Ipi, the Waziri primitive who led Waziristan's armed resistance to the British. This is a misleading claim. The Faqir's struggle was basically nationalist despite his religious orientation. This is the reason that descendents of the Faqir's family have disassociated themselves from the Taliban militancy, implying that Taliban have no ideological connections with the Faqir. Moreover, descendents of the close associates of the Faqir, all of them Pashtun nationalists linked with PMAP and ANP, have been target killed for their public anti-Taliban stance. One of them, Mirza Alam had been approached by the military authorities in Wana to give them one of his sons or nephews for leadership of the Waziri Taliban. He refused and later was killed along with six members of his family.
In North Waziristan, unlike South Waziristan, there was almost no local resistance to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This does not imply any popular tribal support for the bad turbans. The brutal massacre of the anti-Taliban people in South Waziristan was being closely watched in the neighbouring North Waziristan. By the time the cut-throats reached North Waziristan, people there had clear idea that resistance to Taliban/Al Qaeda was pointless since the state is behind them. That was further confirmed when they saw that Jalaludin Haqqani hosted all the bad turbans. Thus the cut-throats landed and continue to live there in peace amid the terrified local tribals whose free will is under siege.
A Pashtun from Afghanistan, Jalaludin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani Network, is one of the veterans of ISI's proxies, who were recruited in 1974 and later trained by colonel Imam in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar for Afghan 'jihad'. He was settled in Danday Darpa Khel, a village in the suburbs of Mir Ali, the second important town of North Waziristan. His extended family owns almost half of the real estate in Mir Ali. A signal phone call from his house or madrassa is enough to ensure postings and transfers in all government offices in North Waziristan. Also, the Haqqani family has houses in Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
The Haqqani network based in North Waziristan, a frequent target of the US drone strikes, is the most formidable Taliban group attacking the US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. It is the Haqqani Taliban leaders that the military establishment of Pakistain wants to accommodate in the future government of Afghanistan as has been suggested by the establishment linked think tank, Jinnah Institute, in its report 'Pakistain, US and the Endgame in Afghanistan' (page 13). The same report warns of Pashtun backlash in FATA if the Taliban are not accommodated in power in Afghanistan. But there is no public support for Afghan Taliban in FATA that could translate in such a backlash. Although the ISI did try to create that support, it failed.
For example, the ISI tried to create a stature for the Haqqanis as respected tribal leaders in FATA. They were directed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribes in Kurram. The objective was to argue to the world that Haqqanis are respected tribal leaders who have managed to make peace among the Shia and Sunni tribals, something that even the government of Pakistain had not been able to achieve. Thus any action against the Haqqani Network, that the US is asking for, would enrage the 'fiercely autonomous' people of FATA.
The Shia and Sunni tribal leaders questioned the wak (authority) of the Haqqanis to negotiate Kurram disputes. The Haqqanis responded that they were directed by the ISI. They demanded full authority from the tribal leaders for a peace deal. The Shias flatly refused. The Sunnis gave them the authority that practically means no authority: they asked the Haqqanis to use their influence with the ISI to implement the Murree agreement negotiated between the Kurram Shias and Sunnis by the government of Pakistain in 2008 but never enforced.
In the past, Kurram has been accepting mediation from Waziristan. Khandan Mehsud, a respectable tribal elder from Waziristan target killed in the post 9/11 Waziristan due to his opposition to the Taliban, has been leading the negotiations. Why did tribes of Kurram welcome Khandan Mehsud but not the Haqqanis? This is because the Mehsud had the stature of a popular tribal leader in FATA that the Haqqanis simply do not have. The fact that Mehsud belonged to the Sunni sect never damaged the Shias' trust in him. In this context he was a Pashtun nationalist who sincerely worked for well being of the Pashtun regardless their religious affiliations. Contrary to this, the Shias see the Haqanis as their murderers and the Sunnis fear, not respect, them. This is not how popular nationalist leaders are looked upon by their people.
Continued on Page 49
Moussa Abu Marzouk's statements, made in interview to The Forward, reflect a harder line than the stance of the group's political leader, Khaled Meshal.
Bottom line, it's hudnas all the way down, except when it's taqqiyah.
Any agreement the Paleostinian Authority might reach with Israel would be subject to significant changes, a senior Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, official has told the American newspaper The Forward.
Moussa Abu Marzouk said in an interview to be published next Friday that if Hamas came to power, any treaty would be an interim truce, a hudna,
One of those maximum ten years jobbies Mohammed specialized in, back in the day, to be broken as soon as the Muslim party was rested and rearmed.
not a permanent accord. This would be the case even if a referendum ratified the deal.
Marzouk's statements reflect a harder line than the stance of the group's political leader, Khaled Meshal, who is seen as Marzouk's main rival.
Meshal has repeatedly said Hamas would honor any agreement signed between the PA and Israel if the Paleostinian people supported it.
Marzouk told The Forward there is no sign of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas on setting up a unity government.
Marzouk opposed Meshal's recent efforts to achieve a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. According to an agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... would serve as prime minister of a caretaker government until elections for the president and parliament.
But Marzouk and two top Hamas leaders in Gazoo - Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... and Mahmoud al-Zahar - objected. Zahar even said Meshal had reached the agreement without consulting the other members of the leadership.
In recent weeks, Hamas has held a number of election campaigns for the group's political bureau - in Gazoo, in prisons and in regional councils abroad.
Marzouk's statements are seen as a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to advance the peace talks with the PA, because he can only "do business" with Hamas.
Hamas' leaders and the Israeli government appear to agree it is impossible to solve the conflict at the moment, only to manage it.
