Lose-lose for Obean. I wonder if they considered this option. What were his initial reasons for denying the pipeline in the first place? Heh heh.
TransCanada Corp is taking its second shot at asking Washington to approve the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline, betting that a new route through Nebraska and post-U.S. election time frame for a decision will push the project forward.
The reapplication to the U.S. State Department on Friday comes after Canada's largest pipeline company carved the proposal into two parts.
U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the full $7.6 billion project early this year due to concerns about the proposed northern portion of the route near an aquifer in Nebraska. Obama has expressed support for the southern portion.
TransCanada has been negotiating with Nebraska state officials over a new route and hopes to have the northern part of the pipeline in service by the end of 2014 or early 2015, assuming it wins State Department approval by the first quarter of next year. That portion would cost $5.3 billion.
The move angered environmentalists, who had claimed the last rejection as a victory in their battle against what they say are oil spill risks and rising greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands development. Last year they staged noisy protests against the project in Washington and elsewhere, leading to some arrests.
TransCanada and its supporters say Keystone XL would be key to cutting U.S. dependence on imported oil from unfriendly sources and will create thousands of jobs.
The company pointed out that 10,000 pages of study from the first review concluded Keystone XL would have minimal impact on the environment, so the application need not be bogged down again.
"Certainly the message we've heard coming out of the State Department and out of the White House is that they fully expect to use as much of the pre-existing record from the previous application as possible," Alex Pourbaix, president of TransCanada's pipeline division, told Reuters.
"When we look at that we think that the lion's share of that information remains current and relevant and provides all of the analysis that the State Department would require to make their decision."
The State Department, which reviews the application because it crosses the international border, noted that the earliest it could make a decision is early 2013.
PRESIDENTIAL PIPELINE POLITICS
That pushes it past the upcoming presidential election. U.S. Republicans were highly critical of Obama's refusal to approve the project, saying he was thumbing his nose at a crucial job-creation opportunity and a way to keep gasoline prices in check.
"This project has been caught up in presidential politics long enough, it's time to get to work," Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement.
Pourbaix said he believes the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality will be able to decide on a new route that skirts environmentally sensitive areas by September or October.
The overall 830,000 barrel a day project is aimed at moving crude derived from the Alberta oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which face declining volumes of oil from traditional suppliers, including Mexico and Venezuela. It would also transport growing supplies from North Dakota's booming Bakken shale oil fields.
Canadian oil producers and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government have lobbied hard for the 1,661 mile (2,673 km) pipeline, as part of a series of initiatives to tap new markets to get better returns for burgeoning production from the tar sands. Most of that now flows to the oversupplied U.S. Midwest.
For the Obama administration, the development has been politically troublesome, pitting environmentalists opposed to increased fossil fuel use and pipelines through sensitive areas against unions and other Democrats who say it will create badly needed jobs in a shaky economy.
In January, he rejected the project under a deadline imposed by Congress, saying more time was needed to review the proposed route which raised objections in Nebraska due to its course across the Ogallala aquifer, a major water source.
Bill McKibben, an environmental activist who was one of the leaders of last year's pipeline protests, said a new route through Nebraska will not solve larger environmental problems such as rising carbon emissions from tar sands development.
"There are many reasons to be worried about this thing. The one that brought most people out into the streets was worries about our climatic future. Those remain," McKibben said.
The $2.3 billion Gulf Coast portion will carry crude to Texas refineries from the glutted Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub. It does not require a presidential permit and Obama has said he will direct officials to quickly grant the necessary permits.
Pourbaix said he expects the necessary approvals by the end of the summer, which would allow it to be in service by mid- to late 2013.
Maybe an example of In-Shallah journalism? Obviously, we can't think of anything dumber than using an image from a meme created to mock your regime in a real-life news story. Then again, this is Iran. Sorry, too many pictures and nuances to even try to paste it here. Go check out the link and enjoy! :-)
#3
* ION DAILY TIMES.PK > IRAN DISMISSES WESTERN DEMAND TO CLOSE NUKE BUNKER [Fordow/Fordo/Fordu = underground nuke site].
* SAME > [DM Barak] IRAN COULD SEEK SHORT [lead] TIME FOR BOMB: ISRAEL. Approxi 60 days to build a [uranium] Nuke Bomb, ala the "JAPAN/
EGYPT" MODEL.
* TOPIX > ISRAEL FEARS IRAN MAY BUILD BOMB IN 60 DAYS | ... ... NEEDS 60 DAYS TO BUILD NUKE/BOMB.
ARTICS > ISRAEL = Iran believes NucWeaps will give it "Govt/Regime Immunity" from any domestic or foreign threat(s).
* WAFF > OCCUPIED CYPRUS [TRNC = future "Turkish Cypriot Govt-State"?] KEEN TO COZY UP TO IRAN, as per Energy + other Cooperat Econ Development-Investment.
versus
* TOPIX > NETANYAHU CALLING EARLY ELECTIONS [in Israel] FOR POSSIBLE OCTOBER WAR WID IRAN?
* BIG NEWS NETWORK > [Russia Today] US NOT READY FOR WAR WID IRAN.
* SAME > TEN WAYS ATTACKING IRAN COULD DESTROY THE UNITED STATES.
Looks like Diplomacy-minded POTUS Bammer is not out of the woods yet as per avoiding major war agz Iran [North Korea?] this summer going into the 2012 November elections???
Outrage erupted in Yemen and more specifically in the Sunni community when a video posted online showed the body of a Salafi being dragged throughout the northern city of Sa'ada by al-Houthi militants, whose Quran, which dropped from the deceased pocket was seen being trampled over.
Al-Houthi militants, a group of Shia Muslim which advocates a return to the ancestral rule of the Imams have been enthralled in a war with Salafists, a group of hard-liner Sunni Muslims calling for a strict application of the Scriptures; both factions seeking to control Yemen northern territories.
Al-Houthis which famously fought the government back in 2004-2009 in a lengthy and bloody war, used last year's unrest to awaken its army, finding in Teheran an enthusiastic ally against the Saudis, and hence Sunni hegemony in the Peninsula.
With sectarian sentiment slowly taking over what started off as territorial ambitions, Ahmed al-Sofi a political analyst based in Sana'a, the Yemeni capital warned that such an event and a clear attack against the Sunni faith could potentially sets the region ablaze. "Yemenis do not take lightly to religiously driven insult, especially when it comes to its most sacred and revered book, the Quran. Unless some apologies are formulated, Salafists will retaliate in the most violent manner possible as it constitutes for them a clear call for Jihad [holy war]."
A man in Sana'a who saw the video online told the Yemen Observer that he felt utterly disgusted with al-Houthis, stressing further that the move was a declaration of war against every respectful Muslim. "The Quran is our heart and soul, walking on it equates to insulting our beloved Prophet, his teachings and God himself. Surely our clerics will issue a fatwa condemning the culprits. Those men should be tried for apostasy," said Abdullah Goorgoor.
A cleric on Wednesday announced Rs 1.5 million head money on the American pastor who allegedly desecrated the holy Quran.
We cannot allow anyone to desecrate the holy Quran. A person involved in such blasphemous act stands liable to be killed, the cleric, Yousaf Qureshi, said during a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club. Our sentiments have been badly hurt, and we will avenge this, Qureshi said, adding, The United States is encouraging humiliation of Muslims.
The US State Department condemned the pastor for hurting sentiments of Muslims around the world, saying his act does not represent the American values.
Adlene Hicheur, a 35-year old Algerian-born former nuclear physicist with Switzerland's CERN laboratory, was sentenced to 5 years in prison on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in France.
Mossad can't get to him while he's in a Swiss prison. I think...
Adlene Hicheur was arrested in October 2009 after the police found a series of emails he exchanged with Mustapha Debchi, an alleged contact with Al-Qaida who was operating out of Algeria. "I will target highly sensitive spots in Europe and in France," the scientist wrote.
While on trial, Mr. Hicheur confessed he wrote those email but denied he would have ever carried out any of those attacks.
"No, no, certainly not!"
At the time, he remarked, he was experiencing a personal "zone of turbulence" . Al-Qaeda material was found in his parents' apartment after he was taken into custody.
Several thousand Islamist radicals protested today in the Macedonian capital Skopje demanding release of the five Islamist radical suspects arrested by police on 2nd of May following an intensive 3 week investigation of the cold-blooded summary execution of four Macedonian children and one mid-aged Macedonian while they were fishing on Good Friday this year.
Macedonians are predominantly Christians while ethnic Albanian minority in Macedonia that accounts for around 20% of the population are predominantly Muslims. In the last decade there have been increased incidences of imported radical Islamism from the Middle East that has not found a fertile ground among Macedonian Albanians despite their attempt to lure them into extremism. However there are reported Islamist terrorists cells in whole of the South East Europe including in Macedonia too.
Macedonian police ensured that protest and march through the streets take place and after an hour the crowd dispersed. The radical Islamist protesters chanted Allahu Akbar, Death to Christians, and brandished Al Qaeda insignia.
Someone was taking photos for the purpose of subsequent identification, one hopes.
Hundreds of followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr rallied in central Iraq Friday to condemn the burning of copies of the Koran and a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed by a Florida pastor.
The demonstration, along with a similar one in the powerful cleric's Sadr City stronghold in north Baghdad, saw protesters walk from the main mosque in Kufa, 145 kilometres (90 miles) south of Baghdad, to the centre of the town.
Demonstrators shouted, "No, No, America!", "No, No, Israel!", "Yes, Yes, Islam!" and "Yes, Yes, for the Koran!" and held up a banner that read, "We demand action against those who insult the Koran anywhere."
"Muslims should stand firmly against those who insult the things that are sacred to Islam, and at the very top of that list is the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed," said Ahmed al-Kaabi, one of the demonstrators.
The rally came after US pastor Terry Jones carried out a burning of copies of Islam's holy book and a depiction of Mohammed in front of 20 people at his church in Gainesville, Florida, on April 29, with the burning streamed live over the Internet.
A video of the burning was uploaded to YouTube by the pastor's supporting group "Stand Up America Now."
The actions were taken to protest the imprisonment in Iran of a Christian clergyman, Youcef Nadarkhani.
Time to bring back the Mamluks
Egyptian armed forces and protesters clashed in Cairo on Friday, with troops firing water cannons and tear gas at demonstrators who threw stones as they tried to march on the Defense Ministry, a flashpoint for a new cycle of violence only weeks ahead of presidential elections.
For the first time in Egypt's stormy transition, hardline Islamists were in the forefront of street fighting with the troops, a shift for groups that previously had largely stayed out of direct confrontation with the ruling military.
The clashes centered around a sit-in that has been held for a week in a square several blocks away from the Defense Ministry, mainly by ultraconservatives known as Salafis, who were protesting the disqualification of their favored candidate from the presidential election. On Wednesday, still unidentified assailants attacked the gathering, sparking clashes that killed nine.
Wednesday's violence fueled anger at the military and now more groups are taking to the streets.
#1
I completed the 1st Chapter/Lesson, but when I tried to start Lesson #2, it wasn't available. Links didn't work...Advancing to the next Chapter (2),kept putting me in a "do loop". Totally disjointed. Frank Gaffney is a Bud. His tech team will correct the problems with his 10 Chapter Anti-Terrorism Tutorial.
A second opinion poll conducted after Wednesday's televised election debate in La Belle France showed President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... making up ground against Socialist front runner
...and certified idiot...
Francois Hollande, narrowing the gap to six points from 10.
Two days from Sunday's runoff, the poll by Harris Interactive gave Hollande 53 percent of the vote, down two points from late April, and Sarkozy 47 percent, up two points.
#1
If the French vote Hollande into office, then they are absolutely idiots. I am not a huge Sarkozy fan, but to say that an economy has been poisoned by socialist endeavors and the cure is more socialism is just plain crazy.
What would Hollande do but make things much worse?
[MSNBC] Suicide boomers killed 12 people and maimed 110 in attacks on a police post on the outskirts of the capital of Russia's Dagestan ...a normally inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca.. region, local Sherlocks and law enforcement sources said Friday.
The attacks outside Makhachkala late Thursday were the deadliest in months, undermining efforts by Russian security forces to contain an Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus region near Sochi, where Russia will host the Winter Olympics in 2014.
More than a decade after federal troops toppled an Islamist government in Chechnya, also in the North Caucasus, security forces are fighting cut-throats whose ranks are swollen by anger at poverty, clan feuds and pervasive corruption. That's the MSNBC opinion. There aren't any similar "insurgencies" in Khabarovsk or Birobidzhan or Ulan Ude.
The first jacket wallah detonated a bomb when police stopped a vehicle to check documents, a statement by the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.
The second kaboom came when fire brigades and ambulances arrived, causing additional casualties. A witness at the scene said a fire truck was reduced to charred wreckage. That's al-Qaeda SOP. Betcha there's a Pak somewhere in the command structure...
"After the blast, only the wheels of the truck remained whole," the witness told news hounds.
Local officials said that in addition to the 12 killed in the blast, 90 had been taken to hospital and 20 were treated at the scene. "Fragments of human bodies are scattered at the post," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a law enforcement official as saying.
Local Sherlocks said they had found the remains of a man and a woman suspected of being the suicide bombers. "Honey, you wanta take in a movie tonight?"
"We did that last week, dear. How about if we explode?"
"Good idea. I'll get the boom jackets!"
An unofficial Islamist website, kavkazcenter.com, said the police post was almost completely destroyed. A nearby gas pipeline also was damaged during the attack, RIA news agency reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
12:09 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic Emirate of Caucasus
#1
Can we see some of that famous Russian oppression?
President Barack Obama has promised not to attack Pakistan-based al-Qaida leaders or fighters from bases inside Afghanistan.
The surprising commitment effectively bars Obama and his successors from launching another nighttime helicopter raid like the one that that killed Osama bin Laden. That raid has proven to be Obamas primary foreign-policy success because it killed bin Laden, scooped up much intelligence data and shocked Pakistan.
Obamas commitment will also end the use of secretive drone-attacks from Afghanistan. Those attacks have killed hundreds of al-Qaida leaders since the mid-2000s. Theyve also been very popular with U.S voters, and usually have had tacit Pakistan approval.
The unadvertised provision is buried in the deal that Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Obama signed with much campaign-style fanfare May 1 in Kabul. It could provide a legal shield for Pakistani-based al-Qaidas leaders, front-line fighters, terrorism-planners, allied terror-leaders, funders, terror bases and terror training-grounds.
The United States further pledges not to use Afghan territory or facilities as a launching point for attacks against other countries, says the provision, found in paragraph 6b of the eight-page deal.
Even though Al-Qaida wants to overthrow the Afghan government, Karzai likely signed the safe harbor deal to minimize conflicts with neighboring Pakistan and Iran, said Elliot Cohen, a national-security professor at John Hopkins Universitys D.C.-based school of advanced international studies.
