Taiwan's defence ministry said Wednesday that it has formed a special airborne unit capable of scrambling to the contested Spratly islands in just hours, as tensions in the South China Sea mounted.
The unit has been set up under a plan named "airborne fast response and maritime support" which was unveiled for the first time in a report by the ministry to parliament, officials said.
No details of the unit, such as its size, were released to the public, but local media said that if needed, it can arrive on Taiping Island, the biggest in the disputed waters, onboard C-130 transport planes within four hours.
Despite protests from other countries with claims in the area, Taiwan in 2006 built a 1,150-metre (3,795-foot) runway on the fortified island, which is about 860 miles (1,376 kilometres) away from Taiwan.
Also on Wednesday, Taiwan's coastguards said its troops stationed on Taiping will be armed with mortars with a range of 6,100 metres (20,000 feet), nearly doubling the range of mortars currently in use.
The moves come as an increasing number of Vietnamese fishing boats have been reported by Taiwan authorities to intrude into the restricted waters of Taiping.
The number of intruding Vietnamese boats surged to 106 last year, up from 42 the previous year, according to the coastguards, which added 41 Vietnamese fishing vessels had intruded into the waters in the four months to April.
Tensions in the South China Sea have risen recently, with China and the Philippines locked in a maritime dispute over Scarborough Shoal, a reef off the Philippine coast.
The tensions began when Chinese maritime vessels blocked the Philippine navy from arresting the crews of eight fishing vessels which had entered the area.
Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, China, Malaysia, and the Philippines claim all or part of the potentially oil-rich Spratlys.
All claimants except Brunei have troops based on the archipelago of more than 100 islets, reefs and atolls, which have a total land mass of less than five square kilometres (two square miles).
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/03/2012
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#1
The Spratlys are liable to become the functional equivalent of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: the proximal cause of a major war in Asia involving all of the economic and military powers in the region.
Russias most senior military officer said Thursday that Moscow would preemptively strike and destroy U.S.-led NATO missile defense sites in Eastern Europe if talks with Washington about the developing system continue to stall.
A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens, Russian Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov said at an international missile defense conference in Moscow attended by senior U.S. and NATO officials.
The threat comes as talks about the missile defense system, which the U.S. and its allies insist is aimed at Iranian missiles, appear to have stalled.
We have not been able to find mutually-acceptable solutions at this point and the situation is practically at a dead end, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.
Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. special envoy for strategic stability and missile defense, insisted the talks about NATO plans for a missile defense system using ground-based interceptor missiles stationed in Poland, Romania and Turkey were not stalemated.
But she acknowledged Wednesday that the recent elections in Russia and the upcoming elections in the U.S. make it pretty clear that this is a year in which were probably not going to achieve any sort of a breakthrough.
She reiterated that the U.S.-built system, still in development, is being designed to shoot down Iranian intermediate-range missiles aimed at Europe, not Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Russian officials insist that the system has the capability to shoot down their ICBMs, thus robbing their nuclear deterrent of its credibility and destabilizing the Cold War-era balance of mutually assured destruction.
Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon had any immediate comment on the Russian threat Thursday.
#1
Shared Security And Mutual Common Ground & Confirmation Of Mutual Co-Operateration Persists Sooner Than : Anticipated : Peaceful Negotiations Will Endure , WATCH !
Posted by: Don Vito Lover of the Trolls3439 ||
05/03/2012 17:57
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Russia's most senior military officer said Thursday that Moscow would preemptively strike and destroy U.S.-led NATO missile defense sites in Eastern Europe if talks with Washington about the developing system continue to stall.
Only in a feckless Obama administration would the Russians make such threats.
#3
Weakness in the face of islamofascism is bound to provoke forces besides those of islamofascism.
When the last remaining superpower is challenged on her own territory, goes to war and loses the war the consequences will necessarily be global.
Non nuclear sh*tty little Afghanistan could slaughter thousands in the US without serious consequences. Why should nuclear Russia fear the American reaction to an attack not on the US but a NATO country?
It is far from clear the the US security umbrella covers even US territory. How can American security guarantees for other nations be taken seriously?
The 'World without America' (which I did not wish for) is a reality that allies of the US have to accept and must adapt to.
#4
How's that Reset Button and "post re-election flexibility" working out for ya, Champ. Russians can smell a needy p*ssy. They know you inherently want to delete the Missile Defense Shield and are willing to sell us out.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/03/2012 21:29
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#5
Act Of War. Someone may want to remind them of just how vulnerable they are to US submarines in terms of making Russian ships disappear, and how we have all kinds of fun restive minorities we can fund inside their border.
#6
I still think Russia is more worried about missile sales than anything else. Beyond that, what happened to giving Obama room? Perhaps that died when the sound bite got out, or this is fake barking to give Obama the chance to be a foreign policy hero.
A Michigan high school has staged an all-girl prom.
Hamtramck High School, a school near Detroit with a significant Muslim population, put on the strobe light-filled event last Saturday night.
Organised by Tharima Ahmed, a 17-year-old senior student at the school, the event drew 100 of the co-educational school's 900 students. As many Muslim students are not allowed to attend prom due to religious beliefs that restrict females from dancing with males, the prom strictly prohibited boys.
It was the first all-female prom staged by Hamtramck High but judging by the evening's success, it is not likely to be its last.
While many of the students who attended were Muslim, the prom, which took seven months to plan, also attracted non-Muslim students.
#1
So the girls get to have all the fun of an expensive night dressed up like princesses, while the boys get nothing? I'm afraid someone has their priorities wrong.
#2
Hamtramck High School, a school near Detroit with a significant Muslim population,
Interesting demographic change. Hamtramck used to be a Polish enclave that got surrounded by the city of Detroit. I wonder if the stores still have signs in Polish?
#3
We need a parent of a young man at that school to go to the ACLU.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/03/2012 18:05
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#4
Could be a 'win-win', if they meet up with the boys after the prom (which the boys didn't care to go to in the first place, but had to, because their girlfriends insisted.
#1
Very cool! I just returned from a week in London and the topic of this poster came up in in conversations.
Wish I had more time for the Imperial War Museum too, one of the best military collections I have ever seen.
Guess Pastor Jones burning the Koran didn't sway them.
After detaining 33-year-old Christian pastor Farshid Fathi for 16 months without indictment, judicial authorities finally sentenced him to six years in prison in April 2012. Fathis indictment is part of a continuing pattern of discrimination and persecution of Christian converts in Iran.
Authorities allegedly kept him in solitary confinement the vast majority of his detention, and according to one family friend, beat him. Behnam Irani, a Christian pastor whose prison sentence was extended by five years just before his October 2011 release, is reportedly in dire physical condition. Irani and Fathi have both appealed their sentences.
A 24-year-old American soldier died of rabies after being bitten by a dog last year in Afghanistan, US health officials said Thursday following an investigation into the rare case.
The otherwise healthy soldier started experiencing symptoms of shoulder and neck pain and tingling sensations in his hands soon after arriving at Fort Drum, N.Y., in mid-August 2011.
His condition escalated to include nausea, vomiting, anxiety and trouble swallowing. By the time he was admitted to an emergency room, he was dehydrated and hydrophobic, meaning he developed an intense fear of drinking liquids because of the painful muscle spasms he experienced while swallowing.
"He was lucid and described having received a dog bite on the right hand during January 2011 while deployed to Afghanistan," said the report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The soldier tested positive for a strain of rabies associated with dogs in Afghanistan and doctors attempted an experimental treatment to save him from certain death.
#3
I'm sure he did get medical treatment -- cleaned and bandaged, most likely. But clearly nobody thought in terms of catching the dog to test for rabies...and given that the bite in January showed no untoward symptoms until mid-August, it was a reasonable assumption, however sadly wrong it turned out.
#4
the bite in January showed no untoward symptoms until mid-August, it was a reasonable assumption, however sadly wrong it turned out. Nope. NOT a reasonable assumption. Rabies is best handled pre-emptively, by vaccination unless and until the offending critter is ruled out by autopsy. It is more than possible the soldier did not tell his caregiver that his wound was a dog bite.
By the way, in the US the prime source of rabies is bats. Nearly all dog rabies deaths in the US for many years now were contracted abroad & symptoms only developed when the victim sought care for rabies symptoms in the US. Have nothing to do with bats, please spread the word.
#5
The soldier's immediate commander, the medic that treated him, and the medical officer that signed off on that treatment should all be dismissed from the Army. The chain of command is set up so that stupid crap like this is not supposed to happen. Someone should have caught this and ordered a series of rabies inoculations for the soldier.
#6
Unless, of course, the soldier did not tell anyone that the wound came from a dog bite. Then like Heinlein said, Stupidity is its own death sentence.
Like a State media arm (CBS) supports Republicans?? Get a grip Dan.
Dan Rather, former "CBS Evening News" host and current star of Mark Cuban's HDNet, has been out promoting his new book, "Rather Outspoken."
In an interview with Piers Morgan on Tuesday, Rather recalled the last conversation he had with George W. Bush after his controversial 2004 CBS News report on the former president's Air National Guard service record.
"I was at the White House for a briefing for reporters, and I asked him a couple of questions and he answered the questions," Rather said. "And then afterward he said to me, 'I hope you'll be happy retired in Austin.' That's my home. I had no intention of retiring in Austin. I have a passion for my work and I plunged myself back into doing work. But that's the only conversation I've had with him since."
Rather also defended the report that led to the end of his network news career.
"We reported a true story," he said. "That's why I'm no longer with CBS News." The End
#2
It may or may not have been a true story; the documentation presented to support the story was flat-out fraudulent, and destroyed all credibility of the story itself. Either the Bush team was way smarter than anyone thought, and created the fake documentation, or Rather's team was way stupider than they (not we) thought...
#3
What's the frequency, Kenneth? Dementia and rabid partisan hate in a perfect storm
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/03/2012 21:15
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I think someone on Rather's team cooked it up but Rather believed them until his heels were so dug in his career was on the line. Even now he's just hoping to sell books to the usual idiots who will believe his story.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
05/03/2012 18:29
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#3
Beavis, send an email to Fred from your iPad, and he'll take care of it. Come to think of it, I need to do that, too -- I cleared out my cookies, and there went my access. The link to email Fred is in the yellow bar in the right hand margin.
A Koran memorization teacher used his stick to lash a five-year-old school boy, causing bruises and scars all over his back and trigger a police hunt for the fleeing man, a newspaper said on Thursday.
The boy was changing his clothes at home in the western town of Makkah when his parents noticed the lashing marks on his little body.
The boy told his father that the Islamic lessons teacher flogged him with the stick on his back during class at a Koran memorization centre in the holy city.
The father reported the teacher to the police while the boy was taken to hospital doctors said he needed treatment for five days, the Arabic language daily Alriyadh said, adding that police are searching for the teacher.
GUNMEN armed with explosives have killed at least 34 people in northeastern Nigeria when they attacked a cattle market and burned it to the ground. The attack last night in the city of Potiskum was said to be in reprisal for an incident earlier in the day, when a gang sought to rob the market but were fought off by traders who caught one of the attackers, police said.
The man who was caught was doused in petrol and a tyre was placed around his neck before he was burnt to death, according to police and residents.
"A group of gunmen armed with around 20 explosives and assault rifles attacked the Potiskum cattle market," police spokesman Toyin Gbadegesin told AFP today. "They threw explosives and shot indiscriminately, setting fire to the market, killing lots of livestock and wounding many people, mostly cattle dealers."
Police have not provided a death toll, but an emergency official said on condition of anonymity that 34 bodies were brought to a local hospital and some 22 other people were being treated for injuries. The toll was likely to be more than 50 because families were also burying relatives' bodies without bringing them to the hospital, the official said.
Residents described a terrifying scene at the market usually crowded with traders, with scores of cattle burnt, the market razed and dozens of people killed. Vehicles were also said to have been burnt. One resident said firefighters were at the scene this morning searching water wells out of fears that residents had fallen in and drowned while trying to flee.
Residents crowded a local hospital to determine if their relatives were among the dead.
"The whole market has been burnt down," a resident said.
"Roasted remains of cattle litter the whole place ... The ground has been scorched. Firefighters have arrived at the market trying to go into open wells to bring out bodies of people that fell in while trying to flee the attackers."
Islamist group Boko Haram has carried out scores of attacks in northeastern Nigeria, including in Potiskum, located in Yobe state, but criminal groups have also committed violence under the guise of the group.
Gangs often seek to provoke panic at markets, forcing crowds to flee so they can steal. At cattle markets, particularly in Nigeria's northeast, gangs target livestock dealers since they tend to have large amounts of cash on them.
[Telegraph.uk] A full list of al-Qaeda members first discovered in the late Osama bin Laden's ... who used to be alive but now he's not... compound in Pakistain has been published, disclosing the various fates of the terrorist movement's followers.
The list, dated August 7 2002, carries a total of 170 names with bin Laden himself registered at number 1. Notes have been added beside many of the names, recording a variety of fates, notably that of Abu Ubaydeh al-Banshiri, who "died in Lake Victoria" in East Africa in 1996.
Another al-Qaeda member - named as Hamad al-Kuwaiti - is recorded as being "incarcerated Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in England" in 1998, perhaps after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August of that year.
Another, registered only as Khaleefah, apparently "cooperated with the Omani government" - suggesting that he defected from al-Qaeda to aid an Arab regime considered one of its foremost enemies.
Other al-Qaeda gunnies seem to have given up the struggle and chosen simply to return home.
The list also provides a vivid picture of the pressures on bin Laden's followers. Abdul Rauf al-Maghribi "broke down psychologically" and is recorded as betraying some of the "brothers in Soddy Arabia". ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... Meanwhile, ...back at the bake sale, Umberto's Mom's cannoli were a big hit... four al-Qaeda members are registered as being "martyred in Chechnya", where they apparently travelled to fight the Russian army during the war in that breakaway region in the 1990s.
Another, named as Ahmed Hussein, is recorded as being "discharged", suggesting that al-Qaeda had a procedure for allowing those who had served the movement to have an honourable retirement. Some appear to have done their utmost to resume normal lives. Abu Majid, who appears as member number 79, is down as going to "Yemen to study".
bin Laden worried about Al-Qaeda attacks causing "unnecessary" Mohammedan casualties and advised his deputies to take more care to spare civilian lives.
The Al-Qaeda chief, killed in a US raid a year ago, underscores "the need to cancel other attacks due to the possible and unnecessary civilian casualties" in Mohammedan countries, according to the letter.
"We ask every emir in the regions to be extremely keen and focused on controlling the military work," he wrote, referring to Al-Qaeda attacks.
Bin Laden expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about his network losing the sympathy of Mohammedans and described operations killing Mohammedans as "mistakes," adding that was important that "no Mohammedans fall victim except when it is absolutely essential."
"It would lead us to winning several battles while losing the war at the end," he wrote.
Until the end, bin Laden remained focused on attacking Americans and coming up with plots, however improbable, to kill U.S. leaders. He wished especially to target airplanes carrying Gen. David Petraeus and even President Barack Obama I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick... , reasoning that an liquidation would elevate an "utterly unprepared" Vice President Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... into the presidency and plunge the U.S. into crisis. Looks like he had the Dems' "foreign policy whiz kid" down pretty well...