The Forward's assistant managing editor, Larry Cohler-Esses, met Marzouk in Cairo, where the Hamas leader moved after leaving Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... Marzouk, 61, said his organization would not recognize Israel as a state. "It will be like the relationship between Leb and Israel or Syria and Israel," he said. This means a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty as Israel has with Jordan or Egypt.
Cohler-Esses told Haaretz the interview had been arranged by the Hamas official's American attorney Stanley Cohen.
"On a personal level he was very interesting with a sense of humor. But I was certainly not optimistic after the things he said," Cohler-Esses said.
He said it was hard say who Marzouk was targeting with his comments, noting that Marzouk would be running in elections. Cohler-Esses said he sometimes "wondered if he was talking only to me or to his Shura council" - Hamas' political and decision-making body.
Abu Marzook was deported from the US in the mid 1990s after Hamas was officially entered into the State Department's terror watch list. He moved to Damascus and has since served as Khaled Mashaal's deputy.
[Yemen Post] The Yemeni forces seized a number of al-Qaeda positions as they advanced toward Zinjibar, the capital of southern Abyan province, which was held by beturbanned goons in mid-2011, the Defense Ministry said late on Thursday.
The forces fought the beturbanned goons and forced them out of their positions to take over them completely, it said.
The forces launched surprise attacks on the beturbanned goons from all directions around Zinjibar killing at least 18 of them and injuring tens of others, it added. Two soldiers were killed and seven others injured in the battles, it said.
In Lawder, another front where the army and popular fighters have been fighting beturbanned goons for almost two weeks, at least 14 beturbanned goons were killed. In this city, hundreds of al-Qaeda gunnies have been killed and injured when the forces and popular committees repelled attacks to occupy it.
Separately, the Interior Ministry reported al-Qaeda had planned to attack the Balhaf LNG plant with car booms. In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said al-Qaeda prepared six car booms and six jacket wallahs to attack the plant, which has been shut down for weeks. "In response to the bad boy plan, the security authorities were placed on high alert to thwart attacks," it said.
On March 30, al-Qaeda beturbanned goons bombed the pipeline which carries natural gas from Block 18 in Marib to the Balhaf terminal. The terminal shutdown due to the attack was behind the cancellation of six LNG cargoes, Yemen LNG said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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#1
Is the turban franchise up for bid soon?
Posted by: Steven ||
04/21/2012 21:49
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ISLAMABAD - The District Health Department of Islamabad Capital Territory Administration on Thursday organized a 'Stop-TB' awareness walk at Rural Health Center, Bhara Kau, with a view to raising awareness in the masses about the disease and seeking early treatment and avoiding its transmission to the healthy people.
The walk was started at the Rural Health Center, Bhara Kau, Islamabad. People from all walks of life including TB experts, healthcare providers, lady health workers, children, students, notables of the area, private medical practitioners, traders community, farmers and representatives of NGOs took part in the awareness walk.
DHO Islamabad Dr. M. Azhar, additional DHO Dr. Najeeb Durrani and officials of National TB Control Programme attended the walk with a commitment to stop the TB and make the country free from tuberculosis.
Addressing the participants, Director, National TB Control Programme, Dr. Ijaz Qadeer, said that each year 4,00,000 new cases of TB were reported in the country and over 5000 health facilities in the country were providing treatment facilities to the TB patients. He said that the role of lady health workers was of vital importance for creating awareness in the masses and providing counselling services for early treatment. He further said that the main focus of the TB control programme was its eradication and early detection of new cases of TB and to provide patients testing and treatment facilities for which community mobilization was also under way.
DHO, ICT, Dr. M. Azhar also spoke on the occasion and urged the lady health workers to create maximum awareness of the disease in the masses and facilitate them for their early treatment. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Najeeb Durrani, additional district health officer of ICT who is in-charge disease surveillance said that ICT health department was taking effective measures to implement the national TB control programme in the capital in its true spirit under.
"Capacity building of medical officers, lady health workers working at rural health facilities is also underway and they are imparted special training for better monitoring, supervision and clinical management of patients as per WHO guidelines," he added.
He said that comprehensive treatment facilities were available to the TB patients at Rural Health Center, Bhara Kau. District Health Department Islamabad has also signed memorandum of understanding with the private medical practitioners of rural areas in February 2012 and over 1500 private medical practitioners have been imparted training at the PIMS with internationally recommended medicine regime protocol for treatment of TB patients, he further said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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#1
Somebody told Muzzies that Calmette and/or Guérin were Jewish?
Transcripts of the Shin Bet interrogations of Marwan Barghouti a decade ago show the former PLO leader avoided taking responsibility for terror attacks during the second intifada while bankrolling them.
On April 15, 2002, 10 years ago this week, Marwan Barghouti, the secretary general of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was jugged by members of the undercover Duvdevan unit of the Israel Defense Forces in Ramallah. His capture was preceded by two weeks of cat-and-mouse games with the IDF and the Shin Bet security service, during which the Israelis also disseminated threatening hints about an intention to assassinate him.
In April and May of 2002, immediately after Barghouti's arrest by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, the Shin Bet interrogated him at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem. The records of the interrogation, which are being published here for the first time, were revealed during judicial proceedings that are now taking place and related to civil-damages suits filed against Barghouti and the Paleostinian Authority. There are some 50 civil suits brought by victims of intifada violence and their families now pending before Israeli courts, and Barghouti is a plaintiff in many of them, together with the PA. These include a claim by victims of the March 5, 2002, Sea Food Market bombing in Tel Aviv, and others by relatives of Aharon Obadyan and Moshe Dayan, who were killed in attacks in July 2001 and March 2002, respectively. Barghouti's general line of defense is that he does not recognize the authority of Israeli courts.