Karzai probably asked [for the clause], perhaps at the behest of Pakistan, Cohen said. But its inclusion is baffling, he said.
Pakistans government vigorously objected to the May 2011 bin Laden raid.
The raid embarrassed its military and intelligence agencies, both of which claimed not to know that bin Ladens hideout was a short distance from their primary officer-training school.
If Obama pushed for the clause, Karzai likely would not have objected, Cohen said. Weve made it clear were headed for the exits, so why [upset the neighbors], he said.
Media reports say that the U.S. agencies have also launched multiple secret short-range raids and strikes against terror bases on the Pakistani side of the Pakistan-Afghan border. Obamas new deal would also presumably stop those short-range raids into Pakistan.
Once Obama leaves power, U.S. lawyers may try to argue their way past the section. For example, they might argue that attack on a jihadi base in Pakistan is not an attack on the country, but an attack on jihadis.
Also, the deal does not bar the United States from attacking jihadi targets in Pakistan with missiles launched from aircraft, ships or submarines in the Indian Ocean. However, those raids could be considered a more blatant violation of Pakistans sovereignty than secretive short-range raids launched from U.S. bases in the Afghan mountains.
The May 1 deal is titled Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement Between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Its main provision says U.S combat forces will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
However, the enduring part of the agreement is vague. It consists of a section that says the White House will ask Congress to send some aid to Afghanistan each year.
The deal does allow a small force of U.S. commandos to stay in Afghanistan, at the approval of future Afghan governments. Karzai is slated to retire in 2014.
Those remaining commando forces would be tasked to attacking al-Qaida groups inside Afghanistan.
However, Obama and his deputies have indicated they would not necessarily oppose a role for al-Qaidas main ally, the Taliban, in the Afghan government. If the Taliban is part of the Afghan government, it likely would veto any U.S. raids on al-Qaida in Afghanistan or in Pakistan.
#2
So the Taliban and al-Aqeada get a safe place to retreat to, re-arm, train and relax.
Wonderful.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/04/2012 18:57
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#3
As complemented by their reiteration that they Pakistan helped the US get Osama, IMO it looks like Pakistan = Islamabad wants to be wholly responsible for any Mil-led responses agz the Hard/Bad Boyz based in their own country - NO US-NATO ALLOWED, AGAIN???
A TEENAGE jacket wallah targeting police has killed at least 24 people in a bustling Pak town square. Imagine his surprise when, after expending the only life he'll ever have before it was even properly begun, rather than finding himself cavorting with 72 virgins he ended up with nothing but a view of the clouds through six feet of hard-packed earth.
The Taliban grabbed credit, saying it had wanted to kill the local chief and deputy of a tribal police force recruited by the government to help defeat the Islamist insurgency in the northwest. Both died in the attack in Khar, the main town of Bajaur Agency, aka Turban Central, ...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth... after a bomber who intelligence officials said was aged 14 to 16 detonated explosives strapped to his chest.
Bajaur has been one of the toughest battlegrounds in Pakistain's fight against a northwestern Taliban insurgency. The Mighty Pak Army conducted major offensives there in 2008 and 2009 and has repeatedly declared it secure. That's worked well, hasn't it?
Yesterday's blast was the deadliest bombing in Pakistain since February 17,
...that distant day less than 3 months ago...
when 31 people were killed by a suicide kaboom on Shiite Mohammedans in Kurram Agency. ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... "The corpse count has risen to 24," said Islam Zeb, the administrative head of Bajaur tribal district. He had earlier said 20 people were killed. ... but then four more ceased kicking... Raids were later carried out in the surrounding areas of Khar and two boys aged 17 and 18 were incarcerated Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! and suicide jackets found, he said.
At least five coppers, including the local tribal police chief and his deputy, were among the dead and 46 people were maimed. Shops and a restaurant were destroyed.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, front man for the Pak Taliban, grabbed credit, saying that anyone involved in "activity" against the Taliban "will be treated with iron hands".
Someone please send a spare drone to follow him home -- show him what iron hands really look like.
"Our attacks will continue until (US) drone strikes end," said Ehsan.
it seems to me Osama bin Laden voiced opinions on this kind of behaviour...
It was the third kaboom in two days in Bajaur, after twin blasts killed five people - including pro-government elders and security personnel - on Thursday.
The violence highlights the insurgency in Pakistain at a time when Islamabad is under renewed US pressure crack down on cut-throats based on its soil, such as the Haqqani network, blamed for a spectacular assault on Kabul last month. Pressure that they're resolutely ignoring...
According to an AFP tally, around 5000 people have been killed in attacks blamed on the Taliban and its allies since July 2007, when Pak troops raided an bad boy mosque in Islamabad, sparking a bloody insurgency. That'd be Lal Masjid, which they're currently rebuilding so the turbans won't be inconvenienced...
...also known as the Red Mosque, for those whose brains run in a different direction.
Documents released by the US on Thursday showed that former al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who is currently taking a long nap in the dirt... urm... water... had been unhappy with the Pak Taliban for killing civilians. Al-Qaeda leaders wrote to its chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, urging him to change his ways, the papers showed. ...which he didn't...
Pakistain has also lost more than 3000 soldiers in the fight against homegrown beturbanned goons but has resisted US pressure to do more to eliminate havens used by those fighting the Americans in Afghanistan. They got lotsa people -- human life is cheap, so they can continue trying to differentiate between "good" bad guyz and "bad" bad guyz...
The United States conducts a secretive drone war What's so secret about it? People notice when carloads of turbans turn into craters...
against Taliban and al-Qaeda cut-throats on Pak soil, despite increasingly vocal public denunciations from the government, which initially gave its tacit approval to the strikes.
Relations between Pakistain and the US have lapsed into stalemate since the covert American raid that killed bin Laden last May and US air strikes that inadvertently killed 24 Pak soldiers in November.
In other words, they're furious, and we don't care. The investment in a pheasant-hunting Christmas holiday for young Barry Obama hasn't paid off, it seems.
Pakistain has shut down NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... supply lines into Afghanistan and last month parliament approved new guidelines on relations with the United States, which included a call for an end to drone strikes. It remains unclear whether the impasse with Washington can be solved before this month's NATO summit on Afghanistan in Chicago, to which Islamabad has been invited.
This article starring:
Ehsanullah Ehsan
TTP
Hakimullah Mehsud
TTP
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
11:28 ||
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Kuwaits parliament on Thursday passed a bill stipulating the death penalty for Muslims who curse or mock God, the Muslim holy book, all prophets and the wives of Islams Prophet Mohammed.
The same punishment is applied to those who describe themselves as new prophets or messengers from God, the Kuwaiti state news agency KUNA reported.
But if the accused is a non-Muslim, the punishment would be lowered to jail for no more than 10 years, the report added, according to the bill.
Forty MPs, including cabinet ministers, voted for the bill in the second and final round of voting, against six opponents who included all five Shiite MPs present and liberal MP Mohammad al-Sager.
The bill introduces two new articles to the Gulf states penal code specifically to stiffen penalties for such offences.
Defendants who repent in court will be spared capital punishment but will get a jail sentence for five years and a fine of $36,000 or one of them, while repentance by those who repeat the crime is not acceptable, the bill says.
We do not want to execute people with opinions or thought because Islam respects these people... But we need this legislation because incidents of cursing God have increased. We need to deter them, opposition MP Ali al-Deqbasi said during the debate.
The bill becomes effective after the government accepts it, the emir signs it and it is published in the official gazette within one month.
Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs Jamal Shehab told reporters after the vote that the government will accept and implement the law.
Shiite MPs also demanded that the bill impose the death penalty on anyone who curses their sects 12 revered Imams, but the Sunni-dominated parliament rejected their request.
Shiite MP Abdulhameed Dashti said the bill breaches the Kuwaiti constitution and the principles of Islam.
Why are we trying to show Islam as a religion of death and blood when it is actually the opposite of that, Dashti said.
A Taliban suicide bombing in a Pakistani market close to the Afghan border killed 20 people Friday, officials said, a day after the US released letters seized from Osama bin Laden's compound that criticized Pakistani militants for killing too many civilians.
Five of the dead in the blast in the Bajur tribal area were local members of the security forces, including one who had received an award for bravery in fighting Islamist militants, government administrator Abdul Haseeb said. The others were passers-by. Over 40 people were wounded, mostly civilians
The head of the Arab League, which has played a key role in mediating the Syria crisis, arrived in China on Friday for discussions with top leaders, Chinas foreign ministry said.
Nabil al-Arabi arrived in the commercial hub of Shanghai and would travel to Beijing on Monday to meet Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, a spokesman said.
The two sides will have in-depth exchanges of views on the Syrian issue, said foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.
China will also from Sunday host Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun, head of Syrian National Council who will meet with foreign ministry officials, Liu said.
Beijing has traditionally backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Liu said China had made contact with oppositions parties in the country.
China is ready to continue to play a positive and constructive role for the peaceful, fair and proper resolution of the Syrian issue at an early date, he said.
China and Russia both drew international criticism earlier this year for vetoing two UN Security Council resolutions on the Syria crisis.
In a memorandum made public by the US military's Combating Terrorism Center on Thursday, Bin Laden asked for advice on exploiting the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
"We need to benefit from this event and get our messages to the Moslems and celebrate the victory that they achieved. We need to restore their confidence in their nation and motivate them. We should also present our just cause to the world, especially to the European people," he said.
Bin Laden suggested contacting Al-Jazeera. ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda blurbs. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... "You can point out to them that this way they will be showing the other opinion," he said.
But he also wondered if it would be good to work with an American channel, suggesting CBS as "close to being unbiased". Bin Laden added that the organization should approach a British journalist, Robert Fisk ...British journalist who is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western... of the Independent, and other news hounds to press home the message that the major powers would be better concentrating on climate change than pursuing al-Qaeda....
A US-born al-Qaeda front man, Adam Gadahn, wrote back to Bin Laden laying the merits or otherwise of using US news stations to mark the "Manhattan battle" as it is referred to in the memo.
Fox News is dismissed because it "falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too".
"I used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit, but is has lately fired two of the most famous journalists -- Keith Olbermann and Octavia Nasser the Lebanese," wrote Gadahn.
This article starring:
ADAM GADAHN
al-Qaeda
Keith Olbermann
Octavia Nasser
Robert Fisk
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/04/2012
09:30 ||
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A high ranking official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has died, MILF's political affairs chief announced on Friday. Aleem Abdul Azis Mimbantas suffered a stroke and died at 10:25 p.m. on Thursday.
Ghadzali Jaafar said, "With sadness, we announce the untimely demise of Vice Chairman Mimbantas. The MILF mourns this passing of a senior member of the MILF Central Committee."
Elsewhere there was, however, much rejoicing, as Hell prepared to welcome another customer.
Reports of Mimbantas' death spread like wildfire in Mindanao on Friday. MILF officials earlier declined to confirm the reports, saying they were still awaiting confirmation from his family.
A source close to Mimbantas' family said the terrorist rebel official was traveling home on Thursday when he showed signs of a heart attack. The source said, "He was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital but he died along the way."
Jaafar earlier said that Mimbantas died in his sleep inside Camp Palestine in Butig, Lanao del Sur.
Abul Alibasa, a Maranao youth leader, described Mimbantas' death as cause for mourning among the Bangsamoro. He called the terrorist rebel leader a "hero in the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination."
"We join the Bangsamoro people in mourning the death of a hero," he said.
Mimbantas, who was educated at the Al-Azhar University in Egypt along with many senior MILF leaders, was previously rumored to be the next MILF leader.
Two village defense volunteers were gunned down by suspected terrorists militants in Narathiwat province on Tuesday night. The attack occurred after the three other Muslim defense volunteers left the checkpoint to perform their prayer ritual.
Police investigators said the two were in a shelter near a security checkpoint in front of a school when four men arrived on two motorcycles.
Two men, who rode pillion and were armed with an assault rifle and a pistol, opened fire on the volunteers. The attackers killed the pair and took AK-47 rifles and a 9 mm pistol from them before fleeing.
Police believed at least one of the attackers may have been injured in the gun fight. They were checking to see if any suspects sought treatment or medicine in the area.
Police said the suspected terrorists insurgents also placed two homemade bombs _ one hidden near the checkpoint and the other by the side of the road in front of the school _ to kill reinforcements rushing to the shootout scene. Bomb experts used a high-powered water gun to destroy the bombs.
Meanwhile, the Southern Border Provinces Administration Center (SBPAC) yesterday received a petition seeking justice in connection with the deaths of five suspected terrorists militants killed in a firefight with security forces in Yala province on April 19.
The petition was submitted by Saroj Maming, chairman of the Yala office of the Center of Muslim Lawyers Foundation, who said he was acting on a request by the parents of three of those killed.
The gun battle took place about 3:30 p.m. on April 19 when a combined police-military force laid siege to a village in Krong Pinang district. The force was acting on information that many armed terrorists militants led by Hubaideelah Romulee were hiding there.
Shots were exchanged while the government force was scouring the village. Five of the suspected terrorists militants were killed. They were Sakuera Japakiya, 38, Lukman Dueramae,20, Samri Dueramae, 18, Isma-ae Paetoh, 17, and Tashkiri Yayo, 23.
The authorities seized from them one M16 rifle, one shotgun, one .38 caliber pistol with 30 rounds of ammunition, 50 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, and five mobile phones.
According to the petition, three of those killed - Samri Dueramae, Lukman Dueramae and Isma-ae Paetoh - were not terrorists militants. Pol Col Thawee accepted the petition and assigned the justice affairs office to launch an investigation.
A local government official and his three deputies were slain in a drive-by shooting by unidentified attackers in Pattani province yesterday.
The four victims, two of them women, were travelling on the Pattani-Narathiwat road 1 p.m. when a pickup truck carrying five men armed with assault rifles began to follow them. Witnesses said the truck overtook the local officials' car and the men in the back of the vehicle opened fire. Their car veered off the road and hit a tree.
Two assailants approached the car and shot the four officials at point-blank range, killing them on the spot. The attackers took a long-barrelled shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol and cash from the car before fleeing.
The official and his deputies had been carrying cash to pay village leaders and defense volunteers' wages.
Meanwhile, a high-level delegation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will visit Thailand from next Monday to Sunday. Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said the delegation will investigate the security situation in the South and review government policies on the administration and development of the southern border provinces.
Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha said the army has nothing to hide from the OIC. The 4th Army will explain its operations and any errors it had made.
A PERTH man who was jailed for racial hatred after posting a video on the internet showing him calling a Jewish man a "racist, homicidal maniac" has had his appeal against his conviction dismissed.
Brendan Lee O'Connell was sentenced to three years imprisonment after a District Court jury found him guilty of six offences. He was the first person to be jailed under WA's racial vilification laws.