But a U.S. analysts' report released along with bin Laden's correspondence describes him as upset over the inability of spinoff terrorist groups to win public support for their cause, their unsuccessful media campaigns and poorly planned plots that, in bin Laden's view, killed too many innocent Mohammedans.
Bin Laden adviser Adam Gadahn urged him to disassociate their organization from the acts of al-Qaeda's spinoff operation in Iraq, known as AQI, and bin Laden told other terrorist groups not to repeat AQI's mistakes. Even Binny couldn't stand Zarqawi...
The correspondence includes letters by then-second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi, taking Pak offshoot Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain to task over its indiscriminate attacks on Mohammedans. The al-Qaeda leadership "threatened to take public measures unless we see from you serious and immediate practical and clear steps towards reforming (your ways) and dissociating yourself from these vile mistakes that violate Islamic Law," al-Libi wrote.
And bin Laden warned the leader of Yemeni AQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, against attempting a takeover of Yemen to establish an Islamic state, instead saying he should "refocus his efforts on attacking the United States."
Bin Laden also seemed uninterested in recognizing Somali-based al-Shabaab ... successor to the Islamic Courts... when the group pledged loyalty to him because he thought its leaders were poor governors of the areas they controlled and were too strict with their administration of Islamic penalties, like cutting off the hands of thieves.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has circulated a lengthy pair of documents making the case for holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over his "refusal" to cooperate in an investigation of the ill-fated Fast and Furious operation.
Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Thursday sent to every member of his committee a 64-page draft contempt order against Holder, as well as a 17-page memo outlining the history of the scandal.
"Operation Fast and Furious' outrageous tactics, the Justice Department's refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation and efforts to smear and retaliate against whistleblowers have tainted the institutional integrity of the Justice Department," Issa wrote.
The committee is not citing Holder or holding the attorney general in contempt at this point. However, the documents lay out the case for contempt should members be called to vote.
The documents specifically charge that Holder's Justice Department has not properly complied with a subpoena sent Oct. 12, 2011, which listed documents requested in 22 categories.
According to the draft contempt order, the department "has yet to provide a single document for 12 out of the 22 categories contained in the subpoena schedule."
The draft order pointed to three categories in particular. Those categories concerned: who among the department's top brass should have known about the "reckless tactics" in Fast and Furious; how department leaders ended up figuring out the program was a bad idea; and how a special task force "failed" to share information that could have supposedly led to key gun-trafficking arrests.
It's unclear when Issa might press for action on the documents, but a source close to the investigation told Fox News he would not have put his cards on the table unless he had sufficient votes to push a contempt citation out of committee as well as the consent of House Speaker John Boehner.
A Republican source separately told Fox News that Boehner and House Republican Leader Eric Cantor do not want to deal with a contempt citation against Holder because "it's off message for them." But they apparently told Issa he needs to issue a "report" before they would even consider it -- which may account for the documents circulated on Thursday.
Since 1975, only one attorney general has been found in contempt -- Janet Reno, voted to be held in contempt by the same committee Issa now controls.
The summary of the draft contempt resolution regarding Holder states that the Justice Department "has refused to comply with congressional subpoenas related to operation Fast and Furious."
This refusal, the draft states, "is inexcusable and cannot stand."
The Justice Department has denied claims of being uncooperative with the congressional investigation, noting that Holder has testified more than a half-dozen times on the subject and that the department has provided a number of officials for congressional hearings and briefings.
An April 19 response from the department to Issa included another 188 pages of documents in response to the October 2011 subpoena.
#2
Our form of Government becomes so very fragile when corrupt, embedded and burrowed-in law-whores with an entitlement ax-to-grind, like ag holder, suddenly wield the power that We, as Americans have conferred upon them.
holder knows full-well that his F&F legal compliance is totally up to him.
KABUL: Afghanistan's intelligence agency says it has prevented a large terrorist attack in the capital, arresting a Pakistani national driving a truck packed with explosives in Kabul.
The agency says in a statement that the man was arrested Thursday on a major road in the east of the city. It says the man was going to use the truck bomb in a suicide attack.
The agency does not say what the suspected target was. It says it will release more details as they became available.
The arrest comes a day after a suicide attack on the same road killed seven people. In that attack one militant detonated his car bomb outside a compound where foreigners live, while two other attackers fought their way inside before being killed
Putting in their bid before the US tosses Iran off the island. What? We're tossing nobody nowhere. I'm surprised Obama hasn't already declared those islands to be sacred Iranian soil. And bowed to Short Round. Though he'd have to bow really, really low for Short Round to notice...
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz has described as "unacceptable" Iran's attitude towards three islands under its control which Gulf Cooperation Council member UAE claims it owns, a report said.
"I reiterate the kingdom's condemnation to the unacceptable attitude of neighbouring Iran that continues to ignore the legitimate right of the United Arab Emirates over its three occupied islands," said Prince Nayef, who is also Saudi Arabia's interior minister.
"Any harm towards any of our (GCC) countries affects us all," he said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA late on Wednesday.
Prince Nayef also pledged his country's full support to the UAE and Bahrain, facing a Shiite-led uprising, saying "their security and stability is part of the security of all GCC states."
Bahrain and Saudi Arabia accuse Shiite-dominated Iran of backing the uprising in the tiny Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Meanwhile, a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11 to Abu Musa -- the only one of the three disputed islands which is inhabited -- sparked a storm of protest from both the UAE and its Gulf Arab allies.
The six-nation GCC angrily labelled the visit "a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates over its three islands."
Iran seized control of the three Gulf islands in 1971, when Britain granted independence to its Gulf protectorates and withdrew its forces.
Abu Musa, the only inhabited island of the three, was placed under joint administration in a deal with Sharjah, now part of the UAE.
Chang and her alleged Taiwanese co-conspirator, Hui Sheng Shen, allegedly wanted to arrange the theft and exportation of an E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft
The 41-year-old Taiwanese woman, having already arranged to smuggle a kilo of 93.7 percent pure crystal methamphetamine into the United States, was ready to move on to something bigger, authorities say.
"I got a message for you: A guy want(s) to buy a plane," Huan Ling Chang allegedly said in September during a phone conversation being secretly recorded by the FBI.
"It's, uh, early warning aircraft," she added a beat later, authorities say.
To be precise, Chang and her alleged Taiwanese co-conspirator, Hui Sheng Shen, allegedly wanted to arrange the theft and exportation of an E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft used by the American military, according to a 12-page federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Newark.
According to the complaint, portions of which read like a tight spy novel, Chang, still talking to an undercover agent, got more specific about where the E-2 Hawkeye would go.
"If you guys are going to get the big toy, are you guys going to be in danger or anything?" she asked during the taped conversation, authorities say. "Because this aircraft, this big toy ... the buyer is not from Taiwan."
"Where is the buyer from?" the undercover agent asked.
"China," Chang said, as the agent instantly expressed concern over the phone. In turn, Chang allegedly exclaimed, "Big toy is a big trouble!"
Chang and Shen, aka "Alice" and "Charlie," appeared in shackles and dark green jailhouse-issued jumpsuits in a federal courtroom Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy L. Waldor. The pair, arrested in February and charged last month with illegally importing crystal methamphetamine, each now also face counts of conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act.
"My client asserts her innocence and we look forward to her vindication on all of the charges," Chang's attorney, Maria Noto, told reporters after the brief hearing.
Riiiight. Been sampling the earlier shipment, have we?
Ken Kayser, Shen's lawyer, declined to talk about the charges.
The government's complaint also alleges the two defendants met with an undercover FBI agent in Las Vegas in October. Chang came toting a notebook, it says, that listed the American military equipment sought by her Chinese "clients." She allegedly said the clients work in Beijing for "some kind of intelligence company for Chinese government -- like CIA."
The notebook included a seven-item list that allegedly included a "Missile engine -- latest type ... Navy -- lesser (laser) guide," a "Global Hawk RQ4A ... inferrate (infared) mounting system technology" and "Nuclear Information." No alleged prices were included in the complaint.
Perhaps while in prison she can take advantage of the educational opportunities for language skills improvement.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman pointed out Wednesday that the two defendants were originally nabbed on the crystal meth charges as part of federal investigators' massive takedown, announced last month, of some 29 defendants in one of the largest counterfeit-goods smuggling busts ever made and prosecuted. In that multicomplaint prosecution, authorities allege they've taken down an extensive operation that ran through Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal and included some $325 million of fake goods.
According to Wednesday's complaint, Chang and Shen returned to the United States in February to both "finalize negotiations" for large drug transactions and photograph U.S. military technology for China. They'd bought cameras, authorities say. As they met with undercover FBI agents in New York, they allegedly described how they'd keep from getting caught by law enforcement: They'd take the photos, then delete those photographs and bring the camera memory cards back to China. Once there, they said, "a contact" could recover the deleted pictures.
On Feb. 24, authorities allege, the two were shown manuals for the RQ-4 Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and the Raven RQ-11B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Shen then talked about getting the Raven out of the U.S., the complaint says, by perhaps having scuba divers swim out to a ship docked offshore with parts from the Raven, or loading the parts onto a remote-controlled semi-submersible vehicle and rendezvousing with a ship. Then, the pair took some photos of the manuals, the complaint says. But before they could delete the shots, the feds put Chang and Shen in handcuffs.
#4
And possessing a physical copy of a Hawkeye would let them do a lot of reverse engineering so that they could produce a smaller carrier-capable AWACS than the Yunshuji-8. That would let them equip their new carrier with a useable AWACS that could travel with it and its Carrier Battle Group.
#5
Actually maybe we should let them have an E-2; about 30 minutes trying to get a stubborn Grumman Ironworks landing gear to swing right or a wing fold to work, would have them so frustrated they would be jumping over the side the their new boat.....(been there, wanted to do that)
Can't see how this will ever work out. Other than the jizya being paid by Norway, most of the rest of the jizya being paid by the West and the Soddies go to Fatah and I can't see them splitting the spoils with Hamas.
A Cairo meeting between Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and an official of the rival Fatah movement made no headway on the formation of a Palestinian national unity government, an official said on Thursday.
Two hours of talks Wednesday night in the Egyptian capital produced "nothing new," the Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Meshaal and his deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk discussed with senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed "the possibility of advancing the reconciliation process, in particular a government of national unity, but the meeting produced nothing new," the official said.
The meeting was a bid to follow up on an agreement reached in Doha on February 6 between Meshaal and Palestinian president and Fatah leader Mahmud Abbas on the formation of an interim government of independents.
Under the deal, Abbas was to serve as head of the interim government, ending a bitter dispute between the two sides over who would assume the post.
The government line-up was to have been announced shortly afterwards, but the deal was met with opposition from Gaza-based members of Hamas, as well as some officials in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, who say that Palestinian law prevents Abbas from serving as president and prime minister at the same time.
At Wednesday's meeting, which was also attended by Egyptian officials, Fatah "stressed the importance of allowing the electoral commission to resume operations within the (Hamas-controlled) Gaza Strip so that president Abbas can set in motion the procedures to form a government, and fix a date for the elections," the official said.
Hamas said it was possible "to resolve the question of the electoral commission through consultations with (Abbas) over the formation of the government he will head under the terms of the Doha declaration."
The long-time rivals have been struggling to implement the terms of a reconciliation deal signed in Cairo in May last year, which calls for the formation of an interim government of independents to pave the way for presidential and legislative elections within a year.
More than a thousand boxes of classified government records are believed to be missing from the Washington National Records Center (WNRC) of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), a three-year Inspector General investigation found.
Sandy Burger could not be reached for comment...
But there are no indications of theft or espionage, an official said.
An inventory of the holdings at the Records Center determined that 81 boxes containing Top Secret information or Restricted Data (nuclear weapons information) were missing.
An inventory of the holdings at the Records Center determined that 81 boxes containing Top Secret information or Restricted Data (nuclear weapons information) were missing. As of March 2011, an additional 1,540 boxes of material classified at the Secret or Confidential level also could not be located or accounted for, the Inspector General report on the matter said. Each box can hold approximately 1.1 cubic feet or 2000 to 2500 sheets of paper.
The missing records "represent an ongoing failure at WNRC to protect some of the most sensitive information produced by the Federal Government," wrote NARA Inspector General Paul Brachfeld in a 2009 letter to the Acting Archivist.
The IG report on the matter implied that it could constitute a violation of the Espionage Act, citing "alleged violations" of the espionage statues including prohibitions on "gathering, transmitting or losing defense information" (section 793), "disclosure of classified information" (section 798), and "unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material" (section 1924).
The Inspector General report said that "At some point, the originating agency will have to make a determination on the effect the missing materials (from the missing 81 boxes) have on national security."
More precisely, the inventories revealed discrepancies between the agency catalogs and the records on the shelf. It is not entirely certain that any records have actually left official custody.
In the meantime, "the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been notified of the missing classified materials per Department of Justice requirements."
The problem of wayward official records, both classifed and unclassified, is not a new one. "In 1998 and 2004, WNRC conducted inventories of its classified holdings," the Inspector General noted. "Both inventories revealed missing classified records."
But more precisely, the inventories revealed discrepancies between the agency catalogs and the records on the shelf. It is not entirely certain that any records have actually left official custody. Today's archival catalogs are pre-populated with the contents of a legacy hardcopy card catalog system that dates back many decades and that is inherently prone to error.
The LRA is accused of rape, mutilation, murder and the recruitment of child soldiers. A Ugandan army colonel told the BBC they had captured a member of the LRA who was wearing a Sudanese uniform, and carried its weapons and ammunition. The United States has sent special forces to help in the hunt for Kony.
The 100-strong mission is working in four bases across Central Africa, where the LRA is moving in small groups, raiding and abducting villagers to become fighters, sex slaves or porters. An online video produced by the US pressure group Invisible Children, earlier this year helped raise international awareness of the LRA's activities.
Last month the African Union set up a 5,000-strong force to track down the fugitive warlord. Kony and his close aides have been wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court since 2005. Joseph Kony wants to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments
Ugandan army spokesman, Colonel, Felix Kulayigye told the BBC it had information that the LRA was now moving into Sudan, including areas of Darfur controlled by the pro-government Janjaweed militia. "Kony knows we can't enter that region, so when the pressure is high in Central Africa he crosses into the Sudanese border [areas]," he said. During Sudan's two-decade civil war, Uganda backed rebels, who last year led South Sudan to independence, while Sudan's government was widely believed to have supported the LRA in order to weaken the Ugandan military capability.
A senior Ugandan military commander recently said his country might intervene if war breaks out between the two Sudans, implying it would be on the side of the South. Kony, whose army first emerged in northern Uganda, has evaded capture for more than 20 years as his forces terrorised large areas of Central Africa.He claims he has been fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments. Kony was due to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government in 2008, but peace talks fell apart because the LRA leader wanted assurances that he and his allies would not be prosecuted.
The BBC's Dan Damon is one of a few journalists who have visited the US forces based in Obo, Central African Republic. He says fear of the LRA is tangible and real to people in Central Africa, especially in remote areas along the heavily forested and often unmarked borders between Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic.The US forces told the BBC that they were not hunting for Kony themselves, but assisting local armies and coordinating intelligence and communications.