"I've covered my eyes, so you aren't there!"
The records were obtained by Haaretz correspondent Chaim Levinson. They include memoranda by Shin Bet officials written during the course of Barghouti's investigation, which in one instance are also backed up by an extensive and detailed transcript. Haaretz does not have either audio tapes or video footage of the interrogation sessions.
While Barghouti was being questioned, the IDF and the Shin Bet were hunting down the assemblers of bombs and dispatchers of jacket wallahs in the casbah of Nablus and in the ruins of the Jenin refugee camp. In Rishon Letzion, on May 7, a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, suicide bomber went kaboom!" in the Sheffield Club pool hall, murdering 16 Israeli citizens. Under American pressure, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ended the siege of the Muqata headquarters of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, and changed his mind about expanding Operation Defensive Shield to the Gazoo Strip as well.
Each of the Shin Bet interrogations of Barghouti - who also served as secretary general of Fatah in Judea, Samaria and Gazoo; was a member of the Paleostinian legislature and founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - went on for hours. Barghouti's partial confessions, which were recorded, were used two years later as evidence to indict him for three terror attacks: the June 12, 2001, murder (due to mistaken identity ) of a Greek Orthodox monk near Ramallah; the murder of Yoela Chen near Givat Ze'ev on January 15, 2002; and a Tel Aviv shooting attack of March 5, 2002, in which three non-combatants were killed at the Sea Food Market restaurant. The details Barghouti gave also helped to build a case against other Fatah military activists, who also spoke about him in their own interrogations. However, death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate... the court eventually acquitted Barghouti of involvement in additional attacks in 2001-2, which the prosecution was unable to prove.
Barghouti's confessions indicate that PA Chairman Arafat issued a general directive to carry out terror attacks, but made sure not to get personally involved in any way that might incriminate him. Barghouti was convicted in 2004, and sentenced to five concurrent life sentences. Despite his hopes, the senior Fatah leader was not recently released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
At the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, Barghouti - a seasoned political activist who previously had spoken in favor of implementing the Oslo Accords, and marched in demonstrations shoulder to shoulder with Israeli leftists - was drawn into the wave of terror that swept through the territories. According to the court's verdict, he played a substantial role in the barrage of shooting attacks (and later suicide kabooms ) initiated by Fatah.
The reasons for this about-face by that organization, whose leader, Arafat, had participated in the July 2000 peace talks at Camp David, were varied. At the basis was the ideological argument advocating the need to return to the armed struggle after the failure of the grinding of the peace processor (Barghouti told his Shin Bet interrogators that an independent state must be achieved through bloodshed ). Furthermore, the more the mass demonstrations in the first month of the intifada deteriorated into exchanges of fire with the IDF, in which the Paleostinians suffered dozens of casualties, the greater the desire for taking Dire Revenge against Israel.
Barghouti was also motivated to act initially because of competition with fellow Fatah member Hussein al-Sheikh. Within a short time, the severe losses suffered by the Paleostinians pushed them to become more extreme in their views, with the Fatah leaders afraid of losing the street to Hamas and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , which spearheaded the spate of suicide attacks. Fatah, led by Barghouti, crossed two red lines in the winter of 2002: Its members began to carry out suicide attacks (something they had refrained from in the past ). They also resumed attacks within the Green Line, as opposed to the declared policy of a battle against the IDF and the settlers only.
The wave of attacks in the "Terrible March" of 2002 (with 133 Israeli dead, most of them civilians ) led to Sharon's decision to recapture the cities of the West Bank in Operation Defense Shield. Thus Israel in effect crushed the Arafat-led PA. The Authority emerged from its ruins only two-and-a-half years later, after the death of Arafat and the appointment of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... as his successor.
Following are abridged versions of the records from Barghouti's interrogations:
Marwan Barghouti will soon be 54 years old. Ten years in jail have not been kind to him, although in recent years he has been more diligent about working out. He reads Hebrew newspapers, watches television (when he isn't in solitary confinement ) and maintains close contact with other PA leaders. Occasionally family members or his attorney Elias Sabag come to visit. According to all the public opinion polls in the territories, Barghouti is still seen as the certain successor of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... (Abu Mazen ). Barghouti's views are hawkish compared to those of Abbas, and only recently he called for stopping Paleostinian security coordination with Israel.
His attorney Sabag refuses to comment on the texts of the Shin Bet interrogations, because, "not everything that is written in them is correct. Since the age of 17 Marwan has never sighed a confession, and in any case we don't recognize the authority of the Israeli court." Sabag claims that Barghouti has yet to make a decision as to whether to run for the presidency of the PA. He says that Paleostinian politics are presently three-sided: PA chair Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... and Barghouti. "As long as the third side is in prison, the triumvirate does not function well."
Sabag avoids replying on behalf of Barghouti as to the possibility of Fatah's renewing the armed struggle, and says: "I can't say in his name whether he regrets the intifada. Today, like the entire Paleostinian leadership, he supports the idea of the nonviolent popular struggle. Israelis also participate in those demonstrations. I can only say that he's a great believer in the two-state solution. He considers it an acceptable and feasible solution."
Continued on Page 49
[Dawn] In a videotaped deposition made public for the first time Thursday, a British man convicted in an aborted shoe-bombing mission admitted meeting with the late Osama bin Laden ... who has made the transition back to dust... after deciding to fight jihad against the West.