The charges related to a verbal altercation he had with two Jewish men, Stanley Keyser and Timothy Peach, in May 2009 at a South Perth IGA supermarket, where a Friends of Palestine group was holding a protest.
O'Connell appealed against his conviction, saying the sentencing judge erred in law and the sentences imposed were manifestly excessive. In a judgement handed down today in the Supreme Court's Court of Appeal, three appeal judges dismissed the appeal against conviction.
"I accept that the total effective sentence imposed upon the appellant of three years was high," Justice Robert Mazza wrote in the decision. "However, I do not think it was so high as to be unjust or unreasonable."
[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Thursday said the verdict of the Supreme Court against him does not disqualify him from the office of prime minister, as he did not commit any criminal offence by not writing letter to the Swiss authorities.
"The charges against me are not of criminal nature. In a civil charge, there cannot be disqualification," he said in an interaction with correspondents from local and foreign media, at the Prime Minister House here.
Gilani said he had followed the constitution and did not have moral turpitude on him as the article 248-1 of the constitution grants immunity to the president.
He said the clause regarding immunity had never been debated and interpreted in the country's 64-year history.
He said the Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) did not show patience for the detailed judgment of the Supreme Court order to come. "I do not need their (PML-N's) recognition. We do not need the alternative options but will follow the constitution and rule of law," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Research in Motion Ltd. says future BlackBerry models will still offer physical keyboards.
Some reports suggested RIM would ditch the physical keys favored by its users, but CEO Thorsten Heins said Wednesday that RIM won't lose the focus on physical keypads.
Heins unveiled a prototype touchscreen BlackBerry on Tuesday.
But he said the new line of smartphones due for release later this year will include both touchscreens and keypads. RIM spokeswoman Tenille Kennedy also confirmed that the new BlackBerry 10 operating system will include new phones with physical keyboards.
"It would be wrong -- just plain wrong" not to, Heins told news hounds at an annual conference in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday.
The Canadian company gave developers a prototype BlackBerry on Tuesday in an effort to help them develop apps for the new software system. Heins stressed that the device is not the final product.
Heins acknowledged Wednesday that RIM needs to improve its marketing and he has vowed to hire a chief marketing officer soon.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company has long dominated the corporate smartphone market. Its BlackBerrys are known for their security and reliability. President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... even refused to part with his BlackBerry after he took office.
But the once iconic company has had difficulty competing in North America with flashier, consumer-oriented phones such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and models that run Google ...contributed $814,540 to the 2008 Obama campaign... Inc.'s Android software.
RIM is also dealing with a "bring your down device" trend, in which employees bring their personal iPhones or Android devices to work instead of relying on BlackBerrys issued by their employers.
Analysts say RIM's future depends on the new BlackBerry 10 software platform, although many say it may be too late.
RIM has been undergoing a comprehensive strategic review for the last three months. Heins was promoted to CEO in January after the company's two long-time chiefs stepped down.
Its stock dropped 68 cents, or 5 percent, to $12.80 Wednesday. The shares have lost almost three-quarters of their value over the past 12 months.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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#1
I'm a year overdue for a Verizon upgrade. It'll be another secure Bb for me here in the DC Metro Region. Some of the machinations required to optimize iPhone, Droid, etc. functionality just ain't cool IMHO. Rather obnoxious and gross, actually. No Thanks.
[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 Thursday gave a deadline of 48 hours for the criminals fighting in 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.... to surrender as the troubled area of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... remained tense and continued to portray the image of a battlefield on seventh consecutive day of the "grand operation," DawnNews reported.
Speaking at a presser along with Chief Minister Sindh Qaim Ali Shah, the interior minister warned the myrmidons to get ready for stiff action if they fail to surrender before end of 48 hours deadline.
A meeting on law and order situation in Bloody Karachi was co-chaired by the chief minister Sindh and the interior minister earlier.
Briefings by the Inspector General Police Sindh and the Director General Rangers and intelligence agencies were given to the participants.
He said that the Rangers along with police will take part in the ongoing operation against the criminals by the deadline end. "A joint operation of police and rangers is inevitable in Lyari," he added.
The minister said that provisional check posts for the Rangers will be stationed tonight.
He said that the houses will be set ablaze if any rocket launchers recovered from there.
Rangers and police have been directed to take over all exits and entry points to ensure that no weapon is allowed to go in or the criminals are not allowed to leave Lyari or do any other action detrimental to the peace of the area.
The minister said Taliban and banned outfits were also fighting against the security forces in Lyari.
He said that a strict line of action has been formulated against the myrmidons. "Four helicopters equipped with machine guns will be observing the operation on ground. Latest satellite system will also be used for the surveillance," he added.
The minister vowed that Bloody Karachi will be prevented from becoming another Swat.
Moreover, the interior minister announced Pakistain Police Medal for SHO Nawaz and Sitara-e-Shujahat for the DSPs and Pakistain Police Medal for SSP for demonstrating courage and leading role by them during the grand operation.
SSP CID Chaudhry Aslam, who is leading the operation in the area and survived during kabooms has also been given Sitara-e-Shujahat for his highly dedicated and professional courage demonstrated by him.
Considering the difficulties being faced by the residents due to the present ongoing targeted action, the chief minister ordered immediate provision of relief to the residents of Lyari.
Meanwhile, ...back at the buffalo wallow, Tex and his new-found Indian friend were preparing a little surprise for the bandidos... the locality remained tense and continued to portray the image of a battlefield with reports of at least 38 people including six security officials having been killed and over 100 others being maimed during the past week of the operation there.
The Bloody Karachi Board of Secondary Education has also postponed all examinations of classes nine and ten in the area.
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05/04/2012
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Elected officials are demanding answers after Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, was left unattended for five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration detention cell.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called on U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for an "immediate and thorough" Department of Justice investigation into the matter.
"After the investigation is completed, I ask that you please provide me with the results and the actions the department will take to make sure those responsible are held accountable and that no one in DEA custody will ever again be forced to endure such treatment," she wrote.
But Babbles still thinks that the federal government can run health care, no probs...
The DEA apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was accidentally left unattended in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive.
San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was "still recovering" from the ordeal. The attorney submitted the initial paperwork needed for a lawsuit Wednesday. The claim seeks $20 million in compensation for the incident.
"He is glad to be alive," Iredale said of Chong. "He wants to make sure that what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone else."
News of the incident came to light when Chong told a San Diego television station he spent nearly a week in the cell without food, water or access to a toilet after an April 21 raid on a house in San Diego.
The DEA, which identified Chong only as "the individual in question," said he and eight others were swept up during a raid of a suspected Ecstasy distribution operation, where agents found guns, ammunition, 18,000 Ecstasy pills and other drugs.
He wasn't innocent as a lamb, but he didn't deserve being jugged like that...
The nine suspects were taken to a DEA area headquarters, where they were fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed, the agency said. After processing, seven were taken to a county detention facility and one was released.
Chong, the agency said, was "accidentally left in one of the cells." He told NBC San Diego he kicked the door "many, many times" in a futile attempt to get agents' attention.
I'd like to know a little about the layout of the holding area, the cells and where the agents were. I'm wondering if the agents just somehow couldn't 'hear' him...
When they finally found Chong, he was taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital, where he stayed for five days. Iredale said Chong, who was close to kidney failure and had trouble breathing, spent three of those days in the intensive care unit.
Chong also suffered hallucinations and "thought he was going insane," Iredale said. Chong told NBC San Diego he tried to kill himself by breaking his glasses and cutting his wrists.
William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the DEA's San Diego Division, apologized in a statement Wednesday and said he had ordered "an extensive review" of DEA policies and procedures.
The DEA said Chong told agents he had been at the house that was raided "to get high with his friends" and later admitted that he used a white powdery substance found in his cell that tested positive for methamphetamine.
Iredale confirmed Chong had stayed with friends the night of April 20 to "celebrate" the day heralded by many marijuana aficionados "in the typical way -- by smoking some pot."
But the attorney said the meth found in the cell was not his client's and was there before his arrival. "The DEA's protocol was so sloppy that somebody who was a previous prisoner secreted a small amount of meth in a plastic bag inside a blanket," Iredale said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2012
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#1
In the mid-80s I remember a Major City in... approaching the firm I was with to create prisoner tracking software for them. The CEO and his favorite legal adviser were at one of their jails waiting to talk to the chief of police when a lawyer came in with a writ demanding the release of his client. They couldn't find him! Our lawyer had a long talk with his and kept in contact. It took 3 days to find the guy. Six months later there was a class action suit with lots of members against the police/justice/prison system and all software providers. We crossed our lucky hearts that we didn't pursue the contract.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/04/2012 4:46
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If they did this to a Terrorist they would all be in jail now.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/04/2012 9:18
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or as Pelosi would say, "we have to stay in this holding cell so we can find out what's in it"
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/04/2012 9:19
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No one should be treated like that. However, if you will notice, the photo of the guy is taken in a library-like setting with his school sweatshirt on. Kind of like posting middle school photos of the kid and mug shots of Zimmerman in the Zimmerman case.
I remember a month or so ago I was in a bar waiting for a table and I had a good view of the hostesses working their computers to keep track of tables so I didn't drink too much at the bar. It was very interesting for a software guy. They knew exactly who was at which table, who was waiting and when each table became available. When it's busy in a place like that there is money at stake they can't afford to be sloppy.
#11
I would note the problem is not necessaily the software. If you are not diligent about updating "inventory" locations, the data can get out of date. In addition, if nobody verifies data entry, you'll get bad data all over.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/04/2012 23:09
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[Yemen Post] Tareq Mohammad Abdullah Saleh, a nephew of the former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , stepped down on Thursday after days negations with the UN Envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar.
Benomar said in a press brief on Thursday that he witnessed the handover of the 3rd Brigade of the Republican Guard from Tariq to the newly-appointed commander Abdul-Rahman Al-Halili.
Military sources say that the 3rd Brigade is among the most heavily armed and its units are centered in the mountains surrounding the Yemeni Capital Sana'a.
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... it was not mentioned by Benomar whether the command of the Presidential Guard was handed over to the new commander Saleh Al-Jualiani.
During the conference, the UN Envoy affirmed that Yemen still faces serious security challenges, expressing his trust that President Abdu Rabo Hadi could overcome all these challenges.
Benomar postponed his departure to New York that was scheduled on Wednesday, sources close to Benomar affirmed, pointing out that he will present a report about Yemen's updates and situation on May 17.
Hadi issued a month ago decrees of replacing nearly 20 officers, including Air force Chief Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar. However Al-Ahmar and Tariq refused the decrees and only quitted after the intervention of Benomar.
Al-Ahmar, a half brother of Saleh, was persuaded by Benomar on April 14 to leave the post he held after nearly three decades of rejection.
While Yemeni revolutionaries insisted on the dismissal of all Saleh's relatives from the military and security forces, his elderly son, Ahmed and nephew, Yahya, still head the elite Republican Guard and the central security services.
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05/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Syria's Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... University on Thursday announced it was suspending classes after pro-government forces killed four students and locked away Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! more than 200 in a campus raid during anti-regime protests.
In a message posted on its website, the northern city's university told students that classes were suspended until final exams on May 13.
"Students were barred from entering the campus and were told that the university dorms were shut down until further notice," Mohammed al-Halabi, an activist on the ground, told Agence La Belle France Presse via Skype.
He said security forces had raided the dormitories Thursday morning and had thrown out students and their belongings. He said some of the rooms were torched.
The decision to shut down the university came after Syrian troops and armed supporters overnight stormed an anti-regime protest on campus killing four students and arresting more than 200, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britannia-based watchdog also reported that 28 students were maimed, three of them critically.
Activists said the raid was carried out in response to daily anti-regime demonstrations at the university in Syria's second largest city.
"Security forces stormed the campus in large numbers at night and opened fire during a large student demonstration calling for the fall of the regime," Halabi said.
In a video posted by activists on YouTube, heavy gunfire and screams are heard while dozens of men, identified as members of the security and intelligence services, are seen entering the campus.
Overall, more than 11,000 people have died in Syria since the revolt against the regime of Bashir al-Assad broke out in March last year, according to the Observatory.
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05/04/2012
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[An Nahar] Libyan authorities on Thursday granted immunity to former rebels who fought to oust Muammar Qadaffy's ... who is now napping peacefully in the dirt... regime and unveiled legislation that cracks down on the fallen strongman's supporters.
"There is no punishment for acts made necessary by the February 17 revolution," read the law published on the National Transitional Council's website.
The immunity covers "military, security or civilian acts undertaken by revolutionaries with the aim of ensuring the revolution's success," the NTC added.
February 17 marks the start of a popular uprising which led to the collapse of Qadaffy's regime last year.
It was unclear if the law includes acts committed after October 23, when the NTC declared Libya's liberation following the capture and killing of strongman Qadaffy.
Rights groups say war crimes were committed by both sides during the 2011 conflict and warn of torture in detention centers run by militias made up of former rebels.
The law also orders the defense and interior ministers to bring to justice Qadaffy's fighters placed in long-term storage Book 'im, Mahmoud! by former rebels or release them by July 12 if there is not enough evidence against them.
The ministers must also act against individuals who pose a "threat to the security or stability" of Libya on the basis of their role in the previous regime or their participation in "official and unofficial bodies of the former regime."
These measures could include surveillance, travel bans or barring them from residence in a specific place or region of the country.
In further legislation to govern the transition towards a new Libya, the NTC criminalized the glorification of Qadaffy or 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 after 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 third law for the transition stipulates prison sentences for anyone who "attacks the February 17 revolution, denigrates Islam, the authority of the state or its institutions."
And another law confiscates all property and funds belonging to figures of the former regime, including Qadaffy's relatives, placing 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.
Libyan authorities have already disqualified members linked to the Qadaffy regime from running for public office, in regulations that rights group have slammed as "vague."
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05/04/2012
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#1
The immunity covers "military, security or civilian acts undertaken by revolutionaries with the aim of ensuring the revolution's success," the NTC added.
Yeah so there were some atrocities. Dems were some crazy time huh? And more than likely there are a few more uhem bumps in the road to come. Oh well, as Susie Rice would say, growing pains. But hey, look on the bright side. One of the really cool things these days is even if you fuck up big time your covered. Cause, after all, we were all trying to achieve the same objective. Look at it this way. R2P = justify the ends. And Unity of Vision = ends justify the means. Combine the two and its a wonderful thing.
[Bangla Daily Star] Police yesterday cooled for a few years Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! four members of banned bad turban organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir for bringing out a procession in the capital protesting the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. ... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another John Marshall ... The arrestees are Mohammad Aziz, 22, a BBA student of East West University, Jahangir Alam, another BBA student of the same institution, Abdullah Al Mobin, 26, MBA student of Dhaka University, and Mohammad Galib, 30, a BBA student of North South University.