Maria Wangechi from the medical charity Merlin says the LRA staged its most recent attack two weeks ago, but the presence of the US and AU forces has helped reassure civilians in the region. The LRA has now split into small groups. The BBC's Dan Damon says they do not use any form of electronic communications, but instead use runners and rendezvous points to keep in touch. He says that means the US electronic surveillance technology may not be so useful as the hunt for Joseph Kony continues. (BBC)
#6
What a farging idiot this guy is. I am surprised he is still in the Navy. I was always taught: don't get drunk with your (enlisted) men (and women these days.)
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/03/2012 18:10
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Predicting the weather is tricky enough. Now a new government-sponsored report warns that the USA's ability to track tornadoes, forecast hurricanes and study climate change is about to diminish. Oh no, we won't be able to study "Climate Change".
The number and capability of weather satellites circling the planet "is beginning a rapid decline" and tight budgets have significantly delayed or eliminated missions to replace them, says a National Research Council analysis out Wednesday. It's a problem lots of socialist countries have to grapple with.
The number of in-orbit and planned Earth observation missions by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is projected to drop "precipitously" from 23 this year to only six by 2020, the report found. Whew! For a minute there I thought it would end up being an election issue! Won't matter until our shortsighted population can't find their way to the mailbox and back because their GPS isn't working.
That means the number of instruments monitoring Earth's activity is expected to decline from a peak of about 110 last year to fewer than 30 by the end of the decade.
"Right now, when society is asking us the hardest questions and the most meaningful questions, we're going to be even more challenged to answer them," said Stacey Boland, a senior systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and a member of the committee that wrote the report. "We'll slowly become data-starved here." Well, that'll explain the lack of research anyway rather than having to admit it's a farce.
The report credits NASA with finding creative ways to prolong the life of existing satellites and working with international partners to fill in forecasting gaps. Maybe some of those vaunted Islamic scientists that NASA has been tasked to make feel better can actually come up with an idea to help out here.
But, the authors said, glue and scissors only go so far. Oh my, maybe the problem is above their ability after all.
When a similar analysis was issued five years ago, eight satellites were expected to be in space by 2012 tracking a variety of conditions. Only three are in orbit. Of the remaining five, two failed, one was canceled and two others won't launch until at least next year.
The pipeline looks emptier over the next decade. Wossamattah? No moolah? Too busy funding stupid $hit like the sex life of Tsetse flies or Healthcare Takeover or something?
Of 18 missions recommended in the 2007 report through 2020, only two are close enough to completion to register launch dates. And they'll probably end up going up on a North Korean ICBM rocket at the rate things are going.
Dennis Hartmann, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, and chair of the committee, warned that the loss of capacity will have "profound consequences on science and society, from weather forecasting to responding to natural hazards." My back is more accurate than most weather forecasts.
#1
No satellites? No problem. The Warmers will still continue to predict doom based on signs, portents, and other omens.
After all, the science has been settled, remember?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
05/03/2012 6:09
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#2
Actually, the satellite data has consistently said that there is no global warming: infared sensors have not detected an increase in atmospheric temperature nor hot spots in the atmosphere as predicted by the computer models that predict global warming.
The loss of satellites would be a loss of a counter-factual data set. Perhaps this "misfortune" is not unintended.
#4
We could've relied on that huge deteriorating French satellite, but the US had cancelled the Space Shuttle program which we could 've used to fix + return to orbit.
A man exposed himself to a woman inside the Bucks County Association for the Blind.
Newtown Township police said the incident occurred about 2 p.m. Friday inside the bookstore at the offices at 400 Freedom Drive.
The woman told police the suspect is a skinny, black male, between 35 and 45 years old, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and was wearing a black track suit. How on earth could she tell that? Unless .... Oh, nevermind. I don't think a crime was commited after all.
Officers checked the area along with Newtown Borough police and could not find the suspect. Check the DNA sample he probably left behind thanks to the witness.
#1
Hey I remember a fellow like this guy. I walked into a bar and sat next to a fellow with a little 12 inch fellow next to him. I order a beer and he orders a beer. Just as he gets it to his lips the little man kicks it out of his hand. I said why do you put up with that. So he tells of finding a lamp on the beach. He rubs it and a powerful Jinn pops out. Three wish deal so first he asks for millions and puff he gets it. Then he asks for thirty of the most beautiful women in the world and puff he gets that. Then for his final request he asks for a twelve inch prick. He buggered that up good. Just be careful what you wish for.
That smiling guy is Bill Warren, the Californian treasure hunter who claimed he was searching for Osama Bin Laden's dead body back in June 2011. He didn't find him then, but now he claims he has located the cadaver. What? Even the crabs wouldn't have him?
Warrenwho claims he has discovered more than 200 shipwrecks during his career as a treasure-huntersays that bin Laden's body is still at that same location, deep under water. His thought is that, since the Navy weighted down the bag, the body hasn't moved from where it was dropped. He is now trying to rent Russian deep diving equipment to locate his payload, and to conduct DNA tests once he finds him.
At least, that's what he believes. He says he pinpointed the drop point from photos recently released by the US Navy.
Warren is now in Azerbaijan, apparently working for their government in a contract to locate some old ships. But he is ready to start the diving for Osama's body bag: he says he's aiming at starting the mission on June 1, and that he may be able to find the body in "under a week." He also claims that the search would last a maximum of three months. He declares that his only fear is that the US Government would kill him or sink his boat. Trust me, you have nothing to fear except fear itself.
Warren is now searching for $200,000 to finance the whole operation (Bill, I suggest Kickstarter). Try George Soros.
He wouldn't have needed that money had he located the Trinidad, the famous Spanish ship loaded with Aztec gold that sunk in the coast of California in 1540. Warren has repeatedly tried to locate that treasure, once in 1976 and then again in 1987. Back then he claimed he had located the Trinidad, but obviously he didn't.
The same could probably be true with Bin Laden's body. It's highly unlikely that, even if he were right about the locationand again, there's very little chance he ishe would be able to find a body bag in the bottom of the deep sea. No, Obean had his body stuffed. He's in a closet in the oval office. Since he's just taken a dose of his home-made viagra when they caught him, they're using him as a coat rack.
Warren says he is doing this because he doesn't "believe the Obama administration" and he wants to have proof that it is really his body. But, if he doesn't believe President Obama and the United States Navy, why would the body be down there at all? If he thinks that they are lying, the most logical thing is to believe that they never buried the body at sea. Tell all the jihadis. It's just a couple of miles off the Pakistani shore. They can swim out their easily and check for themselves.
But who knows, maybe Bill will prove himself right this time. Or maybe the body will not be there because Osama bin Laden is alive and well, playing cards and drinking mai tais with Elvis and Marilyn, in that secret government paradise island in the middle of the Pacific. Why don't you ask Nancy to check into it? You can tell her she needs to go there to see who's there.
#3
Depending on what the body was put in before it was dumped overboard, there is probably not a lot left to find. Food sources like that do not survive long on the ocean's floor: it is like dumping a pot roast out in the middle of a desert. Everything for miles around comes after its bite of the morsel.
U.S. officials say the public will soon be able to read some of the late Osama bin Laden's ... who abandoned all hope when he entered there... last written or typed words on line.
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan says some of the declassified documents will be posted online by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point military academy this week.
The documents were gathered by Navy SEALs from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , Pakistain, on May 2 last year.
The trove included correspondence between the terror leader and affiliates, and his own hand-written diary.
Update: Download the documents from the West Point link here.
[An Nahar] The Taliban militia announced their "spring offensive" would begin across Afghanistan on Thursday.
Code-named al-Farouq, the primary targets of the offensive would be "foreign invaders, their advisors, their contractors, all those who help them militarily and in intelligence", the cut-throats said on their website.
"Al-Farouq spring offensive will be launched on May 3 all over Afghanistan," the hard boy group said.
The militia said the code name came from Islam's second caliph, Omar al-Farouq known for his military advances in Asia and the Arab world during the 7th century.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
May 3rd wasn't all that exciting, but perhaps they'll find some success another day.
#2
Their last 'Spring Offensive' ended with so many drone zaps on their commanders, that the summer was pretty quiet. Their communications security is not terribly developed, especially when they are trying to coordinate actions in widely separated areas.
[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to summon Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... and others in storming of the court case as the contempt of court proceedings are still pending against him.
Speaking to media representatives outside the Parliament House, he said the Supreme Court of Pakistain in its detailed judgment issued on October 10, 2000 had ordered that contempt of court proceedings should be initiated against Nawaz Sharif and others, who were involved in invading the apex court building.
The court had also directed the concerned to complete the investigations and report within a period of four months but regrettably the investigations are still pending before Islamabad Police, he added.
He said that the contempt of court proceedings still exists against the former prime minister, adding that he should appear before the court and which should issue a verdict over the issue.
He said that the opposition should wait for the detailed judgment, adding that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... has the right to appeal.
The minister said that more evidences against the Sharifs are in the pipeline and he will soon reveal them before the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[An Nahar] Two people were killed and five others maimed on Wednesday as a dispute between two families erupted into a full-blown armed clash in the Akkar town of Fnaideq in northern Leb.
"Brothers Ahmed and Khaldoun al-Tarsha (aka Taleb) were killed and their father Mohammed and brother Ali were maimed in an exchange of gunfire between members from the families of Taleb and al-Kik in the Akkar town of Fnaideq," reported state-run National News Agency.
"A lady belonging to the Taleb family was also lightly injured," NNA said.
"The situation is still tense in the town, although the Lebanese army and all the security agencies have taken security measures," the agency added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the abandoned silver mine, the water was up to Jack's neck and still rising... LBC television reported that the two families used machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades in their fight.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[Tolo News] As many as six people were killed in a Taliban attack on a compound for foreigners in east Kabul Wednesday in retaliation for the visit of the US President to Afghanistan on Tuesday night.
At least four Afghan civilians, including a child, died inside their burning car outside the compound and a Nepalese security guard was among the dead, while as many as ten Afghan school students were among the 17 maimed, officials said.
The incident happened around 6:15am, less than two hours after US President Barack Obama They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... left Afghanistan after making an unannounced visit to sign a long-term agreement with Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid 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... The Taliban grabbed credit for the attack in a statement saying they launched the attack "as a reaction to Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan".
The attack ended after 10:15am when the fourth and final attacker went kaboom!" in an unoccupied building within the compound.
The first attacker died when he detonated the explosives carried in his car near the gate of the compound. The second bomber appears to have blown himself up inside the camp, and the third was bumped off by security guards, Kabul deputy police chief Daoud Amin told TOLOnews.
At least four kabooms were heard in the area, according to local residents.
The compound, known as the "Green Village", is used by international organizations for housing foreigners, including those working with the United Nations. ...a formerly good idea gone bad... Obama made a quick overnight visit to Afghanistan where he signed a long-term agreement with Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Karzai on the one-year anniversary of former al Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden's ... who no longer exists... death. The agreement cements 10 years of US assistance to Afghanistan after NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... combat troops leave in 2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
where's the angry denunciation by the Caped Drug Addict Karzai? The angry protests in the streets by Afghan "civilians"? Ohhhhh. No money in that
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/03/2012 10:35
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[Tolo News] Afghanistan's parliamentarians broadly welcomed the signing of the Afghan-US strategic agreement Wednesday, but warned that Afghanistan would not sacrifice itself for the interests of other countries.
Members of Parliament stressed that Afghanistan is an independent country and would sign such long-term agreements with any country as long as its illusory sovereignty and national interests were not violated.
"As other countries cannot sacrifice their interests for our country, we also can't do so," Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... 's MP Ahmad Behzad said.
Kabul MP Shukria Barekzai said that the agreement, if implemented properly, would help Afghanistan to stabilise.
"I believe that if it's governed wisely and in accordance with the national interests of Afghanistan, it will without any doubt help keep Afghanistan stable," she said.
The MPs also called on the Afghan government to send the agreement to the Parliament for review as soon as possible.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
Basically no women rights/hatred of other religions will continue in line with the Holy Koran
(Sh. M. Network)- An official in Ahlu Sunna Waljamaa (ASWJ) said Wednesday that his fighters in central Somalia have begun this morning probing into the Tuesday's deadly bombing at a coffee shop in Dhusamareb town.
Sheik Mohammed Yusuf better known as (Hefow) announced that they are hunting down the criminal mastermind of the suicide bomb kaboom that killed at least 8 people, including politicians and prominent Somali politicians while more than 30 others have been injured.
Locals said the injured people were on Wednesday morning taken to the local hospitals in Gur'el town, a town in central Somalia and controlled by Ahlu Sunna Walaja'a allied with Somali government.
On March 20, 2012, Al-Shabaab ... successor to the Islamic Courts... raided the city at dawn, briefly captured it then decamped after intense fighting with Ahlusunna Waljamaa (ASWJ) fighters that left 30 people dead.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[An Nahar] An al-Qaeda splinter group wants a total of 45 million euros in ransoms for two European women aid workers and seven Algerian diplomats taken hostage, the group's front man said Wednesday.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) front man Adnan Abu Walid Sahraoui gave the figures in reply to a written question submitted by Agence La Belle France Presse.
He said MUJAO was demanding 30 million euros ($40 million) for the two women, an Italian and a Spaniard, kidnapped in October along with a Spanish man while working in a camp for Western Sahara refugees in Tindouf in western Algeria.
The Algerians were kidnapped on April 5 in Gao, northeast Mali, as Islamist and Tuareg separatist groups overran the north of the country in the wake of a military coup in the capital Bamako.
Sahraoui said his group demanded 15 million euros for the diplomats, who included the Algerian consul in Gao, and the release of prisoners held by Algeria, threatening an attack otherwise.
MUJAO warned on Sunday that the Algerians' lives were in danger, saying negotiations with Algiers had broken down.
"The Algerian delegation... completely refused our demands, and this decision will put the lives of the hostages in danger," Sahraoui said in a short message sent to AFP at the time.
MUJAO's comments were a setback a week after a front man told AFP that, together with Islamist group Ansar Dine, "we have agreed to the release of seven people tossed in the calaboose Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on Algerian soil in Gao".
The same day, Algeria's foreign minister had said the seven diplomats were in good health, that Algerian authorities were in contact with the kidnappers, and that "we expect this will soon bear fruit".
MUJAO is said to have broken off from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in order to spread jihad to west Africa rather than confine themselves just to the Maghreb or Sahel regions. ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... It is led by Malians and Mauritanians, according to experts.
The group grabbed credit for a suicide kaboom on a police base in southern Algeria on March 3 which left 23 people maimed according to the paramilitary gendarmerie.
A Malian source also said on March 3 MUJAO wanted 30 million euros to free the three European aid workers kidnapped in Algeria.
But Sahraoui said Wednesday that "negotiations only concern the Italian and Spanish women hostages".
He made no mention of the Spanish man, but said his group was also demanding that Madrid act to obtain the release of two Sahrawis tossed in the calaboose Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! by Mauritania.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
will the hold their breath until they turn blue too?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/03/2012 2:26
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#2
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
A little napalm judiciously spread around would put an end to this, but the West has become too effete to do what's necessary. I need my own country.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/03/2012 17:12
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#3
This is nothing new in the area. The Algerian is an interesting turn as a hostage, as the Algerians back in the day were the leaders in piracy and hostage taking.
Read "Jefferson's War," by Joseph Wheelen. He gives an excellent history (way back in history) of the Barbary Pirates, and the basics of Islamic slavery and kidnapping. Nothing new under the sun.
The thing that amazes me is how much Europe had appeased these guys, even giving them presents of weapons, gunpowder, and even some bloody frigates!!!!!!