US prosecutors and defense attorneys interviewed Saajid Badat just outside London late last month in preparation for the New York trial of Adis Medunjanin, accused in the 2009 plot to attack New York's subways with suicide bombs.
Badat said that he refused a request to testify in person because he remains under indictment in Boston on charges alleging he conspired with shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
"If I go to the United States, I'll be tossed in the calaboose," Badat said on the tape played for a jury on Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn.
British authorities had revealed earlier this week that Badat would have a role in the Medunjanin prosecution, calling him the first person convicted in the United Kingdom on terrorism charges to agree to give evidence at the trial of alleged terrorists.
Badat, 33, pleaded guilty in Britannia to plotting with Reid to bring down separate American trans-Atlantic flights using bombs hidden in their shoes.
Unlike Reid, he backed out at the last minute.
"I agreed to take an explosive on an aircraft and explode it," he said in the video, looking clean-cut and wearing a suit.
He also testified that he had "direct interaction" with bin Laden "more than once" after traveling to Afghanistan in 1999.
At the time, he knew the terror network as "The Sheik's Group," with "sheik" referring to bin Laden.
Medunjanin is accused of traveling to Pakistain with two friends from his Queens high school in 2008 and receiving terror training from al-Qaeda
Prosecutors allege the men, including acknowledged criminal mastermindNajibullah Zazi, agreed to seek martyrdom by dying as jacket wallahs in an attack on Manhattan subway lines at rush hour.
Medunjanin, 27, a Bosnian-born naturalized US citizen, has pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, providing material support to a terrorist organization and other charges.
He has denied he was ever part of an al-Qaeda operation.
Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to the plot in 2010 and were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock without bail after agreeing to become government witnesses in a bid for leniency.
Both testified against Medunjanin earlier this week.
Badat had no involvement with the men.
Prosecutors instead want to use his testimony to corroborate what Zazi and Ahmedzay have said about al-Qaeda's leadership and training methods.
The British-born son of Malawi immigrants, Badat was 21 when he traveled to both Afghanistan and Pakistain.
While in Afghanistan, he was given an bomb designed to evade airport security and destroy an aircraft in flight, authorities said.
Badat returned to Britannia with the device on Dec 10, 2001.
He ended up stashing the bomb under a bed in his family home in Gloucester, England, and resumed his academic studies.
He later told authorities he backed out because he was hoping "to introduce calm into his life."
British intelligence tracked down Badat two years later and tossed in the calaboose after Sherlocks matched cords on Reid's device to those on Badat's bomb.
Badat was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
But British authorities announced this week that in 2009 a judge secretly reduced his sentence to 11 years to reward him for his cooperation in terror investigations.
The Brooklyn jury only heard about the first 10 minutes of the videotape, which lasts more than two hours.
The rest will be played when the trial resumes on Monday.
Reid attempted to bring down a plane in December 2001 and is serving a life sentence in a high-security US prison.
This article starring:
Adis Medunjanin
Najibullah Zazi
Saajid Badat
Zarein Ahmedzay
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Soddy Arabia beheaded and crucified a Sudanese man in Riyadh on Friday after he was convicted of raping, robbing and killing a woman, the interior ministry announced.
Abdulrahman Zine Elabidine "broke into a house strangling its owner to death while she was asleep."
He also raped her and stole 165,000 riyals ($44,000/33,000 euros) as well as gold jewelry, said the statement carried by state news agency SPA.
He then set the house on fire.
His beheading took to 20 the total number of executions in the ultra-conservative kingdom so far this year, according to an Agence La Belle France Presse tally based on official reports.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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#1
Good riddance. Except the punishment is a bit excessive. I'd have stopped at crucifixion and left it at that.
#4
And it's possible he actually did what he was killed for. it's also possible a connected Saudi did it, but our Sudanese former man was near at hand -- the Saudis have a history of falsely accusing foreigners.
#5
Wouldn't have been easier to just stick the head on a pike rather than crucify the whole body after the beheading? Or take a play out of Vlad's book: Impale them, alive, vertically on a pike.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/21/2012 12:37
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JERUSALEM: An Israeli defense official says rockets fired from Egypt toward Israel this month were smuggled from Libya.
Israel says at least two rockets were launched from Egypts Sinai desert at the Israeli resort town of Eilat. No one was hurt. Egypt denies the rockets were fired from its territory.
The Israeli official says Israel believes the rockets were stolen from a Libyan weapons storehouse and smuggled into Egypt. The official said Friday that Libyan rockets were also smuggled into the Gaza Strip and were launched into Israel this month.
Israel also believes longer-range Scud missiles were smuggled from Libya to Gaza, the official said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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#3
Who cares look at what has become of the people responsible for all of it they are soul less brain dead ghouls!Looking forward to see what they are doing 10 years from now!
#7
They are quite old. Many will blow up their own positions - with Civilians around as usual.
My patience wears very thin these days for this stupidity that has been discounted as lawful; it is reverse. Israel is merely a convenient diversion from the hell holes these people create for themselves by the roots and foundations of hate of Isac.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Syrian opposition activists called protests against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Trampler of Homs... regime Friday in a new test of its readiness to honour a peace plan.
UN chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... has already stated that the Syrian government has so far failed to honour the ceasefire plan.
Government forces renewed bombardment of the flashpoint central city of Homs after security forces killed seven civilians on Thursday, bringing to more than 120 the civilian corpse count since a promised ceasefire took effect more than a week ago, human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... monitors said.
An advance team of UN military observers resumed work bolstered by the signing with the government on Thursday of a protocol governing their mission to monitor the six-point plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... But Annan's front man acknowledged Friday that the situation was "not good".