They were cooled for a few years Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! around noon when nearly 25 activists of the bad turban organization brought out a procession before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office to denounce Hillary Clinton's visit to the country, said Syed Nurul Islam, deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP).
Police charged baton to disperse the procession that also demanded establishment of Islamic rule in the country and release of cooled for a few years Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! party leaders and activists, he said.
Detained Jahangir Alam introduced himself as son of Dhaka University Kuwait Maitree Hall provost Farida Begum, said MA Jalil, sub-inspector of Shahbagh Police Station. She was not available on the phone.
A case will be filed after discussions with police high-ups, said Sirajul Islam, officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station.
As part of her three-nation tour (Bangladesh, India and China), Hillary Clinton is expected to arrive in Dhaka tomorrow and hold meetings with government high-ups, opposition leaders and civil society representatives.
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[An Nahar] Yemeni soldiers killed eight al-Qaeda Death Eaters as they tried to attack an army post in the southern province of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... on Thursday, the defence ministry said.
"Eight al-Qaeda Death Eaters were killed and others maimed" when army forces "foiled their attack" against a military post near Bajdar on the outskirts of the picturesque provincial capital Zinjibar, the ministry's website 26sep.net said.
On Monday, fierce festivities killed at least 21 people, including 18 al-Qaeda bad boys, near Abyan's town of Loder, which jihadists are trying to capture.
The army has been battling al-Qaeda bad boys, who have renamed themselves as the "Partisans of Sharia" (Islamic law), for control of Zinjibar for nearly a year.
The jihadists have expanded their control over Yemen's lawless southern and eastern provinces, taking advantage of a weakened central government in Sanaa and months of political upheaval.
The beturbanned goons intensified their attacks on the security forces after President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi took office in February pledging to hunt down the bad boys.
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05/04/2012
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[Tolo News] At least three people were maimed when a hand-grenade went kaboom! at a boys school in the west of Kabul on Thursday, officials said.
The chief of the Kabul Police Criminal Investigation Unit Mohammad Zahir said that initial reports suggested the hand-grenade was carried in by a student which he detonated at the school.
The incident took place around 08:00am in the Ghulaam Mohammad Ghobaar high school in Khoshal Khan area in east of Kabul.
At least three people were maimed, including a teacher, front man for the Ministry of Education Amanullah Eman said.
Zahir said that three students were maimed.
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[An Nahar] Federalists in Libya's eastern Cyrenaica region called on Thursday for a boycott of next month's constituent assembly elections, rejecting the transition plan set out by the interim authorities.
The Council of Cyrenaica, which wants autonomy for the oil-rich east, issued a statement calling on "all Libyans... to boycott elections" unless the ruling National Transitional Council changes its plans.
The NTC has pledged to hold elections for a 200-seat constituent assembly in June. The charter it draws up to replace that of slain dictator Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... 's toppled regime will then be put to a referendum.
The law governing the June election distributes seats in the constituent assembly strictly according to population.
But the federalists want the authorities to split representation equally between Libya's three historic regions.
Libya was a federal union under the Western-backed rule of King Idris I from 1951 to 1963, which divided the country into three states -- Cyrenaica in the east, Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... tania in the west and the Fezzan in the south.
Cyrenaica, which stretches all the way from the Mediterranean coast to the far-flung Sahara desert border with Chad in the south, embraces half of the country's territory and about three-quarters of its vast oil reserves.
The NTC is "incapable of guaranteeing stability and security which are necessary to hold transparent and credible elections," the federalists' statement said.
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[Dawn] A man has sought help of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar High Court to save his two minor daughters from falling prey to a decision of a local jirga regarding a customary practice called ghag under which a man can lay claim on a female for marriage.
The aggrieved man, Mohammad Nawaz, alleged that a jirga comprising few members of a local peace committee had ordered that he should pay Rs275,000 to his two nephews because he had denied giving hands of his two minor daughters to them in marriage.
Mr Nawaz, a resident of Sharekara, situated on the outskirts of the lovely provincial capital, on Wednesday filed a writ petition before Peshawar High Court requesting the court to direct provincial police officer, capital city police chief and government to provide protection to him and his family against his nephews as well as members of the so-called jirga.
The petitioner prayed the court to declare the practice of ghag as illegal, unlawful and un-Islamic. He also prayed to issue directives to the federal and provincial governments to legislate for abolishing the menace of ghag prevalent in any part of the country including tribal areas.
The word ghag literally means 'a call' and it stands for a one-sided demand by a man or his family to have engaged a female for a marriage. Normally, in the areas where this tradition is prevalent if a person makes ghag on a girl no other party seeks
hand of the said girl till negotiations fail between the party, who has claimed ghag and the girl's family.
This practice also, sometimes, leads to murder and bloodshed, when either the girl's family refuses to honour the claim or another party doesn't regard the claim and resolve to marry the girl despite the ghag.
The petitioner told Dawn that one of his daughters, Shaishta, was about 13 while the second one, Zainab, was around 11. He said that he used to work as crane operator at UAE for the last 11 years, but owing to that problem he had to rush back to Pakistain on April 9 following which he was sacked and his visa was also cancelled.
Two days ago he had also staged a protest before the high court along with his two daughters. During the protest they got so emotional that they set the school bags of the two girls on fire.
Mr Nawaz said that few months ago two of his nephews, Jehangir and Abdur Raziq, raised ghag about his two daughters.
He added that he did not submit to the illegal demand following which his nephews took the issue to a jirga comprising head of Adezai Peace Committee Haji Gul Abbas Khan and three others.
He stated that the jirga directed him to pay Rs275,000 to his nephews and in case of not accepting the decision he would be liable to a fine of Rs500,000.
Advocate Mohammad Essa Khan, representing the petitioner, said that as he didn't follow the illegal orders, the jirga members also became a party against the petitioner and had now been constantly pressurising him. He added that the
petitioner had to migrate from his area.
The petitioner alleged that while he was in UAE his nephews and jirga members started teasing his family and as there was no elder male member, therefore, he had to come back.
He alleged that even an attempt was made to abduct his daughter Zainab when she was returning from school, but the bid was averted by the people present on the occasion.
The petitioner said that the custom was not only inhuman, cruel and tyrannical, but it was also derogatory to different provisions of the Constitution of Pakistain.
He pointed out that while the custom of swara had been declared a penal offence through the Criminal law (amendment) Act, 2004, the custom of ghag had still not been declared an offence.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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#1
Judge being asked to overturn a ghag order? Sorry, couldn't resist.
[An Nahar] Egypt's military rulers vowed Thursday that this month's presidential election will be fair and moved to assure the public it would hand over power, a day after a deadly attack on an anti-military protest.
"We are committed to fair elections 100 percent. We don't have any candidates. All the candidates are respectable Egyptians," said Major General Mohammed al-Assar of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Assar was speaking at a news conference as an uneasy calm returned to Cairo's streets following festivities that killed 20 people outside the defense ministry on Wednesday, according to medics.
"We want to stress the commitment of the armed forces... of not using violence against the people. The armed forces belong to the people," said Assar, who put Wednesday's toll at nine dead and more than 160 injured.
The general, an aide to the defense minister, said the security forces had intervened "positively" to stop the bloodshed and to ensure stability, more than a year after a popular uprising toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... "Egypt is in danger... Everyone must realize this danger," said Assar.
"I propose an initiative to all political parties and religious leaders to go to Abbassiya and try to persuade the youths to leave Abbassiya," he said referring to the Cairo district in which Wednesday's festivities occurred.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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#1
"of course, we'll define 'fair'"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/04/2012 10:48
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[An Nahar] A terrorist haven in the eyes of the Syrian regime but "heart of the revolution" for its foes, Baba Amr is now a ghost town where residents move silently among the rubble of their homes.
Two months of bombardment reduced this central district of Homs city to nothing more than a heap of ruins. The walls of houses are pocked with bullets holes, punctured by tank shells and gouged by shrapnel.
In a deserted street, a mother with two children carries a green suitcase.
"We have gathered all our things. The house is no longer inhabitable. My husband and I are engineers, but there is no more work in town and so no money to fix it. I think we will emigrate," sighs 55-year-old Umm Adnan.
Not one house has been spared, as if they had been built of clay and not concrete.
"May God forgive them for the evil they did to us," Umm Abdo, 35, says, her voice choking with frustration as she and her husband gather their possessions from what was once the family home.
The building's second floor collapsed, crushing their flat.
"The tanks fired on the buildings and we beat feet by making a hole in the wall of our garden to take refuge with the neighbors. We again had to leave, as the fighting came dangerously close.
"We had to shelter for six days with people we didn't even know!" she says angrily.
Her husband and son ask her to lower her voice as the security forces pass by, patrolling the street. She obliges and then resumes their story, her tone rising again.
"Nothing remains of the house where I lived with my husband and three children," she says.
Asked about the presence of gunnies, who according to the rebels "protected" this area of two square kilometers (less than a square mile) but who the regime says held its residents "hostage," she dodges the question.
"We were people who lived in peace," she responds.
Her home was located on the front line facing Inshaat, a district controlled by government forces. Only Karami Street, a few meters wide, separated the rival sides, who must have shot it out at very close range.
The rebels used alleys between the houses. "They created a long corridor that allowed them to draw out our forces and then slip away," says Ahmed, a 37-year-old army captain, pointing to holes in buildings.
"They (the rebels) have destroyed everything because they didn't care about the people," a soldier says, vowing the government would help residents rebuild their homes.
At each junction, security forces have set up checkpoints flying the Syrian flag and plastered with posters of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... . At times, they approached as the Agence La Belle France Presse journalist questioned locals.
"I left the area when the gunnies took over. Now that order has been restored, I returned to see what is left," says Samer, 35, whose electronic hardware store was looted.
"We had 200 soldiers killed and 1,000 maimed in this battle. We found 100 tons of explosives. We had to tread cautiously because they had rigged everything with bombs. It took us 28 days," says an officer in the security forces.
"This was the sorting center for weapons arriving from Leb. In retaking this quarter, we've reduced the smuggling of weapons but we know it's impossible to stop it completely," he adds.
Beyond the rubble of Baba Amr, the land is covered with spring red poppies. But here too the war has left its mark, with fields pockmarked with mortar holes.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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[Yemen Post] After increasing warnings of security deterioration in the port city of Aden, Governor Waheed Rashid visited on Thursday a camp of the Central Security in Khour Maksar, urging the troops to stand against those who try to destabilize the nation.
Military sources have recently stated that the port city of Aden witnesses insecurity, pointing out that gunnies infiltrate to the city, asking the government to deal with the risks seriously.
Rashid praised efforts exerted by the soldiers in combating crimes and imposing security and stability, asking them to be constantly alert and strongly responded to any attempts of terrorism, Al-Qaeda and any other elements to raise chaos.
He stressed that the local authorities exert much efforts to reorganize security tasks, build up cop shoppes, secure residential neighborhoods and preserve private and public properties.
The sources demanded to send military reinforcements to the city, pointing out that leaders of the General People Congress were involved in supporting the gunnies with the aim of raising turbulence and turmoil.
Media sources said the security services in Aden presented a report to the Interior Ministry in which it listed the names of those leaders who support the gang and try to spark turmoil in the city.
Rashid had warned against the infiltration of Al-Qaeda operatives to Aden, accusing political sides of standing behind the deterioration of security inside the city.
He affirmed that most security officials and soldiers do not present to their jobs, pointing out that conflicts that the neighboring governorate of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... are witnessing badly reflected on Aden's security.
Ansar Al-Shariah( Supporters of the Islamic Law), a al-Qaeda-linked group targeted military positions , tried to blast a power station and assassinated intelligence officers in the strategic port city.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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THATS IT!! If we get four more years of this B.S. I am packing and moving to the Amazon.
Posted by: George Unique7923 ||
05/04/2012
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#1
"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security," Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."
Ah, the Environmental Defense Fund...
I mean, what's he gonna say? You people are full of shit? It's an election year. And they probably paid for dinner...
#3
A GWCC Defense Fund requires some kind of Global Tax or Global Minimum Tax, hence ...
* YOUTUBE > WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: WE NEED A GLOBAL MINIMUM TAX.
Lest we fergit, as per the SIRIUS EVENT, such was the level of international Govt-Pert disageement on the meaning of the event that the US desired to change the the last two letters "-US" in the SIRIUS acronym from "U-tra S-trong" to over the US".
#7
One would hope that the left would have quit taking massive doses of LSD after the 70s. Evidence like this suggests otherwise.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/04/2012 4:54
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#8
They are mess-in with our weather now. So they can deflect any blame for their errors. Next I guess he will address the alien infiltrations.
I wondered where O got them large ears.
#10
Panetta is an absolute TOOL! If he wants to talk about a "national security threat" let him tell us what he was told by the Chief of Station (COS) in Mexico City about Operation Fast and Furious during his time at the CIA.
#14
BP, I have heard this stuff since the early sixties. I don't say I believe it. The media is of little help. I have known very educated people research this stuff attending world seminars and they have no doubts. So I go my way and ponder at most.
#20
I wouldn't mess with gerbils -- they're tough little creatures, prone to dying in places where even their very skeletons will one day cause problems. Mr. Wife once went through a factory start-up in Egypt...
[Bangla Daily Star] The Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday charged former state minister for religious affairs Mosharref Hossain Shahjahan, 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 maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. 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... leaders Delwar Hossain Sayeedi ...Islamic orator and politician. He was a former Member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh from 1996 to 2008, and is one of the most prominent leaders of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami... and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad with misappropriation of Tk 1.28 crore from the government Zakat Fund.
ACC Assistant Director Wajed Ali Molla submitted the charge sheet in a 2010 case to the Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court, naming seven people including the three. The charge sheet also mentions 45 people as prosecution witnesses.
The four other accused are Lutful Haque, former finance and accounting director of the Islamic Foundation; Miah Mohammad Yunus, secretary of Jatiya Bandhujan Gay Pareehad in Bhola; Mohammad Tofazzal Hossain, president of Islami Samajkalyan Kendra in Pirojpur, and Abdul Haque, assistant director of Masjid Council for Community Advancement in Manikganj.
Of the accused in the case, Sayeedi is in jail custody in connection with crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War while Azad, also chairman of Masjid Council for Community Advancement in Manikganj, who is known as "Bachchu Razakar", is a runaway accused of war crimes.
The five others are on the run.
Names of Yunus, Tofazzal and Abdul Haque were not in the first information report (FIR), but came up in the charge sheet as their involvement in the corruption was found during the case investigation.
Wajed Ali Molla, also investigation officer of the case, appealed to the court to issue arrest warrants against all the accused and an order to attach their moveable properties.
Islamic Foundation Finance and Accounting Director Aiyub Ali Chowdhury filed the case with Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Police Station on May 24, 2010.
In the FIR, he said there were zakat committees in every district for distribution of the Zakat Fund. The accused being members of the committees had used their influence over the Zakat Board and got the fund released for their own organizations operating in four districts, whereas the fund was intended for the destitute people of 64 districts, the FIR adds.