The US was having treaties and giving a significant percentage of the govt revenue to these pirates until Jefferson started some kinetic action with a navy.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/03/2012 18:45
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[Dawn] Violence-ridden neighbourhood of Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... depicted the picture of a war field on sixth consecutive day of the grand operation as five more people died and around 40 got injured on Wednesday, DawnNews reported.
Clashes between law-enforcement agencies and heavily armed criminals continued into the night on Wednesday, as myrmidons resorted to the use of hand-grenades and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) in addition to using sophisticated automatic weapons against security forces.
According to sources, five people died and around 40 including five police officials got injured.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory the fumes had dispersed, to reveal an ominous sight... Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah, after chairing a security meeting announced to involve Rangers also in the ongoing operation against the criminals in the area.
He announced to compensate the bereaved families of police officials who bit the dust during the operation with Rs 2 million each.
The chief minister also mentioned difficulties of conducting the operation in an area with narrow and steep lanes. "Taliban are fighting along with local gangster in Lyari," he revealed.
During the past six days, around 30 people, as well as six security personnel, have bit the dust in the aggressive operation. Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... hundreds of Lyari residents continued to flee the fighting as they relocate from the violence-ridden area.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[An Nahar] A bodyguard working for one of the main parties in Iraq's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, which has clashed politically with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party.... , was killed on Wednesday, officials said.
Latif Ramadan Jassim was on duty near the headquarters of the Wifaq (Accord) party in Zeitun, west Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... , when he was stabbed to death on Wednesday morning, party spokeswoman and MP Intisar Allawi told AFP.
"The police are now conducting an investigation," she said.
An Interior Ministry official confirmed a Wifaq guard was killed in Storied Baghdad on Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear why Jassim was attacked.
Wifaq is one of the main parties in the broader Iraqiya coalition, which won the most seats in March 2010 parliamentary elections but was outmaneuvered for the premiership by Maliki's State of Law alliance.
Iraqiya began a boycott of parliament and then the cabinet in December, accusing Maliki of concentrating power in his hands, though the boycotts were lifted in January and February, respectively.
Also on Wednesday, retired army pilot Colonel Majid Abdul Mawjood was rubbed out in the main northern city of djinn-infested Mosul, police First Lieutenant Mohammed Waggaa said.
And roadside kabooms in restive Diyala province, north of Storied Baghdad, left five civilians maimed, said police Major Ahmed al-Karkhi.
On Tuesday evening, an Iraqi journalist working for the Al-Rasheed satellite TV channel was maimed when two magnetic "sticky bombs" attached to his car detonated in south Storied Baghdad.
Majid Hamid, 32, had been visiting his cousin's home in Saidiyah, and upon leaving, the bombs went off, according to Ahmed Mullah Tallal, an anchor on Al-Rasheed.
Violence nationwide is markedly lower than in 2006 and 2007 but attacks are still common, especially in Storied Baghdad, djinn-infested Mosul and Diyala. A total of 126 Iraqis were killed in violence in April, according to official figures.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Rapid Action Battaliontossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud! a former National University teacher yesterday for allegedly assisting war crimes suspect Abul Kalam Azad, also known as Bachchu Razakar, to flee the country.
On March 30, Dr Abu Yusuf drove Azad to Hili land port in Dinajpur on a microbus, alleged Commander M Sohail, director of Rab Legal and Media Wing.
"He remained missing since Azad decamped the country but on receiving information that Yusuf was back at his Agargaon residence, we tossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud! him yesterday around 11:00am" the Rab director said.
Yusuf, a former associate professor of National University was also a consultant of Mosque Council for Community and Advancement which was headed by Azad, he added.
The International Crimes Tribunal-2 issued an arrest warrant against Azad on April 3 for "collaborating with the Pakistain occupation forces and committing excesses during the Liberation War in 1971".
However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... Azad went on the run several hours before the issuance of his warrant. Law enforcers hunted for him in various places and tossed in the slammer Book 'im, Mahmoud! his sons Faisal Azad and Jihad Azad and brother-in-law Kazi Ehtesham Ul Haque after being unable to find Azad.
Quoting the detainees, Rab officials said that Azad slipped into India through Dinajpur's Hili border on Apr 2 and has plans to enter Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
#1
Community and Advancement; Isn't that sort of like Community Organizer?
To understand the historical significance of President Barack Obama's visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday, imagine that President Richard Nixon had, in the spring of 1972, flown to Saigon to signal American voters that the Vietnam war was coming to an end -- and to ink a deal with President Nguyen Van Thieu codifying a long-term U.S. relationship with the Republic of South Vietnam, which would shortly be left responsible for its own security. I've been waiting for this meme to hit the MSM.
#1
This comparison will NEVER hit the MSM because:
1> it would link Obama with Vietnam; and
2> it would link Obama with Nixon!
I think either of these comparisons would be anathema to the MSM and progressives everywhere.
#3
Bush had A'stan right - effectively 'declare victory and leave', which he pretty much did 10 years ago. But noooo, A'stan was the 'good' war, and Iraq was bad, so we had to back.
[An Nahar] Libya's ruling National Transitional Council on Wednesday criminalized the glorification of slain leader Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... and his regime.
"Praising or glorifying Muammar Qadaffy, his regime, his ideas or his sons... is punishable by a prison sentence," said the text of the law read out to news hounds by a judicial official following a high-level meeting.
"If those news reports, rumors or propaganda cause any damage to the state the penalty will be life in prison," the official quoted the text as saying.
"In conditions of war, there is a prison sentence for any person who spreads information and rumors which disrupt military preparations for the defense of the country, spread terror or weaken the citizens' morale," he added.
According to the law, Libya is still in a state of war following the 2011 bloody conflict that pitted Qadaffy loyalists against NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... -backed rebel forces.
A second law, also governing the transition, stipulates prison sentences for anyone who "attacks the February 17 revolution, denigrates Islam, the authority of the state or its institutions."
Yet another law confiscates all property and funds belonging to figures of the previous regime, including Qadaffy's relatives, putting them under the care of the judiciary.
The tough legislation comes just weeks before elections for a constituent assembly which the NTC has pledged to hold in June.
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[An Nahar] The Somali man who attacked a Danish cartoonist for caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed will serve 10 years in prison before being expelled from Denmark, the Supreme Court confirmed Wednesday.
"There is no reason to change the 10-year prison sentence," Denmark's highest court ruled, stressing that Mohammed Geele, who attacked cartoonist Kurt Westergaard at his home on January 1, 2010, with an axe, was guilty of "attempted terrorism".
The court also confirmed that once he has served his sentence the now 30-year-old Somali citizen would be expelled from Denmark and banned from ever returning.
Geele, who has been living in the Scandinavian country since he was 14 and has a wife and four young children there, had appealed his sentence to the Supreme Court, insisting the attack had nothing to do with terrorism and that he had only been trying to frighten Westergaard.
He was initially sentenced to nine years behind bars in February 2011, but an appeals court hiked his sentence four months later to 10 years.
"I feel somewhat sorry for this Geele. But it is satisfying for me to see an end to this case," Westergaard himself told the Ritzau news agency Wednesday.
"Such an action is indeed terrorism. He attacked me, but he affected all of society," he said.
The Somali broke into 76-year-old Kurt Westergaard's home near Aarhus in central Denmark on January 1, 2010 wielding an axe and screaming, "You must die! You are going to hell!" according to the cartoonist's testimony last year.
Geele, who is suspected of having links to the Somali Islamist movement Al-Shebab, had threatened police arriving on the scene with his axe and knife and was shot twice before being placed under arrest.
Westergaard has faced numerous death threats since the publication of his drawing, the most controversial of the 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005, and which sparked angry and at times deadly protests across the Moslem world.
Wednesday's ruling came as four people face trial in Denmark for "attempted terrorism" for allegedly plotting to massacre staff at the same paper over the cartoons.
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[Dawn] The Pakistain Moslem League -- Nawaz (PML-N) on Wednesday announced that it would launch nationwide protest rallies and later on a long march to remove Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... from his position of prime minister, DawnNews reported.
The party however did not give a date for the commencement of the long march which is expected to be organised after the issuing of the Supreme Court's detailed verdict in the contempt of court case against Prime Minister Gilani.
Announcing its schedule of protests to remove Gilani, the PML-N said that rallies would be held in Taxila on May 4, in Gujranwala on May 7, in Bahawalpur and Sargodha on May 8 and in Gilani's hometown Multan on May 10.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sworn in as a member of parliament Wednesday, opening a new chapter in the Nobel laureate's near quarter-century struggle against authoritarian rule.
The 66-year-old, in the capital Naypyidaw ...generally translated as royal capital, seat of the king or abode of kings because the current general in charge has a massive ego. It was founded in 2002 because Rangoon was worn out. Traditionally, Naypyidaw was used as a suffix to the names of royal capitals, such as Mandalay, which was called Yadanabon Naypyidaw in Burmese... for the ceremony, stood to read the brief oath in unison with 33 other members of her National League for Democracy party elected to the lower house in April, an AFP news hound said.
The oath hands Suu Kyi public office for the first time and marks a transformation in the fortunes of the opposition leader, who was held under house arrest for much of the last 20 years but is now central to the nation's tentative transition to democracy.
She had initially baulked at taking the oath, specifically a sentence pledging to "safeguard" the army-created constitution.
But on Monday she backed down after the head of the nominally civilian government President Thein Sein held firm over the oath, explaining it was the "desire of the people" to see her party in office after breakthrough April 1 by-elections.
Speaking to news hounds after Wednesday's ceremony the veteran dissident said: "I believe I can serve the interests of the people more than before".
She was then whisked away by car to Naypyidaw airport to return to Yangon.
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The death toll in the fighting in Choix municipality in Sinaloa state increased as seven more dead were found Wednesday morning, according to Mexican news accounts.
The seven dead were found near the Chihuahua border, and according to a news item on the website of El Debate news daily, villagers in the area say more dead could be found in the area.
In a late Wednesday evening story posted on its website El Diario de Juarez reported that residents on both sides of the border have fled their homes to keep armed groups from attacking them. Criminal gangs in the area are running low on food and water, and while reports on other Mexican news websites say some residents are fighting back, those stories appear to be anecdotal and not widespread.
Mexico is currently undergoing one of the worst droughts in decades, so water is at a premium and is being preserved in remote mountain communities for human consumption. Temperatures in the Mexican Sierras have also soared since last week, hitting 46C (114.8F) in Urique in western Chihuahua.
A separate article posted on the website of El Debate Wednesday evening said that fighting has spread to Guasave municipality as armed suspects exchanged gunfire with a Mexican Army road patrol in Estacion Bamoa. A total of 10 armed suspects and two soldiers died in that encounter. Guasave municipality is about 60 kilometers south of Choix and is near the western coast of Sinaloa state,
The report also said that five more unidentified individuals were killed or were found dead, including in Culican municipality, where three unidentified individuals were found dead including one man who had been immolated.
Two more unidentified individuals were found dead near the village of Cajon de Piaxtla in nearby San Ignacio municipality.
The seven dead in Choix municipality raises the death toll after five days of fighting to 39 dead. The dead in Guasave and San Ignacio municipalities, although not specifically part of the fighting in Choix municipality raises the death toll in Sinaloa state since last Saturday to 56, easily one of the bloodiest weeks in the Mexican Drug War which began in 2007.
According to a news item posted on Noreste.com news daily website Wednesday evening, at around 0600 hrs a Mexican Army road patrol in Guasave encountered an armed group aboard three vehicles near a local hotel and supermarket on Calle Benito Juarez, who opened fire on the unit. Two soldiers were killed near the hotel, while three armed suspects were killed aboard an SUV which was destroyed by fire. Two vehicles and weapons were seized in the aftermath.
According to an item on the El Debate website, schools were closed in Guasave following the encounter.
Also according to another news item on the same website, Guasave municipal police agents reportedly started a labor action after several of their number were disarmed and 13 were detained in the aftermath of the encounter. The police agents were disarmed by Sinaloa state ministerial police at the orders of the Mexican Federal Public ministry. A scuffle also ensued near police headquarters between municipal police agents and state ministerial police.
El Imparcial news daily, in a Wednesday evening post at its news website said that last January, Guasave police commander, Leocadio Cabrera Delgado and 32 other municipal police officers were detained and the subsequently detained for investigation.In that incident three Mexican Army soldiers were killed in a gunfight, but the police elements in Guasave had refused to respond at the request of the army.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
(Sh.M.Network)- At a training camp in Uganda, a dozen soldiers crouch, weapons raised as they make their way down a dirt road between shipping containers set up to look like buildings in the Somali capital.
Standing by, observing the Ugandan troops at work, is aU.S.marine, Major Mark Haley.
"Here is where we are going to teach urban warfare, how to fight building to building," Haley said as the Ugandans moved between containers scrawled with graffiti reading "City of Death" and "Hell Zone".
The model of the Somali capital, or "Little Mogadishu" as it is known, was built by American military trainers to prepare the Ugandan soldiers to take part in 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... mission propping up the Western-backed government in Mogadishu.
After al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban... rebels pulled out of the capital last year, theUnited Stateshas stepped up efforts to train Ugandan soldiers who will be part of the push by AMISOM to take more territory outside the capital.
TheUnited Statesand other Western powers have been backing efforts to crush al-Shabaab as they worry Somalia has become a safe haven for Islamist hard boyz seeking to wreak havoc in the region and further afield.
Washington helps to fund the AMISOM force, provides assistance to the transitional institutions inSomaliaand has carried out air strikes within the Horn of Africa nation to kill high-profile al Qaeda and al-Shabaab suspects.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... the United States is reluctant to put boots on the ground ever since its humiliating retreat from Somalia following the October 1993 "Blackhawk Down" debacle in which 18 U.S. servicemen and well over a thousand Somalis died.
Helped by AMISOM, the transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed now controls most of Mogadishu for the first time since dictator Siad Barre was tossed in 1991.
But Ahmed's government has little control over the rest of the country, where al-Shabaab, clan-based militias and warlords control chunks of territory. Æthiopian and Kenyan troops are also battling al-Shabaab inside Somalia.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] A pet parakeet was returned to its owner Wednesday after the lost bird told police its home address near Tokyo.
The male bird had beat feet early Sunday morning from its owner's home in the city of Sagamihara, west of Tokyo, and remained on the lam before perching on the shoulder of a guest staying in a nearby hotel.
Handed over to local police, the bird did not speak until Tuesday evening, when it blurted out the names of the city and district where its owner's house is located, said a front man for the north Sagamihara cop shoppe.
It then produced the home's block and street number as a trio of astonished coppers listened to the now talkative bird.
The bird's owner, a 64-year-old woman, once lost another parakeet after it flew away and was determined to prevent a repeat, the front man told AFP.
"So the owner decided to teach the address to this parakeet after she bought it at a pet shop two years ago," he said.
"The bird's name was found to be Piko-chan as it said, 'You're pretty, Piko-chan'."
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Christina Hendricks aka Joan Holloway in "Mad Men (TV 2007 )" aka Blanche in "Drive (2011)" aka Alison Novak in "Life as We Know It (2010)" aka Ms. Sarah Madison in "Detachment (2011)" aka April in "Struck by Lightning (2012)" aka Nicolette Raye in "Kevin Hill (TV 20042005)" aka Lily in "La cucina (2007)" aka Angela in "South of Pico (2007)" (age 37)
#6
If you look real close at that "Man overboard" picture, which I did, it seems there might be a few goose bumps on the, uh, left side...as if there might have been a slight chill in the room, as if she needs to be, uhhhh, warmed up a bit.