"It's a very fragile ceasefire," Ahmad Fawzi told news hounds.
Ki-moon urged the UN Security Council to take "early action" to bolster the mission although he acknowledged that boosting its numbers to 300 was "not a decision without risk."
Defiance
Opposition activists called for a show of defiance against Al-Assad's regime for the main weekly protests on the Mohammedan day of prayer and rest.
"We will win and Assad will be defeated," activists adopted as the slogan on their Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook Page that has been a major motor of the 13-month uprising which monitors say has left more than 11,000 people dead.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the UN observer mission needed to be able to guarantee Syrians the freedom to protest.
"We need observers on the ground, but properly equipped observers with helicopters that can ensure the right to protest. It's extremely important. The day this freedom is guaranteed, the regime will fall," he said.
But the head of the small observer advance team, Col Ahmed Himmiche of Morocco, said the mission would not be attending demonstrations on Friday for fear that "our presence is used for an escalation."
"Today, we have other tasks. We are going to meet civilians and representatives of organizations," Himmiche told AFP as his team prepared to leave their Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... hotel.
The UN chief said there was "deeply troubling evidence" that the government was pursuing its deadly crackdown despite agreeing to halt violence.
"The past few days, in particular, have brought reports of renewed and escalating violence, including the shelling of civilian areas, grave abuses by government forces and attacks by gangs," Ban said.
The protocol signed on Thursday will pave the way for the UN observers to fan out across the country.
The advance party has visited the Daraa region, south of Damascus but it has not so far been able to visit Homs where rebel neighbourhoods have come under deadly bombardment, Ban said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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[Tripoli Post] A Boeing 737 commercial plane belonging to Bhoja Airline crashed Friday in Rawalpindi, just before it was to land at an airport in Islamabad, Pakistain killing all 152 people on board. The plane is said to have lost contact with the control tower minutes before landing. Pakistain's Civil Aviation Authority cited poor weather as a possible factor of the crash. At the time the area was shrouded in fog.
The plane, on a domestic flight, was making its first journey from Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... to Islamabad, where the weather was cloudy. Officials initially reported that 131 people were on board. The plane was relatively new. It started flying at the beginning of March.
The crash occurred near the Pak air force's Chaklala airbase, which is adjacent to the Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... International Airport in Islamabad. The government has declared Thursday a day of national mourning for the victims.
Debris and body parts were scattered across the crash site as workers sifted through the wreckage in the heavily populated residential area. At least 50 bodies had been recovered from the scene, a government official said Friday.
Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies, while confirming there were no survivors, said: "It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors."
The Bhoja airliner, an Airbus A321 with 146 passengers and six crew on board, was flying from the southern seaport city of Bloody Karachi and crashed just before touching down after its 3½-hour flight about five aeronautical miles from the airport in Islamabad.
Authorities are investigating what may have caused the crash and the potential for additional casualties at the site of the wreckage. Aviation security consultant Greg Feith said that the Sherlocks were looking at technology, what kind of radio equipment, what kind of ground proximity warning system the aircraft was equipped with, weather radar, things like that ... since the weather may be a factor in this accident.
Pak Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... expressed "deep shock and grief over the tragedy." He ordered the country's Civil Aviation Authority "to gear up all its resources for rescue operation."
A separate inquiry into the incident has been launched by Pakistain's Safety Investigation Board, and two crisis operation rooms have been set up at airports in both Islamabad and Bloody Karachi to provide accurate and timely information to affected families, reports said. Aamir Ali Ahmed, a senior city government official, told Rooters : "It's a very difficult operation because of the rain. Most of the bodies are charred."
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04/21/2012
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#1
Apparently it caught fire and fuel tanks exploded before it hit the ground.
Remember, Mr. Corzine is a DEMOCRAT, former DEMOCRATIC senator and governor, former head of Goldman Sachs, and currently accused of misappropriating money from his last company, MF Global. But he's still bundling money for Champ, and Champ is taking it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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#1
Well,he hasn't been convicted or anything.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/21/2012 2:26
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#2
Well he hasn't been arrested, or looked at.
1 Billion Dollars (muhaha) of other peoples money disappeared whilst under his control. Did he pay Dr Evil? "No-one" can say what happened to the cash. Oh well your republic used to work ok.
#3
looking for that "Marc Rich" Moment. Pardons on the way out the door?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 8:51
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#4
They don't let pedophiles near schools. Why do they let these bundlers, tax cheats, thieves and money manipulators near the cash register? This guy will probably walk and never be indicted for anything. Don't look for an Enron here.
For a map, click here For a map of Chihuahua state, click here.
This story will be updated as new information becomes available.
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of 15 individuals were shot to death and another two were wounded in a shooting at a bar in Chihuahua, Chihuahua Friday night, according to Mexican news accounts.
The shooting took place around 2100 hrs at the bar El Colorado near the intersection of calles Cipres and Gonzalez Cossio in Las Granjas colony.
The shooting followed a familiar pattern: at least ten armed suspects exited from five vehicles, entered the bar and began shooting. Some of the shooters appeared to be underaged. Upon exiting the bar, the shooters fired their weapons into the air to scare away onlookers before fleeing aboard their vehicles.
El Diario news daily reported that the seven armed suspects were dressed in black tactical gear with a skull patch on their uniform. Commenters at BorderlandBeat.com are saying it was an armed group associated with the Nueve Gente alliance called Antrax.
The news daily also said one of the dead was an unidentified female and one of the wounded was also female, both employees of the bar. Tiempo news daily reported that an unknown number of musicians were among the victims.