The case was filed following an enquiry by a three-member investigation committee formed by the Islamic Foundation into allegations of misappropriation.
The enquiry found that fake signatures and thumb impressions had been used and identities of destitute people had been fabricated to misappropriate the fund, according to the FIR.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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#1
Zakat accountancy is always terrible.
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/04/2012 7:10
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#2
Tk 1.28 crore is, I think = 12,800,000 Taka which would be about $100,00O on the street or $150,000 at the official exchange rate.
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/04/2012 8:29
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#3
your point being..?
Posted by: American Delight ||
05/04/2012 18:37
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#4
They'd sell their mother's false teeth for about Tk 0.427 micro-crore.
[An Nahar] The head of the U.N. military observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, said on Thursday that it was the responsibility of the Syrian army to make the first move to halt the violence.
"If you have two individuals using on each other all their weapons, who is going to be the first one to move the finger? Who is going to be the first one to make the move?" Mood asked, during a visit to the battered central city of Homs.
"My approach to that is that the strongest part needs to make the first move," he told news hounds.
"I was referring to the Syrian government and the Syrian army. They have the strength, they have the position and they also have the potential generosity to make the first step in a good direction," he said, when pressed on whether he was speaking about regime forces.
Mood insisted that the U.N. observers, who started deploying in Syria last month to oversee a putative truce brokered by U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... , have not had their movements restricted by the Syrian authorities.
"Whether we have experienced any hampering in our freedom of movement, my answer is no. We have made our plans and we have moved where we wanted to move," the Norwegian general said.
"The starting point is that we have received very explicit and clear commitments from both sides that they want to move in the direction of less violence. But there is a lot of suspicion," he added.
"(Regarding) the situation on the ground ... in the specific locations we have seen more commitments on the ground by the action of the government forces. So we have seen positive signs on the ground."
An advance team of unarmed U.N. observers arrived in Syria on April 16 and their presence has slowly increased, with the monitors due to reach their full complement of around 300 in the coming weeks.
Mood said that from Friday there would be eight observers in the southern province of Daraa, 12 in Homs, eight in Hama and four in the northwestern province of Idlib, adding that their presence was having a positive effect.
"Since I arrived on the ground we have seen less shelling with artillery, less mortar fire."
The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... has accused both sides to the conflict of failing to abide by the terms of the ceasefire which it has admitted has not been holding.
After visiting Hama and Homs on Thursday, two flashpoint regions that have seen heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... between government troops and rebels, Mood stressed that the aim of his mission was to monitor the ceasefire and the full implementation of Annan's six-point peace plan.
The plan calls for a halt to fighting, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from urban areas, a daily humanitarian ceasefire, media access, an inclusive political process, and the right to demonstrate as well as the release of detainees.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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Chronically hard-up North Korea has spent a total of US$6.58 billion on nuclear weapons development and now has a dozen bombs, including three uranium weapons, a South Korean expert claims. The expert, who requested anonymity, said the money would have been enough to buy 1,940 tons of corn from China or eight year's worth of rations for the North Korean people.
And every time we give them food they spend the savings on more nuclear bombs...
Since the 1980s, North Korea spent $2.01 billion on building nuclear facilities including those in Yongbyon, $310 million on related research, $2.72 billion to operate the facilities, $1.34 billion to develop nuclear weapons, and $200 million on nuclear tests, he claimed.
North Korea says it operates 2,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges. If that is true, it would be able to produce 40 kg of highly enriched uranium per year. Since it takes 15 to 25 kg of uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, North Korea may have developed one to two uranium bombs a year, the expert explained.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2012
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#1
Uh, uh, AS HOMER SIMPSON WOULD SAY -"HMMMMMMMMM, NON-GM/GMO FREE RANGE GRASS"???
gut nuthin.
* ION CORYE, TOPIX > NORTH KOREA WID A [Nuclear = NucWeap] ARSENAL CAPABLE OF DESTROYING SIX CITIES.
Yokay, I'll bite, as per the MSM-Net shouldn't that number actually be 6-12 Cities???
"IRAN FACTOR" notwithstanding.
* SAME > NORTH KOREA SAYS MORE SATELLITES ["Space Rocket" launches] WILL BE FORTHCOMING.
* NEWS KERALA > [POTUS Bammer + PM Noda] US, JAPAN SAY NORTH KOREA'S "OLD PATTERN OF [military] PROVOCATIONS" IS OVER.
Not clear iff this is good news, given Rising China's growing MilPol agressiveness throughout the "First Island Chain".
[Dawn] THE maddening operation in the 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 of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... has once again exposed the law-enforcement personnel's incapacity to deal with an armed and organised challenge without grievously harming the innocent population in and around the theatre of conflict.
In any such situation, the first question that always comes to mind relates to the factors contributing to a clash between criminal outfits and the forces of law and order. In the case of Lyari, the role of certain political elements in creating, training and protecting militia-like bands has often been mentioned in public debates.
Even if this knowledge was not easily available any investigating authority would have concluded that the so-called Lyari gangs could not have built up their arsenals of heavy weaponry without the connivance of the state apparatus, if not its collusion. Nor could they have acquired the means of raising, training and maintaining a force capable of murder and extortion and subverting peace in other ways.
It is not for the first time that Pak authorities have been forced to go all out in their campaign to stamp out the monsters of their own creation. A heavy cost has already been paid for their failure to remember the lesson known to the whole world that any authority that creates a private army to serve its interests through the unlawful use of violence has ultimately to wipe it out. This has happened even when resort to violence is inspired by a noble cause, such as national liberation.
But Bloody Karachi has been home to quite a few unlawful militias raised by several contenders for dominant status in the metropolis -- mostly by political parties, ethnic communities and religious organizations. There have been crackdowns on gangs, some brief and others spread over considerably long periods, and the general impression is that each of these operations ran aground before realising its final objective.
Have appropriate lessons been learnt from the latest anti-crime drive? For quite some time, the authorities have claimed that the present operation is aimed at ridding Bloody Karachi of all criminal gangs regardless of their political or ethnic affiliations. Can this assertion be upheld in an independent probe?
An important issue in debate is the timing of the operation in Lyari. When did the authorities realise the threat from the Lyari desperadoes? Could the operation there have been more successful or would its purpose have been achieved over a shorter period and with smaller cost if it had been launched earlier? After all, Lyari had been, or should have been, on the official radar since the killing of Rahman Dakait (dacoit).
The way the Lyari operation has been conducted has been criticised on more counts than one. Doubts have been raised on the soundness of intelligence reports on the basis of which the plan of action has been drawn -- assuming that the raids on gangs have followed a definite plan.
It has been alleged that those conducting the drive against armed gangs have not hesitated from using private faceless myrmidons against their rivals in criminal undertakings. If these allegations are correct the tactic cannot be too strongly condemned. Such dangerous aberrations have been witnessed during the conflict with forces of Evil in the northern parts of the country, and the horrible consequences witnessed there should have deterred anyone from using the recipe for civil war in the country's largest city.
Above all, the need to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to the population of Lyari does not seem to have received due attention. A large number of people were caught in the crossfire as both sides resorted to indiscriminate firing.
Many more were put to hardship by the non-availability of water and foodstuff. The sick could not receive medical care. Quite a sizeable section of the population was forced to migrate to safer places.
It is true that anti-social elements can add to the suffering of the people in their neighbourhood and even manoeuvre anti-police demonstrations with a view to creating public sympathy for themselves. Yet the deficiencies in the law-enforcement agencies' standard manual are no secret. They lack training in the controlled use of firepower and are generally unfamiliar with the methods of establishing order through reliance on non-lethal force.
They tend to panick in the face of resistance and forget whatever instruction in the principle of proportionality in countering violence with violence they might have received.
In any case, the people have a right to be reassured that all necessary precautions were taken to guarantee that the innocent residents of the locality were not exposed to any risk. The authorities must be made to answer a few elementary questions.
Was the Lyari population warned of the possibility of running battles in their streets? Was any attempt made to mobilise the law-abiding people in support of the operation that could disrupt their normal life? Were the people living in the targeted pockets given the option to move to safe places? Were any relief squads organised to extend succour to the unintended victims of the state agents' activities?
These questions need to be answered, possibly by a high-powered commission of inquiry that may be asked to probe all the operations against the terrorists, target-killers and extortionists carried out in Bloody Karachi over the past many years. It is necessary to ascertain what steps have been devised to prevent the state functionaries from indulging in target-killing, extortion or other excesses. Are they offered training and refresher courses in the use of force, especially firearms, while pursuing their quarries?
Is any policy of compensating the innocent victims of operations against criminals for loss of life and property in place?
Unless a thorough probe can satisfy the public on these points the distrust between the state and the citizens will widen, respect for the law will decline further and peace and tranquillity could be disturbed by those very hands that are supposed to maintain them.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Congress should pass a law to give investigators freer access to certain cellphone records, an Obama administration official said on Thursday, in remarks that raised concern among advocates of civil liberties and privacy.
How else will the Department of Homeland Security meet its mission of helping the RIAA crack down on illegal file transfers?
Jason Weinstein, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's criminal division, argued that requirements for warrants at early stages of investigations would "cripple" the RIAA prosecutors and law enforcement.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that a warrant was needed to put a GPS satellite tracking device on a suspect's vehicle, prompting questions about other instances where probable-cause warrants should be needed to obtain information in the rapidly changing world of mobile devices.
Federal courts around the country are split on whether to require warrants for records of phone usage collected at towers that transmit cellphone signals, Weinstein told a conference. While prosecutors have been told to get warrants to put a tracking device on a vehicle or to track the precise GPS location of a person via their cellphone, they should not be needed to obtain data from the towers, Weinstein said.
"There really is no fairness and no justice when the law applies differently to different people depending on which courthouse you're sitting in," he said at the "State of the Mobile Net" conference sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.
"For that reason alone, we think Congress should clarify the legal standard," he said.
One civil liberties advocate sought to challenge that assertion, saying the Obama administration had made the same argument during the Supreme Court GPS case and it had been soundly rejected.
"Not one justice accepted the Department of Justice's argument in that case. It got zero votes," Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said during the conference. "We're all here, the criminals are not taking over the country."
First they get elected...
While some proposals have been made in Congress to address concerns and confusion about when a warrant is needed as new technologies emerge, the chances of legislation passing are considered slim because it is an election year and little legislation is expected to pass.
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican House of Representatives member Jason Chaffetz of Utah proposed a bill last year trying to detail a legal framework, including requiring a warrant for acquiring location information for a person; however the legislation has not advanced.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2012
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If GWB had proposed this Keith Obamamann would have had a hysterical seizure on live tv on PMSNBC...
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/04/2012 14:37
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#5
Bill,not that there would be anything wrong with that.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
05/04/2012 22:14
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#6
The Govt is already reading, storing, + even modifying, etc. our Personal E-Mails widout our knowledge + consent ["implied consent"], + our Cellphone + ChatRoom, etc. oral conversations.
SO LETS "GO FOR BROKE" IN ORDER TO HAVE THAT REAL "D *** NG IT, FORT SUMTER SHOULD BE FIRED UPON" CIVIL WAR INSPIRATION???
* FYI FREEREPUBLIC > NEW US LAW TO SWEEP ACROSS NATION THAT WOULD STRIP ALL AMERICANS OF THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, ala US Fifth Court shenannigans.
Well whaddaya know, its NOT - I repeat, NOT - the US Ninth this time.
lol.
* "THE SEARCHERS" WARD BOND > D *** NG IT , NOT, NOT - SPELLED K-N-U-T- NOT!
#7
JM, "The Searchers" w/John Wayne is an excellent flick, as are almost all of his; with the exception of his last three or four. Those movies are SO entertaining, satisfying and available. Almost everything that Clint Eastwood starred-in or directed will never disappoint (try "The Outlaw Josie Wells")...Those old American West flicks will really draw you in...
John
Syrian security forces placed in long-term storage Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! two sons of prominent opposition figure Fayez Sara on Thursday, hauling them off to an unknown location without showing a warrant, he told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"Security forces stormed the apartment where the brothers live at 6 am (03:00 GMT). They broke down the door looking for weapons and took Bassam, 37, and Wissam, 26," Sara told AFP by telephone.
According to the activist, "the security forces did not present an arrest warrant or disclose the charges." His sons who suffer from health problems were "not allowed to take their medication with them."
The opposition figure was among more than 100 journalists who founded an "Association of Syrian Journalists" in February.
The association voiced solidarity with the "revolutionary movement" and accused the "biased" official Union of Journalists in Syria of condoning the regime's deadly crackdown on dissent.
Sara was also among intellectuals invited to take part in a "national dialogue" at the outbreak of Syria's protest movement in March 2011 but was placed in long-term storage Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! two months later.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Thursday also 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... for the health of anti-regime figure Mahmoud Issa, a banned communist party leader placed in long-term storage You have the right to remain silent... since April 4.
Issa, a member of Syria's Alawite minority like Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... and native of the Mediterranean coastal town of Banias, was previously placed in long-term storage Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! in connection with the uprising.
More than 100,000 people have been placed in long-term storage You have the right to remain silent... during the almost 14-month uprising, according to the Britannia-based Observatory which puts the number still behind bars at more than 25,000.
A peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Kofi Annan ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo... , accepted by the regime in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... , calls for the release of detainees. Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned cases of torture in Syrian jails.
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05/04/2012
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SENIOR Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realise their dream of abolishing Britain and other nation states, the Daily Express can reveal.
Secret? It's been an established fact this past generation. The EUniks absolutely want a single nation-state (plus both UN seats) with the old national borders abolished. The current nations won't even have the power of a US county...
A covert group of EU foreign ministers has drawn up plans for merging the jobs currently done by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.
The new bureaucrat, who would not be directly elected by voters,
That wouldn't do, how on earth would they ever manage to control the new nation if they have to be accountable to the little people?
is set to get sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic union. Tellingly, the UK has been excluded from the confidential discussions within the shady Berlin Group of Europhile politicians, spearheaded by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle.
Not to be confused with a new Frederick the Great, Napoleon or Hitler...
Opponents fear the plan could create a modern-day equivalent of the European emperor envisaged by Napoleon Bonaparte or a return to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne that dominated Europe in the Dark Ages. They are concerned that David Camerons coalition Government is doing nothing to prevent the sinister plot.
The secret talks were uncovered by Independent Labour peer Lord Stoddart of Swindon. This is a plot by people who want to abolish nation states and create a United States of Europe, he said. The whole thing is barmy. These people are determined to achieve their final objective.
The only hope for Britain is to leave the EU and become an independent nation.
The move will give further momentum to the Daily Expresss hugely popular crusade for Britains withdrawal from the EU.