#7
Mal: "Whoa, hey. Flesh. Um... Saffron... i-it-it ain't a question of pleasing me. It's more a question of what's... um... of what's morally right."
Saffron: "I do know my Bible sir. 'On the night of their betrothal, the wife shall open to the man as the furrow to the plow and he shall work in her, in and again, 'til she bring him to his fall and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast.'
Mal: "Whoa, good Bible."
#8
I loved that series. She did a decent job in her roles in the series, and does very well in Mad Men. That said, I like them with a bit less of a hard glint in the eye. Gwilli, for instance, has interesting eyes. Predatory glint is masked, if there at all.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
05/03/2012 15:33
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[Dawn] Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz central general secretary Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has said that they will organise a long march to rid the nation of the convicted and corrupt rulers.
Addressing two separate conventions of his party here on Tuesday, he said that PML-N would take each possible step to ensure supremacy of constitution, rule of law and restoration of true democracy in the country.
The labour convention was held at TMA Hall in Charsadda while the youth convention was organised at the residence of PML-N leader Mohammad Arif at Tangi.
PML-N youth wing central president Capt (retired) Safdar, MNA Marvi Memon, PML-N central front man Siddiqul Farooq, provincial youth wing president Rashid Ali Kakakhel, former minister Farid Toofan, district senior vice president and labour leader Aurangzeb Khan of Kot, youth wing organiser Arif Khan Tangi also addressed the gatherings.
Mr Safdar said that after coming into power, PML-N would establish a university for the children of labourers in each province where they would get free education.
Other speakers alleged that incapable rulers plunged the country into deep crises including economic turmoil, law and order situation, unemployment and loadshedding etc. They said only the leadership of PML-N was capable to steer the country out of the prevailing situation.
They said that PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... made the country first Islamic nuclear power and completed mega projects like motorway.
They said that Yousuf Raza Gilan had no other option but to quit after Supreme Court convicted him in the contempt case. They said that Mr Gilani was disqualified even as an MNA.
The PML-N leaders said that every political party including Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... would be taken along in the struggle to oust the convicted rulers. They said that PML politics was not power-specific.
They alleged that ruling parties were looting resources of the country with both hands.
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[Yemen Post] TOTAL E&P Yemen expresses its deepest sorrow and sadness for the death of Mr. Suhail Al-Jawfi, a TOTAL employee, who deceased this morning following the injuries he received in the gunnies attack on a Company's car in Seyoun City yesterday, 1 May 2012. TOTAL E&P Yemen conveys its sincere condolences to the bereaved family of Suhail Al-Jawfi.
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[Bangla Daily Star] A teacher of a girls' Kawmi madrasa on Tuesday seared legs of 14 students by a hot spatula in her punitive attempt to make them feel the agony of fire in hell.
The girls, aged between eight and 12, underwent the hellish experience as they were "irregular" in offering their prayers. They are students of Talimul Koran Mahila Madrasa at Namashyampur in city's Kadamtali.
The victims received treatment at local clinics with injuries on left legs.
Teacher Jesmin Akhter went into hiding as a case was filed, said Sub-inspector Sarker Md Jubayer of Kadamtali police.
Abdul Jalil, father of victim Jannatul Ferdous, 8, said after a 10-day holiday the madrasa reopened on Tuesday and his daughter attended the class at 8:00am.
Informed by another guardian, he rushed to the institution at 1:30pm and met a gathering of protesting locals.
Jalil quoting his daughter said Jesmin inflicted burns on the 14 students at around 8:30am for not being "regular" in offering their prayers during the vacation.
During her act of "punishment" Jesmin was quoted as asking the victims if they knew the severity of fires in hell. If they didn't say their prayers regularly, they would experience such torment in hell, she added.
Jalil said the teacher kept her spatula on a burning gas oven adjacent to the classroom and each time burned the legs of three students.
She also forced the maimed students to continue with the classes till 1:15pm. The news spread when mother of a student went to the madrasa with meal for her daughter at 1:15pm, police said.
Agitating locals immediately besieged the madrasa, but police intervened and brought the situation under control, said SI Jubayer.
Neither guardians nor the police could confirm immediately whether the madrasa is approved by the government.
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#1
He had to teach them. How else are these girls going to be able to go to heaven to serve the pious jihadis?
I think a certain teacher needs to get burned the same way as his students were. Once for each student. If it's so important, he will be willing to endure it and continue teaching the lesson the same way.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age. ... has surpassed North Korea as the world's top press censor, with Syria and Iran placing third and fourth in a new list published Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The New York-based rights group said Eritrea had climbed to the top of the list by banning all foreign media and controlling every detail of the local media's coverage through its information ministry.
"Every time (a journalist) had to write a story, they arrange for interview subjects and tell you specific angles you have to write on," it quoted an exiled Eritrean journalist as saying on condition of anonymity.
"We usually wrote lots about the president (Issaias Afeworki) so that he's always in the limelight."
Secretive and highly authoritarian North Korea slipped to second after topping the list last year, with the CPJ saying "some tiny cracks have emerged" such as the opening of an News Agency that Dare Not be Named bureau in the capital Pyongyang.
However, we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... foreign news hounds are only rarely allowed in and details about Pyongyang's nuclear program and the new power structure following the death of ruler Kim Dear Leader Jong-Il ... hereditary dictator of North Korea. His definition of reunification isn't the same as the definition in Seoul... remain "hidden beneath severe censorship," it said.
Syria has ratcheted up press restrictions since the outbreak of a popular revolt against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators... a year ago, leaping from ninth on the CPJ's 2006 list to third in the latest one.
Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... has heavily restricted media access, particularly to cities that have seen large protests and violence.
"By barring international media from entering and reporting freely and by attacking its own citizen journalists, Syria has sought to impose a news media blackout on a year-long military crackdown," the CPJ said.
Iran has meanwhile "mixed high-technology techniques such as Web blocking with brute-force tactics such as mass imprisonment of journalists to control the flow of information and obfuscate details of its own nuclear program."
Rounding out the list of the top 10 press censors was Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Soddy Arabia, Cuba and Belarus.
The CPJ drew up the list based on 15 benchmarks, including the blocking of websites, the absence of privately-owned or independent media, restrictions on journalists' movements and security service monitoring of journalists.
For this list, the group only considered countries in which restrictions are imposed by the government and not cases like Mexico and Somalia where journalists are often forced to censor themselves because of crime or unrest.
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[Dawn] Political and social organizations of Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency have taken strong exception to unlawful detention of internally displaced families of Bara by Beautiful Downtown Peshawar police for extortion and warned of a protest demonstration in front of the Chief Minister's Secretariat in Peshawar if the practice is not stopped.
In separate statements of condemnation, the Khyber Agency chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , Khyber Union and Kamarkhel Khidmat-e-Khalq Committee accused the Peshawar police deputed at Sarband ploice station of unlawfully detaining innocent displaced persons and later releasing them on payment of bribes.
Shah Faisal Afridi, Bara JI amir, claimed in his statement that innocent residents were implicated in false cases when they refused to pay bribe to Sarband police. He alleged that migrating women, children and elderly people were forced to wait on road for hours when they could not pay the illegal money to police officials.
Haris Afridi, Khyber Union president, said that a deliberate attempt was being made by Peshawar police to provoke the innocent Bara residents into violence and then apprehend them on false charges. He said that the matter had been brought repeatedly into the notice of Peshawar police high-ups, but no action was taken against the corrupt officials.
Khayal Matshah Afridi, chairman of the Khidmat-e-Khalq Committee, accused the Awami National Party's top leadership of hatching a conspiracy against the law-abiding rustics and punishing them in the name of fight against terrorism. --
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#1
So the Peshawar police have decided that they want their own piece of the action in the kidnap-for-ransom market?
At some point don't the government officials of Pakistan become indistinct from the jihadists?
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/03/2012 7:35
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[Dawn] THE compound has been demolished and the wives shipped off to Soddy Arabia. ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... In the one year since the late Osama bin Laden's ... who walked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and didn't make it out... death the physical evidence of his presence, his home and household have all but been eliminated from Pak soil.
If these demolitions and departures were indicators of the end of an era, the dislocation of terror and its tentacles in Pak soil then Paks could all have heaved a collective sigh of relief on this day and marked it as the moment when they kissed terror and its bloody legacy good bye.
As history or fate would have it, such sentimental scenes are not destined for Pakistain. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the country saw 476 major incidents of terrorism (major classified as involving three or more deaths) in 2011.
The worst of them came not before but after the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, when 90 people, paramilitary and non-combatants were killed as two jacket wallahs attacked an FC training centre in Charsadda.
The year and a half period from 2011 to the middle of 2012, has seen more people die of terrorist attacks in Pakistain than Americans in the whole decade since 9/11.
The attacks have continued unabated since, the period from January until April of this year 2012 already having witnessed 201 kabooms with hundreds killed and injured. The year and a half period from 2011 to the middle of 2012, has seen more people die of terrorist attacks in Pakistain than Americans in the whole decade since 9/11.
Pakistain's casualties from terror are not simply those who have died in the attacks themselves. Every dying man and woman to fall in the unfortunate path of the suicide bomber or automated blast has left behind him or her an unseen mourning horde of those that must live on, lives forever interrupted, inexplicably and unjustly.
The conflict between security forces and gunnies has wreaked its own havoc in the enactment of Pakistain's terror tragedy. A few weeks ago, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, announced that 208,000 internally displaced people are now living in the Jalozai camp in Nowshera since January of this year, a number said to represent only 15 per cent of the actual people displaced from their homes.
Many of these wandering victims of terror, homeless and hungry, are just as hapless as the dead According to Oxfam, nearly half a million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, with a recent influx of 63,000 families putting tremendous stress on the resources available. Nearly 80 per cent of the displaced families have no access to healthcare or medicines.
When the death of Osama bin Laden was announced a year ago today, those assessing the success or defeat of the war on terror from the safe distance of faraway lands rejoiced and believed. A poll conducted in Pakistain days after found Paks unsure.
Conducted by YouGov, in collaboration with Polis at Cambridge University, the poll found that 66 per cent of educated Paks did not believe that Osama bin Laden was killed in the attack.
Another poll, conducted by Gallup International also conducted in the immediate aftermath of the raid, found that only 25 per cent of Paks actually believed that the person attacked in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... that day was Osama bin Laden.
When asked whether terrorism would increase, decrease or remain unchanged, nearly three-quarters of Paks believed that it would increase or at best remain unchanged.
As the ensuing year's numbers have shown, they were right. Counting casualties, direct and indirect, dead or almost dead, maimed by bombs or bullets delivers a prognosis that shows terror living well and claiming much, hiding in cities and towns and felling young and old with hate or hunger. But the doubt over Osama bin Laden's death amid the continuation of the very disease it was supposed to cure points to another casualty.
The first decade of the war on terror, punctuated by today's anniversary of the death of the criminal mastermind most visibly associated with it, has produced not only casualties of flesh and blood but also of truth and belief.
Paks did not doubt Osama bin Laden's death because the crystal balls or nocturnal visions indicated no cessation in bombings and killings, or because of secretly nursed sympathies that venerated a mass murderer, or any of the other explanations bandied about by those who would magnify the death of the man into an epic victory.
Paks did not believe in the death of Osama bin Laden, because the most tragic, heartrending and invisible casualty of terror in Pakistain has been the death of truth itself.
With the proliferation of terror has come the elevation of secrecy, a new creed practised by governments and intelligence agencies, foreign governments and spymasters, beturbanned goon outfits that change names with the seasons and all those who shelter them. This intricate web of the unknown that weaves through every event and breathes souls into the corpses of doubt has meant the end of fact in Pakistain. The kaboom at a train station, the murder of a journalist, the verdict of a court nothing can be solved or explained or predicted because nothing can be believed.
There are many scars inflicted on the suffering by conflict, this one cast on one and all bleeds everyday and is never bandaged, draining drop by drop the spirit that sustains a nation.
Bleeding internally and externally, one year after Bin Laden's death, Pakistain is not misunderstood and the truth more so. As the reason for deaths, the causes of catastrophes, the elusiveness of justice or accountability present day-after-day new tableaus of anarchy, it seems laughable and even cruel to consider that many in the world thought and still think that the death of a single evil man could mean much or anything when the deaths of so many innocent others have meant absolutely nothing.
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[An Nahar] The head of Nigeria's Christians on Wednesday issued a "final" warning to the government that it must bring an end to attacks targeting the faithful after a new surge in deadly violence in recent days.
"I will now make a final call to the Nigerian government to use all resources available to it to clearly define and neutralize the problem as other nations have done," Ayo Oritsejafor, head of the Christian Association of Nigeria, told news hounds.
"The Church leadership has hitherto put great restraint on the restive and aggrieved millions of Nigerians, but can no longer guarantee such cooperation if this trend of terror is not halted immediately."
Islamist group Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... has been blamed for scores of attacks that have left hundreds dead in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation roughly divided between a mainly Mohammedan north and predominately Christian south.
On Sunday, gunnies stormed two church services on a university campus in the northern city of Kano, throwing explosives and opening fire on worshippers as they sought to flee, leaving at least 19 dead.
Four others, including a pastor, were bumped off in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on the same day while leaving church.
No one has grabbed credit for those attacks.
Boko Haram took responsibility for Christmas Day attacks, including a bombing at a church near the capital Abuja which killed at least 44 people. A bombing on Easter Sunday in Kaduna which was not claimed killed 41 people.
In the wake of the Christmas violence, Oritsejafor and others warned that Christians may be forced to defend themselves if attacks continued.
"At this point in the unfolding insecurity challenges, it has become irrelevant whether the root cause is political, religious, ethnic or ideological," Oritsejafor said Wednesday at the country's national church in Abuja.
"The fundamental issues are that the intimidation, killings, bombings and wanton destruction of lives and properties must stop immediately."
He added however that Nigerians should remain calm "as I am aware that the greater part of the overall design is to instill fear in the populace".
Boko Haram has regularly widened its targets in its insurgency which has killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.
On Tuesday, a video on YouTube purportedly from Boko Haram showed footage of last week's attack on a Nigerian newspaper and threatened news outlets, including the Hausa-language services of Voice of America and Radio La Belle France International.
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05/03/2012
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#1
Biafra II - this time let's support the proper side not the northern one.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/03/2012 2:34
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#2
I wish the West would say enough is enough in regard to Islam.
#4
"I will now make a final call to the Nigerian government to use all resources available to it to clearly define and neutralize the problem as other nations have done..."
They could lay in a stock of tires--for the well-developed South African tradition of necklacing.
Knesset approves IDF request to call up a further 16 battalions if needed.
According to 2008′s Reserve Duty Law, combat soldiers can be called for active reserve duty once every three years, and for short training sessions during the other two. Rising tensions between Israel and Egypt and the ongoing unrest in Syria caused the army to ask the Knesset for special permission to call up more soldiers, more often.
The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee approved the request recently, enabling the IDF to summon up to 22 battalions for active duty for the second time in three years. Already, the army has called up six of them.