Also among the dead were two journalists, Dr. Francisco Javier Moya, a news director at a Chihuahua city radio station and Hector Javier Salinas Aguirre, who owned the website futuro.mx.
Nine of the dead were identified also as: Rodolfo Cardona Lagos, 72, Federico Perez Moreno, 41, José Luis Vazquez Garcia, 64, Jorge Alberto Aragon Cerna, 47, Cristian Chavez Jaimes, 35, Jose Luis Herrera Pichardo, 59, Efren Anaya Vazquez , 48, Miriam Vazquez Torres, 25 and Arellanes Enemecio, 52.
Originally reported as 13, two of the victims died while receiving medical attention. The two remaining wounded are reportedly in delicate condition.
La Polaka news daily reports the attack was a response to the detention of La Linea leader Guillermo Castillo Rubio by Policia Federal agents in Queretero state last Wednesday. La Linea is the enforcement wing of the Juarez drug cartel.
La Linea has suffered a number of setbacks to their security structure due to intensified security in northern Mexico, especially in Chihuahua state and in Ciudad Juarez.
Last August Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, AKA "El Diego", was arrested following a brief firefight and pursuit by a special Polica Federal unit. At the time of his arrest, Acosta Hernandez was one of the bloodiest drug capos with a confessed 1,500 murders to his credit, including US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents.
His replacement, Arturo Bautista, 31, AKA El Mil Amores was detained in December in Juarez by Juarez municipal police agents at a safe house with three other associates.
According to press sources, Castillo Rubio has been forced to flee Chihuahua state due to increased pressure from police, and was conducting his enforcement operations from Queretaro state. Like Acosta Hernandez, he was detained by a Polica Federal special operations force.
A subtext in the detention of Castillo Rubio was that the Juarez cartel had not yet designated a replacement for Bautista following his detention four months ago, forcing Castillo Rubio to assume duties as La Linea chief. Castillo Rubio was Acosta Hernandez's boss during at least part of El Diego's reign of terror.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
Because extra security is well known to be a bad thing.
(Ma'an) -- Stockholm's international airport has refused to allow Israeli security inspections to take place, forcing an Israeli airline to stop its service, daily Haaretz reported Thursday.
Israeli security procedures, which often involve ethnic and personal profiling, were prohibited from taking place at Denmark's Copenhagen airport last summer.
The measures, which are formulated by Shin Bet security services, are now also prohibited at Sweden's Malmo and Stockholm airports, Haaretz said.
Israeli airline Arkia has stopped flying to Stockholm's airport in light of the restrictions.
"We are talking with security authorities in Sweden and other countries where problems have surfaced, to understand the meaning of the new restrictions imposed on Israeli flights," Haaretz quoted Israel's Transport Ministry as saying.
#3
Actually, Sweden is quite polarised, either blåögat Lefties steering the agenda or hypocrytic Nazis muttering under their breath for fear of breaking cover in the PC world. As for the women, most of them are crazy.
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04/21/2012 18:42
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Er, the timing of this wouldn't be some kind of sop to the Saudis re the arms.thingy that just went sour?
Posted by: Harry the Galactic Hero8388 ||
04/21/2012 19:14
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Local groups in the southern Philippines are demanding a review of U.S. involvement in the region after the death of a Filipino civilian on Wednesday.
A U.S. patrol boat piloted by members of special-operations forces crashed into a small fishing vessel in the waters around Mindanao. The American troops were coming back from a humanitarian mission when they crashed into the fishing vessel. A Filipino fisherman was killed and his son was wounded as a result of the crash.
Patriotiko Mindanao, a Filipino advocacy group based in Mindanao, called for a full review of American and Filipino operations in the region in the wake of the incident. Patriotiko Mindanao has organized protests against the Balikatan exercises, a large-scale war game in Palawan, and the continued involvement of the U.S. military in the Philippines.
[An Nahar] Sudanese forces have retaken the main town in the Heglig oil region 10 days after South Sudanese troops seized it, the defense minister said on Friday.
"Our troops were able to liberate Heglig town by force, and captured it at 2:20 pm (1120 GMT) today," Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein announced on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
"The troops moved towards Heglig carefully so as not to destroy what remains of the infrastructure," he said, dressed in military fatigues.
"Our enemy suffered heavy losses in people and equipment," he added, after the army had maintained silence for several days about the situation on the ground.
Hussein is wanted by the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... for alleged crimes against civilians in Sudan's Darfur region several years ago.
His announcement came shortly after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir ordered the immediate withdrawal of his troops from Heglig, following intensified global diplomatic efforts to pull the two nations from the brink of wider war.
"The Republic of South Sudan announces that the SPLA (Southern army) troops have been ordered to withdraw from Panthou-Heglig," Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said, reading out a presidential statement.
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04/21/2012
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[Tripoli Post] In a huge ceremony attending by the Defense and Transportations Ministers along with other bigwigs in the Libyan government, Zentan Revolutionaries who liberated Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... International Airport from Qadaffy forces in August, handed the facilities to the government on Friday evening.
The step is significant for the current government as it now can claim it is in control of this strategic link with the world and gives it confidence in the face of its critics.
According to The Tripoli Post correspondent who attended the ceremony, Zentan revolutionaries left the airport with their military equipment and headed to Zentan city 180 kilometers southwest of Tripoli.
He said over 300 heavy and light military vehicles left the airport with cheering soldiers raising the national flag of independence and waiving their hands to the well wishers of the public.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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On a conference call this afternoon the FBI announced a reversal of their decision to cut off the intelligence sharing of information from the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC). The FBI shut down reporting to the 77 fusion centers on March 1st, and we reported on the shutdown yesterday.