Tory backbench MP Douglas Carswell said: It doesnt matter how you arrange the offices of these technocrats, they are useless at arranging our lives for us and they are not elected so they have no legitimacy. My worry is that the president will end up having the charisma of Van Rompuy and the economic management skills of Barroso.
You should be so lucky. We have Obama, Biden and Pelosi...
Euro-MP Paul Nuttall, of the UK Independence Party, said: This is a truly ridiculous idea that must never be allowed to happen. It sounds as if they are trying to go back to the days of the Holy Roman Emperor.
At present, the two senior EU bureaucrats, Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy, are locked in a bitter power struggle to determine who is the true big cheese or grand fromage in Europe. Former Portuguese premier Mr Barroso, who heads the EUs executive arm and was elected to his post by members of the European Union, is understood to resent the rival fiefdom of Belgian Mr Van Rompuy, who was chosen by the heads of government of EU member states to represent them.
Under the plan, a single figure would be elected by Euro-MPs to perform both roles.
Supporters of the move believe that the rival presidencies are undermining the EUs ability to speak with a single voice. They argue that merging the two jobs will create a powerful European leader who is capable of pursuing the federalist dream of a united Europe which has been severely shaken by the eurozone crisis.
Lord Stoddart confirmed the existence of the plot thanks to a parliamentary written answer in the House of Lords. He asked Foreign Office ministers to reveal what they knew about the merger talks.
In response to his inquiry, Tory Foreign Office minister Lord Howell of Guildford said: We are aware of one group of EU foreign ministers meeting on an informal basis to discuss a variety of issues related to the future governance of the EU.
'Informal' is not 'secret'...
While the UK is not part of that group, we understand that one idea under discussion is a merger of the positions of president of the European Council and president of the European Commission.
Lord Howell added: A merger of the two presidencies would create a potential conflict of interest, undermine the quality of the EUs decision-making processes and upset the institutional balance within the EU. Lord Stoddart said: These sorts of informal discussions within the EU have a habit of rapidly being transferred into formal proposals.
Since the Government is not party to these discussions, its reservations are academic.
Such a merger would represent a massive shift of power into the hands of a single, unelected bureaucrat. The Government should be taking this far more seriously and voicing its objections very strongly.
He added: The holder of this new office would be both Europes political and administrative leader, giving them far more powers than those given to the US president. It really is a great disappointment that we have a Conservative-led Government that is supposed to be Eurosceptic yet ministers just go along with this.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2012
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#1
So would the superstate reject honoring the debts of it's defunct ex-states?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/04/2012 4:56
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#2
Euro-FEMA regions. They'll no doubt be announced soon.
#6
Yeah, but some of those other nation states need eliminating. Chechnya comes to mind. Dagestan, Ingushetia, Ossetia...WTF? And do we really need Belarus? I sure don't.
Sorry if that sounds harsh. What I really mean is that, in the cases of Napoleon and Hitler, Russia and Britain were essentially allies whether they liked it or not. That's what it took to maintain their independence. Expect the Brits to overlook some of Russia's warts if the rest of Europe gets out of control again.
Time to begin loving or proudly surrendering like France, wear Manpons + carry a European Shoulder Bag, + initiate massive Soccer Riots/Wars just because we can???
An Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan leader was captured during a joint Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... troops operation in northern Kunduz province on Thursday, Isaf said.
"The IMU leader planned and conducted suicide kabooms against Afghan and coalition troops throughout the province and is suspected in a plot to assassinate a senior Afghan government official," Isaf said in a statement Thursday.
During the operation the forces also set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! two other snuffies and seized one AK-47 and ammunition.
Captured the second:
The statement said that a Taliban leader was captured in a joint operation in Nad Ali district of Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province.
The leader coordinated roadside kaboomings, suicide kabooms and other operations against Afghan and coalition security forces. He also supplied weapons and ammunition to Islamic fascistiin the area, according to Isaf.
The security force jugged Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! one additional beturbanned goon as a result of this operation.
And captured the third:
The statement said that a Haqqani controller was captured Thursday during an operation in Nerkh district of Wardak province.
He provided weapons, bombs and funds to beturbanned goons to support attacks against Afghan and coalition troops throughout the province, Isaf said.
The security forces also jugged Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! several additional beturbanned goons and destroyed multiple weapons and several kilograms of kaboom during the operation, Isaf added.
#1
'Captured' just causes problems in the long run. Not worth it unless they have secure computers or cellphones they can be persuaded to unlock before succumbing to their injuries.
[Bangla Daily Star] BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi landed in Dhaka Central Jail yesterday after a court denied him bail in two cases filed over the recent hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... violence in the capital.
A metropolitan magistrate's court also rejected the police petitions seeking to take the BNP leader on a 15-day remand.
In another development, the High Court yesterday granted anticipatory bail to BNP politician Mahbubuddin Khokon, an accused in one of the two cases.
Rizvi was jugged Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! from the capital's Kakrail area on April 30, the last day of the second back-to-back countrywide shutdown in protest at the disappearance of BNP leader Ilias Ali and his driver.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wrecked scow, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow... several top BNP leaders, including Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Aman Ullah Aman, remain hiding since April 30, party leaders said.
They are not staying at their homes to evade arrest in connection with those cases, they added.
The cases -- one for exploding "bombs" in the secretariat compound and the other for torching a bus near the Prime Minister's Office on April 29 -- were filed on Sunday night against big shots of the BNP-led 18-party alliance.
The accused include BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, party standing committee members Mirza Abbas, Goyeshwar Chandra Roy and Hannan Shah and party politician Shahiduddin Chowdhury Anee and Liberal Democratic Party President Oli Ahmed.
On April 30, police raided the houses of Mirza Fakhrul, Mirza Abbas, former politician couple Khairul Kabir Khokon and Shirin Sultana, BNP leader Habib-un-Nabi Sohel and Jubo Dal leader Moazzem Hossain Alal.
Most of them were not home during the raid, police and BNP sources said.
BNP's moves on Wednesday to secure HC bail for the accused leaders have failed.
The party yesterday accused the government of influencing the court, and like on Wednesday, pro-BNP lawyers yesterday demonstrated on the court premises demanding withdrawal of the cases.
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For a map, click here For previous accounts of the bloodshed in Sinaloa state click here, here and here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
Mexican cartel-allied groups, which fought each other and Mexican security forces since Saturday include such groups as the Beltran-Leyva, the Sinaloa and the Los Zetas drug cartels, according to Mexican news accounts.
In a Thursday posting at its website, Vangardia news daily reported unnamed sources saying that the groups which were in the general area of Choix since Saturday include Los Mazatlecos, Los Chapos Isidro Norte, Los Pequeños and Los Zetas, led by Fausto Isidro Meza Flores AKA El Chapo Isidro, against a Sinaloa group called Gente Nueva.
Also included, not surprisingly was an armed group led by a Juarez Cartel operative identified as José Luis Ledezma, AKA El JL, leader of Los Aztecas. The Juarez Cartel makes use of remote mountain communities in far western Chihuahua state to grow some of the drugs it smuggles into the US. La Linea, the Juarez cartel's enforcement wing, has also operated in remote Chihuahua state communities such as Madero, where quantities of Tovex, a commercial grade dynamite were found just after the July, 2010 car bomb in Juarez city, which killed four including a Policia Federal agent.
Prior reports said that two groups had exchanged gunfire initially in Choix municipality, also wound up fighting Mexican Army and Sinaloa state police agents, and have been fighting since then until Wednesday.
The Vangardia report also said that Mexican Army troops have moved further into eastern Choix to make arrests of cartel shooters involved in the fighting since last Saturday.
The total dead state wide, by this author's account, include 54 gang and cartel affiliated shooters, the latest being in Guasave where 11 armed suspects and two Mexican soldiers were killed early Wednesday morning.
Speaking of the firefight in Guasave, Vangardia said that the Mexican Secretaria de Defensa Nacional, the controlling agency for the Mexican Army, reported large amounts of munitions seized including 31 rifles, 12 handguns, 5,291 rounds of ammunition, 121 weapons magazines, hand grenades and homemade explosive devices. These munitions lists probably also include quantities seized in Choix municipality since last Saturday.
In a Thursday evening post on its website, Noreste reported that 11 armed suspects were killed in the firefight between armed suspects and a Mexican Army road patrol at the Hotel Macurín in Guasave. Seven suspects died in separate hotel rooms, while two more died attempting to flee the fire zone. Two more died in the courtyard of the hotel.
The report also said that 30 local schools were closed down during the two hour long firefight.
Contraband seized in the aftermath of the firefight include 28 rifles and pistols (including two 0.50 caliber Barrett rifles), four vehicles including one armored Jeep Cherokee SUV and 1,600 rounds of ammunition.
According to a post on its website Thursday evening, El Debate news daily listed nine of the 11 armed suspects killed in Guasave: Luis Enrique Leon Leyva, José Alberto Rocha Fonseca, Juvenal Parez Encino, Carlos Daniel Velazquez Terraza, Oscar Manuel Montoya Lopez, Omar Adrian Montoya Rubio, Luis Saenz, Jesus Gamez and José Leonardo Lopez Murillo.
In a story posted on its website Thursday, Grupo Formula radio said that at least one church, Catedral de Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Culican was vandalized by cartel operatives. The report also said a Catholic priest was stabbed at a Catholic school last week and is listed in serious condition.
On the website of La Tarde news daily Thursday evening, it was reported that a total of 23 dead have been found in several municipalities of Sinaloa. It is unclear in that report how many of those are included in the total death toll of 56.
In Culiacan, 10 were reported dead, four in Salvador Alvarado, three in Ahome, two each in San Ignacio and El Fuerte, and one each in Navolato and Mocorito.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
And yet they support open borders and multiculturalism - acceptance of ideologies that are used for the justification of murder.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- On World Press Freedom Day, Reporters Without Borders condemned the "astonishing pace" at which journalists are being attacked and murdered - 67 killed in 2011 and 22 more deaths since the beginning of the year
U.N. Secretary-General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... called the attacks "outrageous" and urged all countries to prevent and prosecute violence against the media and take action to ensure the safety of journalists and freedom of the press.
At Thursday's U.N. commemoration of Press Freedom Day, Ban asked the assembled diplomats, members of the media and civil society representatives to observe a minute of silence "in honor of the journalists who were killed in the line of duty last year."
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 179 journalists were incarcerated Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in 2011, a 20 percent increase over 2010 and the highest level since 1990, Ban said.
"Countless others face intimidation, harassment and censorship at the hands of governments, corporations and powerful individuals seeking to preserve their power or hide wrongdoings and misdeeds," the secretary-general said.
Ireland's President Michael Higgins, a former broadcaster, told the commemoration the deaths demonstrate the risks that journalists and media workers face and "their vulnerability to intimidation, violence and persecution."
"Many were victims of assassinations, while the circumstances of other killings may never be fully explained," he said.
Reporters Without Borders updated its list of "predators of the freedom to inform" to 41 individuals and group. It said the first quarter of 2012 clearly showed that the world's predators led by Syria's Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... and Somalia's Islamist militias "are capable of behaving like outrageous butchers."
The media advocacy organization, based in La Belle France, decried the increase in attacks and killings of news providers - up from 57 murders in 2010 to 67 in 2011, and 22 so far this year including five journalists killings in Somalia, four in Syria, and two each in Bangladesh, Brazil and India.
In Somalia's capital Mogadishu, dozens of Somali journalists met Thursday in somber silence to celebrate World Press Freedom Day, a meeting that took place only hours after the killing of the fifth Somali journalist this year. Two gunnies shadowed Somali radio journalist Farhan Abdulle after he left his station late Wednesday, then shot him dead.
The killings also continued in Mexico, which has become one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists amid a raging drug war. The bodies of two news photographers were found dismembered in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz on Thursday, less than a week after the killing in the state of a news hound for an investigative newsmagazine..
#4
Somewhere in all of this, the phrase:
"The only reason some people are alive is the fact it is against the law to kill them."
Say, could we put a bounty on NYT reporters?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
05/04/2012 10:57
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#5
Say, could we put a bounty on NYT reporters?
No. You know better, Mr. Clinton. We do not advocate even the threat of violence toward American citizens here at Rantburg. Do not do so again, even for rhetorical purposes.
[Dawn] At least seven people, including a seven-year-old boy, were killed and 30 others maimed on Wednesday -- the sixth day of the 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.... operation.
Some 10 persons, who suffered injuries in gun and grenade attacks, were brought to the Civil Hospital Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , sources said.
Unidentified persons also ransacked the apartment of the Pakistain People's Party politician Rafique Engineer in Lyari and then set fire to it. The attackers reportedly also burnt PPP flags.
Although CID SP Aslam Khan, who is leading the operation in Lyari, has time and again claimed to have killed several terrorists, the police have failed to produce even a single body to substantiate their claim.
The circumstances in which seven people were killed on Wednesday were not clear as local police had no idea what was going on in Lyari. Apparently, most of the people were caught in the crossfire between the police and armed gangsters.
The police also claimed to have killed another suspected gangster, who fired on the police from Afshani Gali. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... he could not be identified because his body was taken away by his associates.
A woman, identified as Sajan Bibi, 22, was brought to the Civil Hospital on Wednesday from a Lyari area within the remit of the Chakiwara cop shoppe.
A 60-year-old man, identified as Ismail Kutchi, was killed at the Juma Brohi Road, where two rockets were fired. The body was also taken to the CHK.
A seven-year-old boy was killed within the remit of the Kalakot cop shoppe while playing. His body was also taken to the Civil Hospital. Noor Zeb, a seminary student, also suffered a gunshot wound in the same area.
A 22-year-old man was killed when he was struck down by an armoured police carrier in the Kalakot area. The body was shifted to the CHK.
In the Nawalane area, the body of a young man, identified as Zafar Kutchi, 22, was also found and taken to
the CHK.
A young man, identified as Amjad, was rubbed out within the remit of the Kalakot cop shoppe.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Tajikistan yesterday banned a fringe Islamist group whose existence it initially denied but later blamed for a series of bombings that killed more than 20 servicemen and police.
All it takes is banning? We should have done that long ago!
A group calling itself the Jamaat Ansarullah (The Friends of Allah Society) released a 15-minute video in September calling on the Central Asian nation's Moslems to wage a holy war against the state.
Authorities initially denied its existence or ability to carry out serious attacks despite continuing Islamist violence spilling over from neighbouring Afghanistan.
The former Soviet nation's supreme court also banned the group's two main websites.
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[An Nahar] Former House speaker Newt Gingrich ...former Speaker of the House, author of the Contract with America. Gingrich gave the country welfare reform and a balanced budget and the Publicans a landslide House victory in 1994. On the downside, he has a roving eye and a loose fly, he's opinionated, and he's abrasive despite his ability to work with the other side of the political aisle... dropped his erratic campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination Wednesday, but pledged to remain in the public eye as an "active citizen."
"Today, I am suspending the campaign. Suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship," Gingrich said in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Virginia, with his wife Callista at his side.