"This signifies that the IDF regards the Egyptian and Syrian borders as the potential source of a greater threat than in the past," the former deputy chief of staff, Dan Harel, said on Wednesday night.
"The army needs a better 'answer' than in the past to the threat," he said, citing Egypt's deteriorating control over the Sinai, marked by an upsurge in Bedouin smuggling of weapons and other goods. He also spoke of the growing threat of terrorism from Sinai, as exemplified by an infiltration last August in which eight Israelis were killed.
The Syrian situation was also highly combustible, Harel said, "and it could explode at any moment... and pose a direct challenge to us."
Maariv said the army had to decide whether to cancel training sessions for enlisted soldiers or to summon additional reserve units, and it chose the latter; canceling training would mean soldiers would not be prepared in the case of an all-out war.
#1
'TIS A CATCH-22, as Egypt's Armed Forces genuinely wants to contain the spread of extremism, but in order to do so they have to risk violating their own pro-democracy, pro-Civilian Govt. mandates made when Mubarak was removed from power. THEY KNOW THE UNSC ISN'T GOING TO STAND FOR ANY THREAT TO THE SUEZ CANAL TRADE, BE IT ON THE EGYPTIAN SIDE OR THE SAUDI SIDE.
[An Nahar] Stunt woman Jolene Van Vugt was flushed with pride Wednesday after setting a new land speed record for the fastest motorized toilet. Flushed with pride?
Van Vugt, a former Canadian motocross champion, steered the contraption through some early wobbles to 75 kilometers per hour (46 mph) in Sydney, seven kilometers more than the previous Guinness world record.
Police were on hand to record the feat. So, Muldoon, how's it feel to be part of history?
I'm speechless, sarge. Speechless...
"I flew into Australia yesterday ...and boy are my arms tired...
and came out here to jump straight on the toilet," said the 31-year-old.
"That was so fun and I'm stoked to get the record."
Van Vugt, who is in Australia to perform at the Nitro Circus stunt show based on the hit MTV series, holds a host of world records, including being the first woman to backflip a dirt bike.
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#1
Uh, uh, AT LAST SOMEONE WITH THE RIGHT PRIORITIES???
[Bangla Daily Star] The International Crimes Tribunal-1 yesterday fixed May 13 for the ruling on whether former Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam would be indicted for his alleged involvement in war crimes.
The Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... leader, who is facing 62 specific charges of crimes against humanity committed during the country's Liberation War in 1971, was produced before the court.
The three-member tribunal headed by Justice Md Nizamul Huq set the new date as the judges could not complete scrutiny of the relevant documents and arguments.
The verdict was also postponed on April 17.
The court also rejected a plea from the defence lawyers for modifications to its March 6 verdict which permitted the former Jamaat ameer to take homemade food in prison on certain conditions.
As per the March 6 order, his family members would have to supply food at their own risk. No questions can be raised against the hospital or the jail authorities if the health of the accused deteriorates after taking homemade meals, the court had said.
The defence later appealed to the court to withdraw this portion of the order.
Yesterday, the tribunal said Ghulam Azam was not being supplied homemade food even after the order was passed, and his health had not deteriorated.
The accused and his family do not want to take the risk involved, but want to have the scope of raising questions against the hospital or the jail authorities if his health deteriorates after having home-cooked food, the court observed.
After the tribunal rejected the prayer, Tajul Islam, a defence counsel, took the podium and informed the court that the prison authorities had taken away a notepad from his client, which he had kept for taking notes to help his lawyers.
"What is the meaning of snatching some white sheets of paper from an accused?" he told the court.
In response, the tribunal said the incident was surprising as the prison authorities were only supposed to check letters and other documents to or from the accused.
"We even hear that people write an entire novel while being in prison," Justice Nizamul Huq noted.
The tribunal then told the prosecution to look into the matter and sort it out.
The 89-year-old Jamaat leader was placed in long-term storage Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! and sent to jail on January 11. He is one of the front men who actively helped the Pak military to foil the birth of Bangladesh, according to historical records.
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[Bangla Daily Star] The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday rejected a call by a US anti-Iran group for it to cut its relations with Tehran's central bank in order to adhere to US and European sanctions.
The IMF said its account with Bank Markazi is simply related to Iran's membership in the IMF and does not contravene sanctions placed on Tehran to pressure it not to develop nuclear weapons.
The advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, a group of US ex-diplomats and government officials, said that the IMF needed to shut down its account with Bank Markazi, a specific target of the sanctions, or suspend Iran's membership in the fund.
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#1
IOW, the UNO wants to see what kind of Nuclear Agreement, Terms can be reached between Iran + US-Allies.
[Yemen Post] Yassin Saeed Noman, the secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party said that Hadi's decrees must be respected and obeyed by everyone without procrastination or delay.His comments came in his meeting with the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... envoy to Yemen Jamal Bin Omar.At the meeting, they reviewed a range of issues on the Yemeni political arena, especially the obstacles currently facing the GCC-brokered power transfer deal singed in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in Nov. last year.Noman stressed that the timed mechanism of the GCC-deal must be implemented in a timely manner and step by step.He referred to the sensitivity and delicacy of the current situation in Yemen, calling on all sides to exert great efforts in order to make the signed accord a success.With regards to the upcoming National Dialogue, Noman stressed the need for paving the way for it through fostering a conductive atmosphere.Media reports said today that the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates.... Movement announced that it would abstain from participating in the forthcoming dialogue and considered it an American agenda.
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[An Nahar] Egypt's military chief of staff said on Wednesday the army may transfer power to an elected president on May 24 if the vote is decided in the first round, state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
reported.
Y'all are too much trouble to rule, Feel free to go to perdition in your own way, O people of Egypt.
The announcement came after four presidential candidates suspended their campaigns as the corpse count mounted in bloody in festivities between anti-military supporters of a banned Islamist candidate and faceless myrmidons in plainclothes.
The military had previously said it would transfer power by the end of June.
The presidential election is scheduled for May 23 and 24 and a run off for June 16 and 17 if there is no outright winner in the first round.
"We are looking into handing over power on May 24 if the president wins in the first round," state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
quoted chief of staff Sami Enan as saying.
Several parties, including the dominant Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, are also boycotting a meeting with the military Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi later on Wednesday to resolve various disputes, including one on the make-up of a constituent assembly.
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For a map, click here. For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A total of five unidentified armed suspects and one Mexican Policia Federal (PF) agent were killed in an armed confrontation in Zacatecas state late Wednesday morning, according to Mexican news accounts.
According to a story posted on the website of La Cronica de Hoy news daily, a PF unit was on patrol in Sain Alto municipality when it observed armed suspects travelling aboard two vehicles on the road between Sombrerete and Rio Grande, specifically in the village of La Laborcilla. The armed group then fled.
PF units had been on patrol in Sain Alto specifically in the villages of Sain Bajo, La Laborcilla, Barrancas and Cazadores when the pursuit and subsequent firefight took place. The increased patrol activity was due to a PF effort to locate an armed group operating in the municipality.
According to a news item posted on the El Sol de Zacatecas news daily website, the suspects were travelling aboard a Ford Escape and Nissan Tiida when they fled. A second PF unit intercepted the group some kilometers away which sparked the gunfight.
PF units presence was enhanced by at least one helicopter and several additional PF units, which had been called in from Zacatecas city to reinforce the pursuit.
At the conclusion of the firefight, a scuffle broke out between PF agents and local journalists, who claimed PF agents beat them and broke computer equipment, according to the La Cronica de Hoy news item.
Sain Alto is on Mexico Federal Highway 45, which leads to Durango state. The municipality is also 40 kilometers northwest of Fresnillo.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[Dawn] Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar on Wednesday said government of Pakistain and armed forces played a vital role in capturing former al Qaeda chief the late Osama bin Laden ... who abandoned all hope when he entered there... through a mobile phone's chip/SIM, DawnNews reported.
Speaking during an exclusive interview to the British Broadcasting Channel's (BBC) Urdu Service, the defence minister claimed that it was Pakistain's armed forces which had weakened the al Qaeda's terrorist network.
He revealed that the former al Qaeda chief was hunted down through a mobile phone's SIM/chip which was found 'fortuitously.'
Mukhtar also revealed that Pakistain was bound by a contract with the United States to hand over all Arabic and English data found amid search for the al Qaeda chief. Similarly the US was to provide all Urdu data to Pakistain for intelligence sharing purposes.
The defence minister also said that the armed forces were currently looking into material recovered from the compound in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , where bin Laden was captured and eventually killed by the US forces.
Moreover, the minister said that Dr Shakeel should inform the Pakistain government rather than the US.
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#1
Mukhtar also revealed that Pakistain was bound by a contract with the United States to hand over all Arabic and English data found amid search for the al Qaeda chief.
I guess to be fair we never said they had to put any important evidence on the top of the heap instead of burying it unlabeled at the bottom somewhere.
Similarly the US was to provide all Urdu data to Pakistain for intelligence sharing purposes.
#2
Whoops, the Submit button looks a lot like the Italics button. Yeah, that's it! Anyway, one more time:
------------------------------------
Mukhtar also revealed that Pakistain was bound by a contract with the United States to hand over all Arabic and English data found amid search for the al Qaeda chief.
I guess to be fair we never said they had to put any important evidence on the top of the heap instead of burying it unlabeled at the bottom somewhere.
Similarly the US was to provide all Urdu data to Pakistain for intelligence sharing purposes.
And again to be fair we were probably going to get around to telling them about the operation eventually.
#3
Mukhtar al$o revealed that Paki$tain wa$ bound by a $$$$ contract $$$$ with the United $tate$ to hand over all Arabic and Engli$h data found amid $earch for the al Qaeda chief.
#4
Yokay, I'll bite, iff one believes that the Pak ISI, etc. controls and coordinates wid many or all of the Insurgent groups, then here the ISI = Islamabad is going out its way to put "ATTACK ME, NOT THE US-NATO" + "ATTACK ME IFF YOU WANT FREE NUKES" SIGNS on its forehead.
(Sh.M.Network) -- Reports from the southern Somalia town of Afgoye, just 30 Km away south of Mogadishu in Lower Shabelle region say on Wednesday the hard boyz of Al-shabab have tossed in the clink I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! four people over TFG connection allegations.
Witnesses say fighters from Al-shabab have jugged Book 'im, Mahmoud! overnight and taken into custody in rebel-held Afgoye town at least 4 locals among business people and elders whom they accuse to have links with Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) based in Mogadishu.
Some relatives of the detainees confirmed to Shabelle Media that their beloved ones were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Book 'im, Mahmoud! by Al-shabab this morning illegally and aggressively because they say the tossed in the clink I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! have no idea about the charges against them.
Residents expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over this move and they say Al-shabab in southern Somali regions is accused of arresting locals about TFG and regional forces Links.
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(CNN) -- On May 16 last year, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin I'm not sure why, but that name doesn't sound Austrian.
was being questioned by police in Berlin. He had recently returned from Pakistain ...that's our partner in the WoT in South Asia...
via Budapest, Hungary, and then traveled overland to Germany. His interrogators were surprised to find that hidden in his underpants were a digital storage device and memory cards. That's the place to put 'em if you don't want to call attention to them, you betcha...
Buried inside them was a pornographic video called "Kick Ass" -- and a file marked "Sexy Tanja."
Several weeks later, after laborious efforts to crack a password and software to make the file almost invisible, German Sherlocks discovered encoded inside the actual video a treasure trove of intelligence -- more than 100 al Qaeda documents that included an inside track on some of the terror group's most audacious plots and a road map for future operations.
Future plots include the idea of seizing cruise ships and carrying out attacks in Europe similar to the gun attacks by Pak cut-throats that paralyzed the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008. Ten gunnies killed 164 people in that three-day rampage.
Terrorist training manuals in PDF format in German, English and Arabic were among the documents, too, according to intelligence sources.
U.S. intelligence sources tell CNN that the documents uncovered are "pure gold;" one source says that they are the most important haul of al Qaeda materials in the last year, besides those found when U.S. Navy SEALs raided the late Osama bin Laden's ... who no longer has to waste time and energy breathing... compound in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , Pakistain, a year ago and killed the al Qaeda leader.
One document was called "Future Works." Its authorship is unclear, but intelligence officials believe it came from al Qaeda's inner core. It may have been the work of Younis al Mauretani, a senior al Qaeda operative until his capture by Pak police in 2011.
The document appears to have been the product of discussions to find new targets and methods of attack. German Sherlocks believe it was written in 2009 -- and that it remains the template for al Qaeda's plans.
Investigative journalist Yassin Musharbash, a news hound with the German newspaper Die Zeit, was the first to report on the documents. One plan: to seize passenger ships. According to Musharbash, the writer "says that we could hijack a passenger ship and use it to pressurize the public."
Musharbash takes that to mean that the forces of Evil "would then start executing passengers on those ships and demand the release of particular prisoners."
The plan would include dressing passengers in orange jump suits, as if they were al Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and then videotaping their execution.
Lodin and a man called Yusuf Ocak, who allegedly traveled back to Europe with him, are now on trial in Berlin where they are pleading not guilty. Ocak was locked away Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in Vienna two weeks after Lodin's arrest.
According to a senior Western counterterrorism official, their names were on a watch list, and when they handed over documents at a European border crossing, their names registered with counterterrorism agencies.
Both men have pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to terrorism charges. Ocak is also charged with helping to form a group called the German Taliban Mujahedeen, and is alleged to have made a video for the group threatening attacks in Germany.
Prosecutors believe the pair met at a terrorist training camp in Pakistain's tribal territories and were sent back to Europe to recruit a network of jacket wallahs.
"We do not know what those men were up to but there are certain files of information that would make it plausible that they were probably thinking of a Mumbai-style attack," says Musharbash.
In the fall of 2010, a year after the document was written, European intelligence agencies were scrambling to investigate a Mumbai-style plot involving German and other European cut-throats -- which sparked an unprecedented U.S. State Department travel warning for Americans in Europe.
"I think it is plausible to think that the 'Future Works' document is part of that particular project," says Musharbash.
"Future Works" suggests al Qaeda was an organization under great pressure, without a major attack to its name in several years, harried by Western intelligence. If anything, its predicament is even more dire today.
"The document delivers very clearly the notion that al Qaeda knows it is being followed very closely," Musharbash tells CNN. "It specifically says that Western intelligence agencies have become very good at spoiling attacks, that they have to come up with new ways and better plotting."
Part of the response, according to the document, should be to train European jihadists quickly and send them home -- rather than use them as fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistain -- with instructions on how to keep in secret contact with their handlers.
What emerges from the document is a twin-track strategy -- with the author apparently convinced that al Qaeda needs low-cost, low-tech attacks (perhaps such as the recent gun attacks in La Belle France carried out by Mohammed Merah) to keep security services preoccupied while it plans large-scale attacks on a scale similar to 9/11.
Those already under suspicion in Europe and elsewhere would be used as decoys, while others would prepare major attacks.
That is yet to materialize, but Musharbash believes a complex gun attack in Europe is still on al Qaeda's radar.
"I believe that the general idea is still alive and I believe that as soon as al Qaeda has the capacities to go after that scenario, they will immediately do it," he says.
While "Future Works" does not include dates or places, nor specific plans, it appears to be a brainstorming exercise to seize the initiative -- and reinstate al Qaeda on front pages around the world.