The FBI had announced that they would be resuming the TSC reporting this coming Monday, but without the Personal Information Intelligence (PII) that fusion centers had previously had access to (as I updated on the article yesterday afternoon). Fusion center officials had said yesterday that resuming the TSC reports without the PII would be "effectively useless".
According to Sena, the TSC will be establishing a coordinating council to help improve relations between the FBI and the fusion centers, and to possibly plan even more enhanced intelligence sharing.
One fusion center official I spoke with this afternoon following the conference call said, "This is a stunning reversal. It's doubtful we would have gotten a 180 degree reversal from the FBI in less than 48 hours without the exposure from PJ Media."
Georgia will support NATO's involvement in Afghanistan after 2014, Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze said while addressing a meeting of alliance member country foreign ministers in the ISAF format in Brussels on April 19.
Georgia means well but it's an empty promise, as NATO will be gone long before then.
Vashadze stressed the importance of the alliance mission's success in Afghanistan.
According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, the ministers reaffirmed their adherence to the decisions made at the NATO Lisbon summit and Bonn conference on Afghanistan. They also stressed the need to support the transition period in Afghanistan and the international community's long-term involvement in the processes after 2014.
According to the foreign ministers, logistical support for the Afghan national security forces will be provided and is necessary for Afghanistan's socio-economic development. However, the ministers stressed that the Afghan government must continue to fulfill its obligations, such as developing democratic institutions, fighting corruption and implementing the rule of law.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2012
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#1
Albania, Romania, Estonia and other former Soviet Block members have come to our assistance. While I believe the mission is absolutely futile, I salute them. If anything good comes from this mess, it will be our association with these brave folks.
#2
Amen B.! Obama would "trade" them back to the Sovi....errr.... Russians after re-election because he'd have the "flexibility" and after all, you need a gift to go with a Reset Button. Ask the residents of Las Maldives Malvinas how Obama respects the will of the sovereign residents
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2012 16:19
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A joint ranger and police force on Friday arrested a suspected key member of the separatist Runda Kumpulan Kecil (RKK) in Narathiwat province.
Congratulations, guys!
The security force raided three houses at about 11 a.m., after getting a tip that the RKK member was hiding there. They found and arrested Muhammadyuso Duereh, 25, wanted on two arrest warrants for murdering two teachers at a market on September 2010 and for shooting and seriously wounding a man in Tanyongmas on September 2010. Muhammadyusoh was a teacher at an Islamic school.
Grenell brings foreign policy chops and more than a decade of political experience to the aggressive but relatively young Romney staff. His is one in a series of hires as the presumptive Republican nominee rapidly expands his small staff as it moves into the general election against President Obama.
During all eight years of President George W. Bushs tenure, Grenell served as the administrations director of communications and public diplomacy at the United Nations. He advised four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations: John D. Negroponte, John C. Danforth, John R. Bolton and Zalmay Khalilzad.
And friend of Bolton. And out of the closet. It will be interesting to see what mud the opposition tries to throw at him.. and what they get back in their faces in response. Have fun, Mr. Grenell, and thank you for stepping up.
MOGADISHU: African Union troops in Somalia said Friday they took control of Al-Qaeda allied Al-Shabab insurgent bases on the outskirts of Mogadishu, the latest loss for the extremist fighters.
Burundian troops with the AU force seized areas of the capitals Banadir district late Thursday, including securing the Deynile airstrip, part of long-running efforts to drive the militants from the city. Deynile commands access to the Afgoye corridor, an area some 30 kms northwest of Mogadishu which is controlled by Al-Shabab and is home to the worlds largest concentration of internally displaced people.
No Al-Shabab official was immediately available for comment.
They were fleeing running away.
Some 410,000 people, around one third of all the displaced people in Somalia, were still living in the Afgoye corridor at the start of the year, fleeing war or drought, according to figures from the UN refugee agency.
A regional offensive has forced the Al-Shabab from many of their strongholds, with Ethiopian troops fighting in the west, AU troops in Mogadishu pushing to the outskirts of the city, and Kenyan troops battling in the south. However, the Al-Shabab say they have now begun setting up new bases in Somalias northern Puntland region and deny being weakened by the assaults.
"Just a flesh wound!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
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Didn't they do this before? Like multiple times?
When are they just going to say, "Screw it" and raze Mogadishu to the ground?
#2
Because Mog acts as a roach motel for Somalis and they just keep going back there, time and time again. That way, at least you know where the largest concentrations of them are.
A Death Eater group responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan has rejoined peace talks with President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's government, and four other factions followed after Afghan cops crushed an attack by gunnies in Kabul earlier this week.
Hizb-e-Islami, led by former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... who used to be known in intelligence circles as The Most Evil Man in the World but who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil... , returned to reconciliation talks after walking out last month.
Mr. Hekmatyar's son-in-law, Ghairat Baheer, led a delegation of beturbanned goons in a meeting with Mr. Karzai in Kabul this week.
#1
All our all powerful impotent leaders have to remember when dealing with the Middle East is this- Milk Milk Lemonade Turn The Corner Chocolate Pudding Is Made Stick Your Finger In The Hole And Pull Out A Chocolate Tootsie Roll. Bag That Bugger Oh Fearless Leaders In The Fight Against Corruption And All That Would Destroy America And Be careful Where You Put Your Mouths. Perhaps One Of The Lovelies From Columbia Can teach The Proper Procedure For Inserting A Condom In Ones Mouth! Maybe they should open up a brothel in Qatar!