His exit leaves only Ron Paul, an anti-tax and anti-war veteran Texas congressman, officially in the race against presumptive nominee Willard Mitt Romney. ...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O... The 68-year-old Gingrich, best known for his polarizing term as leader of the House of Representatives in the 1990s, enjoyed brief spurts of success after a chaotic start to his presidential campaign.
But ultimately, Gingrich won just two nominating contests since the start of the state-by-state race in January -- in his home state of Georgia and in South Carolina -- and was a distant third in the fight to take on U.S. President Barack Obama The Cambridge police acted stupidly... in November.
Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum ...former candidate for president and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a lawyer before becoming the Representative for suburban Pittsburgh in 1991. He lost his Senate seat in 2006 to Bob Casey, a Democrat machine politician and political dynast. Santorum is a social conservative whose primary attraction is seemingly that he is neither Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich... , who overtook Gingrich as the Republicans' favorite alternative to Romney, quit the race last month.
Paul remains a fringe candidate, consistently placing fourth in the primary season and with no chance of catching Romney, who has effectively embarked on a general election campaign against the Democratic incumbent.
Gingrich, deeply critical of Romney during the nomination race, said his old rival was better than Obama, who is seeking a second term -- but stopped short of offering his full endorsement.
"As to the presidency, I am asked sometimes -- is Mitt Romney conservative enough? My answer is simple -- compared to Barack Obama?" Gingrich said.
"This is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan. This is a choice between Mitt Romney and the most radical, leftist president in American history."
His front man R.C. Hammond told Agence La Belle France Presse a formal endorsement of Romney would come later, noting the date would depend on Romney's campaign.
Gingrich touted himself as the Republican Party's philosopher king, an intellectual with conservative roots going back to the Reagan years and a debater who could make mincemeat of Obama.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... his multiple marriages and erratic record on policy positions made the Republican right mistrust him, while his love of public speaking tended to translate into lecturing, rather than inspiring speeches.
He provided one of the most memorable moments of the campaign in January when asked during a Republican debate in South Carolina about the bombshell allegation from his ex-wife that he had once requested an open marriage.
With his presidential hopes hanging in the balance, Gingrich struck out at the "destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media," saying it was "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."
The stunning counter-attack, which played brilliantly to the innate conservative distrust of the liberal media, transformed the former House speaker from villain to hero and -- for a time -- recast the campaign.
Romney was generous toward his one-time rival, declaring that the departed Gingrich "demonstrated both eloquence and fearlessness in advancing conservative ideas."
Gingrich "long ago created an enduring place for himself in American history," Romney stated.
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus lauded Gingrich as a "tireless leader in our party for decades."
Gingrich said he would work to advance Romney's battle against Obama and his party's bid to defeat Democrats in Congress.
"A Republican sweep this fall would revitalize America just as the Reagan sweep of 1980 revitalized America. We have done it before. We can do it again," Gingrich said.
"I always tell people that economic recovery will begin late on election night when people realize that Obama is gone. By the next morning, people will make new decisions about investing, hiring."
Indeed.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Go away, Newt. You've embarrassed yourself with your attack on entrepreneurship and free markey business. He shouldn't even be allowed to speak at the convention
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/04/2012 11:13
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#2
ANTONIO BANDERAS > Welcome to - Ah, Yes - the BATTLE FOR VPOTUS, Show!
And yep, yessirree, you betcha, there's Michelle Bachman endorsing "Michelle Boy" Mittens Romney.
(Sh.M.Network) -- Heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... between the Al-shabab fighters and the Islamist holy mans of Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a has broken out in parts of Hiran region in central Somalia, witnesses told Shabelle Media on Thursday.
Locals said that the clash between the two sides started at Goobo village around Mahas district of Hiran region adding that there were tense between the two sides.
Both Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a (ASWJ) and Al-shabab snuffies had exchanged gunfire in parts of the areas and residents said that there were some casualties reached to the civilians in the areas, but The figures on the casualties on both sides is yet established.
Reports indicate that the fighters of Al-shabab had taken over the control of the zones where both sides fought on Wednesday night and the residents had 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 the fighting between the two sides as military movements were still reporting.
The latest reports from the warring zones say that Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a fighters are regrouping on the outskirt villages, nearly 15 Km away fromGooboTownship.
Calm reportedly returned this morning to the battle zone as Al shabaab has not released any comments about the fighting so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Sudanese warplanes and long-range artillery bombarded South Sudan border regions Thursday, defying a U.N. Security Council ultimatum to end hostilities or face possible sanctions, the South's army said.
"Their aircraft dropped bombs and artillery was fired targeting an SPLA (Southern army) base...this is an indication of preparation for a ground attack," said Southern army front man Philip Aguer.
The U.N. body on Wednesday demanded fighting between the arch-rivals stop within 48 hours.
The attack could not be independently confirmed, and Khartoum's army has repeatedly denied a wave of air strikes that has hit the South's oil rich Unity border state in recent weeks.
Sudan and South Sudan have edged to the brink of all-out war in weeks of bloody festivities, which peaked in the South's seizure of the key Heglig oil field from Khartoum's army, before pulling back after international condemnation.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... festivities and air strikes by Sudanese warplanes have continued since then, prompting the Security Council's ultimatum in New York late Wednesday.
Aguer said six bombs were dropped by MiG fighter jets on the Southern frontline position at Panakuach, while warplanes and long range artillery bombarded an army base at Lalop, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) back.
"The SPLA there are preparing for an attack, they are ready to defend their positions," Aguer added. Troops and tanks from both sides have dug into fortified defensive positions along their volatile border.
The last ground attacks were on Tuesday, when troops clashed in the South's Unity state.
The U.N. council ordered the two sides to restart 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... -mediated peace talks within two weeks. The resolution threatens additional non-military sanctions if either side fails.
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05/04/2012
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Russia's top military officer has threatened to carry out a pre-emptive strike on U.S.-led NATO missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe if Washington goes ahead with its controversial plan to build a missile shield.
#1
Acting quite cocky for an ex-evil-empire with its ships, planes, radars and missiles rusting away/
Posted by: Water Modem ||
05/04/2012 4:49
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#2
This doesn't sound right to me. Putin was to rebuild relationships, trade and unity. This is a distraction. Sounds like he has a little short round causing trouble. Some live in the past and cannot see the power of unity. In my opinion the Russian people have no interest in more wars. They must grow their economy, jobs, and so on. Idle hands and welfare will only trouble make.
#4
Actually, providing cover for Obama NOT to go forward with the missile defense system. Why spend all that money over there when so many of his good friends need it here!
#5
"Sorry, did we forget to mention that during the period where you were, well, a little off, we took the opportunity to bury a few canisters of CORVA virus at strategically interesting places around your magnificent country?"
#9
Putie has said nothing. An attack would be an act of war. He wouldn't dare. It's cover for Obean, and probably what Obean was referring to when he said he would be more free to act after the election.
#12
good humor has a hint of chuckling self-deprecation. Our Narcissistic-in-Chief is incapable of that. His writers write it, but it's like cod liver oil for him. He says it grudgingly, and it shows....boy does it.
Whoops! "boy"? I denounce myself...before someone else does. Worst campaign season ever. Will take America back to race/class wars to try and pull this POS past the finish line.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/04/2012 21:06
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(Sh.M.Network)- Anti-draft constitution demonstrators, including women and kiddies, marched on Thursday through the streets of a town in Somalia's violence-torn, reports said.
The marchers who erupted into the streets of Balanbal town, Galgadud region, shouting slogans against the new draft constitution for Somalia led TFG Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohammed Ali.
Abdirisaq Abdulle Igal, one of the Organizers who delivered speeches at the crowds voiced their opposite against the new draft constitution, saying the new constitution endangers and disgraces the region of Islam and the dignity of sacred Somalia culture and value.
"We got the Quran. We don't need nothin' else, including grammar and proper word endings."
The protest which started early on Thursday rocked the whole streets of Balanbal town and the demonstrators were also strongly condemned the arrest of some Somalia's PM office this month by the order of Abdiweli Mohammed Ali, TFG premier.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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(Sh.M.Network)-- A judge in Kenya has heard a Belgian and a Tunisian plead guilty to charges of being in the country illegally after the pair were tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! near the border with Somalia.
Judge Stephen Riech later Thursday is expected to sentence Belgian Hassan Kafi and Tunisian Mohammed Debarli.
Anti-terror police tossed in the slammer Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! the two near the Kenyan coastal town of Lamu on Wednesday. The two have denied claims that they were traveling from Somalia to Kenya.
The bad boy group al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... boasts hundreds of imported muscle among its ranks.Kenya is a common transit point for fighters hoping to join al-Shabaab.
This article starring:
HASAN KAFI
al-Shabaab
MOHAMED DEBARLI
al-Shabaab
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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(Sh. M. Network)-Kenyan forces have reportedly bombarded on several Al shabab military training bases at a town in Somalia's southern region of Lower Jubba region, according to the local residents.
Can they hit the ones in Pakistan next, please?
Reports confirm that Kenyan military open mortar fire on rebel bases at Qoqani town, an jihad boy stronghold inLower Jubbaregion, causing an unconfirmed casualty on the beturbanned goons.
Locals told Shabelle Media station in Mogadishu by phone that they saw this morning a number of victimized people in the Kenyan army bombardment who were rushing to the hospitals for medical treatment.
Al shabab has made any comments about the barrage on its stronghold town ofQoqaniby Kenyan army so far.
Kenyamoved its troops with tanks into the neighboring war-tornSomaliain mid-October in pursuit ofSomalia's Islamic hard boyz of Al shabab linked with Al Qaeda whichNairobiblames for string of insecurity acts in its soul.
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[Bangla Daily Star] The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) yesterday demanded a law to ban hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... , considering the loss it inflicts on the country's economy.
A bit late, but at least they're figuring it out over there in the former East Pakistan. In the former West P. they're still clueless.
"The government should enact a law banning hartal. Hartal impacts negatively on the economy," FBCCI President AK Azad told The Daily Star after a meeting of the FBCCI governing council at its office in the capital's Motijheel.
The meeting was organised to discuss the current political situation and the economy.
The FBCCI held the discussion a day after a meeting of top business leaders on hartal and economy at Westin Hotel in Dhaka.
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#1
Hartal: general strike against all public and private businesses and operations. A general shutting down of the entire economy to make a point and get a demand fulfilled.
[Tolo News] 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... dismissed calls for Afghanistan to change its political system to a Federal regime, saying the long-term agreement with the US was signed on the condition that the current centralised system of government be respected.
Karzai said at a presser in Kabul Thursday, the day after the long-term pact was signed, that several US congressmen had called for the country's regime to change its structure.
"Some US congressman started intervening in Afghanistan several months ago and asked for the regime in Afghanistan to change to a federal system. I clearly told the US government that we will only sign the agreement with you if you respect the central government of Afghanistan," Karzai said.
The agreement guarantees a free election in Afghanistan without any intervention from any foreign state, he said.
"In this agreement, we have included an important point which is that there should be no foreign intervention in Afghan elections," he said.
"Afghan elections should be free and in accordance with our own election rules and regulations. It should be held by Afghans, and all Afghans will participate. It should be protected from any kind on internal and external interference."
On the impact of the long-term agreement, Karzai emphasized that the US will help Afghanistan develop economically for a decade after 2014.
"I thank the US government for their commitment towards helping Afghanistan financially and not letting the country face financial crisis after the complete withdrawal of their forces," he told news hounds.
He confirmed that the agreement will be sent to the Afghan parliament in accordance with the country's internal laws, and voiced his hope that it would be approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
When asked about whether a decision had been made on bringing the date of the Afghan presidential election forward a year, Karzai said it was continuing to be reviewed and that any decision will respect Afghanistan's laws.
He also refused any suggestion that he might be renominated for the presidential seat.
"I am not nominated and I can't be nominated for this presidential election," he said.
The US-Afghan strategic pact was signed by US president Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... and Karzai in Kabul during the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The agreement will apply for ten years after 2014 and can be extended for another decade if the two nations agree.
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#1
Afghanistan HAS a political system? Other than 'grab what you can?' Who knew?
Prosecutors have dropped charges against three Zim-bob-wean women accused of raping male hitch-hikers to collect semen for rituals, after DNA evidence exonerated them, their lawyer said Thursday.
"The state has withdrawn the charges," Dumisani Mthombeni told AFP.
"The police placed in long-term storage Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! the wrong people. We have always been saying that and the prosecution was buying time to delay the trial because they knew they lacked any evidence."
Sophie and Netsai Nhokwara, sisters aged 26 and 24, and Rosemary Chakwizira, 28, were cooled for a few years Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! in October after police found 31 used condoms in the boot of their car amid a string of forced sexual assaults on men that were first reported three years ago.
The three women were charged along with Thulani Ngwenya, a boyfriend of one of them.
The women were accused of forcing themselves on 17 men. They were locked away Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up! after they were involved in a car accident, when police found the used condoms.
The results of DNA exams on the women and the alleged victims exonerated the women, the lawyer said.
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Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Pia Zadora aka Girmar in "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)" aka Kady Tyler (Won Golden Raspberry for Worst New Star & Worst Actress 1983) in "Butterfly (1982)" aka Jerilee Randall (Won Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress 1984) in "The Lonely Lady (1983)" aka Dee Dee in "Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)" aka Winner of Golden Raspberry for Worst New Star of the Decade, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady (1990) aka Runner-up for Golden Raspberry, Worst Actress of the Decade, Butterfly and The Lonely Lady (1990) aka Runner-up for Golden Raspberry, Worst Actress of the Century, Voyage of the Rock Aliens, Butterfly, and The Lonely Lady (2000)(age 58)
#2
Worst actress of the century? There must be more than a few competitors.
A story that gets passed around is that Pia Zadora's film careen was flagging and she decided to restore it by acting on the stage. She played Anne in the diary of Anne Frank. Pia Zadora as Anne Frank was hiding in the attic and the Nazis were searching the house. Someone in the audience yelled: "She's in the attic."
I found out later that this is apparently an urban myth that has been applied to actors or actresses who are unusually bad.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Gunmen armed with explosives killed at least 34 people in northeastern Nigeria when they attacked a cattle market and burned it to the ground, residents and officials said today.
The attack Wednesday 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.
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 gunnies armed with around 20 explosives and assault rifles attacked the Potiskum cattle market," police front man Toyin Gbadegesin told AFP.
"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 corpse count, 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.
He added that the toll was likely to be more than 50 because families were also burying relatives' bodies without bringing them to the hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/04/2012
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KARACHI: A young activist of the Sunni Tehrik ...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and liquidations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities... was bumped off in Lines Area on Wednesday, police and party sources said.
They said 27-year-old Babar Qadri was targeted by armed riders in Jacob Lines near Allah Wali Masjid when he was sitting with some friends.