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#1
how appropriate - religious terror Pr0n embedded in real Pr0n. So like the AQ drug and gay sex parlors uncovered in the Fallujah siege.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/03/2012 2:32
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#2
Both men have pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
Claimed the encrypted tapes were merely composites ?
The British Columbia hang glider pilot whose passenger fell to her death over B.C.'s Fraser Valley will remain in custody while a memory card he's alleged to have swallowed passes through his body.
[Bangla Daily Star] The High Court yesterday issued a rule on the government, the leader of the opposition in parliament, general secretary of the ruling Awami League and secretary general of the opposition BNP to explain within three weeks why enforcing hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... during public examinations should not be declared illegal.
It also asked the politicians to explain why they should not be directed to refrain from doing so.
The HC came up with the rule following a writ petition filed by Md Younus Ali Akond, a lawyer of the Supreme Court, challenging the legality of enforcing hartal during public examinations.
The HC bench comprising Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim also requested 15 eminent lawyers to give their opinions as amicus curiae (friend of court) during the hearing of the rule.
The amici curiae include Mahmudul Islam, Rafique-ul Huq, M Amir-Ul Islam, M Zahir, Moudud Ahmed, AF Hasan Ariff, Mahbubey Alam, Akter Imam, Rafique-ul Islam Miah and Abdul Matin Khasru.
Younus Ali Akond filed the writ petition as public interest litigation on April 26 saying that it was the fundamental rights of the students to sit for their scheduled examinations, and nobody can curtail their rights.
He said although enforcing hartal is the legal right of political parties, they cannot hamper academic activities of the students. The schedules of public examinations are being disrupted due to the hartals called by some political parties.
BNP enforced five days of hartal in two spells in the last nine days of April.
The education secretary, home secretary and Jatiya Sangsad secretary and inspector general of police have been made the four other respondents to the rule.
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[Dawn] The Taliban on Wednesday dismissed a new strategic pact signed by Afghanistan's Caped PresidentHamid 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... and his US counterpart Barack Obama We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... as "illegitimate".
The two presidents signed the deal to govern Afghan-US relations after foreign combat troops withdraw in 2014 in Kabul during a brief visit by Obama.
In a statement posted on the Voice of Jihad website, the krazed killers, who have waged a bloody insurgency since a US-led invasion toppled them from power in 2001, said Karzai was not authorised to sign the document.
The Taliban "deems this document the selling-document of Afghanistan by a powerless puppet (Karzai) to his invading master and condemns it in worst possible terms", the statement said.
The Taliban "as the true representative of the Islamic nation of Afghanistan with all its strength will continue to its armed Jihad (holy war) against all the contents of this illegitimate document until the full withdrawal of all invading forces and their puppets from Afghanistan", it added.
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With many big shots going into hiding and with high profile visits of foreign dignitaries round the corner, the BNP yesterday refrained from declaring hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... -like agitation programmes and instead called a countrywide demonstration for Sunday.
"Agitation programmes harsher than hartals will be announced from Sunday's protest if Ilias Ali is not returned and if all the false cases filed against party leaders is not withdrawn," said BNP standing committee member Moudud Ahmed at a rally in front of the party's Nayapaltan office in Dhaka.
Amid raids and arrests, senior BNP leaders have gone into hiding, as the government's sudden tough stance against the opposition's continuous agitation on Monday sent waves of panic to the opposition camp.
Over the last few days, police locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! about a dozen top BNP leaders, including Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, and filed several cases against the opposition men in connection with Sunday's kaboom in the secretariat compound and arson and vandalism during the hartal hours.
Party insiders told The Daily Star they did not go for fresh hartal programmes keeping in mind the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillary and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Edmund Randolph ... and Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's Dhaka visit on May 5 and the Japanese deputy prime minister's visit today.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... assured the US ambassador to Dhaka at a recent meeting of all-out cooperation during Hillary's Bangladesh visit, they added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wine tasting, Vince was about to start tasting his third quart... a High Court judge yesterday was embarrassed to hear the bail petitions of 27 BNP men, including its acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, in two cases filed for violence during Sunday's hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... . He, however, did not mention any reason for his embarrassment.
Another HC bench refused to hear the bail petitions of some opposition leaders, who went into hiding on Monday morning fearing arrests.
BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia later held a meeting with some pro-BNP lawyers at her Gulshan office to find out a way for their bails.
The cases were filed on Sunday night with Shahbagh and Tejgaon cop shoppes against top leaders of the BNP-led 18-party alliance and its associated organizations.
The accused include Mirza Fakhrul, party standing committee members Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Hannan Shah, party Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, party politician Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee, and Liberal Democratic Party President Oli Ahmed.
In another development, police on Tuesday produced Ruhul Kabir Rizvi before a Dhaka court, seeking 15 days' remand. The court will hear the petition in Rizvi's presence today.
Accused in two cases in connection with hartal hour violence, Rizvi was locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! on Monday evening from the capital's Kakrail area.
Political tensions have been running high since the disappearance of Ilias Ali, an organising secretary of BNP and also a former politician, and his driver around midnight of April 17 from the capital's Banani area.
In protest, the BNP enforced three consecutive countrywide shutdowns from April 22-24 and the BNP-led 18-party alliance enforced two similar lockdowns on April 29-30.
The hartals left five people killed and many vehicles damaged across the country.
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[Yemen Post] A mediation led by the UN Yemen envoy Jamal Benomar and the second deputy of the GPC Abdul Karim al-Eryani has failed to convince commander Tariq Saleh to hand over the third elite republican guard brigade, al-Wasat newspaper reported quoting reliable sources.
Commander Tariq, a nephew of Yemen's ex-president, has rebelled against a decree by President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi replacing him and reappointing him as the commander of another brigade in the south.
Some of the military commanders, including relatives of the former president, who rebelled against the decrees of Hadi firing them, have already surrendered and gave up posts. But Tariq's stubbornness has been continuing for weeks.
Ex-President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh, ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... who signed a power transfer deal which saw him resign after 33 years in office, was said to have been behind the resistance of this commander, the newspaper said.
"Saleh has refused to hand over the brigade to the new commander tasked by Hadi, saying that handing over this brigade means to hand over his and his family necks," the sources quoted Saleh as saying, according to the paper.
Meantime, commander of the elite republican guard, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the elder son of Saleh, was reported to have summoned all military attaches but the reasons behind the move were unclear.
It was not clear whether summoning the attaches was related to the handover of the brigade, the paper said.
Yemen's new president, Hadi, has started reforms in the army issuing decrees replacing senior commanders including relatives of Saleh and those who were very loyal to him.
The reforms, which come under the power transfer deal brokered by the GCC countries and backed by the UN, have been applauded by the people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
ION WAFF > [Ansar-al-Sharia/Islam] YEMENI AL-QAIDA SAYS IT TOOK 20 TANKS FROM ARMY, in the southern Yemeni town of Lawdar.
ARTIC > AQ affiliate ANSAR also claims it "fully controls ZINJIBAR, WAQAR, + JA'AR, + has inflicted huge = debilitating losses on Yemeni Army. ADEN AT HIGH RISK OF FALLING TO MILITANTS.
CONTROL OF ADEN WILL ALLOW AQ = ANSAR + ALIGNED CONTROL OF RED SEA IN ALLIANCE WID SOMALI-BASED AL-SHABAAB.
versus
* TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SAUDI ARABIA WARNS IRAN ON GULF STATES, BAHRAIN | ... WILL NOT TOLERATE THREATS TO GULF STATES.
US-Invasion-of-Southern-Iran-vs-Radical-Islamist-control-of-Sunni-KSA/Arabian-Peninsula = OPPOSING "BATTLE OF THE BEACHHEADS".
YOOHOO, MCWC = US MARINE CORPS WAR COLLEGE, I'M A'LOOKIN AT YOU.
* WAFF > [StrategyPage] THE [US'= UAVS, SLCMS] ROBOTIC ARMY CLOSES IN ON IRAN.
Iran vs. USN Trident SSGNS.
* TOPIX > [Poll] ISRAELIS: BEST TIME TO BOMB IRAN IS DURING US ELECTION CAMPAIGN.
The head of the U.N. mission to Syria said Wednesday his observers were having a "calming effect" on the ground but admitted the ceasefire was "shaky" and not holding. Has the "calming effect" dropped the corpse count? If not, it's not "calming."
Speaking in Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... to Britannia's Sky News, in his first television interview in the role, Major General Robert Mood brushed off criticism that the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) had been too slow to get going.
The Norwegian said their numbers of boots on the ground would double in the coming days.
"This is not easy and we are seeing -- by the action, by kabooms, by firing -- that the ceasefire is really a shaky one. It's not holding," the 53-year-old said.
"But what we are also seeing on the ground is that where we have observers present, they have a calming effect and we're also seeing that those operating on the ground, they take advice from our observers."
Syria's army on Wednesday reportedly suffered its deadliest day in a ceasefire when rebel fighters killed 20 troops, in the latest violation of the three-week truce the U.N. says both sides are flouting.
Mood said his team in Damascus would rise from 52 to 59 by the end of Wednesday and they aimed to double the figure in the coming days as more flights come in carrying troops, vehicles and equipment.
"I fully understand the concerns about the speed of deployment," he said.
"The people and equipment now on the ground is actually exactly how we want to see it, so the next couple of days -- picking up the pace, doubling, and spreading out -- is exactly what suits us very well," he said.
"From the member states and from the secretariat in New York, this is actually an admirable effort to get people on the ground."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[Dawn] A year after his liquidation in Abbottabad, ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... the late Osama bin Laden ... who was laid out deader than a mackerel, right next to the mackerel... is as irrelevant today to the welfare of millions of starving and suffering Mohammedans as he was when alive. The same holds true for almost all Islamist political movements who are singularly concerned with enforcing their ideologies on the often unwilling Mohammedan populace, while these movements have no plans for alleviating poverty, hunger, and disease.
Last year when I learnt of Mr. bin Laden's liquidation, I headed straight to the Parliament in Islamabad to report on the mass protests that many had predicted would erupt in case of such an eventuality. I walked up and down the Constitution Avenue but did not spot a single protester. I visited the Lal Masjid, the fundamentalist hotbed in the centre of Islamabad, hoping to capture some action there. Again, there was nothing to report. After walking through the capital for hours I realised that there may not be any mass demonstrations to protest against Mr. bin Laden's sudden demise.
In the weeks following Mr Bin Laden's death hardly any protests were witnessed anywhere in the Mohammedan majority countries. Unbeknown to most political pundits (especially in the west), Mr. bin Laden had gradually become a nonentity to the ordinary Mohammedans who have been busy fighting a losing battle against food price inflation, violence, and hunger. Whereas the majority of Indonesians and Paks held a favourable view of Mr. bin Laden during 2002-2005, his popularity declined significantly in most Mohammedan majority countries by 2011.
In the recent past, religious (Islamist) parties active in the political arena have advocated using force to impose their ideologies on the populace and have evoked religion to mobilise the society against the 'heretics' within and the infidels elsewhere. Osama bin Laden followed the same approach. He evoked Islam to mobilise the Pashtun and Arab youths to fight first against the Soviet Union and later against America and its allies. His protégés, including the Afghan Taliban, followed the same ideology while brutally enforcing their puritan version of Islam where gunnies entrusted themselves to hold sway over matters regarding vice and virtue. The Islamists projected public executions and flogging of men, women and kiddies as the 'true' face of Islam.
Similar to the Taliban, the Islamists, regardless of being in Pakistain or elsewhere, are almost always busy creating mass hysteria about the 'infidel' killing and pillaging through the Mohammedan lands. Hence, the Islamists are found campaigning for pan-Islamic movements to raise Mohammedan armies for the doomsday Armageddon between the Mohammedans and the rest. Islamists not active in the electoral politics propagate this through sermons delivered from the pulpit, whereas those active in the electoral politics propagate the same on the floor of the House.
The Islamists' political philosophy almost always is focused on first wrestling the control of governments and militaries from the 'heretic secularists' before the Islamists would be able to offer any relief to the populace. Their political manifestos therefore seldom list any policies about what is needed by the masses in the short run. One therefore knows a lot about where the Islamist parties, such as Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability... (JUI) and others stand on Kashmire, Israel and President B.O., but one knows almost nothing about how these parties would address the immediate challenges, such as dengue fever, power shortages, poor water supply and sanitation, and generating employment opportunities for millions of unemployed youth.
For decades Mr. bin Laden lived in countries where poverty, hunger, and disease were the biggest concerns of the poor and disenfranchised. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... despite having access to millions of dollars of his own money and billions more that others would have readily donated, he did not initiate any mentionable projects to address poverty, hunger or disease in Afghanistan, Pakistain, or Yemen. He could have founded hospitals, schools and vocational training institutes. Instead he sponsored military academies in the most deprived parts of Afghanistan and Pakistain.
If one were to look back at the communities today where Mr. bin Laden had lived in the past 25-odd years, would one see a transformed people with improved access to health and education facilities, or would one see more hunger, disease and hardship. Had Mr. bin Laden used his celebrity to address poverty, hunger, and disease, he could have transformed the very communities, which hosted him for years.
This lack of imagination also ails most Pakistain-based Islamist parties. Consider JUI, which is an astute Islamist party that has often outsmarted non-religious parties in political maneuvering. JUI does not have a policy for sanitation, water supply or primary healthcare. Apart from claims that if elected JUI will fix all of the above, it offers no blueprints or hosts expert panels to debate the same. JUI's central leadership comprising the Rahman brothers could be seen active in Parliament's standing committees for foreign affairs (Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... is a member) and Kashmire/religious affairs (Mr. Atta-ur-Rahman is a member) thus conforming to the ideological bend of the most Islamist parties that see all threats being exogenous and the only internal concerns are reserved for vice and virtue.
Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... also champions issues that fail to address the immediate challenges faced by the poor in Pakistain. Jamaat's recent drive against obscenity is one such example of using a red herring to demonstrate street power, command airtime, control political discourse, yet offer no relief to the masses on poor job prospects, or inadequate healthcare and education opportunities.
Jamaat is also a smart political enterprise whose leadership is intimately aware of its limited vote bank in Pakistain that is not sufficient to put the Jamaat in control of the federal government either by itself or in a coalition. The Jamaat uses this almost certain lack of a possibility of a Jamaat-led government to its advantage and spoils the governance for others by promising the world to the electorate. Jamaat's manifesto is therefore filled with promises that other parties with a shot at forming the government cannot match. Since the Jamaat knows it will never have to deliver on its promises, its electoral commitments include an unsustainably high minimum wage in a welfare state that will provide for the basic needs of all. Nowhere in Jamaat's manifesto is any mention of how these projects, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars, will be financed.
On the other hand, political, social, and religious reformers in the subcontinent have remained relevant to the masses even decades after their death. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's final resting place in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh is always alive with visitors who shared Bhutto's political philosophy. The mausoleum of Bulleh Shah in Kasur and Data Darbar in Lahore are evidence of lasting legacies of the reformers who have remained relevant to their followers.
A few decades from today few will remember, if at all, that on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was assassinated in Abbottabad. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... most will remember the several thousand victims of religious cut-throats who followed in Mr. bin Laden's footsteps.
He lied in his autobiography? Only about where to inflate her. His autobiography's a novel? That's different... I think he was mis-quoted...