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A team of experts is researching the possibility of drilling for oil in the West Bank, the Paleostinian Authority minister of state said Friday.
Mahir Ghneim told Ma'an that international and local experts started research months ago in Ramallah and southern Hebron and found an oil field in the village of Rantis, west of Ramallah.
"We are waiting for what the experts will say about that oil field before we prepare for possible drilling in future," Ghneim said.
The Paleostinian Authority hopes a database compiled by the researchers will help its efforts to claim natural resources including petroleum, water and stone in areas of the occupied West Bank under Israeli control, Ghneim said.
When the West Bank was under Jordanian control, drilling took place in Bir Zeit, near Ramallah, and in as-Samu, south of Hebron. The results were not encouraging because of the low price of oil at the time, but extracting oil is easier now, the minister said.
A committee is also investigating an oil and natural gas field discovered in 2008 between Qalqiliya and Latrun which Israel is keeping quiet about, the minister said.
"Israel is not revealing information about that oil and natural gas field Meged 5 which was discovered in 2008, but we appointed a committee of experts to explore and investigate that field located between Qalqiliya and Latrun."
AFP - Iraq's second of five floating Gulf oil terminals came online on Friday, adding 900,000 barrels per day to the country's export capacity, the head of the Southern Oil Company said.
"A ship with a capacity of 2 million barrels of oil has docked at the second floating oil terminal," and pumping has begun, Dhia al-Mussawi told a news conference in Basra.
The first of the floating terminals began exporting oil in March.
With the new platform, Iraq's export capacity from the south will be 3.5 million barrels per day (bpd), Mussawi said, adding that "this is an important step; it is a very important day for us in the Southern Oil Company."
That's about the same as Iran's oil exports, if I understand correctly...
Iraq currently produces about 2.15 million bpd from the south, though that figure is set to rise to 2.75 million bpd by the end of the year, Mussawi said.
Oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad has said that the eventual goal is for Iraq to be able to export five million barrels per day of oil from the south alone, he said.
Oil sales account for the vast majority of Iraqi government income and around two thirds of gross domestic product. The country exported an average of 2.1 million bpd in 2011, according to Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Mali's ex-president Amadou Toumani Toure, who formally resigned after being ousted by the military last month, has taken refuge in Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... as the military released 22 soldiers and politicians.
Abou Abel Thiam, front man for Senegalese President Macky Sall, told AFP that Toure, who arrived late Thursday in Dakar with his family, had been taken to the Residence Pasteur where high-ranking guests are lodged.
"He was calm. He was with his entire family" of about 15 people, Thiam said. Senegalese Foreign Minister Alioune Badara Cisse had gone to pick them up in the Malian capital Bamako in the Senegalese presidential plane, he added.
It was not immediately known if Toure, 63, would stay in Senegal or was just passing through.
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04/21/2012
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[An Nahar] Rebels in Sudan's Blue Nile said on Friday that they had killed 79 government troops and cut-throats in two ambushes in the ethnically divided state near the border with South Sudan.
The attacks came on Tuesday and Wednesday in roughly the same area, mountainous terrain about 35 kilometers south of the state capital Ed Damazin, said Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, front man for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).
The group, which was a civil war ally of the former rebels who now rule independent South Sudan, has been fighting for several months in Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, both of which border the South.
Sudan's army front man could not immediately be reached.
Lodi, whose forces deny being supported by the South, said there has been an upsurge in fighting in Blue Nile since border festivities between Sudan and South Sudan escalated last week with waves of air strikes hitting the South, and Juba seizing the North's Heglig oil hub on April 10.
Heglig is part of South Kordofan.
Lodi alleged Khartoum is using the Heglig standoff as an opportunity to mobilize militias and other fighters against the SPLM-N.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Having reworked the main page, we can now track down and kill the bugs I've let in. I've also reworked the individual article page under the hood, so there might be a few there.
SANAA: Yemeni government troops launched a surprise attack in the south of the country to recapture an Al-Qaeda stronghold, killing 25 militants, an official said yesterday.
UK police say three men flying in from Oman have been 
(Sh.M.Network)- Eleven Somalis were on Thursday sentenced to a 20-year jail term for attacking a French naval ship.
(Sh. M. Network)- At least one person was killed and ten others 
Claims to have alternative buyers
The agony of an SHO was doubled when first he was deprived of his official pistol, cell phone and other valuables at the hands of 
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
At least 14 people were killed on Friday in firing incidents in different parts of 
cycle of violence
Not even a single tribe in FATA gave refugee to any
Moussa Abu Marzouk's statements, made in interview to The Forward, reflect a harder line than the stance of the group's political leader, Khaled Meshal.
Transcripts of the Shin Bet interrogations of Marwan Barghouti a decade ago show the former PLO leader avoided taking responsibility for terror attacks during the second intifada while bankrolling them.
Barghouti's confessions indicate that PA Chairman Arafat issued a general directive to carry out terror attacks, but made sure not to get personally involved in any way that might incriminate him. Barghouti was convicted in 2004, and sentenced to five concurrent life sentences. Despite his hopes, the senior Fatah leader was not recently released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
JERUSALEM: An Israeli defense official says rockets fired from Egypt toward Israel this month were smuggled from Libya.
Corzine, according to the Obama campaign, has once again helped raise 
International Criminal Court
'More realism' seen after foiled attack
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A team of experts is researching the possibility of drilling for oil in the West Bank, the Paleostinian Authority minister of state said Friday.
AFP - Iraq's second of five floating Gulf oil terminals came online on Friday, adding 900,000 barrels per day to the country's export capacity, the head of the Southern Oil Company said.