"Witnesses told us that they saw two men on a cycle of violence speeding after executing the job," said DSP Ghulam Muratza Malik, the area's sub-divisional police officer (SDPO). "He was hit by four bullets. We have collected some spent bullet casings from the crime-scene, which suggested that a 9mm pistol was used in the killing."
He said the victim was a resident of the same area and unemployed. He did not elaborate his political association and reasons behind the killing.
An ST front man, however, claimed that the victim was a party worker and targeted only for his political association.
He condemned the incident and called it a failure of the law-enforcement agencies.
Two unidentified bodies found
In the Malir area, police found the perforated carcass of an unidentified young man along the Malir River on Wednesday.
They said wearing shalwar-kameez, the victim was hit by two bullets in the head.
"The body was found along the Malir River close to Saleh Muhammad Goth," said DSP Rao Iqbal, the area's SDPO.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Jack stuck the cigar in his mouth, stepped onto the gantry, and asked Got a light, Mac?
Von Schtinken stopped short, lowering the dagger and trying to control his features. If you light that thing, Herr Armschtröng, he pointed out, his voice tense, we all die!... the body of another unidentified man was found along the Northern Bypass.
"The victim suffered severe torture that led to his death," Inspector Ghulam Rasool Rajpar, the SHO of the Manghopir cop shoppe, said.
He said the victim appeared to be in his mid-30s.
The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital for medico-legal formalities.
Two 'bandidos' rubbed out
Two suspected bandidos were killed in a shootout with police in a North Nazimabad area on Wednesday, officials said.
They added that three gunnies riding a motorbike intercepted a dairy farmer, Wasim Jafri, in Shadman Town near Nagan Chowrangi. "As he put up resistance, one of the bandidos opened fire on him," said Shahrah-e-Noor Jahan SHO Inspector Raja Tariq. "The gunfire drew the attention of a police team patrolling the area. The police reached the crime-scene and found the man lying in a pool of blood there, while the gunnies were about to escape."
He said the bandidos fired at the coppers when they asked them to surrender and an exchange of fire ensued. During the shootout, two of the bandidos were killed, he added. "Their third accomplice, however, managed to escape, leaving the motorbike and the bodies of his accomplices behind," said the inspector.
He said: "The dear departedbandidos were identified as 28-year-old Irfan Aslam and 25-year-old Sohail Yousuf, both residents of New Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... "Yousuf is the son of a police official," said the SHO.
He said police seized two TT pistols and the motorbike owned by Sohail.
Police Sherlocks were gathering facts to determine the identity and their third aide, he added.
Body found
In Malir, the body of a man bearing torture marks was recovered from a drain, police said.
They added that area people spotted a suspicious-looking bag in the drain near a degree college in Moinabad and informed the police about it.
"With the help of charity workers, police removed the gunny bag from the drain," said an official at the Saudabad cop shoppe. "The gunny bag contained the body of a man wearing shalwar-kameez."
Severe torture marks were visible on the body, the official said, adding that it appeared that the victim was killed three to four days back.
The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities and later to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[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 Thursday said the Sharif brothers had "devoured" a sum of over Rs 3.9 billion of various banks and did not even bother to formally arrange the waiver of the amount.
Talking to media representatives outside the Parliament House, Malik said the nation demands the return of the money from former Prime Minister 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 Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif.
He said both brothers also allegedly committed money laundering worth $32 million. He urged the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of the matter.
Moreover, Malik said that a superintendent of the Islamabad Police has been assigned to investigate the contempt of court allegations against former Pakistain Moslem League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif.
The SP has been tasked to submit the complete report in the Supreme Court, said Malik.
Contempt proceedings against Sharif and others have been pending since the last 10 years, he added.
Earlier also on Wednesday, Malik had urged the apex court to summon Nawaz Sharif and others in storming of the court case as the contempt of court proceedings were still pending against him.
The minister had said that he had further evidence against the Sharifs which he would soon reveal before the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Tolo News] Twelve Afghan krazed killers, including a commander and a former commander, have surrendered their weapons to Afghanistan's National Security Directorate in 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... province, the provincial governor's front man Mohiuddin Noori said Thursday.
Why are they reconciliating when fighting season has officially been declared open? It's not like they now need a warm bed for the winter...
The krazed killers, who joined the reconciliation programme, had been engaged in anti-government activities in the Kishk Rabat Sangi district of the western province, he added.
The group's commander Mullah Jandad asked the government to protect them from any possible krazed killer attacks against them, Noori said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... 20 armed Taliban beturbanned goons have been killed in festivities with Afghan cops in the Khaki Safed District of western Farah province.
Head of Farah's security forces Mohammad Ghous Malyar said Thursday a special military operation had been ongoing for three days and that there were still as many as 70 armed Taliban fighting the Afghan cops.
Golly -- it sounds as exciting as Mexico!
Malyar said the beturbanned goons have been "surrounded".
During the operation, the deputy of Second Brigade Army was maimed as well as three Afghan National Army soldiers and two Afghan local police, he added.
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The blossoms of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt last year have wilted under a reign of terror in the Sinai, where Al Qaeda is active.
The blossoms of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt last year have wilted under a reign of terror in the Sinai, where Al Qaeda and other jihadi cells have carried out 50 terrorist attacks on police since the beginning of the January 25 uprising.
Security sources in Egypt told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that Rafiah, which straddles the border at Gaza and Egypt, and central Sinai are under out of control of Egyptian police and soldiers.
Bedouin, allied with Gaza Arabs, have carried on a reign of terror and carved out their own fiefdoms in the region, a source of smuggling of weapons and terrorists into Israel.
Besides Al Qaeda-linked groups, security soruces named Hamas and the Army of Islam, which was involved in attack on an IDF checkpoint and the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit nearly six years ago.
The terrorist groups have carried out 16 attacks on checkpoints and 37 attacks on police stations. Frequent armed robberies have been carried out on mail delivery trucks, and at least three men have been killed in the attacks.
The lawlessness has been highlighted but there have also been 14 attacks on the Egyptian-Israeli natural gas pipeline, and numerous carjackings in the area of el-Arish.
The Chinese dissident at the center of a political firestorm called a hearing Thursday and told lawmakers he wants to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng called a hearing set up to explore his efforts to leave China and escape persecutionapparently from a Chinese hospital room.
"I want to meet with Secretary Clinton," he said on the phone. "I hope I can get more help from her. I also want to thank her face to face."
Chen added that he is most concerned with his family, and said, "I really want to know what's going on with them."
"I want to thank all of you for your care and your love," he added, through a translation by Pastor Bob Fu, Founder and President, ChinaAid Association. Fu was a witness at Thursday's hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Chen is at the center of a diplomatic row between the U.S. and China that has become a political liability for President Obama. Chen was under house arrest for several months for protesting China's one-child policy, but escaped to the U.S. Embassy, where he stayed for several days.
The U.S. and China appeared to reach a deal Wednesday that allowed Chen to remain in China, where he said he wished to stay. But after Chen was released to a Chinese hospital to have his injuries treated, the dissident said he did not want to stay in China and requested political asylum in the U.S.
Administration officials insisted they did not pressure Chen to stay in China and that he decided on his own initially that he wanted to remain in his country. But the about-face has led to criticism from Republicans that U.S. officials never should have allowed him to leave the U.S. embassy.
Commission Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) spent the hearing arguing that the U.S. needs to ensure Chen's safety, and even GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said it is a "day of shame" for the Obama administration if they did leave him with Chinese officials.
The call from Chen to Smith's hearing came after the chairman complained that that the Obama administration failed to get him in touch with Chen via phone earlier in the week.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/04/2012
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[Dawn] I MUST confess I was among the feckless journalists that wouldn't believe for days after the event a year ago that the late Osama bin Laden ... who had a brief but splitting headache... was killed or could be killed without the help of Pak intelligence.
Many analysts staked their reputation over the inevitability of Pak collusion in Osama's death. The true story remains mired in claims and counter-claims.
So much so that President B.O. was ticked off by officials of the US Navy SEALs for claiming undue credit. There was a story this week about a vital tip-off the Americans got from Pak intelligence on Osama's secret courier whose movements were tracked and eventually led to the Al Qaeda chief's lair near a Mighty Pak Army cantonment. The debate continues, drawing new battle lines, killing old alliances, building new ones.
It was such an incredibly daring operation fraught with risks. After all, in 1980 another Democratic president lost a second bid for the Oval Office after a similarly daring operation went wrong. The attempt to rescue American hostages from their captors in Tehran misfired in a stormy Iranian desert.
Pictures of President B.O. and his team watching the real-time execution of Osama bin Laden added to the pervasive sense of achievement that followed and lingered on for weeks, months, across the oceans.
And yet, in political cat and mouse, rarely does the liquidation of an adversary lead to an anticipated dénouement. The meticulously planned elimination of Osama in his lair last May appears today at best to have been a vendetta killing of a macabre villain. By all accounts, the threat of religious terrorism associated with the 9/11 criminal mastermind remains very much alive and ready to mutate into more ominous forms of horror.
According to a recent CNN news alert, a 22-year-old Austrian named Maqsood Lodin could represent new forms religious terror may acquire. He has been questioned by police in Berlin since May last year after he had returned from Pakistain. Lodin's interrogators were surprised to find that hidden in his underpants were a digital storage device and memory cards. Buried inside them was a pornographic video and a file marked 'Sexy Tanja'.
After sustained efforts to crack a password and software to make the file nearly invisible, German Sherlocks discovered encoded inside the video a treasure trove of intelligence -- scores of Al Qaeda documents that included clues about plots and a road map for future operations.
These plots, according to CNN, include the idea of seizing cruise ships and carrying out attacks in Europe similar to the gun attacks by Pak hard boyz on Mumbai in November 2008.
US intelligence sources told 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 US Navy SEALs raided Osama 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.... One Al Qaeda document makes it clear that the group is aware it is being followed. "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."
While the document 'Future Works' does not include dates or places, nor specific plans, it appears to be a brainstorming exercise to seize the initiative and again install Al Qaeda on front pages around the world. The question remains: is the world really much safer after Osama bin Laden.
As liquidations go, Osama's killing seems almost passé in its import against some other individual fatalities, including the less immaculately planned and nearly spontaneous liquidation of Archduke Ferdinand in the Balkans in 1914.
Those two bullets fired on a Sarajevo street on a balmy June morning in 1914 set in motion a series of events that shaped the world we live in. The First World War, the Second World War, the Cold War and its conclusion all trace their origins to the gunshots that interrupted that summer day.
By contrast, Osama's killing will at best find an echo in the American presidential race in November this year. But even President B.O. who ordered the assault will not be quite so sure that the proverbial trophy of the victim's head was good enough to see him home and dry against the gathering Republican challenge. Who knows, but had the Al Qaeda chief been nabbed alive the secular world and probably President B.O. himself would have benefited more.
We got his computer -- which he didn't bother to encrypt -- and his memory sticks. We didn't need him after that, especially not with all the nonsense about civilian trials that our beloved president had previously tried on for size. Sorry.
Don't be so parochial, O Feckless Journalist. Out in the big world Iran has been attracting attention since 1979.
As an Indian journalist I have watched together with other angry colleagues how a fellow journalist has been made a pawn in the new chess game between Iran and its detractors, with India playing a cowardly controller, in a post-Osama terror hunt.
Why, pray tell, is an Indian journalist, citizen of what it pleases the Pakistanis to speak of as the Hinjoo nation, thus combining what to them are the two deadliest insults of all, writing an opinion piece for the New York Times of Pakistan? Could there be a reason this piece was either not submitted to, or not accepted by, even one of the minor Indian papers?
An alleged kaboom on an Israeli diplomat's car in Delhi was without a moment's pause declared to be the handiwork of Iran.
If you think so, you weren't paying attention.
Until this incident, all the alleged villains were Sunni groups variously based in Pakistain, Bangladesh and India. Suddenly, Iran, which itself was and reportedly still is a target of Al Qaeda's Pakistain-based allies, has become the terrorist-in-chief.
Embarrassingly parochial, poor dear.
I wonder how Syed Mohammed Kazmi, now lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail for the alleged attack on the Israeli car, a charge he has vociferously denied, will observe the anniversary celebrating Osama bin Laden's death.
No doubt he is wailing and gnashing his teeth at the martyrdom. This is very wrong of him, as the eternal priapism is supposed to be celebrated.
As far as his friends are concerned, and they are highly respected Indian journalists, Kazmi was by far the best informed correspondent who had enviable contacts in nearly all the countries of the Middle East. He challenged the West in Syria, in Iraq and on Iran.
The terror factory works both ways. It spawns a culture of indiscriminate mass murderers. It also enables the most applauded democracies to turn slowly, unobtrusively, into police states.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Subject: Craigslist Advert
YOU ARE PROBABLY NOT VERY INTERESTED IN ANY USED FARM EQUIPMENT BUT YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS AD TAKEN FROM CRAIG'S LIST.
FIFTY YEAR OLD MANURE SPREADER - $1 (WASHINGTON, D.C.)
Fifty-year old manure spreader. Not sure of brand. Said to have been produced in Kenya. Stored for a few years in Indonesia before being
smuggled into the US via Hawaii. Good condition, apparently it was pampered over the years. It doesn't work very often, but when it does it can really sling the manure for amazing distances. I am hoping to retire the manure spreader this November.
I really don't want it hanging around getting in the way.
I would be willing to trade it for a nicely framed copy of the United States Constitution.
Location: Currently being stored in a big white house in Washington, D.C.
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.
[MSNBC] 
...Smallest of the agencies in FATA. The Agency administration is located in Khar. Bajaur is inhabited almost exclusively by Tarkani Pashtuns, which are divided into multiple bickering subtribes. Its 52 km border border with Afghanistan's Kunar Province makes it of strategic importance to Pakistain's strategic depth...
Raids were later carried out in the surrounding areas of Khar and two 
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda 
...British 
A high ranking official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has died, MILF's political affairs chief announced on Friday. Aleem Abdul Azis Mimbantas suffered a stroke and died at 10:25 p.m. on Thursday.
Prime Minister 
Interior Minister 
Hillary Clinton.
At least three people were 
A man has sought help of 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
THE maddening operation in the 
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Congress should pass a law to give investigators freer access to certain cellphone records, an Obama administration official said on Thursday, in remarks that raised concern among advocates of civil liberties and privacy.
SENIOR Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realise their dream of abolishing Britain and other nation states, the Daily Express can reveal.
BNP Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi landed in Dhaka Central Jail yesterday after a court denied him bail in two cases filed over the recent
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[An Nahar] Former House speaker 
...former governor of Massachussetts, currently the presumptive Publican nominee for president. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney's charisma is best defined as soporific, which is probably why he is leading the Publican field. On the plus side, he isn't President B.O...
cycle of violence
Interior Minister 
Nawaz Sharif
[Tolo News] Twelve Afghan