One of the more mysterious characters from President Obama's 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father is the so-called 'New York girlfriend.' Obama never referred to her by name, or even by psuedonym, but he describes her appearance, her voice, and her mannerisms in specific detail.
But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago. He's a complicated man...and no one understands him but his composite women...
"During an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a "compression" of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve [Cook] when he lived in Chicago," Maraniss writes in his new biography, an excerpt of which was published online today by Vanity Fair.
"In Dreams from My Father, Obama chose to emphasize a racial chasm that unavoidably separated him from the woman he described as his New York girlfriend," Maraniss writes, offering a passage from the book in which they go to see a play by a black playwright:
One night I took her to see a new play by a black playwright. It was a very angry play, but very funny. Typical black American humor. The audience was mostly black, and everybody was laughing and clapping and hollering like they were in church. After the play was over, my friend started talking about why black people were so angry all the time. I said it was a matter of remembering--nobody asks why Jews remember the Holocaust, I think I said--and she said that's different, and I said it wasn't, and she said that anger was just a dead end. We had a big fight, right in front of the theater. When we got back to the car she started crying. She couldn't be black, she said. She would if she could, but she couldn't. She could only be herself, and wasn't that enough.
Is he sure he didn't take her to his Chicago church?
"None of this happened with Genevieve," Maraniss writes. "She remembered going to the theater only once with Barack, and it was not to see a work by a black playwright. When asked about this decades later, during a White House interview, Obama acknowledged that the scene did not happen with Genevieve. "It is an incident that happened," he said. But not with her. He would not be more specific, but the likelihood is that it happened later, when he lived in Chicago. "That was not her," he said. "That was an example of compression I was very sensitive in my book not to write about my girlfriends, partly out of respect for them. So that was a consideration. I thought that [the anecdote involving the reaction of a white girlfriend to the angry black play] was a useful theme to make about sort of the interactions that I had in the relationships with white girlfriends. And so, that occupies, what, two paragraphs in the book? My attitude was it would be dishonest for me not to touch on that at all ... so that was an example of sort of editorially how do I figure that out?""
Broadway Books, a division of Random House's Crown Publishing Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
UPDATE: In the reissue of "Dreams from My Father," Obama writes in the introduction that "some of the characters that appear are composites of people I've known."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this blog post stated that Obama had acknolwedged using composite characters in the reissue. In fact, Obama acknolwedged the use of composite characters in the first edition of the book. The story you are about to read is true. Maybe.
Or misunderstood. Where have we heard that before?
But Obama has now told biographer David Maraniss that the 'New York girlfriend' was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/03/2012 11:56
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#12
I don't get it. Are we talking about a novel here? A work of fiction? Or is it supposed to be an autobiography? Or a biography?
For one thing, composite characters are commonly used in works of fiction and the practice is perfectly acceptable because the author doesn't claim that any of the characters are real or that the events that are described ever really happened. But if the work is supposed to be non-fiction this is totally unacceptable. If you fudge a little here and there, how do we know that the whole thing is not a pack of lies? How do we know what is the truth and what isn't?
Furthermore, if it's supposed to be an autobiography, why does Obama need a biographer? Who actually wrote this book, Maraniss or Obama? If it was a biography then it's OK for Maraniss to write it. But autobiographies are supposed to be written by the subject of the book. You cannot have it both ways.
Posted by: George Unique7923 ||
05/03/2012 14:17
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#18
Now you know why George Soros has to write Obama's speeches which Obama reads from the teleprompter. He read Obama's book and decided he had better write his speeches.
#25
the so-called 'New York girlfriend.'
Didn't (s)he go down to New Orleans to work in the transvi show on Bourbon Street?
Actually, I kind of give the guy some credit for modifying the particulars of (alleged) ex-girlfriends - it would be cruel to publically shame them for having associated with him.
[An Nahar] An American who U.S. officials said was an al-Qaeda operative was convicted Tuesday on terrorism charges for plotting with two accomplices to launch suicide kabooms in the New York subway system.
Adis Medunjanin, a resident of Queens, New York, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison after being convicted of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and providing material support to al-Qaeda, among other charges.
Judge John Gleeson was scheduled to sentence the 28-year-old Medunjanin on September 7.
Medunjanin "came within days of executing a plot to conduct coordinated suicide kabooms in the New York City subway system in September 2009, as directed by senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistain," the Justice Department said.
"Justice was served today ... as a jury of New Yorkers convicted an al-Qaeda operative bent on terrorism, mass murder and destruction in the New York City subways," said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch.
"Adis Medunjanin's journey of radicalization led him from Flushing, Queens, to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Pakistain, to the brink of a terrorist attack in New York City -- and soon to a lifetime in federal prison.
"As this case has proved, working against sophisticated terrorist organizations and against the clock, our law enforcement and intelligence agencies can detect, disrupt and destroy terrorist cells before they strike, saving countless innocent lives," she stressed.
The Bosnia-born Medunjanin, whose family decamped to the United States during the war with Serbia in the 1990s, was also convicted of conspiring to commit murder of U.S. military personnel abroad; taking military training from al-Qaeda; conspiring and attempting to commit terror across national boundaries, and using arms in relation to these offenses, the statement said.
The other two men in the alleged plot, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, have already pleaded guilty and testified against their old friend in hopes that cooperation with prosecutors would earn them lighter sentences.
The three friends were in many ways typical New Yorkers, striving to live the immigrant dream.
Medunjanin was a doorman, Ahmedzay drove a yellow cab, and Zazi was a coffee cart vendor before moving to Colorado, where he drove an airport shuttle bus in Denver.
When the subway bomb plot was foiled, Medunjanin crashed his car into another on the Whitestone Expressway, attempting to "turn his car into a weapon of terror," the Justice Department said.
Ah, the ignomy of a lifetime in an American prison, as opposed to a brief, gloriously fiery death in the cause of jihad, to be followed by an eternity of virgins doing their best for a permanent erection. No doubt in time Mr. Medunjanin will realize he got very lucky indeed.
This article starring:
Adis Medunjanin
Najibullah Zazi
Zarein Ahmedzay
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
> Walmart - check.
> Wall Street + NYSE - check.
> Subway System - check.
> Girl's Schools + Kiddie Daycare - more surprised iff they didn't.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Five people were killed on Wednesday when attackers stormed an anti-military protest near the defence ministry headquarters in Cairo, medics and a security official said.
The dawn assault sparked fierce festivities between the unidentified attackers and the protesters, who have been there for days calling for an end to military rule, with both sides hurling petrol bombs and rocks, the official said.
A doctor at a field hospital set up in the area said five people had been killed and at least 50 injured.
The health ministry confirmed the toll, while Egyptian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said the festivities were ongoing.
The protesters, supporters of Salafist politician Hazem Abu Ismail, have been camped out since Saturday after the electoral commission barred the popular hardline Islamist from contesting the upcoming presidential election.
On Sunday, one person was killed and 119 injured in festivities between Abu Ismail supporters and residents of the Abbassiya neighbourhood in Cairo, where the defence ministry is located.
Protests since the popular uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... last year have often turned violent, with thugs working for the country's military leadership frequently blamed.
The electoral commission on April 14 barred 10 candidates, including the Moslem Brüderbund's Khairat El-Shater and the former president's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman ... Now former Vice president of Egypt. From 1993 until his appointment to that office in 2011 he was Minister without Portfolio and Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID)... , from standing in the poll to choose Mubarak's successor.
Abu Ismail's nomination was rejected because his mother had taken joint US citizenship, but many of his supporters believe he was the victim of a "plot" by the authorities.
The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for May 23-24, and the interim military leadership has promised to hand power to an elected civilian president by the end of June.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has left the US embassy to seek medical care and join his family, officials said Wednesday, as Beijing demanded a US apology on the eve of key talks between the two powers.
Chen, who riled Chinese authorities by exposing forced abortions and sterilisations under the "one-child" policy, decamped house arrest on April 22 and sought refuge in the US embassy where he demanded assurances on his freedom.
Hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as For a good time at 3 a.m. call Hillary and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another James Baker ... arrived in China for long-planned meetings, the United States broke nearly a week of silence over his case and said that the dissident has been taken for treatment in Beijing.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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#1
ION CATHAY, CHINA DAILY FORUM > PHILIPPINES-CHINA STANDOFF COULD LEAD TO WAR, in SCS espec as per US-vs-China. East Asia???
* SAME > PHILIPPINES-CHINA STANDOFF RISKS EXCALATING IN A REGION WHERE WASHINGTON HAS DECLARED ITS [core = strategic] INTEREST.
* SAME > TOP AUSTRALIAN DIPLOMAT: US-CHINA WAR WOULD BE DISASTROUS | CHINA MILITARY VOWS TO PROTECT SOUTH CHINA SEA INTERESTS.
* PEOPLE'S DAILY OPED > MANILA RESORT TO FOREIGN INTERVENTION IN SOUTH CHINA SEA SPAT TO END IN VAIN.
PHIL must not mistake Beijing's pro-Peace. Compromise diplomatic gestures as unwillingness or fear on the part of China to fight it andor the USA or Other.
versus
* SAME > CHINA WILL OVERTAKE THE US TO BECOME THE WORLD'S #1 ECONOMY IN FIVE YEARS.
* RENSE > JAPAN TO NO LONGER BE A DEVELOPED COUNTRY BY 2050 | [Japan Times] INVITING ECOJNOMIC SUICIDE?
* SAME > [Enenews] DE-CONTAMINATING JAPAN IS HOPELESS. TEPCO more likely than not to fail at stopping the spread of Fukushima radioactive contamination throughout Nippon.
Lest we fergit, CHINESE BLOGGERS/NETTERS = argue that Japan should work wid CHINA to clean up the radiation. ALSO, THE SPREADING FUKUSHIMA RADIATION IS "GOOD" FOR CHINA BECAUSE IT COULD POTEN ALLOW CHINA TO DOMINATE, IFF NOT TAKEOVER, A GREATLY WEAKENED OR ABANDONED [irradiated]JAPAN FROM THE WILY DASTARDLY JAPANESE???
#2
Going by the Chin Bloggers-Netters, it would appear that its more important for China to have advantage or control oer Japan, or to destroy Japan, than for Chinese workers to NOT-GLOW-IN-THE-NIGHT???
#3
So basically, the commie bastards in our government gave the commie bastards in their government exactly what they wanted and now they're demanding an apology too.
#4
Chen, who riled Chinese authorities by exposing forced abortions and sterilisations under the "one-child" policy,
A "policy" envied by democrats progressives everywhere. Under the bus Chen Guangcheng! Under the bus! Someone, anyone, can't you just make him GO AWAY!
(Sh. M. Network)- The latest Reports coming out from a suicide kaboom took place on Wednesday afternoon at a restaurant in Dhusamareb, in the central war-torn nationwhere members of the Somalia Transitional Federal Parliament and Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a (ASWJ) officials were meeting.
At least eight people were killed, among two MPs and civilians, more than 30 others injured, some serously who were at the restaurant at the time of the suicide kaboom around 4:30 a.m. (local time) in the heart of Somalia's central town of Dhusmareb, the placid provincial capital of Galgadud region,
Two nearby innocent civilians and two security guards were also killed in the blast. In Dhusamareb, witnesses said a man entered a restaurant where MPs were meeting with the public to discuss the setting up of a regional administration, before a bomber went kaboom!".
The latest Reports suggest that the victimized people are expected today to admit hospitals at Guri'el town, in the same region controlled by Ahlu Sunna to receive a proper medical treatment.
The Islamist turban group Al-Shabaab ... successor to the Islamic Courts... linked with Al Qaeda has said it was behind the deadly attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2012
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[Dawn] Provincial minister Sindh Rafique Engineer's house in Bloody Karachi's ...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... Lyari ...one of the eighteen constituent towns of the city of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area in the city but also the most densely populated. Lyari has few schools, substandard hospitals, a poor water system, limited infrastructure, and broken roads. It is a stronghold of ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. Ubiquitous gang activity and a thriving narcotics industry make Lyari one of the most disturbed places in Karachi, which is really saying a lot.... area has been set to fire on Wednesday by unidentified people, DawnNews reported.
Rafique Engineer was elected to the provincial assembly from Lyari.
Talking to DawnNews, Engineer said that his house was looted and then set to fire by the criminal elements.
His family members remained safe, sources said.
The minister said that people responsible for disturbing peace in Lyari are responsible for this act too.
"My entire life was spent in that house; I relocated after becoming the minister," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
D *** NG IT, THEY CAN'T DO THAT, I KNOW FOR FACT FROM "THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER" THAT SUB EXEC SAM WARD WANTED TO HAVE TWO WIVES + a RABBIT FARM THERE!
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.
Joe 
Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Thursday sent to every member of his committee a 64-page draft contempt order against Holder, as well as a 17-page memo outlining the history of the scandal. 
Predicting the weather is tricky enough. Now a new government-sponsored report warns that the USA's ability to track tornadoes, forecast hurricanes and study climate change is about to diminish.
A man exposed himself to a woman inside the Bucks County Association for the Blind.
That smiling guy is Bill Warren, the Californian treasure hunter who claimed he was searching for Osama Bin Laden's dead body back in June 2011. He didn't find him then, but now he claims he has located the cadaver. 
[Dawn] Interior Minister 
Nawaz Sharif
[An Nahar] Two people were killed and five others 
[Tolo News] As many as six people were killed in a Taliban attack on a compound for foreigners in east Kabul Wednesday in retaliation for the visit of the US President to Afghanistan on Tuesday night.
Afghanistan's parliamentarians broadly welcomed the signing of the Afghan-US strategic agreement Wednesday, but warned that Afghanistan would not sacrifice itself for the interests of other countries. 
(Sh. M. Network)- An official in Ahlu Sunna Waljamaa (ASWJ) said Wednesday that his fighters in central Somalia have begun this morning probing into the Tuesday's deadly bombing at a coffee shop in Dhusamareb town.
Violence-ridden neighbourhood of 
A bodyguard working for one of the main parties in Iraq's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, which has clashed politically with Prime Minister 
[An Nahar] Libya's ruling National Transitional Council on Wednesday criminalized the glorification of slain leader 
[An Nahar] The Somali man who attacked a Danish cartoonist for caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed will serve 10 years in prison before being expelled from Denmark, the Supreme Court confirmed Wednesday.
[Dawn] The Pakistain 
Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sworn in as a member of parliament Wednesday, opening a new chapter in the Nobel laureate's near quarter-century struggle against authoritarian rule.
A pet parakeet was returned to its owner Wednesday after the lost bird told police its home address near Tokyo.
[Dawn] Pakistain 
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] 
Kim 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[Dawn] THE compound has been demolished and the wives shipped off to 
Egypt's military chief of staff said on Wednesday the army may transfer power to an elected president on May 24 if the vote is decided in the first round, state television
[Bangla Daily Star] The High Court yesterday issued a rule on the government, the leader of the opposition in parliament, general secretary of the ruling Awami League and secretary general of the opposition BNP to explain within three weeks why enforcing
The Taliban on Wednesday dismissed a new strategic pact signed by 
Hillary Clinton
Khaleda Zia
Ex-
[Dawn] A year after his 
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Five people were killed on Wednesday when attackers stormed an anti-military protest near the defence ministry headquarters in Cairo, medics and a security official said.
Hillary Clinton
Provincial minister Sindh Rafique Engineer's house in 
